[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

[justice_is_blond]

He's not sure there's anything important here. It may be a waste of time. Then again, Hawke and Jonas both had habits of rooting through everything. Sometimes it had paid off. Sometimes they'd all had to carry torn trousers in their packs so Hawke could, well, hawk them to someone who just needed the material.

It's with this thought that Anders begins a general search of the room, starting with climbing into the wagon carefully, weighing each step so that he doesn't plunge his foot through the boards.

[universal_charm]

"Check for hidden compartments," Kirk suggested, coming with Anders, but instead of getting up into the wagon he went down to his belly to look beneath. "They seem like the type of group to do something like that."

He took out a small knife he had on him, reaching up to tap at the bottom of the wagon, listening for a more hollow sound.

[justice_is_blond]

He looks back at Kirk with a thoughtful frown. "The wagon seems a little obvious for that, doesn't it? I'd look behind the rotting crops first. But it's worth a try." His motions are similar to Kirk's, staff now carefully thudding on the floorboards of the wagon as he carefully makes his way deeper in.

[universal_charm]

"Sometimes the most obvious place is the last place people look precisely because it's obvious," he pointed out. "And if it's something delicate, leaving it among something rotting could damage it."

Kirk grunted as he wiggled further beneath, turning on his back and doing a sort of reverse army crawl.

[amygdalae]

The wagon fortunately (or unfortunately?) doesn't contain any secret compartments of any sort - for all intents and purposes it just seems like a normal, albeit broken, wagon.

What is of interest is something that's at the end of the wagon; its a large, rectangular shape, covered up with a faded Templar tapestry. Near the bottom there seems to be a small lump that sticks out a little too much to be natural.

[justice_is_blond]

After a fair bit of thunking, Anders shrugs.

"I'm not sure that there's any compartments. You can climb in if you--" He nearly trips over something as he tries to step out, catching himself on an old wagon edge. It's a Templar tapestry, and he's not sure he wants to touch it as a mage.

"Would you pick this up? Carefully. I'd not be surprised if it's rigged to harm a mage, or sense magic, so use the hand that's furthest from your shard."

[universal_charm]

Kirk rolls out from beneath the wagon, popping his head up, frowning at the noise and tone. Slowly he worked his way to his feet, putting his knife in his shard hand and coming to where Anders indicated.

"Know that if something happens to my hand, you have to explain to my cat while I can only pet him half as much," he warned, licking his lips and taking a quick breath before snatching the tapestry away.

[amygdalae]

The tapestry is pulled away without anything happening, but it does reveal what had been underneath it--a cage. A rather large one, actually, big enough to hold some sort of decently-sized animal.

...or maybe something else, since where the lump had been is actually a stuffed nug plush toy. Looking better at the cage reveals a few other things as well that have been placed inside the cage - a couple more children's toys and some books.

[justice_is_blond]

"Please. I'm a heal--" his teasing rejoinder is lost as they see what's underneath. A cage is one thing. The toys and books, though... Anders kneels and reaches in, gently picking up the plush toy.

"A child." He looks around the room again with a stricken expression. Brought here, if the cage is in the wagon. And then what? He doesn't know. He doesn't know that he wants to know. "People disappearing, they said, but no one mentioned children disappearing. Why didn't they tell us about this?"

[universal_charm]

Kirk felt his stomach turn, sour bile burning the back of his throat. Slowly he bent down, picking up one of the books - children's tales, thin and simplistic, and... was that blood on the edges? Or just dirt?

"Maybe they didn't know," he murmured. "They could be getting children from somewhere else, or simply had them to begin with..." He licked his lips, shifting his pack closer and opening it up to slide the book inside, holding out his hand for the doll.

[justice_is_blond]

He shakes his head as Kirk holds his hand out for the toy.

"I'm going to keep this. At the very least, we can have Garahel see if he can get a scent off it later." Gently he tucks it into his own pouch. "And no offense, but I don't know if your people have ever been captured and hauled across the country. Those were Templars outside, once upon a time."

Anders straightens, and there's some coldness in his expression. "Children as young as two have manifested abilities and been torn from their families. Maybe this wasn't a mage, but there's a chance this was personal."

[universal_charm]

Kirk nods to the doll, closing up his pack on the storybooks. He doesn't know why, but he feels like they should have them around, and the doll.

He watched Anders quietly, not sure precisely what to say. There had been such injustices on his planet before, but not in any of his recent memories, at least. Still, he couldn't imagine it - kidnapping children, and from the looks of the cage, not for good purposes. You didn't bring a child here to be kind to them.

"I'm quickly learning not to put much past some people in this world," he said softly, but there's an undercurrent to his voice, a low burning rage at the thought of a child going through this, mage or not.

"Maybe they're still here - just somewhere else. The child - or children, that is," he said, glancing around. "We should check potential hiding spots in here, just in case."

[justice_is_blond]

"It can't hurt." He doesn't think a child would have been silent at their books and toy being taken, but he wants to help. It's what drives him. "Even though many people in this world can, and do."

Anders climbs out of the wagon and looks around before heading to one corner. "Hello?" His voice is pitched to carry, as gentle as possible in case there's a scared child hiding nearby. "We have fresh food and water. There's even a dog nearby, a real mabari."

[amygdalae]

There's no response at all, fortunately for everyone's sake - all Anders gets back in return is silence for the most part. It seems like the room is completely empty save for the two of them.

Should they decide to check the wagon further they won't be able to find much else - the cage is pretty much the only thing that had been on there. Close to the wagon are some crates, though, so that might have some relation.

[universal_charm]

Kirk left Anders to calling, poking through objects and behind them to see if heard movement or a sound. He eventually made his way around to the crates, looking around and between them before knocking on the tops, and eventually reaching to grasp the edge of one and attempt to lift the lid away.

[amygdalae]

Well those are definitely more Circle books, similar to the ones that Inessa found on the other side. Flipping through them shows similar stuff too.

...these sure are a lot of books about lyrium, though.

[justice_is_blond]

It's all silence. Anders sighs heavily. It had really been too much to hope, but he'd hoped a little anyway.

Coming over, he nods to the books. "What have you got there?"

[universal_charm]

Kirk flipped through them quickly, not quite getting all of it, but recognizing immediate words like Lyrium. He took a guess to mean these were probably research materials of some sort, or at the least they were journals kept about what they had been doing.

He sucks his lip for a moment, debating on what to say as he snaps the book shut.

"Likely materials used for whatever they were doing here," he said, holding it out to Anders. "Whatever it was, it wasn't good. I suppose the question is - do we bring it, or do we burn it? I'm usually against burning books and knowledge, but this - this I might make an exception too."

[justice_is_blond]

He takes the book and frowns right away at the cover.

"These are from a Circle." He taps the markings that say as much before flipping it open. As he reads, his expression darkens. "Maker. I don't know what to do with these. I don't want people to work from them, but seeing where they failed, maybe I can come up with some way to counter the spread of red lyrium. Unless they're taken."

The book gets closed and he frowns at it for several moments. "Does the good that might possibly come from this counter the risks of the notes falling into the wrong hands? The chance of me figuring something out is so small..."

He doesn't know. He just doesn't know.