OPEN ↠ FALSE GODS, GREAT DEMONS (PART I)

[faderifting]

WHO: Time Travelers & Future Kirkwall Residents
WHAT: Time travel, captures, escapes, explosions.
WHEN: ALTERNATE FUTURE, Early Cloudreach 9:48
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES:.This is the first plot log for False Gods, Great Demons, specifically for the time travel team and adjacent plot efforts. An open post for general Darkest Timeline adventures will be posted separately! A plotting post specifically for the escape from Kirkwall can be found here.

It's been over a year since the village of Haven was burned, ransacked, and buried beneath snow and ice--a year for the snow to melt and leave behind blackened, rotting wood for a new year's snow to fall over. The stone walls and Chantry stand, but the rest of the village is a jagged scar, and the path up the mountain to the Temple of Sacred Ashes still shows signs of the battle against the Breach: toppled carts, abandoned crates, a broken bridge.

Given the debris, obstacles, and lingering demon-infested tears in the Veil, it takes the better part of a day for even a well-armed team of trained fighters to make the trek from Haven to the Temple. Despite that, there's been a steady stream of pilgrims to Andraste's final resting place--and now the site of the Herald's death. More still wait on the road and outside the entrance to the Temple ruins, guarded now by Inquisition soldiers until the recent deaths within the walls have been investigated.

Save the wind and quiet crunch of bones being gnawed on, the Temple itself is silent. The molten-ash corpses that were once outside the walls, contorted from their final moments of agony, have been removed and given rites--but the icy dust beneath the band's boots is still partly bone and burned flesh, and patches of red lyrium still resist efforts at removal.

The bone-crunching comes from down the main staircase and around a corner. Five corpses are slumped around a campfire, dressed for warmer weather, preserved by the cold somewhat but withered and too decayed to have died within the week, let alone overnight while no one else was looking--and with one arm currently being chewed on by a bear while two others amble nearby.

Stopping them from eating the evidence is a good idea, probably. And perhaps as the effort to chase them away from the carrion gets underway, in the midst of the chaos and roaring, someone will notice one of the bandits splayed out across the icy stone floor. She's as withered as the rest of them, save one outstretched arm that's still fleshy-plump and pink where it falls outside some invisible line.

But if anyone does notice, it's too late. There's a flare of light that shifts quickly from rift-green to a blinding white, a white-noise roar and a gust of windy force that propels everyone forward to--

Exactly where they were, except a few yards to the left, and in the last two seconds the few stubborn scraps of red lyrium on the Temple walls have crawled and expanded to form whole walls of crystal. For a moment it's silent again, save the wind. The one of the bears--the only one carried along with the group--lets out a bewildered, irritable roar. Beyond the walls there's a shout, then another, then too many for it to be only the handful of Inquisition soldiers posted outside the Temple.

Seconds later, they're surrounded.

Comments

[sulena]

Saoirse takes another needed breath of air as Russo turns away from them and approaches the table. For a moment, she considers closing her eyes and steeling her nerves but that silence is interrupted as the tools clatter to the ground with a harsh sound.

Glancing to Teren, she frowns with confusion but does not say anything and simply looks back with furrowed brows.

[visus]

There's a small laugh out of Russo at that. She speaks. "A pertinent question," he commends, a glance back at them past his shoulder. "In your position."

He signs the little piece of paper before curling it back into a tube, no longer than two inches. Its placed inside a small leather satchel which is weighted with something else. "Leave the Gallows," he repeats, turning back to them. He takes out a small tangle of keys from his belt, which jangle enough to make him wince before treating them with better care. "Leave this time. Go back. There are more than I who would give anything if we could only--"

Go back.

He approaches them both, and holds up a key. "Seek the rebels. The Inquisition." Saoirse, being the most amiable one of them, is who he decides to task with its keeping, and he offers it to her by touching the key's cool iron pin to her bottom lip. "Open your mouth. Take it."

[doneisdone]

This has to be a trick. Teren watches him in growing bewilderment, observes how he gives the key to Saoirse, then takes to simply staring. She'd demand to know more, but that might constitute looking a gift horse in the mouth. If he's going to free them, she's not going to waste the opportunity by making trouble.

[sulena]

Perhaps it is a trick. Saoirse can feel her heart racing, unsure if it is because of fear or the fact that is actually happening to them. For a long moment she stares, bewilder but it lasts only a beat before she bites down on the key and takes it into her mouth with a hard look.

Leave the Gallows, leave this time. Fine. She'll fight to make it happen if possible.

[visus]

The key given, a flinch of regret passes over his features, but it's done. More or less. Next, the flash of a communication crystal glimmers blue in the dim, torch-lit shadows of the room. He puts it over the elf's head and tucks it hidden away into her collar. Conveniently, she can't talk while it's on her, not until they're at least clear of this room.

"It was a dream," he says to her, to Teren. He can see their confusion. He thinks if they'd been here for the full five years, they would have more rage, and he would fail to alleviate either. Still-- "One glorious dream. So long we've dreamed it, we'd dreamed of that Tevinter, the true Tevinter. Or-- perhaps we didn't. Perhaps we thought we'd dreamed it, once, we thought we should."

He leaves Saoirse where she is, stepping in front of Teren.

"It's here, now. The dream, from which we can't wake. Not unless someone does the waking." He looks down over what she's wearing, and is rather matter of fact with finding a place to store the satchel. Not so easily hidden as a key or a crystal, but important nonetheless, and he takes care to fasten it beneath her clothes. "I'm giving you a letter, for Lady Thevenet of Nevarra.

"Find a way, and receive her instructions. Do as she asks. The amulet in the satchel-- keep it. Don't let it out of your sight until you've resc-- until-- until you can hand it to her yourselves. If you ever wish to go home, you'll do this."

[doneisdone]

Teren flinches when Russo touches her, even if it's just to put the satchel on her person. Then she flinches again, but not for any physical reason-- there's a name that rings in her ear, and she can barely believe it.
"She lives, then," she observes, with a sudden pang of unease. "...the elder or the younger?" Either way, she's not looking forward to appearing in front of them after being presumed dead for five years. Figures that fate would put here here with this task. Of course. Naturally. Bollocks.

[sulena]

Again, Saoirse is quiet though the exchange. The key in her mouth certainly helps as she arranges it in a way to not make it so very obvious that she is trying to hide something. The taste of iron is enough to keep her focused, fight off the magebane still sneaking through her system and watching as Russo moves to tuck a glittering blue crystal into her collar.

Her focus still follows as he moves to Teren, frowning but listening to each word he says. The name is unfamiliar to her but obviously very familiar to Teren based on her question in response. It feels overwhelming, honestly but that just makes her want to push back harder and see this future erased from possibility.

[visus]

Russo straightens out of his lean to study Teren's face, wondering if perhaps there is a mistake hidden in having selected someone familiar with House Thevenet, but is unable to immediately discern what that mistake could be.

"The younger, I suppose. Her mother vanished off the map some time ago."

He straightens Teren's clothing. "And yes, she lives. Not so unlike a tenacious, flowering weed unwelcome in another's garden, but she lives." That all sounds very unflattering, and yet there's some element of wryness that makes it more of a compliment. That glimmer of something apart from his fear-tainted severity is gone as quickly as it arrived, stepping back from them both.

He's given them everything he can give. Including, very likely, his life, but Maker knows he'll hold on to that for as long as he can. He turns away from them, hands wringing.

"There are three more guard rotations in pairs, and then on the fourth, there is only one. I suggest you make the most of these little opportunities."

[doneisdone]

That almost isn't so bad, and then Teren thinks about it, and then it is abruptly worse than she could have imagined. But at least... well maybe they'll get out of here before it matters.
As bothered as she is by this dude touching her, Teren is willing to forgive it for what he's doing, and even looks a tinge sympathetic as Russo steps away from them.

"Better give yourself a head start," she says quietly, not unkindly. "Perhaps you can be out before anyone realizes what's happened."

[sulena]

The conversation is rather lost on her given that she has no familiarity with the names or much of Nevarra beyond her want to have visited the Circle in Cumberland, once upon a time. When the conversation turns to Russo though and his escape, Saoirse glances back to the man with a hasty nod of her head.

Again, she is unable to talk but she hopes her look is enough to get across that she very much agrees.

[visus]

Russo doesn't turn back around, but he does pause at Teren's words, hands flexing at his sides before making fists. Then, as if jolted, he makes for the door, unlocking it, swinging it open.

"Take them back to their cells," he says, ramping his tone back up to Magister Imperiousness. The Red Templars shuffle in without particular care, barely heeding Russo as he adds; "Let them, you know, think about it. We'll continue this in the morning, after they've really, you know, marinated in it. Good."

And he's gone, quick as an eel.

The Red Templars do as requested with as much disaffected treatment as they'd brought them in with. Unshackled from the ceiling, manhandled down stone corridors, dragged back into the dungeon, and shoved back into their cells. Iron clangs. Doors close.

The little scroll entrusted to Teren's care reads:

I am writing to let you know it is my sincere regret that I will not be able to meet you again before the winter is out, and it looks to be a long winter indeed.
I hope your husband continues in good health.
Na via lerno victoria.
Magister Gaian Russo