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

[arlathvhen]

Beleth has her mouth open to tell Alistair off, no, she doesn't serve tea (they have servants for that, goodness). Then Zevran speaks.

She's not nearly as concerned about the sudden appearance of her old mentor (or a demon posing as him) as she is about the very real and immediate issue of Cade being in distress. Her head jerks in his direction, and she takes the steps necessary to cover the distance between them, quickly coming to his side and placing her hand on his arm, looking consolingly up at him.

Just Friends™

Then she steps between Cade and Zevran, which does absolutely nothing to hide the man that's over half a foot taller than her. But still!! She stares at Zevran calmly, eyes moving up and down. He looks just like how she remembered him. It doesn't do much to convince her that this isn't some trick. But trick or no, he's distressing Cade.

"The dead do not get to judge the living," She tells him, hand still on Cade's arm. "We're dreadfully sorry to have the gall not to show up maimed and murdered. Everyone is terribly disappointed, we know, we've heard." And she turns slightly to get a better look at Cade, leaning in to softly whisper to him. "It's alright. Everything is okay, don't worry."

It is, honestly, as much about being concerned for Cade, as it is that a riled up Cade has a greater chance to lose his shit and freak out at everyone around him (except Beleth). Mad dogs need a firm handler.

[byblow]

The sound of Zevran's voice makes Alistair's hands, which he'd placed under his head, curl into hair-clenching fists. But he doesn't say anything. This is all very Fine.

"The living are judging you just fine," he says to Beleth. He doesn't care what Cade is doing or how Cade feels, but he would prefer that he feel it somewhere else, if possible. "Did you need something?"

[el_tybs]

She said she wasn't Venatori, but from the conversations going around it certainly made it seem like that was the case. After all there was talk about doing work for them, writing memos, and a lot about judging. Not to mention her treatment to everyone in the cells, and the attitudes towards her from them. There's just a lot going on here pointing to Beleth not being on their side for whatever reasons.

"Demons can judge just fine," he mutters sarcastically seeing as their group kept getting called either dead or demon. Leaning forward so that his head was against the bars, Sam gives a sigh, watching the best he could as Beleth and Cade moved about.