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closed: dead end.
WHO: Adasse, Byerly, Inessa, Isaac, Kostos, Matthias, Nathaniel, Six
WHAT: A for Effort.
WHEN: Bloomingtide 21-24.
WHERE: Orlais, Tevinter.
NOTES: There's an OOC post with additional info over here!
WHAT: A for Effort.
WHEN: Bloomingtide 21-24.
WHERE: Orlais, Tevinter.
NOTES: There's an OOC post with additional info over here!
I. ORLAIS. The site of the abduction (as it's told to them) is the camp near the ruins, and it certainly looks like something happened there. The ground has been stamped to bits, with horse tracks and footprints both visible; several tents are collapsed or askew; and the supplies and some of the missing party's personal belongings are scattered in the mud. The Baron and his staff saw nothing, heard nothing, from his estate several miles away. They had everyone for dinner and saw them off in the evening, and in the morning, they were gone.
But there is a trail to follow—one that changes, after a few miles, in the number and size of the horses involved, the type of cart wheel, merging with an entirely different trail that came to that point from another direction. Mysterious. But regardless of the cause of that, the trail proceeds northwest around the worst of the front and highest concentration of Orlesian and Inquisition soldiers, then northeast into Tevinter.
II. TEVINTER. Tevinter requires some improvisation, both to cross the border and intermittently along the road that winds through the Silent Plains, when traveling traders bringing supplies to and from the front join them for stretches of the road or to set up camp at night. Neutral Antivan merchants, Free Marcher mercenaries, slaves and the assholes looking to sell them—the story can change, between encounters, but those with anchors need to keep their hands hidden, and the elves probably shouldn't give anyone too much lip.
The good news is that everything requires less in the way of tracking skills. The specific signs of the group they're following disappear under the plains' shifting sands and the heavy traffic along the road, but it isn't a place anyone voluntarily takes the long way through, and along the shortest path to civilization, they'll receive information from the Inquisition instructing them to meet one of its contacts in a trading village just north of the desert.
III. DESPAIR. The contact, Livia, is a slave from Minrathous, trusted both by her Venatori master and by the Nightingale, who she's been feeding information to for years. She meets them in an abandoned farmhouse with a bag of ashes, bones, and belongings, some terrible news, and her genuine regrets—and then she's gone, quickly, before her absence from Minrathous becomes so prolonged she can't explain it away.
It is not what anyone was hoping to bring back, but it's all they have.
But there is a trail to follow—one that changes, after a few miles, in the number and size of the horses involved, the type of cart wheel, merging with an entirely different trail that came to that point from another direction. Mysterious. But regardless of the cause of that, the trail proceeds northwest around the worst of the front and highest concentration of Orlesian and Inquisition soldiers, then northeast into Tevinter.
II. TEVINTER. Tevinter requires some improvisation, both to cross the border and intermittently along the road that winds through the Silent Plains, when traveling traders bringing supplies to and from the front join them for stretches of the road or to set up camp at night. Neutral Antivan merchants, Free Marcher mercenaries, slaves and the assholes looking to sell them—the story can change, between encounters, but those with anchors need to keep their hands hidden, and the elves probably shouldn't give anyone too much lip.
The good news is that everything requires less in the way of tracking skills. The specific signs of the group they're following disappear under the plains' shifting sands and the heavy traffic along the road, but it isn't a place anyone voluntarily takes the long way through, and along the shortest path to civilization, they'll receive information from the Inquisition instructing them to meet one of its contacts in a trading village just north of the desert.
III. DESPAIR. The contact, Livia, is a slave from Minrathous, trusted both by her Venatori master and by the Nightingale, who she's been feeding information to for years. She meets them in an abandoned farmhouse with a bag of ashes, bones, and belongings, some terrible news, and her genuine regrets—and then she's gone, quickly, before her absence from Minrathous becomes so prolonged she can't explain it away.
It is not what anyone was hoping to bring back, but it's all they have.
no subject
Save those for the report that a lot of them won't read. Maybe it's in poor taste, to be tailoring this now, but they won't get another chance to. Bone and metal click. Wood creaks.
The story can't be given back that way, either.
"Mercenaries. A Venatori mage. Not," A breath in. "An abomination."
However unwise that seems to sweep away.
"That's a reason they don't need."
no subject
Well now, wait. Matthias feels the flush of color in his face and tries, gamely, to fight it down. No one asked him to say anything about anything, did they. So why's he acting as if they had, halfway to volunteering himself to bear this message back to people who've had a loss, though they don't know it yet. Just as quickly as those first words had tumbled out of him, he's quick to add, "Not that it'll be me, that'll be saying it, I just think-- anyone who says it ought to keep that bit behind. For now. 'Cause he was a Venatori bastard but that doesn't mean--"
Well, now, what doesn't it mean. That Venatori bastard turned abomination, he might have been what killed Merrill, he might have been what killed the others--so by all means, he ought to be shat on. But it sticks in Matthias, somewhere. A desperate last moment, all burning hot and mad and nothing left of who you used to be. Like a line of black powder, eaten up and then gone.
He's pinker still as he stares with furious concentration at all the remnants of the people who died. Barely more than the contents of a dustpan after you'd swept clean the cookstove.
"If they're not all used to this sort of loss, all at once. Then we keep it short. Right? No more than what's needed to be known for now. 'Cause they'll be reeling from even the shortest bit of news, they'll not be used to it, and giving them more's going to-- They won't even be hearing it. Not really."
no subject
"You should do it," is all he says, without any of the reasons: that Matthias comes across as artless but kind, that he's young and probably endearing to people who are into being endeared, that it's obvious how much of a damn he gives.
The tiny piece of wood he pulls loose from the table has a frayed end that resembles a broom, and that's how he uses it.