faderift | [CLOSED] For the world's more full of weeping,

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[CLOSED] For the world's more full of weeping,

WHO: Sina, Kit, Myr; later: Yngvi, Herian, Kaisa, Nari
WHAT: Something's not right about a warehouse down by the docks...
WHEN: Mid-Kingsway, while the rest of the Inquisition's off playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Warnings for child abuse and abandonment, implied violent death.

There's a warehouse down near the Kirkwall docks with a mystery crouched inside it.

Myr had smelled it first on passing by the place: Decomposing meat, spilled bowels, rotting corpse. Something wrong, even in the bad parts of Kirkwall; something that demands investigation.

He'd left a glyph nearby to remind him of the place, returned the following evening to hunt around for the source of the smell. It wasn't so hard to isolate it to the one particular warehouse, not with the mephitic funk of recent death oozing from the back windows. Lingering long enough to place another marker, he caught the faintest high-pitched wail--and had to flee back to the road to evade the warehouse's inattentive guardian before he could make certain of what he'd heard.

Quiet inquiries made of passers-by didn't serve to unravel the mystery. Not many of them were inclined to speak to an elf--but the scraps he could garner were food for suspicion. It was empty; someone's cousin-or-other had heard it was up for sale; the single guard's posted to keep away squatters; no one knows or cares what had been stored there before.

A tidy story. A dull story. A story that doesn't explain the stench or the sound. Someone needs to dig further into it; how convenient that someone's here to dig.

It isn't the first time Myr's acted on mad impulse since coming to Kirkwall; it is the first time he's hesitated long enough to question if it's safe for him to do this alone. Elves are disappearing from the city and none of the authorities care. What's one more killed for nosing around somewhere he doesn't belong, even if--especially if--he's a mage? It wouldn't be hard to walk away from this. No matter the itching sense of urgency in the back of his head, he could walk back to the docks and hand this over to the Inquisition guard there. It would be the safe option.

The wind shifts, bringing with it the scent of rot. You don't have that kind of time. He clasps the sending crystal at his neck, awakening the enchantment and thinking of Kit and Sina.

"Have you two got time to come to the docks? I've turned up something down here I don't like." His description of his find is quick and to the point and doesn't neglect that heart-chilling, half-imagined cry.

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It runs exactly parallel to Myr's thoughts on the matter. Maker in Your mercy, Andraste in Your grace, let it not be one of the lost.

He reaches to brush his fingers Sina's hand on his arm--in reassurance, in empathy, in a moment's need for contact. It could be anything; this is Lowtown, a part of him wants to say, but he knows with a certain dread it's not anything. The world's hardly so kind.

"We've got a chance to save one, at least," if it is so bad as they fear. "We got here in time."

Don't think of how faint that cry was. Don't think of how high and childlike it was. Get back soon, Kit. Have a way for them into that warehouse.

When Kit reappears, it's behind them, rather than in front of them. He clears his throat to get their attention, hovering in the mouth of an alley that leads deeper into the recesses of the docks.

"Found a way in," he tells them, sending a quick furtive glance over his shoulder to ensure he wasn't followed; he wasn't. "Think it's going to be a one-way trip, though. We'll need to find another way out." 'Another way,' he anticipates, which will involve him having to deal with the guard in front of the warehouse, one way or another.

He looks between his two companions, not wanting to be uncharitable in assessing their conditions, but not wanting to ask them to do this if they don't feel up to it. "If you don't want to do this..." he starts, offering them a way out, but pointedly not asking them to stay back. In their shoes, even if he were bleeding out, he knows he'd risk life and limb for duster kids, too.

"We must," Sina whispers, shaking her head and stepping past Kit with urgency. Getting out, she can handle: the nice thing about roots is that they can grow through most anything, and break it apart in the process.

"Whoa--hold on--" Kit says, quickly stepping after Sina, with a wary glance ahead of them down the alley. He looks from her to Myr, then back again, giving her a significant look; someone's got to help him.

"Let me take point."

There's a fleeting brittle smile on Myr's face at Kit's offer. "We've got to," he says, echoing Sina. "Not any other option, is there?" If he knows--or intuits--the silent exchange that passes between the two of them concerning him, he gives no sign of it--simply takes the moment's pause afforded him to tag another glyph onto the alley wall. This is a way back, if things go wrong, if they've got to break and run.

"Lead on; I'll be fine." Something almost weary in those three words. He knows Kit's got reasonable concerns and they're not any easier to bear than the unreasonable ones under a time crunch.

Slowed when prompted, Sina immediately turns back to clasp Myr's hand, seeming to realize that she's being rash. "I can make us a way out, if it should come to that," she says in a low voice, "it will not be instant, but if we can stay quiet long enough, it will work." And have the happy bonus of possibly ruining the day of any pursuers, though she prays it won't come to that.

Kit will make his apologies to Myr later, once they've successfully infiltrated the warehouse and confronted the grisly scene that will undoubtedly await them there.

"Sounds like we've got the closest thing to a concrete escape plan that we're going to get," he replies heavily, then turns to head into the alleyway. "C'mon, stay close--we shouldn't split up." There are more dangers dockside than just whatever nefarious goings-on are happening in that warehouse.

He leads them through the alley with stealth and intuition honed by over a decade in the Deep Roads; if there was anyone else lurking back there waiting to visit misfortune upon them, Kit manages to ensure they bypass the danger well. Eventually the maze of back passageways spill them out onto the backside of the warehouse, where crates are stocked high against the walls for safekeeping. They're all empty, but the lingering scent of death clings to the wood.

Kit leads them over to the crates and points up at the small window cracked open; it's just within reach of the highest crate. "It's scaleable," he tells them quietly. "We should be able to get in that way." Myr will be a challenge--but they'll manage it.

By then, an apology likely won't be needed; it's Myr's own damned pride in the way and that's nothing he can afford to linger on.

He holds tight to Sina's hand as Kit leads them through the alleys, nerves prickling and ears straining for any sign they've been discovered. Stopping's no relief from the anxiety when they're surrounded by the carrion reek seeping down from that window; it's all Myr can do not to gag when he draws a too-deep breath. It takes him a moment to swallow his revulsion.

"There's a window up there, I take it." He busies himself with slinging his staff across his back and securing it for the climb. Then he steps forward with a hand outstretched to find the first of the crates. It's quick work for him to feel out its dimensions, going so far as to get up on tiptoe to see how high up the edge of the one stacked on top it is. Doable, so long as the stack is stable--and he lays a hand on it and shoves to check as much. If they're going to knock it over, better now than when one of them's climbing.

It doesn't so much as wobble. "You two will need to be my eyes for that part; the climb's no trouble."

Still, it's probably best one or both of them precedes him up there and he moves aside with that thought in mind, gesturing them forward.

Edited 2017-09-14 06:10 (UTC)

At Kit's prompting, Sina squeezes Myr's hand, then releases it. Though it's unfortunate circumstance that has made her so lightweight, it means the crates are easy for her to traverse; she climbs them carefully, pausing only to cover her nose and mouth with a gasp of dismay. The odor up here is so much more pungent, drifting out the window with such power that it makes her eyes water-- she loops her shawl around the lower half of her face, hoping it will help even temporarily.

One of the benefits of Sina going first is that she inadvertently lights the way, her shard glowing even beneath the layers of fabric draped over it. As she peers into the room, she can make out sluggish movement, the harsh green glow illuminating large blinking eyes set in faces so thin as to be skeletal. And so small.

"Da'lenin," she chokes, the word nearly a sob as she slips through into the room.

Edited (I took it in an entirely different direction lol) 2017-09-14 06:39 (UTC)

Kit follows them up last, figuring if someone has to catch Myr if he slips, it's better him than Sina. But going last means that Sina's despairing cry reaches him before he has the chance to see what inspired it. Dread sinks its claws in anyway; he has a feeling he already knows.

And he does--yet somehow, it's so much worse.

"Ancestors..." The children below them are confined to cages like they're little more than animals. Some move; some don't. It's hard to tell if the little bodies are still from sickness or exhaustion, or something far worse. Kit shudders, red rage threatening to black out his vision for a moment; whatever monsters did this to these kids, he'll embed his axe deep in their skulls, he'll split them in two like a fucking ripe melon--

"Okay," he starts, forcing his voice to steadiness, and turns to both Sina and Myr, "we've got to get them out. I can deal with the guard." 'Deal with.'

Myr's the last to realize what they've stumbled upon--though he suspected--as he stands there with his back to the wall trying to regulate his breathing. "We've got to get them out," Kit says; who are they? Myr thinks for a split-second to ask, until one of the little ones whimpers aloud and it clicks--

Children. Elven children, five of them, penned up like livestock with one blanket between them and the damp chill of a Kirkwall night. The youngest isn't even crawling yet--couldn't, as weak and emaciated as she is--and the oldest is barely a toddler. All they've got for company is the beaten, rotting corpse of an elven slave--Tevinter, by the clothing--that's half-eaten with corruption already. (A burst, flattened waterskin lying nearby, just beyond the slave's outflung hand, suggests a probable cause for the crime.)

"Leave him alive, Kit." It's only the thinnest shreds of self-control that keep Myr's voice just above a snarl. "He'll know something about this." There's no way the guard couldn't have heard them in here, when they were still strong enough to cry. Whatever had his employers told him to make him ignore it, a disconnected intellectual part of Myr wonders. Whatever would be sufficient repayment for the evil of obeying them?

He steps away from the wall, careful as ever, hand upraised--pauses, remembering who he's with. "Going to cast something," he warns, tone level now he can think about what he can do rather than what he wants to. "Sina--how many are there?" How many can you carry and still run?

He punctuates the question with a sharp gesture of his open hand and a muttered word; the Fade warps subtly around him at the focus of the spell, contracts to a pinprick near his heart before it brightens into a faint steady golden glow. The aura's warmth and strength together, meant to bolster flagging allies in the middle of a battle; it'll do for the extra reserves they need to carry the children out of here. It's even got some comforting affect on the kids themselves, quieting the weak and fractious fussing, stilling the shivering.

Between the smell and the horrific sight, Sina suddenly doubles over with a sob that can't be contained. It's too horrible, no doubt the worst thing she's seen since The Incident with Pel and Herian, and it's times like these that it's hard to forget how young she really is. Bless Myr and his spell, which calm her down enough to answer with a tearful "five."
With tears still streaming openly down her face, Sina lets herself collapse the rest of the way in order to kneel and crawl forward toward the cage, where she curls her fingers around the bars and gives them a feeble tug. When they don't give, she presses her hands to the floor, focusing, trying to find a crack or any weakness that she can exploit for what needs to be done.
"Iras ma ghilas, da'len," she begins to sing, as quietly as she can, ostensibly to comfort the children, but no doubt for herself as well. "Ara ma ne'dan ashir ..."
Finding what she needs, Sina presses her palm to the floor. It begins to glow, and though nothing happens right away, her own song and Myr's aura are helping her focus.

Edited 2017-09-15 07:03 (UTC)

The warm wash of the magic over him can't chill him more than the sight of the little bodies in that cage. He almost wishes he believed in gods the way the elves and humans do, so that he could have someone to pray to, to beg that some creator would take this memory away from their young minds. Maybe the youngest will be spared it; the oldest, though--

Sina's sob pierces his heart, and before she can fall to her knees completely, he places a hand on her shoulder and promises her, "We're getting them out--we're taking them home."

"Leave him alive, Kit."

His answer is a strained noise of assent. Then he turns and heads for the warehouse door, strides both swift and silent. He doesn't reach for the axes on his shoulders, though realistically, if he needed to kill a man, he could do it with his bare hands. The door is closed; Kit knows the likelihood of making his ambush effective is up to chance as much as it is timing. He goes still, squinting, and turns his good ear on the door to try and listen for the guard's subtle movements at his post. He waits, waits for the moment the man settles himself further into his seat on the stoop--

--then Kit slips through the door, and in an instant has his arm secure around the guard's neck, hauling him quickly back into the shadows of the alleyway.

The guard doesn't hear Kit coming.

His clotted, muffled outcry as the dwarf's arm snakes around his neck offers a hint of a reason why; the consonants are all soft and ill-formed. Burly as he is, he's no trained fighter--they're the muscles of a stevedore and occasional dockside brawler, and taken by utter surprise like this they avail him nothing. He kicks, twists, drags his feet and gets nowhere in hindering his attacker before the lack of air weakens the worst of his struggling. He won't be so hard to subdue.

More mercifully, no one seems to have noticed the sounds.

Five. Myr considers the number in a moment's dim despair, then shrugs it away. They will do this; there's no question in his mind that they will. Andraste, grant us strength to save these little ones, he prays soundlessly, taking his staff down from his back and moving closer to Sina. Something in him aches to reach out to her with his own word of comfort--but he can feel that first upwelling of magic and knows better than to interrupt a sister-mage when her focus is already imperiled by distress.

Instead, he grounds his staff and draws the hilt of his spirit blade, head raised as he listens for any indication they've been discovered. The melody of Sina's song is aching-familiar, though the words aren't; yet, he remembers the way it goes in Trade, the way Ben used to sing it at his bedside, and mouths the lyrics to himself as she sings on: "Where will you go, little one? Lost to me in sleep..."

Maker, let none of them be lost. If nothing else, let them have arrived in time for all these children.

"Dirthara lothlenan'as," Sina continues, her voice untrained but pleasant, though it would no doubt be moreso if she weren't crying. The green light of her shard reflects eerily on the little watching faces of the children, all of which (of those awake) are trained on the lock of the cage. A vine has begun to snake up through a crack in the floor, making it bigger as it goes, and Sina is guiding it very carefully into the keyhole. Several more have branched off to wind around other parts of the lock, preparing to pull it apart as their strength grows.
"Bal emma mala dir..."

When Kit slips back into the warehouse, it's without the guard; judging by the sweat on his brow and the bruise starting to swell just below his left eye, the effort required to subdue the fellow completely wasn't without some risk. He doesn't yet report what he did with the guy, instead stopping short to watch Sina work her magic; it unnerves him, the same as any spellcasting might, but his knee-jerk aversion to it is easily overridden by his desire to see that cage torn to pieces.

He waits until either the spell is complete, or another good moment to interrupt presents itself. Then, with his sending crystal in hand, he asks both Sina and Myr, "We're going to need some help getting them out of here. And the guard," he adds to Myr. "I didn't kill him--he's trussed up and knocked out behind the warehouse."

Even when he's on high alert, Myr can't quite repress his curiosity about what Sina's doing. Only the vaguest shape of the spell is obvious to him--along with the faint sounds as the vine grows up and entangles the cage, a noise he can't make heads nor tails of. He spares only a fragment of his attention for that; the rest's on the night beyond the half-open warehouse door, and the sounds of Kit's scuffle with the guard. What if it attracts attention? What if they'd missed something and there's another guard about? What if--

Kit's return cuts off that anxious speculation. Myr relaxes his guard the instant he recognizes his friend's returning tread, returning his hilt to his belt and waiting for the other man to speak up.

"Good. You're going to call for reinforcements?" He'll give Kit a moment to answer, before continuing: "If I could get your help with the corpse, before they arrive--"

He doesn't want to disturb it, doesn't want to get near it, but there might be something on the body to tell them more about the monsters responsible for what had happened here.

"--once we've got the little ones as comfortable as they can be made." He turns his face in Sina's direction again, as if looking toward her. The worry in his expression isn't all for the kids' sake.

Edited 2017-09-19 15:36 (UTC)

The vine has grown bigger, its branches more numerous, and the lock is beginning to strain. "Tel'enfenim, da'len," Sina sings, with a glance to Kit, her tone more distracted and hurried now. She gives the lock a tug with her left hand, and it gives a little groan of tension, just about to burst.
"Nari," she whispers, "call for Nari."

"Nari," Kit repeats, nodding to himself as much to Sina and Myr; yeah, she's... steady. His mind is racing, searching for the names of someone, anyone, he might call; he thinks immediately of Vandelin (always of Vandelin), but what good could come from telling him about this now, when he's too far away to be of any help to anyone? In frustration he paces a few steps, trying to think of someone else, anyone else--

Yngvi and Kaisa. He starts to set up the call, then looks to the dead body of the elf as Myr draws attention to it. "Maybe if we could just cover him, for now," he says quietly. It seems disrespectful to just leave the dead laying there, but he isn't sure what else to do with the body just yet.

Kit's reasoning is sound and neatly interrupts the overanxious loop of Myr's thoughts. (~~Something is wrong it needs to be fixed, needs to be attended to, better to focus on that than the rest of the horror--~~) "Right. When we've got a moment." Have they even got anything they could cover a body with?

Worry about that later. More pressing is getting the help they need for the living.

"Herian may be a help as well," he volunteers, softly. "She's a friend to the alienage."

Sina pauses at the name Herian, but then simply shakes her head and closes her eyes to concentrate. She and Herian have never gotten along great, but the woman is competent and fully prepared to take on the seriousness that is this situation. Sina doesn't have to like someone to want them at her side in a crisis.

The lock gives a final groan and snaps open, at which point Sina immediately ceases her spell and pulls it from the cage. The vines are still there, but they part to allow her to wrench the door open.

"Come, ma da'adahlin," she whispers, having to crawl partially inside-- and gagging once again at the stench-- to wrap her arms around the first baby and pull her back towards freedom.
"Myr," she says, trying not to choke, calling his attention to the infant so she can pass her off to him. Once answered, she dives back in for the second.

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[CLOSED] For the world's more full of weeping,

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