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[closed] don't go prison (breakin') my heart
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.
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? |
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(There is some latitude here in which he can work.)
He waits for her to say something more. When she doesn't, what Flint eventually does is tip his head in silent invitation and lets his attention slide back to the black sea in their wake. Well?, says that turn of the head. She may as well join him here at the rail if she's so set on lingering.]
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But - Whatever. This is just a chat by the railing. They've chatted before. Who cares.
She steps forward, then. Doesn't look at him. Finally finds one of her many, many questions. ]
What're you going to do with him, then?
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[he says without looking at her. It sounds like the truth, a kind of bald honesty that lives only in night dark places like this one. He's been considering it - at length, becoming more fixed on the question with every nautical mile they log behind them.
It isn't just his decision to make. Obviously. But also: it is. Given his place on this ship and his familiarity with the men working it, his small but absolute form of power in this place, he could make it his decision if he cared to. Surely that much is obvious.]
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So: Start with the most rational arguments. ]
Having an alliance with Calpurnia when he went into that place - It's not the same thing as having an alliance with her now. She's clearly changed.
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[Anything is possible. It's possible that when Valeriantus is reintroduced to the world, he will be in a unique position to see what it is. To recognize it.]
Morever, it's possible that our part in this today outweighs whatever sympathy he had for her yesterday. But it doesn't escape me that if we're wrong ['we'; what a word that is, regardless of where his gaze is fixed], then we're delivering a sure weapon directly into Corypheus' hands.
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[ She's emboldened by that we. There's implication there - that his thinking lies along the same path. It's enough to draw out a bit of her usual ferocity, dampened and suppressed due to standing so close to Flint. ]
The resistance and Corypheus aren't one and the same. Not by a long shot.
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[He looks at her then. It's a sideways kind of glance, guarded and thin. But it is a look. Some acknowledgement that she exists there at the rail beside him. And he isn't sharp or heated when he says:]
If we put Valeriantus on land, it's likely we won't be able to fully shape what they decide. Right now, we might be their surest path forward. Tomorrow, we'll be little more than a distant opinion.
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Maybe.
[ She's quiet a moment. ]
Their fight for freedom began long before Corypheus started his war. It'll likely continue after he's dead. And I think - in many ways - it's far more important than the war against Corypheus. [ She bites her lip, uncertain of how to articulate this. ] It's an easy thing, to kill a tyrant. Even an evil creepy monster like him. But to eradicate injustice - to free the enslaved - is a harder and longer fight.
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[They might - be done with service. But maybe it will be as one last obligation in a long line of being forced to do work on someone else's behalf, and at least this one - pushing against the Divine March or whatever else - might come with some reward on the other side of it. And what difference does it make? Someone will be asking them to fight regardless, won't they? From inside Tevinter, who looks the most likely to win this fight?
It seems unlikely that anyone would say it was the South.]
If we lose them, [tap, tap - the absent drumming of his thumb at the rail. This is the closest he's been to Nascere since leaving it.] there's a real possibility we all lose.
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[ Her voice is quiet. ]
And that would be dreadful. For all the people of this world. For the people of Tevinter, and everything south of it.
[ The but is clear in her voice. ]
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[ It doesn't take too long for her to start up again, even without overt encouragement. It takes a lot for Kitty to keep her trap shut for too long, after all. ]
With events like this, like Corypheus, the chaos is terrible and painful, and the suffering is intense. But it's also short-lived. Extreme things like his regime, they only last for so long before people reach their breaking point and put an end to it.
But slavery - That's an evil that's persisted for a thousand years. This, right here, is the first major, real, credible threat to the system since Andraste. If they allied with Corypheus, and he won, it would mean real suffering for us, obviously. For all the countries of the South, for thousands and thousands of people. But if it also meant the destruction of the old, evil systems...
[ She trails off uncertainly. This isn't advocacy for it, to be sure; she's conflicted. ]
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It's possible some of the Venatori think so. It's possible that's even what Calpernia wants. But I have trouble, [he says, tipping his attention absently toward some minor shift in the wind; maybe the pitch of the rigging's hum changes by some imperceptible quarter step.] —rationalizing that any new thing comes from using an old tool in exactly the same way it's always been plied.
Old, evil systems - the Venatori are empowering something older than all of us, something that isn't just a product of this, but somehow involved in its very design. If the course of history shows anything, it's that old powers - whether it's here in the North or elsewhere - don't care for what you think you might make if you partner with them, only that wanting something might convince you to surrender to them.
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Maybe.
[ She lets out a breath, scratches more at the rail, absently digging up more splinters. ]
But that's just a reason to give them clever people, isn't it. Who might see that and understand it.
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You think Valeriantus is clever.
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I think there was a time when he was. They wouldn't value him if he weren't.
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Should we put Valeriantus on land, [and that sounds like it's still a matter he's debating] it would be in everyone's best interests that he believe we're valuable to keep in close contact. We might be in everyone's good graces today, but if we aren't quick to follow with further aid then they will forget us tomorrow.
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(Maybe this is part of what makes that anger he'd brandished at her so real).]
It's a question of timing. Our window of opportunity - to organize, to act, to do something which will sway any rebellion effort inside Tevinter to side with our efforts instead of against them - is already shrinking. If Valeriantus is clever, if his word carries any weight with them, putting him ashore will close that window faster.
Which, [before she says it] isn't a bad thing. But it must be considered.
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[ She nibbles on the inside of her cheek. ]
So we use the rest of the voyage to sway him. To convince him that we're the ones who'll win, to be believed in and trusted.