[CLOSED] PLAYER PLOT: The Ashes Underneath His Nails
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!!
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!!
![]() |
(—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. |
no subject
"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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
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.
no subject
"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."
no subject
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.
no subject
Please, Anders, talk it down....
so much for my theory on her wanting to spare the child
"An abomination. You all know what must be done."
Her hand goes to the hilt of her spirit sword, her staff in hand, though she does not yet attack. Not in these close quarters, and not when the apostate is still trying to communicate. "We cannot show mercy in this. We cannot show mercy to demons."
no subject
"It's a child!" he snapped at her. "An innocent child. Before you go drawing your sword, we should at least try to help him. After all he has been through, all the atrocities done to him, he is owed that much."
He wasn't beyond saving. He wasn't. Anders hadn't been. No one was, if you just tried. That was his belief. And life was to precious to give up on so quickly.
no subject
And while Adelaide would rather a second attempt not be made on a child? It is far better than leaving the boy like this.
Eyes narrowed and power coiling, she flicks out a precise dispelling, spirit energy coiling about the child, an attempt to lessen the demon's influence to some degree. It is not the best she can do on the whole- but the most she can do without risking the demon's ire and the boy- or their- safety. "We can show mercy to a child. To someone that had no choice in this."
no subject
When Adelaide speaks, though, she looks to her with a shock that cannot be easily matched. It takes her a moment, gaze flicking between Adelaide and the abomination. "A demon is no longer a child, no matter what face it might show to us."
Knights are merciful. They show compassion and kindess and they protect those that have need of it, but a demon is not a child in need of succour. The kindness would lie in releasing the body from what has taken it.
no subject
Were it anything else, he'd already be casting a spell to kill it, before it could get too powerful. But this was a child, and that stayed his hand.
no subject
She remembers the abominations of Weisshaupt. The mages there, years more experienced than a child vanishing underneath whatever demon had called to them. The scar on her face is proof than more times than not? There was no coming back from this once a demon had latched onto them and dug into their skin.
Her movements are careful as she steps back, sword drawn and trying to reach Inessa. Until Kirk speaks at least and Ciri levels a glare on him. Where Herian does not snap, Ciri does.
"Do not speak to us as if we're children who have not faced these sort of dangers before. It's a demon, an abomination and it will tear us apart if we forget that for even a moment."
no subject
He turned to look back at the child, hoping that whatever Adelaide was doing would work. If the kid started rampaging, even he might admit that there wouldn't be an option. But until there was no other choice, wasn't it their responsibility, their duty, even, to try and help him? All other options needed to be exhausted first, to give this child a chance to live the life stolen from him. That was his belief anyways.
"Come on, kid, I know you're stronger than this," he said as he watched. "Don't let the people who did this to you win. You survived up to now, don't give up just yet."
no subject
He's not looking around, but he's tense, as is his voice.
"As Kirk says, I was this. I am not any longer. We can do something about this rather than condemn him when it is clear he did not even make a choice of this. He had no chance, he was taken, this was done to him."
This is all too personal. Some might count that against him here, but if anything, he thinks it helps his case.
"You are not children, you are not inexperienced. But there is a possibility here and just because the Chantry and Circles never allowed for that does not mean it should be ignored. Please."
no subject
"Nuggins is gone. Everyone is gone. Died to make me better, as they keep saying, and I have."
--but only for a moment. It comes back almost in the next instant, the steam stronger than ever, and a corner of the book in his arms begins to shrivel up into ashes. The the skin around the scar on his cheek begins to turn bright red.
"I am better. I am stronger. I can hurt everyone. I can burn everything."
no subject
And then that demonic voice causes Inessa to go rigid, any slight hope sinking fast. They have to do something before it burns everything around them. Garahel begins to growl, staying put but tensing and getting ready to act if the demon threatens his mistress in any way.
no subject
"Your claims are meaningless if he cannot be controlled long enough for your cure to be enacted," she starts, moving toward the child with no hesitation. It must be done. It would be done, even if no others have the stomach for it.
no subject
And they can debate the point after he is no longer an active threat.
no subject
"Sleep."
(no subject)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR99ubyBCGE
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
https://youtu.be/1IJ0k0SRYoA
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)