faderift | Player Plot: Blue Gold

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Player Plot: Blue Gold

WHO: Colin, Cyril, Julius, Anders, and Barnabas.
WHAT: Colin's lyrium-dealing has drawn the ire of the Carta. His friends race to save him.
WHEN: Justinian 2
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: TWs for crime, hostage crud, everything to do with the Carta. Subtitle: "Sigh Hard."

You--

Your peddler friend came to the wrong city.

The game is over. The Carta is defending its territory. If you want your boy back, bring 500 sovereigns and his remaining lyrium to Lowtown as reparations for business lost by the Carta in the months he has been in Kirkwall. Not the stash in his store--we got that. Wherever the rest is, bring it to the cul-de-sac off the Blooming Rose in Hightown by dawn. Leave it in the barrel marked with a red X and go. If you linger afterward, you will be shot.

--"Len"

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The shop isn't trashed, but it's not untouched. Nothing valuable seems to have been taken, but some things are broken on the floor. A couple of shelves are overturned, their contents scattered. Not a burglary, but a struggle.

The back door into the stock room, normally shut tight and locked, is broken open. A letter is nailed to the front door. Colin is nowhere to be found.

The day, up until a half hour ago, has been a fairly ordinary Kirkwall day. A pair of stab wounds keeps him busy and from right away noticing Colin's not on time, but as soon as he's registered that he's moving. Young people can get distracted. It doesn't have to mean anything. But Colin is not just any young person and Anders is never able to stop worrying about people he gives a care about.

Which leads to him standing at the back door, blaspheming profusely under his breath before navigating the broken shards of door and going inside, searching nervously for blood.

Cyril has plans to stop by Colin's to drop off a couple more puzzle boxes and arrives a few minutes after Anders. He pauses at the sign of the struggle and reaches for the hidden blade that Merrick had, once upon a time, insisted he carry with him.

He steps inside and can hear Anders moving around. "Hello?" he asks, not wanting to scare someone who had nothing to do with the damage. Though it probably also announced his presence to anyone who had.

Julius isn't far behind, though far enough that he doesn't see Cyril enter; Cyril and Anders will have at least a few moments before Julius joins them. He doesn't have a scheduled visit to see Colin, or anything else so formal, but Julius is no better than Anders at letting go of people he once was in a position to protect. A visit isn't unusual.

(And Colin's cooking is excellent. That also helps.)

There is no blood on the ground, and no one hiding in corners to pounce. The shop is completely vacated. Inside the back room, a block is pulled out of the wall and toppled aside, a wooden box broken open and empty. Anders will recognize it as the stash of lyrium Colin has, or used to have. There is no sign of the lyrium itself anywhere. It seems the Carta is as good as its word, and has taken it.

He picks up the box grimly, turning to look at the people coming in. Thankfully it's just two, and even more thankfully they're two he trusts.

"He hasn't been gone long, but he was supposed to be at the Clinic today and..." Anders gestures at the back room, and the gesture takes in the door, too. There's so little missing and he's more worried now that the box is clearly empty. How many knew Colin was dealing lyrium? How many Templars knew and might be upset that their dealer could take control of his own life and own phylactery now?

"There has to be something here that says who is responsible. Or suggests it." More than the lyrium being gone.

"This is... worrying." Julius seems instantly focused, even before he takes in the state of the shop. The explanation for that is in his hand: "There was a note --" He offers it to Anders, glancing at Cyril; they've not met, but if Anders is this relaxed in front of him, he assumes Anders has. Introductions can wait a moment.

He takes the note and feels both relief and more stress. Not Templars after all, but the Carta. That's a whole other realm of danger. At least the Carta probably won't habe started hurting Colin right away, unlike Templars.

"Of course they found out," he mutters. Len isn't either a familiar name or fake; Anders can't say if he's healed them before so he doesn't have a good in there. Varric is nowhere to be found either... but there is another dwarf with Carta connections.

"We need to find Barnabas. We've no way of getting the money and I don't know where Colin's other stash is, which means we need someone with Carta connections."

The glance from Julius to Cyril comes back to mind and he gestures at the men as he adds, "Julius, Cyril, Cyril, Julius. You're both good people." That should do. Any jokes about them both being good fun too can wait until after his apprentice is out of peril.

Cyril is trying to figure out what happened to Colin, but he manages to flash Julius a worry tinged smile. Usually, when he meets a new person he takes a moment to check them out, especially when they are male, but now he's really distracted by their missing friend.

"What's this?" he asks, as he bends down to pick up something by his feet. He picks up a small vial with a cord wrapped so tightly around it he can't make out what it contains. It looks as if it had been attached as if it was a necklace and broken off during a struggle. It doesn't seem to match any of the other broken pieces around, and Cyril can't recall ever having seen anything like it before in the shop.

He moves over to Anders to let him have a look.

"It looks like a phylactery," Julius observes, low, once he moves close enough to get a look. He doesn't try to take it from Cyril, but glances at Anders. He's willing to take "good people" at face value, but he also doesn't want to out Colin to Cyril by accident, if Cyril doesn't know about his past.

He also resists the temptation to ask incredulously if Anders knew Colin was undercutting the Carta; obviously he did. There's time for all sorts of lectures if -- when -- they retrieve Colin in one piece.

"Do either of you know Barnabas personally? I've heard the name, but we've not had the pleasure." And for all he's not deeply familiar with the Carta, he knows enough that 'just asking nicely' seems unlikely to get them very far without a pre-existing connection of some sort.

He eyes the phylactery the way a man dying from starvation would eye food that could be poisoned. It's everything they need to be free of... and there's no question about whether or not they'll use it with Colin's life in danger.

"It is," he grimly confirms. So much for his principles. And for secrecy. They may not have all that much time, and he's not going to waste that or energy dissembling.

"I've been to Barnabas' shop. He specializes in Rifter items and I try to identify what's magical or not. And what might be dangerous." Though looking at some of the items has taught him he's far out of his realm of expertise there. Anders folds the note carefully and tucks it into his belt pouch before shaking his head. "His shop is this way, unless either of you has a better contact. Let's?"

Between the note and the phylactery the image is all too clear and they've even got a way to find Colin. Dawn comes fast; there's no reason to waste time searching the shop for more leads.

Immediately, Cyril looks at the object in his hand with a certain level of disgust. "Here," he tells Anders as he hands it over. "I know your feelings on these things, and I understand why, but if anyone were to watch over it, they should be a mage." No non-mage should hold that power over Colin, if it belongs to him. He also doesn't out Colin, by hinting that he thinks he might know who it belongs to. He doesn't want to let that slip from him.

"And I say that plan works for me," so he easily follows after Anders now. "I've not had the pleasure of meeting this man just yet."

He takes the phylactery with regret on his face.

"Thank you," Anders says despite all of his misgivings about possessing someone else's phylactery. 'Not even once except in certain circumstances' doesn't have the same strength behind it as 'destroy them all' and he feels like they're losing something by using this. But Colin may gain from it, so he carefully pockets the phylactery and nods grimly before they head out.

Rain drizzles over Lowtown, darkening its usual dirt-brown into more of a mud-brown. The vendors are all still out, but the customers have made themselves scarce. A whiff of woodsmoke rolls across the street from a baker's stone oven, while two children in threadbare clothing chase each other over the distance. Someone is trying out a used crumhorn from a vendor's stall and the timbre is a bit tinny. Somehow it still manages to be hot, despite the rain, the humidity worse than anything else.

The building with Barnabas' store is unassuming from the outside, just another crude thing with shuttered rectangular windows like anything else in this part of town.

The inside of the store, however is another story. Inside it is rather brightly lit, with gentle colors along the walls and floors, one whole side wall covered in a massive painted mural of what looks like a ranch, horses are out in the field and the sun is brightly shining. The overwhelming smell is that of sweetness, the smell of sugar and cream and some kind of cooked pastry. There's a blonde woman in a blue dress behind the counter, smiling at the people who walk in.

Barnabas himself is sitting over at a table, going over some finance books, and looks up, grinning when Anders enters. "Anders! Been a while, how's things going? Here to try some of this new ice cream? Or is this something of more import?"

He tries to smile back, but Anders doesn't quite manage it as he joins the Dwarf.

"It's something more important. And needing secrecy." He pulls out the note and passes it over. All he can do here is pray Barnabas is willing to help them save Colin, that Anders has something he can offer to make it worth the Dwarf's time. Or that Julius or Cyril does, and they're willing to offer it. Sometimes he has to actively remind himself that he's not alone, that he doesn't have to solve everything himself.

"We don't have that, I don't know where his other stash is, and I want him back unharmed. I've healed some Carta members, but I can't put names to faces so I've nowhere to start when it comes to contacting people. I'm hoping you do." And will goes unsaid but, he hopes, implied.

Barnabas takes the note and reads it over. "Hmm...Come on into the other shop, get a bit more privacy." Barnabas leads the way through a door in the wall to his original shop, the one filled with artifacts of rifters, random items strewn on shelves, some under glass and a rare number under lock and key. Barnabas goes behind the counter and puts the note on the table next to a large green metal egg and reads it again.

"Tricky this. Carta doesn't like people who cut into their business. I know people sure, but me and the carta kinda just let each other be. But I do know people, and I can probably get in touch with them. Seems like we're on a time crunch here though, and not to mention what I get out of it. May end up pissing off the carta which, you can understand, is something to be avoided."

Barnabas looks up at Anders. "What exactly do you WANT out of this? Just the kid back? The kid back and free to trade in Lyrium? Kid back, but forbidden to step on the Carta's toes again? Gotta know what you're trying to sell to them before I can get to work."

Julius glances at Anders; frankly, his instinct is not to preserve Colin's ability to participate in a deeply dangerous black market, but on the other hand, Julius has no good sense of how much of Colin's livelihood comes from this as opposed to his other work.

However, he does say, "At a minimum, we don't know where the rest of his stash is, so we couldn't meet their opening demand even if we were inclined to do it."

"I want to make sure Colin is okay. We can help him figure out a way to recover any losses, and it might be the best way to get him back in one piece, if that's at all possible."

He considers Julius and Anders, in case they have any say in the manner. "Is there any clue as to where the stash might be? It could be of use to us if we could figure it out."

"My priority is getting him back. I don't have a right to determine the shape of his life, what happens to his livelihood, but..." Anders exhales, reaching up to push some of his hair back from his face.

"Get him back alive, intact. If that requires him to not deal in lyrium again, so be it. Anything beyond alive and unharmed would be a welcome bonus, but it's only a bonus." It's not his life. It's not his call. But someone is going to have to make it, and if Colin is angry later he'll accept that anger. "As far as a stash, I've no idea, and I don't know that we have time to find it. They searched his store, he'd not have it at the Clinic, and I don't think he'd be foolish enough to have lyrium in his rooms in the Gallows. We'll have to offer him telling them where it is as part of the bargaining."

Better that Colin be out of the business, but he knows it helps Colin feel safe so he can't exactly begrudge the other mage this.

Barnabas looks from face to face, his expression carefully impassive as he listens. "Alright. You want him back alive and unharmed, anything else is a bonus. Few more questions. How much money are you willing to spend? If you roll up with a wagon full of gold, the Carta's gonna hand him over right quick, no problem. If we don't have money...well that's hard mode."

Barnabas picks up the note again and reads it. "Second question. Does this stash of lyrium even exist? You best hope it does, cause if it dosn't? The carta will not believe you and will show you how serious they're taking this. If they get even the suggestion that you're not playing straight with them, they will quietly leave, and start mailing you pieces. For a very long time, and they won't start with vital pieces."

Barnabas puts down the note and looks over the gathered group. "I am worried that you think this will end well. All is forgiven, everything back to normal. The best case scenario that I can see? A huge amount of money gets paid, and you get him back and he dosn't owe the Carta anything. Thank the Paragons he didn't try to publish anything. If we were dealing with the Coterie, I'd say no way to helping you."

Julius shakes his head, but says, "Is there something other than cash that might get us anywhere? Favors or contacts? We're not representing the Inquisition, and speaking for myself... I didn't own anything prior to about three years ago, let alone Carta-appeasing amounts of coin."

He's never even seen a wagon full of gold. He deeply does not want to owe the Carta a favor, but on the other hand, he doesn't even know who he would ask for that much ready cash.

"I can't speak to the lyrium. I didn't know he was even dealing in it before today." So... it could exist, but if they're just hunting for it, the odds of finding it before dawn are slim at best.

"I could get coin, but it would take time and we don't have that," Cyril admits. He feels like this is probably going to end poorly but he doesn't want to give up on Colin just yet.

He likes the idea of trying some other form of payment, but he also isn't exactly sure what that would mean. It's not like they can use the Inquisition to leverage anything without approval, and approval takes time as well.

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Player Plot: Blue Gold

Shop | Anders, Cyril, Julius

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i know we've moved on, but i want to make this one point about where the phylactery is?

Tying a nice bow on it.

Barnabas'

Re: Barnabas'

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