[closed] the turn of the screw

[doneisdone]

WHO: Teren, Alistair, Anders, Benevenuta, Bethany, Kaisa
WHAT: Senior Warden von Skraedder brings a small gaggle of fools Wardens (and a Mortalitasi for some reason) along to investigate a sighting of the Architect in southern Nevarra. Mischief is afoot!
WHEN: Timey wimey, Haring-ish
WHERE: around and about Perendale
NOTES: there is no Architect but at least the cake is real

[OOC notes first: every round or so, feel free to do a coin-flip "idea" roll, then either send me a screencap of your diceroller or do it on Discord so I can see. If you get heads, proceed to roll a 1d5 and I will PM you a bit of insight for your character to have gleaned based on the circumstances.
For all anyone currently knows (with the exception of Teren and Benevenuta), the Architect is their prime directive and there is no reason to suspect otherwise.

I will be adding new legs to the journey once we've reached a reasonable transition, so the threads and available information will be limited to what's currently visible.

Also, if you could try to keep fewer than two days between each tag, that would be amazing!]

The journey is a long one, and it's in the dead of winter, which means it isn't a lot of fun. They at least have horses, on loan from the Inquisition save for those who have their own, and Teren leads the expedition on the rangy and agreeable black gelding she tends to borrow.

She's her usual self, curt and withdrawn and pensive, though she takes care of hers and is vigilant about ensuring everyone stays together, especially in the brutal snows that blow relentlessly over Orlais' northern plains.
She had approached each Warden initially, explaining that she had received news from Weisshaupt and wanted to take a small delegation to address its concerns: the Architect has been sighted in the north, not far from the border between Nevarra and Tevinter. Teren's old stomping grounds.

Summoned for her familiarity with the region, Teren has grudgingly accepted the call, but knows it would be suicide to make it a solo recon mission. Anders and Bethany are brought for their healing and warding talents, Alistair and Kaisa for their fighting prowess, and the non-Warden Benevenuta.. for... some reason, that isn't entirely clear to anyone else.

Their mission is to find the Architect, and if unable to apprehend him, to gather as much information on the situation as possible before returning to Skyhold.

Comments

Thibault

[byblow]

"Maker," Alistair-turned-Algernon says, approaching Thibault head-on, which would be incredibly stupid if he weren't a calf-eyed innocent with no plans to do anything that might warrant cracking his head open--"I think you are bigger than me."

There's no think about it, but he stops and makes a show of measuring, anyway, spreading his hands in the air to measure the perceived breadth of Thibault's shoulders.

"What do you eat?"

[doneisdone]

The bodyguard is enormous, but perhaps not as meat-head as he appears. He is already exasperated as soon as he sees one of the footmen approaching him, and his gaze on Alistair is lackadaisical if not vaguely threatening.

"You think so," he repeats, in a 'wow any other observations idiot' drawl. "Food."

[byblow]

Alistair is good at exactly one kind of acting, and it's acting stupid. He blinks at the man three times, as if ideas like he doesn't want to talk to me and that was a joke might be trying to force their ways into his skull, then gives a belated and uncertain sort of half-smile.

"Well... yes..." he says slowly, and then appears to decide that perhaps Thibault just didn't understand the question. "But what kind? A lot of meat? I've tried that, but this seems to be as bulky as I can get. And that's terribly disappointing. I have a bet with a man in Val Royeaux that I can pull a full cart as far as an ox, and next time I see him I'll have to prove it."

[doneisdone]

A deft conversationalist, Thibault proceeds to simply stare at the man, his gaze cold and indifferent. He lets Alistair get it out of his system, and then says, in a low and calm but unmistakably deadly voice, "go away."

[byblow]

How rude.

"I'm only asking," Alistair says, Ser Obvious, with his hands going up in a gesture of harmlessness. Only asking. Only doing his part to see that they're all swiftly set loose in the countryside and not missed at all. "It's not some sort of charm, is it? Some hedge witch tried to sell one to me—I said nooooo, merci, but I've always wondered."

[doneisdone]

"Last warning," Thibault says in a deadpan.

[byblow]

That's probably enough.

Unfortunately, Alistair is not only pretending to be stupid. He is also in fact stupid, when it comes to stepping back from arguments or leaving well enough alone. He puts one hand on his hip and looks the man over as if needing a second evaluation of how big he is, exactly, in order to decide what to do.

"Do you always threaten people just trying to make conversation," he says, "or is that a side-effect of muscle charms?"

[doneisdone]

Probably. Let's be real.

Without preamble, Thibault steps forward and scruffs Alistair, grabbing him by his shirt collar and then, with practiced precision, also by the back of his trousers' waistband.
He marches him out like so, into the foyer, and with a glare to Florien, who then promptly opens the door, he tosses Alistair out into the snow like a sack of potatoes.
Then he turns around and goes back inside. Florien looks fretfully after the footman for a moment, then shakes his head and closes the door.

Teren witnesses this out of the corner of her eye, and is very briefly startled out of her character, though not quite enough to protest. Instead, her look of confusion transforms into the subtlest of glares, and she turns back toward what she was doing.

For the love of Shartan, they've barely been here five minutes.

[byblow]

Lying on his side in the snow, Alistair spends about half a minute contemplating his choices, another half a minute wondering how angry Teren will be with him if he never goes back inside vs. how angry she will be with him if he does, and then one full minute trying to make a snow butterfly, like he once saw Merrill do, while feeling sort of smug about his ability to be thrown out of places without doing anything objectively wrong. It's a talent he needs to figure out how to monetize.

Then he decides he's cold, and he also decides that coming back in through the front door is probably less likely to get him killed than trying to sneak through a side door like a burglar. He slips back in -- to the extent he's capable of slipping -- but stays just inside the door at first, brushing snow off his clothes. He has the sense to look sheepish rather than proud.

To try, anyway.

[doneisdone]

At some point not long ago, Teren casually turned around to notice with immediate dissatisfaction and mild anxiety that her entire contingent has absconded, but it wouldn't do to point that out.
When Benevenuta enters the parlor and whispers in her ear, Teren nods, makes a show of rolling her eyes in exasperation, and puts on an ingratiating smile to Mademoiselle du Farron.
"Begging your pardon, but I ought to find my daughter," she says, in a tone of cheerful flippance, and departs the room only to find a snow-covered Alistair standing in the front hall.

Her mouth flattens into a more comfortably Teren-like line as she approaches him, but her bearing is less rancorous and more curious-- at least, until Calpurnia Artemeus appears in the corner of her eye, stepping off and away from the parlor to powder her nose or some other inane occupation.
Though she was about to ask Alistair what happened, Teren instead flashes him a split-second look of apology before cuffing him upside the head and rounding on him in true heartless noble fashion.

"Getting yourself thrown out not a quarter hour into the visit, I ought to have you flogged!" She plays at grabbing Alistair's ear, in fact not using much force at all, but giving him a little pinch to suggest he should react somewhat more dramatically than the actual motion merits. She knows he can do it.
Lowering her voice to a furious hiss, Teren begins to walk him back toward the parlor, shooting a meaningful glance at Benevenuta in the meantime. "Find Gisele and tell her it's time to go," she says, "my reputation has been tarnished enough for one afternoon."