Sketchy Mage Knitting Circle

[foundmyselfagain]

WHO: Gareth, Nell Voss, Kostos Averesch, Nikos Averesch, and Marisol Vivas
WHAT: A bunch of supposedly ex-rebels (and Nikos) talk about phylacteries and what to do about them
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Marisol's fancy Hightown house
NOTES: none atm!

"I think it's obvious what we should do."

Gareth looks up from his plate of fancy delicacies, nibbling on prosciutto and olives as he looks around. It's always nice, to be in a group of people that he knows he can trust. Who he doesn't have to hide anything from. To be with friends, if he wanted to be sappy about it.

And Nikos, of course.

"We need to figure out how to get to those boxes before they leave for Skyhold, and smash them. Why should the Inquisition get to keep them? We just saw how easy it is to use them against their owners! Why would the Inquisition even want them, unless they've got some kind of plans."

Gareth pauses for a few moment, nibbles on an olive, and then in a show of great maturity and wisdom: "And we should hide that we did it, somehow."

Comments

[champions]

"There are some rifters of extreme views when it concerns anything in this world they don't like," Marisol replies, opening a box of cigarillos. The scent of tobacco and warm spices and polished wood rises, as she holds the wooden case out in offering to any who might want one. "But they are tied to the Inquisition, so if word got out beyond Inquisition members, that could be poor for their reputation over all."

In her free hand, she picks up a glass of wine, and takes a sip. Divine, but not the point. "It's an insurance policy, at best, to soothe their fears of mages in the future, and appease the Chantry. The Inquisition is seen as heretical enough as it is, without them destroying phylacteries."

[exequy]

“We haven’t given them a chance to destroy anything,” Kostos cuts in, tone already impatient, because he is, always, by default, but also because he’s had this conversation before. That the Inquisition didn’t smash the phylacteries the moment they arrived hasn’t changed his opinion at all. Even if there was nothing to debate and no process to follow, there’s still accounting to be done. Every mage whose phylactery is not here now may have one elsewhere, waiting to be stolen by some other fanatic.

He doesn’t wave away the offered cigarillos, just ignores them. His wine he hasn’t ignored—it’s a third gone—but he is neglecting it now.

“They could. It could be their decision instead of an accident or the work of radicals. They could legitimize—“

He stops short, because articulating things is hard, and professing idealism is both unseemly and possibly counterproductive. He trusts the Chantry to do the right thing more than anyone here, and likely the Inquisition as well. They know that. He would be easy to discount.

Plus, Nikos is here. Whether or not he cares, whether or not he’d flinch, he’s someone Kostos is particularly disinclined to be excitable in front of.

When he continues, it’s more subdued.

“It is not enough to make it more inconvenient to find us, if they maintain that they have the right to,” he says, “and they will never need our willing cooperation more than they do now.”

[exsecutus]

Nikos is across the room, ostensibly not paying attention. The conversation had started around him, the way same way it gets dark around him when he drinks during the day and does not light a lamp and realizes how dark it has gotten only when he goes to pour another cup and can't find the jug in the dark. (Always the fault of the dark.) Despite his resemblance to a mage very much involved in this conversation--and his ability to, probably, pass as said mage, if no one was looking very hard or marking weight versus muscle mass, and-slash-or had not seen Kostos in awhile--Nikos is himself not a mage, and thus, not involved in this conversation. Ostensibly.

He is sitting at a table some distance apart from the squad, with a jug of wine and his seventh-and-now-nearly-empty cup of wine at one hand, and a knife actually in his other hand. The pommel of the knife he has cradled against his palm; the tip of the knife is in the table itself. As he turns his wrist, it bores into the table, little by little. He's been at it awhile, and has made quite a dent in the otherwise fine table.

"Make fake ones," he calls over.

Because he was paying attention. And, of course: drinking.

[galvanising]

"Kostos is right," Nell says, setting down her wine to take a cigarillo from the box and leaning up toward Marisol for a light. She could do it herself, of course, with a snap of her fingers, but where's the fun in that.

It takes a moment, and then she exhales a lungful of smoke and says, "We'll need other plans, obviously. To convince rifters to smash them for us, or Anders would probably do it and makes an easy scapegoat, or create fakes and swap them," she nods to Nikos because even if she's not entirely sure why he's here that is a good idea, "Whatever. But first we have to push the Inquisition to destroy them itself. This is our chance to force the organization to take a stand one way or the other, and right now we have leverage in our favor. Either they do what's right and side with us and legitimize our position in the process, or they refuse, and then we and every other mage in Thedas will know they're never to be trusted and they can try their luck winning this war without us. Either way, we'll be in a more certain position than we are right now where they get the benefit of the doubt and of our services without offering any actual assurances of support in return."

[foundmyselfagain]

"Why should we care what looks bad for the Inquisition?" This is directed to Marisol, as he politely declines the cigarillo. He's short of breath often enough as it stands. He turns to his wine--watered down, at his request--and drinks it, as the others offer their opinions. Decent ideas, all around. But one thing sits off with him.

"I don't like this trust we're putting in them," He offers, setting the wine back down. "It's all well and good to say that we should give them a chance, but what if they drag their feet and shuffle around, and by the time they say anything, they've already got the phylacteries out of our reach?" He's always quick to expect the worst, and it pays off more often than not. "You have a point, I just--we need to make sure we have a contingency plan."

He hums for a moment. "The Rifters are pretty pro-mage, and don't care about consequences. And Anders was already breaking a bunch. Anybody would believe it. It's not like he'd get in any trouble. They let him get away with breaking Kirkwall, what's a few phylacteries?" Not that he's bitter or anything. "Maybe we could replace them, and then ask and follow protocol and all that legitimate nonsense, so even if they say no, we'll be safe."

[champions]

Where indeed? Marisol is all too happy to oblige, though not with a match or a candle (what do you take her for). She opts, instead, to generous come to Nell's rescue by keeping her cigarillo held in her mouth, and leaning down to meet her, one hand resting at Nell's collarbone - for balance, of course. Absently, while they are staying close for as long as necessary for her cigarillo to light Nell's, she tucks Nell's hair behind her ear, and once the cigarillo is well and truly lit, leans back to recline on the sofa once more.

To Gareth, she smiles; ever the rebel fighter. "Because, Gareth, the Inquisition is trying to save the entire world. Their influence and their reputation matters, if they wish to make a meaningful difference and not face sabotage at every turn. And, when there is the very real possibility that outcomes for the future of mages and we can play a part in defining what that difference is, we need the organisation that we are using to have a reputation that means something. We need a sufficiently powerful adversary to the Chantry, or at the very least its ability to leech power from the Chantry and make them more... easily malleable."

She exhales, just slightly dramatised. "It's such a relief to be around people entirely possessing their wits. Everyone raises excellent points and ideas, but Nell and Gareth make a compelling points. We cannot hope for legitimacy in other areas or the Inquisition supporting us if we do not make a strong stance. Even those Loyalists who support Circles must have doubts after the recent happenings. The Inquisition may have uses beyond stopping the world destroying itself, but if they do not comply with what we need, then we must destroy them once this business with Corypheus is done."

i'm.... so sorry..........

[exequy]

Replacing them, back-up plans for destroying them—neither is a bad idea, necessarily, but they both leave a crease between Kostos' eyebrows anyway, behind which he's thinking of a few dozen ways either could go wrong and get everyone killed. He keeps them to himself, however, and takes a long drink while glaring at the wall and listening to Marisol talk.

"The phylacteries," he says, "or the Inquisition?"

It isn't a serious question. Or: he hopes it doesn't need to be a serious question.

[foundmyselfagain]

“Both.”

He’s probably not serious, either.

Probably.