closed: compelled to forge on

[byblow]

WHO: Grey Wardens.
WHAT: Post-Weisshaupt discussion.
WHEN: Vaguely backdated to after everyone returns.
WHERE: The Valley, near the river, out of earshot of everyone else. Eavesdroppers will be electrocuted. Maybe.
NOTES: No set tag order, but try not to boomerang too much and leave everyone else out. Feel free to add your own discussion topics.

This is not a party, or really planned at all beyond we need to talk; there's no spread of food, no seating except chunks of ice or stones or leftover building materials dragged over by those passionate about sitting down, and no liquor except what anyone has the foresight to bring for themselves. (Alistair has a bottle, and if someone grabs it from him he'll only whine a little at having it passed around.) It isn't that late, but it gets dark early in the valley, everything cast blue-gray when the sun disappears behind the peaks.

And there are only nine of them--some gone, some stationed elsewhere, Maja unwilling to leave the griffons--so it's more of a huddle than anything. Easy to keep their voices down. Kaisa.

Comments

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Bethany was silent for a long, long time, before she said something that she knew the rest were not going to like. "If the First Warden is being mind-controlled - we are going to need Clarel to break it. She is the only one who knows the spell, outside of ... well. The other one."

She had nothing kind to say about the Tevinter mage down in the dungeon, outside of the fact that she hoped he rotted there for all eternity.

[byblow]

"He doesn't need a spell. That's why they couldn't kill him, why the seals used your father's blood instead of any Warden's—any Warden who got too close wound up trying to help him escape."

Trying to help him escape, trying to help him take over a country. Not too different. But whatever the prohibitions on political involvement, the First Warden's head has always been up the Anderfels' arse, too. Maybe he didn't need that much of a push.

Alistair kicks a bit of ice, moodily, and then makes a wincing apologetic face at whoever is opposite him that gets hit by it.

[doneisdone]

Despite her angry lashing out at Weisshaupt itself, Teren has been quiet since then, the sort of quiet that is more likely to put someone on edge than convey any docility. As they talk, she listens, the gears in her mind turning, a knife glinting subtly as she cleans her nails with it.

[twelvelabours]

Max looks up at Alistair with reproach, snow sliding off his nose.

Wait for it:

[ whines sadly ]

[justice_is_blond]

There's a flash, fire disintegrating another part of the ice kicked (accidentally) in his direction (because they move between this thread and the next,) since he doesn't feel like being hit by it and he's a mage.

"Basically, mind control is the likeliest culprit whether it's by Corypheus or a blood mage. Or several blood mages. Weisshaupt's been quiet for some time; he could have had people infiltrating it for some time. I still don't understand how the attempt to renew the seals failed."

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Bethany looked down at her hands, before she spoke quietly, "Are we talking about the seals that kept Corypheus there? Because I am fairly certain I know what happened with those."

Their fault, it was their fault that this was happening. Marian, herself, Carver ... if they hadn't gone to that damned temple. If they had just left it well alone.

[byblow]

Alistair pauses the very important task of looking heartbroken and apologetic in the dog's direction, how could he, he'll slip him a treat later--

pauses that to raise his eyebrows at Bethany. He wasn't going to assign any blame--beyond what he's already said, divulging a few details to Seeker Pentaghast in particular to make sure she understood that Corypheus looking dead wouldn't be the same as Corypheus actually being dead. Marian is his friend, too.

[twelvelabours]

Max goes from looking at Alistair (betrayed) to looking at Anders (awestruck; so cool) to making a pensive grumbly sound at Bethany, and ultimately contributing to the conversation by propping his drooling self against Ander's leg with a dramatic huff. Anders is now the coolest person here.

Herc, less dramatic than his dog, keeps his arms crossed, frown deepening a little as he glances Bethany's way.

"What do you mean, Bethany?"

[sunshinethroughgrey]

"I mean ... we didn't set the seals back up after we left. We thought he was dead - and we didn't want to invalidate our father's sacrifice. We didn't want to give the Wardens any more of our blood." She looked around at them, "The Wardens already had me, after all."

~ignore me~

[scalethewall]

Like Teren, Blackwall was also silently listening to the discussion. He didn't have much to add, but he was keen to hear what everyone else had to say. Even if he did have anything, it still felt like it wasn't exactly his place to interrupt.

[unbrokenoath]

"How were you supposed to know, Bethany?" Kaisa wasn't usually quiet, but talking about politics, talking about all this complicated, frustrating stuff? She hated it. And there were plenty of Wardens her senior to do it for her. Maker's ass, this wasn't what the Wardens were for. But she can try to be a comfort, at least.

"Usually, when people die--even weird darkspawn magisters--they stay dead. That's kind of how dying works. And it's not like Corypheus really looks like an archdemon or anything."

[byblow]

"It's our fault," Alistair says, meaning our in the very general sense--the Wardens, and not even the Wardens presently alive--"for sealing him down there and hiding it." From Thedas, from one another. It took him months to get any answers, and even those are vague and incomplete. "Maker knows what else we've buried."

[failedfirst]

"It doesn't matter now who did what, just that we have to deal with it somehow," Velanna pipes up, a little annoyed. She's been mostly silent, but that's more because it's a lot to think about.

"Perhaps we should try to get in touch with the Architect. He might... know something."

[unbrokenoath]

"The who-now?" Kaisa blinks, glancing at Velanna, then around to see if anyone else knows what she's talking about, then back to Velanna. "Are you thinking about getting someone to build us our own castle? Because, I mean, that'd be cool, but where would we put it."

[justice_is_blond]

Anders grimaces, and not just at Max now drooling on his boot. Really? Ugh.

"Considering the drawings I've seen of Corypheus at Haven, I'd not be surprised at all if the Architect knows something." Anders sounds very displeased as he shifts where he sits and exhales. "For those who don't know, the Architect was presumably just a sentient Darkspawn, but I don't know if I believe that anymore. He lead a faction of Darkspawn and was making them intelligent at the same time another sentient Darkspawn was, the Mother. When both attacked... Jonas chose to spare the Architect so that we could take out the Mother and still possibly save city and Keep."

He hadn't agreed then, he still doesn't. "He's out there somewhere, being quiet, and it's not a good thing. Especially not when there are definitely parallels in the way both Architect and Corypheus look. Maybe it's a Darkspawn thing, but I don't know that we can afford to put stock in that."

Purrelden chooses this moment to drop from Anders' shoulder to lap... and then the down to the back of the mabari.

[byblow]

"Oh," Alistair says. "That's what else we've buried. Fantastic."

[sunshinethroughgrey]

"... All right, I have to ask, have we buried the Dread Wolf around here somewhere as well? Because I am honestly starting to think we've put every bad thing in our back pantry, and just hoped no one noticed." Bethany stated, her lips pressing together into a thin line.

[failedfirst]

"It was the right thing to spare him," Velanna replies, a little too quickly. She's had years to think it over, to contemplate what her sister must now be going through, at his side.

She regrets pushing for it. But she'll stand behind that choice.

"He's helped in the past. Pockets of intelligent darkspawn that were insane, similar to the Mother, he would get notice to us and we wiped them out. But it has been... a very long time since we've heard anything from him." She's inclined to agree with Anders about his assessment that the drawings of Corypheus and the Architect look suspiciously similar.

[unbrokenoath]

"..."

Kaisa stares, with alarmed eyes, from Anders, to Velanna, as they reveal yet another Warden secret. It's not really that surprising, all told, because being a Warden, you get used to constantly discovering secrets about Wardeny things, because that's what Wardens did. But as her eyes turn to the ground, she's puzzling over a mystery that has been gathering dust for years and years.

And finally, it clicks into place, and she jumps up, clapping her hands together.

"Amaranthine! There was a talking darkspawn there! I knew it! Gillan told me all the smoke had gotten to my head and I figured well yeah that was probably a better explanation--but! I wasn't going crazy! There was a darkspawn! And it talked!!"

This is Very Exciting News, everyone. Why aren't you excited.