faderift | PLAYER PLOT: The Least of His Children

WHO: Nathaniel Howe, Felix Alexius, Anders, James Norrington, Kaisa Daesun, Fenris, Araceli, Inessa.
WHAT: A quest to rescue a slave.
WHEN: August 26
WHERE: Tevinter
NOTES: Will update. Plotting post is here.

The Mastermind: Nathaniel Howe
The Game: Green Goods
The Grifter: Felix Alexius
The Mark: Magister Leo Valerius is an ailing old man, but his mind is sharp. His main concern of late has been to leave his sons a good inheritance, though he isn't exactly straight-up greedy.
The Prize: Alavda Endris is a slave to Valerius. The bad news is that she almost never leaves his side. The good news is that that makes her easy to find.

The Plan: One team is sent in, with Felix dressed as a minor lordling and his entourage trying to climb the social ladder by schmoozing an old magister. Felix claims to be staying as a guest of a nearby lord (technically true) and only visiting for the day. Valerius must believe this boy is an upstart with no political value and too much money.

Another team performs a heist and gains the money Valerius keeps at this estate by pretending to be contractors hired to work on the floorboards in the room with the vault door (an appointment Valerius set up months ago and our team hijacked). Planting bees in the floorboards will clear the room of guards. Felix pretends to fall in love with Alavda and asks to borrow her from Valerius. If Valerius hesitates, Felix offers him more and more money until he consents. He has loaned Alavda to other lords before, and Felix's show of being petulant and stupid should help wear away any suspicion that this is a set-up. In that way, it's a basic hustle. Once Valerius consents, Felix then sends an attendant outside to fetch that amount from the money stolen from Valerius' vault. The entourage departs, claiming to be returning to the local lord's house. They leave with Alavda and return to Skyhold.

MAJOR OBSTACLES:

Alavda is wearing an enchanted collar which allows Valerius to locate her. If it is cut away or in most any other way removed, it sends a massive and lethal shock through her system. The team will need to find a way to remove the collar without killing Alavda.

If/when the collar is removed, Valerius will send people to find her.

Valerius has about twenty guards on his property.

The vault door operates on reacting to a specific keystone which cannot be found, but aside from the magical lock, the mechanism is still a mechanism. A good thief can crack it.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is vital that the members of this team keep their involvement and mission details secret before and after the mission. It must not get out that Inquisition members and affiliates were involved in hustling a magister.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The word from a servant of a magister friendly with Valerius is that the entry to his on-site underground treasure vault is in the library and quite well hidden. The library contains guards anyway, as Valerius openly keeps a number of valuable artifacts on display for his guests. The servant did not see the door himself, but remembers seeing light and "hearing magic" when it was being opened out of his sight. So the library is guarded and the vault door is hidden and magically sealed within.

Piece of cake, right?

There is a wine cellar next to the vault, but it has no entry into the vault.

The guard who leads them in looks bored, which is a good sign. Not only does boredom mean his guard is down, it also means the group isn't setting off red flags in his head. The only thing he's worried about is how quickly he can get away from someone with a profession even duller than his own.

Placing the bees had been a delicate task done very early this morning. Nathaniel had gone through the wine cellar to do it, and was very nearly caught. Now, the task is even trickier. In their bags, each thief has a netted bee-proof smock borrowed from an apiary. The proper board is loosened and the bees come pouring out.

Once the guards clear out in a panic, Nathaniel dashes out to assure them that the team has dealt with this before and will hopefully have everything in check shortly. Of course, once they have what they want, he will return to them and say the infestation is too out of control and Valerius needs to contact a bee-keeper.

When he returns to the library, he puts on his smock. The bees are, fortunately, sticking mostly to the corner of the room they were planted in. Nathaniel looks grim.

"All right. We're looking for a hidden vault door. Start looking behind books."

Wearing the smock instead of her usual getup feels decidedly odd, but Inessa dons it quickly and without complaint. She'd rather get through this unstung, if possible. Her attention on Nathaniel, she nods solemnly, ready as she possibly can be.

Gesturing for Garahel to stick with her -devoid of kaddis so as to pass as a pet rather than a war hound- she begins searching behind the books while she sniffs around for anything of note. Inessa trusts his scent of smell implicitly. If there's anything odd about, he'll find it.

Bees aren't something Araceli can say she's worked with before but after donning the smock, she moves over to Lux, giving him the usual series of instructions that she'd give him each time: to listen, to watch, to come straight to her for trouble. Small and light on his feet.

If anyone wants to ask, she'll be happy to explain just what he gets up to with her.

"Rich people," she murmurs to herself, getting to work from a different spot so they can maybe work together to meet in the middle. "Might want to watch for traps, old men can be paranoid, rich old men in particular in my experience."

Fenris waits until Howe comes back in with the all clear and begins edging the room, not bothering with his smock, the bees are a nuisance buzzing around his head but they don't sting him, probably put off by the lyrium under his skin.

"Old, rich, and constantly attempting to murder your 'friends' for affluence. Paranoia is an understatement." Fenris says to Araceli, pointing to the shimmer of a rune trap on the floor and skirting it. He swats a bee from his face and hangs close to the bookshelves, going slow. "Look for a book lest dusty than the others. Or a spot the temperature changes."

The bees are not eager to sting people who are giving them a wide berth, and since everyone is calm, so are they. The four skirt the outside of the room for a short time before Inessa's fingers happen upon a book like the one Fenris describes, less dusty and unusually heavy and solid.

Aha. Laying her finger upon it, Inessa turns and calls out. "Over here!" Her voice lures Garahel back, who was sniffing around for those temperature changes.

"Murder is not a popular sport where I come from," Araceli murmurs softly, at least not in her home country but Thedas likes everything bloodier. Still, she listens to Fenris since she has no desire to upset anything in the room when she recalls Zevran's rescue.

Surely some sort of paralysis glyph wouldn't be out of the question now she knows Thedas better, and she has no desire to pull an Alistair in this.

Keeping to the balls of her feet, she signals for Lux to stay where he is on watch, making her way over lightly as she can.

On highest alert, Fenris sidles close to Inessa, crouched and ready to spring ahead of her if the door opens to anything besides stale air. "Go ahead," he says, looking back at Howe to make sure he's also at the ready. There may still be a puzzle or a trap close within the entrance, but as far as pulling the door open, he senses nothing that makes him hesitate further.

Nodding, Inessa's glad for the others at her side when she tugs the books back, tense and curious about what is to be revealed.

Nathaniel positions himself opposite Fenris, covering Inessa's other side.

The entire bookshelf swings open, with it a section of wall. Behind is an austere door of solid silverite. At its heart is a mechanism with many slots, places for lyrium keystones to be placed.

"We need a way around the lock," Nathaniel says softly. "Some way to bypass it, and quickly. The lock may be magic, but the mechanism holding the door shut ought not to be. And the keystones would contain lyrium. Fenris, can you do anything with it?"

Old, rich, paranoid people. Never change in wasting your money on ridiculous nonsense like this. As she listens to Nathaniel, Araceli wastes no time in taking apart the necklace she wears, slipping out the earrings too so that her lockpicks slip into her smock with barely a sound, ready should they be needed.

Fenris crouches and waits, watching Araceli work deftly on the lock. She's obviously good with it, feeling about soundlessly in the inner-workings with her uniquely shaped jewelry.

"I have no idea," He told Howe, stepping forward and inspecting the slots. They don't have the stones but... well, obviously. He holds his hand up and presses his palm over the empty place and tries to clear his mind, letting the lyrium in his body thrum and light as the wall itself seems to call to it. He frowns. It seems to be responding but how's he supposed to activate them all at one? He shifts to the side and presses his entire arm along the wall, his shoulder to the first indention. The wall illuminates and resonates with his lyrium. It seems to be working.

"I can dispel it, if need be." Observing Fenris at work, a fascinated Inessa nonetheless tries to remind herself to stand ready. Just because it seems to be working doesn't mean that there won't be unforeseen consequences, after all. So she holds back, alert and ready to act at the first sign of trouble.

PLAYER PLOT: The Least of His Children

Team Thief: The Heist

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