[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]

"I never did count you as one for taste." His own drink arrives and he spends a few moments looking into it rather than drinking right away. Lifting the mug would take effort. He doesn't feel like effort right now.

It sits, unsipped, and he figures at least he made it to a stool and it's in front of him. And he bought a drink for Raylan. Two achievements. It's a better day than he's had in... days.

"Frankly, I don't even care if you like me. If I tried to make everyone like me I'd have no time for anything useful. I'd take tolerance. I'm alive and I'm not going anywhere, and you huffing and puffing constantly can't be good for your digestion." Oh, hey, he did manage a little snark. He's not sure that's a success, though. It might count against his achievements for the day.

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan sighed heavily again and dropped his head forward. For about five seconds, he'd hoped they could sit in silence, but apparently that was not in the cards.

"All right, look," he said, swinging his head toward Anders and trying not to fall off his stool. "I would mostly prefer it if I didn't have to know you existed ever. You fucking blew up a chantry." There was no one within several tables of them, so he didn't bother trying to hush himself. "Do you understand that?" he asked, looking into Anders' eyes. Cloudy with drink his own might be, but there was still a spark behind them. Raylan had always been the kind of whip-smart that preferred to let people underestimate him.

He didn't pause to give Anders time to respond. "You blew up a chantry. You killed dozens if not hundreds of innocent people over some bullshit. Your hands did that. For mage freedom. Do you understand what freedom would be for most mages? It would be death. If there had been no Templars to take me, my village would have killed me. Drowned me to kill the demon in me, because they don't know no difference between a mage and an abomination. If there had been no Templars to take me, I would be dead or I would still be a fuckin' farmer in the middle of nowhere, barely able to read and having to ask whether I had enough food to feed myself and my animals at the same time. But because there were Templars to take me, not only am I alive, but I've done a lot of good with what I'm given, I've brought knowledge into the world and I've protected people and I've made things better that were shitty before I got there. Because there were Templars to take me, I didn't end up like that boy in the cave. Andraste's fucking eyes, your arrogance! You just saw the consequences of what happens when bad mages run free, and you've got the fucking gall to sit here and patronize me about huffing and puffing."

Raylan was working himself up into anger now, probably not all of it really meant for Anders. That hick accent, already thick from drink, was getting thicker. He modulated his voice down a decibel or two, but kept going. "If you were unhappy, if you were abused, then I'm fucking sorry. I know there are templars who get high on their power. I know templars have done horrible things and need to be better controlled. But we don't throw away the only thing standing between some people and unimaginable horror because sometimes it goes badly, and we don't blow up a fucking chantry to do it. I am never going to tolerate you, I am never going to stop huffing and fucking puffing, because you are the person who tore apart the one maker-forsaken thing that ever did good for me and for uncountable others, the one fucking thing standing between so many mages and dying or killing everyone they knew, and you did it by blowing up a fucking chantry."

Raylan turned forward again, and bolted back the rest of his glass in one go. This was why he'd never wanted to speak to Anders.

[justice_is_blond]

If Raylan had given Anders a chance to answer, this probably would have gone better. As it is, he crosses his arms and his eyebrows go higher and higher.

"Maker. Every time I think I've heard the height of ignorance and arrogance, someone proves me wrong."

He shakes his head. "This wasn't mages. Or it wasn't lead by mages. I've seen people try to make abominations before. Do you know who they were? Templars. They turned other Templars into abominations in their search for power. Do you remember what was outside the cave? Templars. How would mages have control over that many? This was Templars, part and parcel of my issue with the Circles. And if I was abused? You didn't just keep your eyes closed when we walked into the cave, apparently. The whole of Kinloch Hold knew what they were doing. How many mages in your year vanished? Because many, many of my peers did, in the middle of the night. Yes, some died in their Harrowings. But not all."

A breath, but not a pause. "The Circles are a cage, not a protective force. People hate us because of the Chantry. They're taught to hate us, to fear us, and then we're locked up by the Chantry-overseen Circles and they reap our labor, our power, and power with the claim of protection over people."

"I was wrong with what I did. I know that. But you? Never? Full of what you've done? Convinced the Templars saved you and so wrapped up in your own view of the world that you can't open your bloody eyes? You're a child. You are a temper-tantrum throwing child. I've saved thousands more than I've killed, I've protected, I've freed, I've helped, and it doesn't make up for what I did, just like what you've done doesn't make up for what you do if you drag us back to the walls that were a false comfort. Maker's breath. You would have fallen from favor in time as well, and been treated just like the rest of us. You just didn't happen to look the wrong way at a Templar, yet. Get over yourself."

[apostafuckyou]

Raylan knew he really ought to go to bed, but fuck it. He was still hurting and angry from what they'd seen in that cave, and it felt good to let that loose on someone, to really lash out and know that the person taking it at least partly deserved what he was getting. So he laughed bitterly, shaking his head as Anders shot back at him. He refused to look at the other mage until he was done, hard eyes squinting at him as Raylan picked up the thread.

"Just admit one thing," he said, holding up a finger. "Admit that you and most of the people who insist on freedom, as you call it, admit that most of you would have been just fucking fine without the Circle, and admit that a lot of the rest of us wouldn't. Admit that most of you lot, not all, but most, have money, well-controlled magic, or both, and admit that a lot of people don't have either of those things. Because the way I see it, you lot are a bunch of dangerous and short-sighted fucking fops and you're going to drag the rest of us into the muck with you because you would have been fucking fine without the Circle and you don't give a single shit about anyone who wouldn't have been."

[justice_is_blond]

"Are you kidding me?" What even is this coming from? Is Raylan somehow jealous? Of him? "I was a farmboy. From the Anderfels. Do you know how hard it is to grow feed for cows and crops for the family in that soil? And do you know what I did for years in Kirkwall? I ran a free clinic. In Darktown. Where the people the city wanted to forget gathered. Where they'd never be able to afford some liar calling themselves a doctor, forget an actual healer from the Circle. I started poor. I have stayed poor, and I have always been focused on helping my people. But I suppose I can't expect someone who locked himself up in his rooms and ignored everyone to understand the feeling of caring for one's people."

This, right here, is someone who chooses to be blind. Who had listened to opinions while nit doing a second of legwork himself. "You want someone using politics to profit? You've got one on the Council, and she's a Loyalist willing to damn everyone around her for her own game. Ask Vivienne sometime about the mages she killed to protect her powerbase and comforts."

[apostafuckyou]

"But you still got the other thing, don't you?" he challenged. "I've seen kids screaming and trying to claw their own eyes out because they're being assaulted by demons every second. I've seen children try to lock themselves away because they'll burn everyone around them if they don't. According to you, they don't deserve somewhere to go to be safe. You don't give a shit if they get hurt because you're the fucking child here, whining about wanting to stay out after dark. Well, sometimes the dark will fuck you up, kid."

This wasn't going anywhere, and Raylan was never going to be calm enough to make it go anywhere, so he stood up in disgust. "Next time look before you sit and stay away from me," he told Anders. "I don't wanna be seen with a terrorist." And with that, he turned to go.

[justice_is_blond]

"And in leaving you'll continue to be entirely wrong about me and what I want and what I think people deserve. If you're content to be wrong, then keep going."

He wagers Raylan will. He knows the ignorant sorts, and they prefer to be ignorant. After all, Raylan didn't even pause about already being wrong. He hadn't cared, just come up with more accusations.

"On the slight chance you ever care to learn rather than accuse, you know where to find me. But it's only the real scholars who care to challenge their theories and who discuss things."

In a way, this meeting has been helpful. He now knows exactly the sort of person Raylan's grown into, and a bit more of the shape of the Mage Council. It's not a pretty shape.