( 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

[heda]

There's nothing about Lexa at the moment to specifically mark her as Avvar. In Skyhold it's easy to tell, and no doubt stories have spread, between the armor and the coat and often the paint on her face, not to mention the even-more-obviously-Avvar entourage usually made up of unreasonably large warriors. Here the only hint is the braids in her hair and the simple ornamentation of her weapons, less shiny and flashy than lowlanders generally go in for.

That includes the ones in the Hinterlands, one of the few places outside the mountains Lexa has been before. Just to its edges, but residents of those border villages would not remember her visits fondly, what with the raiding and looting they included. She sneaks another little look at Avery, but spots no hidden menace. She picks the shell off a snail.

"Why did you choose Skyhold?"

[thecookery]

Oh, trust. She has a lot more anger toward mages and templars over what went down in the Hinterlands than toward the Avvar.

"Like I said, all that fighting broke out," Avery answers, trying to keep her expression neutral, though her jaw does tense for a moment. "I got caught in the middle. Got hurt. Healer died. Things got a bit grim after that."

She takes a long drink from her cup. "Then the Inquisition showed up and brought in a new healer. Thought I'd do them a turn in kind if I lived. And I did, so..."

[heda]

Lexa takes this in, watching the tensing jaw and the effort behind it. Avery trails off and Lexa nods slowly, in understanding. It makes enough sense not to draw further questions, at least not on that subject.

She washes down the last couple snails with a drink and gratefully moves on to the next dish.

"What do you do for the Inquisition, exactly?"

[thecookery]

"Cook, mostly," Avery answers, giving a rueful look to the remains of the snails. "Other things around the keep too, but this time somebody convinced me I should come along and make sure you lot have better to eat on the road than hardtack and rabbit that's not been roasted all through."

She shrugs. "It's not wrestling demons or shooting fire out of my arse or whatever, but it's what I know."

[heda]

Lexa's nod is immediate but slow, understanding Avery's particular annoyance with the snails, now. At the demurral, she replies with a shallow shrug of her own.

"Keeping a force that large fed so high in the mountains isn't easy." And she would know, though the Avvar are much more practiced at it, adapted to need little that doesn't come from the mountains to begin with. But still. "I'm sure the Inquisition appreciates your assistance. As we have on this journey."

[thecookery]

A soft sound of wry amusement follows, and Avery tips her cup in Lexa's direction, pointing with one finger. "Best remember that when I'm half-down a demon's gullet. It's stale bread and snails for you if you don't pull me back out."

[heda]

Lexa doesn't really smile, but Avery might get the feeling that's because it's just not a thing she does rather than anything personal or specific to the conversation. She does nod, and there's a hint of amusement around her eyes.

"I will certainly keep that in mind." After a moment and a sip of her drink she has a follow-up question. "Are you coming to the rift?"

[thecookery]

"Oh, I'll be there," she answers with a look and tone of... let's say, resigned exasperation? You know, the look of someone who knows they're about to do something pretty stupid but is already committed to doing it anyway? Yeah, that one. "I'll be keeping my distance, so no worries about me getting underfoot. But I'll be there."