closed.

[cozen]

WHO: Bastien, Byerly, Darras, Edgard, Ellie, Gwenaëlle, Julius, Loxley, Yseult, & Special NPC Guest Stars
WHAT: THE FATE OF THE FOX
WHEN: Shortly post-mod plot
WHERE: Arlathan Forest
NOTES: OOC post! Use TWs in your subject lines as required.

It's a long shot. Bastien returns to the campsite they've all been sharing with only a silver, black-corroded medallion held carefully in his palm. With the dirt washed off, there's no question that the angular, geometric face stamped onto the front of it is a fox's.

"It's dwarven," he explains, more than once. "It's, look, 8:84, that is Ansgar Aeducan's reign. That is around when the Black Fox met Bolek. He came to the surface with them to help with—well, there four or five different things they are supposed to have been helping with. Most commonly it is bringing back the king's wayward daughter without letting anyone find out she had been exposed to the sky. This was over near one of those tower—cliff—cave-things, that way. There might be more."

Again, it's a long shot. But it's not nothing. Even if the medallion is all there is, it's not nothing.

And—for those who notice and care about the subtle differences between his sometimes-artificial chipperness and his stiller, quieter happiness—this is the best mood Bastien has been in since the sacrifices, the longest he's gone without tapping or tugging at his newly deafened ear. By the end of his brief, earnest-eyed it's not far, we could go look while there's still daylight and be back in plenty of time campaign, with no real protest from anyone, he's practically glowing.

The tower-cliff-cave-thing in question is one of the elven structures half-swallowed by earth, accessible through what was once a balcony door, now framed by vines and tree roots climbing in and out of the opening. They have to climb a root-threaded mound of dirt and rock to reach it, but they're rewarded almost instantly by the remnants of a 50-year-old campsite, a pair of leather boots that have only mostly rotten away to nothing in the humidity, and a change in the air (veil? vibe?) as they descend the uneven stone steps (or drop more impatiently through a nearby hole) to reach the next floor.

It's not good, the air-change. It's also not the energy-sapping miasma of shades or the tension of some nearby malevolence. It's the kind of not-good that makes one want to look. When they do, they see the skeletons first—five of them, half-jumbled, partially dressed in what metal and leather has survived the decades—and only for a second, before the thing waiting behind them in the dark reaches out to make them see something else.

OOC | Reply with your character's heroic dream as a new top-level! We're tagging them all at once. No tag orders. Don't boomerang so quickly that people get left completely behind because they're busy/asleep for a day but also skip people as needed—all nine of us don't need to tag every single round. Aim for brief threads!

NPC CAST: DESIRE: Charlie / REMI: Cass / KAROLIS: Brooklyn / SERVANA: Libby / BOLEK: MJ / CLEMENTIS: Ammmy

Comments

Byerly's ego-trip

[bouchonne]

The room is gilt and glittering, ormolu candlesticks and polished mirrors and fine parquet floor. In a velvet armchair sits a smiling villain with beautiful eyes. He speaks in a voice that drips with disdain -

"Dearest cousin, you have no proof."

Across from him, standing tall, is Byerly. Dressed not as he normally is, in the finery of the Kirkwall social set, but in his version of Fereldan garb - belted, booted, kidskin gloves picked through with embroidery. Sword at his hip. Fur peeking through at his hems. And on his finger, a ring that bears the insignia of office for a blackhaller, appointed personally by the queen to see to her justice.

"Dearest cousin," Byerly returns, his voice arch but resolute, "I have all the proof I need."

And he turns to look at the assembled crew standing behind him. There's a slight narrowing of his eyes, a moment of confusion - and then that confusion clears as he's drawn once again into the illusion, his addled brain believing in this moment of great triumph.

"Speak," he says to them, "on what you know of the wickedness of Richars Rutyer."

(It's not hard to guess what might be plausible stories about Richars Rutyer, even for those who've never heard Byerly speak about the man. The arrogance in his face, the cruelty in his smile speak hint at a sort of sadism. The opulence in the room hints at the way he's living on the fat of his estates while his people, perhaps, must endure the lean. The creep of his hand towards his dagger speak to a violent temperament. If the others decide they must play along with this fantasy, they can make many guesses that sound quite plausible.)

[charmoffensive]

"He sliced the tongue out of a man that once worked his grounds. Claimed he'd stolen from him after fifteen years of service."

Loxley has no idea what's happening. He does not know Richars Rutyer, and he does not, very much, like Byerly Rutyer. He doesn't know where they are, or really recognise any the significance of the way everyone is dressed—heavier leather, on him, than he's used to, some charming fur trim, everything a bit, you know, skirtier—but far be it from him not to speak up anyway when asked, breaking his analysis of this figure on his chair to look towards Byerly, not permitting his uncertainty to eke through.

He glances to the rest of the group, the spirits that are guiding them through. Qunari, once again, rings of black metal decorating his horns, his hand resting on the hilt of a shortsword that doesn't belong to him but nevertheless is lashed at his hip.

"And who knows what he knew."

[elegiaque]

Having been momentarily — and truly, a rare occurrence — speechless when Byerly turned to them, Loxley provides a path forward and Gwenaëlle, beside him and keeping her eyes forward and not looking down at what feels like heavy Fereldan skirts because she knows it's going to be appalling and distract her, seizes upon it.

“And that's the pattern, with Richars,” she picks up his thread, “isn't it?” Isn't it? She has no idea, but she knows about the lengths someone might go to, to protect a secret. How much more dreadful they might be, the more dreadful the person. The more dreadful the secret. “A— a chatelaine reached out to us, she intended to travel to— us—”

Where the fuck is anything in Fereldan. She didn't know they were going to have to do geography this morning, the only place names she can recall offhand are the places her grandfather once had soldiers, and that's no help at all,

“to bring to light crimes that she felt honor-bound not to stand by. She couldn't speak of them in letters, she said. Not a week later, she could only be identified by a port-wine stain on her hip. We'll never know what she knew.”

(Gwenaëlle would sell this better if she weren't looking sideways at the others to check if she's doing a good job. She is doing, at best, a mediocre job that would not stand up to scrutiny if there were no one else here to pull focus.)

cw: mention of child abuse

[notathreat]

Ellie recognizes that face.

Their encounter was brief and through the thin veil of Byerly's memories, and he was a good few decades younger, still a child- but he was a cruel, twisted one even then. Anger burns up through her blood. Stronger, now, because she knows he's capable of even more than what the others are throwing out, convincingly spinning tales.

Ellie doesn't have to make anything up. And maybe that's why when she speaks, the very real anger hammers through every beat of her words.

"It's not like he limits that shit to what people might say," Ellie grinds out, and her eyes flicker to Byerly's -- there and gone, the color high in her cheeks.

"He just fucking loves hurting people. Especially little kids who can't fight back. Loves cutting off their fingers. Breaking their bones."

She fixes her eyes on Richars' face, his fucking smirk and the dimple that's fading. She swears she can see the fear in his eyes- but beneath that, there's a gleam of some monster, even beyond this one. Coaxing.

Play into it. Play along. It's so good, isn't it? So satisfying, to mete out justice.

"Kids lie, right? Who would ever suspect?"

[cozen]

Through the first two accusations, Bastien's still as a dog listening to a distant noise in the dark. Eyes on Richars. On his dagger. He recognizes him too, from By's stories and from the haunting. The first time he encountered a spirit in the man's shape, he wound up at the bottom of a flight of stairs. This is a different kind of demon, but he'd still prefer to be between the two Rutyers, all things considered.

It's Gwenaëlle's sideways search for affirmation, caught in his peripheral vision, that snaps him out of that thought. Bastien turns his gaze in time to catch hers and tips his chin up. Bon travail.

He's not next in line after Ellie. Bolek is, and he rouses himself to the task with a gravitas one might call Shakespearean, if one knew what the hell a Shakespeare was: "He had my dear brother killed. My dear little brother. He tried to cheat him, buying our wares, and he had my brother arrested to keep him from reporting it to the Merchant's Guild. He died in that dungeon. But he told me, 'fore he went. I knew." He sounds believably on the verge of tears. "I knew."

Bastien's next. When he takes a few seconds too long to speak, the dwarf elbows him in the hip.

"He's a manipulator. He draws people in and makes them think he can give them what they want, but it is always poisoned somehow." It's an attempt to reach Byerly. Maybe too subtle to do the job. Maybe not subtle enough for the spirits. (They can be anything. An end table shifts ominously.)

[bouchonne]

What is it in him? What is that bright pinch of pain that hears these stories and grieves and rejoices? The Byerly that's taken in by this spell, the heroic judge, doesn't understand it, because this heroic and noble version of Byerly has never suffered skepticism. But the true Byerly that's lost in this vision knows keenly what it is to be doubted and disbelieved. And this faith, this steady testimony, this affirmation of his memory, hurts like a frozen limb being rubbed back to life.

Kids lie. That one makes him want to scream - in fury, in gratitude. Kids lie. He didn't. He never did.

"These are lies," says Richars. Perhaps the spirit is inspired by Bastien's manipulator and poisoned, or perhaps by Byerly's own mental fixation. Richars lifts a hand and points to Loxley - "Outsider and infidel"; Gwenaëlle is labeled a "Bastard half-blood," Ellie a "Cowardly child," Borek a "Fabricator," Bastien a "Peasant."

"Who, of any of you, have the right to bring testimony?"

[overharrowed]

Julius has a split second to think it's a shame Petrana isn't here before he says, "I'm the eldest son of Bann Selwyn and here in his stead." He's dressed for the part, a look not unlike Byerly's, if perhaps a bit more conservative in style: a world where Julius wasn't a mage, perhaps, and still lost his older brother. Maybe he never had one at all. It's not his dream, so it's not important. "What will you label me to dismiss what I know, Richars?" he goes on, mildly, his polite tone belying how he dispenses with a title.

He glances to Byerly, evaluating. Playing along is one thing, but they do need to keep moving. "Perhaps, though, we'd best take the evidence we've gathered elsewhere. I can think of an arl or two who would be interested in just how well you've weathered these challenging times, and whose pockets may be lighter than they should be in consequence."