DESTROY THE RED LYRIUM QUARRY

[faderifting]

WHO: Norrington, Kas, Cade, Varric, Anders
WHAT: Smashing the Templar's Red Lyrium operation before it even gets off the ground, go Inquisition!
WHEN: Guardian 18
WHERE: Emprise du Lion - Red Lyrium Quarry
NOTES: Closed quest log. Death and violence!

Far to the south of the Inquisition's main camps, Corypheus' Templar allies have discovered a sizable source of red lyrium in the hills. The operation to extract it is still in its early stages: the plan is for a path cut through the ground in a semi-Circle, but the Eastern side is barely touched, and with Inquisition forces pressing the Templars back and into Suledin Keep, the quarry is not so heavily guarded as it might have been. There are more prisoners than Red Templars, in fact. Concerned for the safety of the villagers if the Red Templars see a force approaching, the Inquisition is instead sending small teams, under cover of night, to free the captured villagers and eliminate the guards.

Comments

[onlyhymns]

Cade has, for the time he's spent in Emprise de Lion, been operating under the delusion that things can't possibly get any worse. First he was assigned to share a tent with a qunari-- not just any qunari, but one who insisted on baring her breasts on their first meeting, and who immediately invited her also female lover in before Cade could even put his things down. He hasn't been sleeping much-- it's difficult, when one is avoiding one's own tent.
Then there was the disastrous situation with the red templars, with Alayre and himself nearly dying and going mad, respectively, the effects of which he's still not convinced have completely worn off, and now, the rotten cherry on the worst cake: he's stuck clearing a quarry with more red lyrium, with That Dwarf, who, impossibly, is even more unpleasant than he remembers from their brief encounters in Kirkwall. The team is rounded out by a sullen apostate, whom Cade swears looks familiar, but having been cautioned away from starting any trouble with mages in the Inquisition, he has decided not to push his luck.

He traipses miserably at the point of their cluster as they approach the mine, sword drawn and ready for any encounters worse than what he's already enduring.

[hugeinorlais]

For all his stocky muscle and Bianca's hefty frame, Varric can move almost silently when the situation calls for it. His boots barely make a sound as the three of them creep over the snow toward the mouth of the quarry. When they come to the edge of the ramshackle scaffolding, he pauses a moment to take stock of the situation. Aside from the company on this little outing, and the scattered deposits of Red Lyrium just jutting out of the snow like wildflowers in spring, this didn't seem like it was going to be too terrible a mission.

This wasn't the party he'd have chosen, given his pick, but he'd been in tighter spots with less backup. He wasn't especially keen on having that one twitchy templar and Anders standing this close to one another, but at least he'd fought alongside Blondie before. That was one less thing to worry about and, Maker's balls, Varric needed a few less things to worry about.

"Alright, if you two can keep from stomping like wild druffalo, we can sneak down the scaffolding and catch the templars with their pants down," Varric said, very quietly, and motioned toward the shapes that stretched up out of the darkness. Shit, could they even see them? How terrible was human vision, generally?

"But, seeing as I prefer to not die horribly if neither of you are feeling light on your feet, I'm open to alternatives. Detlef, any ideas? How about you Pouty, what's your take?"

[justice_is_blond]

Great. There were a few Templars Anders didn't want to deal with, and the twitchy one who had almost gotten Alayre and Anders killed was one of them. Especially with red lyrium everywhere.

Anders leaned forward and squinted at the dark shapes down there. Scaffolding. Sure, there was likely scaffolding there. Was he going to find it with hands and feet properly to climb down it? That wasn't exactly something he was sure about. What he can see are tents.

"Pouty over here has trouble near red lyrium and there's a lot of it in the area. We need something more direct." Funny how there weren't any guards on the Templars when red lyrium set them off something fierce. If it had been mages... He closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath. It wasn't. And Pouty wasn't responsible for all of what mages face, no matter how he was a portion of it.

"Can you see the guards?" His voice was equally as quiet. "The large shapes look like tents, and if I fling a fireball at them we'll not only have the advantage of surprise, we may set some Templars on fire." Always a plus. "Red Templars, of course." Still a plus.

[onlyhymns]

'Pouty'? Cade didn't remark on it, but the nickname rankled him. He was not pouty. He was...

...distracted by their discussion of the issue at hand, and he crept forward, frowning. "I'll be fine," he muttered to the mage, "...and that's not my name." This he added in an even lower tone, more as an aside.

Now that they were discussing ranged attacks, he wished he'd brought his bow. Not that the other two couldn't handle that just fine, but so much for being quiet when he was wearing plate and carrying a sword and shield. "The fire could work," he conceded.

[hugeinorlais]

"Wait, wait, wait--" Varric interrupted as the two humans squinted into the darkness. His grip on Bianca shifted as he twisted and turned his back to the quarry. It wasn't the best idea but Varric was more concerned with another, slightly shittier idea at the moment.

"What do you mean 'has trouble near red lyrium?'" Varric demanded quietly and leveled a hard look at Blondie.

Anders wasn't as new to this stuff as the rest of the Inquisition was. He'd seen it at work in Kirkwall; his definition of 'trouble' had to be considerably more severe than the amount of bullshit that just came with standing near the stuff. (And that was already a worrying amount of bullshit, in and of itself.)

"What are we talking about here? Does it make him snippy, distracted, homicidal?"

Varric absolutely did not need a red lyrium addled templar at his back.

[justice_is_blond]

"Twitchy, snippy, distracted. My help was requested to heal another Templar and Pouty, or maybe he should be called Twitchy, tried to grab me simply for passing past. Which almost cost the other Templar his life." Not that Anders really cares much about Templar lives, but this had been Alayre. "It was that close. He grabbed his sword, too, then jerked away and started trying to undress. Other Templars started to help with Twitchy here, so I turned my focus back to what I was doing."

He met Varric's gaze. Cade wasn't Meredith-levels of dangerous... but he might be Bartrand-levels, and Anders tried to figure out a way to communicate this along with the griping.

"It was a short-lived problem." Any dirty looks that drew would be deserved. "His brothers saw to him, from what I gathered while saving Alayre's life." That still wasn't good, but it would get the point across. He might be kicked in the shins later, and he would have earned it, but at least the message was there.

"Once we set the fires to the tent you and I hang back as we're ranged anyway and we let him go down there and stab anything he gets twitchy enough to see as a threat. If he goes for a prisoner, I'll throw down a paralysis glyph." They might as well use the rabid dog they had.

[onlyhymns]

Cade couldn't believe this. He was standing right here, and they were talking about him like he was someone they'd heard about in passing, a week ago.

"Yes, they saw to me," he snapped at Anders, his voice quiet but quick and filled with venom, "it was taken care of. I was..." He stopped himself, shaking his head irritably-- on the one hand, none of that was false, and he had no excuse for it. On the other hand, he was here to do his job, and found instead that he was being gossiped about right in front of his face.
"...I got... a bit in my mouth, when the big one fell on me," he grumbled, with his usual halting demeanor, leaving out that he had also been in the process of saving Alayre's life when this had happened, "...but it's gone now. I'm not going to go for any prisoners." Although there was anger in his explanation, it was laced with incredulity and self-consciousness.

[hugeinorlais]

(OOC: WHOOPS, SORRY. DW never sent me this notif.)

Right at that moment, Varric wasn't sure who he would rather punch. He wasn't normally a violent sort of guy (attacks on Red Templars notwithstanding), but someone deserved a right hook for this situation. Whether it was the templar who signed up despite the fact that being near red lyrium made him twitchy and eager to swing a sword, or Anders who was cheerfully and obliviously trying to call his dead, asshole brother to mind, Varric couldn't say.

He just stared at the both of them and sighed heavily. It was entirely on accident, mind you, but it was a very good impersonation of the Seeker.

"Okay, new plan," Varric said tersely and pointed at Anders. "You, paralysis glyphs first--throw them down at the front of the tents and then set fire to them." He turned his attention front Anders to Cade. "You, stand between the templars and the prisoners and push them toward me, and I will throw down some traps and mines to take them out. If anyone gets through the gauntlet, Bianaca and a few spare spells will finish the job. Agreed?"

The way he asked that was less a question than a statement, really.

Feel free to godmod him into casting glyph/fire when ready if needed in your tags!

[justice_is_blond]

He'd needed to get a message across without Cade picking up on it, and it seemed to have worked. He'd see if he could apologize later. At least it was the brother that had tried to get them all killed and not a beloved one.

The strategy got a nod from Anders, and the mage slipped his staff off his back. It was always easier when someone put together the plan of action, no matter how much things tended to go awry.

"As soon as you're in place, I'll toss them down. Directly in front of the tents, mind, and they won't glow until stepped in, so watch where you go." That was directed at both of them as he settled down on the ledge and took a breath. He glanced at Cade. "When Varric gestures that he's prepared, I'm casting, so watch him."

With that he was ready, braced to cast, with Justice up close to the surface and looking forward to the fight.

[onlyhymns]

"Agreed," Cade grumbled, and proceeded toward the scaffolding, which he descended with a remarkable amount of grace for someone in full plate. He kept his footsteps quiet, but when he arrived at the indicated spot on the ground, the prisoners began to get anxious, all speaking at once. He turned to hold a finger to his lips, out of direct speaking range but close enough that they could see.
When they had settled down, he looked up and waited for Varric's signal.