faderift | Looting the Circle

Nell holds off until Simon's rode out of earshot to turn and toward Teren, assuming the Templar would find it suspicious to hear her attempt to fob off the Warden's offer of assistance. "There's no need," she says, "I'm sure it's probably just in the hall here, and if not we'll likely just leave it. You should go ahead on, no need to hang about on my account."

She slides a sidelong glance at Kostos, which--even if he's no idea what it is exactly that she's dragging him into right now--should be easily identified as a familiar 'we-need-to-get-rid-of-her' look. She doesn't notice Simon and Gareth turning around, opening the doors only far enough to slip back inside. It takes eyes a moment to adjust as they step out of the sun, and she uses that moment to shift close and take hold of Kostos's hand, winding their arms together and murmuring in an undertone, "Churneau."

Ah yes. Churneau.

Kostos bends his arm, and Nell's along with it, bringing her hand up toward his chest—about midway to kissing height, but stopping short, clearly, because of their company, whom he glances at but otherwise doesn't pay much obvious attention. He doesn't know what Nell is doing, if not looking for a lost ring, but he generally requires several months of discontent and a few violent deaths to refuse to go along with her. If she wants Teren to leave, he'll do his best.

He says, "I lost my virginity in that alcove," with a nod down a branching corridor.

It's not actually a lie.

"If it's just in the hall, then we can wait," Teren points out, furrowing her brow and shooting Nell a hard look. She folds her arms, leaning back against the doorframe, clearly in no hurry to get going anywhere. "Go on then." She knows this game, and knows just as well how to play it. Either the two are actually going off to have a secret tryst, which... one would hope they'd be subtler, and which is a waste of everyone's time, or they're off to cause Mischief.
Regardless of the cause, they're shit at concealing it, and they should learn to do it better if they don't want noses in their business. Teren looks almost pleased with herself as she waits for their move.

Simon, outside the doors, looks decidedly less pleased with Gareth. At another time, and were Gareth someone else, the squeaking chipmunk voice might make him laugh, but it's probably fortunate for all involved here that preoccupation with whatever Trouble Is Definitely Afoot keeps Simon from being amused by anything at the moment.

Still. He has not yet been given reason to believe that Gareth is in on the Unspecified Trouble (though neither does he have specific reason to believe he isn't.) And he's confident enough in his ability to handle one lone brat if said brat tries to attack him that he doesn't intend to let it slow his investigation down.

"You can come or stay as you like," he says shortly. "It's your business." He pushes the doors open with a heave and a grunt and strides inside.

Nell doesn't manage a joke in reply to Kostos's valiant effort to pull off this ruse nor Teren's refusal to buy it. If he's trying to gauge her mood, guess her aim? then that's an ominous sign. Not that signs are really necessary when, a split-second after her mouth opens, she shuts it again, and her expression hardens, jaw bulging at the hinge as she takes a half-step away, just far enough to sweep the staff off her back. "On second thought, I don't have the patience for this game today," she says, adding over her shoulder to Teren: "Suit yourself. But I'd stay near the door if I were you." Her staff is swung into a low guard position, the firelight lending a ruddy, molten glow to the purplish Nevarrite in the blade at its head.

Almost immediately, the ground begins to shake. It builds fast, too fast to be natural (for those outside who might have momentary doubts), loosening those decorative skulls from their corners and heaving up paving stones until they crack and break against each other. There's a terrible grinding noise of stone on stone, and the air begins to fill with glimmering gold as the gilding that coats the ceiling is turned to dust. Oil spills down the walls as the trough cracks and flame follows. Nell's free hand rises, staff twisting in her grip to meet it to make a two-handed sweep across the breadth of the room--

One of the narrower pillars at the edge of the great hall cracks, and then another, and as it does the stones fly out of it, flung through the air to crash into the great central columns, missiles that smash into shards of rock and billowing clouds of dust, drowned out by a great groaning creak from above and just barely audible through it, Nell says: "Kostos."

(She doesn't turn to check that he's still there, she doesn't reach out to grab hold of an arm and make him stay, she doesn't for a second allow her concentration to be broken by doubt. He's there. He knows what to do. He'll do it. And he does.)

She inhales sharply as power floods through her, an electric rush of energy that never fails to raise the hairs on the back of her neck and send goosebumps racing down her spine, eyes sliding shut. She slams the butt end of her staff into the ground and the room explodes, rocked by a wave of sheer force that crests against the central pillars. They crumble beneath it and the ceiling follows, the center first and then the rest, destruction rippling outwards. Nell doesn't linger to admire her work, turning to race the falling stone back to the door and out into the dry grass, and then keeps going, back toward her horse as the Circle implodes behind them.

She says Kostos and he does it, even though his eyes have gone wide and he hasn't breathed in since the tremors started: it, throwing everything he has at her, a swirl of eager power-amplifying wisps and the glisten of a barrier and as much of his own power as he can move between them. Like she isn't terrifying enough on her own. Except she wasn't, sometimes. Sometimes the odds were impossible, until they made them possible. Like this.

Perhaps he should be grateful no one is bleeding. Perhaps he should wonder if their audience is the only reason why that's the case. But he's watching the last place he was happy come apart at its seams—helping it happen—so he'll have to do the wondering later.

He's slower to turn, taking two uncertain steps backwards with his focus still fixed on the damage, but then he's close behind her, using whatever he has left to throw one of the least impressive barriers of his adulthood at both Teren and Nell when they're close enough to catch with a single spell. And that's it. He's out.

(He'll run over Simon if he has to, but Gareth he'll herd ahead of him if necessary.)

If there's a world record for shortest time knocking a smirk off Teren's face, Nell just broke it. Mages make her nervous enough as it is, and now one is collapsing a building around them. At the beginning of the process, during the initial shaking, she simply stood still and paralyzed by fear and gripped the doorframe, but the sight of Nell and the rest of it is enough to tear a tremulous "oh Maker," from her.
She doesn't know when it's time to start running until the mages do-- could you not be killed trying to run in an earthquake??-- but she's off like a shot as soon as it's clear that's what's happening, and her horse barely has time to react before she's launched onto his back and urged him the hell away from here.

MAGES

Gareth isn’t so easily dissuaded—his first thought is to lash out, fight him or force him to listen. How dare he just stroll around like he can do whatever he wants, with no cares to other people—but no. He might be getting a little ahead of himself, and projecting on Simon. Just a little. Violence isn’t supposed to be his first resort anymore, and Simon had helped them.

Instead, he hurries after Simon, and tries to get around him so he can stubbornly stand in his way. It was a great plan, it was nonviolent, if he got shoved, Simon would look bad. No way it could go wrong. But then it does, before he can do more than get a good scowl in. The earth lurches under Gareth’s feet, and he’s caused enough earthquakes to know what they feel like. Then Teren zips on by, and Gareth needs no further prodding.

He makes a gesture towards the now-collapsing inside to Simon, a ‘go on, after you’ sort of thing, before he turns around to haul his scrawny ass out of there. It’s not until he’s next to his horse that he takes a moment to really comprehend what just happened. The signal of that comprehension is him turning to Nell and Kostos with an accusing expression.

“That was not the kind of banging I thought was going to happen.” He squeaks, irately. How dare they blow up things and leave him on Templar-sitting duty! The nerve.

Edited 2017-12-21 17:17 (UTC)

He'd thought, in his tragic naivete, that this had to do with classified information--something they wanted to track down without the Inquisition's mandate, something useful to the rebellion. And in that vein, it's understandable, if still unacceptable to him, that Gareth would want to keep him from interfering. He sighs, a forehead-rubbing sort of why this, why me sigh.

"Look, kid, I'm just trying to--"

The ground begins to tremble, but even then, Simon thinks earthquake, not Kirkwall Chantry. Only as mortar begins to crash around them, and the quarry he's tracked inside reappears, does the reality of the situation dawn.

She's trying to kill us, he thinks, that pendulum of panic swinging wildly in the opposite direction now as he watches this unfold. Finding himself directly in Kostos' barreling path, he finally galvanizes his legs to run, half-hobbled by his armor, sash tangling around his knees. By the grace of the Maker, he doesn't fall until he's clear of the collapsing hill, tripping onto his hands and knees and watching helplessly as the only other non-mage in the group disappears into the distance.

The argument behind him will register fully, later on--will divert his wrath from Gareth, who obviously wasn't in on it, and perhaps eventually from Kostos too, but there's no exonerating Nell. Not when she was the one to suggest that perilously flimsy pretense; not when she led the way inside. He drags himself to his feet again, watching with speechless rage as she saunters over to her horse without a care in the world.

"--You have every confidence that you're going to get away with this, don't you," he bites out. For the moment, his fury encompasses Kostos as well. He has no reason yet to think it shouldn't.

Edited 2017-12-22 17:43 (UTC)

Kostos doesn't head for the horses. As soon as he's outside the doors, safe from having anything come down around his head, he turns around to look at the Circle.

There's a single great crack through the flat expanse of cut stone that served as the front of the building, and he can hear the rock's shuddering groans and the occasional collision as more columns and walls and ceilings give way inside while parts of the hill shift and collapse inward. Maybe, before everything is done settling, it will bring the door down too. But right now it nearly looks as though he could walk back inside. He's almost tempted to try.

Only almost. People are talking behind him—Gareth's current squeaky soprano, Simon's druffalo noises—and he turns around, emerging from a daze to look at both of them the same way he would look at someone who kept poking him in the side while he was trying to work.

Nell, he doesn't look at at all. Later.

"Is everyone unharmed?" he asks, without any nurturing concern to imply he’s going to bandage and kiss their scrapes if they aren’t—more stomping down a metaphorical boot on the complaining and fuming. They look fine. They shouldn't have come through the doors, but they look fine.

Edited 2017-12-22 20:24 (UTC)

Gareth doesn’t answer Simon. He doesn’t want to have to listen to his own dumb, high-pitched voice any longer than necessary, and the only answer he could give the Templar would probably be inappropriate. Of course they’re getting away with it, they’ve managed to get away with everything so far. As for who ‘they’ encompasses, exactly—

A quick glance at Nell, expression confused, and then what was supposed to be the same one at Kostos. However, while Kostos isn’t an easy man to read, Gareth had enough experience at it to figure out something was wrong. Quietly, he crosses over to the other mage, turns to stare at the collapsed Circle with him, then gives him a soft little nudge, expression concerned.

Teren is gone and was definitely never here. You have never seen her before. Teren who.

Nell doesn't have far to go, her horse tied to a post designed for the purpose, and she crosses the dozen or so yards without turning 'round, or any acknowledgment of the others nor of the implosion still rumbling as it settles behind her. She's swung up into the saddle before she fixes her gaze on Simon.

"Yes," she says, tone calm and cold, "Because if you go telling tales, it will be the Inquisition that bears the blame. There was a rift. We killed the demons and Gareth closed it, but not before it damaged the hall beyond saving. That's the story the world will hear, unless you'd like to cause an international incident."

Looting the Circle

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