But despite what you've been told

[mostlyvoid]

WHO: Cecil, Kevin, Sherlock, Maxwell, Korrin, Lenneth
WHAT: Four brave Inquisition members go to rescue a group of very odd people
WHEN: the next few days
WHERE: on the edge of Emprise
NOTES: Rescuers feel free to use the ooc post here to plot out how you want the rescue to go down. Feel free to make up camp details/NPC actions. Action will be split into three main threads: Captive chatter, rescue, and travelling (both coming and going). Rescue will be a group log, but for the others feel free to do one-on-one threads.

The report’s directions are clear, at least, which is good - how else would the scouts be able to find the camp in this cold, desolate landscape. Snow as far as the eye can see, but there are great red shards of lyrium breaking through the ground. The only sounds are the grunting noise of red Templars stalking their way through the construction site echos along the frozen grounds, and the freezing wind that bites through skin and fur alike.

Scattered among these fearsome foes are cages. They look almost like caravans - giant cages on wheels, with cowering, shivering figures within. A few elves, primarily humans, all cold and hungry and uncertain about their fate.

Within one of these cages, a tattoo-covered human is conducting interviews.

Comments

[gatheringstorm]

Lenneth's magic catches Korrin by surprise, and while she does her best not to let that hinder her, that moment of pause could have been disastrous. Silently reprimanding herself, the Vashoth mage backs away and renews her focus. She won't be any good to anyone if she's felled due to distraction. This is one more reason to get to know her allies -and their powers- better, especially the rifters.

Just because she put some distance between them doesn't mean Korrin is done helping Lenneth, though. Fine with being a ranged distraction while Maxwell focuses his aid elsewhere, she keeps firing with her staff, waiting for the chance to renew her lightning assaults as soon as she can.

[lennethvalkyrie]

Even armless, the greatsword wielder continued his assault--albeit with a wicked-looking shortsword from his belt. Lenneth grimaced, the brief elation from finally touching her magic falling to the wayside as the Red Templar advanced. Truly these creatures were tainted beyond repair. She reached again, felt her fingers tingle, but no power built. Perhaps she now used the energies of--what had they called it?--the Fade, rather than her own Divine energy. It made a certain kind of sense.

The shortsword whipped out at her and she blocked it just in time, wincing slightly at the impact. The battlefield was no place for theory. The power came or it didn't--it was not to be counted on.

Not wishing to look away from her opponent, she called to Korrin over her shoulder. "Is this the last?"

[seesobserves]

Where the previous prattle of questions had earned a confused glance, this time the man gets a glare. He couldn't have ruined Sherlock's cover any more if he'd been jumping up and down waving his arms.

At least someone was being useful: he heard Maxwell's shout and the zip of an arrow through the air shortly afterward. Beyond that, the cage itself gave him a non-negligible amount of protection, and he soon had the lock to this one open as well.

"Come on; same as the last," he encouraged the prisoners as he pulled off the lock — but just before another arrow whizzed down from the ledge above. It might have hit Sherlock dead on, if the very edge of the cage's roof hadn't gotten in the way. The prisoners quailed, and Sherlock backed off, looking upwards while he reached for his belt of grenades. He wasn't going to stop being a target so long as he was the one releasing the miners. Time to be proactive.

The jar of bees was a heavy bit of business compared to other projectiles. It required planting one foot behind himself, a solid pivot point from which to wind up and hurl it over the cage to the cliff wall. But it struck, the glass shattered, and the majority of the bees swarmed upward toward the archer as their buzzing added to the cacophony in the air.

The majority of them. A few decided to drift downward instead. The prisoners at the very back of the cage shouted for the others to start fleeing. Sherlock, who'd allowed himself to get mildly distracted by the jar's effectiveness — his mouth ticked off a smirk as he looked up toward the panicking archer — then swung open the door and left them to sort out the rest of the escape. Two birds with one grenade, as it were.

[mostlyvoid]

Sherlock wasn't the only one who got distracted by just how effective that attack was.

"Beeeeeees," Cecil said quietly to himself, in an amazed sort of awe, but once Sherlock had snapped out of it, Cecil quickly did too - and finally decided that maybe he could actually make himself useful, rather than run around after a man who was very obviously not interested in making a comment. He'd seen where the others had gone, however, and with a wave of his arm to the new batch of prisoners, said: "This way!" And led them off himself.

[dreadinquisitor]

Bees.

A quiet voice in the back of Maxwell's noted the dark, swirling, angry cloud as well - simultaneously amused and fascinated. How did one even manage such a thing? He would have to ask, if they all got out in one piece.

(He also made a note to never upset Sherlock, lest he find himself in the midst of such a swarm.)

All the while, he continued to draw and shoot, and finally, as Sherlock as making his move toward the last cage and the Templar grew desperate to stop him, Maxwell got the opening he'd been looking for. Quickly, he took advantage, striking the arching in the shoulder to disarm and disable him; then a second arrow put him down as he floundered.

Immediate danger neutralized, his bow lowered and he waved the new group toward him.

"Quickly! Stay low!"

[gatheringstorm]

"It looks that way! I don't see any others coming, but we'd better get moving after this." Talking and fighting can happen at the same time, and Korrin proves it with summoning a lightning bolt to strike the opponent in front of Lenneth. Paralyzed for the time being, the Red Templar now awaits its demise at Lenneth's hands.

Korrin glances around again afterward, just to be sure, and that's when she spots the swarm of bees. Of course she knows what that's about, having heard of the grenade recipe before, but it wasn't something she'd attempted to make for herself. Now, seeing it in action, she seriously reconsiders. "...nice."

Right. Back to work. As soon as that last Red Templar in their vicinity is dispatched, the Vashoth mage heads toward the rest of the group. It's time to get out of here, before reinforcements overwhelm them.

[lennethvalkyrie]

As the anguished yelps of the swarmed Red Templar were cut off by Maxwell's arrows, Lenneth quirked her brow and shook her head. Apparently there were also bees in Thedas. And no matter the world, angry bees were nothing to be trifled with.

The stormshocked foe in front of her offered little challenge, although the red lyrium cluster jutting from his neck made his decapitation slightly messier than she'd aimed for. The Valkyrie wrinkled her nose in disgust as the corpse thudded to the ground. She raised her sword to the sun, watched the cluster it had stuck in and yanked out sparkle a malevolent ruby on the blade.

"...Would a sample help anyone back at Skyhold?" she asked, lifting a boot to shove the cluster off her blade and into the snow.

[seesobserves]

Sherlock didn't dawdle in opening up the third and final cage, but there was a decidedly more relaxed air to the way he popped open and removed the lock, then swung open the door.

The others could debate the merits of carrying red lyrium back to Skyhold itself. Sherlock wouldn't be getting any closer to the stuff than he had to. While they spoke, he went for the nearest stack of trunks and supplies, on the hunt for anything useful he could grab before they made their exit.

[dreadinquisitor]

The Templars finished, Maxwell slipped his bow back over his shoulders and, after a glance over the prisoners to make sure they'd all made it out with no extra appendages, he slipped down to the camp proper to rejoin his team. Just in time to see Lenneth kicking at the lyrium.

"Be careful around that, I've seen what it can do, up close." He still saw the body sometimes in his sleep. "But if we can transport it safely, I think they're looking for some to study."