( 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

[ichaer]

The extra weight on her shoulder awakens her more. It's enough to make Ciri loosen the grasp on her sword and tiredly glance to her side, looking for the force when Avery comes into view. For a moment, she wonders if she should wake her up because nothing good could come from sleeping against her bony shoulders.

Ultimately, she decides against it and settles back into stillness with her focus on the passing mountain range.

[thecookery]

How very kind of you! Still, the gesture only goes so far, as a few minutes later, she'll be stirring uncomfortably awake anyway. These sorts of circumstances don't lead to the most pleasant of dreams, as one could imagine.

For a few seconds, Avery just blinks in confusion, not really sure where she is or what's going on, but as reality sinks back in again, she sits up with a groan and rubs at her eye. "Shit," she mumbles vaguely in Ciri's direction, voice somewhat hoarse. "Sorry."

[ichaer]

And in response Ciri can only offer a tired shrug. If one could even call that small amount of movement she made with her shoulders a shrug. It does give her the chance to shift, pulling hair over one shoulder and itching like a child at her bandages.

"Nothing to apologize for unless you drooled on my shoulder." She says, grinning.

[thecookery]

The sound she makes isn't a laugh, but it might be a shadow of what one might be like. "Yeah, well, what are you going to do about it if I did? Fight me?"

Clearly they are both in excellent shape to start punching each other.

[ichaer]

"I could push you out of this cart, probably. Maybe."

Definitely not. Tiredly, she yawns and lets herself relax back against the cart as close to a puddle as she can become. "But that would mean moving and I just cannot bring myself to do that."

[thecookery]

"That's what I thought," Avery mumbles, vindicated, and then tries to sit up a bit straighter but just ends up wincing and settling back down again. Let's just breeze past that and not acknowledge it at all, eh?

"How far out do you think we still are?"

[ichaer]

"I'll just get Kelpie to pull you out then." Ciri muses, laughing, and holding back from moving again. She does not miss the wince but does not comment on either, not at first anyway for now she focuses on the question with a hum.

"Still a ways from what I can tell. We're taking a lot of odd routes to keep from into those civil war dispute that Orlais is just throwing around as of late."

[thecookery]

"Great."

She clenches her fists in frustration. Realistically, there's no great rush to get back, even for the injured. They have some of the finest healers in the Inquisition riding right beside them. But still, it grates at Avery's nerves for some reason.

[ichaer]

"It is certainly grating on the nerves."

She would rather be back in Skyhold or anywhere that was not sitting in the back of this cart. It was nothing to do with the company, no but Ciri hates feeling weak like this. In the end, she can only sigh and glance lazily in Avery's direction with a frown directed toward the injured leg.

"... How are you doing?"

[thecookery]

"About as good as you, I'd wager," she answers, looking toward Ciri's arm, and slowly she knits her brows as she thinks about the sequence of events that led to that moment.

"That didn't have to happen, you know. Your arm was broken, and you were barely conscious. What were you thinking drawing her attention?"

[ichaer]

"I look better than I did after Weisshaupt." That is a lie, mostly. Despite the scar on her face there was hardly any other wounds that really needed to be bandaged or rested. Even if there had been then at least magic could have helped them.

The question causes Ciri to furrow her brows, frowning. "Says the one that got thrown across the room and was still trying to get her attention. I knew I had a chance of pinning her if I could just get my sword in her and I had to act before she took advantage of the aftermath when she threw Araceli into you."

[thecookery]

"And if you'd seen double and aimed for the wrong one? Or she just went for your throat instead of your arm? I could've..." Could have what exactly? That's not important!

"I could've figured something out. You didn't have to just throw yourself in her mouth like that."

[ichaer]

"But I wasn't and she didn't." It very well almost happened though. After all, Ciri offered the Wolf her arm just so it could not tear into her neck but that wasn't the point!

"And what if your reaction time suffered due to blood loss? What if you could not get Araceli off top of you in time? She very well could have eviscerated without issue or torn your leg off completely."

[thecookery]

Then she would have kicked her from the inside, duh.

"I could've figured something out," she repeats. "Distracted her at least while you did your stabbing from somewhere other than under the massive, man-eating wolf."

[ichaer]

"And I might not have made it to you in time." Ciri says, bristling slightly. She could barely sit up without her head spinning and there could have been so much that could have gone wrong in that time.

"That is assuming you had time to figure something out because even if the Wolf didn't get you there was still the vines, Venatori and the flesh abomination to worry about."

[thecookery]

"I think I handled them just fine, thanks." She just might not be able to eat meat for a while after the conclusion to the fight with the golem.

[ichaer]

"Because I took down the Wolf." A beat. "You're welcome."

She'd cross her arms if she could but simply sits there and idly plays with the ends of her hair with her good hand.

[thecookery]

"By nearly dying," she grumbles, quieter and slightly petulant-sounding. "Which you're not allowed to do. I--"

She stops, glaring at a fly that's landed on the cart and obviously done something terribly offensive to earn such animosity. "If you did, your girl would feed me to her dog."

[ichaer]

"But I didn't nearly die. You could have died though and I couldn't..." Ugh. There is some grumbling on her part, pulling at the ends of her hair a little more and letting out a long sigh. "I wasn't going to let that happen so I just reacted. I did the first thing that came to mind to get her attention away from you."

Her gaze drifts slightly and Ciri stares at the mountain range but the statement about being fed to a dog gets her attention. Honestly, she cannot help but laugh. "Even if she was my girl I doubt Nessa has that mean of a bone in her body. Here's a secret though: Garahel is quite ticklish if you ever find yourself cornered against him."

[thecookery]

Okay, Avery might not be ready to move past this just yet, but she is at least not in the mood to argue about it anymore, so instead she just gives Ciri a sideways glance.

"You say that, but over you, I wonder if she wouldn't grow one."

[ichaer]

Ciri is fine to let it pass because it helps the tension lessen and allows her to lean back and relax. Again, she cannot help but laugh.

"Then I just won't be dying any time soon. I'd rather her stay the way she is even though Nessa can be scary when she's angry."

[thecookery]

Nodding, Avery says, "Good. At least try not to die of boredom until we get back so it's naught to do with me when she goes on her rampage."

[ichaer]

"I'll suppose I can manage somehow through this torture I've found myself in. Besides she'd likely find a way to bring me back and beat me up before she turned her rage on someone else."

She glances to Avery again and grins. "So have no fear, I shall stay alive for both your sake and my own."

[thecookery]

"Good," she says again, looking down and trying to appear like she feels less... whatever she's feeling right now. It's a mystery, even to her. Let's just stick with 'trying to appear like she feels less.'

[ichaer]

"Good." She repeats, drawing her sheathed upwards with an expression that might look on the side on amusement but if it is there is nothing beyond the small smile on her face.

Ciri considers falling back asleep but an idea strikes her, glancing toward Avery. "Once my arm heals a little, I thinking of making a trip to Denerim. Would you like to come along?"