( closed ) player plot: the stars go waltzing

[eviscerates]

WHO: Adelaide, Araceli, Avery, Bellamy, Bruce, Ciri, Cosima, Daenerys, Jamie, Korrin, Lexa, Martel, Merrill, Ruby, Sabine, Teren.
WHAT: catch all log; the capture of shardbearers, their rescue, and related shenanigans.
WHEN: Gently timey wimey for flexibility, Team Rescue arrives at the outpost on the 10th.
WHERE: Orlais/Nevarra borders (roughly halfway between the Fields of Ghislain and Trevis), and then a Creepy Place.
NOTES: Log for the missing shardbearers player plot; ooc here & here. Only the travel threads for teams one and two are going up for now, the rest will go up on Friday :]b And to clarify - when I say party style, what I mean is subthread to your hearts content!
WARNINGS: HORROR THEMES. Abduction, experimentation/torture, forced ingestion of lyrium, implied past deaths/murder, violence.

SPEEDY LINKS

• TEAM ONE: travel to Craintellier
• TEAM ONE: rift two attempt & Venatori attack
• TEAM ONE: dungeons
• TEAM ONE: escape attempt — Cosima, Jamie & Lexa only
• TEAM TWO: travel to Craintellier
• TEAM TWO: post rift investigation — Adelaide, Bellamy & Sabine, Bruce, Korrin & Teren, Ciri & Merrill
• TEAM TWO: take the outpost — Attack & Distract & Stealthy & Stealy
• TEAM TWO: regroup & into the dungeons — plus a Lexa-shaped guest star
• ALL: finding your shardbearers
• ALL: boss fight
• ALL: epilogue & return to Skyhold — tba

click for bigger version. full map of Thedas here.

East of Perendale and south of Trevis, next to a river's winding course, there lies the bones of a fortress. It is an old and almost forgotten place, a dramatic, clawed seeming thing reaching up into the sky, harsh against the the rolling hills.

It is an ancient place, dating back to 660TE, a testament to an Empire suffering after civil war and grasping to restore its wealth and influence after it had been so shaken. It stands as a memory of grandeur, rather than an icon of it, and bears the marks of devastation and scarring that so much of the land suffered during the First Blight. It was all but abandoned thereafter, host only to the desperate and the greedy, and never for long. Once ornate mosaics now only hold flecks of gold, flakes that stubbornly resisted the hands of looters trying to pry them away. Other colours, reds, whites, greys and blacks, they all remain.

The site was chosen for its riches, sitting atop a mine that once held immense wealth, seams of gold that would bring wealth back into the Empire and help restore stability. Opulence, the central Tevinter staple (aside from slavery and blood magic, some might say).

But they dug too deep, and when the First Blight came so too did the darkspawn.

It has a new master, now, and he serves the Elder One. Parts of this stronghold may be in ruins now, but remember: it is not what lies on the surface that counts, but what lurks beneath it.


AD VICTORIAM, AD GLORIA.

Comments

[nonsibi]

Bellamy's horse, a tough mountain gelding called Hector, does not look right with braids. He doesn't undo the braids, when he comes over to feed his mount. He just looks at them, and huffs a breath, and gets to work with settling Hector down for what is sure to be a restless night. The horses have to be picking up some of the residual tension that they're all feeling. Hector is steady and as good-tempered as always, but the way he turns his ears and flicks his tail indicates a touch more nerves than he usually displays.

The braids still look weird. So the next day, as they set off through the mountains again, Bellamy rides up alongside the elf responsible. Merrill. He doesn't know her. Doesn't stop him from asking:

"You're the one doing the braiding, right?"

Examples of her handiwork are still picked through Hector's tail. Bellamy, for his part, doesn't sound friendly. But he doesn't sound unfriendly, either. Any misgiving on her part will probably be shaded by the fact that he's a Templar, but he doesn't do any overcorrection to that point.

[chainlightning]

Braids are a matter of opinion; Merrill, of course, thinks they all look lovely. Perhaps that's exactly the problem -- not all of the horses really give off a 'lovely' vibe to anyone else.

Everyone is tense, so Merrill just turns her head slightly when Bellamy rides up to ask about the braids. Honeysuckle shakes his head, some of his own braids bouncing in his mane, and Merrill offers a shy smile.

"Yes, that's me. Well, most likely. I just needed something to do, and the horses don't mind being spoiled a little bit." At least, she's pretty sure they don't. Maybe Templars mind horses being spoiled, but in her opinion, every nice Templar would mostly just get a headache. (Granted, she knows approximately two "nice" Templars, and they're prone to getting headaches anyway.)

[nonsibi]

"Yeah?" It's not exactly agreement, but he indicates that intention by following that one word up with, "Well, thanks."

So there's some Templars that don't mind horses being a little spoiled. Maybe. Or maybe he's just being nice. Hector, with his eyes on the road ahead of them, doesn't seem to mind the braids at all.

"He doesn't get much extra attention. Probably wonders what the special occasion is."

[chainlightning]

"Oh!" Merrill could see agreement, but she wasn't expecting gratitude. There's a little wave of her hands (both of which she's taken off the reins in order to wave) before one runs through her hair. "No, no, no need to thank me. I'm happy to do it."

Braiding and horse spoiling, not even necessarily together, are both nice things. Templars being nice is nice as well, as is the fact that Honeysuckle didn't decide to take off while Merrill's hands were free.

"The special occasion," Merrill informs Hector, leaning slightly in her saddle so as to more thoroughly address the horse, "is a rescue mission. Also, helping me relax, which isn't so much of an occasion, really..."

This time, Honeysuckle snorts and she quickly straightens, back to addressing Bellamy. "Do you know how to braid?"

[nonsibi]

He's not quite quick enough to hide his little smile when Merrill looks around at him again. Does his best to disguise or mitigate it at least by turning his attention to the back of Hector's neck and the spot between his ears.

"No," he says, which is a lie. He takes it back: "Used to know a little, I guess. I've got a sister."

The only reason a big bad manly Templar like him would know anything about hair-braiding and stuff like that. It's honestly more than he wanted to admit--better to just keep lying about it and not talk about Octavia at all. There's nothing about Merrill that reminds him of Octavia. Even when she was a kid, she didn't do a whole lot of braiding.

"I'll leave the braiding to you," he tells Merrill, and Hector flicks his ears as if in agreement. "So what do you need relaxing from?"

[chainlightning]

There's a wider smile of Merrill's own when she spots Bellamy's- you can't hide from her, sir, she will find the happiness.

"I can do the braiding and you can pick hooves, maybe?" Mount spa day. Of course, the picking is actually good for the health of the horse where the braids are more good for horse (and Merrill) morale. "I'm just- nervous about this. Not about completing the mission, but... what we might find. What might have happened to them."

She pauses for a moment to suck in a breath.

"Almost all of them are my friends. I just- I want them to be okay, and having to wait is hard."

[nonsibi]

In deference to Merrill's feelings, Bellamy transfers his gaze up to the road ahead of them. Her answer is sort of what he'd guessed, by observation--not that he'd claim to know anything really deep about her. He's good at reading people, especially nerves. And he's good at worrying about friends, which makes it easy to pick out that impulse in others.

"Tell you what," he suggests, after a beat of silence. "If we're splitting the horses, let's split this up too. I'll take being nervous about what might have happened. You take worrying about what we're gonna do for them after. That's the part I'm not good at."

This part, the slow ride, living with the thought of what could have happened, what could be happening: this is Bellamy's specialty, and he can handle it with his usual hard jaw and stoicism. He shoots a glance over at Merrill again, with half a smile.

"You're going to keep thinking about it." He allows for that inevitability. "Might make the waiting a little better.

[chainlightning]

Oh. Well that's- quite thoughtful of him, which makes her smile, head ducking down to look at Honeysuckle's main for a moment before she looks back over at him.

"I can try, at least. Though I'm not a healer, so past that, I imagine mostly hugs, if they want them." Are you a hugger, Bellamy? You should be a hugger. Everyone should be a hugger. Hugs are great.

Beyond that- she thinks it's going to depend on the circumstances they find them in. Which doesn't actually help her stop worrying that much. But...

"Talking helps."

[nonsibi]

Despite himself, Bellamy is a hugger. Mostly a manly hugger, okay; lots of clasping and bracing back pats and stuff. But this is still another secret that he's not keen to reveal. If it happens, it happens. And yet at the same time, he's also not going to discourage hugging in anyone else, so he just nods at Merrill's suggestion--not patronizing, just patient and even-keeled. Sure, why not.

"Think it'll be appreciated either way." Solemn agreement that he really does mean. Whatever they find waiting for them, it's bound not to be great. He's faced that kind of thought before. Faced the aftermath too. "And we got a long way to go. If you want to talk--"

He shrugs, reins held loose in his hands. "Better to do it now than during the actual mission, right?"

[chainlightning]

You can have all the hugs from Merrill that you want, Merrill. She won't tell. ...at least as long as you ask her not to.

The offer to talk is appreciated even more, though. Her smile is soft, almost shy, and for a moment she practically buries her face in Honeysuckle's mane. "Thank you. Do you- are there any people you know, in the missing group?"

Merrill knows five of them. That probably helps explain why she's so nervous.

[nonsibi]

"Not well."

He doesn't mention Lexa. She isn't worth mentioning. What's more, he doesn't know her well. Going up against a clan of Avvar and their heartless commander isn't the same as knowing them, not by a long shot.

Instead he shrugs, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Hector's ears swivel in his periphery, as if he's listening in on the conversation.

"It doesn't need to be personal. Whatever's happened, our help is what's needed now. And--" This part's a little more light-hearted; Bellamy shoots her another half-smile-- "I happen to be good at this kinda thing. Not often that's happened to me in the Inquisition."