open: we built this circle on rock and roll

[exequy]

WHO: Open (mostly), targeted toward people who care about mage problems but anybody's welcome.
WHAT: Looting a Circle, fighting some scavengers, and arguing about the ethics of falsifying records of abuse.
WHEN: Cloudreach
WHERE: Markham
NOTES: This is a sliver of a couple bigger schemes, including a plan to publicize mage mistreatment (which will double as an anti-Gertruda Divine-influencing plot) and a plan to hide some Circle valuables from the Chantry, but your character doesn't have to be aware of those plans to participate in this! They can just be along to help fight bandits and carry heavy stuff. ETA: In some places this log says Ostwick, rather than Markham, because I'm dumb. Ignore them.

Calling an outbreak of enchantment-related deaths and mysterious incidents in Markham convenient would be horribly insensitive to the various burn victims and vanished druffalo involved, but, you know. It is. All of the arguments about whether or not to make formal request for permission to secure the Circle's contents, when it's already their stuff, and if Ostwick says no it might mean the Inquisition won't give them leave to go—those arguments were all for nothing. Markham's response is, essentially, Please do. Hooray!

Comments

[inkindled]

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."

[sarcophage]

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."

[inkindled]

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.