[closed] don't go prison (breakin') my heart

[katabasis]

WHO: Benedict, Kitty, Kostos, Derrica, Lazar, Caspar, Poesia, Yseult, Flint
WHAT: The Gang Breaks a Guy Out of Prison
WHEN: Early Cloudreach
WHERE: Tevninter; a small island not far from Neromenian
NOTES: OOC Post; if you're in a group, I highly encourage flexible turn order. Feel free to self-assign where your character ends up once Things Get Real, but please don't have your lad or lady be two places at once. Prompts below are the main action of the plot, but feel free to do whatever you like before/after/adjacent to them.

Eione Island was once a staging ground for Tevinter forces eventually bound for the jungles of Seheron. Today, with the Imperium's attention and the bulk of its military might directed toward the South, the island fortress is an outpost in reserve - maintained by only a few dozen members of a private guard and overseen by Idothea Petrus, the third daughter of a Laetan family which has spent generations carefully navigating their way up Tevinter's social ladder. Much of the island is characterized by its challenging cliff faces with water too deep to cast anchor in. The only sure anchorage to be found is in Eione Bay itself, over which the fortress itself resides. Catapults at either end of the bay provide strong discouragement to anyone who might attempt a surprise landing to take the island by force. SO THEY'RE NOT ATTEMPTING TO SURPRISE ANYONE. Instead, Riftwatch is sailing straight into the bay in their own Tevinter ship, repainted in the reds, gold and blacks of the Artemaeus family and flying a flag of distress. The story? Benedict Artemaeus, son of a magister and heir to a textile trading empire, was returning from having overseen the sale of a large shipment when their ship was attacked by Nocen Sea pirates. Having barely escaped, the ship has put in here at Eione until the likelihood of further danger passes. Besides, wouldn't you know it? - Benedict's picked up some dreadful cough while doing business abroad and now requires the Petrus family's hospitality now more than ever as he recovers. The mages of the group in addition to Benedict are all to pose as semi-important mages in Benedict's company. The rest of Riftwatch's force will pose as servants and advisers and so on, including Yseult as Benedict's most devoted maid who is simply worried sick about her illness-stricken master and must keep close at hand at all times should he seem likely to tax himself overmuch by, say, spilling the beans, and so require the healing touch of a tender knife between the ribs. IF ALL GOES TO PLAN, Riftwatch will take advantage of Petrus' hospitality for the few days it takes to locate where their target, a once-prominent contact with the burgeoning enslaved rebellion in Tevinter who has been missing for two years, is being held. From there, Riftwatch's forces are to divide themselves into three groups: two groups will disable the catapults at each end of the bay in as flashy and dramatic a way as possible so as to draw attention; the third team will descend into the prison, locate Valeriantus, and then make their escape overland to the other side of the island where groups one and two, having made their own get away, will meet them with the ship for extraction. Simple, right?

Comments

A WARM WELCOME;

[katabasis]

[Idothea Petrus is an almost unpleasantly thin, large eyed woman. She has the face of a person who rarely finds much to smile about, but in the last few hours she has been putting every effort into it. After all, it isn't every day that a member of the Petrus family finds themselves in company of Artemaeus' caliber. To be sure, the poor lad might have to be propped up through dinner, but perhaps if she is a gracious enough host he will recall her family's kindness and pass a good word to his mother's ear.

The evening's repast goes off without a hitch. Conversation is light, and mostly focused on the war effort in the south (blessedly, Riftwatch is rather more well informed on the details than Idothea seems to be). It's once they've retired for a post-supper smoke and card games on the terrace that things threaten to go radically and abruptly sideways.]

I wonder, master Artemaeus, [Idothea simpers,] If you might indulge one additional small curiosity of mine. I'm sure you and your companions understand by now how slowly news reaches this pleasant little rock, so you will have to forgive me. But I simply must know how you came to be here on a ship of your father's when last I heard you had fled the Empire all together to join the rebellions in the south.

[She nods placidly to his hand with the rift shard in it. Luckily the record player hasn't been invented yet, so there's no needle scratch.]

[hassaran]

[ Yseult is just barely within earshot, as an extremely solicitous maid deeply concerned for her poor weak master's health but of course also respectful of his privacy should be. Which means she is, for once, well out of immediate stabbing range, and with a row of decorative miniature blood orange trees blocking a clear knife-throwing angle. She could close the distance quickly, even in this outfit, but not before Benedict could speak, and not before Idothea could call for the guards and unleash a barrage of fire or lightning or whatever her specialty might be.

So she does nothing, except shift her weight very subtly in preparation, and otherwise continue staring straight ahead into space like a servant definitely too well-trained to be caught hearing vicious gossip about her employer. ]

THE EASTERN CATAPULT;

[katabasis]

[Of the two, the easternmost catapult tower is the farthest from the fortress and manned by only the bare minimum required to operate the weapon which means Riftwatch's force is more than an even match and can easily capture the tower. The catapult will need to be disabled, but more importantly a distraction will need to be created here to draw away forces from the fortress and the more well-defended western catapult.

The good news? You have the luxury of doing that work without risking being stabbed in the back. The bad news? Once the alarm is raised, the bulk of the island's forces will be headed in this direction.]

[bloodandsand]

[ Poesia is full of graceful exuberance, following her companions with a smile that held an uncomfortable amount of joy for the task ahead of them. ]

What shall we do to draw their attention? Something very loud and showy, I imagine.

THE WESTERN CATAPULT;

[katabasis]

[The western catapult tower is well armed, well manned, well maintained, and well aware of its proximity to the oversight of commanding officers. When the distraction starts up on the far side of the bay, only half the tower's force goes rushing down the path to answer the alarm.

Securing and sabotaging this point is evidently going to take some actual effort.]

[tender]

I wish we knew exactly how many were left in there.

[ Her grip is shifting on her staff as she speaks, the way another type of fighter would test the heft of their club or reassure themselves of the balance of their sword. ]

I can bring down a storm, but I can't promise I'd be able to hit all of them.

THE DARK DESCENT;

[katabasis]

[In the great central courtyard of Eione Island's fortress is what appears to be a well. Upon closer inspection however, the dark opening has been barred by a heavy iron grate. There is no lock. There's no need for one, because there is no way to escape from the place which extends below save for by the rope-winch mechanism housed here on the surface.

Eione Island's oubliette is deep and dark. It's a place where people are put to be forgotten.

Lowering into that terrible place is rewarded with the crunch and squish of indeterminate detritus - black things which only grow in the dark, bone shards, and the oppressive damp inherent in the underground. The air is cold and eerily still, tinged with the smell of rot and waste, and the only light is the circle of moonlight overhead and what Riftwatch has brought with them. A branching passage leads away from this central silo, and while the oubliette isn't actually large it's rough-hewn furrows are disorienting.

It also isn't empty. Once or twice, humanoid shapes scatter away before the pool of light can reach them - evidently too terrified to entertain guests or inquiries. Eventually, Riftwatch will find their way to the dead end of one of the passages and there discover the ragged, bone thin young man called Ambrose Valeriantus. He is wearing a pair of magic dampening manacles, and his dark eyes are bright in his painfully drawn face. Two years ago, he might have been handsome.]

Oh good. [He laughs, and then stops abruptly as if aware of how deranged he sounds.] I'd hoped Calpernia might send someone.

[altusimperius]

[They must come down, they must, it's part of the plan: but Benedict feels moments from losing his mind entirely, bubbling under the surface with his absolute, perhaps irrational certainty that he will be left here when all is said and done. There doesn't need to be a reason: it seems like the sensible next step after everything else that has happened, and his conviction is total that he will not be getting back on that boat, because his purpose will have been fulfilled.

He's toward the back of the group, his panic invisible beyond the obvious fear of this nightmarish place, but he's abruptly rattled out of it by the sound of that voice.]

Ambrose?

[He ventures nearer. It is the voice he knows, even if the face is near unrecognizable. Then,]

...Calpurnia?

[It takes him several long moments to sort out what he first interprets as the prisoner being in league with his mother, but it occurs to him that he's heard the name outside that context as well. He shakes his head.]

This isn't... we're not Venatori. [What??]

ESCAPE FROM EIONE ISLAND;

[katabasis]

[The plan was always to make a cunning escape overland across the width of the island to where the getaway ship would be lying in wait. Someone has even packed a set of line, blocks and tackles, to make the descent down the cliff faces manageable.

And while the ship is right there waiting when the group arrives at the clifftops, unfortunately a contingent of the island's guards aren't far behind. Ambrose, despite being in questionable condition from his time in confinement and exhausted from the demands of the unexpected exercise, manages to sound almost cheerful when he says:]

You know, I've always wondered how this whole jumping into water from a great height thing works out for people in real life. It seems so daring in books.

[extortionate]

[ Lazar makes a noise that might be estimation: Time, distance, the likelihood of being stabbed to death. The rigging had been a good thought. Just happens that good isn't useful.

They land in books? Would be daring in a book — doesn't come quick enough to mean anything. One hand shifts to his coat, grips the little knife tucked there. Can't say whether a hostage'd be any use now (can't make out the politics) but a man wants to be ready. ]

I'm gonna grab you. Don't spook. [ His free palm fists into Ambrose's ragged clothing, grips tight. The guy's wasted half to shit; no muscle on him, and nothing to float by. ] Can toss you clear of the rocks.

the voyage there

[altusimperius]

i. [Another day, another dark container. It doesn't take long after they set sail for the resident of the sleeping quarters to become seasick, and he spends about two solid days huddled around a bucket in the corner. He's easily enough maneuvered to a hammock to be restrained there, if that's what they want, but one hopes they're prepared with a mop and possibly a bath for what inevitably results.]

ii. [The seasickness eventually passes, but the malaise doesn't. After all this time, still resigned to asking nothing and complaining never, Benedict rotates between pacing the room like an anxious cat and sitting with his back to the wall, staring at nothing. He's lost significant weight from his skinny frame since he was first confined back in the summer, and that in addition to months of no sunlight and arguably Interesting Circumstances have transformed the proud aristocrat into a gaunt wretch with the gaze of a madman.
He still talks when addressed, but only then.]

iii. [An exception is made on the morning that they first sight the island: the time is soon for the act to begin, and with some difficulty, Benedict has changed into one of his old outfits, which hangs off him ghoulishly but is nonetheless easily identifiable as his own.
He turns to the nearest person and says, in a timid, scratchy voice:]

...my hair's too long.

iii

[rathercommon]

[ The closest person is Kitty. It's not a bad choice: while Kitty's definitely not the kindest to him on the ship, nor is she the harshest. And as it happens, part of her education involved learning how to cut the fancy hair of fine lords and ladies, so. ]

What's it supposed to look like?

i

[extortionate]

You'd do better outside.

[ Lazar isn't sure he's allowed. It's not like there's anywhere to run — but it's not like that'd matter to everyone. Seems like the kind of thing to know. ]

kitty, assorted prompts

[rathercommon]

also on the voyage there

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty doesn't like sitting idle. She'd learned with Vane's pirate crew, once, back when Vane was still around and before Flint had turned on her (and that's definitely how it went, she thinks, and even in her head it sounds weak). So on the voyage to Eione, she helps work the ship wherever she can, just to take her mind off everything else. So whenever she can be - whenever she's not getting in the way of actual crucial work - she's barefoot in the rigging, helping haul rope, relieving one of the regular sailors so he can get a bit more rest. Or she's doing less glamorous work still - swabbing the deck, chopping potatoes for the stew, anything that can relieve her boredom. ]

Hey - give me a hand with this, will you?

A Grand Day Out

[bloodandsand]

i. On the Way There

[ Poesia is not terribly useful as far as sailing goes. But she's also enthusiastic and convivial, surrounded by a fascinating amount of things and given to striking up conversation with whoever happens to be nearby. ]

The masts really are incredibly tall, aren't they? I should like to climb them before all of this is over. It must be terribly thrilling to be up so high, don't you think?

ii. Discussions of Jewelry as an Alternative to Mass Murder

[ The world is, of course, full of heretics. It's not surprising, given the iron grip of the Chantry and given her own experience with devotion, she could hardly blame so many for being so devoted to their beloved Divine. But what is troubling, what is horrifically provoking is to be so surrounded by the soft cattle that worship this Corypheus. The diseased stain with his ruined dragon. And since she is posing as a servant, she does have ever so much access to their hostess' truly gorgeous set of kitchen knives.

But she is also not allowed to kill these Tevinters. She finds herself very entranced with them, fat and thin and elegantly dressed and soft skinned. At the moment she is particularly enraptured by their hostess' elegantly long neck. Poesia leans close to one of her comrades, murmuring softly. ]

She would look charming in rubies, don't you think?

i

[altusimperius]

[She's met with the prisoner's vacant stare from where he sits curled around a bucket. It is unlikely he has thought at all about being high up, or about much of anything other than vomiting and suffering.]

ii

[extortionate]

[ A grunt of acknowledgment, automatic. Lazar's not much of an actor. Lucky he's not acting: The heir to a textile empire comes with a guard or two. For the pirates.

So he's stood in a corner like the rest of them, and he's unarmed, because somewhere a manners book says don't wave your cock around someone else's house. And there's a little knife in his coat — the second one, the one they didn't find —because you don't need a book to tell you some things.

Poesia's talking. She's staring, too, and fuck if he knows why. Rich folks all eat pretty much the same. In Orlais, they just make you try it first.

Yseult and the others are closer to the table, to soft leaves and words he can't quite make out. Probably that's good. Means the two of them got a little room to talk; means any eavesdropper will have to tell their master on delay. ]

Suppose so. [ At last, when his mouth's caught up. ] But suppose I'd say elegant.

flint, misc.

[katabasis]

i. snooping around

[The fortress itself is by no means a labyrinth. It's solid stone and slate and plaster, utilitarian in the way that so few things in Tevinter are - the sort of structure built by slaves and soldiers, not carved up out of the island by magic ans master stone masons. It is reasonable to think that there are only so many places a person might be held in captivity here. After all, what possible purpose could there be in make a cell secret in a place like this, so far removed from anyone who might care? It is reasonable to think that, given half the pretense to move around the compound, it should be easy to discover that place.

So:]

If anyone asks, we've been directed to resupply the ship from the stores here and are turned around.

[This, as they make their way systematically through the fortress, ferreting with no great rush down back corridors and around miscellaneous out-buildings.]

ii. aftermath
[In a day's time, they'll round the Eyes of Nocen. There, on the eastern side of the eyes, lies an inlet they'd made careful note of while en route to Eione, and it's there where they're to deliver Ambrose Valeriantus into the eager hands of the what surely can only be described as a fledgling rebellion effort. How organized can the reception possibly be? Not even Valeriantus can guess, given how long he's been living in a hole in the ground.

A half dozen able hands, is what Flint imagines will meet them there past the Eyes - ex-slaves who earned or escaped to their freedom but maintained connections to the place they'd come from. Maybe men and women like Valeriantus with sympathies. Maybe half baked Venatori. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

It's a cool night with the sea breeze behind them and the ship runs quietly before it like a toy boat over a mirror-still lake. Flint is standing after near the stern light, a dark figure against the gold lantern glow, with every appearance of considering the soft hum of the wind in the rigging. The air is fresher above decks than below and in the dark this is as good a place as any to give a problem some thought.]

ii

[extortionate]

[ None of this sits well. Maybe it's bug-eyed Ambrose Valeriantus, and maybe it's the way he talked on those cliffs (he's had better folks to talk to since); maybe it's just the premise of the thing. Why shovel a man into the ground that long? Why keep him there?

He's made up his mind not to ask. Nothing good comes of asking, and no good answer to it, anyway. ]

Can I ask you something?

[ Lazar scratches the side of his beard, idle, and waits to be told to fuck off. ]

ii

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty doesn't know what she's going to say when she approaches him. She assumes that it'll come to her - Because they need to talk about it. She's sure that by now, Flint will have heard about Ambrose's allegiance, his ties to one of their most dreaded enemies. And she needs to know where he stands. Whether they'll follow through on this rescue, or whether they'll...

Well.

She stands behind Flint. Clears her throat. Waits for the thing she needs to say to come to her.

It doesn't. ]

i

[bloodandsand]

[ Poesia has all the subtlety of an Orlesian cake, but if there is one thing she was trained to be from a young age, it was pretty and pleasing. Even if she had never managed to retain all the lessons in the art of speaking in vague prettiness, she herself is both vague and pretty. It always helped enormously to convince people one was a harmless simpleton if one was, in truth, a little bit of a simpleton naturally.

So the tone she uses is light and airy when she says:]

Wouldn't it be faster to kill them?

[ But there's a feral canniness to the way she tips her head to look at Flint, not unlike a large dog testing the grip on their lead. ]

ii

[tender]

There's the sound of soft footsteps, and then a quiet—

"Commander Flint?"

Even without any paperwork, without any clear task holding his attention, Derrica still has the sense that she's interrupting.

derrica.

[tender]

( the voyage )

While the mission itself is not simple, being on the deck of a ship absolutely is. Sailing comes easily. Even sailing under Flint's command is less daunting than it had been. They had managed it once before without incident, and Derrica likes to think she's a little better at anticipating his orders.

All her time is spent on deck. Presently, she's sat atop a barrel against the mast, balancing a knife on the tip of her finger as the ship crests wave after wave. When the knife finally clatters to the deck and spins to a halt, she scrambles after it, coming up short with a sheepish smile.

"It's harder than I remember," is her explanation, before she stoops to reclaim the weapon. "I'm out of practice."

( the aftermath )

Was this mission a success?

Derrica can't quite glean the answer to that from Flint and Yseult, both of whom are unreadable under the best of circumstances. She decides to be content with the bare bones of the situation: they have their prisoner, no one died, and they escaped relatively unscathed.

(And then there's the small, quiet disappointment at venturing inevitably south again, but Derrica's ignoring that.)

She's declined to go down to to climb into her hammock. Instead, she's sitting on the bow of the ship, knees pulled up to her chest. It feels like someone should be giving chase, or that some further misfortune should be making itself known.

"There's room here," she offers, at the sound of footsteps. "If you want to sit."

The Aftermath

[bloodandsand]

"Thank you, sweet," Poesia says, sprawling out gracefully next to her in a lean golden streak. She rolls onto her side to peer up at Derrica, smiling up at her, "Whatever are you staring at so seriously, lovely girl?"

Poesia is a stark contrast to how she'd been on the trip over and the days leading up to their adventure. The excited energy and thrumming intensity has mellowed to cheerful playfulness. Whatever pensive air lingers over the ship hasn't touched Poesia. If anything, she's bemused by it. All that lovely exercise and everyone is so terribly dour.