Imprints in Stone [AU]

[Varric]

"...is that... about you or about some threat that's coming?" Varric asks, suddenly wary.

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene reaches for their sketchbook, flipping through it, showing him a page: a full-page, shaded, pencil drawing of night, the new moon outlined in the sky. On the ground below is a dead dog, a lovingly rendered Mabari with a broken neck -- and some rotting thing hunched over it, digging into its gut. The gore is hidden by the angle it's rendered at, but there's no doubt it's feasting on the corpse of the half-grown Mabari.

[Varric]

"...threat, got it," Varric mutters. "Alright, I'll... warn the girls to prep some anti-undead stuff. Get Carver an undead bane enchant for his new blade." Carver had been a little sad to lose the shine and 'shing' of a metal blade but he'd been very happy to get his new darkwood and living steel sword- the tree derived metal being one of the very few exceptions to the 'no metal' rule druids and shifters have to deal with. New moon... that's not a lot of time, if it's the upcoming one... 

[GamesMaster]

And indeed it's not. Varric scours his information network over the next week, looking for any sign of something unusual. Finally, the day before, he catches something: a large manifest he knows is fake, someone smuggling in a huge shipment from parts unknown. That's got to be the thing, right? He sets about preventing it from getting to Nyra, hiring agents to make sure the whatever-it-is gets thoroughly lost.

Thoroughly.

The night of the new moon, the plan seemingly thwarted, the twins and Merrill accompany Seli and Lovan to a grief support group. In truth, the could use it, after Andy's passing, after working with Helene in this damaged state. Grief is a real and powerful presence in their lives. If this Momento Mori group can help, they ought to give it a chance.

[Helene Dakesh]

Just before sunset, Helene has another fit. 

They sit upright, staring straight ahead, eyes glassy, unfocused. They rock back and forth, crying out in pain -- a whimpering, animal noise. They reach forward toward nothing, then flinch back, shielding their face with one arm. "[No]," they whimper again and again, a negation across seven languages. 

[Varric]

Varric is up and across his office in seconds, kneeling next to Helene. He rests a hand lightly on theirs, but doesn't look directly at them. "Helene, talk to me."

[Helene Dakesh]

Their words, still scrambled, become an anguished cry: "[Not that, please, Alydra, not that, never that, no, please, why, why, haven't I done enough, why?]" The personal pronoun is in Tengu, a personal pronoun that is used by masculine figures or females who project a masculine image: a queer, gender-bending pronoun, but a personal pronoun, not 'this creature' or 'this one'.

Their next words quote the Chant, crying out to Astea in Common: "Why have you forsaken me, joy of my heart, breath of my soul? Why do you take all that is good from mine eyes?"

[Varric]

"Helene," Varric says, still gently but firmer, more insistent. "Helene, talk to me. Focus on me. I'm right here. Focus on me. What's wrong? Did- did we not stop it? Are the kids in danger?"

[Helene Dakesh]

There isn't time. There isn't time. Helene shakes off the vision, shaking their head an grabbing Varric's hand tightly. A million things come to mind -- things to say, things that must be said, things to express, including a long, undulating scream of heart-pain they wish they had time to emit -- but in the end, they make the only possible choice: they put their faith in Alydra. 

"[Go. Quickly. Preacher's Way, the pups. Run!]"

[Varric]

Varric's heart stops for the space of four long beats. "Thank you," his mouth replies even as his hands pull out infusions. Flight, to start, for speed. "I'll be back soon, just sit tight, don't go out." Carver wasn't the only thing that got a recent enchant, the house golem also getting some nice undead bane as well. "Stay here."

And with that, he's gone, speeding away to his kids.

[GamesMaster]

By the time he arrives, the place is locked down tight. He has to fight his way through wraiths and ghosts to get into the basement sanctuary, to get to his kids; he can hear through the locked doors the showmanship of a bard, words soaring and dipping as someone preaches to a crowd. 

He's just getting the door unlocked when the chanting starts. Invisible, he slips into the room to find everyone on their feet: most are chanting, swaying, while a few seem lost, horrified, or angry. All three of the pups are among those unaffected, he notes; Carver's already drawing his sword when the first zombies begin to claw their way out of the ground beneath them. This, then, is the real culprit: a magical ritual, centered on the caster on the stage in the round, using these people for extra fuel.

[Varric]

Aveline is there as well, Varric notes absently. But she has her hands full with keeping Lovain and the very pregnant Seli safe, neither of them trained for combat in the slightest. Carver is doing damn fine, standing tall and defiant in front of his girls, even as they support him. Both of them are sobbing- Bethany looks terrified, constantly checking on Carver, never moving far from Aveline. Merrill is casting one handed, her other arm cuddling a bundle of... broken feathers and blood to her chest. The four mabari had burst in shortly after Varric had started his way in, the undead he'd killed creating enough of a hole for them to get to their people. They're doing amazingly well working together, the four siblings- Silence, Hunter, Beka and Seli's Shadow. 

But it's not enough. The fuckwad in the center of the room is already done the ritual prep and has started into the real meat of the ritual. An invocation of Tesaline. Naturally. Some kind of... transformative offering? Probably a liching. It's always a liching. Some dead already, plus the grief and despair... yeah, there's already some major juice flowing. Well... damn. No good way to stop it, not without knowing the full structure. Guess we'll have to go with 'not terrible' then. 

All of this comes together in the span of a few seconds. Offering up a prayer, not to his patron but to Astea, Vangal and Ciren (Love, Protection, Children, all that matters to him right now), the dwarf lifts Brianca and sights. A slow exhale. The heavy woosh-crack of the custom made crossbow firing. The meaty, hollow whack of impact. A terrible, unclean, unnatural wail of hatred and spite. The clatter of wood and metal slipping from already cold fingers to rattle on the stone floor. The soft thud of a body doing the same.

Bethany's scream.

Merrill's wails. 

Damn.

[Carver Amell]

Carver spares a glance -- just one, one sidelong glance to take in the situation, the too-familiar body on the ground. He spares one heartbeat for grief, for pain, then he's back in the fray, redoubling his efforts. I have to keep them safe. There will be time to grieve later.

As the rioting begins, he transforms, handing his sword to Beth before taking on the form of a huge, black-furred, armored wolf. His bulk helps shield the girls as they spill out into the streets, leaving the body behind, leaving Leandra behind, keeping the girls safe as he can.

Hurting, bleeding, the wolf nudges the girls away from the center of things, into the throng of folks breaking bottles and screaming. Home. Have to get home. Have to get to safety.

[NPCs]

It starts with a faint humming, then a slow, wordless chant. Finally, it's a song, a soaring, joyous song that doesn't fight the riot but guides it from panic and mindless fleeing into excitement and dance. It doesn't affect everyone, doesn't touch either of the girls or Carver. Nor the paladin and her two charges just behind them. But a good third to a quarter of the crowd, at least in this area? And those that were unaffected seem to falter anyway, out of confusion of nothing else. Other voices join in quickly, enforcing the effect. Paladins from the nearby temples pour into the streets, their divine auras dulling the fear as well. 

As for Carver, his hearing, always keen and made even better in this skin, recognizes the voice that started all of this, that blunted the forming of a riot long enough for the various clergy to get control.

[Carver Amell]

Carver, bloodied and broken, finally comes to collapse at the bard's feet, panting heavily. His girls. Both his girls, safe, for all they're shaken and terrified. He got them out. He was a good boy. He was....

Carver's eyes drift closed, just for a minute. Just to catch his breath. Just to chase the worst of the pain away. He reverts, his bulk shedding away until he's just a man, lying on the path, Hunter shoved under one arm supportively. Gently, gingerly, he reaches his bloodied fingers to comb them through Hunter's fur. It's okay, boy. We're safe. We lived.