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

[justice_is_blond]

[In a small way he's glad he's not the only one clearly tense down here. Places like this bring back too many memories, but he's got the responsibility of leading on his shoulders for once and it's helping him center himself.

Or making it harder. He's not sure. But he's focused and he'll take it.

Whichever it is, as soon as Aro's given the alert he's alongside the elf (and dragon,) pressed against a wall and watching. And listening. There's not a lot of water here yet, but soon they hear the squelching of marching armed men.]

Patrol.

[It's barely audible, more confirmation than anything. They'd known guards would be coming through here, it's just a matter of being still and letting this group pass. All the same, the approach is interminably long. If the crystal goes off before they're past... but it hasn't been enough time yet. The other team can't possibly be ready.]

The second we can no longer hear them, we go.

[Aero should be able to hear that, he hopes. Pointed ears are supposed to be better than rounded ones. They can grab the other two if they didn't hear it and keep pressing forward, whenever these guards finally get here and go away.]

[faithlikeaseed]

[Had Myr his druthers he'd never have returned to Tevinter after their narrow escape--but he had escaped, and Adalia and Gareth and Kain and Inessa hadn't, and he owed it them as a friend to see them safely home. Thus he'd put his name forward, and thus someone had decided he was a good fit for the mission--and thus he was here, in the dark and the damp with the walls of the catacomb closed in around them.

He's kept to himself, kept silent, and above all kept close--nearly touching--to the rest of the party as they move, focused only on the mission without room for external thoughts. He's reached out now and again as they travel, fingers brushing the wall to leave fragments of glyph-light that fade out nearly as they're cast. Breadcrumbs to find his way back, should they become separated--and the spiderweb-thin network of magic between them might provide some advance warning if anything walks through it.

Unfortunately, the patrol's not coming from that direction so he gets only as much warning as the rest of them. In the dark, at least, he's at no greater disadvantage than anyone else. An alcove of some kind yawns wide to his left, made obvious by air currents and echoes; he steps into it, flattening back as far as he can.]

Say the word if you need them stopped, [in a tone to match Anders' near-whisper.

He's already begun tracing the first lines of a paralysis glyph behind him; of course, it won't do any good there when the patrol's in main hallway, but he's got ways.

Hopefully ways he won't have to demonstrate any time soon.

[sorcerised]

[ Aro stays near silent, barely acknowledging what Anders said - though he does acknowledge it, with a nod. He may only be half an elf, but those ears are still good, and he's enough on edge that every sound seems magnified to him.

Including the sound of footsteps that are not falling away. They're very even, measured, matching the rhythm of every patrol that has come their way tonight. These ones, however, do not turn off when Aro expects them to. He looks up at Myr with wide eyes. He doesn't know exactly what that magic is, but he knows he's afraid of the patrol finding it. ]

They're still coming. [ He says, very softly, as the sound of footsteps gets louder. Thin tendrils of lightning spark their way around Aro's fist. If the patrol comes upon them, he imagines he could knock two of them out with magic before the others know what's hit them.

That's conjecture that he'd rather not have to prove. He doesn't need to tell the others that if the patrol finds what they've been doing down here, their whole game is up. He tightens his fist. He can hear voices as well as footsteps now, but he looks to Anders for confirmation. ]

[esquive]

[At the first hiss of warning, Marcoulf had melted into the shadows on the opposite side of the corridor from the three of them. It affords him no better vantage - blind in the dark, deaf to the small murmurs of his companions where they're tucked against the craggy wall a arm's length away. But he watches for the shape of movement, that small faint licking spark of lightning around an otherwise unseen fist--

The patrol's voices are growing louder, the anonymous mumble shaping into distinct voices. He doesn't speak Tevene, but he hopes none of it means, 'See those shadows there? You take the ones on the right, I'll take the one on the left.'

He loosens his sword in its sheath just in case though, the metal clinking with a soft click.]