[CLOSED] PLAYER PLOT: The Ashes Underneath His Nails

[amygdalae]

WHO: Jim Kirk, Hermione Granger, Adelaide Leblanc, Herian Amsel, Anders, Inessa Serra, Raylan Gibbs, Ciri
WHAT: The Inquisition sends a group of agents to uncover the truth behind a string of mysterious disappearances.
WHEN: Kingsway 1st - 8th
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: Plotting post is here - feel free to post in there still for queries and concerns and further stuff where needed. Warnings for blood, violence, talks about death, experimentation horror, abomination-related stuff etc and eventual on-screen child death. ALSO no tag order - just respond when you feel like you should and I'll try to hit it back if it feels appropriate!!

QUICK JUMP LINKS TRAVELLING TO FROMAGE & FROMAGE GENERAL THREAD ROUTE INVESTIGATION SEEKRIT CAVE ENTRANCE INTO THE SEEKRIT CAVE CAVE INVESTIGATION - LEFT TEAM CAVE INVESTIGATION - RIGHT TEAM KID ABOMINATION THREAD BACK TO SKYHOLD

(—he remembers the chill of the frost and snow biting at bare skin, its usual pure white now tinged a horrid pink from the blood on his hands. He's far away from them now, the danger and the pain and everything else, but the blood will forever be on his hands no matter how much he tries to wash it away. His father had been right all along. He truly was a monster of the greatest kind.)

QUEST: THE ASHES UNDERNEATH HIS NAILS (PART I) The message had come swiftly, the letter itself hastily written with a shaky hand. The request itself was simple; a plea for help from a village at the outskirts of Emprise du Lion, whose people have been mysteriously disappearing over the last few weeks. Considering the ongoing civil unrest that's still transpiring in Orlais the Inquisition made its decision to send out a team of agents to look into this message and see exactly what was going on. The eight agents tasked with the mission were given enough time to prepare for the trip ahead. They would all meet up first at the Inquisition camp set within the Emprise and from there travel for about a day until they reached where their destination was - Fromage, a quaint little village that rested at the outskirts of the area. From that point on, it was up to the agents of the Inquisition to solve this ongoing mystery. The mission: to discover the truth behind these disappearances - and to stop it, if possible.

Comments

THE JOURNEY BACK

[amygdalae]

[OOC Note: If the child is indeed spared and allowed to be brought back to Skyhold (or wherever else that has been decided), you are free to interact with him too in this thread; just give me a heads up in the subject line and I'll tag when I can.]

The way back to Skyhold is quiet. After solving the mystery of the disappearances the agents are free to tell the truth to the villagers in Fromage, if they so wish to. If they do so the villagers will be horrified, but are mostly thankful to just know the truth and know that it has been dealt with. They should be alright from now on. Again they are offered one more night of free housing and drinks if they wish to rest up before making their way back to the Inquisition. It seems like nothing has really changed at all from their way to Fromage - the quietness from before is still there, and in a way perhaps it almost nearly be called peaceful, given the unrest that is still taking place within Orlais. But considering what had transpired and what had been found, perhaps things can never be the same again for some people.

stopped in an inn for the night; open

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan would be found alone, looking vaguely sulky, but mostly just quiet. He'd taken up a seat near the end of the bar, and had the bartender bringing him a pretty steady supply of hard liquor, whatever the cheapest thing they had was. He'd been quiet the entire journey, only speaking when spoken to and keeping his responses short, instead of any attempts at joking and snark. He'd been there to talk for Inessa if she wanted, but that was about it. Everyone else could fuck right off.

He knew without having to stand up that he was drunk, and he didn't care. He took another drink, grimacing even though his throat was pretty much numb.

[circleprodigy]

Inessa, even more pale than usual, has barely said anything during the initial journey away from the town. Her panic attack in the cave has left her drained and with that thousand-yard stare which even Garahel couldn't shake. The mabari was likewise subdued, no energetic antics or pleas for attention/food.

This state of affairs doesn't change that much once they stop for the night. Knowing she should try to sleep, Inessa can't bring herself to do it. The nightmares, already less than stellar thanks to her Grey Warden nature, will doubtless be horrific tonight. Maybe she can just...never sleep again. Yeah. So, despite the bone-deep weariness that's making it difficult to do more than rest her head on her arms, she lingers. Garahel's plopped down at their feet, yawning.

"What are you having?"

[apostafuckyou]

"Cheapest thing they'll give me," Raylan answered. He didn't really want to talk or try to explain what he was drinking (as if he'd ever known or cared in the first place). In the morning, as they rode and Raylan nursed a hangover, he might have something for her. But not right now. Right now, he just flagged down the bartender and gestured to Inessa, letting her order for herself.

[justice_is_blond]

He hasn't lingered near many. At all. He'd made the wrong call, but beyond that, he'd failed another abomination. So many put themselves at risks in the rituals to cure him, and he hasn't been able to pass that on. He hasn't been able to help. It's weighing him down and he knows he's bad company.

That's why, when he drops down on a stool in the bar, he's not even looking around. Maybe there's people here he knows. If he doesn't see them, he doesn't have to apologize for not joining them later.

And then he looks up to order a drink and sees exactly who he's landed next to. For a moment, he considers moving. Raylan's clearly drunk, and Anders is far too tired and busy with self-recrimination to want to deal with a fight. But he's also far too tired to move, which means he's signalling the bartender for another of whatever Raylan was drinking. Maybe that would be enough effort to keep off any sort of issue.

"Enjoy. Unless you're one away from vomiting, in which case please don't have it or vomit." His voice is dry. He can't muster up the energy to be sarcastic or witty or anything.

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan heaved a sigh when he saw who had joined him, and dropped his head to the bar. Of all the people to have to deal with...

Still, drink was drink, and he took the fresh glass with only a moderate glare in Anders' direction. He was just sober enough to know that if he tried to start a fistfight, he'd probably not only get his ass trounced, but get them all kicked out of the establishment. They were some distance from Fromage, now, and no longer running on the goodwill of the locals.

"Don't mean I like you," he said resentfully, and drank.

[fleurdesel]

"That," Adelaide murmured, not quite glowering if only for the fact she hadn't quite managed a solid twitch of an expression since the child died. Even now it was the barest thinning of her lips and narrowing of her eyes- not at Raylan, but what he was drinking. "Is terrible. If you are going to drink? Drink well."

How fortunate that she intended to share her own bottle. High proof, smokey, rich- likely some manner of expensive but she didn't spare the thought for it. Nor did she bother to ask if he wanted company, taking a chair and pouring them both a hearty glass of the amber liquid. "Here."

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan shot back the remainder of what was in his glass, and set it out to be refilled without argument. "Gets the job done," he said, a little hoarse from the alcohol. He lifted the glass and the smell hit him first, only slightly laced with the sharp, aggressive smell of the cheap shit. He lifted it toward the sky.

"To your health," he said, for lack of anything better, and drank.

The Ride Home - open

[fleurdesel]

It had been a singularly terrible mission all around- not that she expected anything less considering the Inquisition's luck as of late- and yet from the moment they left the cave Adelaide has been nothing if not stoic. Her was voice even, her eyes dry, her expression blankly civil, not entirely uninviting to those that would have her company but not precisely giving off the impression she cared to discuss what they had seen. What they'd done.

None of them truly seemed to wish to do more than manage what they must for the report.

Now and then her eyes softened, fingers brushing against the leather band around her wrist. Otherwise? She tended to the remainder of the party. Healed wounds. Answered questions. Shared her whiskey, brandy, and wine as they were all in need of a drink.

[dashing]

She had dismissed any offer for healing earlier, until all was done. Bodies moved, burned, prayers said. Until that was done she kept working, and the end result is her breath being a little hitched as she sits, and tries to ignore the lingering prickle of pain as the heat from the burns works deeper into the tissue. It seems a small penance, for what they have done. For what she might have started.

Herian sits, hand extended to the fire to raise more life in it, fingers mapping out her new staff. "Councillor LeBlanc," she starts, when Adelaide draws near. "I apologise for the abruptness of my manners. I am ill-used to participating in tasks with so many others."

[fleurdesel]

"Herian." Adelaide settles next to Herian with all the absentminded grace born of years of training. She could be reading or resting, but- her mind is too busy twisting itself in knots over what was done, how it was done, why it was done. Why that boy, why like this, what did they want to create? Easier to shut off those thoughts circling like so many broken winged birds and focus upon a patient. A student.

A peer, now. "It does take some adjustment."

She extends a hand. "Let me tend to your wounds."

[justice_is_blond]

He took a seat next to her, somewhat dead-eyed. Before calling Nate he'd healed his wounds; Nate would have been upset otherwise and Anders could at least keep himself together enough for that. But that doesn't mean he takes the seat gracefully. He's exhausted. They all are.

"I heard you had alcohol." And she's her, too. A friend. He needs that right now, and he thinks it's likely she does too. They'd both tried so hard for the boy and it hadn't paid off, and no matter how many times it happens, losing a patient never gets easier.

[circleprodigy]

After Inessa's panic attack in the cave, after such a brutal death, she has no energy left within her. She goes along with the rest as though in a trance, devoid of words for some time. The stoic mask has slipped and she can't seem to put it back on, not right now anyway. It was too much, and despite her skill, she's still young, almost as young as Hermione. Maybe that youth will make it easier to bear this later, but for now, everything hurts.

She pauses by Adelaide at some point, tempted but wary. "...if you don't have anything too strong, I'll partake. I don't want it to overpower me. I don't want to sleep ever again."

[universal_charm]

Kirk thought he could very well ignore the stinging ache on his arm, like he usually would, but in this world it probably wasn't a good idea to let it go. Mostly, he didn't think he deserved much attention when others had done most of the fighting. If he was to be taken care of, he wanted to make himself last, his instincts as a captain still strong even six months off his ship on this most unexpected of shore leaves.

He made his way to Adelaide, coughing softly to get her attention. "If you've gotten a moment, could you take a look at something?" he asked her, rolling up his sleeve.

Village or traveling

[justice_is_blond]

He slips away for a time on his own, after they reach the village again. When he returns, he looks a little less broken, a little more human, but he's still quiet, still tired. What he'd done he had to do. He'd helped stop further pain. But he'd so badly wanted to help another abomination, and he'd so badly wanted to not kill another innocent ever again, and he'd failed at both.

On the journey he's a lot more quiet than usual as well. For once, he's not really starting a lot of conversations, though he does manage to drag himself out of his mental fog when someone speaks to him.

[circleprodigy]

For a while afterward, Inessa is not mentally all there. It was too much, far too much, especially for someone who bore witness to such horror in Kinloch Hold. This mission brought all the memories she had been trying so hard to bury to the surface, and she couldn't look away. So, she just shut down. No screaming or crying, just existing as though in a trance.

She seems to regain more of herself by the time the group has to stop for the night, and with Garahel in tow, she'll approach. "...I've ginger tea, if you need some." After what they've seen, she can't be the only one with a compromised stomach.

[universal_charm]

Like most of the group, Kirk is quiet, absorbing what had happened, what they had found. The child would haunt him for the rest of his days, he thought, a reminder of how cruel this world could be. More than anything he wanted to find the people who had done this and punish them, because until then it left a sour taste in his mouth. There was no justice in this, and he hated knowing that it could happen again.

At some point on the journey he found himself beside Anders, reaching out and gently grasping his shoulder, giving him a squeeze.

"How are you holding up?" he asked him softly.

[dashing]

After all is done, when the bodies have been moved and burned, Herian stands and watches the pyre the loud crackle of orange and blazing yellow embers, the smoke that whips and twists in the air. In her hand she holds the staff that she retrieved from the guardroom, gnarled branches at its head and an ever-burning flame, and she watches, makes herself keep watching, even with the blood still on her hands from moving the bodies.

Walking on the road she tends to keep to herself, keeps quiet, though her head is held high and she walks with shoulders squared. She is every part the knight, with brutally correct posture and a carefully schooled expression. She will not make any keep her company, not after what has transpired, and not when so many of them had seemed so appalled. Not when the child called her mama when she hacked its head from its shoulders.

In a tavern she is, predictably, still silent. She does, however, lay down enough coin to see all her companions can have a drink or two on it, even though she makes no announcement - the barkeep might simply say that she took care of a couple of rounds earlier and not her way, mutter something about not daring to swindle a woman like that, before passing your character their drink. For her part, she sips water, and studies a set of notes that she retrieved in one of the rooms, as if she can glean more from the smeared, illegible parts of the message that eluded her before.

[circleprodigy]

Inessa doesn't have the mental strength for a conversation for some time after the brutal end of their mission. Her panic attack has left her spent, going along with the rest as though in a trance. What is there to say about what the child had suffered, what they had all seen? It will haunt her to her dying day, and Inessa is sure she's not the only one.

When they reach a tavern, she's regained enough sense of self to realize that some things need to be said, however. With a greatly subdued Garahel at her side, the young Warden slips into a seat by Herian. Her voice is calm though slightly rough after dry heaving and then disuse. "...you were right. I knew you were right, and I still wanted to believe he could be saved. I didn't want to...." ...see a child die. It was an abomination, beyond saving at that point, and yet her stomach still twists at the though of what they all had to do.

[ichaer]

Once she has finished tending to Nessa, Ciri moves to begin helping with transporting the bodies from within the cavern to the built pyre. Once the prayer is lit and the darkness of the night is chased away she moves to sit nearby. Her focus is on the pyre, quietly watching while she idly turns the knife she had used in the battle over and over in her hands.

It is a nervous habit, it was one that got worse in Weisshaupt but there is not much that shows on her face to show whatever she might be feeling now. It continues until her movements finally still and she raises the knife in the air, flicking it into the pyre before her hands go to the pouch on her belt and removing a vial containing one small red shard that glows brilliantly in the light of the fire.

"I was able to remove this from a body in the cells. He had likely died only right before we arrived." She says, tiredly. Ciri remembers Herian's suggestions after the boy's death and she had agreed. There was not much left there but they did have at least one piece from this nightmare. "Maker only knows if it's worth a damned thing but it is worth trying to figure out what happened here."

[universal_charm]

To say the road was tense might be an understatement. To Kirk it felt like snakes walked the road with them, silent and menacing, any word spoken their fangs striking. Quietly he watched everyone as they trudged on through the cold, especially those who seemed to stand apart. Perhaps especially Herian, whom he had snapped at during the confrontation with the child.

Slowly he angled himself in her direction, closing the distance in minute steps, not wanting himself to turn into the snake. He pulled a skin from his pack.

"Thirsty?" he asked as his opening salvo. Not his smoothest moment, but he wasn't sure where he stood with her.

Tavern

[justice_is_blond]

He's a little surprised by the drink, even more so when Herian is nodded to. For a couple of moments he wonders if he should simply drink it and then move on, like he'd originally planned. It isn't like he has a grasp of who she is. Cold and rocky as the Frostbacks one moment, heated and unrelenting like the Anderfels the next.

But Anders has been making an effort to at least be polite when someone's not being an ass to him, which means he can at least make the minimal gesture here.

He crosses over to the table. "Thank you for the drink." Obligation covered. But he lingers, because she's looking at the notes and they're of some interest to him as well.

[ichaer]

In the quiet of their travels from Fromage there is little to tell if one looks toward the ashen-haired Warden. Her eyes remain focused forward on the path, leading the group and keeping attention outwards on their surroundings if there happened to be any lingering Red Templars. To her disappointment there is nothing so she continues to walk and listen.

Once they reach the comforts of an inn she immediately heads to the fireplace. Sitting before it, her sword has been removed and she carefully begins to work a whetstone down the blade. It does not seem to have taken any lasting damage which is enough for her in this aftermath. It is not hard to tell how well she treats the blade, easily better than herself as she sits there with blood under her nails and irritating patches of red standing out on the pale skin.

As the night goes on then she might again near the fire, staring forward with narrowed eyes and a tired expression. As a Warden, she has an excuse in the form of their nightmares to keep her from drifting off again. It is a state she is used to being in since her conscription almost four years ago. And as dawn begins to appear over the horizon does she move outside, beginning her training as she twist, turns and flips in the snow. Her sword feels heavier in her hands today but in the end, it is no matter. She'll simply push herself harder.

[circleprodigy]

After her meltdown in the cave, Inessa lets Ciri lead her wherever without protest. She says nothing at all for some time, that thousand-yard stare not even cured by Garahel's presence, though the mabari himself is very subdued. There's no begging of any kind from him, or the energy to do more than be a silent figure at their side.

At the inn, she slowly comes out of her trance-like state, though is still visibly exhausted on all fronts. And yet, she won't sleep. It's not the Grey Warden nightmares keeping her up, but the thought of what she knows she'll see if she dares close her eyes. So she'll sit quietly by the fire cradling a cup of tea that she only sporadically remembers to sip, staring at the flames but not really seeing them.

[justice_is_blond]

He sits down next to her at the fire, watching her take care of her blade for a while as he slowly sips an ale for the sole reason that it seems cleaner than the water here. It takes that time for him to find words.

"I'm sorry," Anders finally opens with. "I made a bad call." It had been based on desperate hope and not logistics, and that's not how a call should be made. There's a reason he's glad he's fourth in line for leading the Wardens and not further up.