[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

[ichaer]

Like her fellow Warden, Ciri is on edge as they enter the room and seeing the child does not help the tension in her body soften. If anything, she stiffens more as her hand goes to the hilt of her sword but does not pull it free just yet.

Instead, she stands back for now. She has a clear view of the table and the child but she makes herself as a second barrier between Inessa and ground zero. For now, she is silent and simply listens to the words being spoken at the child but her focus continues to scan the room for any answers.

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan stopped immediately when the child shied away from him. "I won't come any closer unless you say it's okay," he assured the child. "But if you're hurt, I can help you. You just gotta let me know, okay?"

He turned, speaking quietly over his shoulder. "Someone get me a blanket, coat, something." Anything he could cover the kid up with.

[dashing]

The staves are set down, swiftly, Herian shrugging off the dark cloak hanging from her shoulders, stepping forward just enough to hand it over to Raylan. The cool of the air in the washes away the warmth the cloak had granted her almost immediately, and she cannot wonder how that child has endured it.

(As all children do, she thinks. Desperation, and sometimes determination.)

"We should move him outside, if we're able. Somewhere cleaner than this." Better for the healers to see to him, surely, though her voice stays calm. Urgency does not overwhelm reason - the child cannot be rushed, not like this.

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan took the cloak and held it out to the child, but he couldn't quite reach. "I'm going to come closer just so I can give you this, all right?" he asked. "I won't unless you say, but it's awful cold in here."

[amygdalae]

More people and more movement don't do much to help the child, it seems - he only looks even more frightened and wary, hunching up even more, eyes wide and unblinking as he stares at the group as a whole. For a moment it almost seems like something starts to hum--

But it stops when Raylan approaches, the cloak in his hands, and the child focuses on him, eyes darting from him to the cloak. He doesn't respond, but he doesn't seem to be trying to back away either, so--maybe there might be some progress here.

[circleprodigy]

Inessa glances at Ciri gratefully, though her hold on that staff loosens not at all. That hum heigthens her tension and she goes rigid, ready to act...and then it stops. Garahel likewise pauses, puzzled but he remains where he is and at the moment there's little chance of moving him.

She'll watch and wait, for now, letting the others take the lead on this and trying to take quiet, calming breaths. It's not working.

[apostafuckyou]

The kid was obviously interested, so Raylan decided to gamble, taking a few slow steps closer. "You can tell me to back off at any time," he assured the kid, but assuming he didn't flinch or show distress again, Raylan would step up and carefully wrap the cloak around him.

"You think you're up to sitting on the edge of the table here?" he asked. "So I can have a look at you? I just want to see you're all right." He was ready to step back if the kid started freaking out at his presence.

[universal_charm]

Kirk had been watching the entire time, letting Raylan handle getting closer to the child. One at a time seemed more than enough for the kid, who by the looks of it was very near a mental break down already. Judging by the blood on the table, Kirk could only guess at what had been done in front of him, or even to him.

He stands closer than Inessa and Ciri, bringing his pack around to his front and looking for something - a tidbit of food to offer the child next. He found a bit of bread, taking it out so the child could see, but not saying anything just yet. No sense in overloading him.

[dashing]

Glancing sidelong at Kirk, Herian takes a half-step back, tilting her head slightly to indicate that he might go forward while she draws away, goes to give the child more breathing room. Withdrawing gives her a chance to cast more than a cursory glance over some of the benches in the room, looking for a better clue of what might have happened here.

"I will look for the healers," she says quietly. Food, warmth, and healing. That might help a little.

It does not take long - really she just leans out into the hallways, and failing to see Adelaide before Anders, nods to him. "We've need of you in here." It is as even as ever, but with some sense of urgency to it.

[justice_is_blond]

He'd been going through the rubble in the hall, preoccupied, figuring that there were enough people in the other room to deal with whatever they'd found. Especially as there weren't any shouts or yells. Everyone sounded fairly quiet. This means he's a little startled when Herian pokes her head out. Need him? Someone's hurt.

"Of course." That can't be good. He follows her in... to blink in surprise. A child? Here? At least no one's fallen into a trap and is injured, but there's a lot of blood on that table. And a lot of tools on nearby ones.

"Hello." His voice is gentle as he slowly heads toward the boy. Very slowly, because he can see how slowly the others are moving. "I'm a healer. I can help." He hopes. "Can you tell me or gesture to where it hurts?"

[bookish_lioness]

The smell in the room would have been enough to make her sick, never mind the various accoutrements that provide a fairly vivid picture of what that room had been used for. But then Hermione hears and actually sees the child, and she sees the fear in his eyes, and she feels the room sway around her a bit. She knows that children can survive all manner of things - her best friend is a testament of that - but she can't recall ever actually seeing a child in Thedas, never mind in a place like this. When it comes down to it, most in the Inquisition consider her a child.

While she might ordinarily try to draw closer to the child in an attempt to comfort him, enough people have done so that she doesn't feel particularly terrible for taking a few aghast steps backwards, nearly bumping into Anders when he enters the room. She sort of wants to grab at him and hide her face and let him direct that gentle voice towards her, but she knows she isn't the one who needs it. So instead, she backs up against a wall, keeping a wary eye on the proceedings and trying to keep from being sick all over the floor.

[dashing]

Herian glances to the rifter girl, eyebrow quirking very slightly, before she draws a clean handkerchief from a leather pouch on her belt, and holds it out to her in silence. She moves with a certain degree of severity, but there is a little more gentleness in it, now. The handkerchief smells slightly of lavender, to soothe and to ease, and at the very least to suppress all the other smells that seem to cling to the very stone. Her hand rests on Hermione's shoulder for just a moment, before she steps closer to the door again.

A precaution, and she hopes it is an unnecessary one, but while the others rightfully focus on the child, she listens carefully to make sure there are no unexpected, unwelcome arrivals coming to join them.

[amygdalae]

The child stays in place when Raylan comes closer, almost as it rooted to the spot, his gaze fixed almost solely on him as the other approaches slowly with the cloak. This close now Raylan can probably see the remnants of bloodstains on his skin, most of them apparently wiped clean but there are enough smudges to still make out what they were before. Surprisingly, the child doesn't look horribly thin and frail - he may be a bit skinny, but he's definitely not skin and bones as one might have expected.

Raylan gets close enough to put the cloak onto him and the child quickly grabs the coat by its edges, pulling it closer around himself. It's warm enough to stop the shivering, at least. He stares at Raylan once again--up until Kirk catches his attention with the bread, followed by Anders who's also approaching, now.

He seems to be okay at first--but then the word 'healer' comes and the child visibly recoils, a strained sound coming from him as he tries to curl up and make himself smaller.

[justice_is_blond]

There's a flash of pain in Anders' expression as he stops where he is. Slowly, carefully, he holds his hands out, palms up, not glowing and empty. All of his attention is on the boy; he can't really pay attention to the movements around him right now.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I want to help you. If you hurt in places, or if you're ill, I can make that better. I won't cause you pain." His voice is calm, level, the same voice he'd use with an injured cat. "Will you please let me look at you?"

Maker, what's been done to the boy? Did they claim to be some sort of healers? He'll likely know the answer to the first one sooner than the other, and he has a feeling it's not going to be a happy answer.

[ichaer]

There is a distance that Ciri continues to keep away from where the boy sits upon the table. Her hand has not left the hilt of her sword and she has not moved from her protective stance in front of Inessa but watching the boy's reaction to Anders causes her to go back to those cell.

It makes her think about the one that contained empty vials of lyrium and a childrens' story book. It makes her think about the red shard she pulled from a hole in a man's chest where his heart had been.

Offering Inessa a quick glance, she lowers her hand from the hilt and steps forward. The boy shows no signs that typically come with ingesting red lyrium -- no glowing eyes or engorged veins but there's truly no telling. This wasn't something they knew a whole lot about. There's still distance between herself and the boy, she doesn't want to spook him and makes sure to carefully reach into her side bag to remove the story book she had found earlier.

Slowly, she leans in and sets the book along the table within his reach.

"Those red men did something terrible to you, didn't they? To everyone they brought down here." She says it softly to try and take any edge out of her voice. "... Did they make you drink the red liquid too?"

[universal_charm]

This was not going so well. Kirk almost made a motion for Anders to simply back away, but the boy did look like he needed medical attention. Kirk knew field dressing, but little else, and if the boy had to travel with them, the sooner he realized Anders was not a threat the better.

And then Ciri came forward - forward with her children's story book and a question of red liquid. It took him a moment to realize what she meant. Red Lyrium. The stuff Korrin had warned him away from. He wondered what it was her group had found, but now wasn't the time to for such questions. The focus was the child, seeing him safely out of this mess and all of them back home.

Even so, his attention shifts more away from the boy and more to Ciri, not having forgotten that just a moment ago she'd had her hand on the hilt of her blade.

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan stayed close, ready to back off at any moment if the kid seemed to want him to. But he was, so far, the only one the kid had seemed to accept, so backing off might also make him feel unsafe or abandoned. He was doing his best to take his cues from the kid, internally cursing the others now crowding in.

[bookish_lioness]

Hermione seems startled when Herian approached her, jarred out of her thoughts and also surprised that someone she'd barely spoken to had been the first to try and comfort her. But the others are clearly occupied with something much more important, and until she can fight back the urge to be sick all over the floor, she won't be much use to anybody. So she accepts the offered handkerchief with a nod of thanks that looks more akin to a tremor, holding it close to her but not covering her mouth and nose with it just yet.

Unlike Kirk, Hermione doesn't piece together the question about the red liquid. She'd heard of red lyrium, had been told about its connection to those creatures she'd seen with the Red Templars far too frequently, but it still doesn't come together for her. This is a child. No one would do such a thing to a child, surely. There's simply no feasible benefit to it.

But for once, she bites her tongue and doesn't ask questions. Now isn't the time for it. There are enough people here surrounding the poor thing, confusing him, frightening him, and as much as Hermione would like to try and comfort him, any attempt would probably have the opposite effect. She almost wishes there was a rift to close nearby; at least then she'd feel a bit more useful.

[amygdalae]

The child sticks his gaze to Anders now, almost unwilling to glance away, staring like a deer waiting for its predator to strike, despite the fact that he's too weak to bolt away. His breaths pick up despite Anders' attempts at reassurance, and there's the strange hum from before, softly at first but then rising--

And again, it breaks when Ciri joins in. Or rather, when she places down the storybook she had found earlier. In an instant, the boy reaches out and makes a grab for it, pulling it close to him with trembling arms. The shift has the cloak dropping from his shoulders but he apparently pays it no mind at all, more intent on having the book with him. He brings the book close to his chest, holding it with his arms as he stares at Ciri this time, lips quivering when she asks him those questions.

"I..." he finally speaks, and for a child his age it sounds far too shaky and soft and vulnerable. "I hear the scream... the screaming. Everyday. They said that it was to make me--to make me better."

[circleprodigy]

Inessa stiffens as Ciri approaches the boy; he may have no sign of the usual effects of red lyrium, but none of this can bode well for anyone. Garahel, letting out a soft whine, seems to agree. She keeps her distance, not wanting to crowd the boy and provoke that strange hum, but keeps a tight grip on her staff. If Ciri's endangered, she'll have no choice but to act.

Which isn't to say that the boy doesn't have her sympathy at all. Hearing his voice and what happened to him has her wincing and hating the Red Templars all the more. That they would do this to a child...well, of course they would. They seemed to have no moral boundaries whatsoever. All the more reason to eradicate them.

[justice_is_blond]

The book, the words, it's all piling together into a whole Anders doesn't like. He reaches into a belt pouch slowly and pulls out the stuffed nug he found earlier and holds it out.

"Is this yours, little one? We won't make you drink anything we wouldn't drink, water. We won't make you listen to screaming. I promise." But if there's red lyrium in the boy, he needs to deal with it sooner rather than later. If he'd gotten to Bartrand earlier...

"What they gave you hurt you. I've helped someone hurt by it before, in a way that didn't hurt." If he could back away he would. But red lyrium made this urgent, and so all he can do is give an apology with his voice and eyes.

[fleurdesel]

Adelaide lingers to the rear of the group, eyes flickering over the child. Considering everything they have seen, everything they have found? That he is here and alive and visibly unharmed is something of a boon. But she cannot trust that it is so simple as that-

No one is so fortunate. Until they know how he is injured, until they know what has been done to him? They cannot hope to treat him.

[amygdalae]

When the stuffed nug comes out the kid's gaze fixates on that now, eyes still wide as he stares at it. His hands twitch, as if wanting to reach out, but he's still holding the book and thus opts to stay still.

"Nuggins," he whispers, and for some reason now tears start to fill at the corners of his eyes. "He's always with me. They took him away from me to make it hurt... they took everything away... they came in the night suddenly, crashing through the door while we were having dinner. Mama and papa, they..."

As he speaks his voice slowly changes, his quiet mutterings getting louder and then deeper somehow, a strange discord in his voice that sounds not of this world. By the last few words they echo differently, and the hum of lyrium more time, but this time it doesn't break.

"I watched them as they burned. Burning in pain, in anger, in rage--" Steam rises from his skin now, and smoke starts to come out from the ends of the storybook in his arms. A healing scar across his cheek glows and then burns with the fires of the demon within him as he looks at all eight of them now, demonic fire burning in his eyes.

"And I swear that one day, I will make them pay."

[justice_is_blond]

The moment the boy's voice starts changing his heart starts sinking. He's heard his voice do the same thing enough times though he manages to hold out hope that he's wrong until the change in the boy's skin. Another abomination, just after Kain, just after they failed to save him when they even have a ritual that works.

Anders casts a barrier quickly, but he's still staying where he is, holding out the stuffed animal. He can't give up on another abomination this quickly.

"You can still have Nuggins, you can have your life back, but you need to calm down, please. We didn't hurt you, and hurting us won't help you."

If this is Rage, it's not going to listen. But there are perhaps others who might. Like Vengeance.

[circleprodigy]

Kain also comes to mind, as well as all the abominations Inessa saw as a child. That voice makes her shudder and she automatically falls back into a more defensive stance, grip tightening on her staff. She doesn't want to hurt a child, at all, but the demon inside might give them no choice.

Please, Anders, talk it down....