faderift | MISSION: AN OFFER THEY CAN REFUSE

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MISSION: AN OFFER THEY CAN REFUSE

WHO: Wysteria, Gideon, Yevdokiya, Gabranth, and Sawbones
WHAT: Negotiating with the Carta for fun and profit...but mostly profit
WHEN: current
WHERE: Orzammar
NOTES: screaming nugs, good god | OOC post

let's do some mafia work

Nothing can be set in deep stone until work paints them as trustworthy. It isn't a matter of negotiation, but necessity, and so in the wake of that first meeting with Tarash— and his scaled down brother, whose penchant for irritation and anger reminded Gabranth of absolutely no one in particular— they meet within some nondescript corner of Riftwatch's private dining room within the Paragon's rest, huddling up in safer waters for the sake of reviewing given tasks, and deciding what roles they'll play within them.

Aside from the technical illegality of them, and the screaming nug delivery that needs doing without...screaming, it isn't an insurmountable list.

But they'll need to devise a strategy regardless: well before they begin trying to smuggle gold beneath the Merchants' Guild's collective, wealthy nose.

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He can claim no love of any of these given assignments. A bribe ill suits him, and nugs—

If he never sees another of the beasts in what remains of his own otherwise endless life, it'll be far too soon.

But that isn't the point, and it isn't going to solve anything in regards to drawing them closer towards an open negotiation table filled with opportunity. Their given stone table within Paragon's rest, at the very least, is fitted for now with a shallow pitcher of ale and enough mugs for the lot of them, though Gabranth's remains emptied and untouched. He sets his hand beside it in rigid gesture, parallel to the walls.

"It is the Merchants' Guild that will prove the more difficult task. Animals have no care for matters of discretion, and I fear what their own title implies about them."

His helm lifts slightly in careful consideration, he remembers words barked in indignant insult (what of -my- work), attention shifting towards Wysteria with perhaps obvious intent: she and her betrothed are creatures of knowledge. Perhaps—

"Know you anything about them?"

From where she sits a few chairs down, cheerfully taking notes in the margins of an already quite full page, it takes a full measure of silence before the lack of answer has Wysteri's attention rising from the page. Baffled, she passes a look about the room and eventually settles on Gabranth with—

"Me? I most certainly do not. My only experience with nugs are the fire breathing kind, thank you very much."

Full offense taken.

"These they have?"

Doki has her chair pulled up very close so that she can be half laid on the stone table, her chest and one cheek pressed to the cool surface and her face turned away from the rest of the agents of Riftwatch. Now she lifts her head and looks over at Wysteria. Her dark eyes glitter like rain-shiny beetles.

"This I am interested in. Where are we getting fire nugs?"

"Marius Roundbush and Adrasteia the Second were brought to the Gallows shortly before we left for Orzammar. I will show you them when we return," is couched in an extreme sort of suspicion.

Does she know anything of Doki personally to warrant such a thing? No, not especially. However her brother is dreadful enough that some of the man's ill favor naturally spills over onto those nearest to him.

"But as for the matter at hand—"

“We are not getting fire nugs.”

Gabranth interjects with dour determination, his voice all but dripping with it, ignoring the fact that their plans are meant for freer points in the near future.

Focus, is what he seems to implore.

“Our current topic of discussion is the screaming sort, of which we cannot afford to forget.”

Sitting silently at the table, with one hand clutching a nearly-untouched mug of ale and the fingers of the other pressed to his temple, Brother Gideon listens and wonders how in the Void he ended up here.

That wondering is met by its twin, Gabranth's own determination leaving him unwilling to entertain quietude in all its forms.

“Have any of you access to magic?”

Something of unnatural origin might at the very least make portions of this endeavor easier by his own estimation, though— a vague sweep of their gathered assembly has doubt forming itself along the base of his neck.

“...or at the very least knowledge of what the beasts might feed upon, to keep them silent.”

Doki, disappointed by the immediate denial of her dream, had made a disgusted noise and turned her face away again. "I will meet Mari and Adra soon," she says, a vow to Wysteria and to herself. Her cup of ale is empty and she wants another but she does not want to pull herself from the table just yet to get it.

"Nugs are eating anything. Bugs and rocks and worms, whatever they are finding. Everyone is knowing this. If we stuff them full of worms they will not be able to be making noise. This, I can do."

"We can talk to one of the Dusters that run the races too," Sawbones says, finishing off her own mug of ale and pouring another measure. It's Dust Town swill, of course, but she's missed it a bit. "The golden statues'll be a little harder to squeeze past the guards without attracting attention."

Worms. Hard pass.

"Could we perhaps contrive to cause some commotion to draw the guards away? Feign a theft, perhaps? Or put on some kind of...street performance to draw the eye so that the statues might be passed along while they're looking in some other direction?"

Are you having fun yet, Gabranth?

He's dying thank you for asking.

"My own stature is significant enough that it would be no substantial feat to smuggle objects in the shadow of both armor and cloak." There is something detestable there, lingering on the tip of his tongue in the suggestion: to use what has always been a symbol of wrathful dignity as a tool for deception. But needs must, and Gabranth would be the first to attest to it.

He is strong, he is broad in blackened plate. There may be use enough in that.

"With distraction, I believe there would be no question of innocuity in transit, provided we are coordinated in our efforts."

"'Innocuity in transit'. What does this mean?"

Hearing the little Sister pour herself more ale, Doki at last sits up, but only so that she can push her cup closer, hopeful for a refill.

"If you are meaning that you can hide golden nugs in your armpits, this is good, and you should say so. I can help with distraction too if that is what we are wanting. Worms and noise, I am good at these." She grins, a little flash of bad teeth. "We make little muzzles and put in the worms and put them on the nugs--then, they are always eating and they cannot be screaming. There: we have quiet nugs. That is one thing done. Do we need a distraction if we are smuggling the statues in armpits? It is sad that we do not have any magic. Magic I am thinking can be noisy."

Gideon is watching Yevdokiya with an expression that can only be described as dour disgust, but with an intensity that suggests he is actually considering her words.

He looks like he'd rather die than say, "...that could actually work," but there it is.

Sawbones huffs and pours Doki some more ale.

"Of course it will," she says to Gideon, as though this were a perfectly regular sort of plan and he's making a big deal of it. To Doki: "Reckon you could get the muzzles from the nug racers no problem. We'll have to bribe 'em otherwise and that ain't gonna be cheap with all of you lookin' like yourselves. Especially you." She gestures to Gabranth.

She continues: "If we can get the statues hidden up in you, that's one thing. We just gotta keep you away from anybody who'd look too close, which means we're gonna need to take the long way around to avoid all the blasted metal smiths. And Wysteria's idea for a street performance is a good one, if you can make it loud and maybe fake some magic, it'll keep a lot of eyes off the transport."

"So it's decided. Sister Sara, you will assist in guiding Ser Gabranth along. There ought to be one other person in your company to carry the crate or whatever you like with the nugs inside of it, yes? And then someone ought to help Miss Waysly--Miss Bearhold with her distraction. This all seems manageable enough."

Sat primly in her chair, Wysteria makes a few additional notes on the pages before her and then looks expectantly to Gideon.

"I'll carry the crate," Gideon hurriedly volunteers, figuring that if the nugs are quiet as Doki suggests, it will only amount to a fraction of the indignity that the distraction will.

He's stronger than he looks.

Edited 2021-05-24 06:02 (UTC)

"Serrah Muscles!"

Approvingly, Doki slaps the table. Her mug of ale is already half gone. She was busy guzzling it while everyone was saying how good of a plan she had thought of. Yes, of course, it is good. She is among the cleverest here, and if they did not understand it before, they do now.

"I am believing you. This is good! I will be street performer. I can walk on my hands very well. Faking magic, with throwing powders, and all of this--Miss Bearhold, she will be yours for this. The little Sister and the little Rifter will be with me. We will do well! Get your drinks, let us toast."

Gabranth rises, but not to toast. Instead he leaves his untouched mug of ale where it rests, along with the concept of any further companionship on his part. He came to table with purpose, and with that finished, so is he.

For now.

“Make ready the last of your details. We finish this tomorrow.”

——

Tomorrow plays its role, as do they all, and so completed time sees them all returned to the Paragon's rear, huddled once more in meeting, a little more weathered for their trouble.

“Our end of the bargain has been fulfilled.” His tongue curls with distaste, barely suppressed— though the matter of it is masked fully by his own helm, kept in place, of course, as he stands dutifully at Wysteria’s back. “If you must, consult your contacts— though I imagine you have already been made aware of this.”

What he hopes, of course, is that any prying eyes would only have noted the results. The end point of their efforts, rather than the full depth of it: the sound of squalling from a closed crate, the momentary pause where his own posture was so stiff as to be conspicuous near standing guard—

From the other end of the table, their contact Tarash shows nothing of either his knowledge or his hand, though his brother’s twitching face shows irritation throughout.

He’s prone to that.

“With this I believe we are free to resume our negotiations in full.”

Is that too presumptuous? Perhaps. But Tarash waves over a round all the same, filling the table with ale in short order. This, of course, is the part where everyone begins making their demands.

Or pleasantries, maybe.

It is Wysteria that Gabranth is most familiar with. Wysteria that he trusts in judgment and clear, unclouded sight: part of it the results of her work— her efforts in tireless research and outreach— part of it is simply fondness, so much as a rough-cut man as Gabranth is ever capable of.

Her counsel will ease his mind, with the weight of all earlier exchanges still burning in the back of his skull.

Few reside in the Paragon’s Rest at so late an hour. Their table is simple, far from clutter and conversation save for their own, and so it is not discretion that keeps his voice mild. Gentle, even by his own standards, “Do you believe we make progress?”

“Regardless of all we have done, I can discern nothing of our present standing.”

Ought they buckle? Bend? Were it Gabranth’s decision alone he would simply demand they heed his offer— but he is not so blind to their situation that he does not know better.

At this little table in the Rest's main dining room, illuminated both by the plate of candles between them and by the array of lanterns on the walls nearest them, Wysteria has stacked a prodigious series of documents on the table. They are not all related to the negotiation work—no indeed, disgorged also from that leather folio in her possession is a great collection of schematics and runesmithing notes and a copied treatise on lyrium properties from the Shaperate annals—, but the sheaf closest to the top at least is a record of her note keeping throughout their various sessions. When she has not been boisterously interjecting in the middle of negotiations, she has been a rather diligent scribe.

Even now her writing hand is in motion, the metal end of her pen scratching a series of addendums in the margins of the papers before her.

"Hm? Oh yes. Very much so, I should think. If we weren't, I imagine there is little reason that Tarash would still be entertaining our company. And if Steran is growing tired of us, then all the better. There is nothing quite like a family member being mortifyingly rude to make one feel extra hospital to guests, don't you agree?"

That, for whatever reason, draws a dry noise from the back of his throat— something that echoes metallic within the confines of his helm. He is amused, though she need not know it. Instead, he keeps the eyeless sockets of his helm trained on her work, tracing the outline of various words with his gaze, though none of it truly interests him.

Idle curiosity, nothing more.

"You know them far better than I." It was, after all, Wysteria's familiarity that bought them such a simple exchange initially. "I shall consider your perspective as truth. No less."

"My only concern is the lyrium. It is a point of contention, and I would do much to ensure it does not fall into the hands of our enemies so easily."

She nods briskly, making some further note among the records before us.

"It would be good to reduce the flow of the stuff into Tevinter. There will be other avenues than just the Carta through which they get it of course, but better to make cuts where it is possible. But I should very much like to hear whatever information they have about darkspawn. There is a connection there, I think, to Corypheus and others like him. To say nothing of the blighted Gates and so on."

Her hand pauses halfway through a line. She looks at him.

"Have you read or been told by someone about the attack on Nevarra City yet, Ser Gabranth?"

"I have heard the Gates mentioned." Perhaps more, though his retention of the information had been poor; without immediate relevance, his mind had opted to simply cast aside talk of ancient stories as no more than that. He had listened more out of curiosity than intent, and it's only now, settled in the latent quiet of a well-spent day, that he realizes perhaps his prior assessment had been incorrect.

A first, undoubtedly.

"Beyond that, I know little. Less than I ought."

"Maker, we really must do a better job as an organization introducing a series of basic intelligence to new Rifters. I have long considered including it as part of my survey. We are relatively good at seeing that you all know how to dress and not be robbed in Kirkwall and the general state of geography and so on, but it seems very silly to me not to require some basic reading. Or to receive a most fundamental debrief. I suppose," she says, still in the middle of what extraordinarily appears to be a single breath. "That it might be something of a security threat. Perhaps someone is worried that new arrivals will have no true alliance to Riftwatch or her allied forces and so be happily persuaded to defect."

All this she has said with her hand having returned to its work, the letters formed by the pen entirely independent from this plucky diatribe. She in fact pauses for a full beat after to finish a bit about Kirkwall coterie history, see 'A Summation of Scoundrels' by unnamed (presumed deceased) before she lifts her attention again, finally sets the pen and her notes fully aside and begins something like an explanation in earnest.

"A few months prior to your arrival, a number of us experience a Fade-touched dream where we saw an imagined version of the future if we are not to stop Corypheus. A vast majority of the details were inconsequential, however it was implied by various accounts and by a meeting with the spirit of the Herald of Andraste, that Corypheus is seeking out a series of 'Gates' which will in some way assist him in winning the war. Which would all sound like the silliest kind of nonsense had myself and a few other members of the outfit not already discovered one such Gate the summer prior. Even now it is open in the base of a temple to the old god Dumat, in Orlais.

"As for the other darkspawn—Corypheus is not working alone. That we know from the assault on Nevarra City—Gods, it has been nearly two years now."

“I function in this world. Is that not education enough?”

A question answered not long after, when his understanding of that dream and all its ill omens is toppled in a way that draws immediate focus, the stretch of his neck rising higher— posture going rigid with attention.

“Perhaps the Gates are merely symbolic. Places marked by power, which he assails at his leisure.” A feeble suggestion, given Gabranth's own lack of knowledge on the subject, and the woman with which he speaks (one far more sharp-witted than himself, and with near encyclopedic knowledge of the world they currently inhabit), but that has hardly ever stopped Judge Magister Gabranth from opening his mouth.

“Yet if you believe the darkspawn truly assist him in this cause, then I believe we can make a few more...milder concessions, in order to secure this intel for your general research.”

There is a moment there where Wysteria visibly and heroically struggles not to make some minor correction, must disregard it as ultimately unimportant, and then satisfies herself with saying,

"I believe it very likely, yes. Or at least that the two are not unrelated. Indeed a great deal of our troubles seem to be related to the blight, and so any information we might collect on it and darkspawn seems entirely worth our while."

A beat. Then, laser focusing on him rather than on her own unspooling train of thought:

"Milder concessions? I have not changed your mind about this Corterie business, have I?"

Smug? Her? No, certainly not.

"...Lady P— de Foncé," he corrects, catching himself in his own error, though the name once spoken bears a certain air of disapproval. Perhaps it is only in regards to the way she teases with a predator's clear focus—

Or perhaps it is the thought of her husband, and the memory of his defiance.

"I have adjusted the scope of my own priorities, based on information freely given. It would be unbecoming to preen over such a thing."

She has a very dreadful poker face; her crooked smile grows more crooked still.

"In front of the other party in the negotiation, yes. It would be very unbecoming indeed. But here when it is only the two of us friends? Come now, Ser; you must allow me my satisfaction."

From the base of his throat comes a low noise of irritation, made all the more deep by the echoing hollows of his helm. Yet that is all that she earns for her insistence— and anyone that knows Gabranth well enough might grasp that this is a sign of free rein, in essence: the grousing of a creature that would do no more harm than voiced displeasure.

Friends, she says. Friends they must indeed be.

He leans back by degrees in his seat, the stone of it well-suited to his weight in armor.

"Speak of this to no one else."

"That we are friends, or that I have successfully swayed you to agree with me?"

She evidently doesn't need to know him well to recognize recognize weakness, and is perfectly happy to delight in exploiting it. Or at the very least, making every appearance to do so. She takes the most base form of pity on him a few moments later, relenting in the form of lowering her attention to the task of collecting together her notes and various papers, saying,

"Well, I am glad we have decided in any case. Now we need only convince the rest of our resolution and perhaps we may at last make some headway with Tarash."

"Both." He determines dryly. So dry, in fact, that he plays his hand in terms of tolerance: easily made transparent despite the heaviness of dark armor and its inhuman face.

But they move on.

"Leave their uncertainty to me. I shall sway them by word, or through fear. Tarash is yours."

"Let us rely on word," she says without raising her attention from the proliferation of papers before her. "I don't believe fear is likely to get us very far. And besides, I think Tarash and his wife are perfectly charming. Though you are welcome to be as gruff as you like to his dreadful brother who surely deserves to be menaced somewhat."

A pause then. The rise of Wysteria's attention from her notes is abrupt and threateningly penetrating in the way that can only be achieved by sweet girls with no discretion whatsoever.

"Have you dealt very much with scoundrels and villains, Ser?"

That stare could put basilisks to shame. She makes it effortless, and he holds no doubt that were she not a creature composed of jovial mirth and cheerful inquisitiveness, it would be no different.

Even so, his voice is as stolid as ever when he responds.

"Define your usage of the term 'dealt'."

—is evidently so fascinating a specter of semantics as to require her fully undivided attention. Wysteria sets her papers aside.

"I suppose I hadn't really thought of it. You clearly have some opinion on the subject. Perhaps you might lead me through your understanding of the term."

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MISSION: AN OFFER THEY CAN REFUSE

PRE-TASK ROUNDUP:

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hi im saying turn order can be broken for direct questions

that 'baby, what baby' comic except it says 'tag order'

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for Wysteria

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lmf Wysteria don't rub it in!!!!!

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