closed: untimely demise.

[exequy]

WHO: Anders, Bastien, Darras, Gwenaëlle, Ilias, Iorveth, John Silver, Kain, Kitty, Loki, Magni, Merrill, Sidony, Sorrell, Teren, and Wysteria.
WHAT: This looks nothing like the Maker's bosom.
WHEN: Bloomingtide 18-27.
WHERE: Orlais, Tevinter, and the Deep Roads.
NOTES: There's an OOC post with a lot of info over here! This log covers everything up to the day before they return. There will be a separate log for actually returning, so don't jump the gun.

Baron Deshaies is a gracious host, who graciously shows everyone the entrance to the elven ruins on his property when they arrive, and graciously enlists his serfs to help them set up camp nearby to beat the sunset, and graciously invites them to dine with him in his gardens—the only part of his fairly humble estate large enough to host so many people—before they retire for the night. It's a nice dinner, albeit one that's apparently stretched the capabilities of his meager household staff to a breaking point, judging by their harried manners and how hard one of them is sweating.

They're midway through the main course (and his detailed retelling of how he found and chased away a few suspicious characters who were snooping around the ruins before, heard them speaking in some funny old language, might have been Vints) when the first head droops. Then another. If anyone realizes they've been drugged, it won't be fast enough; weapons are out of reach, the food has been laced with magebane—among other things—and it's only a matter of seconds before everything goes dark.

And that's how everyone died.

No, okay—everyone does eventually wake up. But it isn't a pleasant experience. There are headaches, first of all, and dehydration, altogether similar to a horrific hangover, and it's hot and humid, and they're in the back of one of several possible carts, hidden from view by heavy canvas and packed in close to their fellow captives, being jostled unrelentingly by the stones the carts are driving over. They're also bound—everyone in magic-dampening manacles, mage or not, just to be safe—and gagged. They stay that way for a very long time, until the sun has set, and the captors who have been complaining and gossiping and telling one another to shut up for the last few hours shed their fake Orlesian and Fereldan accents. A border has been crossed, and after a few more miles they feel secure enough to take a break.

They aren't being paid to deliver dead people. So they also strip the canvas back and remove the gags, to try to get everyone to drink some water, and then let them stay ungagged. They're in the middle of Nowhere, Tevinter; even if someone heard them scream, it wouldn't be anyone inclined to risk helping them.

I. ESCAPE! The first and only good opportunity comes on the second day, when they pass within sight of a village on the outskirts of the Silent Plains, and all but three of their captors load into one of the carts—the one containing everyone's accumulated belongings—and head off to see if they can make some extra coin on the side. The three left behind are a nervous young mage who seems to think he's in charge, an armored archer who's having none of that, and a sleepy man with an enormous war hammer. The odds aren't great. But they aren't going to get better.

II. NOW WHAT? After daringly and successfully escaping into the blighted desert with only the provisions they could scavenge and from their captors and carry on their backs, everyone finds themselves in the desert with only the provisions they could scavenge from their captors and carry on their backs. So that's cool.

III. THE SILENT PLAINS. The Silent Plains are as much of a wasteland as they sound, but not really completely silent. Some animal and plant life has returned, with stretches of the desert even verging on becoming grasslands, in the ages since the Blight destroyed the ecosystem. It isn't impossible to find water or the occasional speck of civilization. There are decent odds that those civilized specks contain people who would happily report a bunch of wandering foreigners, however, so forays into villages and farms need to be done carefully and rarely—but it isn't impossible to pull off a trade here and there, or to sneak into buildings at night to permanently borrow supplies.

But that's rare. The majority of the journey is just a camping trip from hell, consisting of days of walking without shelter from the sun and nights spent in total darkness to avoid creating beacons for whoever may be trying to pursue them. Sometimes there are darkspawn.

The landscape improves just in time for another problem to arise: the border is much more heavily populated with enemy forces, and reconnaissance efforts might make clear that they're all on alert, going so far as to make neutral merchants at border crossings remove their gloves. Fortunately—as implied by the darkspawn—there's another way South.

IV. THE DEEP ROADS. In hindsight, a terrible idea. But by the time they realize that the intended path out of the Deep Roads—one that would have taken them to the surface outside of Cumberland, where they could yet find allies to help them get back to Kirkwall more quickly and comfortably—has caved in, they're already a day and a half deep into the journey.

In some places Blight crawls up the walls like black mold. Those not lucky enough to be immune to it have to cover their mouths while traveling and be careful not to leave any wounds open and exposed. Here and there the path forward gives way to chasms that have to be circumvented or crossed using improvised rope bridges. And there are more darkspawn, more frequently, but perhaps not so many as there should be.

If the provisions from the surface run out, then dinner will be roast nug.

V. THE MOUNTAINS. The last stretch of tunnel gives way to sky on the northern side of the Vinmarks. Not the southern side. Not even the top. Being able to walk the last stretch of the journey downhill instead of first climbing some mountains would be too easy.

Comments

a.

[staysail]

Oh, aye? And did he happen to mention any helpful tips for us poor wanderers, in any of the tales of those adventures?

[The question is punctuated by the soft hiss of sand being dumped out of a shoe. Darras' boots were lost to their captors, carried away on a cart. He's thought every day of getting revenge for their loss.

Going barefoot is his preference. But the sand gets bloody hot, hot enough to blister, so he's obliged to spend the worst parts of the day in these ill-fitting shoes, which fill with sand anyways, working against his better efforts.

Shirtless as well, and quite comfortable to be (despite the sun), he casts a glance over at the Orlesian lump laying in the sand not too far off from him.]

Something to the tune of, 'There's water under the red rocks', maybe. 'You can eat those strange little red potato looking thingers and they won't turn your guts inside out.' It wasn't this desert, was it? 'Cos then we might get more specific. 'It's me, the Black Fox, and I'm a hero to The People--and consequently, for any of The People what get stuck out in this desert, I've constructed a shelter that they can use and here are the coordinates'--y'know, that sort of thing.

[cozen]

When Satina passes between the two stones crossed like swords, the way is illuminated. [ Nonsense. ] But you must start from the juncture of the Imperial Highway, and face east, you see, to find the stones. So there is little hope for us.

[ He stretches, until he finds that stretching puts his ankles out of his bit of shade. Then he curls. And meanwhile he eyes the pirate, who is handsome, who offered him a knife once, who knows stories, who Yseult cares for—those are the four things he knows. ]

And it is not what saved him. He was saved by a herd of rams. Surely you have heard.

[staysail]

Ah, piss.

[It's more a sigh than an oath. Darras drops the shoe in the sand and picks up its mate, tipping it end-over. That same hissing whisper fills in the space between them.

Conversationally--] I thought it was lizards, somehow. Maybe it's a regional thing. Or a translation. What's the word for "ram" in Orlesian?

[cozen]

Mm.

[ He has to think, because he’s half dead—or at least a sixteenth dead, something around there—and because he doesn’t speak Orlesian the way the nobles and the marsh people do. His parents didn’t speak it at all. He sounded like a backwater Marcher until he was old enough to have friends outside his parents and sister. And other than the common phrases employed even by the monolingual poor, he didn’t learn Orlesian until he was well into his teens, and rarely has used it to speak of rams. ]

Bélier. More likely different stories, I think—as I have heard it, he strapped himself to the herd so they carried him to their water source.