Post #2421283 in The City of Chains, a roleplay on RPG

Today, Amalia’s pupil had been invited into her home, or more accurately, the too-small Alienage shack she shared with too many Viddathari. There was a purpose to this, as there was a purpose to everything else, but in this case, the reasoning was quite simple: she wished to speak to Imekari about things that were best not heard by general ears. Already wearing most of her armor, Amalia was bristling with as many sharp and pointy objects as usual, but today she also carried her familiar weighted chain, tied about her waist in such a way as to be releasable with a single unhooking. Presently, she was wrapping her forearms in white bandaging, which served several purposes: first and foremost, it added additional bracing and protection to her joints, and she had every intention of being in excellent shape well into her twilight years, so it was best to take precautions now. Second, it was doing quite a lot to hide the variety of scars crisscrossing the tanned skin of her arms. She might not have cared overmuch about the aesthetics of it, but questions on the matter, she would rather avoid.

Thirdly, it was convenient to have an extra layer in between her skin and her gauntlet, which she slid on afterwards, checking that the trigger mechanism was in place before buckling deftly with one hand. “One of my Viddathari was in Hightown this morning and heard two of the City guard talking about it,” she was explaining. “The Arishok will not be pleased to learn that his delegation has been snatched from the front doors of this city’s governing family, and I think you understand how ill this place could afford open warfare. I intend to find them, and discover what happened to them, before he has time to make the declaration.” Amalia paused in the act of wrapping her long scarf about her neck.

“I find that such a task would also suit well for assessment purposes, if you are willing to assist.” Of course, if Aurora had no wish to go, Amalia would not force the issue. The girl was not Qunari, and thus she was not obligated. Amalia, on the other hand, had to do this thing. That she also happened to want to was something that she did not dwell on. It faintly disturbed her that it was not duty that moved her to such swift action, but rather a swift and intense dislike for the images her imagination conjured of Kirkwall on fire in the wake of what the Antaam could—and would, if this was not resolved—do. She did not desire for this place to burn. More importantly, she did not desire to sort through the wreckage of it only to find their bodies therein. Dangerous thoughts, and ones she did not linger over. “Will you come?” The Qunari pushed open the door and stepped outside into the afternoon sun, holding it for long enough for Aurora to step out as well, then shut it firmly behind them both.

"Wait. Assessment? I'm being tested?" Aurora asked. She'd found a perch on a corner of one of Amalia's tables or desks. Honestly, the whole place looked more like a school than a home... And just like that being tested didn't seem all that strange. Aurora tilted her head and chuckled. She thought she was done with tests when she left the Circle. And in three years, Aurora still felt like a student when she was around Amalia. An unruly student, sure. Some things don't change. Assessment or not, Aurora felt like this was the woman's way of asking for her help, and after all she'd done for her saying no was out of the question. "I thought that still being alive was enough of a pass," Aurora quipped with a smile. She then hopped off the desk and nodded.

Aurora crossed her arms as she headed out the door with Amalia, saying "I never was good with tests," as they exited. "But Milly did kick me out of the house for the afternoon though. 'Decorating' she said," Aurora said with air quotes. She'd invited Milly to come along with her to visit Amalia. Milly had only laughed and firmly said no. Not that she was surprised. The last time she brought her out to meet her friends, she got roped into a dangerous quest that almost killed all of them. That's all Aurora heard the following week. Perhaps it was a good thing Milly didn't frolick the streets with her-- she did tend to be danger prone.

"So where should we start?" Aurora asked. The importance of the task didn't escape her. Even with the low profile she tried to keep, Aurora could feel the tense air and hear the mutterings on the streets. Kirkwall could not afford a war with the Qunari. These people were soldiers through and through. Disciplined with a single purpose and a single role. They did not need to provoke these people. They needed to find this delegation, the quicker the better.

“It is not an ordinary test,” Amalia replied coolly. “Do not trouble yourself over it. Act as you have learned to, with mind, soul, and body in harmony, and it shall pose you no great difficulty. Nothing shall.” The Qunari frowned a little; it was undoubtedly good advice, but of a sort that she was finding it increasingly hard to follow herself. She knew not yet which part of her betrayed her ease and certainty, but she had a niggling suspicion that it was not her body, and perhaps not even her mind. Had it not always been so? The pain her mind and body suffered was always irrelevant, would always be irrelevant. She had learned to endure it. The worst of her scars were elsewhere, on her heart, she believed the humans often called it. There was scarcely a difference between that and the Qunari soul. Ironic, considering the meaning of her title. Heart of the Many.

As for where to start, well… that looked quite likely. Across the way, Nostariel, Lucien, and Sophia approached, and Amalia had a feeling she knew why they were here. Pursing her lips, the Ben-Hassrath approached them, Aurora in tow. For a moment, she regarded them steadily, the differing hues of her eyes lending the slightest bit of surrealism to the inspection. “The Arishok must know,” she said decisively. “I think it will be better coming from you than me, but he will not be pleased. I will accompany you to convey this, and then to solve the problem.” She did not pretend she didn’t know why they were here, but she could not deny that it presented a decent opportunity. She had been about to approach Lucien and Nostariel about the matter anyway, as she knew all three of the people before her had dealings with the leader of the Antaam before. From humans and elves, this proclamation would be ill-received, but their honesty would do them credit, which may save them. From her, it would be another maddening detail to add to the litany of reasons Kirkwall must be conquered, and she did not think his task would keep him from his nature much longer. The Arishok was born and raised to make war, and when everything was laid out before them, that was what he would do.

“That makes sense, yes. Better to get out in front of this,” Lucien mused, but he turned to Sophia all the same, as if to defer to her decision in this matter. Curious. Amalia chose not to comment upon it.

Sophia was surprised to find Aurora here, and more surprised to find her approaching with Amalia. Apparently the Qunari woman already knew of what had occurred, and assumed correctly that it was the reason for their visit to the Alienage. She never wasted time, did she? Still, Sophia was curious as to the relationship these two had. As far as she knew, Qunari view on mages was... not the same as Aurora's had been, the last time she'd expressed them in front of Sophia. They didn't seem like a natural fit for friendship, or a teaching relationship... though come to think of it, some of the moves Aurora had displayed in combat without using magic were awfully reminiscent of Amalia's techniques. Perhaps they'd known each other for longer than Sophia thought.

Either way, it was interesting. She had decided that Amalia was someone trustworthy, someone who had goals that were not undesirable. Sophia got the sense that some of the Qunari warriors were hoping for a way for their Qun to demand the city's destruction, but Amalia had already proven she wished for no war. After thinking on it, the idea of Amalia rubbing off on the once hot-headed Aurora was an agreeable thought. More than anything, mages needed good teachers. That was the primary strength of the Circle, not the effective jailing of people like Aurora by the Templars. If all mages were guaranteed to be taught well as they increased in power, maybe the Circle wouldn't be needed, but for now, there were too many cases like Sparrow: willful and perhaps slightly foolish people, making mistakes even with good intentions, and causing others around them to suffer for it.

"I had hoped for him to know when we delivered his people to safety," Sophia said, "but if you believe it best we inform him now, then that's what we'll do." Maybe delaying with the truth would have been unwise. Sophia would have preferred to get right to the search rather than waste time traveling down to the Docks and speak with the Arishok (and potentially face his wrath if he was angered). But she'd come seeking Amalia for precisely this reason: Sophia did not understand how the Arishok functioned, or the Qun that guided him. Amalia did. Sophia said nothing of Aurora accompanying them. If Amalia did not take issue with that, or if she had intended it, then Sophia would not intervene. Not yet, at least.

The party of five left the vhenadahl and the Alienage behind, finding the stairways down to the Docks and the Qunari compound. The guard at the gate recognized them easily enough, considering that one among them was actually Qunari, and three of the others had made visits here with increasing frequency. All five passed through the gate, however, after they stated they had important information for the Arishok to hear. The leader of the Qunari warriors himself was in the middle of a discussion with one of his higher ranking subordinates, but when his eyes caught the visitors entering his compound and approaching him, he waved for his fellow Qunari to step aside. "What do you want?" he asked plainly, impatience in his tone. He did not show any particular regard for the Ben-Hassrath. "I have no interest in adding to my distractions."

To perhaps solidify the sentiment she had expressed at the beginning of this endeavor, Amalia did not answer the Arishok’s question, and for a moment, her silence was almost conspicuous. In truth, the priesthood and the army didn’t always have that much to do with each other, and she obviously wasn’t here in her official capacity at the moment. Her job was to take care of it, and then they could talk about it. But it was important that these people had the opportunity to tell him the truth first. That had nothing to do with her, really. Indeed, though she was certainly looking at the Arishok, she was clearly not going to speak, and in the beat of slightly-awkward silence that followed the terse question, Lucien decided to intervene.

“We came to inform you that the delegation you recently sent to the Keep has disappeared, but it seems you are already aware?” The present level of frustration here was much higher than what seemed to be the Qunari’s resting rate of it, so to speak, that passive hatred he seemed to have for his position here, and the city itself. It was probably best not to only add to the distractions, as he’d said. “We will find them, but it seemed best to inform you first, in the event that we should not.” He wasn’t exactly sure what the Qun would demand here—perhaps they had to be retrieved by the Arishok’s own men? Whatever thing the Arishok was after in Kirkwall apparently had to be retrieved by him personally, so there were definitely restrictions of that general nature in the Qunari ideology somewhere.

The Arishok studied Lucien and the four accompanying for a very long moment, his face hard as stone. "Anyone else, and those words would have been their last." Sophia couldn't help but tense at that. He seemed relatively unsurprised at hearing of the abduction of his delegation. If the Arishok himself were searching for ways around his Qun just as the fanatics were searching for ways to force him to it, they were truly in peril. The warriors surrounding him looked far less passive than usual. This was bad.

The Arishok leaned forward. "You are handling this, then? Not your buffoon of a Viscount?" That caused Sophia to take a step forward on Lucien's right, her brow narrowing to a hard crease. Did he really mean to insult her father in front of her? She meant him no harm, but a little respect, and some reassurance that he felt the same, would not hurt at all.

Lucien as a rule did not at all enjoy interrupting people, nor that close cousin of such rudeness that was preventing them from speaking in the first place. This was, however, a delicate situation—it took only one look at the situation here to tell someone that, and right now, arguing over the Viscount’s relative merits as leader of this city was not going to accomplish anything but making the Arishok angrier. He did not touch her, but his tone was the verbal equivalent of an arm-bar, or perhaps a hand on her shoulder. Soft enough to be nonthreatening, but firm in its insistence. “Sophia.” Please don’t make this worse than it already is. To the Arishok, he added but two more. “We are.”

Anyone else, and those words would have been... well, certainly not their last, but they probably would have been largely ignored. Given the way she'd conditioned herself to protect her family at all costs, above anything else, simply letting this go was extremely difficult for her, but the look in Lucien's eye was enough to melt her anger. Lucien had said what was needed, so Sophia simply took a step back again, avoiding eye contact with the Arishok, as she certainly couldn't contain the glare. The Arishok made no indication that he even witnessed this exchange.

"Then I will wait. But know this: the provocations we have suffered have worked. If this is not resolved, I can fulfill my duty to the Qun with far less annoyance by sifting through rubble."

That seemed to be the conclusion of the conversation, and Nostariel wondered if she was the only one currently more scared than angry. Not necessarily for herself—she’d faced numerous rather horrible things in the past, and probably would in the future, but as a healer, she knew well what the threat in the Arishok’s words really meant. War wasn’t just death and rubble, it was dying, a long process of grievous wounds and sheer exhaustion and crippled children and many other things that did not bear thinking about. That was the dark promise in his voice, and that should have scared all of them, she thought.

Nevertheless, she made no comment as they exited from the compound, the gate closing firmly behind them. Instead, she simply threaded her way through the streets to the Hanged Man, where she’d gathered they were to be looking for an insider to this particular kidnapping, someone most likely in the City Guard. It was alarming that such people could be bought, but maybe not all that surprising in the end. The tavern itself seemed rather busy today, with an above-average number of patrons present, or had it simply always been so and she’d never lifted her head up enough to notice? She couldn’t really tell for sure.

There was no one dressed in a guard uniform in here, but that was unsurprising, as they'd be off duty if they were in the Hanged Man anyway. "Might be best to split up, try and listen in." There was no guarantee they'd even find what they were looking for in here but, well... Sophia had found that a common attribute of criminals was often stupidity. Hopefully that would hold true here.

Snippet #2421283

located in Kirkwall, a part of The City of Chains, one of the many universes on RPG.

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