( 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

[eviscerates]

See, this is nice. There's solidarity, there's a nice dialogue going even if maybe he's going to be a little bit aghast or struggle to get his head around it, they're having a conversation rather than him, you know, finding a nearby pyre to throw her on. That's a plus. She sips her ale, and has to take a moment because the way he reacts to Adelaide's name is kind of hilarious? Amazing? Concerning?

Ruby's brows raise a little, and her smile is fond, if bemused. "Let me guess: is this where you say she's scary and kind of frosty?"

Her tone isn't harsh, more quietly amused. She gets it, most people seem to think Adelaide is kind of... aloof, to say the least. And she is, because she's a politician and a teacher and both of those things go a hell of a lot better if you command respect. It just kind of ignores a whole other side of her.

[wontforgetyou]

"What? She's not like that at all."

Well. Okay. So maybe she's a little aloof, but he's never thought of her as being scary or frosty, except in the 'she can cover things in ice' sort of way - which he's fairly certain isn't the definition of 'frosty' Ruby's going for here. But even with that aside, he's known Adelaide enough to know that there's a lot more to her than what's one the surface.

... Although maybe not as much as Ruby, given that relationship between the two of them, something that gets his mouth to tug off to one side in a slightly rueful way.

"No, it's...och, I'd not even realized she likes women. But she's my friend, too, and I'm guessing if she makes you happy, you make her happy, and that's fine by me." He pauses for just a moment, then adds, a touch wryly, "Maybe you'll be able to convince her she needs to stop and take a break sometimes. I'm not sure I've ever managed to convince her to do that. Not properly, anyway."

[eviscerates]

"I know that," Ruby agrees, with a bit of a laugh, entirely good natured. She gets what he's saying. "It's just what I seem to hear, more often than not." So stern, so serious. And she is, but that's like... a piece. An important piece, but not the whole.

And at the comment about liking women? Yeah, Ruby definitely chuckles as she sips some more beer. "That was a surprise for me too, believe me." And a surprise for Adelaide, actually, but that is something she will leave for Adelaide to tell people, and not make the presumption of sharing. "Hopefully. Maybe we can organise a team effort if she's being stubborn. Deal?"

Raising her tankard a little, she holds it out to Jamie in a little cheers gesture.

[wontforgetyou]

"Aye, well, better than some of the surprises we get around here, that's for sure."

There's a faint note of pessimism in his voice as he says that, but when she holds out her mug, his mouth still manages to quirk into a smile and he raises his mug in a similar gesture.

"Deal, though. She'll not know what hit her. Hey, I bet we could even get her to help us come up with ideas for that scavenger hunt of yours if we played it right. She'd know more than either of us what'd be native to here that'd be good to use."