( 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

[foxsays]

Under normal circumstances she might say something but her head aches, her throat burns when she tries to swallow, and all she wants is to go home, so Araceli stares right back at Lexa. Whenever that isn't too much effort. Did they speak before? They must have. In passing even. It slips through her fingers, out of her head, too much to hold onto already with a foreign tongue thick in her mouth.

(Someone else looks at me like that. What is her name? Jerking her wrist again distracts from that, a hurt she can deal with, one that doesn't leave her struggling to breathe.)

Her thumb. Right. She's done worse. Not on purpose but if her hand is free then she can do something, right? Staring right back at Lexa, she nods, gritting her teeth as she plants her feet for something a little like leverage but she's woozy enough it might not matter much. "It's fine. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine," a staccato little mantra between the breaths she huffs out, trying to get prepare herself. There is no world in which this is not unpleasant.

"I need you to listen for me. Do something if they come."

[heda]

That isn't her, goes the voice in Lexa's head, that isn't her, that isn't her, she's dead, she's been dead for years, that isn't her--. Sometimes the dull buzzing of pain and lyrium drowns it out for a minute or two until she can force her way through the haze again. It's drowning it out now, as she stares at Araceli again, eyes soft and bright and sad and awed all at once, hazy with emotion the rest of her face is better trained not to express.

"It's fine," she echoes, reaching over to place a hand on a shoulder, gentle, familiar reassurance. Her response to the request is a quick nod despite the fact that moving her head makes it throb terribly. "Of course," she says, already rearranging her legs and clenching a fist, like she's ready to fight if she must. She is.

"I won't let them take you from me again, I swear it."

[foxsays]

There are too many names to keep straight, the queensguard being six girls moving, living, breathing, thinking as one whole-- One wet ragged breath is the best she manages when she nods to Lexa without looking at the others. Should she apologise to the others if they hear it? No. It'll give it away, the crack could be anything, it'll be better if just her and Lexa know so she nudges her foot against Lexa with a smile that vanishes the instant it appears.

When Brunilda got shot, we all looked like that, but this isn't her, and there's no blood that isn't her own.

"I'm not going anywhere. Only out. Both of us." Taking a quick glance out to make sure no one is coming and around at everyone else, she sets to work, bracing herself and pressing her lips into a thin white line, breath caught in her throat. Her face gives away nothing now, the guard's mask and the bard's mask slipping down. Whatever bloodied her wrist helps, scrapes raw, carries her away with it as the pressure builds and the breath huffs out her nose.

(Breaking her wrists was worse when she fell and fell and fell and there was bone poking through, being shot was worse because the breath was punched out of her in burning heat--)

"Oh." Well. That's her left hand out. Useless. Pulsing and burning in pain but she has it out, blinking when the world blurs grey at the edges.

gah sorry I forgot to swing by earlier

[eviscerates]

The guard is watching the two with idle curiosity, but he is tense, overseeing everything with an attentive eye. It is the researcher that observes more closely, taking notes, watching the interplay between the two, noting down what words he might catch. It is the guard, though, and not the researcher that steps forwards, for all that the researcher nudged him as the Fade traveller successfully broke from her shackle. He enters the dungeon, stooping to approach, and delivers a vicious backhanded slap with an armoured hand.

"Wretch," he spits, looking at her hand in disgust, a knife held in his right hand.

ssssssssh sssh sssh you're doing so much you're wonderful

[foxsays]

The world blurs for a horrible moment as she reels backwards, sending her landing on top of the hand she just freed; there's blood in her mouth, but if that came from the guard or biting her tongue to try not to cry out so loudly Araceli can't say. As far as plans go, this was piss poor but it's not like she had any better options with a head filled with wet sand.

"Coward," she spits, a mouthful of blood aimed for his boot as she tries to sound angry if she can't be brave. She can barely see him let alone Lexa when there are grey spots dancing around the edges of her vision but she does see a knife, eyes darting between it and his face. Truly, what a brave man you are sir.

[heda]

Lexa's still shackled, obviously, but that doesn't mean she's helpless. With a clearer mind she'd know this is a terrible idea that's probably going to cause more pain than it prevents, but she's dazed enough to work on instinct alone and her instincts are vicious.

The guard and his knife loom over the girl beside her but this time it's Lexa that lashes out in anger. She hooks one foot behind the guard's ankle and pulls at the same moment she snaps the sole of her other boot into his leg, shoving back and yanking his foot out from under him. She doesn't stop there, springing as fast and far as her chains will let her, scrambling to try to punch him hard between the legs and grab the knife away.

[eviscerates]

Though he hits the ground with a hard thud, the guard retaliates by kicking Lexa in the chest on reflex even as he doubles over with the punch to his groin. He keeps a hold in his knife and follows with another kick to her ribs as he pulls himself away, gripping the knife hard, before twisting away.

"You'll pay for that," he hisses, chest heaving, as he lurches up and holds the knife to the corner of Araceli's mouth, the edge stopping just shy of biting into her skin. "You'll both pay for that. You are nothing. You're worth nothing. You hear that?"

[foxsays]

With the guard dealing with Lexa, Araceli is able to get off her wrist so she can see a world that isn't grey on the borders of her vision, trying to get her legs under her as she curls her lip in a snarl. Lexa is so fast, so very brave and maybe that's what has Araceli's nasty impulsive streak rearing its ugly head from where she usually buries it because there are politics to consider, usually a hundred other considerations and plans--

"We are alive," she snaps while he's still dealing with Lexa, "We are together. We are not nothing." Only there is metal in her mouth that isn't blood because it's too cold to be blood, and it's-- she swallows carefully, holding herself incredibly still as her chest heaves, as the anger freezes into something brittle and sharp as the knife at the corner of her mouth. But she can't help herself, not when she's too frightened to think and she would rather go down fighting perhaps, when this is a chance to know something.

"If we were worth nothing, we'd be dead already."

[heda]

Lexa doesn't have much else to contribute for the moment. She'd be more than willing to try a few other tricks on the guard to see if she can get that knife away, but the two swift kicks to the chest knock the wind out of her and for a moment it's paralyzing, leaving her gasping for air with lungs that won't fill, unable to speak or move.