[closed] outrun, outlast

[doneisdone]

WHO: Teren, Anders, Nate, Alistair, Wren, Jang
WHAT: seeking an errant Wardenmom (again), fighting the whole Anderfels
WHEN: on the way back from Tevinter
WHERE: southwestern Nevarra/the front line of the invasion
NOTES: probable violence

Several months ago, Teren took off at a gallop from the Grand Tourney in Wycome and has not been seen or heard from since. At least, that is, until a strange misfired crystal message erupted into the Inquisition's ears in the middle of one night, a familiar cry that was abruptly cut off and silent again. She has been otherwise unreachable, and it has most likely been intentional. Those who know Teren know how she can be.

The last people with whom she spoke were Alistair and Anders, not long after leaving. Perhaps it's fortunate that they know the most of her history, and know what reasons she might have had for bearing west upon news of the invasion. For this reason, on the way back from their intrepid Tevinter rescues, the party splits to move south of Perendale and check up on a little fishing village called Pike.

Predictably, the signs of Anderfel occupation are everywhere. Flags, camps posted around the town, and the ramshackle buildings themselves full to the brim with soldiers and civilians trying to keep up with the explosion of activity, working themselves to the bone to keep themselves and their families safe.
Those who have been here before will notice a conspicuous change: the Skraedder's hovel, while still there, bears no sign of its elderly elven resident. The sign is broken on its hinges, and the place seems to have been overrun by soldiers, one of whom gives the party a funny look as he stumbles drunkenly out the front door and takes a piss on the wall. At least it's outside.

Finding out what happened to Teren's mother is likely the key to finding Teren, if either of them are still alive.

[one thread please!]

Comments

[limier]

A house full of the drunk and hungover, and the five of them sober, with a mage in tow.

It isn’t bad odds. Still better not to chance them, if it can be avoided. This lot will have friends up and down the countryside.

She considers caution; dashes it. A step forward, a friendly hand to Two's shoulder — keeps it away from her blade — before making to move past and inside. If she’s stopped, she’ll let others do the talking.

They’re deep in the cups, even for soldiers. Pay can’t be that good, can it?

(Or she’s just used to thinking of the Anderfels as shit broke. To be considered later. Shit broke or not, they’re in her bloody country now.)

[byblow]

They're disgusting, from the cavalier attitudes to the belching, worse than the Wardens at even their most boisterous, and Alistair's capacity for faking anything is limited at the best of times, so he'll leave answering their questions to Anders and his cocky villain swagger and instead do his best to follow Coupe inside.

[justice_is_blond]

His expression falters briefly at the suggestion that there's more fun to be had. It's the sort of fun he'd like to put an immediate stop to, but there go Alistair and the Templar into danger and they don't want everyone on alert.

"Are you going to tease us with something left and not tell us what? It's been a long trip and little in the way of fun, save his piss-poor attempts at singing." That's delivered with a jerk of his thumb at Nate; his husband will forgive him and it will distract from the pair going in. Hopefully.

[pinprick]

Nathaniel does forgive him. Coupe and Alistair get no warning about whatever is inside because no matter how many men are inside, they couldn't muster the power to stand up between them, let alone fight. Don't alert the rest of the army to us sort of goes without saying. He remains standing at the angle that allows a vantage point inside the house and simply keeps an eye out. Advantage of having a ranged weapon, and all.

[whiskeyandbrimstone]

Jang moves over by Nathaniel, keeping an eye on the soldiers and the civilians. At least paid soldiers wouldn't kill you without a reason, even if the reason is 'Someone paid me to". With the rabble, well, they were unpredictable.

Jang leads towards Nathaniel, quietly talking. "So...what's the plan here, anyway? I mean, I'll follow ya'll's lead here, but seems like we don't have a lot to go on."

[doneisdone]

The man who walked out with the new bottle has barely time to laugh before he pauses, a funny look on his face, and gives a cough. A second. Then, without further warning, he vomits on the feet of the nearest person, stumbling to his knees with a look of bewilderment and fear on his bulging eyes. His companion stumbles back in alarm, either too drunk or too disgusted to help him. Comrades in arms, perhaps, but sometimes it's every man for himself.

This is around the same time that the pair who went inside will make an unpleasant observation: what they, and perhaps the denizens, thought was a drunken party house has, over a fairly short period of time, in fact become a morgue. The sounds of retching from upstairs grow feebler, accompanied by at least one thump as a body gives up the ghost. Those on their bedrolls, ostensibly passed out? The flies have already begun to investigate. Impossibly, everyone was too drunk-- too sick-- to sound a proper alarm.

On the floor by the fireplace is the crate of bottles, only a few left, distinct from the others strewn about the place by their visible improvement in quality. These spirits are no soldier's fare: they were a gift, from someone with means or, perhaps more tellingly, someone who knows their way around a bargain.

[justice_is_blond]

He stares as the man dies in front of him, making no move to save this countryman. They'd messed with Teren's mother's house if not Teren and her mother as well, and he's not really inclined to help people who he might have had to fight in a few minutes anyway.

"I think the plan is keep moving." At least his boots aren't covered in sick. He carefully steps in and around the mess, eyes falling on the bottles.

"...Do you think that was her?" Maybe it's wishful thinking to say that Teren would be behind poisoning the assholes messing with her mother's house.

[byblow]

"More likely than a Pentaghast," Alistair says, which is exactly the amount of political bitterness he's allowed to have, as a Warden, before moving on—clocking the crate, but leaving that for someone else to investigate while he turns right back around to stick his head outside the door.

It's not discomfort with the bodies. He's seen much worse, and joked about it. But there are reasonably coherent people out there, or were a minute ago, and they better ask questions while there's someone alive to ask.

To whomever among their party is still outside, he says, "They've been poisoned. See if anyone knows who gave them the liquor before they kick it too."

[limier]

"Shit."

Poignant, for the first words she's spoken today. It seems abruptly more plausible that Teren's involved. Who else has such an ugly sense of cosmic timing?

She stoops to investigate the crate, turns a bottle over before pressing it out to Alistair. Expensive, and he's eyes enough to see it. Maybe Anders can render sense from what's within; maybe not. At a certain point, 'poison' is all the meaning one requires.

A quick hand to rifle pockets for papers, keys, signs of rank — was this kept from officers? Gift or bargain, or the spoils of war, how quiet were they about it?

"Checking the stairs."

Murmured, before she starts up. May as well have a full count of the dead.

[whiskeyandbrimstone]

"Damn it, posion? Is anyone still alive? I might be able to help." Jang moves into the room, checking the bodies, looking for any with a pulse. The flies could have told her that it was pointless, but still she checks. One person has a weak pulse, but breathing slowly. "Here's one..."

Jang sits next to the unconscious man and puts her hands together over the man and then spreads her hands out. A slightly shining deck of cards appears and spreads over the man, dealing itself out like solitaire. Jang then focuses on the game and begins playing. The man's breathing begins to steady as the magic takes effect. "If you guys want to talk to him, do so. I don't know how much effect this'll have, normally I use this to fix sucking chest wounds."

[pinprick]

Nathaniel nearly replies to Jang before people start dying, which he assumes is Teren's doing until given reason to believe otherwise. The price of the alcohol doesn't mean anything. Teren wouldn't have had to purchase a shipment of liquor, just divert one. He darts into the house with everyone else, stringing his bow once inside.

"With you," he hisses back to Coupe, following her up the stairs in case the murderer is not Teren and is at the top of the stairs. If the house is clear, he will begin investigating the poison used, but for now it's safety in numbers.

[doneisdone]

The room upstairs is a graveyard, and smells like a filthy hospital ward; there's no luck up here.

The man Jang has managed to revive looks up into her face with eyes bloodshot and the weak desperation of a very ill person grasping for a moment's respite. "Water," he croaks, lifting a hand to paw feebly at whatever part of her he can grip, begging for mercy. He was nearly gone, and now he's back, and in agony. There's likely not much information to be got from him, but he's awake for now.

Standing pressed against the window outside, watching his comrade convulse and vomit, is the one healthy soldier remaining. "Poison?" he repeats, a knowing edge to the question: he's not as shocked as he could be, though he's certainly beyond horrified.
"There's--" he begins, meeting eyes with Alistair, but shakes his head, pressing a hand to his face, "--it's impossible. We killed the witch weeks ago." His thought process is plain: clearly some manner of evil magic is afoot.

[byblow]

Killed the witch, and Alistair stops breathing for a second—because he could mean Teren—and then a second second, because he probably means her mother, and that's awful, too.

"That's the thing about witches," he says. "They have daughters."

He can't fake a smile. This fellow is between one and five minutes from a blade in the gut, depending on how useful he is first.

"What did you do with the body?"

[justice_is_blond]

Everything feels cold. And it's not just the ice forming on his fingertips as he takes position behind Alistair, prepared for... well, he's not particularly sure what. The man has to live long enough to show them who they killed, but beyond that? All bets are off for what they've done here. Unless she's alive, somehow.

"Show us." Maybe there's still a chance.

[limier]

"No one,"

Left. She turns to shake her head at Nathaniel — forewarning, her shoulders rather block the little doorway — expression grim: No one left alive. He’s welcome to follow her inside (though their pockets don’t reveal anything worth the effort of turning out), or trapise back to ground level,

As she does shortly, down through charnel, to catch words from the window: The admission’s as blunt as it ought to be horrifying. Nothing falls in her stomach, there’s no creep in her veins, and that’s...

That shouldn’t be the case. Perhaps she’s spent on anger for the month, or it just seems all a little too unreal. Sudden.

(Relief? That they won’t be blamed of this, that there are more pressing threats than suspicious foreigners? Who can bloody say. There will be time for feeling later, or its absence. No use reflecting of it now.)

"Curses travel." An excuse given often enough. Old times. A glance back to Jang. A canteen unhooked, passed over. She won’t be reclaiming it; Maker knows what venom's left on the man’s lips. "Where did they get it? Be quick."

Better to follow a live man. They need to go.

[whiskeyandbrimstone]

Jang takes the canteen, eyes not leaving her game played over the man's chest, and she hands it over to him, flipping another card up and placing it, red on black, in sequence. Anyone can see the magic being used, and someone who is actually paying attention would note that he's not getting better, just...holding steady.

"I can't hold this back forever, so drink, tell us what we need to know, and I'll stay here while you offer up your last words to whatever higher power you want to tell them to. But be quick."

[pinprick]

Nathaniel does not follow Coupe back downstairs, instead stooping over one of the soldiers' bodies. Obviously there was vomiting--not a useful thing to know, particularly, given how many poisons cause it. That the soldiers died quickly is a better indicator. He picks up one of the bottles, inspecting for any residue first on the outside before uncorking it. That is where he finds what he is looking for. On the bottom side of the cork and inside around the lip of the bottle, a dark and slimy remnant of an incredibly potent poison. It is difficult to make and expensive to buy. No common townsman could have laid this trap.

Careful not to touch any of it, he corks the bottle and puts it back where he found it. Silent. And without shifting his weight, he stays upstairs and listens. If the newcomer downstairs has friends who are joining him, having one more enemy than he knows about will be an advantage if it comes to blows.

[doneisdone]

"We--" begins the healthy man, but the one on the floor croaks out, "--no-- body." He coughs, takes a sip of water, and spits it right back out with a wash of blood. "Didn't--"...
He's interrupted by more coughing, more blood. It spatters on Jang, the man gasping for breath as the poison battles her magic.

"They shot her down," the remaining soldier says, ghost-white as he watches his comrade die, "on the edge of the woods, after she'd slit a man's throat. I wasn't there, only..." The man in Jang's arms falls limp, succumbing.
"...the shot was fatal," the soldier whispers, "I heard it so. There's no way she could've lived." He raises his head to meet the eyes of anyone still listening, clearly spooked. "There were poisonings and things, murders, vermin outbreaks and they all stopped after they got her." Until now, at least.

[pinprick]

Now that the man is dying, Nathaniel comes down the stairs.

“This is from a very concentrated version of Soldier’s Bane,” he says quietly. “It was smeared inside the bottles. This was Teren for sure.”

[justice_is_blond]

Edge of the woods. He's not going to think about anything else that the man's said. Teren or her mother or both are in the woods and it's probably Teren because he knows how good she is with knives and Nate's saying Teren too. Anders' face is blank.

"Is that the end of your usefulness to us?" he asks in a flat voice to the healthy one. They're all murderers here. Probably. He doesn't know all that much about Jang, but the natives all are, so he's really not concerned with pretending they're going to spare this man's life. They can't risk him telling others that they're here.

[byblow]

Alistair nods toward Nathaniel—relieved to be wrong, instead of his usual unsurprised but mildly annoyed by it. They could both still be alive. Which is much better than this fellow is going to be in a few minutes.

He'll do it, if it needs doing. But in the meantime he's going to go back into the house and start lugging bodies down the stairs, nodding hello to Jang on the way if he passes her. Whether the corpses of an invading army deserves the respect of being lit on fire is immaterial; he doesn't want any possessed bodies wandering around Teren's mother's house.

And arranging them into some ominous straight line in front of the house before burning them is really the least they can do, in her honor.