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

[elegiaque]

( the familiarity is a comfort in far from familiar circumstances, though the thought occurs: unfamiliar to her. iorveth's ability to sleep anywhere and on anything didn't just happen out of no where, and nor did his reluctance to embrace anything soft, and softening. for all her sharp edges, all of thranduil's—

this is maybe not the moment to turn over and over what different things drive them. she lets herself be drawn up onto iorveth's chest, his lap; shifts with him when he moves her to make it easier, for all she's hardly an inconvenient weight. there's no tent, no bedroll, no bed, but it's not entirely unlike other times she's slept beside or on top of him, a clinging little heat-leech, resting her chin near the crook of his neck and hoping to sleep at least a little before his or her turn at watch.

it doesn't escape her that this sort of thing is precisely why it took her so long to join the inquisition at all. join the inquisition, they said. make yourself useful, they said.

make yourself a sad story among so many there's no guarantee you'll even be remembered, they emphatically did not. no one leads with that sort of thing except maybe gwenaëlle. )

When we get back,

( they're going to, what's the fucking point of trying if she doesn't believe they'll make it, )

will you teach me again? With the bow.

( this is a peculiar choice of moment to offer that olive branch, better suited to that brisk handshake, but it's also somehow the most comfortable. probably they will live. definitely she doesn't have to make eye contact right now. )

[aenseidhe]

[ for all their differences, iorveth's ever been overcome by the refuge he finds with gwenaelle and thranduil. dangerously so, perhaps, but it's still an incredible thing to have experienced, to know still exists, in some form or another.

damn whatever ill and emotional complication might come from sinking into that feeling again now, but the two of them need each other. iorveth's never been stuck in a dire survival situation with anyone he cared so deeply and intimately for as he does gwen, but when it comes to crawling your way through an impossible task, you need everything you can get. it's rare he'd felt so fired up and alive as he does with this woman, so they'll use it. ]

Of course.

[ he murmurs softly, against her hair, rough hands carding stray strands back and away from her face. ] I shudder to imagine what bad practices you've picked up in the interim.

[ and what other idiots in the inquisition that might consider themselves proper archers took to training her. ]

And we will make it back. [ he adds, determination in his voice, despite how soft it is speaking quietly between them. ] I make a habit never to die when I'm expect to, one I think suits you just as well.

[ literally, there are so many times people have called him definitely probably dead, only to see him cresting a hill on the next battlefield, smirking like the fucking devil. gwen could wear the same look just as well, if not better. ]