faderift | We Were Born To Make History

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We Were Born To Make History

WHO: Adasse Agassi, Teren The Scary Mom Warden, and You.
WHAT: Entering Stage Darktown, A Thief
WHEN: Last week of Kingsway
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: The fight between Teren and Adasse has already been scripted, but feel free to have your character have 'been there'. There will be an open under that.

Teren and the No Good Very Bad Assassin - (The Letter Thief) - Closed

Getting on the wrong side of one of Kirkwall's many gangs was not something that Adasse had a habit of getting into - but he'd been distracted with the disappearance of Haelan and the worry that his best friend had finally hit the wrong side of a fellow but way older pocket by the name of Prickles. To that end, his head wasn't in the game when he took the job for the Dockside Harlots (seriously, what was up with these names? They just kept getting worse every year) - and so he dropped the parcel when on the run from the Kirkwall guard.

The Harlots were not exactly the forgiving types, and Adasse had to promise to take on a high-risk job. The Harlots wanted in on some Inquisition shipments that were going across the water to the Gallows, and so they needed to know the schedule for the next big shipment. Adasse was tasked to grabbing correspondence from an important Inquisition 'nob', because no-one really knew how the Inquisition managed to talk to one another over such long distances unless they had the fastest crows in the business.

So there he was, having snuck over with the rest of a smaller crew bringing over supplies, picking up a bale of something as he scanned the Gallows courtyard. He spotted an older woman, stern face and grey in her hair, holding onto a tight bundle with some sort of important seal on it, and he shifted his direction to run directly into her, and snag a few of the letters, muttering apologies all the way, "So sorry, serrah, so sorry, please pardon me..."

Typical down-trodden city elf, pay him no mind while he slips away with the letters in his shirt.

Or, at least, that was how it was supposed to go.

The Letter Thief - Scouting For Trouble (get it?) - Open

Well, here he was.

Adasse dropped his sack down on the stone of the Gallows, looking around the area with his mouth pressing in a fine line. Here he was. Inquisition promised, scout for ... whatever this thing was. Political movement? Army? Religious Cult? Did they even know?

He sighed, and that caused a chittering inside of his shirt, where an oddly shaped lump rested. He grinned, peering inside of his shirt itself to the chocolate nug nestled inside. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Could be worse. We could be having the Harlots remove all our favorite bits. Still ..."

Another sigh. "Wish we knew what we were getting into. C'mon, let's go find a corner to crash in, some trouble to find." Picking up his sack again, he started moving across the Gallows. Old habits die hard though, and he was already practicing bumping into people with a cheeky smile and a "So Sorry."

Nothing was grabbed. Yet. But it wouldn't do to lose the edge, now would it?

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The elf doesn't get far. He's hardly taken a few steps when, lightning quick, a claw-like hand grasps his upper arm, drawing him back toward the mark. There, a knifepoint waits, pressed dangerously against his back from beneath the otherwise innocuous package.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry," hisses the dark voice behind Agasse, as Teren steers him toward an alley.

What. In The Name. Of The Maker's. Blessed. Balls. Just. Happened?

One moment, he was on his way to making a clean getaway with the goods, clearing his debt with the Harlots, and a second later he's got his wrist in a vice grip and a dagger right at his back.

"Oh, you know how it is, errands to run, beatings to avoid .... " He managed to get out, feeling his shoulders tense as he was steered towards an alley. His dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and suddenly, he pitched his body forward, as if he had tripped on something. As he fell, he twisted, so he could get his wrist free and give himself some distance from the dagger itself.

One palm went flat, as he went to snap it down on her wrist to relieve her of said dagger before it went into his stomach.

His wrist is freed for a moment, but Teren is no stranger to interactions like this one, and just as quickly the other one is caught. She holds fast to her dagger, using the momentum of twisting the thief's arm behind him to push him into the alley and up against the wall, where she presses her weight against his back and hold the tip of the knife to his throat. The package has dropped, but she steps hard on it with one foot, ensuring that no accomplices can similarly catch wise.
"Try again," she growls, "see where it gets you." This is clearly a person who knows the ins and outs of subterfuge, thieving, street brawling, and to boot has no shortage of wrath for those who might do it against her.

"The letters," she says into his ear, "who wants them." Whether or not he knows he just stole some Warden correspondence, Adasse has clearly chosen the wrong mark.

Ow.

All. Right so apparently this wasn't a doddering old lady but some sort of superior rogue warrior they kept hidden in the Inquisition to take the piss out of young thieves.

Think fast Agassi. He was looking at death from two angles. Either this lady would kill him for keeping quiet or the Harlots would kill him for running his fool mouth. So best run it in a different direction.

He let his body relax, and even though his voice had an edge of pain, it was calm. "Take it easy, serah. I was just practicing." He thinks of the Inquisition scouts, the ones wandering in and out of Darktown, paying the loose of lip for information, and some of them had pointed ears... "New recruit, just testing my skills against a target. Clearly, I need more practice with the head scout and less time going off on my own."

....really?

"If that were true, you ought to be sacked outright," Teren replies, giving his arm a twist, increasing the pressure. "The letters," she says again, the tip of her blade pressing uncomfortably on his throat, possibly enough to break the skin. "What do you want with them. Lie to me again and you'll start losing fingers." She has them right here, after all.

"Well, you can take that up with the spy-master then. Although they usually prefer you fill in a complaint form and not break a fellow's arm." He grunted out. Here's the thing of it - if you could lie through pain? You could lie through anything. And he's a city elf -- he's got a whole back full of scars to prove he can handle pain.

And now, a half truth. "I need to get the letters for an important mission."

Edited 2017-09-21 18:12 (UTC)

"Pity then that I don't answer to the spymaster," Teren replies, and, giving the boy's arm another wrench to ensure he's not going anywhere, she presses the knife blade against the index finger of his captive hand, lining it up to make a cut.

She is not bluffing.

Guess who has two thumbs and Teren does answer to?

This guy.

The one saying, "whoa whoa whoa whoa," as he corners into the alley—and those are hold up whoas, for the record. Alistair isn't singing, even though that might have been a clever way to get Teren to drop the knife and cover her ears. "Whoa," he adds for good measure as he comes to a stop beside them. Close enough to grab Teren's wrist, but he doesn't yet. He likes having fingers himself.

He takes quick stock of the situation, eyes sharp and clever despite being set in a big dumb face. Young elf. Doesn't look armed. But Alistair has dealt with enough people trying to kill Teren while looking friendly—never mind trying to kill him—that he doesn't immediately assume she's definitely overreacting. She's only likely overreacting.

"Teren?" he says. It's one third a warning, but two thirds an invitation to explain.

Oh hey a sane looking guy! Who ... kind of looked familiar that was weird. Still, never a look a gift horse in the big nosed mouth.

"Good day, serah. Would you please tell this kind lady that I don't mind if she cuts my throat, but I'd like to have all my fingers attached? I know she isn't liking my answers to her questions -- I'd rather die than be maimed."

Edited 2017-09-21 18:49 (UTC)

Teren likes Alistair. If pressed, she might even admit she likes him a lot, and maybe, under torture, would confess that she trusts him.
But the idiot boy has a knack for always showing up at the worst possible time, and Teren's look communicates this when she turns her head to glare at Alistair over the shoulder. She perfectly resembles a cat who, about to bite down on a mouse, sees its owner coming and knows it has to act now and bolt or risk being picked up and losing the kill.

"Stealing Warden correspondence," she grumbles through gritted teeth, meeting Alistair's eyes. Stealing any correspondence from Teren is a mistake, with personal letters probably a step above Warden business, but they're secretive for a reason.

While Teren is giving Alistair that look, and Alistair is looking back, the boy is still talking. Something about not wanting to be maimed. Alistair shoots him a brief disbelieving glance, if you don't want to be maimed then why are you still talking—before his attention returns to Teren.

"Ah," he says. "That is serious."

Serious enough to lose fingers over? Not on its own. Serious enough to figure out who he's working for? Yes. Definitely. He looks back at the boy and smiles—on Teren's side, for now, as long as her knife doesn't actually start drawing blood.

"But we aren't going to start chopping off people's fingers in the streets," he says, to both of them. "If fingers absolitely need to be chopped, we should do it in the dungeon, like civilized people."

Now that - that makes Adasse pause. Not because of the torture thing because well. Sort of expected that one. The other part caught his attention, and he twisted his neck around, brown eyes going wider.

"Wait - Wardens? Grey Wardens?" Maker's Balls, his parents would be disapproving glowering at him from their graves. Which ... honestly they would probably be doing anyways, seeing that he was a criminal. Regardless.

"No one's trying to steal from the Wardens." He stated firmly, knowing he was leaning into the blade, but This he wanted straight. "I was trying to get my hands on shipping documents and she - you - " tipping his chin into the knife a little, so it nicked his skin, but eh. "Looked like some sort of shipping master. You got to kill me, fine, okay, just ... make it quick and don't feed me to a darkspawn. But I wasn't trying to steal from no Warden, no way, no how. I'm Fereldan."

angry

It's possible Teren will chop off Alistair's fingers later for being insolent enough to stop her now, but she is, at least, allowing him to pull rank. ...within reason.
"Then you're as foolish as you are incompetent," she snaps, rounding on Adasse, "shipping master or not, did you watch for longer than two bloody seconds or however long it took for the thought to enter your head that I was the right target? And seeing as everything you've said thus far has likely been a lie, why should we believe you?"
She's drawn the knife away from him, but continues to stand at the ready, the cat waiting for any reason to pounce.
"Whether or not you meant to steal from the Wardens, you stole from the fucking Wardens."

"—which usually," Alistair cuts in, like this is a show they're putting on and he has lines now, never mind that Teren never agreed to this script, "means you get recruited, in my experience." Half the time that's the same thing as someone being killed. "But it's a bad time, and all the thieves we've inducted in the past had been very clever and hadn't done it by accident, so..."

He weighs his hands, looking at Teren like maybe she's going to have an answer that isn't knives, but doesn't give her the opportunity to provide it if she does.

"Gallows, I think, and the Inquisition can figure out what to do with him."

Yeah, he was an idiot all right. He should have placed his mark better, should have waited until he was in a good headspace before he went to work for the Harlots. Now he was nicked, Haelan was probably dead and - shite. Shite shite shite. Coco. The alienage kids. Maker Be Damned.

He pressed his head against the wall, swallowing hard. The least he had to worry about right now was the Inquisition taking off his hands for thievery. Once the Harlots found out he failed ...

His head went up, and he spoke, quiet but firm. "I might be a stupid thief, but I still have things the Inquisition would want to know about this city. You take me to your information broker, and in exchange for a few things, I'll tell them everything worth knowing about Darktown, and its plans for the Inquisition."

Edited 2017-09-24 13:50 (UTC)

The only solution anyone ever needs is knives, and Teren will be the first to say so. She continues to watch Adasse with a brooding expression, allowing Alistair to take over and do his authority thing. But if her expression is any indication, Adasse had exactly one chance to screw up, and this was it.

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We Were Born To Make History

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