CLOSED | Minrathous Rescue Operation

[faderifting]

WHO: Team 1 (Coupe, Benedict, Colin, Malcolm, Nikos, Six, Yseult), Team 2 (Anders, Arohaerd, Marcoulf, Myr) and Captives (Adalia, Gareth, Inessa, Kain, Max)
WHAT: Rescuing the captives
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Minrathous, Tevinter
NOTES: Probably violence? It is what it says on the tin idk

Below is an OOC overview of the entire plan as a whole, including both the parts that Team 1 planned in their discussion, and an explanation of a couple unexpected obstacles the teams will encounter along the way. We're providing this rundown to help make sure everyone's on the same page OOC about what the plan is, who's been assigned to do what, what order things are happening in, and the big picture of how it goes, while hopefully still leaving plenty of room for people to decide in RP the details of how specific tasks are accomplished. We have again provided a question comment at the top for any OOC questions related to this post.



Preliminary orders from Coupe:

• Team 1 is led by Coupe, Team 2 is led by Anders
  
• To minimize the risk of crystals falling into enemy hands, only a few will be brought. On Team 1, Wren will have one, along with Nikos and Malcolm. They can be passed between characters IC if needed. Team 2 will have a single crystal. Everyone will have strict orders to destroy the crystals if there seems to be a chance it might be captured.
  
• All members of Team 1 would be issued a vial with a very small amount of the Archon's blood, to be used to enter and exit the secret passages. Because the amount is very limited, they each must be careful to limit their comings and goings, and may have to share vials if someone runs out.
  
• Malcolm, Nikos, and Yseult would have received orders from Coupe to kill the Inquisition captives if they cannot be extracted. The others would not be informed of this.
  
• In general, the teams will have been reminded that the one and only goal of this mission is to get the captives out. They're not here to carve a path of wholesale slaughter but they're also not here to worry about the lives of those who get in the way of that mission. Do what needs to be done, no more and no less.

Members of both Team 1 and Team 2 will be smuggled into Tevinter by sea, and dropped off on the peninsula north of Minrathous. They'll have to sneakily hike to the catacomb entrance in the High Reaches and then travel underground into the city. This will require clearing an intentionally blocked passage between the natural caves and the city catacombs, and being very careful once beneath the city to identify and avoid magical alarm spells.

Once beneath the palace, the teams will split up. Team 2 will continue on to the point beneath the tower they intend to collapse, and will remain underground making preparations to blow the underground supports beneath the tower as soon as word comes. Their job will involve waiting a while and hiding from the occasional patrol, the last of which will arrive at an unfortunate moment and need to be taken captive or killed. They'll also be spied upon by a couple young catacomb-dwelling urchins, who seem too shifty to be trusted to keep their mouths shut even if paid. They'll likewise need to be captured or killed.

Team 1 will sneak up into the palace, emerging in a rarely-used back storeroom. Some will be disguised as servants, others as party goers, but they will discover on arrival (via overhearing a convenient conversation between passing kitchen staff) that the new Archon has issued an eccentric last-minute decree: all guests at his event will wear his two favorite colors: orange and green. This will require the team to get their hands on new disguises ASAP, most likely by bribing servants to steal their masters' clothing for them or to give up their own, or by choosing soft targets among those in attendance who can be quickly lured away from the group and robbed of their clothes.

Once the team is properly (if unflatteringly) outfitted, they'll join the party. Malcolm and Yseult will identify and target the two Head Guards, with Malcolm handling the one with the lyrium tattooed hand (who proves to be a mage), and Yseult acquiring the enchanted key. Colin, Benedict, and Wren will mingle among those in attendance in their roles either as servers or guests and gather information while keeping an eye out for unexpected threats. Six and Nikos will test whether the archon's blood can open the secret passage doors. It can, and Nikos will head into the passages to pursue his secret assassination mission.

Once the key and the dude with the hand have been obtained, Malcolm, Yseult, Six, and Colin will head down into the dungeons, handle the guards there, and open the door to the Special Prisoners section. Because of earlier delays in the catacombs, the passage out of the dungeon will by now be starting to fill with seawater. They'll find the Inquisition prisoners (Inessa and Max held separately from the rest) along with a handful of other prisoners. They'll get their own people free and decide whether to free the others or not. Benedict and Wren will either join them or remain at the party as lookouts.

Nikos, in his exploration, will have discovered two things: first, that the secret passages are not unused as Radonis had expected, which he'll discover when he encounters someone exiting the new Archon's bedroom into the passages. Second, the archon's bedroom is roomy and now empty and likely to remain that way since the Archon is off giving a speech, so it provides a good spot for the team to regroup and prepare for the escape.

The dungeon team and the rescued captives will be forced to swim through the last two chambers on their way out of the dungeon, with the final chamber entirely filled by the time they get to it, and extremely dark. Anyone who can't swim well will have to be ferried through by those who can. The nearest exit from the submerged room is the gate into the secret passages, which will need to be unlocked with both the Archon's blood and a normal key or lockpick before anyone can get out.

Once they've all made their soggy way into the passages, everyone will meet in the Archon's apartment, where they'll have to regroup and figure out how to either look less soaking wet or explain why they are + disguise the prisoners. Everyone will then head back into the secret passages and exit at various points throughout the palace in twos and threes to avoid drawing attention by traveling as a big group. At this point, Team 2 will be ordered via crystal to trigger the explosion.

When the ground shakes and the tower suddenly begins to collapse, the party crowd will, as predicted, freak the hell out and run for the exits, forcing their way past the confused guard. The team will blend in with the fleeing guests and slip out, hijack a noble's big fancy gondola, and make their escape.

Team 2 will have to book it through the catacombs as that section collapses, and make their way to a cliffside exit along the coast identified by the Archon, where the gondola will pick them up. They'll then all sail this boat further across open water and carrying a much heavier load than it's really built for to the smuggler's cove where they were dropped off, where they'll scuttle the gondola, get picked up, and sail back to Kirkwall. Mission accomplished, good job team, etc.

Comments

THE PARTY | Team 1 only

[faderifting]

[ All the mingling, info-gathering, target-identifying, guard-handling, passage-testing, disguise-acquiring, conferring, and so forth that happens in and around the Archon's fancy party before the point where the tower is collapsed. Yes, everyone really is in orange and green. If your character would spend any significant amount of time working the crowd in one way or another with their ears open (or pursuing some specific piece of information) please let us know what they're up to in the OOC question top-level above and later we'll provide you with some bits and pieces they can pick up. ]

party! (and guard hunting, I *guess*)

[tactical_alert]

[No plan survives first encounter with the enemy, but despite some hiccups, it's actually gone surprisingly smoothly. The...attire issue was very perceptive of the new Archon (or whoever is in charge of security). But that's still a relatively small hiccup as it is. They're here. They've actually made it inside, and if he's honest, he's been trying to come up with on the fly exit strategies as they've gone.

Malcolm tugs at his sleeves and readjusts a few parts once again, then stills his hands once more. The fellow he pilfered this from was a little on the larger side, but only enough of a bother if one is truly looking.

And as part of the help, who's going to be looking all that hard? (He also doesn't care for the style, but Vint style has always had a certain...well, a certain something he's not a fan of. Too bad.)]

If our guards are smart, [to Yseult, quietly, as he takes up a serving platter and begins to load it with drinking glasses] they won't be flaunting a key, and they'll be wearing gloves. Let us pray they are not smart.

[He might have one trick or two up his sleeve--perhaps even literally--but even if he has to make up something on the fly to separate the lyrium tattooed guard from the rest, he'll find a way. For now? He smiles, and lays low, quietly going about the room ostensibly to offer up drinks. Eyes open. He'll make a point to pass by each of the Inquisition partygoers as well in case information needs to be passed by.

He's also sure they're all about as uncomfortable as he is.]

[altusimperius]

"Stop fidgeting," comes a mutter from behind Malcolm, from the still-smiling Benedict as he waves at a familiar face across the room. He'd tried to vet everyone's costume choices, and had found a fairly acceptable green ensemble for himself, but some people just cannot be taken anywhere.

[tactical_alert]

"I will stop when I'm certain this ridiculous costume doesn't fall apart." Which it won't. No thanks to his fidgeting, honestly, but at least in his mind, it fits just a little bit better for it, thank you very much. 'No servants' was all very well and good from gruff Nikos' perspective, but infiltration needed more subtlety than impersonating the upper crust of an enemy ball.

He hands a generously poured glass of wine, with a pleasant smile, to Benedict. Can't be seen schmoozing without drink. "Just keep serving as a pretty distraction."

[altusimperius]

Benedict takes the wine without comment, but seems irked by the man's response. "It's not going to fall apart," he whispers, glancing away to smile benignly at someone nearby, "...and I don't need you to tell me how to conduct myself." Really, the audacity.

[hassaran]

They're the head guards, there will be something to identify them. [ Yseult replies just as quietly, as she pretends to be looking for a full glass among those Malcolm is handling. She's dressed as a guest in orange that fits well enough but a shade that does her no favors. ] Uniform, role, or how the others treat them. Look for guards in oversight positions.

[ She drifts off again, feigning impatience, to collect a drink from a different server and move back through the crowd. It's five or ten minutes before she manages to 'accidentally' pass him again. ] Any luck?

[tactical_alert]

Northwest side. [With a smile and short polite bow to her.] Making the rounds. Same guard uniform but for a sash across the chest. [That's one, at any rate.]

[hassaran]

[ She follows his directions and then nods, agreement and thanks. ] No gloves. More likely mine than yours.

[ She doesn't take off after him right away, mingling with her glass for a few minutes more until she can contrive to pass Malcolm and his tray again. ] Not in here. Gardens?

we'll throw our hands up and yell party party party

[altusimperius]

The upside to Benedict being here is he knows what he's doing at a fancy Tevinter gathering, was both able to and insistent upon vetting the outfits chosen by the Inquisition for making them not look like total blithering idiots, and he knows who's likely to know things.
The downside is that they also know him. He vanished after the coup with the Inquisition, and now he's back, and at this party, and there are those who are Very Interested in what he's been up to. His family, as it turns out, is not here. It's difficult not to be distracted by the fact, but asking after them will only out him as having been absent.

I. Instead, he's playing it as cool as he can, keeping a glass of wine (the same glass of wine, occasionally watered down) in hand and an easy smile on his face, casually undermining enemies of the Imperium while keeping an eye out for anything or anyone suspicious. This includes

II. running the occasional damage control, stepping quickly up to a comrade and taking them by the elbow, spinning them back into the room from whence they came to demand be less insistent on blowing their cover.

III. At least once, the pressure gets to him, and he retreats to one of the balconies to gulp in some fresh air and try to still the rising panic. It's not a happy time to be a double-agent, especially when the alternative is committing outright treason in the company of every influential person he's ever known. Breathe, breathe.

ii

[swordproof]

There's an edge of something tense and tight about Six as she does what she can to settle into the party; there's nothing she can do about it, really, not when she's so tall and gangly, not when her entire presence is something that is so completely different from what those in Tevinter have to offer. Her magic has been taken from her and her strength is what she has; her arms are thick with it and her discomfort makes her feel as though she is going to snap apart.

It's when she's tugged to one side, frowning a little as she tries to make herself look a little more comfortable, as if she's not about to drop to pieces, as if she's not desperate to run her way down to the dungeons and get Adalia out now before something worse happens to all of them.

At least she doesn't demand that Benedict, just looking at him with a frown on her face.

[altusimperius]

Benedict is tall, but Six may in fact be taller, and it gives him pause when he has her turned toward him. He also certainly doesn't like the look on her face when she does, but clears his throat and goes ahead anyway, because he has a job to do, and so does she.

"You look like you're trying to die," he hisses, at the very least more concerned than angry, "keep it together, no daughter of the Imperium would hold such terrible posture."

[swordproof]

"I do not think it is my posture that will give me away," Six replies, voice low and a touch harsh. She knows how out of place she seems, she knows that she looks near enough ridiculous, dressed up and acting as though she belongs here. Her discomfort is plastered all over her face and every time she sees an elf acting as a slave she thinks of her sister and something twists in her stomach.

She might not have any love for elves, but no one deserves to be treated like this.

Sighing, she turns back to look at Benedict, obviously uncomfortable but doing her best.

"How should I stand?"

[altusimperius]

Maybe she knows, but she has to try! It can't be that hard if even Hanzo can manage it.
"Like this," Benedict replies, coming to stand beside her, straightening his back and pressing lightly against Six's to indicate where she should shift. "Hold your head up. If you're worried about being caught out, just look over people instead of at them. They love that." In the way that they hate it and talk shit, but it'll be enough to get them through the evening.

iii

[limier]

It's a very vivid shade of orange.

One which extends to her gloves — present as ever, and luck of the draw that Benedict was able to bag some while scavenging. She's little interest in discovering the consequences of breaking dress code or pretending to bandages.

She keeps an eye to him once the others disperse to business. Artemaeus is (ought to be) within his element, it's the only reason they've sacked him along. So she gives him a moment, enough to be decorous. Enough to look as though she isn't quite yapping at his heels, though it fits well enough with the story. A personal guard. Gauche to admit to, in such a peaceful gathering.

But times like these.

"Taller than I recalled."

The balcony. Magically-raised as it's been. She keeps back, hangs in the doorway a moment before clearing it. A glance back, chin inclined in question: An exit's been granted, if he chooses to take it.

[altusimperius]

It looks hideous, but for once that wasn't on purpose. They all kind of look hideous. Except for him of course, but can he really help that? Benedict looks charming in every color.

His eye is naturally drawn to the gloves, and then up to her face, and though Bene has every reason to be afraid of Wren, he's not. Not anymore. They spent far too much time cold, miserable, on aching feet and accompanying a corpse in each other's presence for him to have any more genuine fear that she'll get all... Templar-y on him.
Things are different now. But there's one thing that hasn't changed, and he's endlessly perplexed by it.

"...you knew," Bene says quietly, gesturing to her gloved hand, "and you didn't tell anyone." Save for Hanzo, but... that's a different matter. "Why?"

[limier]

Knuckles flex, tense involuntary; burned skin tugging sluggish after.

There's no good answer. There's never been a good answer, just one fucking thing after another. A season of wounds — a sea of obligations — and the words Shimada had left with: I would suggest that you try to handle this more diplomatically.

As though it were that simple.

She's been silent too long. A moment, recalls herself to step closer. This isn't a conversation to share with the crowd, and she'd sooner not share it at all. Couldn't have. To have taken this to Amsel, so soon after Salzklippe? Thranduil, when he could hardly manage his own people?

"What good would it have done?"

It may be prudent to replace the brand with another. Nothing she hadn't already done for herself; nothing she could ask of the others. Can imagine the response. Blame swallows like saltwater, drink enough and you lose your stomach for it. Perhaps that's the price of command: A hole in your guts and unhappy faces. She used to be better at this.

Hardly matters. She'd had no word of an incident.

[altusimperius]

"They hate you now," Bene points out, abandoning any sense of propriety. If anything, he's in awe. "They're saying it's your fault they got arrested." If she even knew about that, but, well... the cat's out of the bag now.

preparty + party, OTA

[exsecutus]

i- before the party.

"That one."

Observing this end of the party from an out-of-the-way spot, Nikos selects their target with a nod. This end is the entrance that leads to the privies, and their target is a young drunken noble with his color high in his cheeks, on his way to a piss. He is of average height and size. His cloak, a parti-colored green and orange mistake, billows lazily as he swaggers along. A decent target.

No servants unless absolutely necessary was Nikos' gruff order, to whoever is unlucky enough to be a part of this emergency costume collection with him. Servants will catch the abuse if they are linked to the theft. Some secondary casualties might still be possible, of course. A man determined to blame an idiot servant to save face will find some way to assign that blame. But targeting the noble directly will minimize the possibility.

"Unless you have some objection," he mutters, in way of concession, "otherwise we move now, before someone else comes along."

The last thing he wanted was to be picking out disguises. Now necessity has moved them to pick out two disguises. The world, he thinks, as he slides his knife into his hand, is deeply unfair.

ii- at the party.

It is unfair that there is wine to drink and that Nikos is, ostensibly, not allowed to drink it.

His is a personal moratorium on wine for the evening, and it is from his very limited store of personal discipline that Nikos has summoned the wherewithal to abide by his own rule. There is work to be done. He can drink for a week solid after this. He will drink for a week solid. These are the mental points he continues to make to himself, as he stands around holding a glass of fucking water in an opaque goblet, and tries to mingle with a crowd of Vints who he would rather see strangled with their own hideous orange-and-green attire.

His command of Tevene is limited, enough that what he can manage to eavesdrop will prove largely insignificant. Much of the conversation goes on in Trade, peppered with native phrases too fluid and quick for him to catch. He tries, anyways, as he works his way slowly across the room, listening for references to the Archon--especially any reference to the one currently held in Kirkwall. Likely any talk of Radonis will be especially oblique, kept carefully. Who talks of the old boss when they're ushering in the new boss?

At one point, as he comes around a large pillar, he finds himself face-to-face with a portly man who--as far as Nikos can tell--thinks that he recognizes Nikos. The man begins jabbering away, delivering accusations that favors Tevene and keeps the Trade at a minimum, as he stabs his finger at Nikos' chest. The whole scene is is very reminiscent of the way debt collectors are forever mistaking him for his fucking brother, but it is also drawing some attention from other partygoers.

One of Nikos' knives is lashed up beneath the billowy green caplet draped over the tight-fit green doublet. He could go for it. Instead he mutters, in clumsily-accented Tevene: "Not I you tit," because tit is a good universal word, and tries to step away.

The man follows, jabbering louder. A rescue may be necessary.

CLOSED to Six - opening passages

[exsecutus]

They are set to meet across the main hall, an easy point picked out before the entry into the party. It is, as it turns out, the smoking section, low sofas and folding screen, ankle-height tables outfitted with pipes and a variety of imported tobaccos.

Good: because Nikos has long ago ditched the goblet of water, and now needs something to occupy himself as he waits for Six to make her way through the crowds. He is standing with his back to the screens, occupied in packing tobacco into the thumb-sized bowl of the pipe. It leaves his eyes free to sift through the crowds, looking for Six.

When he finds her, he lets her pass by, unremarked upon. Counts backwards from thirty, and then he gives one last push to the tobacco in the pipe's bowl, a firm pack, and turns away to get a light off of a servant with far-away eyes, stood like a glazed statue. Naked from the waist up, painted gold. Nikos feels a coil of revulsion.

He sucks in a breath as the light takes, and stalks toward the side corridor that leads out to the veranda. The entrance is beyond, on the grounds proper, behind a large statue that the Archon had described in loving detail.

When he catches up with Six on the wide porch, he is still stalking, angry. He could just be an insulted noble of the Imperium. No one has to know that it was his sense of righteousness that was offended.

"We'll use the blood in my vial," he says, in an undertone. No arguing, and low enough to avoid the chance of being overheard by the couples gathered out here to enjoy the moonlight. Small knots, twos and threes, the occasional foursome. They might well be among their number. If they detour casually enough onto the grounds, they will go unnoticed and uncounted.

[swordproof]

There is nothing about this place that Six is comfortable with. It makes her think of all the places she had avoided, not just now but growing up; all things that remind her of a family she had long since abandoned. The alcohol, the nakedness, the celebrations - it makes her uncomfortable in a way which words cannot express, and she feels the tension flood her. It makes her look like a thick, muscular wall of heated disgust, one that she tries to hide behind a blank face.

She walks by Nikos and pretends as though she knows nothing of him. She

Everything she does is to make sure she doesn't look too long at anyone or anything - not the servants, not the smoking, not the drink. Her stomach is in knots and the anxiety is making her feel as though she might fall down to her knees, as if all her strength is being ripped from her. She feels as though she's fourteen again, with fear in her eyes and panic in her heart.

At least when he comes to her side he looks as upset and on edge as she herself feels, and she does what she can to push it down and to one side. She has something she has to focus on; she has to get to her sister as quickly as she can. Nothing can stand between her and Adalia now that she is here, and she will break down all the walls if she needs to.

"As you say." She nods. Hesitating for a moment, looking down at her more formal clothes, she hesitates. "Shall we walk together?" She can pretend to be his partner, or something.

[exsecutus]

"It would only make sense to."

Unfortunately: his dry tone gives a dryer subtext to his response. It's subtext of habit, really. Nothing he actually means.

They are about of height, so falling into step with Six is no great effort. To complete the illusion, Nikos even goes so far as to offer his right arm for her to take. It is not something he enjoys but something that will buy them credibility. Hopefully his tension will be read as formality. Hopefully the walk down the veranda does not last very long, and hopefully the search through the garden is even shorter. Hopefully the earth opens up, and swallows all of Minrathous whole. Why not, while he's making stupid wishes.

He gives Six a sideways glance. Calculating, narrow. While vetting his companions on this mission, he was wary of her. Deeply personal connections to one of the prisoners, which could be disastrous. Or it could make her invaluable. She's proved to be one of the less irritating--a compliment bordering on love letter, from Nikos.

"I hate small talk," he says, after a few steps. Making conversation by talking about how he hates making conversation. "And yet everyone else out here appears to be talking, idly. Because of course."

[swordproof]

It's not something she has ever had to do before; Six is hardly the most covert person, not with her height and her stature and the way she moves, but she can do what she can. She can lie, or make an attempt to, but in the past her history is intimidating people without quite meaning to do it.

At least Nikos is near enough her height that she doesn't feel awkward in moving forward to take his arm, slipping her own against his. It feels strange - the last person she was even remotely intimate with was Adrian, and he was long dead - but she knows it's nothing with intent. It's easy to do it with the mission in her mind, with Adalia's safety paramount and the focus of everything that she has done to get here and be part of the team.

Her head tilts and in the light she thinks she must look strange, with her hair braided up and her skin pale, dotted with freckles. Surely she must stand out, all sharp edges and bulked up muscle, no matter how much she had tried to hide it behind formality. It makes her nervous, as if someone is going to be able to tell from a distance that she's not a part of this horrible world, as if her discomfort isn't hidden enough behind the steeled mask of a warrior.

"It is what they do. Speak idly and see what others do or say, and who they listen to." She frowns, leaning closer to speak. "They never say anything they mean to say and mention little of worth."

ii

[hassaran]

One arrives, in the form of Yseult, who steps up to the elbow of the agitated man, speaking over his jabbering in quick Tevene, tone low and soothing but persistent, a sudden wash of water over the surface, gently drowning him out. Orange does nothing kind to her complexion, and in any case she is far too tan and freckled for a lady of quality, but it is a fine gown that fits her better than a stolen thing has any right to, and she has looped her arm through his and set the fingertips of her other hand on his chest, head tilted near to speak, expression nothing but solicitous concern as she steers him, slowly but surely, away. She makes eye contact with Nikos precisely once as she does it, as she dismisses him with an imperious gesture.

A short while later, once she's extricated herself from her dear old friend, she brushes past Nikos in the crowd with a glance that, to a fellow professional, says follow. She collects a drink for appearances' sake and heads out into the garden, finding a secluded corner not already occupied. When Nikos arrives, she lifts a brow right off, but keeps her voice low.

"He said you cheated him at cards and slept with his wife. Do you know him? Is this going to be a problem?"

[exsecutus]

"What."

The dismissive gesture, before, had put Nikos' back up. But as he isn't a fucking idiot, and he was just been rescued from a situation that could only have escalated, he ad fought down the impulse to spit at Yseult. Now he has to fight down the impulse to spit in disgust. Not at her, but at his fucking brother.

"I don't know him. No. And it isn't my problem." A better answer. He folds his arms over his chest, closed in on himself and scowling. "It's my fucking brother's problem. Probably."

The number one thing that Nikos misses about Antiva is its historical lack of Kostos, especially now that he is aware of his brother's vices and their impact on his life and ability to enter taverns freely. The fact that this has followed him to the Imperium and to an assignment is maddening. How nice it would be, to go back to Kirkwall right now and punch Kostos in the back.

Because he is a fucking professional, Nikos settles for a scowl, a brief back-punching fantasy, and a long mental string of swearwords.

"As fate decided to give us the same face, it may prove a problem he has bequeathed to me. The dickbag." He permits himself one borderline swearword, to make himself feel better. "What did you say to put off your friend?"

[hassaran]

She knew there were two of them, Nikos and Kostos Averesch, the assassin and the mage, the would-be revolutionary and the reluctant rebel. She'd even figured out they were twins, though not right away. Never seeing them together or for longer than passing on the stairs obscured that a while, until she started spotting too many differences in build and manner and company. She should have realized straight away. The tension in her shoulders eases, but only slightly. It's still a problem, even if it's not of this twin's making. They can hardly explain that to the Tevinter.

"Bad luck," is all she says in response to his anger and her own misunderstanding. What are the chances, after all? (Higher than she'd guess, not knowing Kostos.) "I claimed I'd heard all sorts of complimentary things about him from a mutual acquaintance, and led him to believe that she was waiting for him in some secluded corner of the garden. He should be out of play for a while searching."