player plot: the horror of sarrux's pass

[aberratic]

WHO: Caius, Gwen, Hermione, Jayce, Ness, Siorus, Stephen, Vanya (sumptus, elegiaque, reparo, pathlit, aberratic, wildered, portalling, wearyallalone)
WHAT: The Horrors Cometh
WHEN: Beginning of Harvestmere (October)
WHERE: Sarrux's Pass, outside Wycome
NOTES: OOC post here. TWs for body horror, NPC death, ghost town/apocalypse vibes, children in upsetting situations, and general horror stuff.

Characters

CAIUS

GWENAËLLE

HERMIONE

JAYCE

NESS

SIORUS

STEPHEN

VANYA

The residents of Sarrux's Pass, a small village tucked into the mountains of the Free Marches, have long held that their settlement used to be a bustling trade city where dwarves were as plentiful as humans and they had constant contact between the surface and the Deep Roads. These were assumed by the surrounding cities to be nothing more than fanciful legends for decades, but any long-time resident swore it was the truth, lost to time and "monsters in the deep."

Residents were finally vindicated a few months ago when an earthquake caused a landslide in the surrounding mountains, revealing a long-lost outlet from the Deep Roads. At first, residents of the pass were apprehensive, all too aware of the dangers posed by such an opening, but the longer they went without Darkspawn spilling from the entrance, the more eager they became to investigate.

Eventually, the bravest among them began to enter the Roads, in search of ore and artifacts. They were vindicated again, finding both, and Sarrux's Pass quickly became a magnet for treasure hunters, Lords of Fortune, historians, archaeologists, and anyone in search of a quick buck. Even in the face of the Venatori invasion of the Marches, the promise of fame and riches drew handfuls of people seeking their fortunes to the Pass. News from the area was steady, and filled with discoveries and success stories—as well as the brawls, backstabbing, and even the occasional murder that comes with any good gold rush town.

It's been a few months since the reveal of the Deep Roads entrance. News from Sarrux's Pass has slowed to a trickle, then a drip, and now, in the past weeks, nothing. The last message to make it out of the village three weeks ago said simply: "We weren't just right about the dwarves." The parchment was stained with an unidentifiable liquid—not water, not blood—which smelled of the sea.

Riftwatch has been tasked with investigating the village, with three goals: find out what happened to the residents, recover whatever valuables they can from the Deep Roads, and, if necessary, close the entrance again. There may be Venatori in the area, or Darkspawn, or territorial prospectors—without contact with the village, there's no way of knowing what Riftwatch may discover. © tessisamess

Comments

[elegiaque]

“I know, it's a source of endless bafflement to me,” she says with easy affection; it's not as if he would never have had cause. She had, in point of fact, worked quite hard to give him cause,

it had been a difficult time through no doing of his, when they met. Gwenaëlle's desire and willingness to spread her misery around with a shovel had not been subtle.

Maybe she could leave it at that. Maybe she should, considering where her thoughts percolate. Since should has rarely entered the math on what conversation she makes, “He and I, there's things we understand about each other. But I think the ways you're opaque to him are things he chooses.”

[wearyallalone]

"Which ways are those, do you think?" The way he asks isn't entitlement, but earned confidence she'll decline to tell him if she doesn't care to. It's not as if her ability to accurately see Vanya isn't incidental to their friendship, after all.

And if she does answer, perhaps he'll avoid tripping into a disagreement with Cedric by accident, at least some of the time. Worth considering, now that they're at such close quarters back in Kirkwall.

[elegiaque]

“He and I don't talk about Chantry politics,” she says, a thing that could have been incidental but at a certain point had become a choice— her choice, certainly. The question of how deliberate that is on his part ... she thinks that might go either way. He's smart enough not to go around the Gallows pointing out who'll be staying in them at the end of all this; it's more a toss up whether he had decided not to discuss it with her, particularly.

Her opinions are strongly held and not difficult to find out. That Cedric takes lyrium and thinks Keen is a neat guy is also not difficult to clock.

“A lot of people don't talk about Chantry politics with you,” which is wild, her tone suggests, “but I think you'd be much less mysterious in general if they did.”

unfortunately the past tense disease is a chronic illness

[wearyallalone]

"I think they generally assume they know," which is not at all the same as actually knowing, of course. "Or maybe they don't care. I've never lied to anyone about them since I arrived."

But she's correct to observe that it's rare he's been asked.

"I think I unsettled him when I mentioned I'd been sparring with Commander Rowntree. It took me by surprise, a little, how strongly he reacted." In this context, it's clear he's suggesting that the surprise was less Cedric's underlying politics than that Cedric would think Vanya would avoid such an arrangement when it was offered.

[elegiaque]

Her scoff is immediate— “What? Rowntree's a fucking beast. You'd be an idiot to pass that up.”

Gwenaëlle is not without her own blind spots, or she'd probably twig faster to the implications of why Cedric (with Cedric's politics) might have objected in the first place. For a moment, she simply lives in a world where getting to spar with the Commander is sick as hell.

[wearyallalone]

"I've found it exceptionally useful," a little quieter, though more thoughtful than muted. He considers what he wants to say, then, and how he wants to say it.

"...Carsus expects, I think, that the moment Corypheus is defeated, the Mage-Templar War will pick up where it left off. I do not think it is an uncommon assumption among Templars. But that it is an inevitability is a conviction I did not share even before I left." And so.

[elegiaque]

“...I don't think it's an uncommon assumption, in general,” she says, after a quieter pause, derailed from what might have easily become the verbal equivalent of doodling in the margins about how impressive their boss is.

Her head tilts, and she studies him, considering the idea of that not being inevitable. Considering that being his perspective, particularly, when she herself has more or less operated under that same assumption for years now, with slowly increasing investment in the actual outcome. An inevitability that she had begun to see as one she wouldn't be able to avoid entangling in herself, too.

“So long as the Chantry still wants mages back in towers and mages don't want to go, it's hard to imagine there'll be no fighting.”

[wearyallalone]

"I grant you. But I've long thought there's a difference between likely and inevitable. If nothing else, the past decade or so has illustrated that sometimes significant events are unforeseen." Important people die and are replaced by those with different aims and temperaments. Institutions find themselves stretched too thin, or re-energized by a victory. A great many things can happen.

That, however, is a deeper pool than he'd intended to dive into. He circles back to the reason he brought it up instead.

"Carsus assumed that Rowntree offered to spar with me so he could study my technique up close. For an edge, when he's fighting Templars again one day. I am ... skeptical that it is mainly that." Diplomatic but: Marcus Rowntree has historically fought a lot of Templars who are younger, in better shape and still have access to Silencing. Vanya's not convinced he's learning a lot he didn't already know, in their best-of-threes.

Still, he adds, "Maybe that's it, you know. No one believes there's any such thing as an ex-Templar. So when I don't think of myself as one of them, people are thrown." And, possibly, why no one asks him about his politics.

[elegiaque]

Besides the numerous Templars who Rowntree could have studied (as he killed them, presumably), Gwenaëlle is nearly about to start in on the other half of the argument that she'll in a few moments realise Vanya certainly already knows (what, the Commander of Forces doesn't already have all the access he needs to the Templars under his command?) —

but the last part distracts her, again, and she bumps her shoulder into him and leans there. Tactile affection: it's not just for people she's sleeping with.

“I didn't go to all the trouble of defining ex-Templar for you not to respect it when you made the choice,” she says, stoutly. “I know what you are and I think it was brave. If,” turning his own words back on him, “it makes any difference to you.”

That she had considered his delaying up to that point cowardice doesn't seem contradictory to her; rather, it underlines how brave it was to take a step he was patently afraid of.

[wearyallalone]

It gets a smile from him, quiet but real. "It does. And I know you know the difference, I didn't forget your thoughts on the subject. But I suppose I sometimes think." He looks down, the smile lingering but taking on the hint of a twist. "Well. I suppose if I wanted to be understood, I could have taken a variety of other approaches."

It probably hadn't been the first thing he'd thought of saying when he broke off.

[elegiaque]

“Tell me,” she invites, guessing precisely that it wasn't. “The thing you think.”

[wearyallalone]

He is quiet for a moment. "I told you that I am not doing it to be admired, or even forgiven. It is not why. But I do get..."

He glances up. It's not that there's anyone with them he would deeply care about overhearing. But he's suddenly aware of the way he's made himself vulnerable, and the instinct to protect himself is still present.

After a moment, he goes on. "It is sometimes a bit tiring. To be so widely misunderstood." The quietest admission.

[elegiaque]

“That feels perilously close to some points I made to you,” she observes, not critically; reflecting, more, on how much he's managed to claw back from the Order for himself in the time since that conversation. What matters to him. Who and what he wants to be, and maybe that just grimly punishing himself in solitude forever isn't actually serving anyone, including him.

Blah blah blah it doesn't matter if he's served by it or not, ad infinitum, etcetera: she has dismissed that argument in her head before he's even had a chance to make it (again), though she briefly and cheerily considers the idea that maybe this time he wouldn't.

“If you want to vent your spleen about it where only arseholes will overhear you,” rather than people whose feelings he might worry about hurting by giving a shit about himself, “you're always welcome on the boat, you know. It might make you feel better. Which is allowed.”

[wearyallalone]

"Yes, I'm aware that you're very clever," is more fond than it isn't, in response to her first point. Whether or not he has come around on how much his own feelings matter, or whether he's done sufficient penance, are not subjects he's inclined to raise if she doesn't actively push, but it's not as if he's forgotten her earlier points.

"I may visit more, if you like, though I can't promise extensive complaints. I've spent an entire lifetime not doing that, I'm not always sure how to begin." Partly a joke, but not entirely.

[elegiaque]

It's for her uncle's sake and not Vanya's that she manages not to make the joke directly in front of her: ah, well then, you've got something in common with at least one mage after all. Occasionally jabbing at Vanya's sensitive underbelly just to keep him on his toes is one thing, but there's a squirming discomfort when she imagines the way her uncle would only look at her impassively for longer than she's altogether comfortable with, and not correct her.

He wouldn't find it very funny. (Even, she insists on thinking briefly to herself, if it would be. A bit.)

After a moment, instead: “What if me and Cedric are right? What are you going to do if there is fighting?”

The way she gazes back at him suggests an anticipated answer, but she waits for one given without outright assuming.

[wearyallalone]

The smile fades. "I don't know," is as honest as he can be. "I have thought about it and I can't say I have landed on anything conclusive. I know that is not a very satisfying answer; it is not satisfying to me, either."

Presumably it's not his final answer, regardless. There are factors he know might make some difference, but there's always the core of it: the approach he thinks best aligns with certain mages more than any templars he's encountered, but he's skeptical those mages would want the help he can offer. On the other hand, walking away feels disingenuous.

"I will keep you updated, if you like," he adds, quieter.

[elegiaque]

“Do,” she says, firmly; it isn't hard (for her) to follow the train of his thought down the paths it's probably traveling, and one of these days she has arguments prepared for what she thinks is the best thing—

which will not surprise him at all. (The fact of it at all; probably, too, the arguments she might make.)

“And,” allowing back in the lightness that she'd curdled, “you'll always have somewhere you belong so long as we're friends. You know that, don't you?”

[wearyallalone]

He gracefully takes the hand up from the conversational dip they'd taken. Maybe they will talk about it, someday, but not today.

Instead, he says, "I don't know if I'd have thought of it in so many words but ... I do appreciate that. You know, I think the people I've valued most in my life have generally been the ones who don't hesitate to tell me when they think I'm being foolish, so you were well-positioned."

He bumps her shoulder lightly with his arm, a mirror of her earlier move. "Although if I stay with you, Thevenet will have an easy ongoing way to find out exactly where I am, so I'd best take care." He's not entirely sure how much joking about her grandfather is on the table, but since this is mostly at his own expense, he's willing to risk it.

[elegiaque]

At this, Vanya is entirely spared any further emotionally meaningful developments in the conversation because Gwenaëlle flings her face into his shoulder and gives a prolonged, dramatic groan:

“Why does my grandfather even have a harlot, don't answer that—”

hello i have been invited to the party

[aberratic]

It is at this moment that Ness wanders up, presumably to say goodnight, see you in the morning, et cetera, and the first thing out of her mouth is not thought through at all:

"Your grandfather has a—what? Is that polite?"

[wearyallalone]

"It's not." A beat. "But it would probably make the woman in question laugh, given the context." An educated guess, but a smile tugs the corner of his mouth. (Is this the most relaxed Ness has ever seen Vanya? Very likely.)

[elegiaque]

“His strumpet,” Gwenaëlle says, darkly, rolling sideways to look up at Ness as she joins them. “My cousin writes her, too, it's fucking awful.”

[aberratic]

Well, clearly she needs to be seated for this. Ness folds her legs beneath herself, sitting near enough to talk without touching either Vanya or Gwenaëlle, respecting both their space. It's nice to see what seems a real smile on Vanya's lips; she smiles back.

"It certainly sounds awful," for Gwenaëlle, at least, "I'm very sorry for your pain, Captain. What hideous sin has this strumpet committed lately?"

[wearyallalone]

It doesn't seem especially politic for Vanya to answer, under the circumstances, so he leaves it for Gwenaëlle. Though for context, he adds, "Speaker Thevenet and I knew one another before Riftwatch, back in Nevarra." To Gwenaëlle: "In you cousin's defense, she can be an insistent correspondent when she chooses to be."

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle has, instantly, about as much respect for Ness's space as she had a moment ago for Vanya's, which is to say: markedly less. She flings herself sideways so she is laying with her head in Ness's lap, pouting, which is — mostly a put on. Mostly, it is nice to have stupid complaints as well, among all the terribly serious ones: it is nice sometimes to just be annoyed that her grandfather has a sloe-eyed vampy mistress who gives advice to her cousin and keeps tabs on them all, because it's weird and annoying.

It feels a bit indulgent to find that weird and annoying. She will never, ever admit to sort of enjoying it.

“Being an insistent correspondent,” she says, “hideously.” This could refer to her cousin, or the fact that Thevenet recently made use of Stephen for a delivery boy.