faderift | [CLOSED] PLAYER PLOT: The Ashes Underneath His Nails

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[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!!

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.

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The way to Fromage is quiet.

There honestly isn't much to say about the trip over - with the Inquisition having taken its foothold in this area there has not been a lot of activity; or at least, not so much along the path that they're travelling on. There isn't a lot of wild game around here too, given the cold and the presence of Red Templars around back before the Inquisition arrived, so the agents had been given adequate supplies to last them to the village.

During the day the road is quiet - perhaps too quiet, some might say - with the occasional appearance of a nug or some other animal that is still here and surviving despite how badly the place has been ravaged by the Red Templars. The night itself is equally quiet, though once in a while its broken by the sound of the winds howling across the tundra. Sometimes one might feel as if something or someone is watching them, but a glance around will show that its nothing but paranoia and an overactive imagination.

Fromage itself comes into the distance several hours after breaking camp when dawn arrives. Once the agents have presented themselves as agents of the Inquisition the people there are more than happy to receive them. The local inn allows them to stay in their rooms free of charge, and the tavern promises them drinks on the house if they want it. It's clear that they're glad to finally receive aid for their current plight, and they give little care to the fact that some of agents are mages. All they desire is help and if they can get it from a mage, they'll take it.

Questioning the villagers doesn't turn up much in the way of information, except beyond the fact that the disappearances seem to take place late into the night. They do try to help as much as they can, however - although sometimes it may be too much, as the stress of the last few weeks weigh down on them and they go off on a tangent to talk about something only vaguely related even if they're convinced otherwise.

It's only when they get to questioning the few merchants around here do they finally have a clue: one of them in particular speaks about how some of his friends had decided to depart the night before him in order to travel to another village for more supplies. Instead they had never arrived, according to the messages he had sent, and they had been missing since thus. Checking this with other similar stories from other villagers through prompting all lead to the same result: people who travel the side road in and out of the village seem to disappear, never to return or be heard from again.

Perhaps that's something worth investigating.

[OOC Note: Because I am dumb and forgot about this - this thread will be GM'd too, in addition to the cave stuff below. This one won't be as heavy though, so just feel free to tag around and I'll throw in something as and where needed.]

The place feels almost far too silent when the agents of the Inquisition arrive here. It's far out enough from the village that their torches are mostly specks in the distance, but when they look ahead its clear that light isn't going to be too much of an issue. Not far from them, in between rocks and trees and debris from old, ruined buildings of ages past are pillars of red lyrium that jut up from the ground, their unholy red light glowing eerily in the darkness. Mages can, of course, hear its hum too, that broken discord of tune warped by whatever it is that had turned these crystals from their once vibrant blue to red.

For a while after their arrival all is still quiet, but after a period of time it seems like there are the sounds of faint mutterings in the distance - mutterings that don't belong to any of them. People seem to be approaching, and considering what the agents have learned from the villagers in Fromage, there's a good chance it could be the company that they seek.

Once they get to the end its clear enough that they've stumbled onto something pretty big here. There's a cave not too far away from them, and at the area surrounding the entrance is a small encampment littered with even more Red Templars. While its not an army, per se, its easy enough to see that there's still a fair amount of them.

Unfortunately, unlike earlier on the route this time they don't have time to be prepared; being able to see the Templars means that they can do the same likewise. The agents get spotted quickly enough, and with a shout they quickly begin to charge forward towards them. If that wasn't enough it seems like the commotion had attracted the attention of the ones inside the cave as well - more Red Templars stream out from the cave in order to join the fight, somehow determined to defend this place to their last breath.

[OOC Note: Main investigation will have their own separate threads for left and right side respectively down below! This is just for... setup... yes. Feel free to just thread whatever you feel is appropriate in here.]

With all the guards being taken of now, the cave seems to be especially quiet when the agents finally step in.

At first sight there doesn't seem to be anything inherently special with this cave - there isn't any sudden cache of lyrium or things that would usually catch one's eye. But what is clear is that this cave seems to be part of a network of some sorts; at the back of cavern they're in are two separate paths, the cave itself apparently having diverged at that point. The left path seems to be better lit as opposed to the right, although from where they look its easy to make out the entrance of another cavern not too far down the right path.

Either way, it seems like there is something on either of the paths. It's probably for the best if the agents split up to cover more ground - especially when its hard to tell just how deep this apparent network of caves runs.

[OOC Note: To make it easier I'll put sub threads in here for the different rooms; have your character comment into them and I will respond as needed. Multiple characters are fine for each room!]

[OOC Note: To make it easier I'll put sub threads in here for the different rooms; have your character comment into them and I will respond as needed. Multiple characters are fine for each room!]

After combing through the rooms they find the path still continues on, and as they walk down further the silence is slowly filled by a new, perhaps unmistakable sound: the sobbing noises of a child.

Going through the rest of the path leads to a new cavern with two separate entryways from with the agents find the other team appearing from the path that they didn't choose to take. But there's little time to take in this unexpected reunion; the smell of blood and charred flesh quickly comes to everyone not long after they arrive inside this particular cavern. Should they look around they will see this room lined with various wooden benches, some of them with bloodied surgical equipment littered across the surface.

But perhaps the most eye catching of all is the stone table set in the center of the room; blood streaks across the surface in many shades of brown, showing signs of having blood spilled across it one too many times. And kneeling on top of it, hunched and crying, is the source of the sobbing sounds - the naked, trembling body of a young child no older than ten.

[OOC Note: If the child is indeed spared and allowed to be brought back to Skyhold (or wherever else that has been decided), you are free to interact with him too in this thread; just give me a heads up in the subject line and I'll tag when I can.]

The way back to Skyhold is quiet.

After solving the mystery of the disappearances the agents are free to tell the truth to the villagers in Fromage, if they so wish to. If they do so the villagers will be horrified, but are mostly thankful to just know the truth and know that it has been dealt with. They should be alright from now on. Again they are offered one more night of free housing and drinks if they wish to rest up before making their way back to the Inquisition.

It seems like nothing has really changed at all from their way to Fromage - the quietness from before is still there, and in a way perhaps it almost nearly be called peaceful, given the unrest that is still taking place within Orlais. But considering what had transpired and what had been found, perhaps things can never be the same again for some people.

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