A SEA OF DEATH

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[rowancrowned]

“They will be my people in truth,” mildly. “—once we are wed.”

He smiles, crooked, and raises a brow, begging for a challenge—if they were not mounted, he would take the chance to steal a kiss, to reendear himself to her in the wake of a misstep. How easily he yields—he learned not to make himself a wall for her to dash herself against.

Ahead of them, in the woods beyond, there is a resounding noise, deep and loud, nearly a scream. Thranduil sits up in his saddle, brightens—how easily a smile fits on this Mannish face, highlights the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, his mouth. “Ah,” he says. “We are close.”

[elegiaque]

In the space of moments, still debating whether or not she intends to challenge that - she's so often spoiling for a fight, the most familiar way of interacting with the entire world, only she doesn't want to spoil this, ruin what ought to be something glad with the shadows that dog her steps, and

“What the fuck was that,” is not quite a question in that it lacks the required lilt, but certainly something that expects an answer, startled into mild affront by her own confusion. By his confidence, bemused by his reaction to what she would not have herself called a promising anything.

Gwenaëlle is not in the habit of being pleased by hearing the woods scream at her.

[rowancrowned]

Thranduil does not bother to answer, just continues to look pleased with himself. Her question does not go unanswered for long, as the thing that made the noise makes itself known soon after.

The elk dwarfs those of Thedas like Thranduil to the Dalish—massive, the rack barely clearing the space between trees. It poses—one foreleg lifted, caught in the middle of a step, its head turned towards them. Gwenaëlle had lived with Bill the Pony. The fellow did not have the eyes of a normal pony, blank and interested only in hay. There was something beyond the normal depths to them—the stag has much the same look. It watches. It understands.

Thranduil dismounts easily, sheds his glamour in the same motion. He is dressed in the clothes he arrived in Thedas, clearly elven, clearly noble. He holds the reins of Gwenaëlle’s horse to allow her to dismount, offering her his arm for her ease. The elk meanders over, picking his way along the path to join them, ears pricked forward.

[elegiaque]

The slide down from her mount is slow, her huge eyes fixed on the elk with astonished wariness - that thing is enormous, she was absolutely not prepared and has been insufficiently warned and it is looking at her - but she is not, importantly, refusing to get down or scrambling away. She's only looking up at it, diverted even from what otherwise would have been an opportunity to approve of this return to himself.

(Her preferences there might warrant some self-examination, but then again, they might not.)

When she finds her voice, it's to say, “I can't believe I looked at all the men in Thedas and said, no, I'm going to marry this smug bastard from beyond the Fade-” because she loves him.

[rowancrowned]

Very, very pleased with himself, he catches her about the waist once she's sufficiently untangled from her saddled, and spins her around for the joy of it-

his, now,

- setting her down and kissing her forehead, her nose, her lips, leaning to do so, his hand coming up to cup the back of her head, all taboos on touching it left by the wayside weeks ago.

He is the obviously superior choice, how could he not be, when he loves her so, caters to her desire not to be abandoned with his willingness to literally and unbreakably bind his spirit to her own, no greater commitment in the whole of the world. And for all that they vex one another, there is solid ground beneath their feet. She will die someday. He knew that from the moment he met her. But to be without her for those years will be more unbearable than her eventually demise.

"Gi melin," he says, pulling away, clasping her hands in his own, and then, "-would you like to ride him?"

(She married an elf, this is an elven wedding, what did she expect?)

[elegiaque]

Caught off-guard and still laughing when he kisses her, she curls her fingers through his in their clasp and this once doesn't even complain that he's saying words she doesn't understand.

“I don't know what that means,” is not a complaint, not delivered buoyed up by her own laughter, by being so far out of reach of the grasping things that pull at her skirts and protest her happiness. They will return, of course, to complication and contradiction and every difficult, stupid thing she doesn't want to think about- but not now, no. It can wait, and for a little time, the space of an afternoon, she can have simple gladness. “Does he want to be ridden?”

By her, specifically. What an enormous thing. Is there anything in Arda that isn't monstrously oversized, that's what she'd like to know-

[rowancrowned]

"'I love you'," he obliges, murmured against her skin as he lets go of her hand, gestures her along in the direction of the elk. "Far less than I do, I suspect, but he will oblige."

And oblige the elk does, mindful of dresses and ladies in them, going down on forelegs first and then to the ground, blinking up at her. Coming to her is easier than a ladder, and he waits sedately enough for her to find her seat before rising again. Thranduil, meanwhile, has left them to unsaddle the horses and tie them to a nearby tree, in reach of good grass. The saddlebags he takes, the rest he disguises with woodcraft and leaves behind without too much concern. The bag in his hand, he comes to the elk's head, and walks alongside it as they go through the forest.