( closed ) PLAYER PLOT: STILL WATERS

[dashing]

WHO: Alistair, Herian, Myr, Nell, Prompto, Saoirse, Wren.
WHAT: ( Plot post ) Shady rumours concerning the Tranquil lead to a remote Circle in the Northern Anderfels. Its relative isolation from the rest of Thedas has prevented news from reaching the Inquisition sooner. Our crack team investigates.
WHEN: forward dated, around 21st-ish Cloudreach
WHERE: Salzklippe, the Anderfels.
NOTES: Content Warning for violence, murder, and other grim Dragon Age things. The grief demon threads in particular include themes of death, suicide, and gore. Please add additional warnings to subject lines where necessary.

— Making the approach (group thread) — Into the catacombs (individual starters) — Discovering the lake (group thread) — Into the tower (individual starters) — Bossfight (multiple group-ish) — Later Stuff (individual starters) FOR GROUP THREADS: in order to keep threads moving, I will be aiming to do a GM tag once every 24 hours. Don't worry about a strict tagging order, but please don't tag more than three times every 24 hours, just to make sure no one gets left behind.

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INTO THE TOWER

[dashing]

Beyond the lake's edge stands a heavy, unused door. Glowing seams of lyrium marble its great stone circle. As the boat approaches, the slab rolls aside, and exposes a place for the boat to dock. Long neglected, dust-laden steps lead upwards into the tower.

Finally, the true search begins: For phylacteries, for signs of the Tranquil, for any evidence of what happened here. Abandoned, but on what grounds? Are whispers of Venatori defection true?

As they ascend (dungeons unto basements, living areas, libraries, and studies, and offices, and classrooms) they might encounter any number of foes. Despair, Rage, and Fear hold sway here, and fearlings skitter in the shape of the beholder's own frights.

The higher they go, the greater the signs of violence. The bodies here were never given rites, robed, and armored, and unrestful for it. Some skeletons don't seem to fit either category, not knights or mages at all.


( ooc: Individual starter this nonsense up! I will GM some potential items of interest into threads at random — if you would prefer no GMing, please add a note to your top-level in the subject line.)

[dashing]

Herian steps over the demon ichor splattered across the floor, giving a swift swipe of her ice blade to shake the excess blood off. She pauses for a moment, frowning as she leans in to inspect a stag carved into the wall, parts worn smooth by time and curious hands, before looking to to others. Dried blood smears the walls, and she looks to one of the others.

"Whatever happened here, we must find it out."

For the sake of the people who died - and perhaps for the sake of the people who survived.

[byblow]

This might be the first time all day Alistair doesn't have something funny (or "funny") to say, whatever line he refuses to cross apparently lying somewhere to the other side of an apparent massacre. He echoes Herian's sentiment with a grim nod, exhales, and says, "It reminds me of Kinloch Hold, but—worse."

Maybe it's what Kinloch Hold would have been if no one had been saved and the Tower had been abandoned for years. If there hadn't been anyone left to ask for Annulment anyway.

He turns his sword in his hand—it's a simple thing, the same one issued Inquisition recruits, and he doesn't like the balance of it in a way he knows he won't get used to anytime soon, but his other, better option has Theirin all over it and is wrapped and hidden beneath his bed—and uses the blade to reach out and push at a nearby door, to see if perhaps that's all it needs to open.

i'm sorry

[dashing]

The door swings open.

For a moment, Herian stands back from Alistair - not because she is unwilling to look, but because she doesn't want to inadvertently block him in if he needs to take a step back.

[ Codex Entry: Red Herrings. ]

Behind the door lie many barrels of preserved fish, and top of them, a collection of parchment. It is a first draft manuscript on the different ways of preserving fish in the proper tradition of Salzklippe sild, incomplete. Author unknown. Included are recipes for mackerel preservation (smoked, pickled, salted, preserved in flavoursome sauces) as well as histories of each method and philosophical ramblings about the pros and cons.

Tucked into the manuscript, a note;

[ Codex Entry: Holy Smoke ]
A faded letter, dated 9:38.

My dear Albert,

Please don’t think me ungrateful. You know that I support your passions, but I’m begging you - please stop sending these barrels of fish. They taste fine as they are. Whatever spice you’re missing, it’s not worth so much time away.

I know Salzklippe’s recipe is famous, but we just want you to come home and stop this madness. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. We’re worried about you.

At the very least, you could include a letter?

Your loving sister,
— Miriam

i don't think you are

[byblow]

After Alistair steps into the room, he needs a minute or two to take stock of the contents and skim the notes, eyebrows slowly climbing. And you know—he tried, he was serious, he was behaving himself. This isn't his fault. He emerges with several preserved fish skewered on the end of his sword and holds them out toward Herian.

"Snack?"

not even a little bit

[dashing]

Herian takes an alarmed step back. Gore, viscera, they were one thing. Unpleasant, not something she would ever be used to, but something she would do her best to work around because they were a tragic inevitability, because she owed to the people cut down to do so.

In the face of pickled herrings unexpectedly brandished, she looks—

aghast. "What did you do?"

He must have done something, surely. Smuggling in pickled fish just to be absurd seems like exactly the sort of thing Alistair would do.