faderift | open: we built this circle on rock and roll

Hooray, until they get there and face the reason for that easy yes. The ruin of the Circle, still standing, a burnt-out husk of a fortress rising up from a rocky overlook in the Vinmarks outside of Markham, is no longer abandoned. The bandits and mercenary outcasts responsible for the proliferation of flaming swords and vaporized livestock in the countryside have taken up permanent residence, and at the sight of carts and Inquisition colors on the approach, they dig in for the war's smallest siege. They have the walls, the high ground, storage rooms full of enchanted weapons and magebane and artifacts that they're like forty percent sure how to use, and—because this is Thedas—an unreasonable degree of determination to hold their ground.

ooc | Make your own sub-top-levels for combat adventures, including any magic artifact nonsense you want, as long as it's plausible given canon enchantment/magic limits. Members of The Mob can be killed, convinced to run away, or captured alive, whatever you want.

Edited 2019-04-23 00:21 (UTC)

The Circle walls are breached. Scavengers are panicking, their formation shattered into directionless splinters, easy to pick off. Markham's crumbling halls are once again alive with familiar sounds: gusts of hot wind pushing or pulling as flame bursts forth or ceases to be, stone chips flying under impossible impacts, the hiss and murmur of words learned by heart. The Fade moves, obliges its living conduits and becomes a useful shape; a deadly shape.
Home again.

Leander's eyes are bright with memory as he steps over a broken jar, its remnants popping under his boot, the room's only doorway at his back. This bandit thought he'd avoid the worst of the fighting, thought he'd find refuge in a corridor, saw only opportunity—missed the very useful shape scratched on the floor. Now he is only alone, only just coming out of a bewildering haze, and the mage that's got him cornered is walking a circle around the gutted larder, stopping ever so often to pick something up, or—to move something—scratching—

"Thought yourself lucky, didn't you? Slipping away like that." Gently spoken. A voice to soothe all doubt. To the lonely scavenger huddled on the floor, the mage is a thousand miles away, even as he moves closer; he's a giant even as he crouches into a smaller silhouette.

"Sh-sh-shh, there, there you are. Try not to move. I've broken both your wrists." Panic laps weakly. Hands come in, pressing his shoulders back in firm discouragement, like a nurse to an unruly patient. "No, no, don't do that. Don't do that. I know it hurts—just be still, you're all right. You know this place belongs to us... yes? You do? So why did you think you could make it yours?"

As it appears: inside a derelict storage room, with his back to the door, Leander has taken a knee in front of a badly injured man. The two of them are encircled by an unusual glyph, and they are both silent.

[Only one character reply for this one, please.]

"What're you doing?"

Matthias is outside, looking in. His weight is balanced unevenly, uneasily, poising him to either finish off his dash into the storage room or teeter onto his heel and back away from the scene he's come upon.

He doesn't know what the scene is. Like one of those plays stuffed thick with morals that the Chantry put on in Tantervale, but wrong. Truthfully Matthias doesn't know what to make of a large part of this. Thought he'd be all right, which he is, mostly. He's used to battlefields, danger and sacrifice and big sweeping blows against the enemy. It usually takes place in the open. It's not usually like walking backwards through a childhood he'd thought mostly forgotten. Markham's Circle isn't Tantervale. The bones of it are the same.

His palm is sweaty against the familiar staff in his hand, light and simple, so functional it's nearly crude. Matthias grips at it, hard, like a peasant with a talisman. He recognizes Leander from the back of his head, recognizes that the man he's knelt before is the color of sour mash, and in a bad way--but that one's all right. Matthias has seen worse. He's not squeamish.

And he's not scared, either, so he scuffs a step over the threshold, crossing over from without to within.

"He looks like shit," he observes, of the injured man. Trying to be brisk, like this is all very normal and usual, nothing at all to be uncertain about. "What's that?"

The glyph, he means, unfamiliar. The room smells of blood and fear and ruined preserves, broken clay, smells either human or domestic. Beneath it there's a crackle of something that Matthias associates with magic. Like the Fade could have a smell. If it did, of course any Circle would reek of it, all soaked into the stone and wood. Equal parts chilling and comforting to think of.

Leander turns a look back, wearing an expert approximation of unease—the secret's in the eyebrows—and shows Matthias his fingers past his own shoulder: wait.

Eyes back on the suffering man, then. "Don't move," he warns. "Don't speak. You may yet make it out of here alive." His words are safe within the circle, silent to the ears of the boy outside, until he rises to step beyond the glyph himself, careful not to tread upon the gently glowing sketch-marks (a soft stone, fainter than chalk, easier to scuff out). Grit beneath his boot is the first sound he's made.

"For security. I can hear them coming; they can't hear me." Them, not you. Perhaps he's relieved to see Matthias, a teammate, instead of another bandit. (Good thing he didn't mine the hallway behind him.) Of their new mutual friend and problem: "He's badly hurt, but it's not fatal, I'm afraid."

The faint petrichor of ambient magic, more sense than scent—if a mind could taste the air—it wafts closer with him like a perfume. He's alive with it.

"Really?"

The word is shot through with interest, and Matthias cranes his neck to look at the glyph again, this time with new appreciation. He traces its shape with his eyes, trying to commit the markings to memory, like maybe he'll be able to recreate it. He probably won't. He will probably try.

The trace of his gaze puts the wounded bandit back in his line of sight, and Matthias slides his focus over to Leander again. Most of the Inquisition has proved to be all right. Most of the mages, more than.

"They'll send some of 'em off, that they catch. For justice. Might be worse than," and he does a sideways jerk of his head, sharp. Offing, is what he means. He gives the man another once-over. Shaking, a little, stiff in the jaw, his eyes hazy with pain and fear. One them looks puffier than the other. Bloody miserable. Matthias has been there, or near there, at least. He recovered. So might this fellow, if he's deserving. "I didn't see any others in the corridor, but there's another door past this one. It really keeps in everything? The glyph, I mean. You could leave him to wait here if he were tied up."

This charming tangle of sentences is quietly appreciated as they all come tumbling out in whatever order they arrive. Lea himself was much the same way at that age, bursting with ideas and questions, struggling to sort them all; now the flow of his thoughts is smooth as blood.

"Every sound."

Taking care to leave a clear line of sight between the boy and the man on the floor, Lea stops about halfway between them, looks from one to the other and back again. His look to the captive is a touch less neutral, eyes slipping sideways to complete the turn, the warning made clear.

To the boy, he says, "It'd be cruel to leave him like this, don't you think?"

He's watching Matthias carefully now, and calmly, to see how he answers with his body as well as his voice, his tone, the words he chooses. There's a bit of blood freckled on his cheekbone, his neck—probably not his own. (But then, he's probably not the only one.)

Matthias, wrong-footed by the question and the cool calm way that Leander looks at him when he asks it, runs the question once more through his head. It's simple, doesn't need another real pass. The implication is strong.

He looks back at the man, wavering.

"I mean," slowly, as he looks him over, and then darts a glance back at Leander, "maybe. A little. Yeah. Only they'll be sending him away, like I said, so--"

Uncertain, he looks back at the man again, trying to see if he can read something on him, some tell that will let him know what to do. The bandit has his eyes on the floor, and is sitting, hunched forward, in pain.

"If there's any justice, they won't be kind to him." Decisive, that. Something to be believed in.

They'll be kinder than Leander himself would be. (Has been.)

He presses a faint smile, nods just the once: both seem purely polite, out of respect for the boy's opinion, stated so firmly. Or for justice, perhaps.

"We'll tie him up, then. If he lives, he can join the others."

The handful of scavengers who managed not to die, he means, whether by surrendering or by a scrap of threadbare luck, or by cowardice, like this fellow here. Lea would rather think of it as wisdom—and that the wiser move would be to flee at first glimpse of a mage—since self-preservation is the most natural instinct. He can respect a man who recognizes when it's time to get out.
(Can. Doesn't always.)

"Have you found a rope? I haven't got one."

As he steps to the glyph, Lea snuffs the effect with an almost trivial gesture—mostly his first two fingers—and then scuffs at it with his boot. Instantly audible: the bandit's thin and careful breathing, the slow grit as he drags his leg to a position no more comfortable than the last.

If he lives. As if Lea himself is powerless to change the man's fate. He was introduced as a Creation mage before they'd even left the Gallows, so the party would know where to turn. (Isaac's the obvious choice; Lea's not a trained medic.)

Pleased at what seems to be both a fair compromise and a show of respect for his valued opinion, Matthias mumbles something along the lines of yeah sure somewhere hang on mate and swings around the bag that he's been carrying with him, for supplies and to carry back anything useful he might find. There is a rope in there, somewhere--what if he'd found a hole in the ground and had needed to climb down it, he'd be bloody glad for a rope then--and then there's the sharp staggered sound of pained breathing, and Matthias looks around, surprised.

The breathing is coming from the man, but Matthias sees the scuffed glyph first. Then he makes the connection, and looks up just in time to see the man pull his leg around. Even that looks sluggish and painful, and Matthias' breath catches before he thinks better of it. A bandit is a bandit, right. At least he was allowed to live.

"He sounds bad." He holds out the coil of rope, decisive in that, too, at odds with the quiet pitch of his voice. "Worse than I thought. He looks hurt, but I reckoned, I don't know-- I mean, it's the right thing to do, isn't it. 'Cause he deserves it. Getting taken somewhere else and having everyone know what he did and all. Even if he could be healed," and can he be? Matthias doesn't know. Most injuries he's seen were too far gone by the time he was seeing them. If anyone could heal, a Creation mage could. Might. "Even if he could, that wouldn't be totally right."

A Creation mage could, indeed. Will he, though? It seems not. Perhaps he's no more sure of what should be done than Matthias; perhaps, as a Circle mage, he's unaccustomed to combat. Certainly there are worse reactions to have than lack of affect.

Lea raises his hand in gentle refusal to the rope. It's yours, kid—you do it.

"I've done enough for him already." To. The word he should be using is to. After some deliberation—not at all visible outside his own head—he offers this inadequate warning: "Mind his wrists."

It may be difficult to tell from the outside, especially if one isn't accustomed to spotting injuries, but both the man's wrists are in bad shape. He's been careful not to move them, hasn't even flexed a finger, since Matthias entered the little room. His legs, on the other hand, are fine. In case he feels like running. (Leander was hoping he would try.)

Uncertain, a measure crestfallen, Matthias looks down at the rope that he's holding. This part has never been his--the typing-up part, the part where the prisoner is really taken. They didn't much do prisoners. And when they did, it was--

Well, it was different.

But he's not a coward. He puts away that feeling, and he moves, decisively, into the storeroom proper, crossing the glyph where Leander had scuffed a path. It feels too strange to enter it by any other way.

"What d'you," he starts, but now that he's closer he can see the nasty shape that the wrists are in, and the mute pain that is in the man's breathing gets clearer--the way his mouth is clamped tight and his eyes are all glassy--but Matthias has seen worse, of course he has. And this is a bandit, someone that was stripping the Circle. When this was a Circle--a proper Circle, not just an empty half-haunted wreck--no one who was made to live here wanted to be here in the first place but they were made to be here, so by rights, the things that were here belong to the mages that suffered for them. Not to bandits.

He drops to a stoop, then, and throws the rope about the man's wrists. The intake of breath that answers that is half a sob. Matthias ignores it, stuffs his ears against it. He loops, and pulls, and knots. Easy movements. He's been tying knots all his life.

The last tug is maybe a little too sharp. The man is openly in pain now, panting wet and ragged, breathing through his teeth. Please, maybe, is in there somewhere, and Matthias looks back at Leander, trying to set his face into something blank.

"S' done. We take him back to the others now, yeah?"

The bandit thinks he's braced himself for pain, but at the first touch of the rope he knows he hasn't come close. Please, he says, as if anyone is listening.

He hears you, Leander wants to say. It's just that he doesn't care.

So in silence he stands, quite still, and looks on past Matthias's shoulder. His gaze flits between their hands, their faces. Satisfaction touches the shape of his mouth, the minuscule bunching of his eyelids—a smile without a smile, pushed just that little bit further to become something like a restrained grimace when the boy turns to see him.

Leander steps into the broken circle (on the floor of the broken Circle), and, as he comes in close to the two of them, grasps Matthias's shoulder warmly. It's brief; reassurance isn't a complex message. By the time he's crouched, Lea's hand has slipped away, reaching instead for the man's bound hands. He's ignoring the signs of panic, grasping wide across both wrists, rope and all.

The Veil shifts. Light touches their three faces from below, soft as a reflection on cool water, passes through rope to impress his will on living bone. The man's terrified silence bursts suddenly as a sob of relief.

"The cracked bones were grinding—I'm making it stop. It won't relieve his pain completely," he explains, library quiet, "and his wrists may never bend properly again. But it will save us having to answer too many questions. There—now we take him."

Relief steals over Matthias--first at the touch on his shoulder, and then at the neat solution to the current true problem. It's traitorous, a little, isn't it? He should know by now what he's doing; he should have a firmer understanding of himself and how everything fits together in the world around him.

Everything, from bandits to justice to punishment to mercy--it isn't so complex. What he wants is to do the right thing, and do right by people he cares about. Reassurance isn't such a silly thing to crave when the world is turned on its ear, when the ground shifts a little, sometimes daily, and leaves Matthias without an understanding of which way is up. It's right that a thief should be punished. It's not right to leave him in torment. Not for very long, at least. Just enough that he taste some bit of that punishment that waits for him.

The glow of magic is as much a comfort as the bracing grip at his shoulder. All right, there it is: the ground to be stood upon. Matthias can count on magic, on someone giving him an answer, telling him it was well done, what he did, and here's what we do next. That means that he's already brightened a little once it's all settled.

"Yeah," he says, with a kind of brimming gratefulness, "brilliant. Well done."

Like Leander needs to hear that. He knows what he's about, clearly. To save face, Matthias pushes to his feet and grabs at the rope, brusque again. "All right--you heard him. You'll be all right, more or less, at least for now--so you can get proper justice--so c'mon, then--on your feet. And if you say too much," and he shoots Leander a look, a little conspiratorial, waiting to have this vague threat verified, "well, then things'll go a bit differently for you."

Leander nods once, meaningful, lips pressed in approval: nonspecific conspiracy confirmed.

"That's right," he says, his voice still low, laden with kindness and gravity. And with a touch of furtive pride, perhaps, if you're listening for it. (Or want badly enough to hear it.) Rather than leaving him to the mercy of the rope and his own unsteady limbs, Lea helps their captive to his feet, grasping one arm just below the elbow while they stand.

With a single squeeze of his hand, those wet eyes turn to him with fear renewed; he meets them, steady, and his fingers release, gentle as you please. What benevolence. "Carefully, now." I can take it back just as easily. "Watch your step."

He means the footing, surely. Well done, and here's what we do next:

"Go ahead, you know the way back. I'll follow your lead."

If there was ever anyone listening for pride, it's Matthias. He's fine-tuned toward it, poised to pick apart even the shortest sentence to find the evidence. His shoulders lift--self-consciously, first, hitched up around his ears--and then to a more manful position, settled comfortably under the mantle of approval.

That's how he remains as they set off, out of the storage room. "Step," he cautions, without looking behind him, in case the bandit has forgotten the two short stairs that lead to the hall. Watch your step.

It's a curious sort of parade that they make, with a prisoner between them. They're doing the right thing. There's a little spring in Matthias' step, born of his confidence in their judgement and their mercy. All that uncertainty is ebbing away. This is all going to tie up neatly, and it will be thanks to the two of them that it happened.

Edited (halls and walls) 2019-05-23 17:26 (UTC)

It takes the better part of twenty-four hours, but when the last of the scavengers have been run out, run through, or run up to Ostwick to enjoy the pleasures of the Free Marcher justice system, the fortress is left empty and silent, mostly. There are still the rats, and the spiders, and the occasional distant noise that might be a restless spirit. But it's empty enough to set up camp in the library—literally camp, bedrolls and all, strewn around the massive fireplace that serves as the room's centerpiece and the party's cookfire. No one's going to stop anyone who wants to go sleep in some probably-dead mage's old bed instead, but given the aforementioned rats, spiders, and spirits, it's not the cleverest idea to go alone.

In the morning there's porridge, then a full day of scavenging through the remains, puzzling over magically locked doors and impassable hallways, sorting dangerous debris that requires careful destruction from mundane debris that can be thrown into the growing bonfire outside, dealing with enormous insect nests that have been constructed in the wardrobes in the last five years or possessed skeletons that stagger unexpectedly out of the dark, and loading anything of value onto the carts and wagons outside.

By the time the work is done, it's too late to travel, so everyone gets a second night of campfire stories and a second morning of porridge.

ooc | Do your own sub-top-levels for whatever interests you! Make up whatever magic puzzle locks and obstacles you want, within reason. If you want your character to personally find and keep anything that would qualify as an AC reward, make sure you do that before running off with it.

[ iorveth hadn't wanted to miss a chance to see the inside of one of the circles, which is what had him tagging along. after several conversations on his last network post, he'd wanted to inform himself better, and walking the actual place seemed like the best way to get that, outside of hearing the various accounts of other Inquisition mages.

after camp's set up in the library, he doesn't immediately settle in to rest. instead, Iorveth can be seen wandering out into the darker hallways, torch in one hand, sword in the other. No, it's probably not safe to be going out on his own, and no, he doesn't really expect that sword to do much if a spirit hops out at him, but curiosity has the best of him, and he has this terrible habit of ignoring his sense of self-preservation.

maybe follow after his dumb ass and make sure he doesn't get possessed or whatever? he could use a mage (or someone informed) tour guide anyway. ]

[[ ooc; i'm down for puzzle locks or fighting insects/skeletons/etc if you guys want, or just someone touring him around the circle and informing him on how people lived in it, etc etc. ]]

Edited 2019-04-22 15:49 (UTC)

[He's tense here despite the absence of Templars. The increasing chances that they'll get a Divine who is a fan of the Circles brings back far too much for him to easily handle, and so he's been a little stand-offish, a little distant. But he's growing increasingly aware of being too touchy and increasingly guilty about it, so when Iorveth breaks off on his own to go trudging into who knows what corner, Anders decides to actually be helpful.]

Is there something or somewhere you spotted earlier you're looking for?

[He asks as he catches up. Iorveth had to have heard him coming; stealth is not Anders' strong point even when he tries and he wasn't trying.]

Sorry. I'm not trying to supervise or something, but the Veil's always a little thin near a Circle and we've already seen a fair few nuisances. I thought I'd help.

[ iorveth doesn't exactly startle at anders' presence, but his attention does zero in on him quickly, glancing over the man before moving back to the walls around them. ]

Nothing in particular, no.

[ just curious? is he allowed to say that without someone blowing it off and trying to drag him back to camp? ]

Some old structures hold memories in their bones. [ his mind goes to the elven ruins he's seen here, or the ones at home. ] I've heard so much of the suffering that's come to pass in towers like this, and yet I've not had a chance to witness evidence of the life led here.

[ and iorveth makes it his business to be nosey as all fuck, so, here we are. ] If you wish, you're welcome to be supervisor as well as tour guide.

I left my supervisor's hat in my other robes, but I can do my best.

[His voice is light enough, considering the topic at hand.]

I'm not entirely familiar with this Circle's cruelties, aside from the the regular ones. I was held in Kinloch Hold. But... well. If we go up, we'll likely find the Harrowing chambers. Down is probably the dungeons, because every Circle must have a dungeon for the children who don't lose their independence and personhood quickly enough. I'd frankly prefer to show the Harrowing chambers and talk of those, but it's tourist's choice today.

[He never wants to be in a dungeon again, but he's hardly about to share his fear and baggage freely. Anders gestures at a door set in the wall.]

That's the staircase. This floor is probably just the small rooms mages were kept in on a day-to-day basis.

And on the left,

[ announced from a door in the hall, before isaac emerges with hands raised placatingly. don't trip and run through any extremely charming and useful allies with that sword, friend. ]

You'll spy a reenactment of breaking curfew.

[ he hasn't been sleeping. half the party isn't, so there's no particular reason to scrutinize what he has been doing in this room. don't worry about it. ]

[ iorveth isn't the jumpy sort. he's spent far too long on stealth missions and battlefields to just start stabbing wildly at people, so while Isaac's voice does gain sharp attention, it doesn't come with a pointed sword at all.

and after a half second, it morphs into a smirk, amused. ]

Does that make me the Templar nanny, or are we partners in crime now?

[ he doesn't want to be the templar, pls, they're icky. ]

They don't often take elves, [ a pause, one hand twist into an amendment: ] Didn't.

[ past tense. but that's why they're here, isn't it? a year from now, the words could shift again. will, won't. ]

Only ever met the one. [ his chin tips toward the hallway. ] What crime did you have in mind?

Having only lived in the one circle before the rebellion happened, Inessa has always been curious about the others. Ostwick's was interesting to her precisely because she had heard nothing unsavory or traumatic about it. What would it have been like to grow up there, rather than have been faced with Uldred's rebellion? Such thoughts linger in her mind as the small elven woman and her large mabari explore the area. Nothing is off-limits, and she's not afraid of spirits or fauna, not after all she has seen and done.

Pausing by what she believes to be the First Enchanter's door, Inessa stands back and casts Dispel at the ward. This room is bound to contain interesting information, more so than the library...though she'll be certain to inspect that thoroughly as well. Garahel perks up as he hears footsteps and responds with a happy bark, as Inessa rests her hand on the door handle as she glances over.

"Joining our search, then? The more, the merrier."

"Merry," Isaac's eyes drift from door to dog, before finally finding Inessa. He lingers from the mabari at a distance that might be properly called wary, though it doesn't match the apparent ease of his expression. "We ought to have prepared a song. I could use a hand, actually, if you might spare it."

Away from the First Enchanter's office. The woman's too much an unknown for Isaac to trust a first look at whatever might lie within.

"I never had a head for this sort of thing," He's already walking, glance thrown over his shoulder in the expectation of being followed. Doesn't know yet quite what he's looking for, other than a distraction, "Too, how do you say it,"

He knows how to say it. In Orlesian:

"Fiddly."

Garahel looks over and wags his tail at Isaac. He may be a wall of muscle made to fight, but for now his eyes are friendly. Inessa, not wanting him to get too close unless Isaac is fine with it, steps away from the door first. The mabari is quick to follow, after lingering to sniff at the door. Whatever was inside didn't seem to interest him too much, probably because it lacked mabari treats.

"If it's about songs, I'm afraid we can't be of help unless you enjoy a mabari's howl." Inessa quirks a smile, the Grey Warden patting her kaddis-painted companion. It doesn't escape her notice that he's leading her away from the First Enchanter's office, but she doesn't seem to mind for the time being. As long as there's something to do, some way to contribute, she's content. The slight elven woman automatically quickens her steps, used to keeping pace with taller people. "I can certainly try to assist. My memories of the Circle aren't so faded that I can't still make good use of them, if need be."

"Nothing so dreadful."

Isaac maintains a marked distance from the dog, brows tipping upwards into a smile (Fiddly -- reminded, abruptly, of Anders. Wardens. As though nation is ever the first thing he thinks of elves)

"Five years does fly,"

Since that Circle. It's a question, for what little it's spoken like one; if she was taken before the Rebellion, she isn't so old it can have been long. A sharp left at the end of the hall. A distraction: he'll know one when he sees it.

Edited (ugh sorry for double edit warden clarity) 2019-05-22 23:08 (UTC)

If Inessa had known Isaac better, she would have probably made a quip about singing Andraste's Mabari to compensate. The song was sappy and obnoxious, but it held the entertainment value of annoying non-Fereldans/dog-people and that alone was worth the time spent. But she maintained her polite reserve, keeping Garahel close to her despite the war hound's curiosity.

In response to the comment (well, question), Inessa nods. "It does indeed. I remembered little else but the Circle, when that life ended and a new course was necessary. If someone had told me how those five years would pass, I would have thought them mad. The parts that were my own choosing, I do not regret." Mostly. Her gaze flits over to him, curious. "Do you miss any of it, or were you glad to shed the system, as were so many others?"

The parts that were my own choosing,

It doesn't shift the pleasant distance of his expression. Even so, he can spy the handholds, imagines anyone might. The places another might grip and tear loose argument: The freedom to choose; the cost in doing so. Hasn't that always been the fumble?

Isaac didn't choose war, more than any mage might have once chosen recruitment. One was not plucked from stones for only the cost of asking.

"I fear the two not much exclusive —" He misses certainty, or what will pass for it. What will pass for it was too often a shadow. "— Or we'd all have an easier time of it."

Matthias likes camping and amiable companionship. If this was all going on in the great outdoors, under open skies, he'd be over both moons. Matthias does not like Circles. It's half superstition and half bad memories, two deep instincts which he'd rather carve out of himself and chuck onto the bonfire to burn away with the rest of the unwanted shit.

He's restless the first night. And he would rather die than voice any kind of complaint, so he bears it all with a staunchness, ready to give anyone a withering look should they suggest some weakness in him.

Any left-over weariness he wears easily, translates any nerves into action, and commits himself to the tasks at hand. Puzzles and locked doors frustrate him, and he's as likely to be found kicking them as unpicking the magic that keeps them closed.

The insect nests are more his style, dispatched with fire. Matthias is good at fire. He can keep it mostly concentrated, sharp sudden bursts that fill the inner spaces of the wardrobes and engulf the nests. There's just once, that he almost loses it. A particular large cupboard, and when the door comes open, there's a particularly thick thatch of spiderweb inside. It's Matthias' shit luck that the web is occupied, and when he hits it with that first blast of flame, out scurries a great big spider, shrieking.

"SHIT," is Matthias' answer, and it echoes loudly around the ruined room. He scrambles up against the wall opposite, fumbling to bring his staff around again, to stop the spider as it barrels toward him, full of fear and vicious intent. And fire, because its head is actually on fire.

When it's confirmed that they've got to stay over another night, Matthias still doesn't complain. He's completely sleepless this second night, though he tries to play it cool, sitting up by the fire like a resolute watchman instead of a nervy kid. Once most people have fallen asleep, he puts his blanket around his shoulders, which, all right, is maybe a little childish. But the open air on the back of his neck is unnerving. With his staff tucked into the crook of his elbow, he looks like a weird shrunken hermit.

At one point in the night, some far-off noise echoes from the bowels of the Circle, and Matthias looks around, wild-eyed, with a breathless, "What was that?", issued at large to anyone still awake. Or just to himself, if he's alone. At least it's a human sound.

"A ghost."

Flat. Isaac isn't sleeping either, though he's neglected to do anything useful about it — one can't watch a great deal by leaning against a wall with eyes shut. He does crack them open, though, and a moment later something more like focus muddles through; collects upon Matthias. Right.

"Or the building," Offered, a touch lamely. It may well be a ghost, but nothing feels particularly good about kicking a boy in a blanket. "Do you suppose we ought to check?"

A gesture to the little ring of bodies. Sally forth or stand guard? (Lean guard. Whatever.)

Looking away into the dark, where the light of their fire does not quite reach, Matthias swallows.

"I mean," he says, slowly, "if it's only the building," but Isaac hadn't sounded that convinced of it either. And if it is ghosts, it'd be better to know now rather than later, right, because if they know now, they can act now, rather than later, when they've dropped off to sleep. If they drop off to sleep. Matthias won't. He knows that now.

"If it's only the building," with renewed conviction this time, and he shrugs the blanket off by squaring his shoulders, so he looks less like an idiot, "then we won't lose anything by going off to confirm it's only the building, right." He can't back down, especially now that Isaac is paying attention to him. "And it won't take very long. Right?"

"Quick as silver."

Death is the more usual phrase. Isaac stretches to his feet — doesn't seem worth shaking anyone else awake for watch. Like as not, the most dangerous things in this ruin are those lying about the fire.

A hand finds his staff, all the same.

"From the left hall, was it?"

Probably not. Deep sounds are down sounds, but he's in no particular hurry to root through a midnight basement, just see the boy doesn't try it alone. Isaac shakes the end of his staff into embers, and flame tints the shade about them low, ruddy; not quite light. It tastes a little like someone else's dream: Waking to find one's house set strange, askew. Down this corridor, there ought to be a staircase — there's nothing at all.

"Maybe--I think--"

Hastily, Matthias gets to his feet. He'd like to be coordinated. He comes off as scrambled instead, and even when he's up, the pins-and-needles in his legs and his feet make his walk a little more awkward than it ought to be.

But he has his staff as well. There's not really a need to light it up, not when they have Isaac's to go by. He does it anyways--a brighter, cracklier light, more like a lit torch with its edges snatched by an unseen wind. Fire is a comfort. Something real.

"I think it was down," he says, quiet, lest the ghost or whatever else might be around hear them. "Below, I mean. It sounded deep."

There's no staircase down the corridor, and Matthias knows that. He scouted any hallway connecting to the library on the first night, busying himself like he was on a patrol, like someone needed to secure the perimeter. Perhaps someone did. Perhaps that first effort was more necessary than even he had known at the time.

"There's not actually a ghost," he says, as disinterested as he can manage, and spoken entirely to Isaac's back. "You were just fucking with me. Spiders, though. There's loads of spiders."

"Ate the ghosts. I can't imagine there were enough bandits."

Glanced over his shoulder, squinting approval against the flame.

"I remember your voice," They aren't brimming with Marcher mages — to say nothing of those under twenty, young enough the Circles might have missed them entire. "During that talk of votes."

Isaac taps the end of the wood against stone, listens for the echo of pipes, hollows; some mysterious trapdoor. No such luck. Isaac lingers, not quite yet willing to go search for the steps (to admit he needs searching), turned around despite the past days' work.

Someone else's dream. Still ever a maze.

"We could do with a few more."

Voices, or votes; and never mind, how little their points agreed.

Edited 2019-04-29 06:51 (UTC)

Matthias, as he walks, is trying to wrap his mind around spiders that eat ghosts, and what sort of powers they might be granted by this act--all those peasant superstitions, drink by moonlight the milk of a sow who birthed a stillborn piglet within the last fortnight for virility--which is actually a rather good distraction from potentially walking blind into the maw of a ghost-eating-spider-that-probably-wouldn't-turn-its-nose-up-at-mage.

Do spiders have noses?

All this is to say that Matthias flushes when Isaac looks at him, as if it might be possible to read all of these stupid thoughts from a mere glance at his face. It hopefully goes unnoticed, in the dimness.

"Oh, yeah?"

Just in case it doesn't go unnoticed, he breaks his own stupid hot-face awkwardness by choosing to step manfully close to the wall. What if a ghost sticks its arms out and grabs him? He's not worried. Watch as he puts his ear against the stone, demonstrating how closely he is listening for echoes. That's probably what Isaac is doing. Or else he hopes it is, or else he'll look doubly stupid.

Anyways, there's nothing, and he leans back again, tugging straight his leather armor.

"Seems like there's loads of talking and voting. Dunno why you'd want more. I don't. I'd rather, you know. Do things." Clearly. That's why he volunteered to get up and go wandering about in the dark. Other than the two of them talking, the corridor is deathly quiet. Like a tomb. It is, sort of, a tomb, isn't it. True, if not precisely the thought Matthias wants. "What about you? 'Cause I remember hearing you as well, and thinking you were hard to get a read on."

Not a compliment.

"Do you know everyone who heard that conversation?"

Worse: Their friends, their roommates, their — whatever they're calling De Cedoux today. The glance he casts back toward the library is measured, instruction and not instinct.

"We know a deal more than when it began," So it's we now. "What they'll stomach."

Another twist of hallway; a supply closet. He'd be willing to bet (not a great deal, mind you),

The door swings open onto dim shelves, a disarray of empty bottles, rags; nothing of value. The whole Circle stinks of disuse, the decay that settles into still places. In here, something heavier lingers, smoke and kohl.

"Try the back wall."

Worth a shot.

That inclusiveness freezes a small measure of Matthias' critical skepticism. Perhaps a dram's worth. He's staring narrow-eyed at Isaac's back when the door to the cupboard swings open, so he misses much of disappointing reveal.

Trickery isn't what he's good at. Playing both sides of the fence, holding back some part of the truth--he's shit at cards, at any game that requires deliberate deception, because it all somehow ends up showing on his face. And he likes honesty, besides. You should know where you stand with somewhere, and where they stand on what matters to you.

"And that's s'pposed to make it easier, for me to get a read on you?" Oh, wait. The wall. Obediently, before he's thought anything like why-don't-you-try-it-if-you're-so-keen, and still narrow-eyed, Matthias ducks past Isaac to step inside. The smell is a bit manky, nothing horrific. He's smelled worse. He puts a hand out, tentatively, to touch his fingers against the wall to his right--a light pressure, first, and then more firmly. Nothing happens. "You'd have to say for certain your opinion at some point. If you're saying you actually agree."

He tries the left wall, next. Same treatment: light touch, and then a proper push. Two this time, for good measure. Nothing happens. Now there's just the back wall left, which is what he was told to go for originally, but he's got to put up at least some small resistance.

"What would be the point of that?" A lot of talking. "You want action."

Someone carved their initials into this shelf. Or someone's initials. Could be it's just a squiggle that looks like a B and —

"I don't think anyone needs to tell you how to read." Not an admitted liar, here in the manky closet where some dead mage, or dead knight, or plain dead body went to skive off. All the dreadful things that secret passages are used for, suffocated into routine. His chin tips toward the wall again, arms crossed. "But some of them,"

Those people. He shakes his head.

"I fought with Voss." Not often, happily, or for long. Details. To which end: "The loud Nevarran."

The wall, the wall, the wall. Managing to convey yeah all right keep your hair on with his body, Matthias turns with some reluctance toward the back wall and gives it a long look.

"I remember hearing her, yeah." Voss, by voice, and before that Voss, a chance glimpse: red hair, striking, striding across the dining hall and not looking at Matthias, laughing at whatever the man she was walking with was saying. Not that Matthias had blamed her; the man she was with had been striking in his own way as well. The Inquisition is rather unfair in that regard. "So what did you have to argue about with her, if you're not actually anti fair chances and hang the Circles and generally everything good and decent. 'Cause to me that's what it sounded like, right. Whatever your secret intentions were or weren't."

The wall: with nothing else for it, Matthias at last puts his fingertips against the stone. Nothing here, nothing there, and then with his last push, there's a quiet ch-thunk that sounds like a very, very large lever being moved. Matthias moves his hands, quickly, ready to dodge any trap.

The next sound is a ponderous scraping, slow and deep. Matthias takes five steps back--or would, if his retreat hadn't backed him straight into Isaac.

"You were," he says, and then, "right," because the whole back wall is moving, "how did you bloody know--"

Edited (p u n c t u a t i o n) 2019-05-14 03:37 (UTC)

"Luck," He admits. "But I'll thank you to pretend it was an air of mystery."

And not scorched mothballs. He waits a moment before nudging Matthias' shoulder (I'm moving); steps around toward the cavernous dim. It seems wider in the dark. Instinct skitters at the back of his neck -- Out after curfew. Isaac likes spiders. He's seen enough ghosts. And he's taken night shift every evening for years straight,

That doesn't make the prospect of surprise any more appealing.

"Arguing with the people you agree with is how you better their arguments." Cool, damp air wafts from the passage; rat droppings crunch underfoot. That deep groan again from below. "What do you think will happen if the Circles return?"

He knows what will happen to Nell. Prefers his own head attached.

Edited (i totally know what words mean) 2019-05-22 23:11 (UTC)

Glad to make wide-eyed space, Matthias shrinks to the side of the closet to allow Isaac all the room he needs to get to the passage that's suddenly opened before them. Then he's right behind him again, close enough to nearly be walking down the back of Isaac's boots, close enough that maybe he's the source of any neck-prickling.

Or not. The smell of the passage reminds Matthias of something he can't place, or maybe even something he's never smelled before. Like a memory inherited, maybe. Is that possible? Is he being weird? He's definitely being weird. Not afraid of the wild dark, Matthias is finding the enclosed dark to be definitely creepy. It's the fault of the Circles, he reckons to himself. He's not been in these sorts of confines in Maker knows how long. The Gallows don't properly count.

Thusly preoccupied, the wisdom of what Isaac says first is lost on him. Matthias marks the tail end of it, decides it is maybe worth committing to memory, tries to trap the words, and immediately gets distracted by the Circles again.

"Dunno," he says, trying to ignore the muffling effect the enclosed passage has on his voice. "'Cause I wouldn't stay, would I. I'd get out before they got their hands on me. I'd not letting myself get put back, and I'd definitely not let them do me in. Like to see them try."

Them, the nebulous them. The faceless Chantry, Templars with helms that hide their faces. The stuff of nightmares, but Matthias would still take them over this sodding damp darkness. He scowls.

"But they won't come back. Will they? They can't. Not after everything. No matter what comes next, we've come this far, won all this freedom and independence and all. I mean, Maker, the Inquisition backed us, more or less. Half the reason I'm even here, is that. How does anyone reverse everything we've done?"

It takes some planning, some significant looks, and some head gestures, but it works: when the group breaks for lunch, a certain segment winds up upstairs, alone in the Knight-Commander's office with boxes of notes and records kept by her and the First Enchanter, stretching back five years before the rebellion.

An apprentice named Patrick lost library privileges for a week because he drew genitalia in one of the books. Antona, age eight, was confined to her room for a day after she bit Anton, age fourteen, because he'd stolen her name. Ser Pace was assigned to the night watch after teaching several apprentices dirty jokes. Enchanter Richart set fire to Senior Enchanter Agnes' research notes because he believed she had stolen his ideas and was being forced to recreate them for her. Ser Bodobert was late for his post a tenth time in one month and assigned sprints across the Templar barracks.

Et cetera.

After five minutes of flipping through documents, Kostos announces, "This is bullshit."

ooc | This part of the log is closed to characters who would reasonably be trusted and included in this discussion, but basically anyone who won’t rat them out can be there. Also content warning for discussion of abuse, probably.

"I know. Anton deserved it."

Isaac is no longer actually reading. Probably. Probably it's difficult to read with a book draped over your face (you try and sleep with such rousing campfire stories).

Maybe they're not actually in a Circle at all — no one's measured the curve. Maybe the leadership preferred not to record and alphabetize abuses of power. Maybe Ostwick was just fucking boring. Regardless:

"These can't come back with us."

At least not like this.

"Do you suppose they're code? Punishments made to appear smaller in case someone came down on the Templars here?"

That mages would be punished for little things wasn't up for doubt. He's quite glad no one caught him when he'd decorated the books in Kinloch - tigers eating Templars would certainly go over more poorly than genitalia.

"This isn't the true picture. Maybe separate books that they took with them."

He drops the stack of records he's been perusing with an annoyed grunt.

Leander's over here leafing through something he brought up from the floor below: an illustrated collection of Chant stories, simplified for children. For many Circle mages, the sight of the binding alone—the green cover embossed with a distinctive design of the sun, twining vines, and birds—is powerfully nostalgic.

"Not likely," he says, without looking up. "We all know perfectly well the worst of it was never written down. They wouldn't dare. Unless some templar happened to be diligent about updating his diary every time he got behind an apprentice, we won't find anything we can use."

Edited 2019-04-23 02:53 (UTC)

open: we built this circle on rock and roll

SCAVENGERS

after our team breaks through;

hello i gave this appropriate time but then jumped on it like i originally wanted to

my son...

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SEARCH & SLEEPOVER

Iorveth | OTA

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i had a tag written and then had to restart my pc and typio didn't save it AND I WAS PISSED

I completely understand.

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Inessa | OTA

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Matthias | OTA

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COUNCIL OF LIARS (SEMI-CLOSED)

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