(CLOSED) WEEKEND AT GERTRUDA'S

[reshapes]

WHO: Bartimaeus, Myr, Athessa, Coupe
WHAT: A highly effective strike team travels to Tantervale to rescue an Inquisition spy on the verge of being discovered meddling in the Divine election.
WHEN: Early Cloudreach
WHERE: Tantervale
NOTES: Hijinks abound.

As many things do, it had all started with a pentacle drawn on a cold stone floor and a charge: 'Go directly to Tantervale. Once there, locate and recover sensitive intelligence concerning the Divine election candidates in Gertruda's possession. Don't let anyone know who or what you are, and most importantly of all: don't get caught.'

And so, cunning and powerful djinni that he was, Bartimaeus had done just that.

Mostly.

—Let's call it a work in progress, shall we?

The first sign of something going rotten in Tantervale had taken the form of a breezy sending crystal message to a particular leader of the Chantry Relations project¹. It had said in cool, devastatingly unconcerned tones something along the lines of, 'Hey there, friend. You don't know me, but I think I may have something that might interest you. Or, rather, I may be somewhere that you might have a strong interest in removing me from.'

From there, one thing had led fairly naturally to another. On the one side, a hasty gathering of deeply unlikely forces, a very swift exit from Kirkwall on the speediest horses, and some general strategizing while en route. On the other, a swiftly melting spirit in the form of a little old lady begging off as being under the weather, bundled in a lavish duvet and wearing a stout pair of winter gloves to keep the chill out of his old lady fingers, being forced to dump cup after endless cup of 'restorative tea' off a Tantervale balcony the moment his attendants had left the room. It's a tough life, folks.

All fine and dandy really until one Sister, placing yet another tray across his knees had said, "It's a good thing you've seen fit to return from your tour of the Marches so early, Mother. We've just received word Ostwick's Teryn's sent their daughter along to meet with you and that her boat will be arriving from along the Minanter tomorrow. I believe she would be very pleased to see you leading the Chant the afternoon following."

Which brings us to right this instant: a fine late afternoon in the Tantervale Chantry, its main hall resplendent with dappled colored light as cast through the innumerable panes of a great stained glass window. It's not quite the moment of no return—from the general milling about happening in the hall below, Bartimaeus bets he has about, oh, two minutes before he'll be expected to descend the lovely staircase to the dais and get on with sticking his foot in his mouth—, but boy. It's awfully close.

1. What did you expect? For him to call Nathaniel? Fat chance - the boy was about as useful in cleaning up a mess as a sodden paper towel. To message Kitty Jones, maybe? And risk giving her even an ounce of satisfaction? HA!

Comments

[reshapes]

The words 'while the distraction is at its peak' don't quite capture the utter cacophony of horror that grips the chantry's grand hall. A stricken moment of uncertainty is followed by immediate, full blown panic. The shrieking alarm, the multi-voiced shouting, the collapse of the Reverend Mother all serve to whip the gathered crowd into a fever pitch. Somewhere, a cadre of guards is swarming to surround the young doe-eyed Teryn's daughter from Ostwick. An entirely different set of confused guards is swarming down from the upper level's balconies and from the sacristy, fumbling in confusion. One or two makes it to the dais. A huddle of Chantry brothers and sisters are similarly rushing about: trying to herd the crowd out rather than farther in.

Bartimaeus, flat on his face, sees none of this. He hears rather a lot of it - a bang, a heavy clang of something falling and striking hard against the marble floor, the rise and fall of a confused wail and a great stamping and shuffling of feet. But his vision is limited to this very lovely patch of carpet up until he's rolled physically over off the similarly paralyzed Chantry Sister.

"That's my hat," he tries to say. His locked jaw turns it into: "Thrmrmgrht.'

It also transforms the subsequent warning sound he tries to make into a similarly unintelligible grunt, and so there's very little warning as a white-faced Chantry Sister bearing a long standing candelabra like a spear comes sprinting toward Athessa, shrieking, "Get away from her!"

[faithlikeaseed]

Oh shit.

Myr's double-take as Gertruda--or her reasonable facsimile--goes over is truly comical; and then he's swept away from "her" by a mob of panicked Sisters. Fighting back through them's the work of long seconds and thrown elbows (each one with an apology to the Sister catching it; Maker forgive him his part in this insanity) until--

He doesn't fade step to throw himself between the charging Sister and Athessa, but one might be forgiven for thinking he did, so quick is he across that gap to make a precarious grab for the candelabra. Use her own momentum against her, shove it toward the floor...

"Sister, stop! She's only trying to help!"

[sulahnan]

"Y-YEAH!" Athessa asserts, adjusting her grip on the false Gertruda to keep the old woman from sliding back down onto the floor. She was holding the old woman with her hands cupped under her armpits, the Reverend Mother's feet dragging on account of the elf being short-changed in the stature department.

"We need to get her to safety, not spear her with a giant candlestick!" Shuffle, shuffle. That's her dragging the old lady back a few steps, hoisting as much as she can with each effort. "Maybe--Maybe you should be the one getting away, huh?!"

[reshapes]

Here's the nice thing about having every joint locked in place: he has a fairly good view of the chaos now that he's being drug slowly backward by the armpits, as rigid as a fallen statue in his brave rescuer's rather noodle-y arms. And, as someone fairly well versed in causing absolute havoc at the drop of a hat, he has to admit - it's not half bad. Maybe if his jaw wasn't currently magically bolted shut, he might even have a kind word or something encouraging to say. As he always says², one should give credit where it's due. Now if he could only turn his head--

Someone (one of the guards, having sheathed his sword again in a panic) has taken hold of his wrinkly, elderly woman ankles with copious, stuttering apologies: "Here, let me help carry her. Reverend Mother, please forgive the intrusion-- Would it be simpler to just have me carry her?"

Which is happening more or less concurrently with Myr disarming the candelabra wielding young woman, who snaps back at him with a half shriek, half shouting: "Well don't you just stand there then! Help them carry her!"

2. Citation needed.

[faithlikeaseed]

It is in that moment the Sister shrieks at him in obvious panic that Myr realizes something with crystalline clarity:

He is really not cut out for this.

Not if his first instinct is to go over there and reassure her there's no reason whatever to panic, the real Gertruda's just fine wherever she is and this one's not even permanently damaged, really--

Right, no time for that. "Of--of course, I've got her--ser," to the guard, "let me, if you would, in case you've need of your sword,"

Having said he reaches to take Bartruda's ankles, muttering something under his breath that might be a prayer or an apology for touching the person of a Grand Cleric in such a scandalous way.

(Or it might be a dispel, timed to go off the instant they get their target down off the dais.)

[limier]

"Guardsman!"

Snapped. The trouble with pretending to go down in a crowd is going down in a crowd. Through a long career of stabbings, slicings, shots, burns and sundry, there remains little as immediately painfully poignant as a stubbed toe. Or ten of them. By the time Coupe limps up from the center of the crowd (those first screams silenced beneath the roiling chapel), there's no particular need to fake her disarray — or the fury above it.

"Your sword." A hand thrust expectantly and uncomfortably near his waist. Having absolutely no authority here doesn't mean she isn't prepared to be a huge cunt about it. To the Sister, urgent: "Get Her Grace to the confessionals."

If there are any. Marchers. Determined to complicate quietly braining members of the clergy.

[reshapes]

Maybe if the Guardsman were a Templar proper, this wouldn't happen. But even here in pious old Tantervale, the world is changing, and so the sword surrendered to Coupe's possession at once with a marked flash of relief on the man's face. Lucky for everyone that quick on his feet evidently doesn't translate to knowing what to do once he gets where he's going.

The Sister, however, seems perfectly sensible. She goes so far as to take that spear-like candelabra back up, though for moment she's brandishing it ahead of them rather than at anyone in particular. "No. We'll take the east passage. You," she snaps to the unarmed Guardsman, "collect Sister Margryte. Quick as you can. The rest of you follow me."

And then she's off, using the overgrown candlestick to beat her way toward an ornate painting of Andraste, halod by fire in all the usual ways, at the back of the dais.

Meanwhile, Bartimaeus hangs there as stiff as a rail between Athessa and Myr. He remains that way until they cross the threshold of the passage evidently hidden behind the painting, at which point all his limbs go impressively limp. Quite literally. For a second there as the paralysis wears thin and disappears, there's a bizarre soggy quality to the old woman as if she had been trying so hard to be less rigid and how now overdone it entirely, ankles and armpits distressingly mushy.

And then something reasserts itself, and it's as if it were merely a trick of the changing temperature between the main hall and this narrow little corridor or-- ...something. Either way, the old woman between Myr and Athessa raises a shaky arm as she's dredged along behind the armpits. Her gloved fingers wrap first into a weak fist, and then at long last resolves into a thumbs up.

Nice job, everyone.

"Ooh," says the old Reverend Mother in a quavering voice. "My head."

[sulahnan]

Except Myr isn't the one with a hold of Bartruda's legs anymore.

Despite the unusually fluid episode that the old woman had before regaining her structure, Athessa keeps her lips thinned, half with the effort of moving dead weight, and half with a dose of internal panic about where the hell is Myr and who the fuck is that.

And as soon as she can without being too obvious, she's making significant head gestures and trying to pioneer an eyebrow-centric sign language in Coupe's general direction.

We need to lose these jerks!