closed | RED(CLIFFE) OYSTER CULT

[cozen]

WHO: Adrasteia, Laurentius, Edgard, + Bastien
WHAT: The Gang Investigates A Cult
WHEN: August
WHERE: Redcliffe
NOTES: OOC info, crystal chatter.

CHANTRY MINGLE

Upon their arrival in Redcliffe and expression of their intention to seek an audience with Chantry officials, the Arl's knights will escort them to the local Chantry. The party will be greeted there by Mother Bronagh, Sister Patience and Sister Theda, alongside some other curious Chantry sisters and brothers.

There are some initial questions as to what Riftwatch is as an organization; weren't they part of the Inquisition? But the initial confusion doesn't prevent anyone from delivering the hopes of establishing familiarity between Riftwatch and their Chantry. Upon hearing the heartfelt offer of assistance, alongside the wish to strengthen ties between Riftwatch and Redcliffe, Mother Bronagh seems pleasantly surprised. Enough so that she directs Riftwatch to set up their tents in the area alongside the Chantry typically used by pilgrims and refugees, and indicates that they should be able to come and go as they please for the duration of their stay.

Once this initial meeting is over, Riftwatch agents will be able to mingle with Redcliffe's people and knights, as well as with any and all Chantry personnel they come across. Once word gets around that they've come offering help with any pesky tasks, everyone seems to have something to suggest they dedicate their time to. It's a prime opportunity to make some friends, even if said friends are rattling off a whole slew of work that needs doing:

• The Chantry could use extra hands for distributing food and clothing to the poor and down-on-their-luck and has a variety of carpentry and repair that they could use help with, if anyone knows their way around a hammer and nails. A group of Chantry-schooled children also recently knocked over two bookcases, which needed reorganization anyway, so if someone wants to categorize and alphabetize the stacks of books in need of it, Sister Patience in particular would be very grateful.
  
• A group of thieves have been stealing food and tools from people's storehouses and porches, and no one has had any luck catching them. If Riftwatch manages it, they'll find the thieves in question are a group of enterprising children and teenagers who have been fencing those goods at the Crossroads.
  
• The resident healer is still and always in need of herbs, and she has such fond memories of the Herald of Andraste taking time to assist her with that when she was in the Hinterlands—maybe they're as nice as she was?

Of course, even with all these tasks for them to choose from, it's imperative to attend Chantry services. Mother Bronagh reserves the frontmost pew for Riftwatch, so any absences will be noted. (And detrimental to their purpose for being in Redcliffe, so take care not to be tardy.) In addition to the traditional singing of selections from the chant, Mother Bronagh will deliver the dullest conceivable sermon on Canticle of Andraste in a slow and creaky monotone. Points will be deducted for yawning.

UNAUTHORIZED SNOOPING

When anyone tries to broach the subject, it becomes apparent quickly that gentle inquiry isn't going to get any answers about "Brother" Gideon. No one wants to talk about him, and at most their questions garner the following answers:

• Brother Gideon went missing about a year before he arrived in the Gallows.
  
• No one heard anything from him, no letters, no note left behind.
  
• Everyone is very sorry about what he did, and they had no idea he was capable of such a thing.
  
• It has nothing to do with them, really. They certainly don't hold with such actions.

With all conversation leading to a dead end, a little snooping will be in order. By digging around for private records and journals, or eavesdropping on private conversations from within a wardrobe, or both, they'll be able to uncover enough detritus to glean a reference to a group called the "Promisers" who had previously been active in the nearby hills and whom Brother Gideon is believed to have been seen with. Whether they choose to surreptitiously use the Redcliffe Chantry's archives or crystal-a-friend in the Gallows, research into what a Promiser is will lead them to the Order of Fiery Promise. Those who know their history will recall that the Inquisition had some dealings with this cult many years ago, and that they were silent between that last altercation and Gideon's attack.

Bear in mind, they'll need to take their leave from the Chantry in a timely manner to avoid getting caught snooping. Time to pretend to be heading back, before pursuing those rumors.

MOUNTAIN FORTRESS

Armed with the word "Promisers" and the general concept of a cult operating in the mountains, the team will have a little more luck getting information out of the isolated farmers and near-hermits who live outside of Redcliffe. They'll know enough to point them in the right direction, toward a now-abandoned fortress on the edges of the Frostback range.

It's not a terrible long journey, but it still might involve some bears or bandits. It will certainly involve mud.

At the end, the fortress in question isn't much to look at; walls are crumbling, the roof is more missing than not. But the underground floors in particular still provide shelter on all sides, with functional, unrotten doors and everything. It's there that Riftwatch will likely want to set up camp, and it's there that Riftwatch will find the most evidence of recent inhabitants. Storerooms have been converted into bedrooms, dungeon cells into offices, and the halls are lined with rough-wood bookshelves, clearly made by people who did not fully know what they were doing and certainly not how to sand wood down.

The shelves are mostly empty now, like the rest of the fortress. There's no sign of struggle or particular haste. They'll find piles of discarded objects, clothing, and other debris that was clearly sorted into "donate or bin" piles before the group departed. It's among this that they'll find the most important information: scraps of paper where someone was practicing the Ander tongue and a water-damaged map of the Anderfels.

Comments

[muckspout]

Edgard gives an exaggerated motion forward with his arm. He's a little annoyed.

"By all means, lead the way!"

He follows him further into the building. The light reveals rats running along the floor. Edgard sighs, but the rats aren't what's bothering him.

"Could've made a torch. Just thought you'd do it faster because--" He gestures. Because of the magic. "Know how to make a torch."

He's not stupid, okay!!

[glossator]

"I seem to recall you otherwise occupied with making sure no walls were going to collapse on us," has the mild, untroubled timbre of a man more than happy to assure his present company that no such torch-deficient related thoughts had occurred to him. And in that same key as Laurentius leads them down the glum, moldered passage:

"I'm sorry if I've failed to live up to your expectations as a northern mage. I'm reasonably certain one or two of my teachers might have cause to agree with you."

Not that he'd attended a particularly prestigious Circle but every mage scholar in the Imperium hopes to raise some savant under their tutelage, don't they?

[muckspout]

"Don't know enough about mages to know. Just thought they were more--" Dangerous? He should not say that.

"More battle-y and less book-y. But, guess there's weirdos everywhere, huh?"

He immediately realizes he's called his companion a weirdo.

"I mean, didn't mean--" A rat suddenly scuttles out of the darkness and Edgard shrieks unprepared for it.

[glossator]

Whether it's the shriek reverberating off the close stone passage of the moldering old fortress or the rat itself that does it is difficult to say. Regardless, Laurentius jumps so sharply that he nearly fumbles the staff-turned-torch in his possession. It takes a split second of mildly comical scrambling to get both hands back around it before it goes clattering to the mossy paving stones.

"Andraste's ashes—" is Imperial Chantry Brother for 'Jesus Christ, you scared me!'

[muckspout]

As the staff torch clatters to the ground, it alights the area the rat came from revealing even more rats skittering over parchment.

Edgard strides over and picks up the staff torch gently. He half expects the thing to explode. He lets a breath out after successfully picking it up.

"Think you found something." He says motioning with his head to the scene. "More rats!" He laughs. "and some paper. Maybe...something is on it." He says.

He doesn't offer to check himself and he doesn't offer the staff back. Don't mention he screamed.

[glossator]

For all that Laurentius doesn't flinch as the staff passes into his companion's possession, the stave may very well be just be exactly what it looks like: a very large stick, helpful for traipsing about the backwoods and little more. He certainly doesn't move to immediately take it off Edgard's hands.

"Apparently so."

Instead, Laurentius dusts his own palms absently against the front of his coat as if to settle himself—less shouting and screaming would be preferable—and then, with a decisive step forward, wades through the half-light afforded by the impromptu torch toward the rodents. They skitter away from his shadow, abandoning the parchment readily enough. Laurentius fetches up the the first scraps that are convenient without much caution for the grime or little rat footprints speckling them. He motions with his elbow for Edgard to bring the light closer.

[muckspout]

Edgard doesn't want to get closer to the rats, but also doesn't want to admit that. He takes tiny steps, hesitating too long before each one. Finally, he's just above Laurentius looking at the scraps.

"Is it...the diary of the rats?" He whispers, a poor attempt at a joke.

[glossator]

In the warm glow of the make-do torch, Laurentius unpeels one filth speckled page from the other and makes to hold the various scraps up to the light in an effort to get a better look at their contents. It's all rather unflinching; this isn't the first grimy bit of vellum he's had cause the handle. You'd be amazed at what can happen to rolls of parchment or books forgotten in damp corners of private libraries, and how often those papers find their way into Chantry hands for this reason or that reason.

"No, I don't think so. I don't see the word for cheese here anywhere."

(Look at them, a pair of comedians.)

"Someone has been practicing their Ander vocabulary. Look," he says, tipping the page so Edgard might review it. The alphabet is more or less familiar; the arrangement of the letters is likely not.