Player Plot | From Tevinter, With Love

[coquettish_trees]

WHO: Alexandrie, Benedict, Byerly, Fifi, Hanzo, Isaac, Loki, Merrill, Romain, Thor
WHAT: A diplomatic dinner and mysterious murder most foul
WHEN: Mid-Harvestmere
WHERE: the Asgard estate in Hightown
NOTES: OOC Poast, CW: rich people being garbage, elf related racism, other updates to come as they apply!

In the wake of the events in Minrathous, there has been a great deal of reshuffling of power and alliances both within the Imperium and between those within it and the surrounding powers. A particularly well-off Laetan merchant by the name of Flavius Aurelius is one such alliance shuffler. He has holdings in the south along the border and a number of cross-country trading caravans and has made overtures of aid in getting Inquisition personnel into (and around) the country in exchange for protection against having his lands occupied and used to do the precise opposite of what he's offering.

This is a rather good deal for the Inquisition, especially since it involves more risk on his part than theirs, and so all attempts are to be made to convince him that he'll be a valued member of the cause. By his countrymen in particular, who may enjoy particular success in doing so for a variety of reasons. Thus, the Tevene contingent of the Inquisition—as well as diplomatic representatives from Ferelden, Orlais, and a wayward Dalish elf—find themselves in the position of doing this due diligence, in the hopes that this will make things go smoothly—better than smoothly if possible—at the meeting established for the next day to discuss terms.

What better way than a small dinner party?


[ ooc: toplevels will be added beneath as they happen! ]

Comments

II. Once Upon a Drugged Up Dream

[untiltheyarent]

The conversation has lulled, but in an unnatural way: people are simply trailing off out of their sentences to stare, trancelike, into the aether. At least one person got up and left quite abruptly-- was it Benedict?-- and-- when was that? The light has changed, the shadows creep and jolt, and each guest knows the others are near, but something is terribly wrong.
Perhaps it's difficult to move from one's position prone on the floor. Perhaps they stagger through an endless hallway with no memory of where they're going or how they got there. Perhaps they're still at the dining table, now-empty aside from themselves, as the candlesticks wobble and dance before their eyes. Whatever the case, there's no accounting for the screams and panicked rambling in incoherent voices, the thuds and scratching and sounds of struggle, the feeling of total dissociation.

And then there are the sights.

Hanzo

[untiltheyarent]

A muscled youth disappearing around a corner, his gait proud and strong: the cut of his clothing is similar to Benedict’s, but the wrong coloring, the wrong house. His footsteps echo down the adjacent hallway, and as he turns the next corner-- is this one big square?-- Hanzo can glimpse a flash of verdant green atop the man’s head right before he disappears again.

[eruit]

The only thing that Hanzo can feel is horror, seeing the familiar shape, the turn of the body, something that makes nausea curl in his stomach and panic flood him. He tries, slowly, to push himself to his feet - he knows the clothing of an Altus, an heir, second in command, and he knows that green hair as well as he knows his own dour features. He rushes, chasing the echo, eyes narrowed.

It cannot be him. This must be a trick.

[untiltheyarent]

Genji, or whatever it is that looks like him, has paused in the hall, allowing Hanzo to catch up just long enough to witness a disdainful smile before he steps away and around another corner. A derisive laugh echoes through the hall with his footsteps: "what, brother," comes a sneering voice, "have you come to kill me again?"

[eruit]

The smile makes something churn in his stomach, his nausea clear and obvious as he breathes in and out sharply. All he can do is chase after him, panic flooding him as he reaches for a bow that isn't there, eyes flickering over the space where his brother - his dead brother? - had been. "Do not be foolish," but... What other option is there? If this is real then Genji cannot be a true mortal, but if it is fake...

Merrill

[untiltheyarent]

A man enters the room who wasn’t here before: another elf, one perhaps easily mistaken for a servant if not for the vallaslin clearly writ across his face and the decidedly Dalish cut of his clothing. He looks around a moment, turns to Merrill, and smiles, approaching her with arms wide.
Tamlen has been here the whole time, waiting for Merrill to find him. He hasn’t aged a day, nor has he apparently suffered or endured anything that would pull the light from his eyes.

[chainlightning]

Tamlen. Merrill is up and out of her seat as soon as she sees him, gasping loudly. It's been years but here he is - not dead, just missing, maybe he went through to the Crossroads-

There is no hesitation, no thought that he ought to look different. There is only joy, sheer joy; she embraces him readily, sniffing into his neck. I am not the last.

"Tamlen- you're here, you're alive!"

...Creators, I'll have to tell him.

[untiltheyarent]

He looks real enough to touch, his grin wide and fond, but Merrill's embrace passes right through Tamlen. A broken "NO," resounds behind her where he ended up, and the elf turns to look in her eyes with paralyzing terror: this isn't Tamlen, and never was. It's Pol, bloody and cold, backing away and shaking his head.

[chainlightning]

Or... not.

There is a brief moment of confusion as Merrill stares at where Tamlen was, but then she turns on her heel to find Pol- Pol, who looks like he's crawled out from under the Varterral, who doesn't look alive at all.

Merrill rubs her hands over her eyes, her face, harshly. This can't be right - can't be. Unless... is his body possessed? Is there a spirit here, playing tricks?

Isaac

[untiltheyarent]

The room is turning, and there are no longer any guests in it save for Isaac-- it’s possible he was unconscious for a time, but either way, as he looks at the table he’ll find that it is lengthening before his eyes. The room stretches impossibly, the ceiling swimming above him, disrupted only by the appearance of an elven servant who runs in and claps her hands to her mouth in alarm. She remains at a steady distance despite the fluctuating of the table’s length, her wide eyes turning to meet Isaac’s as though hoping for an explanation.

[wythersake]

Isaac grips the edge of the table with sweaty palms, lifts his head from its steady bob toward the soup. The others are gone by now — pupils blown, couldn’t say where they went — and his neck itches like a fire. It’s just him and,

Calliope?

No, that’s stupid. Too young (wrong country). Too poisoned (the others).

"I need your help," If she’s in on this, getting himself quietly strangled is a quick way to find out, but that doesn't strip the alarm from his voice. If she isn’t there, "Please."

It’s always in the fucking wine, so what was it? Perhaps he’ll remember later, the unwelcome clasp of skin-to-skin. Presently he’s a bit preoccupied. Isaac shifts up, and reels. Okay. Standing now. You can do that, you know how to stand. You're good at standing.

Whatever this is, it’s not as fun as wyvern venom.

[untiltheyarent]

The servant says something as she comes toward him, but the words sift in and out of Isaac's mind like sand in an hourglass, never sticking long enough to be comprehensible-- he may understand them one moment, but he forgets them the next.
Vanishing for a moment only to reappear behind him, the girl grips his arm, her fingers like talons, a malevolent glow in her eyes as she raises them to his face.

[wythersake]

"No," He shakes his head. She’s not talking any sense. Have they gotten the servants, too? Poor Calliope, "Listen."

By then she's gone. Gone (was she even there?), and then present once again (pay attention), and his arm in a vise. It's tighter than logic insists a slight frame manage.

He fumbles for words, instead finds her gaze; finds his mouth's gone dry. The malice in such a graceful creature... ought to be expected, but it takes focus to control the heat in his hands. Isaac can't say how long he'll be able to spare it; isn't certain he should. Take the opportunity while you have it, before,

"Poison," He tries again, doesn't realize he's shifted to Orlesian. Pulls back, stumbling for a wall. "Seeing things. Mage,"

What a terribly coherent warning.

Thor

[coquettish_trees]

...This isn't your house. Is it? Everything looks wrong. Where are the slaves, silent and omnipresent? Who are these figures at the table? Their faces stretch darkly, the world bending in a way that all at once seems both entirely unbelievable and entirely true, and a distant part of you can remember this. Can remember the bitter taste. This is some sort of poison, or a drug. The thought slips away. The taste again, and the return of the memory. This is some sort of poison, or a drug. Gone again as soon.

But your body is trained, and remembers enough to recognize that the particular tension in it means there’s a threat in your house—in your house—the unmistakable sound of violent struggle raging even now in the hall.

[thorndergod]

They attacked his city, and now they've followed him even here? There's an anger he's been feeling since the events in Minrathous, pushing down, mostly swallowing, but it rises to the forefront now. There is no peace. There will not be any peace until they are eliminated and no longer able to threaten his family ever again.

Thor charges into the hall, lightning glimmering around his fists. A staff is nice, but he doesn't need it to send a burst of electricity into the nearest masked assailant - Orlesian, of course - and watch them crumble into dust. That doesn't make sense, that... There's a threat. He has to fight the threat. But as a mage he knows to question things and there's something wrong here. There may be demons afoot.

Loki

[coquettish_trees]

Ah. This. The light feeling of disorientation—light, at least, for those who have over the years inured themselves to this particular substance as a consequence of their work—the shifting of shadow, the distinctive bitter taste far at the back of the mouth that lags behind the consumption of the poison itself. A favourite at parties, assuming what one enjoys at parties is brief and deadly chaos caused by those who'd imbibed it to violently hallucinate friends to foes and fears. Sometimes staircases to foes and fears.

And, suddenly, perhaps, it tastes a bit less bitter and a bit more like opportunity... albeit no more than an hour or so of it. That's both the deficit and charm of Discordia; it quickly leaves the dregs of wine, the cooling meal, the body of the afflicted with no trace left behind it. Although, in a room full of powerful mages, an hour is usually enough.

For now they’re still in the beginnings of it, the few precious minutes where everything slows while the poison takes hold. Those few precious minutes where lucid memory will gap and fuzz later. Benedict looks worst off, his eyes already entirely glazed. Isaac looks very nearly unaffected, and everyone else is somewhere in between.

And then there goes Benedict, up and out suddenly in some unknown distress—who’s to say what little horrible world it’s helped him dream for himself. The others are likely to follow soon...


[ happy satinalia, time’s a-wasting! ♥ ]

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki knows the taste of this particular poison, the lilt of it that coats the mouth in a light sheen of brief insanity. It is a delightful little concoction and one he has employed on more than one occasion though--he realizes as he watches Bene rise and bolt from the room--not when in the presence of quite so many mages.

He debates, for a moment, what he should do. There is opportunity here--the chance to exact some revenge or some murder. He could stab Byerly, or Thor, or Bene if the mood strikes him...and claim insanity with the rest of them. Unfortunately he actually owns a considerable amount of Discordia and has it here at this estate. An investigation would be...inconvenient.

So, in an odd turn of events, he is charged with preventing too much mayhem. Or at least preventing Bene from setting his estate aflame.

He rises, his own affect played up in the dramatics of his stance, and chases after Bene at a sudden run. It would not do to appear entirely immune, particularly if he is.

[altusimperius]

Bene isn't about to set anything aflame-- for one thing, he's not too comfortable with the consequences of flame magic, preferring instead to deal in psychological harm and defense.

He's stumbling around like a drunken sailor when Loki reaches him, muttering to himself in a small, panicked voice, and only when he collapses into an open-doored room does he turn back and realize he's been pursued. There's no way Loki can know what he sees, because a Horror is flung his way before anyone can say anything. Fortunately, Benedict is hardly focused enough to make it too powerful; unfortunately, he's got enough raw talent that it'll still do something.

[hwaaaitsme]

The cloud of purple and black bursts before him with a low fetid growl and Loki stumbles back at the door. A chill runs down his spine and his stomach tries to upend itself promptly. The wash of fear is impressive, at least for someone with as much skill as Bene, but he shuts it down and shakes off the effect.

He waves his hands to clear the smoke, the residual cloud from the spell and peers into the room. It is dark but he is fairly certain this is his reading room. There are only a few objects of note in here, at least sitting in the open, and he finds he is very eager to prevent Bene from stumbling into something more delicate.

"Don't go throwing spells around, you blundering idiot!" Loki snaps despite the fact that Bene will probably hear something else entirely.

Byerly

[coquettish_trees]

They’re whispering behind you again. Quiet laughter accompanies it this time. It’s not real. No-one is there. You know this because it’s only a few steps from this chair to the wall, and you know this because this is not unfamiliar happenstance (although usually self-induced rather than unceremoniously gifted), but it’s still every bit as viscerally real as it is deniable.

Someone gets up, but it’s too fast to tell who. Another, but it’s too slow to focus on properly.

There’s a quiet feminine sob somewhere over the same shoulder as those damnable voices. They must be in the same place (nowhere. They aren’t anywhere, because they aren’t real, are they?) because at the sounding of it the laughter shifts and darkens in tone. Becomes cruel.

[bouchonne]

It was - unwary of him. Stupid. He should have recognized it - recognized that the wine was off, but he'd blamed it on the doubtless subpar taste of the Tevinters in charge of this household - but who could have done it? The Vints haven't anything to profit from it - it had to have been Aurelius, the man's intentions not so virtuous, come to gather information or something more from the Inquisition. Snake. Absolute snake. They're -

They are snakes, all of them, whispering to one another. Mouths full of poison, spreading it around. He stands -

Stop it. Stop it, you fool -

And feels them grinning at the fool standing there, feels them grinning at him. But he can take it. He can take their scorn, take their innuendo. Didn't you hear what Rutyer did? Truly beyond the pale. Truly hideous. And the girl, she seems sweet, but clearly she's twisted deep down, if she'll do that -

He needs to go find her. He doesn't care what they say later. He needs to find her, and help her - to figure something out, to stop their mouths, to save her from the disgrace...He doesn't know what, but he'll figure it out if he just gets to her -

This isn't real. None of it is real. Sit down, and wait for it to pass, you idiot...

He walks on in search of her.

[coquettish_trees]

The halls look wrong as he walks them, but feel all too familiar. Then they look all too familiar. The distinctive architecture of Tevinter gives way to the solidity of Fereldan stone. It's always been this way (It hasn't. It isn't this way at all. But the harder he tries to look at it, to make it return to the Asgard mansion, the faster and more insistently it turns back to the stone of his erstwhile home in Dragonmount.)

Down the hallway opposite where the voices seem to issue: a flash of white, the ripple of skirts, gone as fast as it had appeared.

A wrathful male voice rises from the susurrus of whispers, somehow doing nothing to drown out the soft persistent sobbing.

Romain

[coquettish_trees]

There's something wrong with your hands. They aren't yours. Or, rather, they are, but not as they have been in many years. They are the lineless hands of a younger man in the prime of his life. Sturdy, sure, and covered with blood in the smeared and messy way that rises from attempting to wipe them clean on a surcoat.

Looking down will reveal the corresponding tracks of hands wiped so, the individual marks blending together as if the gesture has been repeated ten, twenty, a hundred times. Looking up again will be more difficult, the mask suddenly heavier on your face than one of simple court-wear.

[toujoursdroit]

His first reaction is more puzzlement than horror. He's an observant man, never one prone to excess drinking or any other indulgences that would lead to lapses of memory. Age has not yet dulled Romain, either, and his first thought is not Maker, that's a lot of blood but Where did that blood come from?

(Perhaps, in itself, a mildly distressing fact about the duke.)

Then he notices his hands, the weight of the mask. He wrests his gaze upward, wary and on guard. Romain strongly dislikes not knowing what's going on, partly from temperament, but mostly because he lives a life where ignorance gets one killed. He is prone to demand answers if all else fails, but first one must find someone to demand them from.

[coquettish_trees]

Unfortunately, the 'someones' available seem to be experiencing similar disorientation. Heads turn to register sounds unheard, sights unseen. Someone leaves abruptly: the young man who'd been so unable to keep himself regulated at the table. Another, quickly on his tail, although the mask is so weighty that all that can be caught in their wake is the movement of green and black cloth departing the room.

Robes. Mages. All mages, going... somewhere.

The man at the head of the table stands slowly, as if his bones are cold and wet from sleeping in tents for weeks in a mudsoaked land, and the instinct of an old soldier seems to demand you stand also, for your commander. Perhaps he will know what is happening. He always does.