[ may catchall ]

[wythersake]

WHO: Isaac, Cedric, Lazar + Clarisse, others, you??
WHAT: Open & closed prompts for a bit
WHEN: Vaguely post-attacks, like enough that it isn't silly
WHERE: Here n' there
NOTES: Adding these as I go. Wildcards welcome. HMU on plurk or Discord if you want anything bespoke.

Comments

clarisse; closed

[wythersake]

[ Teryn Everett Cornelius of Ostwick is holding a banquet and hunting party at his country estate. Traditionally, he awards a sizeable sack of gold coins as a prize to the hunter who lands the largest beast. Riftwatch can enter two agents into the contest. The only goal: either land the biggest prize, or land a decent prize and sabotage all the other entrants to ensure victory. ]


There’s an early rash of sickness at the banquet. Nerves, perhaps, or an under-roasted tusket —

( Prized for their virility, An enthusiastic young man explained, his spectacles fogging with breath. )

— And very little to do with Isaac, a devoted professional who’s gracefully volunteered his services to those taken ill. Clarisse was warned on the long ride to Ostwick to exercise caution at the dinner table; they aren’t the only ones with an eye for tomorrow’s prize.

Though the field has narrowed, contenders remain:

Dame Lire, a Chevalier in from Serault. She's taken a strict fast of water and bread; so to court Andraste’s favor. Regrettably, she is not so pious that the Exalted March could not spare her leave for the good Teryn’s feast.

'Hammer' Tomas, the Nevarran dragon-hunter, has shown no such temperance - or any symptoms. He pushes wine on everyone, and can't be so drunk as he pretends.

Rebeca Maria Galleria Naia Onala Mia de Toledor, a Lord of Fortune whose gown clatters with the sewn-in coins of previous triumphs. She pries and flatters, in search of an alliance with Clarisse; or at least, information on their competitors.

When Isaac finally returns to the room, it’s with a number of unpleasant stains across his sleeves. He’s already searching for a cigarette, pockets patted in the brainless fumble of someone who went through their stores two days prior.

"Kaiten’s out," The Fighting Kite tripped down some stairs in a drinking contest. "Poor man’s quite disoriented. Did you eat?"

[laruetheday]

Clarisse is up, pacing the room. She's not nervous about tomorrow, but she's feeling a certain amount of restless energy and nowhere to throw it yet. She used to get like this the night before capture the flag, too. And basketball games.

Though there was a little less sabotage involved in those competitions than this one. (Sometimes. Capture the flag could get pretty nasty.)

When Isaac starts patting his pockets, she reaches into her pack and offers him a rolled elfroot joint. It's not a cigarette, but close enough. If he doesn't want it, she might smoke some herself.

"Not the tusket," she says, her lip curling in amusement. "You?"

Doesn't look like it, from the state of his clothes.

[wythersake]

"Good, horrible animals. Someone ought to poison them."

Isaac considers the joint - looks in the moment, his age, and tired for it. Some funny little smile tugs at his mouth as he props it in teeth, cupping the end alight. A long drag.

"What manner of support will you need tomorrow?" Isaac passes it back to her, and goes digging in a pack. Comes up with sausage, hard cheese. Purchased a town away, and sweaty of the road, but this is all for nothing if they send her out faint. "You’ll be at the spear, I presume."

[laruetheday]

While Clarisse thinks it over, she takes the joint back from him and raises it to her lips. She inhales the familiar smoke and holds it in her lungs until they burn, then lets it out slowly.

"Yeah. de Toledor says she wants an alliance, but I don't trust her. She makes me the most nervous. I would love to throw her off somehow, send her in the wrong direction." Get rid of her. The others are still contenders, but she feels like she can handle them.

She paces again, briefly, smoke trailing her, then notices the food he's pulling out and winds her way back. Some people might lose their appetite before a contest like this, but not Clarisse. She offers the joint back to Isaac. Trade?

[wythersake]

Trade, she better needs it. Isaac's not about to go sprinting through the forest for anything less than open war.

"She’s a problem," He agrees, pleased with the assessment. Game it out: "Tomas gave her wide berth, so he’s decided the same - or they’ve a prior agreement. He saddles you with sorting her out, promising a cut of the prize, and she gets an alibi to cross him for Lire. Good odds they've each received your offer."

The joint waves, lazy. He may be overthinking this, Ostwick isn't Orlais. But people are bastards everywhere.

"Misdirection is a fine idea," She's tougher than the silk implies, a spooked horse wouldn't do it. "Does she want the gold, or the glory?"

[laruetheday]

"Everyone wants glory," Clarisse says, her mouth already half-full of cheese. "Kleos. What's the point in having all that gold if nobody's admiring you for it?"

Admittedly, she may be biased; she wants glory. But even aside from that, she thinks this is mostly true for everyone even if they don't admit to it, and especially everyone here—if gold is all they're after, there are other ways to get it that don't involve showing up for a very public competition.

"There's no way Tomas is as drunk as he's pretending," she adds, almost like an afterthought, though she's considering Isaac's musings on the possibility of two competitors working together in secret. "He wants everyone to think he's going to fumble it—which is stupid, he hunts dragons, there's no way this would be a challenge for him."

Which is a problem. It's all a problem, frustratingly. All these angles, all these actors.

isaac; open

[wythersake]

It’s a small place, it’s smaller with half the fortress collapsed. He’s easy to spy: An Orlesian of middle age, whose clothes now sport a few too many rips and stains to pass for fine. Asleep days in the library, awake nights on any manner of errand -

a ) Often enough, to the Infirmary, assisting the long business of reorganization; shuffling supplies between tent and tower. The Central building was least affected. That doesn’t quite name it sound. The look he throws the ceiling every time they step inside may say enough of it.

b ) One evening breaks from routine to find him surrounded by an expensive crumble of pages. Paper comes dear of late, to be used and re-used for every scrap scribble; nothing to be done of an inked-out word or three. Not these, balled fists of black. Isaac leans over the latest draft, head between his hands as though force of will might compress thought into place.

c ) Another morning, propped over a mirror in some corner of the courtyard, razor wicking in a soapy cup. Riftwatch’s shaving facilities are presently limited.

"Did you need a turn?" Still frowning over a bit of skin, stretched between fingers. "I’m suffering indecision."

c

[altusimperius]

"On what?"

Benedict, clean-shaven as ever (he has the advantage of a house to stay in for as long as his hosts will have him), is perhaps only just now realizing that Isaac is back.
He's still in the process of gaining back some of his baseline mass, his clothes hanging off him a little too loosely, but he's up and about and walking the Gallows to, it would seem, pitch in where he can. Including shaving assistance.

"You've already gone too far for mutton chops."

[wythersake]

"Pity. There's such a monopoly upon mustaches," Does he know where Benedict's been? No. But Rutyer has long kept him close. "You might consider it, you know. Neither of us is getting younger."

Baby face only plays so long. A loopy gesture with the razor:

"Sit, I've a true question of you."

And a knife. So, you know.

[altusimperius]

"I'd rather die," says Benedict breezily; he's only just recently had far more hair on his face than he's ever wanted, and one might rest assured it's never coming back.

Intrigued by the invitation, he picks his way to a the most cushioned seat he can find (is it Isaac's bedroll? if that's what's available) and folds his legs primly.

"A true question," he intones, a touch playfully. What could be truer than facial aesthetics?

[wythersake]

"Your education,"

However abruptly interrupted. If he's never much regarded Benedict's spellwork, well, the man's not possessed. Under his circumstance, that's a victory.

"What form did it take?" Isaac's considered it some years, had asked Kostos then: What have you heard of Tevene abominations - "Prior to your apprenticeship, during."

b;

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Whatever Vlast's many failings, he is well-educated. He has read descriptions of people losing the war to paper work many, many times. He'd never understood it, of course. What frail creature could lose to paper...? ...Maybe a Skritt...? But they were not exactly what one would consider readers.

Seeing Isaac hunched over pages with ink-stained hands gripping his head, the metaphor finally clicks. He does, indeed, look like a man defeated.

"If you squeeze any tighter, it's not your thoughts that will come out."

[wythersake]

"The matter’s grey enough to serve."

Not really. Death’s written in black - but words run thin of late. Isaac stoops up, folding the page upon itself; a flash briefly visible: Enchanter Sm -

(May well squeeze out his brains, at least the gore would theme.)

He pushes out a breath, vanishes letter into pocket.

"Making any friends out there?"

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Vlast isn't familiar enough with names yet to guess if the healer is writing to anyone of note beyond the glimpse of the title of Enchanter. Geography has been his main center of study for the past couple of weeks and enough history to know which cards to play close to his chest.

It's a enough to put a piece or two together.

He scoffs at the mention of friends and turns from Isaac to a shelf behind him, getting to work on putting away the sizable stack of books he borrowed. If his sparkling personality hasn't won him any in the last two and a half centuries, he doubts it will start now.

"The enchanter you write to. Were they a -" he frowns, the word as alien as the concept to him, " - friend...? ...In one of those prisons they keep mages?"

A deeper frown, his brow so tightly creased that the line is likely to become a permanent fixture.

"...Circles."

[wythersake]

"No," The self-correction will do, they’re hardly fronting Vlast for Ambassador. "We were not of the same Circle."

(He didn’t keep friends in the Circle.)

"Riftwatch suffered losses beyond the city. Enchanter Smythe’s sister, mn," Books thump. Vlast frowns. Isaac looks - tired. Old, in the way of any worn thing. "I worked closely with her sister."

Past tense.

cedric; open

[dissolving]

Cedric sleeps in a tent - pick a tent, any tent. Sleeps too little, and a little too loudly; open-mouthed and prone to mumbling his way through the scant hours before dawn.

a ) Routine’s forestalled to help with repairs, in the Gallows and Kirkwall at large. Cedric marks off points on a crudely-copied map: Impacts and need. Sat at the top of a sweaty roof in the green spring-light, he squints down on the day's work to ask,

"Think we oughta rebuild with something lighter?"

b ) Another moment finds him rifling through reports; hunting after some word or name. Here and there he stalls longer to read: Swimming lessons. Some murderous inn. A dozen other outings,

"Were you in on this?" He may ask a named party.

c ) Commerce doesn't stop for a city-wide catastrophe. It’s a while before he finds the time to find his way to a dockside tavern, but he has - and you have, and so has the brawny young woman who picked his pocket a few minutes ago. Her arms sling about his shoulders as though they’re the very best of friends; Cedric too moon-eyed to notice, halfway through some story about a horse.

b

[thereneverwas]

"Define in on," Barrow grunts around the mouth of his waterskin before taking a long pull, sitting leant up on a nearby pillar as he takes a break from the hauling and pushing and cleaning of debris that's become his entire job lately.

"I was there," he concedes of the murder inn, "near got an assortment of tiny holes punched into my guts. Rollicking good time."

[dissolving]

"Sounds a right party," An authentic grimace: Worse shit in this than a serial. "Maker."

Cedric rocks back on his heels, replacing the file. Not a pretty story, and not the one he's looking for - Granitefell, Ellie had said. His arms prop to his knees. Considers him,

"Anything ever come of it?"

The Pickneys, maybe, the Dalish; Medrod's unknown investors. (Barrow, and all his little punctures.)

cohen brothers intensifies

[thereneverwas]

“You mean besides the treasured memories and lifelong friendships?” Barrow asks darkly—- it’s a good thing he doesn’t know what Cedric’s actually looking for, or his salinity levels might spoil the proverbial dish.

“Erm… learned not to stay there again, I guess.”

[dissolving]

"Reckon the ashes'll do for that," Though he wouldn't camp over them, either. Veil's got to be thin as gauze. "Doesn't sound they would've made it out, without you."

Cold comfort. Would've been colder for this Athessa. A low hum: Riftwatch is small enough to spy the names, and know the rest gone. Cedric eyes Barrow,

"You eat yet?"

Guy looks tired. No one's taking the breaks they ought.

lazar; wild🃏

[brennvin]

Riftwatch’s focus turning to reconstruction means that some regular work has been on hold for a bit, and Astrid hasn’t minded much, pouring her energy into working on the Gallows. Everything’s been thrown into disarray besides: she doesn’t know where everyone’s staying anymore, the tents keep relocating, sometimes people move from the courtyard to Kirkwall proper or to bunk on a mattress in the central tower, and out of everyone, it seems like Lazar is even slipperier and harder to find than usual.

Which means Astrid searching him out this afternoon, eventually spotting what looks like a particularly tall and bearded figure relaxing atop a particularly tall and structurally unsound pile of rubble. She starts climbing the rock and crumbled walls, doggedly headed in his direction. When he spots the movement obviously coming for him, he turns to flee, and:

“Oi, it’s just me,” she calls out. Just as she almost reaches the top, a piece of loose stone moves under her boot, and her arms windmill wildly, on the verge of tumbling right-the-fuck-backwards off the rocky pile. “Shit—”

[extortionate]

Since the attack, he's tried a half-dozen places to sleep, and it's starting to run thin. City's full of new widows, but it'll be months before those ripen; and the usual suspects got less room than usual.

In the end, it's the Gallows, or huffing fumes in whatever part of Darktown's least crushed to shit. Easy pick. That doesn't mean he's any keener to start hauling for a packhorse -

"Aw, hell," Lazar's eyeing a jump (can reach a bit of leftover tower from here, if you don't know the meaning of structural integrity) when her voice picks out. Goes sprinting in an awkward one-two-wobble to haul an arm down around hers. "There's a flat bit up here."

Wide enough for two, if one hasn't showed up with work orders.

[brennvin]

His arm catches hers and she grasps for his sleeve to steady herself, hauling herself up that last distance until she’s teetering beside him. And her hands are empty: no work orders, so Lazar won’t have to discreetly shove her off the pile and escape with plausible deniability.

Astrid cranes her head, looking further up to the little outcropping he’d indicated. It had been an intact wall partway up the tower, once. She tests the stability of the scree underfoot; like climbing trees, she tells herself, the way you suss out the branches that’ll hold your weight. Like walking across ice.

She jumps, scrambles, more fleet-footed than her initial approach implied, and eventually plants herself on that flat broken-down wall, her legs swinging.

“Not punching you this time,” she says, for clarification’s sake. Y’know, in case he was worried.

[extortionate]

Wasn’t not worried,

"Awful gracious when you got the high ground."

A grin for that squirrel-run. Lazar glances the track, then follows: Motion precise, weight careless - stones plunging underfoot. The way he vaults onto the wall is half momentum. If they take the same path back, they’ll be missing steps.

Good. Just boring, otherwise.

He flops down, flat-backed as a mummy. Gold glints from his finger.

"Where’d you end up bunking?"

[brennvin]

“Out in the herb garden,” Astrid says, her knee knocking against Lazar’s boot and nudging it aside until she can squirm and make herself comfortable beside him: back against part of the wall, one leg tucked under herself, the other dangling over the edge.

She has a good view out over the Gallows, the occasional small glimpse of someone in the distance trudging between the two (mostly) still-standing towers. “Clearing out the rubble, they found enchanted cloth from, like, some old Research project or something? Got some tents out of it and mine’s enchanted so it’s magically heated and got temperature control. Absolute game-changer, wish I’d had this all my years camping. Riftwatch’s got some perks.”

She cranes to glance back at him. Noting the gleam at his finger; her mouth opens, but the question which comes out first instead is a simple: “You?”