[CLOSED] PLAYER PLOT: The Ashes Underneath His Nails

[amygdalae]

WHO: Jim Kirk, Hermione Granger, Adelaide Leblanc, Herian Amsel, Anders, Inessa Serra, Raylan Gibbs, Ciri
WHAT: The Inquisition sends a group of agents to uncover the truth behind a string of mysterious disappearances.
WHEN: Kingsway 1st - 8th
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: Plotting post is here - feel free to post in there still for queries and concerns and further stuff where needed. Warnings for blood, violence, talks about death, experimentation horror, abomination-related stuff etc and eventual on-screen child death. ALSO no tag order - just respond when you feel like you should and I'll try to hit it back if it feels appropriate!!

QUICK JUMP LINKS TRAVELLING TO FROMAGE & FROMAGE GENERAL THREAD ROUTE INVESTIGATION SEEKRIT CAVE ENTRANCE INTO THE SEEKRIT CAVE CAVE INVESTIGATION - LEFT TEAM CAVE INVESTIGATION - RIGHT TEAM KID ABOMINATION THREAD BACK TO SKYHOLD

(—he remembers the chill of the frost and snow biting at bare skin, its usual pure white now tinged a horrid pink from the blood on his hands. He's far away from them now, the danger and the pain and everything else, but the blood will forever be on his hands no matter how much he tries to wash it away. His father had been right all along. He truly was a monster of the greatest kind.)

QUEST: THE ASHES UNDERNEATH HIS NAILS (PART I) The message had come swiftly, the letter itself hastily written with a shaky hand. The request itself was simple; a plea for help from a village at the outskirts of Emprise du Lion, whose people have been mysteriously disappearing over the last few weeks. Considering the ongoing civil unrest that's still transpiring in Orlais the Inquisition made its decision to send out a team of agents to look into this message and see exactly what was going on. The eight agents tasked with the mission were given enough time to prepare for the trip ahead. They would all meet up first at the Inquisition camp set within the Emprise and from there travel for about a day until they reached where their destination was - Fromage, a quaint little village that rested at the outskirts of the area. From that point on, it was up to the agents of the Inquisition to solve this ongoing mystery. The mission: to discover the truth behind these disappearances - and to stop it, if possible.

Comments

hitting the chest first!

[amygdalae]

The chest is, in fact, not locked, and so Inessa is free to open it. Once she does so and peers in what she's find is... a strange assortment of items.

Or to be more specific, items that look like they belong to a child.

[circleprodigy]

That causes Inessa to recoil a touch, whether or not there's anything truly gruesome inside. The fact that a child is -or was- among all this horror is a sobering thought, and all the more reason to continue. She'll look for anything which might help deduce the identity of the child in question. If there's nothing of note, then the books are next.

inessa does not deserve this, probably

[amygdalae]

Sadly there really isn't much that can help to find the identity of the child - the items all seem to be pretty generic, none of it personalized, and where there might be evidence of it being worn down has either been repaired on replaced entirely.

The books themselves are... interesting, no doubt. For one, the covers suggest that they did come from a Circle at some point in the past.

uh-oh

[circleprodigy]

Turning away from the child's objects with a sigh, Inessa crouches to inspect the books...and frowns sharply upon noting the Circle covers. Were they possibly from her own? That's more than enough incentive for her to page through them, looking for some insight as to why they were taken, what knowledge they hold that was sought.

i should probably apologize for every tag i make here

[amygdalae]

The covers themselves don't give much indication to show precisely what Circle they're from, but flipping through them shows that whoever owned these books was incredibly thorough - almost every other page is filled with scribbles and writings alongside the text of the book itself. As for what the book is about?

Lyrium.

[circleprodigy]

...lyrium. Why is she not surprised? The subject doesn't have to be about blood magic or demons to make her shudder, given the corruption she's seen in the Red Templars as the result of red lyrium. She pauses to take note of the scribbles and writings alongside the text, knowing there isn't time to do more than skim, but nonetheless looking for further insight into their mindset on the subject.

[amygdalae]

The writings are mostly supplements to what the book already has, along with notes and other similar things. Nothing particularly interesting aside from the fact that somebody (or somebodies) are very interested in lyrium research for some reason. She's free to look through the book for as long as she wishes to do so since Herian's covered most of the other things around these rooms.

[circleprodigy]

Since these are ultimately Circle tomes, Inessa can't stand the thought of leaving them behind. She'll fit as many as she can into her backpack, to leave with the mage council when they return to Skyhold. It's better left in their hands than rotting away in this vile cave system.