faderift | MOD PLOT

Riftwatch has been asked to investigate a series of murders that have taken place in the town of Pérouges over the last month or so. Pérouges is a medium-sized town, smaller than Pessac but too large to properly be called a village, certainly not large enough for six murders in as many weeks. The locals believe they are caused by a demon stalking the town, due to the brutality of the crimes and the lack of any obvious culprits or clues left behind.

The town is relatively well-off due to the presence of a fountain shrine where it's claimed Andraste stopped to drink and pray during her march to Tevinter, which has become a minor pilgrimage site. Unlike many symbols of the Andrastian/Orlesian Chantry, which suffered under occupation, this one has been left unscathed, as has the town in general. Tevinter soldiers were based here throughout the occupation, and a party of Venatori even took up residence in the mayor's house for some months, but there is no significant damage to be seen, and the townspeople will report having been afraid, threatened, property confiscated, but nothing worse.

Despite this, the mood in the town is particularly low and tense. This may be attributed to the prolonged occupation and the active serial killer, but over time the most perceptive in the group may pick on a hint of guilt underlying the fear. Many people are terrified that they might be the demon's next victims, and though no one will discuss it outright, they may hear whispers that suggest the general belief is that this is a demon of vengeance.

The Mayor of Pérouges, a sturdily efficient and friendly man of about 60 named Maurice Liseaux, will brush any such rumors off as the product of fevered imaginations and people overwrought by difficult times. He believes the murders are a demon but suspects its presence is caused by all the rifts and such in the region and specifically requested Riftwatch's assistance for that reason. A pair of identical elven twins named Lisette and Robert serve as the Mayor's all-purpose personal assistants/clerks, and he will assign them to assist the team with anything they need during their stay. Lisette and Robert are very reserved and professional, but will be of great assistance in terms of facilitating the investigation, providing information about the town and its inhabitants and getting them the necessary access, introductions, and interviews.

"Why would a demon bother hiding itself," Sawbones says as a nervous villager skitters away from them. The conversation had been less than enlightening and Sawbones' Stern Chantry Sister demeanor was made all the more stern by the slinking guilt behind every other person they've spoken to. "And why a revenge demon."

"Maybe it heard that we were coming."

Yevdokiya flashes the Sister a big grin. Then she takes a big bite of the apple that she has been eating. Sun-baked, its flesh is soft, and mealy enough that her single bite means it is already over half-gone. She chews contentedly.

"We are pretty scary," with her mouth full. "And we won't be murdered behind cottages so easy. Maybe it is a lazy demon."

"Be nice if that were true," Sawbones says, returning the grin with a smaller one of her own, "But I don't think a lazy demon would have too much interest in revenge. Can't say for sure why it should be a demon anyhow."

She sets off walking again, less for any purpose and more to keep her train of thought moving. "Six murders in six weeks. In a town that was recently occupied by Venatori, without any of the marks of an occupation. That's strange."

"The marks could be secret. On the undersides." Doki chomps again at her apple. There is now just one bite left. She chews, thinking, as they walk down the dusty road through the center of the village.

"If it isn't a demon, then it is a person. Six people in six weeks is many people for a person, too. Two of them were secret lovers. Maybe someone did not want them loving each other. Jealous, or angry."

"On the undersides..." She rolls that over for a bit before addressing the rest.

"Reckon that'd be motive enough, but then what about the other four?" She kicks a rock in the path and watches it bounce along. "All pretty well off members of the community. Woulda been powerful, maybe the ones calling the shots during the occupation..." She squints out over the road, "Maybe somebody didn't like the shots they were calling."

"Plus one innkeeper. Maybe keeping a bad inn?"

Doki kicks a rock too, hard enough that it tumbles past the Sister's rock. She likes it so well that she kicks a second. It doesn't make it quite as far. That's all right.

"No one saw the innkeeper get done. Walking around his grounds, all alone? I been to inns. People go out in the yard to do all kinds've things. Pissing. Fucking. Puking. More drinking. No one was around?"

"Inkeepers've been killed for less, but never that quietly," she nods in agreement. "If there was anybody around, they're not saying a thing to us. Figured we'd at least run into someone who wouldn't mind..." She trails off and pauses in her walking to think. "We haven't really seen that many elves around town, have we."

Doki turns around and walks backwards a few pace so that she can keep the little Sister in her sight. She's looking around them too, like an elf might just be hiding.

"Orlais does not like elves," she says thoughtfully "No one likes elves but Orlais? They really do not. Maybe they are hiding them."

"Maybe," Sawbones says, "But Orlais doesn't mind putting elves to the work that they don't want to. We ought've seen somebody by now."

( gossip )

"We should have brought one of the Nevarrans," John says one evening, tipping his cup of ale thoughtfully. "It may as well be a haunting as it is a demon, though I'm not convinced of either."

It just seems far-fetched, though the reasons why a demon could be tied to this specific town are not entirely off the table. If one of these villagers had tried some kind of magic to drive off the Tevinter soldiers—

"Even these villagers can't tell me of another time they'd heard of such a concentrated haunting, but they all seem convinced..."

Though that in and of itself isn't so strange. John knows very well how powerful a well-placed story could be, except he can't see the benefit of this one. Not yet.

( madi )

The bed they've been allotted is small, but they fit. John's fingers trace back and forth along Madi's shoulder, down her arm and back as they lie together.

"There's something off about the way they discuss this demon," John says, veering past light pillow talk and back to what's occupied their time over the past days. "It's not just fear. It's something else. Shame, maybe."

Something out of place. His fingers drum gently at the bend of her shoulder.

"Have you noticed anything like that?"

( wildcard )

[ for all your investigative needs. ]

Edited 2020-08-26 01:31 (UTC)

Madi looks up at him, resting her chin on his collarbone and thinking back over what she's heard. Her fingertips draw lazy patterns on his chest, just as she did the night before he left Nascere.

"I have. And it is not only how rehearsed their stories are," she says, frowning slightly. "I have never heard of a demon to kill so cleanly."

There are other questions that he should be asking, perhaps. Will you stay after we resolve what's happening in Nascere? is foremost, though whether or not they will stay—

No. That much is resolved for John already. He draws in a deep breath, shifting his focus back to demons, to villagers whose eyes dart away from him whenever he tries to press them beyond simple questions.

"No, but that doesn't mean there isn't someone running around there possessed by something equally dangerous."

And they're unfortunately short on experts.

"I just can't see a way to get them to talk about it. There's something they're not telling any of us, but why bother lying if they're so afraid of being killed?"

She listens to the tide of his breathing, feels the rise and the fall. They did claim, in all their identical testimonies, to fear a spirit of vengeance. If someone were to become so possessed, surely they would need the requisite desire for revenge.

"Perhaps it is less a matter of what they are not saying, and rather more about what we are not seeing."

"Which would be?"

There is something. This is not a coincidence. The Veil is thin in the Fields of Ghislain, but Madi is right. Demons do not kill neatly.

If it was a single person, maybe. But even so, the reason for it is still beyond John's grasp. What call would another person have to target this town? They are reasonably unscathed by the war, but if this were an attempt to seize their resources then it's a fairly pathetic one. Frightening these people out could take months, and in the meantime, the townsfolk have time to call for help. It makes no sense either.

There is something. Something that should be obvious.

"Don't you find it strange," she starts, slowly. Piecing it together as she speaks for once, rather than thinking it out in advance. "That a house the size of the mayor's is run by only two servants? And the others—" Not all of them have estates, but most have homes that would warrant at least one servant, if not more.

As she speaks, his fingers trip back up her shoulder, circle the nape of her neck.

"One of them mentioned all the servants running off."

It's delivered neutrally, without any judgement weighting the words one way or another.

"But the idea that the rest ran off and two stayed..."

There's parts that could make sense. Certainly possible that the servants left, and maybe it's even plausible that they weren't able to hire anyone else, considering the Tevinter of it all, but for two to stay—

His heartbeat beneath her palm is a steady, comforting thing. A rhythm she's wanted for so long, when all she could do was feel her own heart and imagine his beating in tandem across many miles and numerous seas.

But it doesn't take away the sense of foreboding.

"I think we need to make a visit to the Alienage."

"Alright," John answers. It's worth chasing down. His fingers lace through hers and brings her palm to his mouth. "We'll go in the morning."

An easy promise. But the bigger question—

"Would you like to share your concerns with our fellows before or after we've investigated it?"

It may never lose its novelty, the way her stomach flutters when his breath warms her skin, the shiver caused by the delicate skin of her wrist being tickled by his facial hair.

"They should accompany us," is the first decision, the important one. Though, the second isn't less important for being one that won't leave this room. Madi pushes herself up to look down at his face, appreciating the shadows cast by the warm light in the room, even the ones that accentuate the tired set to his eyes. She touches his brow, gently. "In the morning."

And she kisses him.

If the Mayor is questioned directly about this, he will admit that the enemy--specifically the Venatori who spent some time in the town--rounded up the town's elves and took them away, and that he and the townspeople allowed it because it was made clear to him that the alternative was the enemy taking them by force along with anyone else who resisted. Any other townspeople pressed on this will tell the same story, at times exactly the same story, word for word. If Lisette or Robert are questioned about this, they too will provide the same story. Lisette will tell it convincingly, but Robert will almost verbatim parrot the Mayor's words in a way that makes obvious that it's what they've been told to say.

It's after this conversation that the Mayor and Lisette and Robert all disappear. By process of elimination, smarts, or tracking skills, the team can trace them back to the Mayor's own house, which the Venatori occupied for quite some time, and to the secret basement where--it will quickly become clear--they conducted blood magic rituals. There, Robert and Lisette are holding the Mayor, attempting to force him to write out a confession before they kill him.

They'll tell the team the real story, which they saw play out from their place in the Mayor's office: the Venatori did demand that the Mayor provide a certain number of people for their use, and there was a clear threat that if he didn't, the Venatori would take whoever they pleased. But it was the Mayor and his cronies who decided to offer up the town's elves specifically. At first it was just the handful the Venatori demanded, but when their compliance seemed to grant the town protection from the abuses the Venatori were said to be inflicting elsewhere, they decided to keep it going and make sure that the Venatori received a consistent supply of elven victims, offering them up even before requests were made. Some human citizens complied out of fear alone, but others were eager to seem friendly and sympathetic and reap the rewards that followed (more/better food, guarantees of safety, business arrangements with the occupiers). The few people who spoke up against this were given to the Venatori as well, effectively crushing future opposition.

The Mayor will tearfully admit that all of this is true, but profess that he was just doing what he had to do to keep the town safe, the Venatori would have killed far more if he'd done different, and that he protected Lisette and Robert because they're like family to him, but that's the best he could do. Unmoved, the elves will refuse to stand down and will make clear that their only remaining desire in life is to mete out justice on the people of Pérouges. They will not trust the almost entirely-human Riftwatch team to get justice any other way, or to ensure that they and the mayor stand trial and get the truth out. The options will be to allow them to carry on with their mission of vengeance, or to kill them. Either way, it will also be up to the team what story is presented to the public (and to the Chantry/Inquisition).

Edited 2020-08-26 00:20 (UTC)

The room reeks of power. It is foul and ill-begotten, but it is there. John felt it under his skin, humming like a current as the entire sickening story flowed forth from the Mayor. He had very nearly reached to draw Madi back, towards the stairs behind them, lest she get too close.

The ultimatum Lisette and Robert issued hangs in the air. There seems very little to decide here, other than how they care to explain or not explain what they've found.

His gaze lingers on Madi for a long moment before he speaks, voice light even in the wake of what they had learned.

"Well," he begins. "Should we take a vote straight away, or does anyone have a case to make for one side or the other before that?"

"Reckon it depends on how many more they got on their list," says Sawbones, with a cold practicality. What trace of Orlais that could have been found in her accent before is gone and Dust Town sprawls out. The Deep Roads back it, the grit of ash in her teeth when she speaks. "Prefer if he's the last."

But better to show these topside fools there's no such thing as mercy in wars like this. She doesn't say that part, but it hangs in the air as she watches the sobbing mayor.

Edited 2020-08-26 00:42 (UTC)

Every one of the people they spoke to, all of them telling the same story to hide their misdeeds, are complicit in the deaths of so many. As Lisette and Robert tell it, even in the deaths of their own kind.

Madi draws her gaze away from the signs of ritualistic murders to look at John. She might look inscrutable to the others, but he surely can read her expression: there's no decision to be made here. They deserve their revenge.

But she says nothing, not yet. She wants to hear what the others have to say first.

"Did it to protect their people," Doki points out evenly.

She's eating, again, chewing on a piece of jerky she had fished out of one of the pouches at her belt. An Avvar is perpetually overdressed in the summer, leather and fur, and the air in the cellar is stuffy besides heavy with death and the power that came from it. She doesn't look the least bit bothered by the heat. She doesn't look bothered by anything, chomping at her bite of jerky.

"Someone told me I could protect my people by picking who to be killed in their stead, I'd offer to do the killing myself."

MOD PLOT | PÉROUGES

the investigation.

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ota.

pillow talk schmillow talk

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the verdict.

pile in pals.

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