faderift | PLAYER PLOT: The Least of His Children

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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.

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"Ah. Then forget what I said, I don't think I've encountered that particular cook. Most of my meals are taken at the Warden camp, anyway." Inessa perks up a little at mention of Burly and sweets, though. "I'll keep Burly in mind, then. Quality sweets are not always easy to find."

She shakes her head in response to the question about her heritage and the Circle. "No, it didn't matter. The fact that we were mages and held to the same risks and responsibilities was what bound us together. If anything, being and elf made adjusting easier. I know little about the Dalish, but for city elves, life doesn't afford them a lot of choices. So, when we're taken by Templars and sent to live elsewhere, it's not as different as you would think in that respect. On the other hand, I've met many human mages who mourn the lives they would have had if their magic hadn't manifested." She shrugs, not truly able to relate to that but sympathetic nonetheless.

"That isn't to say I wouldn't have liked to learn more about my heritage, but my fate was never tied to the alienage. I've long ago accepted this, and moved on." And that last part gets her attention, eyebrow arching. "Oh, you're not Antivan? My apologies, for assuming. Rivain, then? Or are you a rifter?"

"He makes macarons. If you've had those before. If not then when we're back at Skyhold come with me and I'll make sure you get some as soon as they're ready, they're incredible," Araceli confides with a grin, as if someone might overhear such talk and want in on the action. Beleth might be salty but she doesn't have the monopoly on getting treats out of Burly. (Actually having a kadan should net you benefits anyway.)

Listening quietly with her hands mostly busy stroking Lux as he makes himself comfortable in her lap, she nods to show her understanding. "Nobility is taken from them when they're taken to the Circles, and it's a very rare family that would actively keep their ties to their child." Either by choice or not, the Circle was the Circle, and the Mages lived their own lives once they were taken in most respects, that much Araceli knows from her reading as well as generally mingling with people. "I suppose only the poorest of them might be happy within the Circle, generally the poor no matter where you go have very few freedoms beyond those not granted by their invisibility."

And that in itself is such a double-edged sword: no one might see you, but then no one might look for you if you don't come home, or no one will be able to do anything about it. It's why thieves have their groups and cling tight in their own way, with at least one fence that loves you dearly so you matter.

Waving away the apology, she smiles and shrugs. Better than demon, and Zevran is so dear to her heart that it doesn't hurt to be mistaken for his countryman. "There's a running bet that's been going since I arrived that I'm Antivan, think nothing of it; the tongue is so close to my own that I can pass for one. With a dash of Rivain for the love of sailing." Peeling off the glove she's wearing, something she normally wouldn't but it's Tevinter, and the priest made her wary enough that she wants to be used to the feel of it, she reveals just enough of her left hand for the moment to answer the question. "Being Antivan is more useful for this mission." Fewer awkward questions, fewer people to stare for the worst sort of reasons.

Inessa shakes her head at mention of macarons, not having had that kind of exposure yet. She certainly won't say no to trying them, however. "Watch out, you might encourage the Grey Wardens into visiting Skyhold more than the Inquisition is comfortable with." Because there's no way she's not sharing this with Ciri, and it could snowball from there.

"That's often the way of it, yes. Magic in a stain on a noble family nearly everywhere but Tevinter. It will make visiting the Imperium rather...interesting, as a mage." Would she be afforded any respect as a mage, or would her obvious elven heritage cancel that out completely? She can't say for certain, but knows better than to get her hopes up.

For her part, Inessa seems interested rather than repulsed. She knows exactly what demons are, and has never bought the murmurings that rifters were demons from beyond. "It must be comforting to find such commonalities, though I'm sorry for you're sake that they're not closer at hand. The south is quite different, for good or ill."

Warden business proper is something Araceli keeps herself separate from but she comes and goes from the camp when she has the time: the Kestrels are there, and she's friends with them, helps their ongoing efforts to be people, often with a lute though not a single Warden would ever have knowingly heard her play. "There are plenty of guards about Skyhold, I don't think it would cause a terrible scene." Araceli reports to the Nightingale too, but she isn't about to let that one out of the bag, not here, not now. Inessa is not a person she knows well enough for such a thing.

"I met a priest months ago, a Tevinter priest. In Skyhold." The clarification might not be needed but she does go on assignment to other places so perhaps it's best to make sure no stories go growing arms and legs. "An interesting man though every man like that has a vested interest somewhere. We aren't here for sightseeing though," she adds gently since she knows just how much she wanted to explore Antiva to her heart's content the second time she went there. "Officially? We were never here. Though I think the place you'd be treated kindest is Rivain, it doesn't seem to matter who or what you are there."

Even Araceli's hand didn't really bother anyone. The mages liked the distraction at the camp, the sailors made exactly the sort of jokes about green hands Araceli always wants to make herself (but people here are so sensitive, it's a nightmare), and on the voyage home the mages just poked her some more. "The south is bloody cold, I hadn't even seen snow until I landed in it. And magic was only something we made up in stories."

That description of the south provokes soft laughter from Inessa. "Really? None at all? Though in a way, I understand. When I first left the tower, I had forgotten Ferelden's...interesting weather. Believe me, I was soon reminded in spades.

I've heard of Rivain, though never been there. The only portion of the north I haven seen are the Anderfels, and much of that was harsh desert or wasteland. While others my thrive in the heat, I wilt. And the sun is not kind to one of my coloring." While she's not exactly an albino, it's not hard to see how she would definitely be one of those people who never tan and always burn.

That last part gets her curious, as Garahel yawns and flops down, figuring that if he can't get food or attention, he'll at least take a nap. "Magic was but a thing of legend? What sort of magic?"

"It only snows high up in the north where I come from, and I never sailed that far from home, I had things to keep me busy but a friend came from there. They have ships with prows built specially to break the ice so they aren't entirely cut off since the snows come all year round." Enough that her father rarely ventures there unless he must, since too often it's too long a trip over the ice to and from his ship to make it in a day and back so he can sleep aboard his ship as is his custom. If she can't talk about this to anyone else, it can be a letter, tucked away amidst the stack of letters neatly hidden away in her and Korrin's room. Letters never to be sent anywhere but it does something to ease the guilt in her heart all the same.

"You know, I'm sure there was a salve people were working on in the Western Approach? I don't have to worry so much, but if you get a light loose scarf, you can wear it over much lighter clothing but protect your skin too. Avoiding the worst heat of the day helps; we sleep in the mid-afternoon where I come from, when the heat makes it too much to do anything." Honestly she's probably going to miss her afternoon naps keeping to a sleep schedule on this trip so sorry in advance if she gets grumbly. Doing all your sleeping at once, what a dumb idea.

How to explain a faith that's real when you carry it with you, when so long as you believe it's real but the things in books? Ah, those things, those are just stories people make up. She's quiet for a time, trying to find the right words. "Anything? Everything? No spells...but there is a country called Ebeos where they tell of a monster that would hunt you down if it knew your true name or face, and so it could only be defeated by twins who wore a mask shared a name, and the creature could not attack because it did not know the truth. In the streets magic is card tricks, breathing fire, pulling a thing from behind an ear but it's quick hands and flourish and distraction and reading a person.

"Not magic, not when you know how it works," she explains because there's a difference between the stories of Nerissa's home, the magic in a book, and the street performers who offer to dazzle with magic tricks. "But there are things in the sea you might say are magic, or the monster in Ebeos, or the Snow-Bear Maiden in Albas, tales from Corundus, ZImevur, Estene. Breathe life in a thing, even if you haven't seen it how can it not be real. A mermaid made the moon. That is real, I believe but-" Stopping there, she shrugs lightly as she can because it's real, it isn't faith when she knows it in her blood and bones the way an Andrastian knows their lady freed slaves before she was burned upon a pyre with a knife thrust through her heart but people are people. People don't always make sense.

Araceli's rambling is met with rapt attention from Inessa (even as Garahel starts to snore a little; she nudges him gently to get him to stop), who has read all the books she could ever find about the people of Thedas and their customs. So even without direct experience everywhere, there's still much she knows in an academic sense. And yet, what Araceli describes is like nothing she's heard before, not even Rivain or what scraps of information she could find on lands beyond Thedas. This is why she talks to rifters, beyond the face that they should be treated with every common decency. They have so many stories to share.

A smile curves her lips, her eyes glinting with curiosity and wonder. You may have roused a greater pest than the mabari, Araceli. "Now you've done it. Tales and insight into other lands are as valuable as any treasure, to me. I've learned the joys of seeing it all for myself as opposed to just reading about it in a book, but where I can't go, I still wish to learn all I can. The magic of your world doesn't have to fit my known definition to be what it is; it still fascinates, regardless.

It seems there's no escaping masks, in either world. Are they used as extensively and elaborately as in Orlais, in Ebeos? Are naming traditions changed because of this creature?" True names...she's only ever had the one she's made public. This monster would find her easy prey. But in another world, that thought is less unnerving than it is interesting.

"I've read about mermaids, though as far as I've heard and can tell in my travels, they are but beings of legend in Thedas. Even dragons, thought extinct, were confirmed beforehand. Even so, it's interesting to see common threads between worlds, however slight or distorted."

Nerissa will forgive her for talking about this. Nerissa who was so homesick she told Leandra and the queensguard her secrets, more than any other of the queensguard before her had shared. Everyone in Thedas has a whole world of stories - Araceli's home is more than just the sea, more than just Castileos.

"No one goes without a mask in Ebeos, only with the very closest of your family do you ever show your face." Continuing, since there's no harm in sharing when Inessa looks interested enough - Araceli can tell the difference between someone playing along to politely humour another. "People share a name. Say I was born there instead of Castileos, there would be an arrangement made so that I would have a 'twin' and we would share a name, one name, and we would be masked, and dress alike, and move alike, and none could tell but those we unmasked for, and even then they wouldn't know who was Araceli, and what was not-Araceli. Usually parents try to have children close together, or cousins are raised in a house. True twins? Those are special.

"Of course, like anything, there is a whole - game? Sport? - built around finding out true names." She doesn't bother to elaborate since they both know Orlais and they're on the road to Tevinter; this is what people will do, it's in the nature of so many to just find that out. To have it, to hold it over a person, to do something with it.

"What do they say about mermaids? Are they a terrible thing or not? Everything in Thedas has claws and teeth, or so it feels."

"I think it varies from region to region. Some say they tempt sailors and drown them, others that they do the opposite and save them. You're not wrong about Thedas, so I'm always inclined to believe the darker versions of tales, or at least the more nuanced. Rivain and Antiva probably have more stories to share on the subject; what I found in my tower and elsewhere in the south wasn't much at all."

Inessa shrugs apologetically, as one of her greatest delights is going on and on about something she'd found in a book. If they were discussing dragons or the Fade or the history of the Chantry, she'd be all set. But mermaids aren't a known quantity, either in reality or in legend.

"It would be fascinating to see the cultural exchange between Ebeos and Orlais, considering...though the Empire's bad habits have spread far enough, as it is." And it wouldn't just be the Orlesian Empire but the Chantry, since the Grand Cathedral is in Val Royeaux. "I can scarcely imagine what it's like to share a name, let alone have a 'twin'. It seems rather intimate...and lonely, all at once."

"Where I am from, a mermaid made the waves and the moon, and she is the most beloved of the sea. The sea reaches for where she sits in the moon, and there are times he comes so close, so very close. But they can save us, when we are out at sea. When there is no breath in our lungs and the ship is lost in a storm - one day we join them beneath the waves in what we lost when we go." There's quiet conviction in her voice, perhaps not unlike when the Dalish speak of their Creators only Araceli's beliefs are alive and well. They're in her blood and in her bone, and she would see them with every tide or every night unless the moon was new and hiding her face from the world, nights when the sea would be still and flat as glass, a perfect mirror of the sky above.

"Where do you think the greatest assassins in my world come from? It's said they can mimic any of us if they wish it though my friend can't get the sailor's walk right, it gives her away every time. She hates that." And of course, from the grin on her face and the laugh in her voice as she says it, it's plain that Araceli loves that it annoys her friend so. "Can't you? Ah, in Castileos for all that we are fiercely ourselves, we can become one mind, one body, one crew should the need arise. Pulling together tight at the seams."

Inessa smiles wryly at that, perhaps both envious and a little skeptical. It's not Araceli's fault, and the woman doesn't seem to be lying as far as she can tell. But this world is very different. "Does that seem so odd that I can't, when you've seen how deeply divided Thedas is? In terms of race, magic, religion, just about anything under the sun? Such unity seems impossible here. Mages against Templars, Orlesians against each other...Grey Wardens against each other, as well." That last part causes her eyes to darken, remembering the fiasco west and up north.

And she could go on and on. These aren't superficial differences, not to those who have torn apart countries and put countless lives at risk for them.

"...and sweet Maker, ships. I've seen that sailor's gait, but attempting to mimic it did me no favors during the few times I've had to cross the Waking Sea. Most of my time was spent clinging to the railing or someone else--like Garahel here. He's so solid that nothing fazed him." Garahel perks up, all proud of himself for being immovable unless he wants to be moved.

"You need to broaden your horizons, all of you. Go chasing them. That's what my people did and still do, and we had only one war. That was enough. It was so terrible we said no, we will never spill so much blood again, we will thrash out treaties with each other, and put on gowns, and have tariffs, and agreements, and negotiate until heads spin but we will never again let a war rip through our world. We all deserved so much better when even now there people still hurting in the country that began it because they cannot let go of their anger and bitterness." There's a lesson in there that she doubts Thedas will ever learn when it seems so content in a way to keep fighting, to keep drowning everything in blood again and again and again, as if somehow it will make it right. But there is the Inquisition.

There is much resting on it, if it can manage it.

Tutting in the back of her throat, she slides Lux off her lap so she can rise to her feet in one fluid motion. He protests but she shushes him, attention on Inessa. "It's all in the hips," she explains with a helpful demonstration. "You roll them and use that to carry you forward instead of trying to stride of stagger or whatever else."

"Only one war? Ever? That seems even more incredible than all the rest you have told me. Unrest has plagued Thedas since the time of Tevinter's founding. Not that I want to give the impression that humans are solely to blame, but their expansion came at a large cost, a cost some people are still paying. That is why we're here, after all.

"Perhaps if you had lived here from birth, you'd see how difficult it is to find any semblance of peace. It's not that no one wants it; many do, they just want to lead their own lives. But it's often the people with power and influence that don't allow it to remain that way. When that happens, those on the fringes don't often have the means to fight back or even escape unscathed." Inessa smiles sadly, reminded of what she's been told about her alienage. The elves there were already living in poverty and receiving the brunt of race-related brutality in the capital. Then the Tevinter slavers came and made it so much worse. Kallian's mother was probably just minding her own business, trying to keep a low profile like any other elf. It didn't matter in the end, though.

Watching Araceli demonstrate, she tries to keep it all in mind. Ships are not her favored surroundings, but she's bound to find herself on one again at some point in her life. "I suppose it helps to have hips in the first place. I was not as blessed." She laughs softly, gesturing to her very slight figure. The armor makes it seem like she has more of a waist than she really does. But she'll try to mimic those movements even as they come much less naturally to her.

"Only the one," Araceli confirms as she takes her seat with Lux immediately hopping back into it so he can roll over onto his back so his belly can be rubbed. "Zimevur, another country to the south that is mostly desert decided to play conquerors; they swept through the country that grows much of our food, the country that grows much of lumber, the country that produces much of ore and precious stone. Then they came to us but how do you blockade sailors? We chased them back, freed the countries they had conquered in the process and blockaded them until they surrendered though they are still bitter, and there are still so many that flee in search of a new life. They meet the terms of the treaties and no more. The rest of us made pacts of friendship. Zimevur...ah, friendship is with individuals, not a nation."

If there is ever war again? It will be Zimevur, they all know that, they all watch for it, but there are so many treaties that it seems impossible to imagine that it will ever come to that not when they were pushed to the brink and the rest of them have flourished, have become so close to one another now.

"We had less idle nobles. We have a queen in my country who wishes for all of us to have an education, a roof over our heads, and food on the table, and to not have to make the choice between those things. The Chantry could stand to do a great deal more, I think." It does a great job of keeping people apart and in the places it likes them to be, and not very much else in all that she's seen of her time in Thedas. You want to get rid of the rot, you go right to the heart but it's an opinion unlikely to win her any friends so she moves on, slipping past the subject easily and back to safer ground.

"You still have them," she points out with only a little roll of the eyes, giving Inessa a small shove. "You'd be flopped on the ground if you didn't."

Unused to casual touching such as that, Inessa stiffens a bit. She prefers her personal space bubble to remain as it is, until she's come to know someone well. "True, but I can't say I know how to use them to that extent. I suspect it takes much exposure and practice, neither of which has been my experience. Darkspawn don't take to the sea, and we must go where they go.

"You're not wrong about the Chantry, of course. I wouldn't be the person to say that, not when I've seen with my own eyes what they could do and have not. Your queen's desires are admirable, though the marginalized here could never place such trust in a ruler. Even the ones who claim to be thinking of the common people act not in their best interests, but those who keep them in power. Halamshiral was proof enough of that." Celene was supposed to be supportive of the elves, interested in giving them more rights and freedoms...and yet, she had willingly torched the city to keep herself in power. Would the other nations of Thedas really have been all that different?

"Broaden your horizons," Araceli repeats at the same time as she takes note of that. Tactile by nature, a hazard of growing up in a brothel. "Unstable ground, damp ground, anything that shifts beneath your feet. A pity I did not have time to teach many this before the first missions in a festering bog. It serves well on sand, and in the Western Approach I know there were those who went Darkspawn hunting."

Only she did not, she hunted wild animals instead and helped to repair the fortress they'd taken, and then the Fade had swallowed Korrin so her face shuts a little, closes up like an empty house.

"Rulers should never rule simply by right. It is a privilege to rule, and that means it can be taken away. I think there are some nobles who would do to parts of my home what they did to Halamshiral if they could, if we were not on the water, and if our queen would allow it." In some ways, the more she learns about Celene, the more she loves Leandra, how Leandra is good, how Leandra tries, how Leandra is so much younger and has already done so much for them even with the howling of the nobility already. It makes something in her ache to think of her but the rest of the queensguard are with her. She will be safe and well. She wouldn't want Araceli to be distracted anyway. "But then there is Thedas, and it chooses the sword not the pen. Blood not ink Yet I am sure every ruler will still hold up their hands to let us see how clean they are."

"...true, I can see its applications in the west. I served at Griffon Wing Keep before arriving here, and tended to use Fade Step more often than not, just because of all the sand and the difficulty in walking. I should probably have conserved my resources, but at the time, it seemed to help." If she learned to walk as Araceli did, though, maybe there wouldn't be as much need for it.

Araceli's opinion on Thedosian rulers gets a weary smile and nod, unable to argue with that. "An accurate assessment, indeed. Rulers here are not all-powerful, though. Ferelden had its civil war a decade ago, the Hero of Ferelden deposing Loghain at the end of the Landsmeet. He may not have been king in title, but he ruled in all but name after Cailan died. His actions would have caused the kingdom -to succumb to the Blight, if he had been successful. Ferelden seems to fare better with Queen Anora, his daughter, though I'm sure her priorities must lie with pacifying the nobles who keep her in power. That's the way it always is."

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PLAYER PLOT: The Least of His Children

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