[Closed] A perfect storm

[justice_is_blond]

WHO: Anders, established-CR people; poke me on plurk or in Discord for a top level if you'd like!
WHAT: A pair of triggers collide and fuck up Anders
WHEN: Early Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Panic attacks, possible talk of trauma in the past, related issues, dark thoughts

He'd run from being locked up seven times, knowing that the seventh was a death sentence, and been willing to go in alone to what seemed likely to be a lethal trap (and was) to try to destroy his phylactery. With both of them, life like that wasn't worth it.

Now both are back. He's held again, in a Circle, his phylactery is being messed with, and on top of that he can't heal in Darktown so he can do even less than he could in Kirkwall seven years ago.

Comments

Gareth

[justice_is_blond]

Conventional options are not working. Traditional methods are falling through. It has Anders considering means that are... not viewed positively. While he knows he isn't thinking clearly, he also knows he can't think clearly again until he has freedom again. Until he feels like he can breathe again.

Anders goes down to the morgue to stare at what few bodies are there, wishing they would simply hand over the solution. Instead of chatty corpses, though, he finds Gareth. There are a few mages he knows who would be having a bad time of this, and Gareth is another among them.

"What a fucked up mess," he blurts out. A filter is for when one isn't feeling like they're losing everything they've ever fought and worked for.

[foundmyselfagain]

Gareth is careful when he studies the deceased, now. They're no longer enemies of war, he can't just shove a knife in them and start poking around. In fact, if all the Templars weren't currently blue and half-dead, he'd probably not be bothering with this at all. But research is research, and there's no one who's going to brand him Tranquil, probably.

Still, he doesn't dare actually cut any of the bodies open. Instead, he simply studies them, taking notes, sketches, occasionally trying to move a limb and study the muscles that contract. "Oh, they're not that bad," He replies automatically when Anders comes down, not looking up from his sketch. "I've seen worse. I hate that whole rigor mortis business--When the body stiffens after death. I think it's got to do with the muscles not getting blood or oxygen?"

He turns to Anders, a grim look on his face. "Or are you talking about being stuck here again? Because, yeah. It's fucked up. At least the Templars are all dying, or I'd say we best watch out for red lyrium maniacs with swords." He turns back to his notes, frowning at them. "After all of this, running for three years, fighting a war. It looks like I might die in the Gallows anyway. If there is a Maker, he sure fucking hates me."

[justice_is_blond]

He blinks at the initial response, following after a few seconds and then nodding when Gareth looks over to him.

"He hates a few of us," Anders agrees, voice equally grim. He's not sure that any of the people down here are Rifters or Templars. He'd... not hoped to find any particular dead here, but it would have been nice to see if there was blue going on in their veins too. "Getting freedom, having choices, and then back in a cage, ordered there by an institution that's another extension of the Chantry."

He breathes out heavily, stressed and tense, before finally coming in the rest of the way and starting to check each corpse just in case. "But I'm glad the Templars can't harass us about any means we may take to try to cure this. It's a shame that one of them would be a loss." Otherwise he'd only be focusing on the Rifters, honestly. But Alistair matters.

"What are you checking for?"

[foundmyselfagain]

"Well, this time, we're sealed in by a damn Dalish of all things, and a pack of mages--Kostos and Nell. Man." He shakes his head, frowning at the sketch, which appeared to be of an arm, with muscles and ligaments. "They knew about it. They agreed with it. I mean--I trust them...But still" Of course he trusts them, he'd trust them with his life--and he is, constantly. What they know could get him killed, but he doesn't fear them saying anything.

It's hard for him to marry the two facts--that he knows them, trusts them to do what's best, and that they did...this.

"Even if we don't have Templars, it's not like we have unlimited reign. I mean, I doubt people would be fine if we started busting out blood magic." But who would do THAT, ha ha. "But this is just comparisons. I'm trying to see if there's any differences between the bodies of those who are sick, and people who are well. Lumps, or something with the muscles or ligaments, or--I don't know. Something that might give a hint about how this is manifesting."

He gestures to the sketch, and next to it, another one labeled 'Rifter', most likely sketched...from a Rifter. "I've managed to help healers before with it. I can show them what's wrong, what it should look like. I'm not much for healing magic itself, but practical knowledge can bridge a lot of gaps."

[justice_is_blond]

"Kostos and Nell?" It's repeated with a little incredulity. Kostos, okay, he can wrap his head around that one. But Nell? That's disquieting. How much would she sacrifice to get whatever her end goal is, when she's willing to establish a precedent of quarantine with no backing? There's no spread, no risk, no reason to hold anyone here other than the ill but she voted for this? It will make her look better politically, but where does that line get drawn? He's got some thinking to do later. Much later. When there's time. In fifty years.

"And people are fine when the Chantry used blood magic." There's a little bitterness there, and he shakes his head. He needs to track down his phylactery. It's a constant itch under his skin. "I'm not saying I'm going to use it, there's precedent enough to think that blood mages can't heal well and I'd not sacrifice that for anything, but those people can stuff it where the Maker doesn't shine. And they can stuff their assumptions that studying the body is a pathway to demons."

He leans in to take a closer look at the sketches, nodding. "It's a good study. I generally go by feel, what I know feels right in a healthy body versus what I'm sensing with magic, but detailed sketches would be good for those who can't learn one-on-one with an expert for years. Have you found any differences between Rifter bodies, generally speaking, and native bodies?" He hasn't. Specifics, sure, Cosima's sick, things like that, but he's healed a bunch of Rifters and not felt things that were surprising. Any sort of difference might help with finding a cure, he feels... but he's also open to a great many things helping find a cure as nothing usual is working.