faderift | MOD PLOT | CHAMPROVENT.

Champrovent was once a very picturesque town, butting up against some of Arlesans' famous orchards—the most northern reaches of which have now been corrupted along with the village, leaving blackened trees with withered black apples filled with something the consistency of pus. The village itself shows signs of attempts to hold back the spread of the taint: some homes have barred doors and windows and are marked with the traditional yellow circles, indicating their inhabitants were infected. Some of those homes now host corpses, but a few might have still-living, staggering ghouls whose minds are long gone. Many of the village's colorful little houses now have tendrils of moldy black taint spidering over their walls, occasionally threaded with veins of what appears to be red lyrium. It's thickest around the Chantry, where careful exploration will reveal that the darkspawn—who have since moved on—tunneled through the Chantry's cellar into the earth below.

There are a few signs of violence, as well, from when the darkspawn who overran the town killed several locals outright and set some homes on fire, but the villagers burned their neighbors bodies before the taint began to overtake them, so no one is dead in the street. It's just corrupted and empty, with the uneasy silence occasionally punctuated by the groan or wail of someone or something locked in one of the homes.

Actually removing the taint is, of course, impossible. The team's job is to burn what they can, paying particular attention to try to prevent any Blight-touched rats from escaping burning buildings to potentially carry the taint elsewhere, and to establish a marked perimeter around the village to ensure travelers don't come close enough to become tainted.

In the process, however, they'll discover the reason that Riftwatch was asked to handle this business in the first place: barricaded in one of the homes is a group of eight people, all of whom are showing small signs of the taint but who haven't yet become ghouls outright. They'll be able to speak through the doors and explain they were herded and left here by the scouts who first visited the village after the invading force was expelled from the region.

A few members of the group will ask to be killed, and one will voice the correct assumption that Riftwatch has been sent here to make sure once and for all that none of them are able to spread the taint, as well as disappointment that the earlier scouts didn't have the balls to set the house on fire. (This individual has also, apparently, killed two people in the house who succumbed to become ghouls in the time since then, and may threaten to hurry it up for the others.) A few others will insist there's not even anything wrong with them—but there is, with black tendrils visible around the thin skin of their eyes and wrists and so on, if anyone takes a look—and demand to be let out. One of these individuals is an adult young woman who (if asked) will say she was a hunter and knows how to fight. The middle-aged man who's been killing those who turn into ghouls is also able-bodied but will have no interest in the Wardens, who he doesn't trust. The remaining are too old, too young, or otherwise very poor candidates for becoming Grey Wardens.

The barricade hadn't raised much suspicion at first. Even the faint carrying sounds that might have been human hadn't seemed so out of the ordinary. Such things happened in Blight-struck places. Ellis had assumed it was a cluster of ghouls, trapped and forgotten as the catastrophe had grown worse.

It would have been so much simpler, had that been the case.

"We can't leave them."

Though even saying as much lays the way for the obvious question: what shall be done with them?

It is cruel to burn the house with these people in it. It is dangerous to leave them in this place still drawing breath and untouched. There are arguments carrying on still from within the house, black-veined faces passing at the window, but what matters is what they decide to do here.

"And we can't leave that man to continue as he has been. There's a chance the rest outlast him," Ellis continues, before looking from Vance to Teren, Edgard and Lucien momentarily disregarded. "We should clear away the door and let me go in."

Does he need to be explicit about what he will be doing inside the house? Probably not.

( chantry. )

At some point, Ellis had thought: It would be easier to set fire to it all now.

That urge had receded as they'd begin taking stock of the situation, but he still feels it beating under his skin. Whoever had come before them had done what they could, but the signs of the taint remain.

"We'll need to look closer at this," Ellis points out, indicating the Chantry with grim resignation, marking the spreading black curls climbing the stone. It's thriving, more so than many of the houses they'd passed. "Or at least, set fire to it."

There's possibly some terrible symbolism here. If Ellis had come across it in a book he might have passed it along to Wysteria to see what she thought of it, but this not a book, and Ellis doesn't want to invoke this anywhere near—

"Do you see anything to make a torch?" he asks, a little abrupt as he turns away from the rotting building.

( perimeter )

Circling the town will take some time.

But sectioning it off, lifting the abandoned paint to mark off the signs for infection and setting to work is the only way forward. It's easier work than trying to kill escaping rats.

"Hand me the hammer," Ellis says, balancing a board against the newly set post. "This should be the last one for this section."

But then, you know. There's the rest of the sections.

( wildcard )

[ whatever miserable hijink your heart desires ]

Too young, too old; these factors are irrelevant to a Warden who's pushing sixty and kept alive out of sheer spite.
"We can save those who want it," she growls, not necessarily disagreeing with Ellis, but not completely trusting him to handle it either. "Everyone else has to die."

From the ranks of the momentarily disregarded, Lucien speaks: "If they can be saved then that is what we must do. These people deserve our mercy."

Perhaps that last is a bit biting, a bit directed towards Teren more than Ellis for her choice of words.

( pyres for the dead )

For the most part during their incursion into the town, Lucien will be silent, observing and helping where he can, and heeding any and all warnings given about where not to step, what not to touch, what must be burned and what must be left alone altogether.

But as they press on, with the quiet wailing and moaning of ghouls in the houses, distress settles itself in the furrow of his brow. These people deserve better.

"Is it safe to move the bodies?" Is what he asks the nearest Warden, his attention focused through a window at the blighted corpses within. A husband and wife, perhaps. A father and daughter. A mother and her son.

( wildcard )

[ let's get mis'rable, mis'rable ]

It is an awful thing, to see the Maker's house of worship so affected. It warrants a soft swear of Maker preserve us in Orlesian before Lucien casts about for the materials needed.

"It is perhaps too optimistic, hein, to think there might be survivors within?" The handles from a broken wheelbarrow will work as the base of the torches, and a burlap sack found in the street is fetched up and methodically cut into strips with Lucien's knife.

"We will need oil for these."

Edgard knows what happens when you let infected live. He has seen the consequences and bathed in its blood. There is only one course here. It's apparent he doesn't like what he has to say, but he speaks with conviction.

"Killing them will be a mercy. For th-" His voice fails a moment. "For them and for the others we will save." He closes his eyes, screams echoing inside his head, his skin against corpses, hiding, useless. A deep breath and its gone.

He steps toward Ellis. "I can help you clear the door and with those inside. It's not a one person job."

Edited (trying to write too many tags and fucking things up i'm sorry) 2020-08-24 22:32 (UTC)

The question was not directed toward Edgard, but he answers nearly shouting, "No! Don't touch them!"

His hands are shaking, he balls them into a fist. He lowers his head in apology at the shouting. "If we are not certain, we can't take a single risk."

Edgard hands over the hammer and Ellis sets to work.

"I was here once, before." He speaks in a low register. "It was beautiful. The people were kind to my brothers." Edgard looks up at his surroundings. Shades of its beauty still linger, chilling him.

Before Ellis has completed his task, a rat edges its way out of a hole. "Careful!" Edgard yells, hands on Ellis' shoulders, yanking him away from the animal.

Teren tries not to make a habit of talking to Ellis, but they're on a mission together, and that means they have to be, at least mostly, on the same team.

Several houses containing ghouls have already been found and dealt with, the line on Teren's forehead growing deeper and straighter with each mercy killing and each burning. But one such ghoul almost wasn't; they were almost a person still, barely forming words as they begged for death.

She stares down at their crumpled body, wiping the blade of her knife on her pant leg.
"If we find any more lucid than this," she mutters, "I'll need you to find some blood." Darkspawn blood is the implied specification, but there's always a chance someone overhears them.

Edited 2020-08-25 00:36 (UTC)

The question was not directed at Edgard, but the slow turn and brief flicker of outrage on Lucien's face is. But it is merely a flicker, a remnant of self-importance that is quickly replaced with something softer, more understanding. The Chevalier shows his hands, empty as they are, in a placating gesture.

"That is why I asked first," he explains. "I would see that these souls be laid to rest properly, if we are able."

Crouched in the dirt with fingers splint, Vance gives the easy impression of inattention. But he's listening. Hears let me go in, let me go in; and a fellow could almost get the wrong impression.

"Wait." To Edgard, hand planting out to rise. "They might rush the door."

The village knows what they're here for. But some of those voices are angry, and all of them are desperate. Wait, unless you want to join them.

"The man’s already killed." His voice is low, pitched not to carry inside. He finds Ellis' eyes. "Can’t take him for granted."

Could be a decisive man with a hand for violence, and no love of late-coming strangers. Could be the Taint worming all those little holes in. What a thing it'd be, to open up that door and find him chewing on the dead.

"Go in there talking like we got a cure, and it's gonna start a panic." He's speaking to Teren, but this time his gaze sketches to Lucien, all armor and shine. "Can't risk trying everyone."

Not without making it worse. The oldest, the youngest, the sickest; everyone watching their only hope spit blood and die.

Edited (SORRY FOR DOUBLE EDIT it's ver yl ate at night) 2020-08-25 09:01 (UTC)

The harshness of Teren's edict grates, but she isn't wrong. That is the end result here, no matter how gently they approach it. He meets Vance's eyes, nods. No, they could not take that man for granted. Nor the woman, who swears she is capable of fighting as well. Two capable fighters alongside six desperate people would be enough to tip the scales.

"Vance is right," Ellis says, as he moves a subtle step between Edgard and the barricade. "There's one, maybe two inside that would have a chance. The other six..."

He trails off, shakes his head. It's not a mercy, to doom someone to die choking on their own blood with the faintest promise of salvation or if they survive that against all odds, give them a handful of years before the duties of a Warden overcome them. The Joining is a risk. Even the best candidates in that room may die of it, nevermind those who are already weakened and infirm. And even through the window, Ellis had seen those who were so young—

No. It wouldn't be a mercy for them.

"We shouldn't risk either of you in that house," Ellis continues, eyes moving from Lucien to Edgard. "Not unless we want to gamble with the pair of you falling to the same illness."

Too easy in a closed space for an accident, the kind that happens so quickly no one realizes the gravity of it until afterwards. Too easy to end up in a position where they have this conversation again, but about one of their number.

Edited (sry for edit) 2020-08-25 16:50 (UTC)

"He's right," Teren says, nodding to Lucien and Edgard (and technically Vance, who she doesn't know is a Warden yet), "you lot ought to keep a distance."
To Ellis, she shrugs, but lowers her voice. "Either they die here or they die later. I say give them the choice, as they've had none in this."

To describe her tone as tender would be a grievous overstatement, but there's still something about the situation that is visibly quite personal.

The Maker has turned a blind eye for years, Ellis thinks. If the Maker were watching, none of this would have happened.

But he does not say as much. It helps no one to inflict his disillusioned views on others, especially not here, when they're wading through the worst Thedas has to offer.

"If there's someone in there, all we could offer them is a swift death," Ellis says, crouching to open his sack. There's enough oil, if they're judicious with it. "We're going to need to petition one of the neighboring villages for some more supplies."

And it's a toss up as to how that would go. Surely a little oil shouldn't be so much to spare, but people are strange about the taint, and mistrustful of Wardens.

"Maybe that's a job for you."

A shade of humor colors his tone. The handsome chevalier posing a polite request, who would refuse him?

The hammer clatters to the ground, board swinging down at a crooked angle as Ellis is hauled back a step. It nearly ends with him overbalancing and knocking them bother over, likely avoided only because Ellis' mace is on the ground beside them rather than strapped to a hip.

"Peace," is the first, vaguely breathless assertion. "It's for the best. We'll need to kill it regardless."

Whatever apology or question Ellis had been about to pose is lost as he straightens up again.

"Are you alright?"

The rat has fled, but Ellis moves to mark the hole itself with a discarded post as he poses the question.

They cannot begrudge whoever found this place. This is a Warden's duty, so it is unfair to resent being left to it. But still, it is hard to spend a day tending corpses and burning rot. The scourge has moved on, and this can all be required of them again soon.

It has been almost a year with Riftwatch. A year away from this duty. It is hard to weigh that time against this village and deem it well-spent.

There is at least, some solace in not having to do this work alone. Or to consider decisions such as Teren is posing on his own. His mace swings at his side, gore-stained, as Ellis regards the corpse.

"In front of the Orlesians?"

There would be questions. Alistair's reassurances haven't done much to dispel Ellis' unease with skirting along the lines of long-secret tradition.

Edgard sees the momentary irritation in Lucien's face and does his best not to return it. (He is moderately successful) Lucien means well after all. Edgard sighs.

"Maybe there's a way to move them without touching them? Do we have blankets?"

"No."

She lets that be her answer for the moment, gathering the wherewithal to lean down and grab the corpse by the arms so they can start conveying it to the pyre.

"I'll need to get them out of my hair while I prepare the ritual, if it comes to that. They can be set to work burning the tainted buildings and whatnot."

She heaves upward with a grunt, not exactly built for carrying people.

Edited 2020-08-25 20:00 (UTC)

Though he'd like to argue, Lucien quails at the thought of falling prey to the Taint himself. He'd been barely twenty at the start of the Fifth Blight, but what he saw left an impression.

"D'accord."

"Perhaps it is," he agrees. Once the cart handles have been tipped with the burlap, he hands them to Ellis to douse the fabric in the oil. Now, where did he put that flint?

"I shall have to think of a better way to phrase it than excuse me, but we are preparing to raze the next town over, might you spare some supplies to that end?."

"One of these houses may have some we can use," he muses, then nods in the direction of their horses. "I'd rather not sacrifice our saddle blankets to that end."

Edgard would also like to argue and so he does.

"No." He says. "I should help. Aren't we all at risk simply being here?"

He will not be shut out and he will not be useless, yet again.

MOD PLOT | CHAMPROVENT.

clean up crew.

moral quandry.

pile in for arguments.

ellis | open.

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lucien | open.

chantry.

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pyres for the dead

perimeter

before the Group House Problem

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