faderift | CLOSED | if i cut off your arms and cut off your legs,

Entry tags:

CLOSED | if i cut off your arms and cut off your legs,

WHO: Mhavos, Barrow, Sawbones, Ellis, Vanadi, Edgard, Athessa, Leander, Dick, & Holden.
WHAT: Slasher Plot / Murderhaus / I should really have come up with a set name for this thing.
WHEN: Late Harvestmere / Early Kingsway.
WHERE: Ostwick.
NOTES: This plot is based on the idea of slasher movies, so there will be blood, violence, torture, cannibalism & NPC death.

YOU MAY REMEMBER going to Ostwick on a Riftwatch mission, closing a rift on the property of the noble Pickney house, and being accosted by the Lady Elsed Pickney. Her (adult) son is missing! Terrible things are afoot!

But that's easy to ignore; Gawen Pickney rather publicly announced his intention to elope with a Dalish elf a few weeks ago. Assurances are made, yes, we'll let you know if we see him, and what can you do but that?

It's time to move on. Traveling back to Kirkwall, a storm breaks out, and everyone decides it's better to find a place to stay for the night than push forward. The Silver Lamp is a cozy Inn on the roadside, and the proprietor, an elderly man named Medrod, is very kind. It's not tourism season in these parts, so he's happy to give everyone a discount for the night, and the meal is on the house. Everyone eats well, has a pleasant enough time, and wanders off to bed for the night.

(The food your characters ate was not people and did not taste strange in any way.)

And then Medrod will let the sleeping gas seep through the Inn, laced with Magebane just in case, and everyone will wake up a few hours later, dizzy and, in many cases, in pain.

(Look for a toplevel with your character's name below.)

HOW WILL THIS WORK? Well, I'll be NPCing Medrod the Murderer. Medrod will be showing up in each thread eventually, after a number of tags I RNG'd. It's entirely possible to escape before he shows up! And don't worry, if you guys get in a rut, I'll make him show up early to spice things up ;)

I'll also be doing dicerolls!

If you have a situation where you feel your character will need to roll (I'm going to let you decide this!) put ROLL in the subject line, and bold what you need me to roll for.

(For example, you can have a whole tag like normal, and then Bob tries to pick the lock. Then I'll roll for success or failure, as well as other factors, and reply to that thread with the results. But if you don't want to rely on dicerolls, for whatever reason, don't worry about it. The dicerolls are an opt-in feature. Use it as much or as little as you want.)

I'll also be rolling for discovery, which will work the same way: if your character is looking for something, put ROLL in the subject line and bold what they're looking for (normal tag normal tag then Alice looked for a lockpick) and I'll reply with results after rolling. But if you just want your character to find the thing without dicerolls, go for it.

IN SHORT, I'm only making this as hard as you want it to be. Your characters are already waking up to torture. If you want them to find the special key and escape in two comments, it's totally fine. (Just respect other people's difficulty levels, if they want to give their characters a harder time.)

The only thing that has to rely on rolls is killing, apprehending or injuring the Murderer, but since I'll be NPCing him, those rolls are automatic and will be baked into his reply comments.

IF YOUR CHARACTERS GET FREE, let me know what they'd want to do next oocly (options below), and I'll set that up for you!

Other potential goals to keep in mind besides escaping:

- Finding / saving others.
- Killing / apprehending Medrod the Murderer.
- Getting evidence of Gawen & his Dalish wife's murder to eventually send to Lady Elsed.
- Getting your stuff back (all obviously visible weapons / staves have been taken away).

You got questions? Lemme know!

DETAILS:

- ~~While in the torture room, your character is free to hear (or not hear) distant screaming. It's muffled enough that you can't identify the source (it's Edgard).~~ The screaming has stopped.

- The hallways between the rooms are pitch-dark, and even those who can see in the dark will find it difficult to navigate, as the walls and ceilings are mirrored, distorting the size, shape, and direction of the hallways.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Vanadi speaks with his eyes closed, head tipped back very slightly. He can feel something solid about halfway up his arm, which is a very bad and unreachable place for a lock to be. On the other hand, somewhat literally, his squirm had introduced himself to a second lock somewhat less out of reach -- Ellis's, he thinks. There may be hope here.

"A lockpick set, in my boot. I can't reach it," he says, and shifts. He suspects the chains tighten, or perhaps that's only panic making him think so. But it's necessary, as he very uncomfortably inches his bound leg under him, trying to get ankle and boot near to Ellis's hands.

He's reasonably flexible, but it occurs to him now he could have worked quite a bit more on that particular skill. This sucks.

Questions about how they landed here, whether Vanadi knows anymore about the journey than Ellis, all of it is set aside as he feels the chains digging into his body while Vanadi stretches to try and maneuver his boot closer to Ellis' reach.

"Try to be still," Ellis cautions, voice sympathetic. He's not comfortable. He knows Vanadi isn't. But this is potentially their only means of escape. Ellis doesn't want to bank on the slim chance of overpowering their captor if he unchained them.

He slouches down in the chains, one hand straining towards Vanadi's boot in search of the lockpicks.

OUTCOME: The lockpicks are still there, and Ellis can reach them. However, in the process, the chains basically tighten enough that any further movement of his chest and legs is impossible without injury. It's very uncomfortable.

Getting the lockpick to Vanadi will be difficult, but not impossible.

The slow slouch towards Vanadi's boot is costly. The chains have tightened to the point where Ellis suspects he'll find bruises, presuming they manage to get themselves out of this mess. By the time his fingers are grazing Vanadi's ankle, he's groaning with the combined strain of contorting his body downwards and the cinch of the chain-links.

"I—"

There's a moment where Ellis' admission could go either way: I can't reach or I have it. His fingers graze the edges of a small wallet, manage to pinch it tightly enough to draw it up into his palm.

"I have it," Ellis says, exhaling hard, trying clumsily to straighten up. "Can you get close to my hand?"

His heart just about lives in his throat as the two of them stretch, as Ellis grunts his single-word promise-slash-threat. It resolves into relief. His sigh is quiet but heartfelt as he feels the slip of lockpicks from boot, and relaxes his reach as much as he's able to.

Getting to the set in Ellis's hands is the easy part, relatively speaking. He keeps his eyes closed once he has it, focusing hard on visualization. He always keeps the picks in order, and counts his way by careful touch to ... well, what he hopes is the right pick for this lock. It better be, because he then has to drop the rest of the set and twist his arms into an awkward, painful angle to blindly set to work on the only lock he can reach: Ellis's.

OUTCOME: Vanadi is able to unpick the lock, but the movement restricts his neck severely.

He's kinda choking, though how much, and howl long he can put up with this, is up to you.

Totally worth it, partially strangling himself. It leaves him extremely hoping that Ellis is the kind of guy to turn around and help someone else, as Ellis's chains loosen around him and the lock drops off.

Thickly, with a barely-suppressed undercurrent of fear, "Can you -- pick mine?"

The chains come loose, and clatter to the ground shortly after as Ellis shakes his way free. Straightening, stretching, he does turn back to Vanadi.

The lucky thing: Ellis is the type of man to help someone else. But the unlucky thing—

"I don't know how to pick a lock," he admits to Vanadi, voice steady despite the immediate surge of anxiety that comes with even a moment's examination of Vanadi. He can see where the chains are digging into his neck, knows that more movement likely can't be risked.

"Hold on."

At which point he turns to look around the room for anything that might prove useful in opening the lock or breaking the chains.

Some guys have all the luck.

OUTCOME: Ellis sees a key left on a table near them. The table also has some nasty knives on it, so you can play with those later. For now, though there's a key. Could it be the key to Vanadi's lock?

Spoilers, it is.

It's an unprecedented stroke of luck. Ellis gives an audible sigh of relief, leaning over the table for a moment.

Of course, that relief doesn't last very long. Yes, he has the key. But the array of wicked, blood-spattered knives are an immediate reminder that they're unarmed in a very bad place. The threat of severed limbs hasn't dissipated, only given way slightly to worry for the rest of their companions.

"Here, I can unlock it," Ellis says as he turns. "Hold still."

A faint smile, immediately realizing what he's said. But he makes quick work of the lock, letting it drop to the floor and helping to tug the chains away so Vanadi to stand.

Oh, thank gods. Vanadi is happy to let that redundancy pass unremarked, in favor of unfolding swiftly to his feet the instant he's able to. He rubs a hand over his throat, taking a few deep breaths ... and then next on the agenda is to snatch up two of those knives and stash one in his belt. The other is for keeping him company, and he grips it like a lifesaver in a stormy sea, all tense angles and barely contained energy.

He should probably say thank you, or ask if the man is alright, something like that. Instead, shifting his grip on the knife's hilt, "I'm going to find and kill them. Are you helping, or staying here?"

"One moment."

After selecting a knife from what Vanadi's passed over, Ellis sweeps the rest of the instruments and limbs from the table to flip it and lean his weight on one leg until it snaps.

"Can you check the door? See if you can hear anything in the hall."

Though as he speaks, Ellis considers the possibility that the door is locked. Maybe their captor hadn't been relying solely on chains to keep them contained. Ellis would have taken the precaution, but it's hard to say whether or not his instincts are applicable to any part of this equation. It's more than obvious their host has been at this for some time, likely long enough to have a comfortable routine.

The table leg cracks, then splinters. It's lighter than his mace, but it will door. He stoops to gather a length of chain from the floor, begin the process of wrapping it along one end.

He nods and, leaving Ellis to his destruction of furniture, scoops up and tucks away his lockpick set on the way to the door. He stands just beside it, where any sudden bursts into the room will miss him. First things first is to listen, searching for any signs of movement out there, then quietly see if it's locked.

OUTCOME: The door isn't locked! Which isn't, actually great news, when someone on the other side stabs their huge carving knife right the hell through it.

It stabs Vanadi, though it's up to you where and how severely.

Well! That's kind of the worst! It catches his forearm just as he's trying the lock, sinking in a good few inches, and really hurting. Vanadi springs back with a strangled noise, and -- hmm, it's probably time for his awful magic. He'll take any edge he can get.

It takes him just a second to fabricate an image overtop the actual contents of the room. Himself, stabbed through the neck, collapsed several paces back from the door. Ellis, strangled to death in chains, where they'd woken up. The table intact, just in case they have an observant murderer.

It will appear only to anyone who opens that door, not to Ellis -- as far as Ellis will see, Vanadi stands still for an instant with a bleeding arm and a look of great concentration, waves a hand vaguely, and then goes hurrying to Ellis to grab his arm and pull him to the corner. He peels a finger off the hilt of his knife for a shhh finger, and covers them with the illusion of the wall standing a little thicker than it should.

A kindly old man walks through the now-opened door, looking around carefully. He's immediately recognizable as the owner of the little Inn, a fellow named Medrod. Seeing the state of things, he tsks quietly.

"Such a mess." He leans over the dead elf before him, kneeling down to get a better look. "You seemed so promising."

Wasting no time, he angles his knife to take a nice, long strip off the corpse's face, to see if that nasty scar left any internal damage, when his knife phases right through. Medrod tries again, still not getting the result he expected. He stumbles back, shocked.

"Andraste preserve me," he murmurs, and immediately makes a B-line for Ellis' corpse to double check. He is, after all, a man of science.

Absurdly, dragged to a corner with Vanadi's fingers digging into his arm, Ellis thinks: Wysteria would have so many questions for you.

But there's little time to entertain the thought. Instead, Ellis holds his breath watching the elderly man stoop to examine nothing on the floor, then hustle back towards where he and Vanadi had woken up bound. He looks back from their elderly captor to Vanadi, tipping his head silently towards the door as he hefts his makeshift club.

Without waiting to see whether or not Vanadi picked up on his meaning, Ellis silently crosses the room, lifts the club and brings it down hard, hopefully enough to either knock out or otherwise incapacitate Medrod.

OUTCOME: Medrod screams as the blow lands, and he immediately runs for it, back into the safety of the darkness.

You are now free... ish. Go explore, rescue someone, or try and catch the murderer in the darkness.

"We need to get after him," is the first thing Ellis says, regaining his balance after Medrod blew past him. He'd come up cursing under his breath, quietly furious that he hadn't knocked the man flat.

There's blood soaking Vanadi's sleeve. But there's no reason to stay here and wait for a second visit.

"Can you use that arm?" Ellis asks briskly, walking towards the door with the club propped against his shoulder.

Vanadi interprets that nod as a go block the door, which he does -- but not quite quick enough. The killer goes scrambling past him as Vanadi's gored arm fails to meet the challenge of snatching him.

"Yes," he says quickly, whether or not it's true, and he's already striding for the door. He pauses only to admit to himself that maybe, maybe, it would be smart to plan this and not rush off thirsty for blood.

"Wait — alright, the others. They'll be captured as well, right? We're a poor pair to be the only gains." No offense. "Split up?"

"We'd be at a disadvantage moving alone in this place."

And Ellis can't see easily in the dark. This certainly wouldn't be his first time facing an enemy in less than ideal conditions, but Medrod is not darkspawn. Ellis has no warning in his blood to alert him to the impending threat of a wily old murderer with a very sharp knife.

"I'd rather be sure he hasn't ducked into another chamber to use that knife on someone who hasn't gotten out of their chains," Ellis continues. "Did you see which way he went?"

By way of some compromise. If they move in that direction and come across someone else to free, they might as well make use of the coincidence.

He hates the thought of leaving less ground covered and, potentially, more people waiting for help, but ... well, this human had failed to knock out an old man with the cover of Vanadi's perfectly set up illusion. Maybe it's best not to leave him alone.

"Left," he says by way of agreeing to this plan, and steps into the hallway after a brief check each direction. No movements in the shadows. He shifts his grip on the knife and starts forward with a quiet, "After me."

"You're bleeding," Ellis points out, though he does fall into place a few paces behind Vanadi. Yes, they could argue over which of them leads, but the waste of time isn't worth it.

Though still, Ellis holds a breath, listening for any sound of footsteps or creaking hinges to give them some idea of where the man might have run to.

OUTCOME: It's hard to see in the dark, and the halls are uneven; it's hardly a surprise when a man without any night vision walks right into a mirrored wall.

No one is injured, somehow.

Oh, hey, is that a mirror maze? Sorry Ellis, Vanadi is too busy pausing and staring bewilderedly at this to stop you. Thonk.

That's when he finally moves, springing forward to set a hand on Ellis's arm.

"Careful." Redundant. That's to make up for the hold still while I unlock this. "Mirrors." He starts forward again, the wounded arm held out before him as a buffer for bumping into anything else. He looks for any flicker of movement, or sound of footstep.

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ROLL

ROLL: NARROW SUCCESS.

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ROLL

ROLL: MEDIUM SUCCESS.

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ROLL

ROLL: 🎉 GREAT SUCCESS. 🎉

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ROLL

ROLL: MAJOR FAILURE.

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ROLL

ROLL: MEDIUM SUCCESS.

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ROLL

ROLL: NARROW FAILURE.

ROLL