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

[circleprodigy]

For Inessa, the sudden freedom from her cell doesn't bring much of a reaction other than confusion. Unlike Ellana, she hasn't been actively trying to escape, and as the red lyrium is still in her system, she's damned no matter what. So, freedom doesn't mean anything to her personally anymore. That isn't to say that she won't join them, however. Given the choice, she'd rather go down fighting before the red takes her.

Nodding to Saoirse, Inessa brushes herself off and steps out, glancing around at the others. The attention to the bear doesn't escape her, and her lips twitch briefly. The guards have been far from kind, and whatever fate Peaches has in store for them is just fine with her. Still, the Warden mage isn't going to leave all the work to others.

"What I would't give for a staff...." That's muttered mostly to herself, knowing she doesn't need a staff to be dangerous, but it's been a while since she's used her magic, let alone in combat. This is not a comfortable time to be relying on a rusty skillset.

[extramural]

"Our things must be somewhere," the Outsider murmurs, nodding his thanks to Saoirse as he slips out of his cell. The magebane hasn't worn off for him yet, but he can use a sword and a variety of other weapons -- assuming he can get them. For now, he heads down the row of cells in order to get closer to both Corvo and Wren, absently rubbing at the piece of Fade magic in his hand.

There are few here he knows well. Corvo is, for the moment, the priority right after himself; Corvo is his mortal, from his world. Besides, he stood up for him, which was both unexpected and a sign of life from the man who had claimed to give up. Wren- well, Wren is a Templar who isn't currently infected with red lyrium. In a place with Venatori who can use magic, it seems prudent to stay by someone who can stop it.

In the dungeons, stripped of his magic, he truly looks young. He looks fifteen, gangly and with hands he hasn't grown into it, eyes with whites and brown irises. It doesn't quite fit the ease with which he treats being in prison, or the slightly sharp look in his eyes as he looks around.

"For those who are familiar with what we've been drugged with..." he starts, sounding more curious than urgent, "...when is it supposed to wear off?"

[youwonscience]

Cosima remembers exactly how well her last escape attempt didn't go, so she almost hesitates before opening the cell Saoirse unlocked.

But that won't serve. It's not like 'stay here and get infected with red lyrium' is a superior plan.

She takes a deep breath and steps out with the others. She's learned a bit of self-defense, but her best bet is going to be sticking with the group and running a lot. She doesn't want to add to the noise by speaking more than necessary - surely they've got limited time before someone notices what is happening - and she notices several of her companions waiting for whatever comes next too.

So it's Saoirse that Cosima glances to find. She has the key - maybe she has a plan? (A plan beyond 'throwing meat at the guards and setting the bear free,' which isn't nothing but is worryingly one-step when Cosima has very little sense of the place in which they're being held.)

[watchesandlistens]

Corvo had been sleeping, thank you very much. It's the one thing he can do around here. And there are those future people, chatting again. How long was it going to take for them to talk themselves out, because this was really inconvenient--he didn't need to be tired on top of whatever nonsense they were going to throw at him tomorrow.

Finally, he opens one eye, ready to kick a cell bar until they shut up, when--

The cell door was open. For a few seconds, Corvo grimaces, because the only thing an open cell door means is that he's about to be dragged off. That pain is soon to follow. But there are no guards, and the other prisoners are milling around, outside of their cells. Outside of their cells.

Slowly, painfully slowly, Corvo rises, approaching the cell door cautiously, like a trap might spring on him at any moment. But nothing happens, and he steps beyond the cell door. A gulp of air follows, like a drowning man pulled above water. He relishes the feeling for a few moments, before he holds his hand out, flexing it. The mark flares to life, just as it had before, glimmering a strange green glow from the rift magic that marked him.

For the first time in longer than he can remember, Corvo smiles. It feels unnatural on his face.

He turns to see the Outsider, to get a better look at him than a glance through the bars, and--What in the void. Who's that kid. Where did the Outsider go. Vaguely, he thinks of snippets of long-ago forgotten conversations, I was around Emily's age. Corvo holds his hand up, right to the Outsider's (diminished) height, raising an eyebrow skeptically. Shoulda been eating your veggies, kiddo.

[el_tybs]

Well the piece of wet cloth made a lot more sense now. He doesn't know how they had managed it, but Sam is more then glad to be out of his cell. Granted they were still in the dungeon and there were still guards - and Maker knows what else - to get through, but at least this was a step in the right direction to getting out.

"Magebane," he says, clarifying to the Outsider what it was that they were drugged with. "It'll honestly depend on how much and how potent the poison was. They haven't been back to administer more so... it should wear off soon. But-" There's a pause as he looks around, particularly at the bear that the others are mentioning letting loose, before looking back to the man. "I'm not sure if it'll affect you similarly to the rest of us." Being a Rifter and all that.

[byblow]

When his door is unlocked, Alistair gives Saoirse a strained answering smile. They are all going to die! But dying is better than spending another month or six in a cell. He doesn't step outside of it yet, though, busy listening to the conversations with one ear and casting his eyes around for anything that could be used as a weapon. They could break the legs off the cots, probably, and there are manacles affixed to discarded stocks in one of the empty cells. Both are going to make a lot of noise, but maybe if the bear and the mages can buy time—

"Are any of you strong enough for a spellbloom?" he whispers. He isn't very good at whispering, but he tries. "Or that rejuvenating thing."

[serannas]

Ellana doesn't answer Alistair's question in words, she simply holds both hands out with palms forward and casts the spellbloom spell. She hasn't been magebaned in awhile. Her original escape plan involved looking for an opportunity to shapeshift, and she couldn't do that if she was being troublesome and had magebane forced on her.

But that should help most if not all the mages around her, as long as they're in the radius of her spell.

[doneisdone]

Teren is silent and calculating all the while, and as the others are reuniting, she carefully lies down flat on her stomach to look through the crack under the door. One set of feet. There are so many of them, this really shouldn't be a big deal or require too much magic or posturing.

She rises again to hold out her hands and motion downwards to quiet down the whispering. Then she beckons everyone into a huddle so they can talk quietly and still be heard.
"There's but one guard on this side," she whispers, "we don't need anything showy, just one strong person to pull him in here after we've opened the door behind him." She looks automatically to Alistair, but doesn't specify.
"We do the same with the other, two of us put on their armor and go find our things. Bring it all back here, then perhaps we'll have a fighting chance." She raises her eyebrows, looking around at each person, hoping there isn't some huge oversight she's missing. Ah, to be twenty-something again and doing this on the regular.

"We can send Peach--the bear out if we need a diversion," she murmurs to the Doctor, "but she'll likely hurt our cause more than help it, so keeping her sedate is our best chance."

Don't know if we're trying to keep to an order, but well...

[not_the_question]

In the huddle the Doctor listens to the plan.

"It's a good plan. I like this plan. There's just one detail: don't different people here have different... abilities? I met someone claiming to be from the Fade who knew things about me they had no business knowing. How do we know the guard isn't one of those?"

He doesn't mind that his bear idea was set aside. He's used to being alone, or maybe himself and one other person. Having so many people to help, well, confuses him, actually.