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

[nonvenomous]

It’s still next to Richard’s mouth, cherry wedged against his writer’s callus while he listens. Standard operation would have had him blotting the ember out two rounds ago, but now Ellis is smoking also. He must gamely carry on.

Even if he only remembers to hit it at the prompt to pass it over.

It hadn’t occurred to him that this could be a story with religious implications either, and there’s a flicker of warier reserve to the furrow of his brow when he finally does hold the elfroot out. He doesn’t hold his smoke long at all after it, fleeting in and out of the burn behind his armor.

Easy to see at a glance he’s invested in where this is going.

If not the draw of a journey home in itself, maybe there are other aspects he can relate to.

[heorte]

Having acquired the joint, Ellis draws his feet up, heels dug in a little against the packed earth. He sets his arms on his knees, abandoning the unconscious imitation of his father's pantomime.

"You can probably guess what comes next. Wallace continues walking, because what else is there to be done? He whistles after Pol, but the dog doesn't come, so he walks alone until the the trail leads to a washed out bridge. In some tellings the river current was too strong, in others it was too deep. Either way, Wallace would have been trapped but for the woodsman who emerged from the thicket, felled a tree and between them formed a makeshift bridge for Wallace to cross. Wallace was certain he recognized the woodsman, but the traveler he'd met on the road had been old and stooped, and the woodsman was young and hale."

Ellis pauses to lift the blunt, draws in a mouthful of smoke. He turns the blunt in his fingers after, before offering it back and continuing speaking tightly around the smoke.

"After crossing the river, Wallace asked if he had a father, or elderly uncle, or some relative traversing the mountains as well, and begged his name. The man told him, why, you gave me my name, and turned into a dog. Pol."

A beat, then a little shrug. Ellis' unease is clear, even through the curls of smoke he exhales.

"It comes along better when it's told by someone who can do the voices properly."

[nonvenomous]

“Are you embarrassed?” Outright nightmarish week aside, Richard’s grin comes easier than it has in the past. It’s slight, made more distinct for the long, painful lines around his face it’s framed by. Consider him charmed. “It’s a good story.

“I would applaud, but people are sleeping.”

He’s teasing, but not unkindly.

With the blunt in tow, he fits his good hand to his face to break off eye contact, pushing wrinkles in around his mouth, his brow, his collar. Consider him charmed, blazed, and exhausted. It’s easy to sit that way for a moment, with the weight of his skull sunk into his palm, until another flick of ash signals his readiness to resume conversation. Speaking of sleeping:

“What’s keeping you awake?”

[heorte]

Yes, there is some embarrassment. It has been a long time since Ellis told a story this way. Most things were easier written down, passed into Wysteria's hands to do with what she would. In the course of imparting this story, he's aware of the ways it could have been done better.

He is more often the one who listens quietly around a fire. The answering smile in response to Richard's teasing betrays some quiet, flustered edge alongside the pleased acknowledgement of Richard's enjoyment. It ebbs by degrees as they sit, fire crackling, Richard's face partially obscured by his hand. Maybe that is enough. He has not seen Richard smile like that in the entire course of their acquaintance, so it feels as if something has been accomplished.

But the question—

"There is no particular thing," Ellis says, which sounds like a deflection. He seems aware, which is why he continues, "It reminded me of other things I have survived when I likely shouldn't have. And it is hard to put all of it out of my mind long enough to fall asleep."

Skirting around Warden business, around the desert and Clarel and the Deep Roads, screams coming out of the dark. Half he doesn't care to speak aloud, half he feels duty-bound to withhold.

"Is it pain keeping you awake, or something else?"

[nonvenomous]

It does sound like a deflection, but not one that incites a flick of Dick’s whiskers, or a gleam in his eye. He has grown accustomed to a lack of elaboration from this source, and there’s no reason to lie. The buffer Ellis follows it up with is more than sufficient to pass muster. At least for tonight.

“It’s just the pain.”

There’s no reason to lie about that either; the evidence is there in his face, easily recognized for anyone familiar with the look of it.

“Some anxiety, perhaps, in defiance of reason. The human body is a wellspring of misery.” Hot take. He watches Ellis through the gaps between his fingers, another sigh steamed away thin on the wind. “This is helping.”

[heorte]

The human body is a wellspring of misery. That gets a warm laugh, even though maybe it shouldn't. There's some quiet element of agreement there, though Ellis doesn't say as much when he speaks again.

"The smoke?" Ellis assumes aloud. He does not reach for it back. There is some part of him eager for the buffer it provides, all the more reason to draw the line now.

[nonvenomous]

“And the story.”

Don’t sell yourself short -- he tips his brows, tired. Probably about ready to give sleep a second shot. An abortive reach for the blunt with his broken hand ends with him sitting back to grind the ember out on a flat rock.

“What do you think Pol was supposed to be?” He leaves the joint to cool where it lies, and watches it there to see that it doesn’t roll, both hands withdrawn into the warmth of his cloak. “A spirit?”

[heorte]

Wysteria has somewhat prepared Ellis for this sort of question, but there is inevitably some twinge of alarm at being asked for the opinion on the fly.

"Aye, perhaps a spirit," Ellis says slowly. "That's the trick of the story, in some ways. It's a Fereldan story, so we argue about whether or not he was a werewolf, or a descendant of Hafter, or Hafter's spirit guiding Wallace homewards."

Ellis rests his forearms on his knees, good hand grasping the opposite wrist. In the short, contemplative pause, he hears his uncles talking over each other, palms slapping at the table to circle round and round the old theories.

"But Fereldans aren't the only one reading it, so you hear about spirits and demons and all that. Wysteria gave me an essay on it once, so I've seen the argument for it."

It's an incredible ability Ellis has, to talk his way through an answer without giving a very clear picture of his own opinion on it.

[nonvenomous]

“I wasn’t aware there was such a distinct separation of mythologies.”

This is a very nice way of not acknowledging Ellis’ confounding inability to answer a direct question, with a touch of associate exasperation easily obscured by his vigilance about the blunt. A gust sets it rocking, and dusts charred flecks of paper and soot away into the night. He watches it go a moment before deeming the ember truly done, and sets about the process of packing it away into his little box.

“Ms. Poppell is very thorough.”

She is. Smash cut to him watching them dance together in matching costumes from the Satinalia shadows some days or weeks ago.

He is an expert at allowing no trace of this to brush his tone.

[heorte]

A pause, watching Richard's practiced process of packing away the blunt. There's some pleasing element to the handling of the items. Ellis seems content to sit quietly, potentially letting both remarks pass, before he draws in a deep breath and looks from the fire to Richard.

"Dogs are important in Ferelden," Ellis says mildly, by way of explanation. "I don't know of that being true anywhere else."

A little admirable that Richard either hasn't heard the dog jokes or is choosing to set them aside in this moment. His eyes lift to Richard's face, some small nod of agreement. Yes, Wysteria is very thorough. She's clever and full of questions, and typically has something to say about every book she and Ellis trade.

"Wysteria's been making a study of it," he continues. "She'd share some of it with you, gladly, I think."

[nonvenomous]

“Cultural admiration for an animal doesn’t necessarily lead to deification.”

Richard hears himself say this, pauses with the box mid-tuck into his armor, and resumes movement a beat later utterly unphased.

“Wysteria and I are collaborating on other projects.” Because she is clever and full of questions, particularly dangerous ones attractive to this particular snake worshiper. When he finally looks up again to meet Ellis’ regard, he reconsiders some further, pricklier elaboration, and turns it inward to say instead: “I may ask her about it.”

Somehow this makes him more tired than he already was.

“I should lie down."

[heorte]

In fairness, conversation with Wysteria does sometimes have that effect.

There's some urge towards explanation, to try and unspool the importance of dogs and what they mean in the larger scale of things. (It feels important that Richard know, which is notable in and of itself.) But he hesitates over it long enough that Richard moves on, acknowledging Wysteria and what he should theoretically be doing. Ellis is quiet for a moment, considering, before he speaks again.

"Will you sleep?" Ellis asks, question borrowed from Richard's query some weeks ago.

Though compared to attempting to get some rest, listening to a Fereldan talk about dogs and spirits is likely less enticing.

[nonvenomous]

Fair.

He thinks about it, with his cloak shrugged up and bound down more tightly about his shoulders.

“I might.” The ache is more distant, as is the tension choked up at his core. “I’m better at it than most of you.”

There is a touch of why, do you have more you want to talk about in the slant of his brows.

[heorte]

This is theoretically the point to quit while he's ahead. The bakery still weighs on his mind, though he doesn't know exactly how to make an apology for it.

It's selfish to ask him to sit up longer. Ellis has nothing else pressing. His hand flexes over his wrist as he ducks his head, grinning over Richard's assertion before he ventures an answer.

"You're good company," Ellis says in answer to Richard's eyebrows. "I'll be here, if it turns out you can't sleep."

[nonvenomous]

“I know.” Almost as if by design.

If only being slightly too personable for a snake hadn’t ruined his career. He stands in his cloak burrito, nods farewell, and turns to pick his way back to his own bedroll.

“You should rest too, if you can.”

sticks bow on this y/n

[heorte]

"I'm resting right now," Ellis contradicts to Richard's retreating back, a little teasing. He knows what Richard means. He'll try.