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

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.

how about another ROLL

[highborn]

Vanadi walks carefully, avoiding most of the crunch of glass with careful steps, and very much regretting that this whole trap-finding thing is meant to be an expertise of his. He would give an awful lot not to be going first right now.

A new hallway, a new opportunity to get killed. He bowls the biggest chunk of chair from the last hallway, eyes on the floor and walls for any sign of trap, both those that might activate and those that not find the chair fragment heavy enough for them.

ROLL: MAJOR SUCCESS.

[murderbaby]

OUTCOME: The chair hits a pressure plate, causing a trap door to open.

The trap door is filled with knives.

i mark this date on the calendar

[highborn]

Oh, well, that's at least a little bit handy. Vanadi creeps carefully to the trap door, inspects it to make sure there's no more surprises waiting, and begins detaching knives to tuck away. One can never have too many knives, honestly.

[sulahnan]

Armed with many just-in-case knives and proceeding carefully, the trio make it to the room where Gawen's bride lay, the packed earth floor darker where Holden and Barrow bled in the time they were here. Athessa doesn't enter the room, knowing they still have to clear the traps that pose a threat to anyone trying to reach the final room where Gawen's bits are to be found.

But the bride will have to be disconnected from whatever mechanism is controlling her.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos sighs at the doll, propped up with sticks and chain. Half a woman, cheated dignity in death, Mhavos likes to think he'd be horrified by this being done to anyone, not just an elf. It's horrifying.

Mhavos uses his makeshift cane to poke and prod forward, clearing a safe path to the room. "This will be a project," he murmurs, taking out a knife. It looks like a letter opener.

[highborn]

Gods, but this is grisly. Vanadi takes a moment just to stare from the doorway, seeing it for the first time. He feels no particular connection to elves of this world, but anyone having this done to them is ... quite a lot to take in.

But he can't leave Mhavos to it alone. He pauses to touch Athessa's lower back briefly, a reassuring rub, before stepping past her and setting to careful work with a knife of his own.

[sulahnan]

"I'm gonna...I'm just gonna disable some of the traps out here if that's okay with you guys," she says, though she doesn't wait for confirmation or argument before backtracking to the trap door to load up on whatever knives Vanadi didn't pilfer. They'll make good projectiles for setting off traps in place of a chair.

[murderbaby]

"Good idea," Mhavos says gently, and begins sawing at the wooden puppetry-- he can't think of it as anything else-- jutting out of leathered flesh. It's not as slow going as he feared; the puppet bride is well-made, but the implements of her jerky movements are not.

"This is-" Mhavos grimaces. "I don't have words for it."

There is some anger, barely restrained, in his voice.

[highborn]

Vanadi, always with some line or another at the ready, also doesn't have words for it. He works grimly, keeping his eyes carefully to the task. Once they stray, and land on the poor woman's face for a moment. He still says nothing, but pauses to hastily wipe at his cheek, then dives in with renewed diligence.

It's much slower going than he would like, but the work does pay off eventually. the last hold severs and the body falls forward — Vanadi darts to catch her like she's nothing more than a fainted woman. Her weight immediately reminds him otherwise, and he grimaces.

"She's so light," he mutters, uselessly, mostly to himself.

[sulahnan]

Without knowing the exact way to the last room, Athessa prioritizes any path that isn't littered with broken glass. The likelihood that she and Barrow were the ones to pass through before is high, which she takes as reason enough that there wouldn't be any unsprung traps in that direction. And anyway, if it was herself and Barrow traversing those halls, it won't lead to where Mhavos and Leander were held.

It's a fairly quick process, all things considered. Before long, she returns to the room where Mhavos and Vanadi are tending to the doll.

"I think I've cleared most of them going ahead," she says from the doorway. "I didn't bother going down the halls me n' Barrow were in before."

[murderbaby]

Mhavos takes off his tattered, stained overcoat and wraps the puppet bride in it. He attempts to close her eyes, but they seem to have been sewn open, eyes replaced with finely painted, nearly-lifelike marbles. He turns her head to the side instead, so she stares into Vanadi's chest, and not out any anyone who may look and see themselves reflected in her stillness.

"I think that's," he whispers to Vanadi, but mostly himself. "That should be... yes."

He looks at the open doorway, with Athessa outside, unsure what to say directly to her.

[highborn]

It's somehow worse when Mhavos moves her head, like she's seeking comfort and reassurance — she's not, of course. Only living people do that.

"I ... ah," he starts, which is all he can manage for a moment. He clears his throat and looks up from the top of the corpse's head, face pale. "I think I'd like to take her outside first. If we don't mind a small adjustment of plan."

It feels wrong to set her down again.

[sulahnan]

"I could use some air myself," Athessa says, nodding. From here, with her face turned away from sight and Mhavos' coat around her, the bride looks almost like she's just fainted.

[murderbaby]

"Yes," Mhavos croaks, coughs, tries again. More clearly: "Yes, I'd like that very much."

He moves forward, each step shaky, leaning heavily on the makeshift cane.

[highborn]

Out they go. The going is easy enough, with the way cleared of traps, and the body in his arms really is no weight at all. Vanadi moves quietly, side stepping the remains of spent traps, and doesn't speak until fresh air suggests the longest short walk of his life is over.

"Where, ah -- " There's no delicate way to ask where to put the bodies. He looks at Athessa for an answer regardless.

[sulahnan]

Oh. Athessa sees the look and has to seek out a spot—

"There, put her in the grass under that tree for now," she points and leads the way to a nearby copse of trees. "We can lay them out here and I'll...do what I can to prepare them, I guess."

The bride's eyes, for example, should probably be covered if they can't be closed. A cloth, maybe.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos knows something about bodies. He wishes he was well enough to do this himself. It doesn't bother him like it clearly does the others. What bothers him is their sorrow.

Once the body is laid down, Mhavos arranges his coat over her, turns her head, moves her hair, with the efficiency of a mortician. In the end, it looks like she's sleeping under his coat, hair covering her sightless marble eyes. If not for the fact that there is no shape of legs under the coat, it looks rather natural.

"I wish we knew her name." That, truly, is the crux of it for him.

[highborn]

He stands back after he's settled down the body, and feels like he can smell her still in her clothes. It's a terrible scent, neither the smell of a living person nor the decay of death. He wants a bath more than anything else right now.

One down, though, several to go. He waits, wordless, while Mhavos makes his adjustments, before turning to head back inside.

[sulahnan]

Athessa kneels next to her, on the opposite side from Mhavos, and while he does most of the work, she speaks softly to Gawen's bride as if she were but sleeping. Little murmurations of Elvhen as well as Trade, apologies and prayer.

"We'll find out," she says to Mhavos. "Mhavos are you — Why don't you stay out here, and I'll get one of the others to help retrieve the others?"

He's better at preparing them than she is, and neither of them are going to be much help with carrying the bodies.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos listens intently, memorizing with the plan to copy it down when Athessa isn't looking. He nods, pulling out a small notebook. "They don't bother me. I don't know why," he lies. He doesn't elaborate. "I'll help how I can."