[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

[universal_charm]

Kirk didn't blame here for sticking close. The entire journey there had felt eerie to him, not quite wrong, but on the verge. It made his hair to stand on end, to say the least, a slight tension always ready in his muscles. It made the trek somewhat tiresome, but nothing happened. He could not tell if that was better or worse, honestly.

He arches his brow at her suggestion, though not because he thought it was foolish. He happened to agree, given that they had no reasonable way to trace anyone here. Crystals weren't good enough - not like the comms of his world that could pinpoint signals, or ships that could scan from orbit and find a life sign.

"I think everyone's already on that page," he nodded. "No sense in creating a secondary crisis."

[bookish_lioness]

The fact that Hermione didn't yet know what sort of enemy they might be up against - if any at all - was enough to make her uncomfortable, and so she was glad that Kirk had been sent along on this mission with her. She stayed close to him and Anders and Inessa's mabari Garahel, and to Inessa, too. They might not be perfect substitutions for the friends she had back home, but at least she knew that most of them were better-suited to deal with the sorts of dangers Thedas regularly posed.

"Good," she muttered as she veered that much closer to him. If she felt more comfortable with him, she would have grabbed his hand for support, but Hermione's sense of boundaries (and pride) was too strong for that. "I can't exactly cast much in the way of a locator spells if any of us wander off or end up forgetting a rendezvous spot."

She couldn't exactly cast many spells in general yet, but she managed to bite her tongue before she thought too hard about that. She felt defenseless enough as it was, even if her magic was slowly getting better.

[universal_charm]

He said nothing as she came closer, letting her take the comfort and confidence she needed from him. He was better at hiding how unsettling this was, or at least he hoped he was. But he had been in worse situations, so this made this a touch easier despite the fact he didn't have the comfort of Star Fleet on his chest or at his back.

"I have a feeling something like that would just give us away anyhow," he shook his head. "I think we'll need to be handling this the old fashioned way for now."

[bookish_lioness]

"The only old-fashioned way I'm familiar with involves magic," Hermione told him, giving Kirk an uncertain look from the corner of her eyes. "I don't read much in the way of old detective novels, so I'm afraid I'm not all that good at tracking people down without something to build on."

She did walk a little closer to him, though, since she also wasn't much for the outdoors without relying on her magic. It wouldn't do to get separated by accident, after all.

[universal_charm]

"It's less about being a detective, and just plain old hunting," Kirk shrugged. "Frankly, if we make ourselves targets, we'll get accosted. I bet we'd be better prepared than most they've faced. And if we travel the paths that those who disappeared were supposed to have taken, I bet we find clues there too - trails not as thickly covered in snow as they should be, even foot prints if they've gotten careless."

He rubbed a hand through his hair. "The people here will be helpful to an extent, but I honestly don't think we'll find what we're looking for unless we go out there ourselves."

[bookish_lioness]

"Surprise, surprise," she returned dryly, "I'm not much of a hunter, either." She knew that wasn't the point, and though she understood what Kirk was getting at, that didn't exactly mean it was something she wanted to hear.

"Bait. You're saying we're essentially bait. We should go out, make the same mistake everyone else has, and hopefully the same terrible thing that happened to them will happen to us, only we'd be better equipped to deal with it." Sighing, Hermione knew it wasn't really the worst possible idea. Splitting up would be the worst possible idea. At least there was some semblance of safety in numbers. "Well, I suppose there's nothing for it."

[universal_charm]

"Well when you put it like that..." he trailed off and rubbed the back of his head with a little shrug. "It depends on what other clues we find, but that is a viable option. We will be better prepared, and given the terrain we can probably come up with the most likely ways they would potentially ambush us."

He blew out a breath, watching it mist slowly in front of him, rubbing at his arms briefly. He really did hate the cold.

"Sadly, without anything more advanced to help us and no clear testimonies, we're left with some crappy options."

[bookish_lioness]

"At least, if it's a person or group of people doing this, they've been abducting individual villagers and not large groups of mages and fighters," Hermione brought up, trying not to frown. "We'd have the advantage of surprise, if nothing else. Unless word has already gotten around that the Inquisition is looking into this."

Noticing the way Kirk hugged at himself, Hermione allowed herself to frown a little as she touched his arm. "I'd conjure up one of my blue flames, but I don't want to risk the flickering light catching unwanted attention. But if you get to be too cold, just let me know; I'll make a small one, just for you."