Looting the Circle

[galvanising]

WHO: Kostos, Nell, others in Nevarra City
WHAT: An Inquisition team goes to collect anything useful out of the Nevarra City circle
WHEN: Around the middle of their stay in Nevarra City, pre-Necropolis
WHERE: Nevarra City Circle
NOTES: There's a closed log for a small group doing some targeted looting, and then also an open post for anyone who wants to take a peek around in between loading crates or taking inventory

Comments

[exequy]

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.)

[doneisdone]

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

[foundmyselfagain]

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.

[paladingus]

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.

[exequy]

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.

[foundmyselfagain]

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.

[doneisdone]

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

[galvanising]

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."