( 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

[glandival]

If Sabine is first, it's by virtue of being rude, and because her player tagged the quickest.

But at least there is a modicum of competence to back it up; gloved hands seek sure handholds when they don't rely on the dangling rope, and her feet are quiet. Her usual cascade of ginger curls have all been tamed into a tight braid, and she wears two knives visibly. The location of more weaponry will have to be guessed at, but are hidden in boots, and up sleeves.

She pauses at the largest break in the tower wall where the grappling hook had stuck, and slowly does it, peers through. Her confirmation that the coast is clear merely comes in the form of her abruptly yanking herself bodily up and inside, swift as a blade, disappearing into the dark.

A moment later, her pale face appears again, and she extends a gloved hand out to the next intrepid adventurer.

[amygdalae]

Bruce mostly trails behind the party, since he is kind of the odd one out here, what with being a mage and all. But at least right now he doesn't exactly look like the part - there's no staff on him now, just a dagger should he need to protect himself. Can't exactly be sneaky if he had a staff strapped to his back, after all. Those things just attract far too much attention.

With all of that said, it has been a while since he's actually had to do anything like this. The fact that he's not entirely recovered from the battle with Highwind isn't of much help, either.

So he takes the help where its offered; he hates to impose but his pride (or what little is there of it left) is irrelevant to their mission right now. When Sabine pops back over to offer him her aid he reaches for her hand and uses it as leverage to haul himself up to the top too, dropping inside with minimal noise.

[ichaer]

Despite her preference to swing around a sword like any other warrior, years of breaking into the fancy mansions and winter retreats of Orlais has allowed Ciri a little flexibility. Climbing an old tower was much easier than those smooth marble walls and she pulls herself up and over, landing inside not long after Bruce.

Unfortunately, Weisshaupt's maps had been rather sparse when it came to the inner workings of most of the marked locations but old towers like this are not complex. Truly, the only thing to worry about is the sort of information that would not have been on those old maps.

And no doubt that they had outfitted this old tower with traps and other such to try slowing them down.

[eviscerates]

When the party alights on the inside of the tower, they are faced with a large room, roughly hexagonal in shape, lit mostly by the daylight that the break in the wall allows in. Supplies one one side of the room suggest that building repairs are slowly being made, but that the state of the room does not spare it from being used.

On the far side of the room there is a table, with a lap map stretched over it, and a few other items that might be of interest.

Behind the heavy wooden door there is no sound, other than the footsteps moving away from the room. The door is locked from the outside.

[nonsibi]

Bellamy, the last to make it into the tower thanks to the bulkiness of armor, still manages to land lightly. He's quick to take stock of their surroundings, and quick to pick out and eliminate the suggestion of threats, shadows without the requisite density for concealing foes.

Far more immediate a threat are the footsteps, and he goes right to the door, dagger already in hand for what could end up being a close-quarters fight but for virtue of the fact that the footsteps--whoever they belong to--are moving away from the door. This is still no time to relax: Bellamy listens a moment longer, tracking the path and distance of the footsteps. Then he carefully tries the handle.

It's locked. He doesn't have to say it; the dull and cut-off clack that the handle gives confirms it.

[glandival]

Behind the young Templar, Sabine listens, alert, feeling a prickle of quick tension when Bellamy tries the door handle, careful or no. When it doesn't give, she makes a quiet instructional sound meant to indicate that he can ~step aside~, accompanied with a more eloquent tap of her knuckles to his arm.

From there, she can apply Sufficient Skill to the lock using two fine, silvery tools she has ferreted up her sleeve, ducking down to carefully -- quietly -- shift lock into looseness.

She pinches the end of her tongue with canine tooth in concentration.

[amygdalae]

While the... very sneaky people deal with the door Bruce turns his attention over to the rest of the room, seeing if there might be anything around that could be of particular use to them. From the supplies lying around this seems to be a storage area of sorts, and it would be worth going through them to see if there's anything in there that they could make use of.

The map is what gets his attention first however, and he quietly goes over to the table, squinting as he looks over the map to see if it'll be of any use to them. Maybe it could be a map of the area around here, or this structure itself. That would be incredibly helpful.

[eviscerates]

It would be very useful indeed if there was a map of the fortress

but there is not, because designing a fortress map was too much for my commitment issues.

Instead, Bruce finds a map of Orlais and Nevarra with about sixteen different sites marked. Perhaps a third of them correlate with sites where the Inquisition has dispatched agents to close rifts. There are simple numbers marked next to them; 1 by most, 2 by two, and 7 by one close to the village of Craintellier. Furthermore, on the north-eastern corner of the map lies eight Inquisition sending crystals. What a coinkydink.

[amygdalae]

...well this was certainly interesting.

Bruce frowns as he studies the map, noticing the marked sites and correlating some of them to the stuff that he's heard. He doesn't really keep track so much about the rift closures since he tends to avoid doing that if possible (considering his condition and everything) but considering the notes he found in his search with Ataash earlier, and this '7' near the village...

It's something to think about later. Right now though getting to the others was more important, and after a moment Bruce takes the map and pockets that, swiping the sending crytals while at it. He brings those over to the rest of the party and passes them around. "Here. This should be of some use."

[nonsibi]

Bellamy, having stood aside to give Sabine room to work (with a wave of his hand that was only a little sarcastic, go ahead; the situation is too tense for much more than that), glances around when Bruce comes over with the sending crystals.

He accepts the crystal without really thinking about it, hyper focused on wariness and their immediate situation. After a second, he makes sense of what he's holding, and looks up at Bruce.

"This was on that table?" No way to tell who it belongs to, beyond the general. "At least we know we're in the right place. Take 'em with and we'll return 'em."

Optimistic. There's no point in being anything but, not when they're about to head out. Bellamy slips the crystal into the pouch at his belt with his own as he turns back to Sabine.

"You almost got that or what."

[ichaer]

There is silence as Ciri watches Sabine work to open the door though most of her focus is on listening for any signs of approaching footsteps. It is only when Bruce approaches does she break her attention from the door and looks over the sending crystal for a moment before pocketing it for now as her focus returns to the door.

After the disaster that was her visit Emprise du Lion there is worry that they might just find a similar sight on the other side of this door. The boy's cracked and warped face is still vividly clear in her mind and she hates it all the more.

The sooner they could leave this place the better.

[eviscerates]

The lock finally releases with a quiet click.

Outside the room there is a hallway, the room they are in situated at a bend.

Going left will take them along the front of the fortress. Based on the voices coming from that direction, left will lead them to cluster of Venatori.

Going right will them them in the opposite direction, but the hallway looks to have a number of doors along it, and no voices that way.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

[nonsibi]

The very literal crossroads moment is a difficult one for Bellamy. When they step out into the corridor, as a ragtag stealthy group of would-be rescuers, his focus is immediately on the left. His dagger is in his hand before he's even thought of it, clenched hard in his hand. If he looks like he's about to take off in that direction and wreck that party, face down the Venatori, that's because he desperately wants to.

He risks a glance in the other direction, picks out the shape of one of the doors. The sending crystal he'd taken from Bruce weighs heavy in the pouch at his belt. Confiscated from someone. Great.

The right it is, then. He starts for the closest door, to try the handle. Quietly. Because this is stealthy work.

[glandival]

For the record, Sabine had made very frank eye contact with Bellamy for his questions, just as the pick caught the tumbler to unlock the door. There's your answer.

She shadows, now, allowing others to pick the direction, and picks her way down the hallway as they head right. She keeps a dagger in one hand, holding it in a fist and kept low at her side, gently trying the next door down.

[amygdalae]

Bruce trails behind, as always, letting the stealth experts actually do what they're... good at. He's here to support however he could, if necessary.

Still, it would be quicker if they split up, but considering where they are... he glances over to Ciri, his gaze inquisitive as he jerks his head towards the left in a silent question. Should they head down the other path or stick together?

[ichaer]

Ciri leads up at the rear of the group as they step out into the corridor. It's an honest surprise that this place has held up and she just hopes the stone under their feet will hold up long enough for them to find the missing agents.

Quietly she watches as Bellamy and Sabine head off to the right before her focus sifts over to Bruce, nodding as he jerks his head to the left. Splitting up would be quicker, perhaps not easier but they'd cover ground this way.

[amygdalae]

To the left it was, then. Bruce nods in return and glances over to Bellamy and Sabine, giving them a signal to let them know what they were doing before he starts to lead the way towards the left with her, keeping his steps quiet especially as they get closer to the voices. He slips his hand to where his dagger is as well, keeping a hold on it as they move forward. With luck, perhaps they won't meet into too much trouble.

Considering his track record though, he wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to not be the case.