faderift | A SEA OF DEATH

A SEA OF DEATH

WHO: Anyone/Everyone
WHAT: A trip to sunny Nevarra
WHEN: Mid-Firstfall
WHERE: Nevarra City
NOTES: Undead cw. OOC post. We highly encourage using the OOC post for plotting and especially for coordinating strategy among characters participating in Part III.

Following the successful defense of Perendale, the Nevarran crown has extended an invitation to the Inquisition to send representatives to Nevarra City to enjoy its hospitality and gratitude. Most signs point toward an uneventful, perhaps even pleasant, stay, one that could foster a closer relationship between the Inquisition and the Northeast's premier military power. Other signs, however, point toward trouble. The Inquisition has previously addressed early Venatori attempts to influence the king, but reports from agents embedded in Nevarra City indicate that these attempts have resumed. While no immediate danger is expected, everyone will be advised to be on their guard during the visit and keep an eye out for potential enemy activity.

I. TRAVEL & TAVERN

The swiftest route to Nevarra City is to first travel by sea to Cumberland, an uneventful voyage followed by half a day to rest and eat before heading up the Imperial Highway toward the capital. It isn't a large group, consisting only of staff from Kirkwall's outpost who volunteered or were ordered to make the journey, so once on land they're able to move swiftly with horses and carts and spend only one night sleeping aside the road in tents. If there are bandits along the highway, the sight of a uniformed, armed, and relatively organized force on the horizon makes them disappear long before they're reached, and the Inquisition is troubled by nothing but bad weather along the way. The paved highway makes for quick travel despite the rain, except for those who are tasked with detouring off the main road to collect a new party of rifters.

Still, the Inquisition reaches the Nevarra City well after nightfall on the second day, with no time to explore before heading straight to the tavern and inn where they'll be residing during the visit. The Crooked Bone is a large establishment near the center of the city and built for crowds, though it is clearly unprepared for quite this large a number of overnight guests, and the staff may be heard debating the wisdom of taking such a contract, having to cancel and refuse other guests to fit the whole Inquisition contingent, but apparently making a pretty penny and earning favor with some unnamed royal courtier in exchange. Even though the Inquisition has been granted exclusive use of the inn for its stay, it fills up the available rooms without anyone, no matter how high-ranking, permitted a room of their own.

But it isn't an altogether uncomfortable arrangement, and definitely preferable to sleeping in tents. There's hot food downstairs at nearly any hour, not to mention ale and wine, served at long tables in a large room with space at the center for dancing—when there's music, which there won't be now unless someone among the Inquisition wishes to provide it—and a cheery sort of atmosphere lingers despite the decor, which tends toward dark wood and skeleton motifs. It's warmed by the proliferation of lanterns of all shapes and sizes, and the fire burning merrily in every grate, which combined with the full house lends the place a surprisingly cozy feel. Plus, the Inquisition's takeover of the inn means it can maintain its own security and thus genuinely relax indoors, something that won't be so true upon venturing out into the city.

II. NEVARRA CITY

Nevarra's capital city sits on the banks of the Minanter, where the river winds down through the hills that mark the border between Nevarra and its rival Orlais. The city is tucked into a high valley, surrounded by sharp cliffs and studded with rocky spires. The few tributaries of the Minanter that once flowed through have been rerouted into a central channel that tumbles down a fake falls into a large reflecting pool in the city's main park, feeding a fountain in the shape of a trio of water-spewing dragons. The City is renowned for its art and culture, grand buildings and meticulously manicured landscaping, unusually clean cobbled streets and soaring halls carved with intricate adornment. Though no longer as large or as busy as Cumberland, it is a wealthy city, and the immaculately dressed majority will not hesitate to stare at the Inquisition interlopers in their midst. They are frank about their curiosity and also about their suspicions: Nevarra has no love for Orlais, and the Inquisition has far more close ties to the southern Empire than anyone here is comfortable with.

Originally a Tevinter stronghold, the oldest parts of the city are distinctly Imperial in style, all polished, seamless black marble, like the columns that line the boulevard leading from the heart of the city up to the Castrum Draconis, where King Markus holds court. The way to the royal fortress is lined with statues, the finest examples of the hundreds of figures that exist throughout the city, likenesses of every hero and dragon-slayer, kings and generals. At this time of year, each noble family honors its famous ancestors with processions, marching through the city to drape their family's statues in the house colors.

These parades take many forms, from the loud and gaudy to the solemn and torchlit, attended by thousands or just a handful. The richest houses hire troupes of actors to man the streets beside the statues of their predecessors, costumed and acting out the most famous triumphs of their subject's life. This year, as the king's health declines, the competing efforts of the Pentaghasts and Van Markhams and their respective supporters take on a new urgency. Every theater in Nevarra has been emptied and some further afield too, to fill the long, black marble boulevard before the castle with players staging elaborate recreations of dragon hunts and historic battles. Accusations of sabotage, petty turf wars, or players making impromptu cameos in their rivals' shows raise tempers ever higher and the unlucky or unwary may be caught in the midst of a street brawl as tensions threaten to spill over.

The situation in the court itself is no less fraught, though the simmering anxiety is more successfully kept behind closed doors. The King is old, and that he is failing is no longer a secret. His mind has not gone, but his strength has, and he is only capable of brief spates of sharp attention before the effort exhausts his resources and he begins to drift or doze. He is constantly attended by a rotating trio of Mortalitasi, his most trusted companions. He holds court for roughly an hour a day, perhaps two if he is feeling especially hale, and courtiers are in constant competition to be among the few blessed with the king's personal attention. All other business is handled by a handful of advisors, most of long standing. While the Inquisition's representatives are welcomed, and official gratitude expressed for the assistance at Perendale, they may find the reception rather cool overall. The nobility is particularly wary, of Orlesian influence, foreign or Chantry factions meddling in the succession, of the potential threat to Nevarra if the sleeping dragon of the Imperium is poked too hard. It will take careful and strategic mingling indeed to begin to truly win anyone here over.

III. THE NECROPOLIS

Toward the end of the Inquisition's stay, a rare invitation will be extended to its members: an opportunity to tour the Grand Necropolis outside of Nevarra City, proffered out of awareness that its customs are seen as barbaric to outsiders and in hopes that a better understanding of Nevarra's customs will facilitate a better working relationship. The Inquisition will not require any particular person to attend the tour. It is a delicate subject, and one that may rightly make many people squeamish or afraid. But it would be rude not to send representatives, so those who are willing and curious enough to agree will be sent to meet Tivadar Nancollas, one of the Mortalitasi, at the entrance.

Within the walls, the Necropolis is nearly large enough to be a city of its own, were any of its population alive. It is divided into a warren of countless crypts, wound through with passageways. Those maintained by Nevarra's ancient families are enormous and ornate, paths as wide as real streets leading through a maze of oversized statuary and gilded rooms fit for living nobility. Others are smaller and simpler. Some belong to families that have since died out entirely and have fallen into disrepair, though the Mortalitasi see still to the remains within. There are vast public crypts as well, where the inexpertly mummified bodies of Nevarra's poor and nameless are housed en masse if delivered to the Necropolis from outlying communities. The one constant is the smell: the pervasive spicy-sweet aroma of the incense burned in censers throughout the Necropolis, heavy enough to cling to clothes and hair for hours afterwards, and give headaches to those unused to the scent.

As the group passes each crypt, Tivadar names its owner and perhaps some of the better-known figures residing within. The Pentaghast crypt is particularly enormous, and he guides the group inside, past the crowd of still and staring dead, for a brief glimpse at King Caspar still and silent on his throne, crown atop the wispy remains of his hair, finery conspicuously new yet crafted in the style of ages past, the blade of the sword laid across his lap still razor-sharp.

In contrast to the enraged corpses that may have climbed out of bogs or emerged from caves to attack Inquisition agents in their past travels, these possessed corpses are remarkably sedate. They do move: they may blink or turn their heads to watch someone pass, eyes (or eye sockets, depending on the age and wealth of the deceased) glowing with the presence of something otherworldly. But they seem content with watching, until—

(There's always an until.)

—deep in center of the Necropolis, where some of the oldest crypts are falling into ruin and even the Mortalitasi's careful work can't keep all the skin on the corpses' bones, Tivadar disappears—magic, perhaps, or a trick door, or some combination of the two—and the sealed door to a nearby crypt creaks open.

The corpses that lurch out of it are not sedate. They're rabid and grasping, red-eyed, and ready to claw and bite and pursue the Inquisition through the Necropolis' streets. These first enraged mummies count among the poor and poorly kept—they're numerous, but unarmed, brittle. As they push the Inquisition back through the streets, however, their presence seems to awaken the mummies that had previously sat or stood calmly elsewhere. Some of them retreat deeper into their crypts as if frightened. Others do not retreat, but join the swarm in attack. And the further the fighting progresses toward the doors, with the red-eyed corpses stirring each crypt they pass too close to to action, the better preserved and better armed the dead become, until they are wielding swords with names and clad in the dragon-scale armor of the royal houses themselves.

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It is a testament to Simon's pathological inability to let it go when he feels as though he's been misjudged that his need to defend himself here overrides both his curiosity about the brewskis, and his own rather violent oh shit you again reaction to Melys. He stares at her like a deer in headlights for a long moment, putting two and two together and coming up with a particularly distressing four, and then turns back to Nell and Petra as if uninterrupted.

"No, no. This is a longstanding pattern we've got here." At least in the sense that the single incident in question happened a long time ago, but that still counts. "It doesn't say a thing of my conscience if I've learned my lesson about giving him the chance to cry wolf about me."

The 'sausage' gazes up at him, unblinking. He eyes it back. "Just the one eye. It looks tasty enough."

Edited 2017-11-26 15:13 (UTC)

"If you hear howling," Kostos says, not quite under his breath, but not raising his voice, either, which is what he might have done had Nell not already gotten plenty of revenge to go around.

His lack of shirts remains a serious problem, but one he can temporarily set aside, and does, dropping his bag on the bed to examine Melys' offering (and not Melys herself, who gets no sign of recognition except a tip of his chin that just means hello instead of sorry for not disclosing the necromancy prior to our failed and fiery attempt at sex, because what fire, what sex) with a skeptical eye.

"Bruschetta," he corrects, because he's an asshole, and picks up the ~~dried fish~~ one-eyed sausage from Petrana's papers. He'll eat it. He'll even start with the head, which requires a bit of sucking and delicate teeth-peeling.

In between: "I'm not sleeping on the floor."

As the only person who brightens when Melys enters a room - this room, specifically, though she might still be the only one were we to broaden the scope of questioning - Petrana gently relocates some of her papers and reorients to actually participate in the conversation happening around her, rather than just mildly interject professional torment.

Also, no one saw the thing her face did at one-eyed sausage because it absolutely did not happen and you're imagining things; she has spent altogether too much time around soldiers and mercenaries.

“Melys and I can share a bed, if it makes things more convenient.”

“I can share with Nell,” Kostos says immediately, without even a glance toward Simon and his seventeen thousand muscles, which Kostos assumes can stay comfortably on the floor. The alternative is too hideous to consider.

Having been handily shut out of the sleeping arrangements like a kid being picked last for kickball, Simon tries to keep his expression free of visible dismay as he realizes what his options are. Rock and a hard place, as it were, much like the kind he does not want Melys or the head of Diplomacy to feel like they are at any point pressed up against.

But he's not sleeping on the floor while everyone else gets a nice soft mattress. He'll be hovering uncomfortably on the edge of said mattress all night to the point where he probably would be happier on the floor, but damn it, it's the principle of the thing.

"I'm happy to sleep in whichever bed I'll fit in," he says amiably, stressing the 'bed' part just a little, to let all and sundry and Kostos know that it's non-negotiable.

Nell's sideways look at Kostos isn't alarm at his suggestion but brows furrowing in brief confusion. Were they not going to be sharing already? Wth, bro.

But Simon's presented too pressing a concern to dwell on anything else, and her head snaps 'round at his words.

"I'm not sharing a bed with a Templar." Nell's response is immediate, tone sharp. She's usually more circumspect about the depth of her dislike, at least willing to play at civility when it suits, and had been reasonably polite about his presence in the room previous (minus the shirt thing, anyway). Not so now.

Edited 2017-11-30 17:26 (UTC)

Melys, for her part, looks absolutely comfortable to be here.

"Fuck your brisket,"

It’s automatic, if not without a brief scowl in Kostos’ abs’ direction. Probably this is a bad idea, probably they’ll all get maggots or something, but:

"Could just push th’beds together," Not that she minds sharing with just one, and Petra not a corpse-toucher, or anyone she’s been inside of, or threatened recently — but there's three mages in this room, and only her and Simon. Prick or not, you've got to have some solidarity. "That way it’s, you know. Egalitarian. Takes up only as much space as y’need. Put y’all at one end, and him at th’other, and we can take the middle because Maker knows he ain’t gonna try nothing."

The yank of a thumb to Simon. Brief, totally unjustified pride flickers across her face at this obvious, perfect solution. Then, snapped:

"Someone oughta get some candles going, ’s dim as the void in here."

The lessons of fire were evidently not learned.

"And I'm not going without one because of your hangups," he fires back at Nell, overlapping Melys' argument with Kostos and every bit as automatic. The sentiment is hardly unreasonable to expect from a mage, and he ought to have figured it out when he realized she was (quite literally) in bed with Kostos, but he'd been taking her veneer of tolerance at face value until now, and its sudden drop catches him just a bit off guard.

Melys' suggestion silences him, makes him look appraisingly over at her as he gives it visible, serious consideration. As far as he's concerned, her pride in the idea is not entirely unwarranted--if only because he's drawing a total blank for alternatives.

"...I don't see why we couldn't."

While Simon and Nell are arguing—which is fortunate, perhaps, because this is all Kostos’ version of behaving politely for strangers, and hearing the word hangups might have quickly shifted him to not giving a damn about Petrana’s serene presence or Melys’ relative innocence—Kostos is looking at Melys in a way that’s genuinely baffled, though probably not any less insulting for it.

“You can manage egalitarian,” he says, “but not bruschetta.”

But he also lights the nearest candle on the nearest flat surface, with his hand, in absentminded obedience.

"Hangups," Nell is echoing, voice and color rising abruptly and dangerously, taking a step toward Simon. There's no crackle of gathered power or whiff of smoke to go with it, so that's something.

"HANGups-- how about I hang you up by your gigantic, blighted--"

(Someone interrupt her, please.)

Oh, absolutely not--

(She hasn't even heard about Beleth losing her temper with a rifter in public yet. This is her life, now.)

Petrana is on her feet in moments, managing to be more authoritative in bare feet and a robe than many are fully dressed, inserting herself between them without a hint of trepidation.

"An ill-thought choice of words I am sure Ser Ashlock regrets," she says, stressing how sure she is with a look up toward him that leaves no ambiguity as to this being an order if he needs it to be, "we need not make it a matter we're obliged to account for to our hosts. We shall put the beds together. Ser Ashlock may sleep on the left, and yourselves the right. Are we not all satisfied with this?"

"Y'can manage a candle," She begins. "But not —"

Nell's voice pitches up and that's a good signal to get your eyes back on the angry mage in the room. Melys swipes up a piece of flatbread as she does so, fishes out her kerchief to wrap it away,

(Yes, on closer examination, that fabric definitely matches Kostos' shirts,)

"So 's all agreed then." She announces, mostly to herself. "We push them together. Can hang plenty when we're back in Kirkwall. They got the name for it."

Ser Ashlock does not regret his choice of words, and looks momentarily mutinous at the idea that he should, but he supposes the head of diplomacy has the post for a reason. And if it keeps the rebel contingent from setting him on fire in his sleep--

Perhaps he has been too hot-tempered. Other templars, he knows, could make better of this situation than he has. Wren wouldn't do anything to necessitate a division head leaping physically into the fray, jiggling appealingly all the while--which is neither here nor there at all, but it does draw the eye, just for a moment.

It does, doesn't it? Nell's not so riled as to shove past Petra's attempt at mediation, physically or verbally, but she is inclined to stand and wait, expectantly, for Simon to confirm that yes that was an ill-thought choice of words that Ser Ashlock deeply regrets.

Speaking of deep: Madame de Cedoux's neckline. It cannot help but draw the eye and Nell's as susceptible as Simon on this front. She looks down just for a heartbeat longer than she ought before looking back up, only to find her eyes meeting Simon's on a similar trajectory. She stills, says nothing.

Edited (too many fucking commas) 2017-12-03 21:25 (UTC)

He doesn't expect to find Nell's eyes where they are, and when they lock onto his, he could almost laugh if it were some other circumstance but this. Some things, it seems, transcend even war. Petra's bosoms are apparently two of them. It's not enough common ground to keep the peace for two weeks--but maybe it'll do for tonight.

"It was a poor choice of words; I apologize," he mumbles. "And that solution will suit me fine."

It's a ridiculous moment, enough so to force the faintest hint of humor into Nell's expression, softening ever so slightly the hard line of her mouth and the harsh angle of her brows. It's not much, but it cuts the tension and for now that's good enough. That Simon does apologize helps as well, however mumbled it may be.

It takes a beat, but Nell nods once, a brisk jerk of her head. "I can live with that."

That peace restored—and it's a shame Kostos doesn't see the manner of it, it would have been nice to have something to never let Nell and Simon live down for the rest of their lives, with varying degrees of friendliness—Kostos helpfully attempts to start a new skirmish by grabbing for Melys' kerchief, wordlessly outraged.

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A SEA OF DEATH

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