faderift | [closed] the turn of the screw

Entry tags:

[closed] the turn of the screw

WHO: Teren, Alistair, Anders, Benevenuta, Bethany, Kaisa
WHAT: Senior Warden von Skraedder brings a small gaggle of ~~fools~~ Wardens (and a Mortalitasi for some reason) along to investigate a sighting of the Architect in southern Nevarra. Mischief is afoot!
WHEN: Timey wimey, Haring-ish
WHERE: around and about Perendale
NOTES: there is no Architect but at least the cake is real

[OOC notes first: every round or so, feel free to do a coin-flip "idea" roll, then either send me a screencap of your diceroller or do it on Discord so I can see. If you get heads, proceed to roll a 1d5 and I will PM you a bit of insight for your character to have gleaned based on the circumstances.
For all anyone currently knows (with the exception of Teren and Benevenuta), the Architect is their prime directive and there is no reason to suspect otherwise.

I will be adding new legs to the journey once we've reached a reasonable transition, so the threads and available information will be limited to what's currently visible.

Also, if you could try to keep fewer than two days between each tag, that would be amazing!]

The journey is a long one, and it's in the dead of winter, which means it isn't a lot of fun. They at least have horses, on loan from the Inquisition save for those who have their own, and Teren leads the expedition on the rangy and agreeable black gelding she tends to borrow.

She's her usual self, curt and withdrawn and pensive, though she takes care of hers and is vigilant about ensuring everyone stays together, especially in the brutal snows that blow relentlessly over Orlais' northern plains.
She had approached each Warden initially, explaining that she had received news from Weisshaupt and wanted to take a small delegation to address its concerns: the Architect has been sighted in the north, not far from the border between Nevarra and Tevinter. Teren's old stomping grounds.

Summoned for her familiarity with the region, Teren has grudgingly accepted the call, but knows it would be suicide to make it a solo recon mission. Anders and Bethany are brought for their healing and warding talents, Alistair and Kaisa for their fighting prowess, and the non-Warden Benevenuta.. for... some reason, that isn't entirely clear to anyone else.

Their mission is to find the Architect, and if unable to apprehend him, to gather as much information on the situation as possible before returning to Skyhold.

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Alistair doesn't pause to ask whether calling an evil murderous woman a bitch is particularly better than calling an evil murderous elf a rabbit, for several reasons. The first is that he barely cares. The second is that this isn't the time. The third is that he's leaving—attempting to leave, anyway, to chase the woman who'd dared to kiss Teren (kiss!! Teren!!) and then hurt her, who's back on her way to the trap door after Bethany's interruption. Anders has Teren, Mishka's a goner, Raelle—

He swivels to find Raelle where she's being battered into the ground and cuts off her mana, for good measure.

Unfortunately that means he is no longer looking where he's going. He looks ahead just in time to swerve around Kaisa and Mishka, take a few unsteady jumping steps sideways, and skid onto his side. Perhaps it's a good thing that he doesn't have a sword. He's quick to get back on his feet, quick to cross the rest of the distance to the trap door, but it's probably still too slow, given everything. Given he doesn't know where the trap door leads or have more than a carving knife in his boot, not to mention that the building is on fire.

But she kissed Teren and then hurt her, so Alistair is going down there anyway, unless someone wants to tell him not to.

Mishka and Zerique are at the full mercy of Bethany's spell, the unmistakable sound of breaking bones accompanying their return to the floor. Mishka has about two seconds to moan out an expression of pain before Kaisa is upon him, and though he feebly tries to counter her with his dagger, it's not much.
Raelle is hot on Zerique's heels as the latter, despite her wounds, slithers down into the trapdoor; but then she slams it shut, and it's too heavy for Raelle to open rapidly before Bethany slams her into the ground. With the wind knocked out of her, she curls there, forearms protecting her head, awaiting the inevitable.

Teren is docile as Anders lifts her, reeling from the shock, the pain, the heartbreak and how quickly they all came in succession. The corset she still has on prevented the wounds from being too gruesome, though the blades did still find their targets, slipping in with cruel efficiency to ensure a death both agonizing and very long. A mage's healing makes short work of them, but it's doubtful those are the most painful part of what just happened.

She's still processing it when she hears that word, uttered no less from one of her own people, and her head whips around to fix her incredulous gaze on the speaker. But the motion is too quick, and she makes herself dizzy, momentarily collapsing back against Anders and offering him a glance that could actually be construed as apologetic.
When she sees Alistair go hurling by, however, she sits up again, an awkward scramble to reach for him before he wrenches the trapdoor open and disappears beneath it.
"Alistair!" she wails in protest, far too late to stop him, but attempts to stumble to her feet anyway, with limited results.
"Leave her," she implores the two mages advancing on Raelle, pausing only momentarily to do so before she attempts to open the heavy trapdoor herself. And... doesn't succeed, because she's still week. "ALISTAIR," she yells again, her voice fraught with desperation.

Zerique, knowing she wouldn't be able to run, has tucked herself into a divet in the wall of the underground passage. Based on the sound of the door reopening, and the attitude of the person doing it, she knows it isn't Mishka or Raelle.
Suppressing the sounds of her breath and waiting, ever so patiently, for Alistair to pass, Zerique steps out after him and plunges her blade into the base of his spine, a move often favored by Teren in combat, designed to paralyze from the waist down and leave the victim helpless.

Edited 2017-02-08 19:39 (UTC)

Well, that fucking hurts.

Alistair might even say so, a rare foray into Extreme Swearing that no one but Zerique gets to enjoy. He also swivels, an elbow aimed for her face of throat, whichever—which turns into just uselessly twisting around as his legs give out. Fuck that also.

Slumped down on the floor and incredibly annoyed—how many blighted jokes about not watching his flank is he going to have to listen to now, Zerique? how many? maybe he will actually die right now rather than endure that, thank you—Alistair doesn't do magic, because what Templars do isn't magic, don't be stupid. But he does take a head-clearing breath and then light up like an exploding star, everything he has left poured into a rush of white fire that may not be holy and may not actually smite anyone, but should at least make her back up. Preferably into a wall. Preferably hard.

Benevenuta doesn't dignify Bethany's adorable 'we' nonsense with so much as a glance in her direction, bearing down on Raelle with so much fury, but in deference to Teren's plea on her behalf (and how unsettling it is, even for her, to hear Teren plead), what she does next is not fatal.

Not pleasant; she drags Raelle from the floor with the unforgiving grip of her flame-touched hand upon her jaw, meets her gaze with purpose and says, "Run," with a cold, deliberate anger that suggests she should consider not ever, ever stopping -

- but not fatal, when she casts her aside.

Also still in her fancy dress, with not a weapon to be found, Kaisa isn't exactly at peak 'wrecking people's shit' levels. However, this doesn't stop her from tackling Mishka, and who needs weapons when you have perfectly serviceable fists? Fists that are currently punching him in the face. If it's any consolation, she makes no effort to negate any strikes from his dagger. When they get in the way of her fists, she just hisses, and moves her position. Pain can be dealt with later.

Mishka has gotten incredibly lucky in two distinct but related manners. The first, is that the barrier she bounced off managed to shake her out of the worst of the rage. She's certainly still pissed off, and she's certainly intent on breaking in his face, but she's aware enough of her surroundings to hear other people speaking. As evidenced by her whole...Power of Friendship speech.

This leads to the second stroke of luck, because Kaisa isn't completely ignoring her surroundings, she can hear Teren pleading--pleading--for Alistair. It's enough to make her fist pause in midair. Her brows twitch, and she glance coldly at the man below her. "You better thank the Maker for sparing your dumb ass." And with that, she sprints over to the trapdoor, yanks it open, and throws herself down it. Ladders? Ladders are for fucking noobs.

She lands hard, on one knee, but nothing she can't shake off. Especially when she takes in the scene in front of her.

"Will you STOP fucking STABBING my friends?!" With that irate shout, she moves--first priority, to get between Zerique Stabbington and Alistair. She can worry about everything else once she's sure she's between him and that dagger.

Raelle doesn't have to be told twice, though it's a bit hard to hear the voices of the others over the sound of her own anguished whining. She tugs away from Benny at last, and, still feeling the effects of Bethany's spell, limps back down the way they all came. She's outie.

"LAPIN!" Mishka barks after her, quite bruised and barely able to hoist himself up onto an elbow. He didn't get much stabbing in on Kaisa, since for one thing he's getting on in the years, and for the other he's a bit broken from Bethany's ministrations. When Raelle is out of sight, he sags back down, looking vaguely concerned at the sounds of yelling from below.

"She had promise," he says with a grimacing, directing his gaze up at Teren, who is trying to psych herself up to follow Kaisa and Alistair down into the pit. He catches her attention, and she turns to narrow her eyes at him. He has the audacity to smile, with the cold resignation of one who knows he's about to die and wants to do as much damage as possible before the fact.
"Though she lacked your fire." He coughs. "You're one in a million, Chacalonne. And I do mean that quite literally."

Teren looks down into the passage, gripping the lip of the floor more tightly, her face taut in a frown.

"They don't know, do they?" he continues, and hacks a laugh, a mockery of the kindly sound he made not half an hour earlier. Teren slowly, cautiously, meets his eyes again.
"You think she wouldn't tell me?" Mishka jeers, "such a bundle of secrets you are, my dear. You nearly had me fooled." Whatever it is he's taunting her about, he seems to be taking considerable pleasure in not saying it aloud.

Zerique, in the meantime, quickly removes her knife from Alistair's back and begins to step backward down the tunnel, fumbling with the cork on a healing potion. She holds her blade at the ready, locking eyes with Kaisa in a warning stare, breaking it only to down the concoction.
Then she turns, and she takes off; no goading, no monologues. She just runs, and hopes Kaisa has the sense not to follow her.

All this shouting and meaningful glaring is great, possibly almost sexy, but from the floor, Alistair can't quite follow it, dazed from blowing all of his energy on Templar tricks that didn't even help and, also, from having a hole in his back. He says—distantly, academically, like he's just noticed one of his feet is shaped differently than the other and needs to inform Kaisa of this fact from the other end of a very long tunnel—"Kaisa, I can't move."

That is as close as he is going to ever get to please don't leave

Kaisa has never, and will never, be particularly known for her good sense, and she's already stepped around Alistair to pursue this new target. Where is she going? What is waiting on the other side? She doesn't know, or care. Just that this woman needs to die. Or just get punched in the face a lot.

She's starting into a run when Alistair calls for her, and Kaisa skids to a stop. She looks at him, looks at the disappearing Zerique, bouncing anxiously on her toes. But while she'll never be accused of an abundance of sense, she has plenty of loyalty to spare. Plenty of care for her friends. She lets out a small whine, like a dog being denied a toy, before she rests her heels decidedly, glancing down the tunnel.

"I'VE SEEN YOUR FACE!" She screams down it--if she can't hurt her, she'll at least antagonize her. "And I don't forget faces! I'm going to find you, and when I do, what Teren did to you will seem like a goddamn picnic!" And that's all she can do, so she turns, and walks back to Alistair. She's shaking, too much fury and frustration to be contained by one woman. It itches under her skin, in her veins, but she doesn't falter as she kneels down to scoop up her fallen friend.

"You know what I think, Alistair? I think this is some bullshit."

"Stop moving, Teren." There is anger in his voice as well as determination. Terry von Skroodleoodle is making things worse and apparently Zerique is making things worse because that's not a good tone of voice from Alistair. He's heard close to it before. He hadn't wanted to again.

"Get him up here quickly, Kaisa." This time his voice has less anger, but there's still edge to it. Their surroundings are on fire, they have two down, and tonight has already been ridiculous.

"And if you want to say something, Mishka, say it now or be forever silent, because I'm five seconds away from slamming an earth spike through your chest and ending any word you might ever say again." He doesn't want to care, doesn't want to be curious, but he can't help it. At least he can help Teren, working on the damage she's re-opened thanks to scooting away with stab wounds in here.

"We need to get away from the fire. And probably kill him." A jerk of his head toward Mishka. Mercy can protest how she wants; all she's doing is making sure Anders isn't the one who ends the man.

Edited (Very Important Name Details) 2017-02-09 01:31 (UTC)

"Sooome bullshit," Alistair echoes faintly while Kaisa picks him up, which is a feat. He tries to help, mainly by wrapping his arms around her and laying his head on her shoulder. It's very romantic, aside from the blood and so on.

And if it hurts enough to make him choke, he does his best to hide it in a disgruntled sort of huffing noise at Anders' fussing from above. At least they're talking, though. No one can be dead if they're still talking like that.

"It's only a scratch," he says. "Tell him--" On second though, he raises his own voice. "It's only a scratch. A deep scratch." That, too, is sooome bullshit, and fairly obvious from the strain in his voice, but he'd heard Teren shouting before, and he, too,would like for her to stop moving until Anders says she's allowed to. He stops trying to talk loud enough for anyone up the ladder to hear, but he does not stop talking period, because then he might have to think about his back or how weird it is to no longer feel his feet. "Ooh, Kaisa, you're so strong."

Bethany presses her lips together, as all this is going on, looking around. Fire was coming down all around them, so the safest way out of this place was to make a new exit.

She shifted her hand, moving debris out of the way, to open another doorway out into the open air, and into the field. "Come out, let's go. And then we can find a way to find ... that woman."

"Anders, Alistair would like to lie to you that it's only a scratch." Kaisa shouts up the ladder dutifully. "I would like to tell you that his legs are out." Which brings her to the problem at hand: the ladder. She's heard, somewhere, among warriors who are often the ones to haul their injured brothers-in-arms from the field, that spine injuries ought to be jostled as little as possible, lest you make the situation worse. But the chantry is on fire, and their healer is up the ladder.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll stare at you dramatically while the wind billows our hair once we get to where there's wind. In the meantime, hold on tight." She shifts him slightly, then reaches for the ladder with the hand under Alistair's torso, other hand gripping his legs tight. It's awkward and jerky, but Kaisa does her best to make sure that Alistair's unfortunate spine doesn't get pushed out of alignment. More than it already may be.

With some prayers, some swears, and a bit of ladylike grunting, she manages to pull them up the trapdoor. It's really no surprise to be greeted by everything being on fire. She glances at Mishka, lips pressed together, as she studies him, then the chantry. "Let Teren decide. If he's to live, it'll be in debt to her. If he dies, I'd rather take care of it quickly." She'd been willing to punch his face in, but that was a better death than burning alive. Even Andraste had been spared that fate.

Teren actually listens to Anders this time, letting him boss her around, though perhaps only because Kaisa is emerging with Alistair and what she sees just about breaks her heart in two.
"No," she says faintly, seemingly mindless of the building smoke and heat around them. Thank the Maker for Anders. "I'll make it out," she says quickly to the mage, then gets to her feet again, right as Mishka begins his wheedling once more.

"Listen to the girl," he says, "I'll be in debt to you. Anything you want." He smiles again, his viper's smile, the way he's manipulated her so many times before. "For the cause, Chacalonne."

Teren slowly shuffles toward him, careful of her wounds (also so Anders won't yell at her again), and stoops to extend her hand. Mishka reaches for it, but it's not his hand she seeks: instead, she pulls his dagger from his belt.
A moment passes between them, in which they meet eyes, student and mentor. Mishka's smile begins to falter, Teren's is impassive.
Then, with as much warning as he gave her (which is to say, none) she drives the blade down through the top of his hand, pinning him to the floor.
"For the cause," she repeats in a deadpan, barely audible under Mishka's shriek of pain. Then she stands, slowly and carefully, and walks back toward the others with a nod. Let's go.

"Here, here." There's no winning with keeping Teren put, but at least he can go see to Alistair and start figuring out what's gone wrong. Which is a lot. Anders' lips press together before he nods.

"This is going--" But then Teren's heading for Mishka and stabbing his hand and Anders is stuck staring for a few moments. That's cruel. As cruel as a lover stabbing you? No. But... He can feel Mercy's dismay and resolve, and he can't say he disagrees with her, despite how he understands hurting enough to do something like that.

"Teren." Anders' voice is quiet. "I can't fully heal you if we leave him like that. Mercy wants no part of it. I can still use my natural abilities, but it won't be spirit healing. I'm not judging you; it's out of my hands unless he gets a clean death. I'm sorry."

Justice would have been fine with it. Mercy can't be. He looks back to Kaisa. "Let's get Alistair in the carriage, and I'll get to work there."

Alistair's range of vision is limited to whatever is behind Kaisa, at the moment, but he manages to register that Teren has done something he should disapprove of. He tries very hard to disapprove. He makes a noise that's disapproving in theory but garbled and pained in practice. Between the blood loss and ridiculous pain from the parts of his back that still have feeling, he's losing coherence.

And people are going to put him somewhere. He hates being put places.

"I'm fine," he insists, hissing, and tries to crane his neck to find Teren and whatever she's done, which doesn't end well for his spine. He might start crying a little. But if anyone ever says so he'll fight them.

Bethany stares as Teren slams the dagger down into Mishka's hand, sucking in a hard breath of surprise. She looks over at Anders as he speaks, a flood of relief coming over her at his words, no, they couldn't leave him to die like this.

Almost absentmindedly, she speaks to Alstair, "No, you're not. None of us are -- but I don't think any of us have turned into the monsters that put us in this situation, have we?"

She looks over at Mishka, then at Teren. "If you don't kill him, I will. I won't ... I won't say he doesn't deserve to die, but to die in the flames? Maker, I would not wish that fate on anyone."

Having already consigned several men to such a death in the process of her escape and in no mood to be sympathetic to the soft of heart, Benevenuta ignores the conversation or seems to as she gestures curtly for her corpse to hand her the knife he took.

She stabs it into the side of Mishka's neck, careful and deliberate and entirely without warning, and does not flinch at the violent spray of blood that interrupts the by play.

"If we're quite done."

"Alistair--Alistair hold still." Kaisa is having a lot of thoughts and a lot of feelings about everything that's going on, but her priority is the stupid squirmy warrior in her arms. He's not exactly light, and she has to struggle to keep her grip.

While she's busy with that, a lot of things happen. She was already getting ready to voice her own disapproval on Teren's actions, but Benevenuta takes care of the matter for her. Solemn and contemplative, she spends a few moments staring down at Mishka's corpse. There's so much that they can't see, couldn't possibly know. But what has she ever known? She's just the dumb muscle.

Past fallen beams and toppled pews, Kaisa makes her way out of the burning church, only stopping again once she's safely out of any danger. "Ashes we were, and ashes we become." It's a quiet, murmured little prayer, only loud enough for Alistair to hear. And with that out of the way, she heads to the carriage. At least it's over, and no one is going to expect anything more out of her other than stupid jokes.

Teren is still looking at Anders, explaining his problem, when Benevenuta takes care of things behind her. Mishka's scream cuts off in a guttural sound, which eventually drags out into a death rattle. An undignified death, hardly befitting a man of his accomplishment and reputation.
Good, perhaps.
She has turned to watch this happen, and then looks back at the mage, weary and resigned and so ready to be gone from here. She slowly and carefully makes her way toward the chantry doors as the fire spreads, not so quickly as to be unmanageable, and once they're out in the fresh air, she drops to her knees with a sigh of exertion. Of course her wounds have opened again, and this time she'll actually hold still for Anders to deal with them.

Her head is down, but it's possible to see the glistening of moisture on her angular face. It's been so long since she last wept, she barely remembers how. But no matter, it never solves anything.

The carriage in which they arrived is still on the road leading into the town, but is now horseless. Raelle is making her hasty way back to Perendale, to do... Maker knows what. Her network is shattered.

"Pike," Teren says in a quavering mutter, "it's not far from here. Alistair needs to rest." They all do, but he's currently the one she feels the worst about. All the same, her eyes flit up to meet Benny's, in a look that could actually be construed as apologetic. She's not completely clear on what happened, but she knows her own role in it was integral.

For a few moments all he can do is just look at the place where the horse had been. Alistair doesn't just need rest, and 'not far' might be too far. The only slight comfort he has is the fact that now he feels that Benevenuta has no leg to stand on when she judges him, not with how cold-blooded that kill had been. It doesn't help Alistair, though.

Anders exhales. "We're going to stop here for several minutes, at least. I need to get him stable so he doesn't bleed out while we're moving, and he's in less pain. Because I don't know how far 'not far' is, but it's too far to take him like this. Kaisa, if you'd set him down in the carriage? At least that's a flat surface that's better than dirt."

Maker, what a mess. "And Teren, if you can take a seat and not move around too much while I do that, I'll see to you after him. If anyone else is wounded, now is the time to say. If anyone is trying to hide a wound..." He trails off and shakes his head. He doesn't even have the energy right now for a proper threat. "Don't."

Whatever imaginary comforts keep the terrorist quiet suit Benevenuta just fine. She tests her ribs with her fingers, gingerly, and settles on;

"Only bruises."

Many bruises, and deep, ugly ones, but only bruises, she thinks.

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[closed] the turn of the screw

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