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

[murderbaby]

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.

Comments

[sulahnan]

Another look between them, and a quick one beyond them to the others. Those she would trust not to burn the place down with them in it far outweigh the alternative, but the fear of someone deciding that this isn't worth their time still stands.

"Alright," she agrees, to going slow and to Mhavos helping despite his injuries. "There was one in the room where we found Richard and Holden, I didn't... count the ones in that other room."

[murderbaby]

"Then we'll all count," Mhavos says. He leans a bit on the door as they make their way in. He had a small notebook among the items they'd recovered, and he opens it now. "For the record. For history."

[highborn]

For the record and for history mean little to him, but this is something to focus on — and good company to keep around him. He moves closer to Mhavos, offering an arm (his un-stabbed one) as he eyes his bloodstained shirt.

"Here," he says, a murmur. How about they skip the stage where Vanadi watches for any stumbles, and just go right to playing crutch for him.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos is prideful and prickly on many subjects, but apparently losing his intestinal integrity supercedes that. He leans heavily into Vanadi with a sarcastic, "my hero."

[sulahnan]

"Alright," she says again, in part to herself as she turns towards the dark maze of halls they just escaped.

The first room they come to is, unfortunately, the one with four taxidermied elves and a collection of books. Athessa clears her throat.

"I don't think they'll be heavy," she starts, trying to go about this dispassionately, but she can't help but look at these strangers' faces and see those of her family. What if? "But I don't think I can carry one by myself."

[highborn]

Ugh. Ugh. Vanadi has come far from the spoiled and sheltered man he was only a few years ago, but handling taxidermied bodies is still very much on the list of things to flinch about. A look at Athessa's face watching the faces of the bodies is enough to spur him grimly on, though.

"Mhavos," he says, dropping his arm to step forward, "I would very much appreciate if you might keep an eye out for any traps we've missed."

He could probably carry one on his own, but if Athessa can't, it won't speed up the work. May as well split it. He crouches at the feet of the nearest body, lifting carefully once Athessa's taken him up on the silent offer of help.

[murderbaby]

"Wait," Mhavos says softly, and jots some information down in his book. Four Dalish, three male, one female, middle age. "Athessa, can you identify the... is there any relevant information about the tattoos?"

If they're going to archive this, they're going to do it right.

To Vanadi, he nods. "I shall. Is there any spare furniture?"

[sulahnan]

"Relevant? I—" Athessa shakes her head, frowning down at the face of the elf she and Vanadi are carrying. Relevant, she repeats the word until her mind emerges from the fog with why they were here in the first place. "Um...They're Marcher Dalish. Locals. This one's vallaslin is for Mythal. The others, for Sylaise and Andruil. None of them are Gawen's bride."

A shrug, or a slight adjustment of her hold under the dead elf's arms.

[highborn]

Vanadi watches the face of the body in their hands, the markings in particular, trying to commit to memory the associated words that mean so little to him. Marcher Dalish, Mythal, Sylaise, Andruil ...

His answer is a distracted murmur, "I should say it's all spare. Do you need any help with — " With whatever it is Mhavos has in mind there.

[murderbaby]

"Thank you, Athessa. They won't be forgotten." Mhavos jots it all down. "Throw the furniture into the hallway. Surely it will set off any spare traps."

And then thy can bun this fucking place.

[sulahnan]

"Sure hope there aren't any traps that release poison..."

If only because there are some traps that aren't better when sprung.

ROLL

[highborn]

Ah. Yes. Mhavos would need help with that. He catches Athessa's eye to lower his end of the body, and when he's free of it (after suppressing a shudder), plucks up a lightweight-enough wooden chair for carting around with them. First, though, he bowls it down the hallway, in the hopes of catching up any traps they've managed not to activate so far.

ROLL: MEDIUM SUCCESS.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos pulls his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth, clearly taking this very seriously.

OUTCOME: A chair spins down the hall, immediately caught in the iron teeth of a weighted trap.

It seems these traps aren't weighted with elves in mind. Mhavos hmms. "Perhaps he feared ruining the pelts." His voice is flat with disgust.

[sulahnan]

Athessa says nothing about that, but clenches her jaw. Hearing their skin referred to as pelts...it's awful.

"We definitely won't want to step on anything while carrying the dead."

Redundant, but oh well. Any one of them might be too light to trigger the traps but even the weight of a hollowed-out elf would tip that scale.

"Should we clear the paths to the other rooms before we start moving anyone?"

[highborn]

Thanks, Mhavos, that's awful. Vanadi sighs, though, because Athessa is very much correct, and he hates this part.

"Technically," he starts, already regretting it, "This was my job. Part of my job. For a while. Long enough to say that yes, we should." So he snatches up the remaining chair, because why not, and creeps cautiously down the cleared hallway, headed for the first branch.

"Which way to the next room?"

[sulahnan]

"Left up ahead," Athessa answers, and turns to Mhavos. "Were there any bodies in the room with you and Leander?"

ROLL

[highborn]

He's kind of into this chair strat, which strikes him as much quicker than checking manually, so long as there aren't any poison gap traps. While they sort out where the bodies are behind him, Vanadi bowls another chair.

ROLL: MEDIUM SUCCESS.

[murderbaby]

OUTCOME: The chair is quickly ripped to shreds by very fine, almost invisible pieces of garrote wire.

Mhavos rolls his eyes. "That would explain why the room I woke up in only had parts of people." He points. "The wire should reflect light, if you shine light on them directly."

[highborn]

"Parts, Vanadi mutters, "Of course you did. It's always parts."

This is getting very old, and he's less inclined to be cagey about weird magic. Light springs to his cupped palm from no conceivable source, a weak white glow on top with a darkly distorted base. Don't worry about it. He finds his way to the base of each wire in the wall, working his dagger into the mechanism to release them.

[murderbaby]

"Always parts," Mhavos murmurs, "what a life you lead."

He hobbles forward to track the light reflected off the wire to the wall. "There ought to be some mechanism keeping them taunt."

ROLL

[sulahnan]

Athessa's reaction to Vanadi's magic is subdued, a slight raise of her brow that he has such a variety of tricks up his sleeve. She looks more intently for a mechanism like Mhavos suggested, ready to join Vanadi in disabling the wire traps if she finds nothing.

ROLL: MAJOR SUCCESS.

[murderbaby]

OUTCOME: Athessa finds a loose panel in the wall, and upon fiddling with it, accidentally pulls the wires too taunt. Accordingly, panels from the opposite wall are ripped out as the wires zip across the hallway.

Mhavos whistles. "That's one way of doing it."

[highborn]

The wire goes slack under his blade, absolutely unrelated to his blade, and Vanadi blinks. Then a grin, as he realizes what Athessa's done.

"Ah, a cut to the chase, well done."

[sulahnan]

Whether she needs to or not, she quickly moves to pull Vanadi back and away from the wires as her major success yields the sound of many piano wires snapping.

"Sorry, sorry!"

definitely fuckin missed this notif in my own goddamn plot.

[murderbaby]

"Some time," Mhavos says, walking slowly, "remind me to tell you the story of the Gamordan Knot."

But now is hardly the time. They make their way further into the darkness, following the path of shattered mirrors. Don't Dalish have some hangup about mirrors? Now's hardly the time to ask, but it is rather poetic.