CLOSED | it's a mixed bag for the living,

[faithlikeaseed]

WHO: Myr, Adasse, Six, Inessa, Finel
WHAT: A daring rescue from a dastardly(?) cult
WHEN: Backdated to mid-month
WHERE: West Hills, Ferelden
NOTES: CW: mention of intended self-harm/suicide.

So it's come down to this--

Izot, inconsolable, convinced her death may be the one to draw Andraste's attention and bring the Maker's return, has not been dissuaded from her date with the pyre. The sacrifice will go forward as planned.

To their credit, the Inquisition team has made a good enough impression to be invited to the ceremony by Mother Aridatha herself. Really, half the town of Elmridge received such an invitation, and some of the same sorts who'd watch a public execution have shown up to mingle with the cultists in anticipation of a spectacle. Or perhaps they've some notion of interfering, but Tasgall and his men are keeping a close cordon around the pyre, watching any stranger that gets too close.

A cry goes out among the cultists as Izot appears in her sackcloth and walks among the parted crowd to the pyre. Her head is held high but her hands tremble with some unknowable emotion; her eyes are red from crying but dry now. Behind her stalks an apostate in a Fereldan's idea of an Archon's garb, leering at the cultists with a single bloodshot eye.

Myr, who knows the allure of martyrdom too well, looks away from the spectacle being made of "Hessarian's" arrival to regard the others standing with him, a little ways off from the mage-chary cultists. "We've got to stop this," he says softly.

It isn't a matter any longer of winning the arl's support but one of doing the right thing. There's no standing by to watch Izot die.