katabasis: (he was going to attack)
ƬƠƬƛԼԼƳ ƇƠƊЄƤЄƝƊЄƝƬ ƑԼƖƝƬ ([personal profile] katabasis) wrote in [community profile] faderift2022-07-07 06:59 am

CLOSED: My How the Turns Tables

WHO: Ellis, Richard v1.0, Glimmer, Abby, Edgard, Vanya, Richard v2.0, Fenris
WHAT: Riftwatch agents raid a Venatori survey encampment with the intent to capture a researcher or two in the hopes that they'll be able to glean information regarding Corypheus' plans for the Gates.
WHEN: Now-ish; whenever that makes sense.
WHERE: Northwest of Starkhaven, the Free Marches
NOTES:
OOC information is available HERE at the sign-ups post. The objective/points pool spreadsheet with relevant instructions is located HERE and should be open to editing. Please include any necessary content warnings in your subject lines.


THE BRIEF
In addition to a mercilessly succinct in-person briefing, a copy of the following orders are also filed:
For Immediate Dispatch,

Selected members of Forces and Project Sashamiri are to proceed by griffon-back to the last known location of the Venatori survey group. Rough coordinates provided, may be readily corroborated by Fenris and Abby. You are to seek out their current position, and assess from a reasonable vantage the details and current state of their work.

Once your evaluation is complete, you are to make your way into the camp and there capture as many Venatori scholars (or similar) as you're able. Destruction of Venatori forces, equipment, and interests is preferable where possible.* Should it prove tactically advantageous, those with anchors are permitted to open rifts and are given license to leave them unsealed should closing them in relative security be implausible.
*In the margin, in Julius’s handwriting: In the case of any notes or diagrams, acquisition would be even better, but of course if there’s any doubt of success, destruction is a viable secondary option.
Captured Venatori agents are to be pressed for information relating to the Gates, including but not limited to: Corypheus' intentions, their number, their function, how they are activated, and suspected locations. Once their intelligence has been exhausted, you are given leave to tend to any captives in such a way as you believe befits their continued value to Riftwatch or her allies.

-J. Flint
If you do open any rifts and notice any odd phenomenon, please do try to remember to jot down any useful observations when you get a chance. Likewise, if you see any strange artifacts and are not able to retrieve them, notes (or sketches?) of them would be very much appreciated. Good luck.

- Julius

THE RAID
The targeted Venatori encampment is pitched in a scrubby, lightly wooded area above a ravine located Northwest of Starkhaven. The camp, which consists of the usual pitched tents and pack animal picket lines, seems to be the base of operations for an minor excavation effort occuring in the ravine itself. Careful observation, stealthy investigation, or the general chaos of the melee may reveal the following details:
  • The camp sits alongside around a roughly built dam which is currently serving to divert the flow of a very minor tributary of the Minanter from the ravine into a muddy man-made spillway. This seems to have been done in order to lower the water level in the ravine and allow the researchers access to a small ruin there.
  • Based on the state of the work in the ravine and the activity of the camp, it seems the researchers are primarily focused on recovering artifacts from the dig site. The spillway channel is being used to sift through materials brought up from the ravine. Trays of cleaned material are arranged on portable work tables under canopies, and a small collection of either field researchers or enslaved labor (hard to say which) are studiously picking through them.
  • The camp's inhabitants consist primarily of Tevinter researchers (which may or may not be mages), some nondescript labor force (which may or may not be enslaved), and a subset of well-armed Tevinter soldiers (which also may or may not be mages and/or enslaved). There are enough people around that a straightforward assault into and out of the camp seems unlikely, but they're scattered enough between the various points of interest that diversions or stealth may be fruitful.
  • During the day, the camp's inhabitants are scattered between their various work stations. At night, everyone beds down in their various tents or on bed rolls around low fires excepting the soldiers, who keep a watch rotation over the camp, and two bored sentries armed with signal horns posted at the ravine dig.
  • The draft animals on the perimeter picket line consist mostly of stocky mules, fuzzy Free Marches horses, and two beefy druffalo. A fancy dracolisk is picketed separately within the camp itself.
Now comes the hard part.
armd: (action girl)

[personal profile] armd 2022-07-22 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
(Abby shakes her head, and squints at her needle to thread it.) It is familiar. (Almost too familiar?? She sighs, and looks at Fenris for a moment, pausing in her preparation.) Everybody around here treats killing like it's work, or something. I guess it is for them, but that's not all it is.

(Killing is bad. Abby knows that, okay, it's- that's an easy one. But sometimes, when you're facing off against an enemy that wronged you, or wronged your people, or it's somebody who deserves what they're getting... well. The lines start to blur, easily. She thinks that way all the time. It's not right to think that way but she does, and this is the first time she's felt that sentiment from somebody else in Riftwatch who isn't Ellie.

So yeah, maybe it was a little shocking?

She goes back to her needle, pulling the thread through the salve to coat it.)
I feel that way too. Exactly the same way. (The sadism, the anger, the release of tension. Every last bit.

Besides.)
... If I could tear out hearts like that I'd definitely do it. (Sheepishly,) It's cool as fuck.
Edited 2022-07-22 02:51 (UTC)
doggish: if you say you have punch and pie (talk ⚔ more people will come)

[personal profile] doggish 2022-07-24 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
[Ahh. So not shocking at all, then, save for the startling realization that comes of finding someone similar to you. He watches her work for a few seconds, trying to decide on how best to phrase this— and then she adds that, and a flattered sort of chuckle emerges first.]

Thank you. It is . . . deeply satisfying, I will admit. Especially with Venatori.

[Truly, he means that. There are plenty who balk at such a thing (and with good reason); it's pleasing to have someone admire it. But ah . . . how does he put this? He's quiet for a moment, trying to put the words together to explain.]

I was made for it. Literally, made for it, for my former master selected me and molded me to become his ideal bodyguard. I was made to be protector to him and intimating presence to everyone else all at once, to be someone who reveled in violence . . . I suspect my former master thought to make me mindless with it at times, or at least to give off that impression, but that, at least, I do not embody. But I do relish a fight. Blood and gore, especially against someone who deserves it . . . some traits remain, and I will not apologize for them.

[He meets her gaze.]

Nor should you. Not if you have a grip on it.
armd: (repeat that)

[personal profile] armd 2022-07-27 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
(While he's talking and distracted by his story, Abby finally allows him to lower the rag. She wipes the area clear, ghosts the salve across the cut with two fingertips, and starts her work. Her hand is steady, and the stitches are both neatly spaced and taut, the movements methodical; this is almost relaxing for her, something she's used to doing.

When she glances up it's to find him looking steadily at her, and it gives her an odd sort of shiver. Fenris is quite intense, when he wants to be.

Looking back at her work, she shrugs a shoulder.)
I didn't have a grip on it, for a really long time. But I do now. (She can be certain of it because Lev helped her find her control, and she'll be forever grateful toward him for it.

Before she returns to the stitching,)
What do you mean he moulded you?
doggish: there may be no survivors (talk ⚔ we'll manage like a house on fire)

[personal profile] doggish 2022-07-30 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
Good. It is no easy thing to accomplish.

[He means that.

And listen: stitches hurt. There's no way around it. It's a very small blade piercing your skin over and over, it hurts. So there's a line of tension in his body, a terseness in his voice, and you know, it's almost entirely because of that.

Almost.]


He . . .

[How to say this? It's an old trauma, one that he has long since come to terms with, but that doesn't mean it's easy to speak of it without eliciting either pity or quiet horror, neither of which he wishes for. And yet he will not lie about it.]

I was born into slavery. [An idle fact, offered neutrally.] And when I was a teenager, he took me and, utilizing the kinds of magic that the Venatori slaver over, seared rivulets in my skin, filling them with lyrium and sealing them with a spell. He also erased my memory— or perhaps the pain did, and he simply cleaned up what was left over. Either way: it left me a blank slate, ready to be shaped into whatever form he wished.

And what he wished for, [a small grunt of pain, his mouth tightening briefly before relaxing again,] was a bodyguard. Someone who could inspire awe and fear into his enemies and allies alike— a savage dog on a leash, muzzled only by his good graces. And then again someone who could protect him from all harm. And to that end, he trained me on . . . oh, all kinds of things. A multitude of weaponry and battle tactics, crowd control and such . . . I became exactly what he wished me to be.

So. Moulded, in that he quite literally took something and gave it shape and form.
armd: (darkly)

[personal profile] armd 2022-08-01 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
(They do hurt. The sudden tension ratcheting through his body get a soft, "I know," out of Abby, but she doesn't stop. If she gives him time to adjust to the pain he'll be anticipating every push of the needle; better to get it over and done with instead of dragging the process out.

Her eyes flicker from the wound to his face as he speaks, and the only pause she takes is to dab at the blood. She won't interrupt completely, but the look on her face gets uglier the longer he goes on, jaw set, brow furrowed.)


That's sick, (is her cold assessment. It reminds her too much of Lev and the Seraphites, of what they wanted him to be against his will. At least he was able to tell them no and get away. Fenris wasn't so lucky. She takes a breath before the next stitch to steady a suddenly shivery hand. That something like that happened to him at the hands of another- she likes him, she realises, enough to feel protective of him in this moment. Righteous anger burns through her, hot and familiar.

When she asks, her voice is calm.)
But you're away from him now. What happened?

(Did he get what he deserved?)