( 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]

The guard's stagger comes nearer to dislodging Lexa than it usually would, unbalanced up on her toes until he's half-crumpled toward the floor. She tugs the chain tighter, links clattering and scraping against each other as she twists them around his throat and looks at Jamie expectantly, her face beginning to go red, though less quickly and severely than the guard's.

When Jamie comes up with the barrel-lid she tries to lean back while still bracing the guard still, which requires a bit of contortion, locking her leg around the knee she's injured to pin him, and ducking her head against the back of his shoulder to avoid being clipped by the blow.

[eviscerates]

All in all, Phil here is having a very bad day. All he wanted was for his coworkers to accept him, you know?

Anyway, here he is, face purpling, a strangled gurgling forcing out of his throat, before it is followed by the crack of the barrel lid hitting his head. He stops struggling, goes limp, and lurches to the ground, body in a messy heap. The rise and hall of his chest is weak and thready.

From a hook on his belt hangs a collection of keys, heavy looking things. It is the smaller ones that will release their shackles, and one of the larger that will do for getting them out of their current cell.

[wontforgetyou]

For what it's worth, it's not a state that Jamie particularly wanted to put Phil in - and when the man collapses, there's a genuine look of regret on his face. He drops the lid to one side, letting it fall wherever it wants to, and moves to the man's side, reaching down to yank the keys free from Phil's belt, holding them up to try and see what ones might do what. There's a lot of keys, though, and not a lot of time, so he thrusts the keys towards Lexa, knowing enough about glasses to know that since Cosima doesn't have hers at the moment she's likely going to have a harder time seeing where things need to go.

"Here, take these and see what you can do with them. I'll get the rest of his weapons."

Maybe Phil'll do them a favor and stay unconscious long enough for them to get out, and then maybe they won't have to kill him. But just in case he doesn't, Jamie means to be ready to do what he has to.

[youwonscience]

Cosima seems to have recovered, or at least as much as she's likely to, and gets to her feet. Everything aches, but nothing in particular should keep her from being able to move. Small blessings.

"Should we tie him up?" she asks, low. "We could rip some cloth or something."

[heda]

"Kill him," Lexa orders, as she takes the keys Jamie pushes at her. Not that it's her place to order, but there's an unmistakable note of command in her voice, half intentional half habit.

She drops the chain on the guard's torso to muffle the noise and starts flipping through the keys on the ring. She's looking for one that seems the right size and material, and steps over to try the smaller ones that seem likely in Cosima's shackles, the angle being more awkward (and therefore slower) on her own.

"He's too big for us to bring him along as a shield and these people won't care about a hostage. Leaving him alive only risks him raising the alarm and being one more we have to fight through. Cut his throat quickly before he wakes up."

She tries another key, and one more before finally the lock clicks and Cosima's shackles crack open. Lexa catches them before they can drop noisily to the floor and puts the keys into Cosima's hand, holding out her own wrists. A belated thought turns her head back toward Phil and Jamie.

"You could put on his uniform. Before you bloody it."

[wontforgetyou]

In other circumstances, that particular order might have brought out a protest from Jamie, possibly even coupled with a slightly snarky comment, but in this case she's right and he knows it. Their best chance at getting out of here lies with them not being missed for as long as possible. Even though Phil doesn't appear to be in great shape, if he does manage to raise the alarm, they're done for. As he pulls the dagger from Phil's belt, he keeps it in his hand, looking down that the hapless guard.

"Aye," he says, quietly. The least he can do is make it quick. He's just about to put the knife to Phil's neck when Lexa's other suggestion stops him, and he nods instead, setting the dagger down so he can try and see about getting the man's uniform off of him first. He's still shackled, though, and it makes for an awkward disrobing at best. As he tries to yank the top off the guard, he glances back over at the others, mouth tugging off to one side as he pulls a disgruntled face.

"Look, could you hurry up with those and see about giving me a hand here? This'll go faster if I've not got this chain getting in my way."

[youwonscience]

Cosima looks slightly ill, but doesn't really feel she's in a position to object. Beyond traveling to the rift that got them here, she doesn't know Jaime or Lexa. And while she doesn't want to kill anyone, she even less wants to get them caught by slowing down the escape attempt - or worse, have them decide she's a liability and leave her behind.

Instead, she comes to help Jaime with his clothes. She's nearsighted, and she can manage close-up work like buttons.

sorry!!

[heda]

Lexa finishes unlocking herself and then steps quickly over to unlock Jamie too before he gets any more tangled up in clothes. Maybe she should apologize for not thinking of that straight off, but that's not really her style, especially in these circumstances. But she does give Jamie a nod of approval as he readily agrees that Phil's got to die. She'd anticipated some resistance, and is pleased not to find it.

While he and Cosima work on trading Jamie and Phil's places, Lexa steps over to the door, leaning to peak at the hall and listen for a second. Once she's confident that there's no one to notice, she reaches through the bars and starts trying keys. She's as quiet as possible, but it's difficult not to jangle them around a little, flipping between options at this angle.

not a problem!

[wontforgetyou]

The lack of apology doesn't bother him, especially given their current circumstances - but he is grateful for the assist, and Lexa gets a nod of thanks as his cuffs spring open. Once that's done, things go much smoother, and with Cosima's help he's soon looking the part of one of the guards, albeit one that's ever so slightly shorter in height. With a little creative dressing, though, Phil's uniform winds up fitting well enough, leaving Jamie ready to go.

Or mostly ready to go, as there's still one loose end to be tied up. Jamie glances down at Phil for a moment longer before lifting his head back up, a look of regret in his eyes as he refocuses on Cosima. There's not much that he can do to protect the girls from what he has to do, but even if he thinks it's not something that Lexa is going to have much of a problem with, if he can shield Cosima from the sight of it in some small way he will.

"Maybe you'd best go help Lexa now," he suggests in a tone that's gentler than one he's used around either of them before. "I'll be with you in a few moments."

[youwonscience]

"You could have just said, 'turn around, I'm going to do it now,'" Cosima says, quiet and a little sad, but not fighting him. Instead, she moves over to Lexa's side. Trying keys is a one-person job, so there's not much to help with, but knowing what has to happen doesn't mean she wants to watch.

[heda]

The keys are a one-person job, and one Lexa is just finishing. There are only a couple keys left that could fit this lock, and she nods to Cosima while reaching through the bars to try another.

"Keep an eye out down the hall and let me know if you see movement."

Finally, this key clicks the lock over and she removes the key, pocketing the key ring and looking over her shoulder at Jamie to see if he's ready to go.

[wontforgetyou]

"Aye, maybe you're right."

His voice is quiet as well, but the regret in it is still plain to hear all the same. This isn't something that he particularly wants to do, any more than she wants to watch, and if she even wants to talk to him after all of this, maybe he'll try and explain. However, the longer he waits, the better the chance the others might come back, so when she goes over to the door, he turns back to Phil, taking a moment to pull him back behind the barrels, as out of sight as he can get the man short of shoving him into the middle of one. It might buy them a little more time than just leaving him there for anyone walking by to notice - and it means that if one of the lasses turns back at the wrong time, they don't have to see, either.

He makes it quick, at least. It's all he really can do for the man, for the moment. Later on, there might be something else, but there's no time for anything but what needs to be immediately done. When he goes to rejoin the others, it's with a newly cleaned dagger in his hand, leaving no visible sign of what's just happened, save for the expression on his face.

Sometimes, he's very tired of all the killing.

There's still a long way to go before they're free, though, and he shoves the regret into the back of his mind in order to focus on the task ahead.

"Let's go, then."

[youwonscience]

"All clear this way," Cosima says, quiet - she's squinting, a little, but she's not so nearsighted that looking for movement is a problem. She glances back at Jaime, her expression a little sad (and not a little worried), but not horrified either. "You're right, we should get moving."

She wants to be out of here as badly as they do, even if she's the least helpful toward that end for now.