war table mission: project haven

[libratus]

WHO: Petrana, Marcus, Edgard, Silver, Athessa, Isaac, Leander
WHAT: A Summer's End festival weekend
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Cubentquium, an isolated mountain village outside Perivantium
NOTES: The plan is 3 top-levels, one for each section of the plot, RP however you like and I'll chime in with any additional info as needed. Will update warnings as we go. So far: cults, hair, blood.

The Riftwatch agents meet their guides outside a run-down little Chantry in Perivantium. Donata, a wide-smiling and plain-speaking human woman of middling age, is accompanied by two gangly youths to help her corral the assembled few dozen devotees. It's not quite the kind of group they'd been prepared to blend in with — the assembled faithful certainly seem pious enough, but where most pilgrims are the sort who've enough spending money to afford the travel, threadbare clothes and near-empty rucksacks are more the norm here. A pair of siblings are just in from Trevis, is easy enough to overhear; another family from Nessum, but they're the skittish, quiet sort and seem to expect the same from everyone else.

Not among them: the man with the red scarf and sunburst pin the team was told to look for. But then, they're hardly at the rendezvous point yet.

Honored to receive you, is the greeting that goes round with a tin of simple oat cakes from their guides; Blessed are those who give, before the group sets off into the mountains.

For a stretch of space that is, as the crow flies, not so terribly far, the path to Cubentquium is a difficult and winding one. Sharp columns of stone rise pale into paler fog, echoes of their hundred cousins to the north, and between those tight walls twists a labyrinthine path that is in places more rocky crag than walkway. Soft sand gives way to sudden drops; byways that might look a little easier to trod are, on confident assurance from their guides, decidedly not. Moving forward seems to mean doubling back as often as pushing ahead, and none of them would be blamed for forgetting which direction is which — not to worry, their guides know the way.

But when the sky cracks opens above them midway into the afternoon, pissing rain turns their precarious footholds to rushing streams, and Donata calls the group to a halt in the shelter of an outcropping until the storm passes. It's a full night and morning of waiting, wet-shoed and crowded close, before they're able to travel safely again. Thankfully, the last leg of the journey seems to be a straighter shot, and as their shadows begin to get long, the group finally reaches their destination: a deep black lake rimmed in white cliffs and tall, thin trees.

Comments

[wythersake]

John can issue all the invitations that he likes. He absolutely does not want to get closer to that doll.

...Does so, anyway. Wouldn't it be worse not to know?

"Well," Reluctantly, Isaac reaches for it, rolls the damp fibers between finger and thumb. They come away a muddy black, clotted by dark streaks. "That's disgusting."

The younger apprentices will make toys of anything, and an indulgent mage — perhaps a very bored one with an excess of time — might lend his hand to it. These have been woven under less attentive eyes.

"Hair and blood. Mme. Cedoux?"

Is he asking the only girl present about a doll? Maybe. But Julius trucks in glyphs, in impressions of greater permanence; Isaac owns only the haziest sense of those things.

(It sounds better than asking, has anyone present done blood magic? when Leander's just down the hall.)

[ipseite]

Julius trucks in glyphs; Petrana quite specifically in enchantments, and she is already reaching for it, frowning, her head tilted as if listening to something very intently. It feels a little like pressing her ear to a door to hear something muffled by it,

“A ward,” she says, finally, “Did you not look at it, it might make you feel more at ease here. Safe.”

Very little about looking at a rough-hewn doll made of some unknown person's off-cuts makes her feel safer here. She adds, “I couldn't say if the ward is meant to offer protection or only impart its feeling.”

The two possibilities suggest different things.

[luaithre]

Marcus frowns at the conversation being had, before quietly turning his attention to the other beds. Maybe John Silver has been marked in some way, but more likely--

With his own bed playing host to the tray, he steps towards the next, and flips aside the exceedingly soft sheets to find another of these dolls. He isn't moved to pick it up, expecting the sound of fluttering wool to net the attention of the others.

"A few of our hosts were wearing tokens," he offers, instead, filling in a blank as he sees it. "Meant for minor enchantments. I've seen free mages do similar."

[hornswoggle]

The distinction Petrana describes is crucial. John is absently rubbing the hand he'd lifted the doll with against the blanket, as if to smother the sensation of damp hair.

He doesn't bother asking if it's human hair. It seems irrelevant next to the bigger question.

"I'd put it into the fire," John advises. "If it's as Mme. Cedoux says, it's not worth the risk of a false impression working on us while we're here."

But then they end up in the same position: how soon will their hosts notice?

[wythersake]

"Aggressive," To burn them. It's not disagreement — the implication of Petrana's discovery crawls, twists his nerves along those little spiral eyes. "Might we hold them in something? A barrier?"

To Marcus. Will that do anything at all? Can't say. But if it was before a poor idea to come in staves blazing, it strikes poorer with perhaps multiple mages among their hosts.

[ipseite]

“If the enchantment is not a strong one—” and it doesn't feel significant, “—then it may, from now, not last the length of time it takes us to discuss how to best nullify it. Though it also may not offer much resistance to being quelled,” with a more generally querying look. Enchantments are her specialty, and for the purposes of strengthening them here as she's done elsewhere she's learned more about the nature of them in Thedas—still, she has worked mostly with her own, and not native magic.

Whether or not she even can quell a native enchantment is a question she's not before had cause to try to answer.

“If it means only to impart the sensation of safety, then that it isn't a priority to do so for very long raises further questions.”

Several. Pressing.

[luaithre]

"I don't see the harm in removing the enchantment. If it's to protect us from something, or a matter of hospitality, they've not--"

But Marcus pauses, attentive all at once to the creaking of foot steps outside, restlessly on his way over there even before knuckles bounce light off the other side. He at least waits until that happens before he opens the door. That he was slightly tense prior to seeing familiar faces on the other side is perhaps only noticeable when it unwinds.

Good, then. He steps back and widens the door. "Quickly," is quiet.

[sulahnan]

Athessa is first through the door, quickly as bidden and nearly silent and looking mildly irritated. It may or may not be related to their present situation. (More likely, it's preemptive weariness at the prospect of working alongside Edgard in a scenario where stealth is a virtue.)

Her nod at the tray on the bed is relieved, in whatever way a nod can be. Confirmation, perhaps. Ah, good, they didn't bleed themselves either.

And then there's another one of those dolls.

"I'm not the only one put off by those things, am I?"

She keeps her voice low, to keep from being overheard by anyone not within the room.

[muckspout]

Edgard, having caught up, shoves his way into the room ahead of Leander. He takes in the rest of the party, intent in conversation, and the tray on the bed like the one in their room.

To Athessa, "Are you still on about the dolls? I thought we agreed they were gifts. Protection tokens." He looks to Leander for confirmation.

He will be leaving out the fact he he just got a little spooked by one.

[sarcophage]

Leander, only now just closing the door behind him, after the shouting and bustling and so on, is visibly agitated. Having absolved himself of any responsibility for this disaster of a man the instant he was so rudely pushed past in the otherwise silent hallway, he simply clears his throat in a moment of mild, but still obvious, self-collection and addresses the rest of the group.

"I suppose you've noted the blood by now."

[hornswoggle]

Sat on the edge of the bed, John's gaze moves first from Athessa, to Leander, then to Edgard before he turns his head to look across to Isaac, eyebrows raising before he speaks.

"We've been discussing our options for donation," John answers, before nodding at the doll in Petrana's hand, "and the purpose of the enchantment on those."

The assertion that they're harmless strikes John as so preposterous that he doesn't bother responding to it.

[ipseite]

Petrana produces the broken pin, unwrapping it enough to show the others newly arrived—

“In the fuller context of our contact's likely fate, enchantments designed to instill a short-lived sense of safety would raise concerns were they only cloth.”

But the blood isn't comforting.

[sulahnan]

"But these aren't cloth."

[wythersake]

"Hair."

Isaac repeats, with an answering lift of his brows, as if briefly daring John to bring up the choice of rooms —

But he shifts in place to make space for Athessa, and if it draws him implicitly away from Edgard's scent, well. Men in glass cologne bottles shouldn't throw stones. His eyes flick only briefly to Leander, and away. The flesh of the dolls seems unlike to have disturbed him.

(The choice of rooms?)

"The watchman suggests we might disturb matters outside." In answer to Petrana, to the enchantment's ticking clock. "Whether imminently, or further in rest."

"Defang them or not, and we'll need a watch on the door."

In shifts, probably. Marcus.

[muckspout]

"What exactly are you suggesting?"

Edgard looks from one serious face to another and yawns hugely. He's not trying to be rude, he's still very sleepy.

[luaithre]

Definitely among the more serious faces in the room is Marcus, still by the door, his attention keyed towards whatever noises might happen again outside of it. He doesn't really look towards Edgard as if offers an answer from his corner.

"That we don't know the purpose of the dolls," he says, with plodding patience, "and that the contact we came to meet has been here, is here no longer, and his presence lied about. That we're maintaining civility and will ask our questions on the morrow. That we should establish watches for the evening in case we're in danger. And likely, too, that we ought not to bleed into those jars."

Now he glances to Edgard, as if to say: does that cover it?

[sarcophage]

"And risk offending our hosts?"

—Might be a sardonic question, made difficult to confirm by Leander's deadpan delivery. We needn't all bleed into them is a suggestion he wouldn't mind speaking aloud, ether, perhaps with a glance to the filthiest one among them, but a glance to the most nervous among them (somewhat less brief) is reminder enough to behave. Even in jest, that's unlikely to be taken well.

(And he wouldn't be joking, besides.)

[sulahnan]

"Would you be offended by a child not knowing how to act in a strange place?" Athessa shrugs. "Why can't we just feign ignorance? They haven't told us what the jars are for or what to do with them, and the dolls..."

The dolls are a little trickier to explain away with the ignorant outsiders shtick.

"I don't think hurting someone's feelings is gonna matter much if we find out that these dolls are all that's left of our contact."

That, she says while sending a pointed look in Edgard's direction. Is the implication clear enough?

[ipseite]

Petrana taps the pin once, twice against her hand before tucking it back in her handkerchief, disappearing it within the folds of her skirts—

“Already they've chosen to lie to us,” she says, simply. “And to what end we don't know. It is natural to exercise caution in an unfamiliar environment; we are merely, as you say, unfamiliar with their ways. It is cautious not to indulge in foreign enchantments.”

It's apparent that she's workshopping it out loud, but it's not a bad start on explaining away dealing with the dolls as long as their method of dealing with them isn't a fire.

[muckspout]

Edgard gratefully tips his head towards Marcus and then turns to the rest. He deadpans,

"So, what you're saying is that we don't get to sleep."

[hornswoggle]

"You'll survive."

To the tune of humor, but the remark edges towards a very literal meaning. No, maybe they won't be murdered in their beds, but who cares to take the chance? And John's curious as to their movements regardless. It would be a benefit to them to hear the changes in watch, to know when the rest of the village began to rise.

"Can you tell if the doll has to on hand for the enchantment to be effective?" to Petrana. "My concern is that to forgo the blood-letting and remove the enchantment shows us to be at the very least mistrusting of their hospitality."

A little tremor of amusement over hospitality.

[sarcophage]

"There'd be no benefit in removing the enchantment, given it isn't potent enough to prevent us having this conversation. Our awareness ought to suffice."

Leander has since settled into his customary stillness: folded arms, head slightly tilted, expression calm.

"They've chosen to lie, but we don't know the reason. Say our fellow felt compelled to further conceal himself, for some reason unknown to us, and dropped his pin as a sign. Say he did meet his end here, but not by wrongdoing—the villagers may simply be frightened, and wish to avoid outside reprisal."

[sulahnan]

"Why wouldn't they just say he'd left, then? If they're gonna lie about it anyway, seems like it'd be less suspicious to say there was someone who came and went than to pretend nobody's been here at all."

Arms crossed, she stands nearer to Isaac not because he's the most familiar (she's spent enough time with Marcus and John both to be equally comfortable around them), but because he's a walking air-freshener.

[muckspout]

Edgard leans against a wall drumming his fingers against it.

“I agree that lying isn’t particularly comforting, but there are plenty of reasons a person might lie that are innocent. Maybe they’re afraid of us.”

[wythersake]

"Fear isn't innocent," If he sounds a tad impatient of that, well. The room is full of mages. "And we aren't meant to be children, but pilgrims."

"The others," The family. The Trevisians. "Saw no reason for caution. We might assume a pilgrim is to know the purpose of their pilgrimage. If we ask questions tomorrow, we need to be prepared to answer some ourselves."

It doesn't mean they should cut anyone open. It does mean that starting with unfamiliar and foreign might require some broader revision in the group's cover.