CLOSED: It's Like Spitting on a Fish

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WHO: Malcolm, Iskandar, Inessa, Anders, and Nathaniel
WHAT: A hunt for the Hero of Ferelden
WHEN: Present
WHERE: The Deep Roads
NOTES: Will update with any warnings.

First, it's a ship taken to Amaranthine. Then, it's a hike to the Deep Roads entrance, and the journey through Kal-sharok. It takes a day or so for Nathaniel to find Jonas' trail leaving Kal-sharok, and they are later able to confirm that it is definitely Jonas upon encountering a doused fire with some evidence about--things the queen's men would have found, had they been able to make it this far. The truth is that few besides a Warden could have made it this far.

With time, the team is able to track Jonas to a long-abandoned thaig. Nathaniel squints at the gates that are closed before them, and yet their hinges are eroded. They are off-kilter a little, and look moveable.

"Iskandar, Malcolm--help me force this open. Inessa, Anders, can you use your magic to help us?"

Comments

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The switch plate does not move for several seconds. Nathaniel starts closing the gate. There is a creak of ice bending, the crackles of some of it beginning to give way--then the click of a switch. No hiss of gas, but a myriad of bolts begin to fly across the room just before the gate shuts.

"Well," Nathaniel says to no one in particular. Then, "Well done, everyone."

[justice_is_blond]

He's tense as the ice starts to give, hands already glowing in case he needs to do something, anything, and the shutting of the gate doesn't really help. Anders stops casting, but he's very aware of how that plate could have cost him everything.

"Yes," he echoes hollowly. The staff goes back into its holster and he holds up a hand to cast after all - giving them light to move forward with.

[tactical_alert]

"If it had been an easy task to track down the Hero of Ferelden, we would've found him ages ago." Malcolm isn't blind to the fact that they could all very well die down here. But may the Maker strike him down if he wasn't going to take up the first opportunity to take the search back up.

He gives a little bit of a smile to Iskandar. "That was impressive, by the way. Have you been a mage all this time and refrained from telling us?" It had been, after all, like magic.

[conqueredhearts]

"Hm? Not at all. I am a Spirit."

He said it so simply too. Like it was no big deal. Of course he never tried to hide what he was from anyone here. He was a spirit and people would either accept that or they wouldn't and there was little he could do about that aside from be himself.

[justice_is_blond]

"Rifter spirit," Anders amends hastily. He doesn't have the measure of Malcolm yet so there's no point in taking needless risks with the Seeker.

"Not anything that would draw Chantry ire." Sometimes he thinks he should put together a pamphlet of what information Rifters shouldn't be telling just anyone, but it's not like he thinks Iskandar would pay attention to that.