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

[aberratic]

Her thumb slips, and jagged nail tears at raw skin. She winces, glances up at Vanya to check his attention, then looks back to her hand, pad of her thumb pressed to bleeding cuticle, mind racing. He's earnest, she can hear it, saw it in the glancing blow of his eyes on hers, but still... There's some catch here, there must be. She doesn't get to keep getting away with this. Not to a templar.

"It's perfectly understandable, given what you know of the world." Demurring the apology, eyes still nowhere near his. She'd intended to look him in the eye, but finds the anxious buzzing under her skin made worse every time she tries. "I would never presume to imagine that I—that is, that my voice could matter more than your years of reasonable caution.

"Besides," brightly, this time with eye contact that lasts more than moment, "I'm alright. No harm done."

Whatever was broken by that villager has at least been set along the path to healing, enough so she can still use her arm. It's tender and fragile, but she's in a better condition than Vanya himself, or poor Gwenaëlle.

[wearyallalone]

"You easily might not have been." He cannot imagine he's telling her anything she doesn't know. (Doesn't feel in her healing arm.) "I don't know if it helps, considering but ... my assumption at the time wasn't you doing blood magic. My first assumption was something in that place imitating you. It's a thing that's known, dangers that can sound like friends or allies. You'd done nothing to make me distrust you."

It isn't as if her impulse to smooth it over, to glance past, is one he doesn't understand. But it is important to her that she understand. That she not attribute to him a disgust or malice he doesn't feel.

[aberratic]

Done nothing, past tense, meaning she has done now. That's alright, she expected that. It has to be enough that he isn't telling her to fuck off entirely, that he hasn't turned a half-circle and decided actually there are some things the templars are right about and this is one of them and off he goes to Ser Keen to get her head chopped off—

Not that she really thinks he'd do that. Does she? Probably not. At least it'd be more obvious if he was going to, and she'd have time to get Stephen to cut her arm off so she could run, probably. Vanya hasn't seemed to be a very practiced liar, thus far in their acquaintance.

"As I said: perfectly reasonable caution."

Her thumb slides on her cuticle, bloody. She wipes it on some nearby grass, and applies pressure again.

"If it... bothers you, in some way, or... Well. I can't read your mind, or anything like that." She could, she thinks, if she tried hard enough. She's pressing at the edges of it with Stephen already. Not useful. "It's just like having a conversation, but in our minds. I only did it because of, you know."

She gestures a faintly bloody hand at her mouth.

[wearyallalone]

"No, I know." He wants to say something else, something more, but settles on instead: "Are you alright?" It was only pure luck that Vanya hadn't undergone any sort of mutation of his own, but watching his friends and allies go through it had been plenty. He had to imagine the panic was much sharper for them than for him.

And, it seems clear, Ness is not alright at all. But he's not sure how to get her to say so if she doesn't choose to. He doesn't feel he has the right to press, certainly.

[aberratic]

The question visibly disarms her, and for a moment Ness blinks at Vanya, uncomprehending. The silence is just starting to become awkward by the time she summons up a smile, opening her mouth with every intention of waving off his concern...

... but the words don't come. It feels wrong to lie, especially to someone as earnest in his concern as Vanya—and she can't remember the last time someone asked her that, and wasn't really asking what will it take for you to stop being my problem? Would it really be so bad to allow herself to be fussed over, just a little?

"It's difficult to say," is what finally comes out of her mouth—an outright no is just as impossible as a lie—and she looks down at her hands, flexing her fingers and thumbing away the blood sluggishly gathering on her cuticle. "It feels like I'm still... changed, sometimes. I think it's all gone, but I keep seeing gray patches on my skin. I have to get rid of them all before we reach Kirkwall."

[wearyallalone]

"I don't think ... if you don't, it's not as if what happened to you is your fault." The last comment, the framing of I have to snags his ear in a particular way. "More of us were affected than weren't, that place was..." He fails to land on a sufficient adjective.

Instead, he shifts his weight, "I did not think we would all make it out. I would not pick apart the gratitude I feel that this particular fear did not come to pass. We needn't also pretend to be unaffected, for that gift to be real." And as much as she'd shaken him, it feels almost as if she has come for a dressing down, or worse. He has no appetite to give her one, especially for something done in a panic. He is tired, but even if he were not, he doesn't see what it would accomplish.

[aberratic]

It is difficult to describe, she realizes, the feeling of the sword hanging over her head. The knowledge that with every person who learns what she's capable of, that sword lowers, and she can't do anything to stop it, or remove it. Her peaceful existence in Thedas relies now on the goodwill of so many others, and one day it will rely on someone who has no goodwill to offer her.

She must be above reproach. She must be useful, and respectable, and normal, because every single thing that draws even a second of negative attention to her could threaten this miraculous second chance. If she looks even slightly abnormal—if there is so much as a hint of the demonic to her—

"I don't know that Ser Keen would care what was my fault."

It rankles, a little, below the fear and the drive to be out of his way, that a templar she's never said so much as a word to looms as such a large figure in her mind. He may not be as bad as she thinks.

He may be worse.

"I can't risk it. I can't—"

She takes a shuddering breath, rubbing at eyes that have begun to itch. She digs her knuckles in, hard, grinding almost painfully against bone until she drops her hands into her lap again. Spots dance in front of her eyes and her head aches faintly from the pressure, but the itching stops. Softly, she finishes.

"It would be unwise to take everyone else's gratitude as a given, I think. I mustn't tempt fate."

[wearyallalone]

Vanya would very much like to tell her that Keen has no position of special power in Riftwatch. That there would be consequences if he acted against a company member without the backing of his superiors, that he cannot picture Commander Rowntree offering such backing. That is true, but Vanya is all too aware that Keen has contacts elsewhere who might thank him for reasons to target Riftwatch, and rifters in particular. There's damage that Keen can do that isn't coming for Ness with a sword in the Gallows.

Instead, Vanya shakes his head. "I grant you that you have reason to be cautious. As a rifter who can do magic, much less the specific nature of what you can do. But Miss Tavane, there is a difference between discretion and self-recrimination. As far as I am aware, you have done nothing wrong. You have reason for caution, but none for shame."

In a different moment, he might have touched her arm. He doesn't think either of them are ready for that just now. Still, sympathy isn't absent from his tone.

🎀

[aberratic]

She's near to tears almost before she truly processes what Vanya's said.

None for shame—there's something in her that wants to argue, some nebulous, unformed feeling that he's wrong and he should know it. There's something else in her too, though, a desperation she's never felt before, like a woman in a desert catching sight of an oasis: Longing, fierce and brutal. It chokes her, this longing, and she inhales sharply against it, like she's touched her hand to metal and found it searingly hot.

She takes care to move slowly, stand normally, not as though she's running away from something but just naturally ending the conversation.

"That is kind of you to say, Messere," and thankfully her voice doesn't waver as she says it. "I believe I've done enough to distract us from our watch, but I appreciate your time, and thank you for your discretion on my behalf."

Sometimes acting like someone is going to do something is enough to get them to do it. She dips her head in a respectful goodbye and then walks to the opposite end of camp.

She doesn't cry, but it's a near thing.