RP:Freaky Fireworks

From HollowWiki

Part of the Unforeseen Consequences Arc


Streets of Vailkrin

Redhale finally appeared to be taking the hole in the sky a little seriously. The dark man stood amid a field of spears, each being held sturdy by an undead soldier sat at its base. There was enough room between them to move, but no space that they weren't present in; even the rooftops were littered with spikes. Every now and again a twisting chunk of fleshy life would plummet from the sky and skewer itself on one of the posts. Most were left to struggle and die slowly, only removed when the pile ups got too big for the trap to be effective. There was one area of town, however, where the traps were spread more thin, and that was were Redhale had taken his post, by a huge pile of dirt that had been carted into town to support some kind of wooden machinery.

Ranok had taken Redhale's warning a little seriously, too. Didn't suit to have to fight through undead *and* aberrations. So he was mostly keeping a low profile when in the city. This mostly involved skulking around, sitting in the formerly abandoned building he'd co-oped as a 'headquarters' of sorts. Right now, he was lying down on the roof with a pair of binoculars in his hands, made by himself. Really, he was amused by Redhale's solution to the undead problem. It was crude, but one could hardly argue with results. "Chust goes to schow...a lot uf tinks really kan be solved by trowink more ondead minions at it. Vonder vat heppens ven a *big* vun schows up...?" Sometimes they got big. The biggest one he'd seen yet arrived a few days ago. He'd taken care of it, but not before being thrown through a wall or two. He was still in pain from that one. For now, Ranok contents himself with watching. Mostly, he wanted to know what that machine was.

Redhale moved between the large construction, all logs and ropes, and a large cage at the base of the dirt mound. Of course, problems in Vailkrin were best solved through murder and slavery. He and a small group of guards led a few shackled prisoners towards the construct, each of them covered in a sprawling design from head to toe, some kind of spell circle drawn in thick, inky paste. They were seated in small nests at various spots around the large instrument and shut in behind caged doors. Most of them had given up struggling by this point, but as Redhale made his way around the construction to interact with them all began to cry out. Their screams grew louder as the patterns adorning their bodies began to pulse with pale blue light, waves of it periodically sweeping outwards from the centre of the design in the middle of their chests. Redhale drew back to a safe distance before signaling to his men, one man per transferred prisoner, and turning his attention upwards. It was when the undead minions turned to their levers that the construction's shape became apparent. The machine had only been obscured because it was essentially turned on its end by way of the dirt mound; the sprawling towers were catapults aimed straight upwards.

Ranok lowers the binoculars, "He vouldn'..." But he was. Well. It was nothing if not practical. A flash of pity for the prisoners. He had no idea what they'd done to deserve execution. And that was absolutely what it was, if Redhale was going to do what he think he was. Memories of a kite flown up to test the tear simply...dissolving flashed through his head. He doubted flesh would fare any better. "Poor bastards." He doesn't make a move to help them, however. What was there to be done? Nothing to do but watch...and see.

Redhale didn't have to do much else. The lines were released and three painted prisoners were launched skywards with a great amount of sudden force. The acceleration alone might have killed them, a knock to the head on the way up or a general crushing of the spinal area, but whatever state their bodies were in once they left the top of that wooden structure their reactions were the same. The blue-white light grew brighter in each of them, steam and smoke rose off their flesh and, had one been close enough to hear it, hideous popping sounds would burst out sporadically amongst the sizzling of their flesh as bones exploded from the heat within them. They didn't catch fire though; the spell cast on them was not made to be a destructive elemental force. It was, in a way, a blessing; the arrangement of the runes and the weighting in the circles encouraging meditative states, divine connections and mana flow. It was a complicated piece of work, an old prototype for the enhancement of magical power, and somehow Redhale had managed to fit a spell that would usually take a good sized ballroom on each body. The practical outcome was that each prisoner's soul was subjected to a nightmarish flow of magical energy, and their connection to the ethereal source of mana, no matter how small it had been to begin with, was torn open and burnt out. Their bodies erupted in bright flashes of light that left stains on the vision of those watching (those with eyes) and the blooms of raw energy that were left surged upwards into the rift like organic fireworks.


Meanwhile in Kelay…

Xarden can see the blue-white light from here, and wonders what that's all about. Xarden said, "How bizarre."


Back in Vailkrin:

Ranok grunts as his vision fairly explodes with light. He should have known better then to look directly. He'd be lucky if nothing was damaged. The downside was that he really had no idea as to the point of all this. That was what he was trying to puzzle out. To his senses, he mostly saw brilliant flashes of light. Luckily, he had the enhanced ones of Draeta with him at the moment. <There seems to be fluctuations in the energies to mana streams. There is a physical effect on the world, but I cannot determine what at this range.> Ranok was rubbing his watering eyes, "Yah, und ve aren' gettink kloser. Ugh." He was getting the feeling that this was going to be a long night in frustration. At least the light show was pretty. Albeit incredibly morbid.

Redhale seemed satisfied with the result, in that he didn't punish any of his own men for any reason. The other prisoners, though, were not shown mercy for the success of their first line. Successive groups were led to the construct and sent up in bursts of cataclysmic energy. To what end the volleys were put to was vague; upon crossing the threshold the energy seemed to dissipate and billow into large flames of various pastel colours, the effects of which were hard to measure. But yes, the show was pretty, even if most of the audience didn't seem to be appreciating it. It wasn't that they weren't enjoying the events unfolding, but most of the sentient creatures in the streets of Vailkrin were laughing at the screams of the prisoners and the mists of blood which fell from the disintegrating bodies.

Ranok was at a complete loss, there on the roof top. All he could take from it was a rather expensive, in terms of life, show. The way the citizens were congregating like it was a circus...maybe they knew more then he did. After awhile, he'd stopped paying attention to the lights themselves. They hurt his eyes, and it wasn't exactly changing. Draeta was keeping a trio of eye-like things on them, anyways. The smith was scanning the crowd, instead. And checking the outfall of creatures from the tear proper. He just hoped the display of energies didn't rip it open further. Such things were fragile, and unpredictable.