Post #2616933 in The City of Chains, a roleplay on RPG

Checking to make sure that nothing in the cell block was trapped, Rilien made his way forward, efficiently but cautiously all the same, already drawing a set of lockpicks from his belt as he went. The lock on this door didn’t appear to be especially complex—he could only assume that Amalia had been stripped of anything she might possess that would allow her to even attempt it, something which was only logical considering the skillset she had. He could tell that, despite the weather outside, the chill was magical, which seemed to suggest further efforts to discourage her from doing much but trying to keep herself warm, something which was no doubt difficult, considering how little of her clothing and gear she’d retained.

"The others are still above, at the party. We have not seen Magister Alesius since our arrival. Ithilian is currently under the effects of a moderate dose of sundew poisoning, and I lack the materials or expertise to do anything about it.” He kept his explanation short and to the point, which was rather how he expected she would prefer it, and worked the lock while he spoke, hearing it click open not long after he’d started.

"Do you know what they did with your things?”

The lock giving way prompted Amalia to stand, gooseflesh pricking her skin as the cold air rushed in to what little warm pockets she’d been able to preserve around herself. She hated the cold, hated how it made her feel slow and numb, and she had no doubt that Marcus had retained this information from the last time she’d been at his mercy. She rubbed her bare arms with her hands, shaking out her legs to try and restore circulation to her peripherals. Fortunately, a lifetime of taking care of her body meant that, when things got difficult, her body took care of her, too, and slowly the color started to return to the flesh of her torso and limbs. The tips of her fingers were still numb, but the sharp tingling sensation in them informed her that feeling would return to them soon.

Pulling all of her hair over one shoulder, she approached the front of her cell, peering over at Ithilian as if to confirm Rilien’s diagnosis. She pursed her lips. “Most of it is useless—they sliced through my tunic and sleeves. But my weapons should still be through that door.” She nodded to a plain wooden portal near the cell. A guardroom, if she had her guess. If she was lucky, there might even be a cloak in there, but she wasn’t betting on it. “I have what I need to treat you up in our rooms in the main castle, if we can get there.” She wouldn’t put it past Marcus to have paid off enough guards to leave a reasonable number of them behind near where they were staying.

But that wasn’t important at the moment. “We have to hurry, or he’ll get exactly what he desires regardless.” Stepping out of the cell, she shoved open the door leading to the room they’d dropped her things in, finding most of her gear piled haphazardly in one place. As she suspected, her weapons were fine, though she noted that someone had made off with her potions. Her tunic, undershirt, and so on were a different matter. Pulling her boots back on as rapidly as she could, she took the largest one, tore off the mangled sleeves, tied them together, and used that to hold the rest of it closed around her waist. It certainly didn’t live up to standards of modesty, but it was warmer than nothing, and that was all she really cared about at present. That and the fact that the sturdy fabric would protect her from at least some kinds of incidental damage.

Having strapped her weapons into their usual places, she failed to find anything to tie her hair with and so left it be, hastening back out the door and pausing when she came level with Ithilian. “How bad is your eyesight right now?”

Ithilian had not let his hand leave a solid object since he'd been hit with the poison. He was consistently coughing, though he attempted to suppress it, and occasionally turned his head sideways to spit out another splotch of blood. His voice did not function properly when he first tried to speak, but after a pause, he could get some words out.

"If we--" Cough. "I don't--" More coughs. He exhaled a deep breath through his nostrils, frustrated. "Bad, leth... leth..." Shaking his head, he gave up.

A flash of anger crossed Amalia’s face, quickly overlaid with her usual stern expression. Marcus had much to answer for, and he wasn’t doing anything to mitigate that, certainly. “Then my eyes are yours.” She set one hand on his shoulder, keeping it there, and then turned to Rilien. “I know the safest way out. I do not recall stopping to disarm any traps on the way in, but if you would go first and check for them, I would appreciate it.”

And thus, with Amalia counting her steps, carefully and giving directions to Rilien as she went, she took care to steer Ithilian gently, mindful of his cough but also of the fact that his problems would be much worse if they did not leave the catacombs quickly. Her memory served her well, and they reached the trapdoor again without incident, pausing to set the ladder the right way and climbing up one at a time.

It was immediately obvious upon returning to the chateau proper that nothing had changed, especially. There were no alarms, no commotion, and in fact, considering how late in the evening it was by this point, there wasn’t much activity at all. They passed only two guard patrols on their way back to the quarters their group had been given. One, they were able to hide from, and the second wasn’t too hard to convince that Ithilian had imbibed a bit too much and simply needed to get back to his rooms—apparently this was a common-enough occurrence at such festivities. Amalia let Rilien do the talking, considering his superior familiarity with what would and would not pass as a likely excuse for their current appearances.

At long last, they arrived back on their floor, and she asked Rilien to go summon the others, who had likely returned from the party by now, while she pulled open the door to the room she’d stored her things in and immediately set about digging through her satchel for what she needed. Poison was expected when dealing with people like herself, and while she hadn’t expected him in particular, she had to admit that there were similarities between the way Marcus thought and the way she did. They hadn’t been partners for five years to no effect, after all. The vial she pressed into Ithilian’s hand was quite small, made of a thick, amber-colored glass. “This should help,” she said quietly, then stepped back to rummage through her bag again.

"Ma s-serannas," Ithilian managed, after consuming the liquid. He had quite nearly collapsed into the first bed that he could feel, and kept his eyes closed as he rested now. Soon after, the other group returned, Sophia pausing briefly in the doorway to see what the damage was. The look upon her face spoke for her: concern at Ithilian's state, but relief as well to see Amalia in one piece.

When everyone else had entered as well, and Amalia had at last found something to get her hair out of her face, she spoke, her tones clipped and considerably more urgent than usual. “Have any of you seen the Duke or Marcus since the hunt?” Her eyes flickered over all of the assembled faces.

Lucien shook his head in the negative, and when no one else immediately spoke up either, Amalia sighed softly. “I believe Marcus plans to assassinate the Duke, and take his place at a very important meeting, somewhere on the grounds of this estate. It is imperative that we stop him from doing so.”

"Would he actually do something like that?" Aurora asked with brows raised. She had been quiet thus far, as she was neither an apt player of the Game, nor did she wish to particularly recount the tale of the hunt herself. But once she was amongst friends again, that hesitation was gone. "In the middle of an Orlesian party? That's... Risky," Aurora added, "What does he hope to accomplish at this meeting?"

“That and far worse if he believed it necessary,” Amalia replied, but then she gestured to the darkened window in the room. “But not in the middle of the festivities, no. He would wait until most were asleep. I suspect he will ambush the Duke on the way to this meeting, when there are unlikely to be many people to see or protect him.” Her voice was level enough, but in the way she held herself, there was more tension than usual, such that even Lucien was able to pick up on it. He decided not to comment, however—she had just been imprisoned, after all.

“Just what kind of meeting would Prosper attend mostly unprotected in the middle of the night? And how do you know?” It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Amalia, because he did, but if they acted on this and something went wrong, they would likely need to be able to prove that they’d been in the right. His status, he had already learned quite well, did not grant him immunity from everything, and the protection it afforded the rest of them, while not negligible by any means, was even less.

“A meeting with a Qunari deserter. One who has very important information that Prosper believes his Empress might be interested in.” Honestly, once she’d identified the sender of the Duke’s letters, most of everything that had happened so far made a great deal of sense. “They’ve been meeting, here in the Free Marches, for several years, and writing, all in an attempt to negotiate this one exchange. Marcus got wind of it, and intends to obtain the information. He’ll probably track Prosper as far as he needs to in order to find Rassan, and then kill him to keep him from interfering.”

Seeing as how this sort of situation was Rilien’s wheelhouse, so to speak, he was the first to reply to that. "If that is so, then we would do best to catch him in the attempt. Neither party has been seen since the hunt—it is possible the duke is already dead.” It seemed to him that they should act as soon as possible. "But if we cannot follow either of them… do you remember the faces of any of the guards the Magister has bought?” It was possible that Marcus would want men behind him, in the event that this meeting went less than optimally. It was clear enough from his activities that he’d paid off some, but not all, of Prosper’s guardsmen, so there was a chance one of them would lead the group where they needed to go.

Amalia hummed in the affirmative. “Even if I did not… I don’t expect a group of that size would be difficult to track. Marcus may well have left by unconventional means, but I don’t doubt his guards used the gate. We need only do the same, and follow their progress.”

It was generally agreed upon that they had little time to waste, and so, once everyone had gathered up what gear they thought they would need, they were once more outdoors, this time striding up the path to the gate with all the confidence of people who were supposed to be there, despite the late hour. Given that there was no way to get this many people out of the area without being seen, they were going to take the opposite approach—they were going to be obvious about it, and unconcerned with who saw.

Amalia noted that some of the guards appeared to be in a bit of a state—alarmed about something, though she knew not what. She caught a couple snatches of conversation; something about a dead guard and ‘Leopold,’ but there was no time to pay any more attention than that. Most of the other guests were long ensconced in their rooms by now, and so besides the guards, the only other people about were servants and attendants, and they kept to their own business, leaving the group unmolested until they reached the gate.

That could have been worse, too, considering. Suspicious or not, when someone with as many titles behind his name as Lucien seemed to possess told you to let him out, you let him out. Or at least these guards believed so, and that was enough. The gate was opened again, and a query confirmed that the Duke and a small retinue had departed already, though they were mum on why. It was clear that they believed themselves to be protecting a secret of some kind, though Amalia doubted it was the one they thought they were. If the other group’s information was good, the Duke had done this kind of thing before, and the popular suspicion was that he was meeting clandestinely with a lover or something of that sort.

The trail of the retinue in question was not difficult to follow, and they tracked their quarry over a good mile of terrain before the sound of shouting voices became evident. When she heard them, Amalia picked up her pace, bounding into a sprint. There might not be much time at all—

She burst from the treeline to come upon a very strange scene indeed. Duke Prosper, surrounded by his own guards, their spears pointed at his neck, was red-faced and clearly in the middle of an argument with Marcus, who was himself smirking and apparently quite relaxed, his arms folded across his chest and a wyvern crouched at his heel, its attention fixed on him the way a dog watches a huntsman for a command. A second ring of guards surrounded a Qunari woman, dressed in human fashion but easily recognizable for the horns that curled around her head, her expression twisted in anger. Amalia dimly recognized her as Rassan.

At her appearance, and the rest of the group behind her, all eyes swung to them for a moment, even, eerily, the wyvern’s. “Kadan. So glad you could make it.” Marcus’s smile inched a little wider, and he flicked a glance to the soldiers surrounding the Duke.

“Kill him.”

Snippet #2616933

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

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