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Evelyne Lafleur

"What do you do after you fail? You start over and take another first step."

0 · 948 views · located in Orlais

a character in “The Canticle of Fate: Silver Lion Stanza”, as played by Talisman

Description




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"I believe that tomorrow is stronger than yesterday
And I believe that your head is the only thing in your way
I wish that you could see your scars turn into beauty

I believe that today itā€™s okay to be not okay."




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Full Name|: Evelyne Lafayette Lafleur
Titles/Nicknames|: Evie
Age|: Twenty-three
Race|: Human
Gender|: Female
Sexual Orientation|: Heterosexual
Class|: Warrior
Specialization|: Mercenary

Hair Color|: Dark Brunette
Eye Color|: Sea foam Green
Height|: Five feet, seven inches
Build|: Slender, but coiled

Appearance|: Little ol' Evie isn't so little if one was to get a closer look. She stands above the average for a woman her age, however she possesses a rather slender frame, though not slender enough to look like she's one stiff breeze away from sailing away past the horizon. Sleek is the better operative word, and even at a glance, there seems to be something solid about her that keeps her on her feet, and in fact, there is. Beyond initial appearances, she's built on a solid base of corded muscle and hardened sinew. Generations of genetics and years of practice saw to it that while short and slender, she's also firm with enough muscle on her body to fill her out and give her a deceptive strength. It's a body honed for agility and quickness than outright brute power, but she's not one be slept on either.

A singular glance at her caramel colored skin would prove to anyone that her lineage is not solely Orlesian. That particularly elsewhere in her case is Rivaini, and one wouldn't have to dig too deep into her lineage to see who was responsible for it; a gift from her mother. A pair of muted seaform green eyes often sit downcast on her face, though sometimes they do manage to light up and sparkle like emeralds when she's excited or particularly joyful. Her hair is a thick mess of dark brown curls which she has somehow corralled to play nice, and cut just above her neck so that the excess doesn't spill out and in her way. A pair of cherry lips that look almost too big for her face and a roundish nose fill out her face, in addition to a dusting of freckles, thick eyebrows, and thick eyelashes.

She's not without her imperfections and hints that speak of a life led outside of Orlais' ivory towers. Scars dot her body, the most prominent being a spot of damage resting beneath one of her eyes. It's not exactly something someone could get just by tripping over something. Her hands are calloused through use and practice, and little discolored lines mark her fingers, tiny scars from errant knife cuts. Not exactly the hands of an idle noble lady, but the ones of someone who has to be doing something at all times.

Still, let's not forget that she's Orlesian, and even more than that, a woman with taste. Her casual clothing flits between fine, pretty, and cute, and it's not rare to catch her in a dress if she feels she can get away with it that day. That being said, she does try to wear her boots as often as she can, and still her wardrobe consists primarily of practical trousers fine made shirts, usually sporting colors of reds and pinks and blue accents. Look good, feel good, she'd say.


"Uhh? Do you need something? You're staring
at me awfully hard. I'll do what I can for you,
but I can't promise anything."

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Apparent Demeanor|: A lost soul adrift in a sea of uncertainty. Evie's resting expression has a tendency to default to that of a lost looking puppy. She hadn't always been like that, once upon a time she'd been as sure and confident as they'd come. Like she knew what she was going to do, where she was going, all that she had to do was to get there in one piece. Life was an open door, all she had to do was to walk through it. To suddenly have it slammed in her face, and for her to lack the strength to jar it back open damaged her confidence and left her looking for another way out.

Once she was a passionate and vibrant woman, but all that has since dulled and she'd become more thoughtful in her approach. There's still a passion in her heart, her Rivaini blood makes it difficult to snuff out entirely. Embers are all that remain of that fire however, though under the right circumstances they can be stoked for a time, but they never burn quite as bright as they once did. She's more subdued, and though she tries to hide it, she still wears her heart for all to stitched back together on her sleeve. She's easily read, either through her words or through the emotions at play on her face. She'd never been an apt player of the Game, and, honestly, it was all above her head to begin with.

All that being said, Evie is still a warm and kindly young woman, both to stranger and friend. To get her help, one need only ask, and even then, if she's able to sense that she might be of some use to them, she'd offer herself. She's conditioned herself to always try to be the first to help and even the downturn in her personality hadn't been able to break it out of her. She's never been the one to watch an injustice and not try to do something about it. She's always been a creature of action her whole life, and though she might not know what to act on now, she still has to try and do something. She'd rather fumble around in the dark than let inaction take hold.

She makes every effort she can to put one foot in front of the other, even though she doesn't know where they're taking her. It's better than sitting around than feeling sorry for herself. It gives her a rather aimless air. That's not to say she sucks all the energy out of any room she walks into. She's not that depressive. Rather the opposite actually. Smiles are not an uncommon thing for her, and laughter comes easy especially for the things she finds hilarious. She's no stranger to humor, and indeed likes to think she can dole out the quips and sarcasm with the best of them. Well, maybe not the best, but still. It's there. She also has a propensity for self-depreciating humor, especially these days. If you can't laugh at yourself... She's not so fragile as to let a couple of words break her.

Evie is still in the process of trying to find herself. To pick up the pieces and to learn from the price of failure. Still, one foot in front of the other, and hopefully she'll be able to find a different path, and maybe, just maybe, that path will be hers. And it'll be all the sweeter because she found it herself...

Hopefully.

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ā€œSimple is nice. I like simple.
Simple is a lot less likely to go wrongā€





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STR:

DEX|:

INT|:

WIS|:

CNG|:

MAG|:

WIL|:

CON|:
āŽ§ ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ āŽ­ [7/10]

āŽ§ ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ āŽ­ [8/10]

āŽ§ ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ āŽ­ [5/10]

āŽ§ ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ āŽ­ [4/10]

āŽ§ ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ āŽ­ [6/10]

āŽ§ ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ āŽ­ [0/10]

āŽ§ ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ āŽ­ [5/10]

āŽ§ ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ā–‡ āŽ­ [6/10]


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Equipment|: Evie's kit is a little on the heavier side, with secondhand chain mail beneath a scratched breastplate. Thick plated gauntlets and boots, in addition to a visored helmet complete her look. It helps to protect her more vital parts while at the same time giving her access to speed and mobility. She's comfortable in more armor if necessary, but it tends to slow her down and limit her agility, in addition to tiring her out more quickly. For weaponry, she's proficient in most standard types, though she primarily carries a pointed estoc to be used with both hands on her back. In addition to the primary weapon, she carries a shortsword on her hip and a dagger hanging from the shortsword's sheath.

Fighting Style/Training|: Evie's style emphasizes the use of quickness and precision. She doesn't possess the size nor the constitution to fight toe-to-toe with larger and stronger foes. She's not the stand-and-deliver type of combatant. Instead, she closes the distance quickly and then tries to pick out the weak points with the estoc. As the weapon is a primarily thrusting one, she looks for the weaknesses in armor to pierce, and even if it doesn't have a cutting edge, the a heavy steel bar will still hurt if it hits hard enough. If she needs a bit more power, Evie will flip the estoc over and hold it by the blade, using the cross guard and hilt like a pick or club.

The sidearms provide her with even more options if the estoc is either lost or stuck in the wall or ground. Quick, agile, and adaptable are the tenets of her style. She's also been trained secondhand in Chevalier tactics, as well as what information she could glean from a couple of months of official Chevalier training.


ā€œI might not be a Chevalier,
but I've trained too hard to be completely useless.ā€


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Place of Birth: Val Royeaux, Orlais
Social Status/Rank: Aspiring Mercenary, Minor Nobility

History: Evie was born and raised in the heart of Orlais in Val Royeaux, and though the Lafleur line have lived in the city for generations, her mother is a relatively new transplant in comparison. Raised in Dairsmuid in Rivain, her mother was the youngest of a noble family who's main interest was trade. The way her mother says, she grew up watching her family make foolish business decision after decision until their coin was ran out and they began to dabble in piracy. Her heart hadn't been in the business to begin with, and once piracy entered the equation, Dimah, her mother, decided that was enough and took her leave. She took what coin she could bring and headed for Val Royeaux to make a living she could call her own. She used the coin she brought as a down payment on a little cafe, colorfully named it the Spice of Life, and brought a little taste of Rivain to the the Garden District.

It was here that she found her knight in shining armor. Her father was born and bred a Chevalier, like his brother and like their father before them. The Lafleurs have experienced extensive service as Chevaliers, and have won their titles from the beginning through honorable action. Once the Spice of Life opened its doors, her father soon followed the delight smells through the doors and met her mother for the first time. Afterward, her father began to frequent the cafe, and before long, and to the surprise of none of the regulars, they were married. Evie wasn't the first, nor second child of the marriage, sitting comfortable as the third of four. Her brother, Marc was the first, and unsurprisingly followed in his father's footsteps as a Chevalier. Meanwhile, her older sister followed their mother and began to help in the Cafe.

Evie's earliest memories were the smells of her mother's cafe, and she too inherited the love for cooking, particularly baking. At the same time, she was enthralled with her father's strength and stature as a Chevalier. He had never been a particularly warm man, though neither was he unnecessarily cold. Evie always knew him as the type whose respect had to be won, and though her brother has managed the feat she... has not. Perhaps it was out of the desire to win his affection, or maybe to follow in the footsteps of her family, or heck, maybe she just wanted to ride Marc's coattails, but soon after he'd became a Chevalier, Evie expressed her wish to do the same. She vividly remembers her father's reaction when she told him her desire as a distinct dismissive "humphf." She would be lying if she said that it didn't hurt at the time.

Her uncle on the other hand got a kick out of it. He was a hard man, just like her father, but unlike him, he wasn't afraid to show warmth either and even laughed every now and then. She tended to gravitate more toward him than she had her father. He'd been more open with her, more supportive, and though he too had to have his respect won, it was an easier job. In fact, it was him that she learned the basics of how to fight. At first, it was just the fundamentals, but once Evie made it clear that her wanting to be a Chevalier was more than just a phase, she began to teach her more and more. She loved her uncle for giving her his time, though he wasn't perfect himself. He had a distinct lack of fondness for elves, and slurs weren't a rare occurrence on his lips whenever he saw one. He also had a tendency to act more brashly than her father.

Such as an incident where once Evie was old enough to swing a sword with some proficiency, he put her in armor and took her with him on a patrol. There had been evidence of a small band of bandits in the area they were heading to, but they thought that word of a Chevalier would scare them from the area. Her uncle didn't believe there was any real danger, until they were ambushed. Evie and her uncle won the day-- or rather, her uncle did while Evie tried not to die. She won a battle scar instead, a wide gouge beneath her eye. It wasn't something they could hide, and Evie's parents had both her uncle's and her hide after they returned. However, it did have the unintended side affect of her father taking an interest in her training, though her time with her uncle was limited. Every now and then he'd visit and check on her progress, but no more field trips for them.

She found her father to be a taskmaster, running her through drills and practices until she was exhausted, and then making her do more. It was nothing compared to the Academie he'd always say, but... she never quite believed him. That is, until it was her turn to attend. Whatever her uncle or her father had put her through was nothing compared to what the Academie could put her through. A couple of months in, and she was exhausted; mentally, physically, and emotionally. She was on autopilot, just going through the motions and seriously questioning all of the choices she'd made up to that point. She couldn't cut it, and she flunked out. It felt like all the time she put into it was wasted, that all of her hopes and dreams were broken. She was a hollow wreck for a time afterward, and the success of the rest of family only served to rub salt into the wound. Her brother had become a lieutenant-chevalier in the time being, while her old sister had come to take more responsibility in the cafe. Even her younger sister had gotten outstanding marks in school, is only waiting to attend the University.

Meanwhile, Evie remained home as a failed chevalier, the first in a long, long time for the Lafleurs. The disappointment from her father was palpable and it was a long time before he could even speak to his daughter, and when he did, it basically amounted to get out. With a coin purse of money he'd tossed her, and hand-me-down weapons and armor, Evie set out to rebuild her life from the beginning.

Presently, she lives in Riverbend off of what coin her parents had given her and what minor jobs she can pull as a mercenary.




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ā€œYou ever have a dream of something? One that you'd
knew you'd accomplish no matter what? Then ever had all
of those dreams and aspirations irreparably broken?
It kinda stings.ā€

So begins...

Evelyne Lafleur's Story

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

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In the absence of light, shadows thrive.
-Canticle of Threnodies 8:21

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The Castle District was positively buzzing.

Not about the riots, though. Unrest in the Alienage or Riverbend wasn't something that really concerned people here, at least not day to day. The fire probably gave some of the wealthy pretty lights to watch in the distance, and at most the drifting smoke was a mild inconvenience. For most, it didn't matter that elves and poor humans had died. That was just business as usual in Val Royeaux, a necessary uptick in the tensions that would lead to a natural trough now that they'd expended themselves. A few days time and the riots were as a distant memory to Val Royeaux's Game-playing elite.

No, the Castle District was buzzing about a play.

Quite the spectacle it was going to be, so far as Lia overhead on the Avenue of the Sun, and again as they passed by the Grand Cathedral, and the Grande Royeaux Theater where the play in question would be performed. The subject? Supposedly it was something to commemorate the new Emperor and Empress and their illustrious history together. That was all well and good, though Lia was willing to bet the two people in question didn't care a bit to see their pasts dramatized.

Their visit to the district had nothing to do with the play. It was a ways out, in any case. Lia and Cor were there, half their faces suffocated in masks, to meet with Julien again, and receive their next directions. The days following the fight against the chevalier had been largely useless, with no leads on Kotter's whereabouts, and nothing good from any of the people recovering from their drug-induced rampages. Ember, they were calling it. Ingestible fire.

"I feel sick," she said to Cor, not lifting her voice enough for any of the humans to hear her. Not that they would, anyway. She was all but invisible here. "It's times like this I really hate this city."

"You and me both," he muttered, holding his head high even among the crowds here, dressed in silk and brocade and velvet. In some ways, the chill of the season was just another way to allow for extravagance, in the cut of coats and the expensive ermine furs that lined cloak hoods, silverite toggles and buttons glinting in the light of the weak winter sun. Cor didn't hate all of it, she knewā€”the news about the play at any other time would have amused him, and he might have even taken to teasing Lucien about it, if gently. Finery and luxury themselves did not chafe him.

It was what they stood in opposition to. It was that people would be so preoccupied with this when that was so far from done. But he still managed to make a show of things, taking the brunt of the eye contact and the polite greetings the maroon uniforms sometimes saw lobbed their way, hidden barbs in the brittleness of the words and the askance glances. Being Argent Lions only protected them from so much. On this battlefield, the parries and ripostes were in the way they held themselves, the way they did not stand aside to allow any human to pass just because it was expected. In daring to take up space and make eye contact, and in Cor's case at least, lilt greetings in return or presume to wink at pretty strangers.

"If the fire had hit a mansion, right?" He thought about that for a moment, then frowned. "Probably better it didn't."

He had that right, Lia knew. The state of things would be much, much worse in that case. Apathy from these people had to be preferable than active and directed hatred. When they didn't feel threatened, they weren't a threat. Not usually, anyway.

As before the guards at the Imperial Palace granted them entry without so much as a word, demanding neither identification nor weapons from them. If they had any reservations about it, they hid them underneath the masks of their helms. Lia didn't care much either way. Sophia and Lucien were nowhere to be seen, but they had to be extremely busy in the aftermath of the riots. The tension may not have been obvious on the streets of the Castle District, but that didn't mean it wasn't burning hot behind closed doors. The guards posted outside Julien's office announced their arrival to the Marquis, and then admitted them.

"Ah, good, you're here." Julien looked up from where he was hastily finishing some kind letter or documentationā€”he rushed through his signature with a spiky flourish, then gestured to a woman sitting in front of his desk. "Cor, Lia, this is Lady Evelyne Lafleur. Lady Lafleur, these are Captain Corvin Pavell and Scout-Captain Lia Tael, of the Inquisition." No doubt he used their full titles quite on purpose, to make their importance clear.

"Lady Lafleur has information she wishes to share, regarding the events of the other day." He put it carefully, but most likely he meant she had something to do with the dead chevalier.

The woman stood as the pair entered the office, and inclined her head respectfully during Julien's introductions. Her skin was darker than the usual Orlesian, hinting at a bloodline dating from either Antiva or Rivain. The clothes she was garbed in were fine--or at least, were at one point. They'd been cared for, but by an unskilled hand by the looks of it. Wrinkles hung at her sleeves and her shoulders, and there were evidence of hasty stitches near her cuffs. Noticeably however, were the pair of well worn boots that peeked out from beneath her coral pink outfit.

"Please. Evie is enough," she added with a smile, seeming rather uncomfortable at being addressed as Lady, though she told them that more then Julien. "And, well..." she continued, chewing on her bottom lip as she apparently thought about how best to say what she wanted to say. "The chevalier you encountered was my uncle," she said, sounding saddened by her own admission. "His name was Jean-Louis," she added, her eyes dropping to their feet.

Cor's eyebrows were inching towards his hairline, and the last part nearly got them there, before he got his expression back under control. He smiled, a little tightly, Lia could recognize, but extended his hand towards the woman. "Evie it is, then." His tone was measured, far from unfriendly, but not warm, either, and his eyes dropped to his own hand for just a moment before they returned to her.

There wasn't much hesitation in her, as she accepted the offered hand in her own and shook, a respectful smile forming on her lips. "Thank you, Captain," she said, sounding genuine in her thanks.

Lia did not bother trying to force a smile, nor did she offer her hand. "Your uncle would've had the entire Alienage burned to the ground, if he'd gotten his way." Not to mention that encountered was a very kind word for their experience with him. "Did you know anything about his plans?" She probably didn't have to say that her mood would only worsen if she did. That said, Julien had allowed her in here, which earned her more leeway than anything she could say herself.

Evie seemed taken aback by the accusation, her eyebrows rising in surprise before she composed herself and shook her head.

"No, no, I didn't know anything about it, I promise," she said, before her eyes drifted back down, and she began to chew on her lip. "But... I wish I had. I would've said something to someone, or stopped him, or something, I don't know," she said, shaking her head and sighing at herself. "Honestly, I haven't seen him a lot in the past few years, and not at all the last couple of months. I had no idea this is what he was up to."

"Okay, so... why are you here then?" Cor looked between Julien and Evie, but the former seemed inclined to let the latter speak for herself. "If any information you've got is months old, I'm not sure how it's going to help."

Evie looked unsure for a moment, casting glances between Cor and Lia, before finally settling back on Cor. "Jean was my uncle. Whatever he was tangled up in, I want to make it right. I need to do something, I can't just let it sit. Our name can't take many more hits like this," she added. "Please, before we lost contact, Jean and I were close. If there's anything I can do to help, let me."

Again her eyes were lost for another moment before she spoke again. "I've got to make this right."

Lia wasn't sure if closeness to a man like this Jean-Louis was a good thing for her to be admitting or not. If he had any other family in Orlais, Lia was willing to bet they'd be making themselves pretty distant from him right about now. Being linked to someone inciting riots wasn't a good look for anyone. "Does he have a wife, children?" she asked. "Any other family in the city? Property somewhere here?"

"No family of his own. Just my father and us," she said, blinking as she thought. "He did have a small home in the Gardens though."

"Procuring the legal documents necessary to perform a search of the house would be a tedious process," Julien added, frowning slightly in Evie's general direction, though the reason was hard to figure out. "Even dead, Jean-Louis Lafleur has certain legal protections; more specifically, his family does, where his property is concerned. It might be a week before permission came through from a judge." A week in which it was possible that someoneā€”maybe family, maybe a co-conspiratorā€”could destroy anything they wanted. "If, however, a member of his family waives those rights and admits you voluntarily, the law is satisfied, and so are the demands of timeliness."

"You think he's going to have kept incriminating evidence in his house?" Cor asked.

Julien shrugged. "It's only incriminating because someone cares, which I daresay most nobility are still getting used to. Besides, he hardly strikes me as a criminal mastermind. There's a good chance you'll find something useful."

Evie had watched the exchange between Cor and Julien, until finally she raised her hand. "I'll be more than happy to take you to his home," she said without any resistance. "I know where he hid the key-- if he hasn't moved it since the last time," she added, thinking about it.

"But I'm going with you."

Lia didn't see any problem with that. Evie had to know the house pretty well, if they were as close as she'd said, which would give them a better chance of finding something useful. She wasn't concerned with helping this woman salvage her family name; for all Lia cared it deserved to go down for what Jean-Louis had done. What she wanted was whoever he was working with. Unless he was hiding some great skill at alchemy and the means to mass produce a powerful drug, he'd gotten them from somewhere else. That was the person Lia wanted to meet.

"Let's get going, then," she said. "The sooner we're there, the sooner we have a trail to follow."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

It'd felt like ages since she last walked the streets of the Gardens, when in fact it had probably only been a month or so. Still, Evie couldn't deny feeling awkward walking the district with the way she had left it. She bore her mask in the area, a mildly fancy silver mask, with the upper right side emblazoned in an ornate fleur-de-lis. It felt odd even wearing it again. If all that didn't make her feel awkward enough, behind her were two Argent Lions, and not just that, but officers of the Inquisition. Captains, meanwhile, she was barely lucky enough to keep her own title. Plus, she had a feeling they weren't too fond of her, due to her relation to Jean.

So Evie strode forward, eyes ahead, one foot after the other, with only the minimal of glances behind her.

Even those were enough to tell her a few things. Corvin, the tall, dark-haired male elf in chainmail, walked with a sort of surety and ease usually reserved for confident young military men, as far as she knew. It wasn't the peacock-saunter of some aristocrats, being too measured and controlled for that, but it looked like it came easily all the same. He kept his head up, eyes regularly sweeping the surroundings. She hadn't seen enough to discern the color, and he was masked besides, a silver-white leather one, free of any unnecessary flourishes or anything that might block his sight.

On one furtive check behind, he caught her eye, tilting his head to the side as though perplexed by her behavior. Sharing a glance with his companion for a moment, he adjusted his stride, taking a few loping steps to draw even with Evie. He was quite a ways above her height, a bit unusual in elves, where even the men were often roughly her size. At least the ones she knew.

"So Evie," he said, flashing a bright smile for a second, "Whereabouts are we headed?" The Gardens was not a tiny district, after all; it wasn't unreasonable as far as questions went.

Evie returned his smile with one of her own and pointed in the general direction. "It's just past the Valmont flower park, near the University District's border. It's a lovely little neighborhood, and always smells like flowers thanks to the park, but I always remember it being a trek from where I lived with my parents," she said and adjusted the direction she pointed in to give him an idea where she'd lived at one point. With the direction given, she let her hand drop. She frowned at herself, having unconsciously slipped into nostalgia, back to a simpler time. "It's a tiny place, with a tiny yard."

She glanced at Corvin and finally took a moment to look the man up and down. He was... unlike most of the elves she'd seen. Both of them were, she supposed. They seemed capable, confident, and strong. Walking beside that made her feel even smaller. She stole another glance at him and raised a brow. "So... You're a Lion too?" she asked, "What's that like?"

He hummed, lifting his shoulders in a shrug every bit as casual as his stroll. "Sort of. I mean, we were Lions, and we're kind of still part of the company, but we definitely don't go out on missions with the main group anymore, or anything like that, and I don't get to tell my old squad what to do." The smile appeared again, there and gone in a flicker. "But... it's been great, in my experience. I know it might be hard to believe, but I wasn't always this impressive, thank you for noticing by the way." He winked, drawling the words so obviously they could only have been a joke, but the sentiment didn't seem entirely false, either. The other elf, Lia, scoffed quietly where she walked, a pace behind the two of them.

"What about you, though? If you don't mind me saying so, you don't really give off the impression of the... let's say the Game-playing type."

"Who me?" Evie smiled while she asked, lightly placing her hand on her chest for a moment. A rather ugly and ill-made stitch in the cuff of her sleeve caught her eye and she frowned. He certainly wasn't wrong.

She let the hand fall back down to her side and she spoke. "I'm not really, I didn't really need to. Or don't, I guess," she added quickly, reflecting on her current state of affairs with a sinking feeling.

Corvin made a noise that sounded like sympathy. "Seems complicated," he said, but he didn't push her to talk about it. "Anyway, that's our park, I think, so I guess we're almost there. Anything we should know? I've been jumped by private guards a couple times, so maybe let us know if he has any of those, eh?"

Evie shook her head in the negative. "No private guard that I know of... But a lot's changed apparently, so I can't promise anything," she said. Perhaps it wasn't the wisest of decisions to leave the estoc at home, now that she thought about it.

"We need to be careful of more than just guards," Lia added. Her eyes rarely lingered on either of the two she walked with, instead always watching their surroundings. Scout-Captain, she'd been called. Wasn't hard to see why. She seemed more wary here than in the Imperial Palace, even. "With your uncle's name getting out, it won't be long before whoever he was working with hears, if they haven't already. We might not be the only ones interested in visiting this place."

"Uh, maybe you two should be the first ones through the door then," she said with an awkward smile. All the talk of private guard and other hostile entities planted an inkling of paranoia in her mind, and she found herself missing her equipment far more acutely. He had just intended on meeting nobility about this matter, had she known there'd been a bit more danger involved... She'd feel guilty about it, but at least Corvin was broad enough to take most of the heat.

Fortunately, as they came up to Jean's home everything seemed relatively calm, for the moment. Evie gestured toward it for the others to see, and kept close to them as they approached. It was identical to the last time she'd seen it. A small, nondescript home-- cozy, rather than cramped. Nostalgia took her and her pace slowed as she took it all in. How long had it been since she'd last been? Years? Her gaze then went to the small yard, and a patch of discolored grass. She paused completely, staring at it. The memories in that spot... She glanced at the two of them and shook herself out of the stupor she found herself in.

"I'm sorry, it's just that," she said, pointing at the grass, "was where Jean trained me. Swordsmanship, the forms, everything he could. The grass still hasn't grown back right," She said, looking at it for one more second. With that she peeled her eyes off of it and went to the door. Instinct told her to knock first, but she reminded herself that even if she did, no one would be there to answer. Instead she reached for the top of the doorjamb, hopping to get the extra height she needed and pluck the key Jean had hidden then.

She glanced back and offered Corvin and Lia a wary smile, before inserting the key and turning, pushing the door open to allow them entrance first.

Corvin ducked in first, raising a hand to place it on the top of the doorframe as if to keep track of where it was. It was large enough to accommodate his height, so it might have been a habit from somewhere else. They stepped into the main living area of the house, elaborate rugs thrown over rich wood flooring, with enough furniture for company and a small bookshelf set against the far wall. There was a desk next to it, still strewn with paper. It would seem Jean had left an inkwell open, too; it was probably mostly dry by now.

Directly ahead lay the arched entryway into the kitchen, the coal-black woodburning stove connected to a flue just visible from Evie's angle. Corvin gave it no more than a glance, though he did open the door to his immediate left. "Bedroom," he observed, addressing Lia and then stepping further into the living space. "I'll check the desk."

Evie hung back near the entrance as the two began to search the house. Another twinge of nostalgia struck, and she crossed her arms as she looked the place over. She knew she should probably be helping them look for... something, but she couldn't help herself. Seeing Jean's home empty and cold was difficult. She instead took a seat on the nearest chair and she leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and her chin resting on her hands. The emptiness really drove it home. Jean was gone--while in the midst of such horrid actions as well. Truth be told, she didn't have much time to process it all, but now in his home, the gears were beginning to turn.

She couldn't even begin to hope to justify what he did, nor would she even try, but she also remembered the man who had trained her when her father wouldn't, the man who thought that she could do something. He had been wrong, of course, but that belief in her still meant the world to her. It left her confused, lost, and in dire need of answers. "Dammit Jean," she mumbled under her breath, getting back on her feet. She wouldn't find them lost in her own head, and followed Lia into Jean's bedroom.

Inside the room was a small single person bed, immaculately made. In the corner of the room was a stand where Jean's arms and armor rested. Judging by the fine layer of dust resting on the ordinarily spotless plate, he hadn't been home for a week at least. Remembering Lia's words from earlier, she entered the room and went toward the armor stand, and took a sheathed longsword that rested from a hook by its strap. She drew it just enough to inspect the blade before letting it slide back in, and slipped the strap over her head.

"I feel a lot better now," Evie admitted, "Find anything?" she asked, loud enough for Corvin to hear as well.

"Maybe." Lia answered, just a few paces from where Evie stood. "Move." She stepped around her to the corner where the armor stand was, eyes down on the wood floors. She traced a shallow, almost unoticeable groove there with the toe of her boot, a line running along the floor to the base of the armor stand. There were others like it running to each point where the stand made contact with the floor. She glanced back behind her. "Cor, help me move this."

He appeared in the doorway not a moment later, blinking, but comprehension dawned on him quickly, and he took up a spot at the side of the armor stand, noting the grooves in the floor and picking the right. Bracing his hand and shoulder against it, he pushed with his legs, taking a couple steady, slow steps as the armor stand slid to the side with a faint protest.

It was clearly something Jean had done himself quite often judging by the worn down lines in the floor from the stand sliding over it repeatedly, but it wasn't immediately clear why. It didn't reveal or expose anything on the wall or underneath it. Lia frowned, stepping into the corner and crouching down. She ran her fingers over the floorboards, feeling for something, before she planted one knee against the floor and drew an uncommon-looking knife from its sheath. It looked to be carved from bone of some kind, an obvious enchantment worked into the blade.

Lia didn't use the blade, however, instead pointing the pommel towards the floor and gently knocking a few times, listening closely to the sound. They were sturdy, all save for one, and when she found it Lia sheathed the dagger again, carefully applying pressure until the piece of floor popped out of place, exposing the compartment beneath. She didn't seem all that surprised to have found it, her expression controlled and even as she reached her hand inside, and withdrew a lockbox, decently-sized but slim enough to fit through the floorboards.

She stood and tossed it onto the bed. "I'd pick it, but it might be quicker just to smash it open. Sounds like there's papers inside."

Evie leaned over the bed to get a better look at the lockbox before she shrugged and glanced up at Corvin. "Think you can get into it?"

He scoffed a little under his breath. "Not a problem." Picking the lockbox up off the bed, he set it down on the floor, checking his gauntlet to make sure it was in place. Curling his fingers into a fist, he studied the box for a moment, then lifted his arm and punched downwards. The force crunched the top panel of the box, and Corvin tore away the broken parts, fishing out the papers in question with a bit more care. Aside from a few splinters, they were free of damage; the blow had been very controlled.

Sliding the box away with the side of his foot, he shrugged, looking vaguely uncomfortable for a second before his face settled. "I suppose we'd better get to reading, then."

Evie agreed and leaned over to get a better look at the letters.

They were all very vague and never used anyone's real names, which fit the bill for what she thought secret correspondence should be. Apparently that particular letter was sent to Jean by someone with the initial M, the letter stamped near the bottom of the letter. As she read along, the letter also mentioned someone with the initial B, and he or she seemed to be above either M or Jean by what was said about them. She tilted her head she continued.

It also contained orders for Jean to smuggle unnamed contraband through customs and into Val Royeaux. Evie figured that with Jean's chevalier status, that would be something he could do. Near the end, the letter finally gave them one piece of solid information. An address to somewhere in Riverbend, though Evie didn't know exactly where. She wasn't too familiar with the place yet.

Evie closed her eyes and sighed, presented with even more hard evidence that her uncle had dealings with people and things that he had no business with. She shook her head, still a little pained and finally spoke to the others. "Anything stick out in particular to you two?" From what she understood, they'd been investigating the matter before she met them, maybe they could connect a few dots for her.

"Aside from your uncle being the worst kind of shem imaginable?" Lia's eyes lifted from the letter she was reading along with her brow, but they soon fell again. "This 'B' is the person I'd like to track down, and 'M' sounds like the way to get to them, if we could find them. At least, the only way I'm seeing right now. There's mentions of Kotter and his gang here, but everything points to them being a recent addition to the plan. And an unknowing one. Doesn't make them any less of scum, but they're greedy, not hateful. Less of a priority."

Evie sighed and let her head dip a bit low. It wasn't like Evie could refute her claims about her uncle with the evidence staring her in the face. It stung, yes, but there wasn't anything she could say to defend him, definitely not now. "Thanks for reminding me," Evie mumbled under her breath.

Corvin was frowning down at his letter, but he looked up from it as the other two spoke. "It's the ember that's the connection," he said. His eyes fell on Evie. "The drug, that is. If Lafleur was part of something bigger, they were probably using his name to move things through the port. Ember's not normal street poppyā€”and they'd have to make it somewhere. Anyone see an address or anything? Someplace more specific than 'Riverbend' or 'Harbor District,' maybe?"

"Yeah, this one has a specific address in Riverbend," Evie answered, pointing at the address she had found earlier. "But I haven't lived there for long, I don't know where it leads," she admitted. She hadn't had much inclination to explore the place much yet.

"That's kinda where we come in," Corvin reminded her, not unkindly. "Tell us the address and we'll take it from here."

"Yeah it's-- wait," Evie caught herself looking up from the letter with a frown. That sounded sounded like they intended to go along without her, and that didn't set too well with her. Unconsciously, she drew the letter closer to her chest. "I'm going with you," she said quickly, "This," she continued, tapping on the letter, "is Jean's mess, I want to help clean it up."

Lia thought about it for a moment. "You said this guy trained you to fight?" Her arms were crossed, though she unfolded one with her palm facing up, eyes on the letter. "Let me see that."

Evie eyed the hand suspiciously, before glancing down at the the letter one last time and committing the address to memory. "Ever since I was a young girl," she replied, placing the letter in Lia's outstretched hand.

She looked down, eyes passing back and forth rapidly across the page. "18 Alphonse Street. I think that's a residential area. Just off the Mudway, right?" She glanced to Corvin quickly as though to confirm. "Not a nice part of town, in any case. The letter seems to be responding to a request of Jean's, inviting him to see the progress for himself. That does seem like it might lead to a place of production."

Lia folded the paper and tossed onto the bed with the others, resting her hands on her hips. "No idea what we'll find there, but if it's a sizable facility there might be some numbers." She shrugged at Corvin. "If she's willing to stick her neck out for it, we could use an extra hand."

He considered a moment, obviously less sure, but then nodded slightly. "Works for me. Speaking of, though... you think we should stop by Vito's shop? Seems like we ought to at least update him. I get the feeling that guy wouldn't say no to another fight for this, either."

"It's just about on the way, too. Might as well ask." She looked back to Evie. "You need to pick up any gear, or... you fighting in that?"

"I'd rather not," she said, glancing down at her outfit with a self-depreciating grin. "I was going to ask, but I have a bit of equipment I'd like to pick up first."

Well, she was glad that that was rather simple.

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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In the interest of efficiency, which for all they knew they sorely needed, the group had split up. Lia would scout the location in advance of everyone else's arrival, as she'd done countless times in the past and would do countless more in the future. Corvin had nothing but faith in her ability to do it, but that didn't stop him from occasionally wishing he was a bit more disposed to that skillset, too. He didn't do well with not knowing how his friends were doing, or sitting back and waiting around while they did risky things.

Then again, the twinge in his chest reminded him that he'd probably given her a couple things to worry about before, too. He absently pressed the heel of his hand into the chainmail over his sternum, feeling it through the thick shirt he wore against his skin. The ache didn't ease muchā€”didn't ease much for anything.

At that point, Evie emerged from her house, which he'd been surprised to find was in Riverbend... and not even the good part. Corvin didn't pretend to understand how nobility worked, and even he knew why is your house so much shittier than your uncle's was not a question you asked someone you'd just met. Disinheriting wasn't that uncommon in Orlaisā€”spare kids were everywhere because of the mortality rate of that damn Game they liked so much.

"Ready?" he asked, arching a brow and affixing a smile to his face. He wasn't wearing the leather mask anymore, but it really made no difference.

She adjusted the visor attached to her helmet to make sure it stayed open for the moment before she nodded in agreement, "I am."

Her armor matched her house, in a sense. Far from the decorated armor that rested in her uncle's house, hers seemed to have seen much more wear and tear. There were obvious efforts in attempting to maintain it, but scratches and dents were difficult to buff out, and the chainmail she wore beneath the breastplate was likewise tarnished and a few rings were still bent. Still, the armor looked sturdy enough would probably do its job well enough. Also, she had noticeably traded out her uncle's sword for her own--with a much thinner blade. "Take the lead captain," she said without sarcasm.

Corvin shrugged and started them towards Vito's shop. It would have been ordinary for him to keep up a steady flow of conversation as they walked, but he kept a lid on it mostly out of an even mix of deference to her situation and straight-out discomfort that it didn't seem to be necessary. He wasn't sure how he'd feel if he learned a relative of his had been responsible for something like this, but it would be manifesting much more openly than whatever reaction Evie was havingā€”he knew that for sure. Rage, shame, the desperate and intense desire to either prove it wasn't so or tear through whatever he had to do to begin making it up to people... whatever it was, he knew he'd never be able to remain still and contained in the face of it. No one had ever accused him of being stoic.

He didn't know what to make of itā€”of herā€”and so he kept his step light and half his attention behind him at all times. She didn't seem like a threat, but that was no excuse to drop his guard right now.

Vito's place was a fair bit closer to the Alienage, and it wasn't long before they were in front of it. The sign in the door indicated that it was open, so Corvin pushed it open and stepped inside.

It was open, though only nominally, from the looks of it. The shelves were mostly bare, several of them stained with whatever had once lined them, the air thick with the scent of elfroot and the sharp scent of juniper. Bundles of herbs hung to dry from the ceiling, but the main cause of the smell was probably the squat, fat-bottomed cauldron sitting square with the fireplace in the back left corner of the shop.

Vito wasn't attending it directly, instead sitting crosslegged atop the least water-stained counter in the room, using what looked like a small knife to clean under his fingernails. He glanced up at their entrance, though, setting aside the knife and hopping down to greet them. "Ah, Mattone. Welcome to the Elixir Mixer." He swept a hand before him in what could only be an ironic gesture. "Sadly at present I am rather bereft of elixirs, though I daresay you look like you might wish to procure some?" He lilted the last word up to turn the sentence into a question, but it was very clearly an observation nevertheless. One thick brow arched, and he flicked his eyes to Evie for a moment before returning them to Corvin.

"There has been progress in the matter, I take it?"

Mah-toh-nay. Corvin didn't know the word, and probably would have butchered it if he'd tried to repeat it, but from context it sounded like a form of address. He didn't typically much mind whatever people wanted to call him, so offered no comment, instead feeling his mouth curl up into a real smile at Vito's dry humor. "You take it just right, Vito. Lia's scouting the place nowā€”it looks like we found one of the places they're making ember. It's actually not that far from here."

Sounds of movement in the back of the shop preceded the appearance of the girl that had been with him the night they'd met, his daughter Marisol. She was significantly more put-together now, and seemed to share some of her father's flair and taste for jewelry, the most obvious of which being a pair of jingling earrings, and a circlet of some sort threaded into her thick hair.

She came to stand behind the counter, observing the two visitors with a smile and clearly remembering Corvin. He was difficult to forget, after all. She soon turned her smile on her father, the glimmer in her eye turning mischievous. "Are you in danger of making a friend, PapĆ ?"

"Perish the thought, Caro." Vito curved his fingers over the short length of his braided goatee, sporting an ornament of its own today, a band of bronze near the end. "But perhaps if you are not here for supplies, it might be skills you seek instead?" There was little mistaking his interest in the prospect, eyes keen even as he leaned back against the counter with what otherwise looked like nonchalance. "There seems to be a new associate in the raiding party, no?"

Evie raised her hand and waved in acknowledgment once Vito pointed her out. "Hello," she greeted, "Evie Lafleur," she introduced herself with another respectful incline of her head.

"If you don't mind," Corvin said afterwards, referring to the earlier question. "I have no idea exactly what we'll be looking at when we get to the facility. Could be empty, could be a bunch of alchemists, maybe some guards. Having a mage on hand would definitely help." Not to mention someone who might be able to tell them something about whatever substances were going into the ember, so they'd know what to look for elsewhere.

That bit seemed to have taken Evie by surprise, first raising her eyebrows at Corvin, and then looking back to Vito, like she was reexamining the man in front of them. She chewed on her bottom lip as she inspected, clearly in thought until finally she shrugged, mostly to herself it looked like, and said nothing on the matter.

Vito sighed softly, a little smile on his face. No doubt he knew exactly what that reaction meant. Nevertheless, he turned his attention to Corvin. "I suppose she'd have learned in little time regardless. It seems I'm to have another adventure."

With a small nod, he turned to Marisol. "Watch the shop for me?" Vito grinned. "You can have the day off tomorrow."

"I'll take it." She didn't seem as enthusiastic as before, though. "Just be careful, please."

"Of course, Mari." He laid a hand on her head and leaned across the counter, pressing a brief kiss to her hair, then extracting another, longer knife from under the worktop. Attaching it to his belt, he gestured for Corvin to precede him. "Let us be away, I think the saying goes."

One more pair of hands in tow, the little group made its way back out onto the streets of Riverbend. It had been a while since Corvin needed to navigate them, but the memories didn't take long to surface, and he only took one wrong turn, a mistake easily corrected.

The Mudway was an informal name for one of Riverbend's main streets, of which there were many. This one earned its named through the fact that it had never been paved with even the cheapest of brick or stonework, and the dirt was prone to becoming nearly unusable for carts and carriages in most rainstorms due to the severity of the mud. The street they wanted, Alphonse, was just off this thoroughfare, a residential section of the district where more of the city's unfortunate and poor humans came to live.

Lia waited for them shortly after they'd turned onto the street, her hood concealing her ears and partially her face as well, though her uniform still identified her as an Argent Lion clearly enough. She drew the hood back as they approached, offering Vito a nod. Not the most amiable greeting, but more welcoming than she usually gave for a newly acquainted shem.

"As far as I can tell, the address in question is a one-story house on the end of the street here," she explained. "The house itself isn't what we want, though. There's a hatch in the alley alongside it going underground, and three people are guarding it. They're just sitting there smoking, but I know they've got weapons under their coats. More of Kotter's thugs, I think. This has to be one of his places.

She didn't sound pleased by that. "Maybe we find 'B' or 'M' inside. Otherwise we can at least put a stop to whatever they're doing here, and hope it helps. But this is going to be a fight for sure. Three guards outside, and then funneled underground into tight quarters? No way we're doing this quietly."

"Then we'd better do it quickly," Corvin replied, tapping out a rhythm on his thigh with his metal gauntlet-tips. If these were just garden-variety street thugs, he wasn't interested in killing them, particularly since, while hardly morally upstanding, it was unlikely any of the drug cookers knew what on Thedas their product was meant to be used for. He glanced between the other three, rapidly formulating a plan.

This was his element, much more than the awkward stumble earlier with the letters, and he found himself stepping back into it much more comfortably. "Let's catch the first by surprise at least. Vito, if you can work up a spell to stun them, the rest of us can go in for the takedown, one apiece. We're trying for nonlethality here," he added, for the benefit of the humans. "But if it's them or you, make sure it's them." He had no idea how good or bad Evie was with that sword, even if he was pretty sure Vito could take care of himself. "Once we're in, Vito, if you could just keep an eye on it and help anyone who looks like they need an assist, that's probably best. Make sense to everyone?"

Evie pulled the visor down on her helmet over her face and drew the longsword from its sheath. Upon closer inspection it actually appeared to be an estoc, with the only sharp bit being its tip. "Nonlethal, got it," she replied, resting the sword on her shoulder for the moment. At least the blade would help in the nonlethality route.

At Vito's suggestion, the group moved a little closer, utilizing a connected street to put themselves closer to the guards without crossing their line of sight. The mage spent a moment studying the street around them, then nodded to himself, making quick eye contact with Corvin to confirm that he'd proceed. Once everyone had indicated their readiness, Vito circled his fingers in a deceptively gentle gesture, like he was trying to stir something with them. Within moments, he had what seemed to be a current of air moving around them, near invisible save for the way it loosed the occasional wisp, one that feathered over his loose clothes.

The purpose of this was not completely clear until he stepped around the corner back onto Alphonse Street.

Then he thrust his hand forward, and a blast of wind followed, picking up the loose dirt on the road and slamming into the reclining men like a physical wall. From the cries of surprise, followed by a couple of thunks, it would seem the force had been enough to knock the unwary watchmen over, probably with a fair amount of dirt to their eyes for the trouble.

Vito stood well back, allowing the others to bypass him and get into the fight.

Corvin was first in, drawing his zweihƤnder and gripping the blade with both hands. The nearest man was already starting to recover, rolling to his feet and reaching for the brass knuckles under his clothing. Before he could so much as slip them on, though, the pommel of the sword struck him in the temple, a measured blow that stunned rather than cracking his skull. Hooking the crossguard around the man's ankle, Corvin yanked, sending his off-balance opponent once again sprawling. A second knock to the head put him under, fortunately: he'd have felt bad about needing a third.

One of the guards had turned to flee rather than engage them after recovering from the stun, no doubt to warn somewhere else or bring back help. One of Lia's arrows put a stop to that, whistling through the tight space available to bite into the back of the man's leg. He cried out loudly in pain, his gait disrupted enough to pitch him face forward into the dirt. Lia was quick to pursue, dodging a swing from the third and pushing on, drawing her knife as she drew close. Before the thug was in a position to defend himself she was on him, landing a hard blow of the dagger's butt to the back of his skull, dropping him.

The guard that swung wildly for Lia was left to Evie. In the midst of all of the confusion and with his attention momentarily on Lia, he didn't have the time to react to Evie dashing in. She darted an angle, leveling her estoc into a sideways swing from her shoulder into the man's belly. The impact doubled him over, and gave Evie the opportunity to take a step backward and put him back into the ground by swinging the blade from the other side at his head. It sounded like she pulled up on the blow enough to issue a thud instead of a crack.

That was all three down, and by the time the last fell, Corvin was already tying his up, dragging the unconscious man to the side of the building where he wouldn't be seen by anyone walking past. Thisā€”groups of confined criminals left near the site of the company's operationsā€”was something the Guard referred to as a lion's tail. Always trailing after the Lions themselves. Corvin found that somewhat amusing, though he was sure the city watch got a bit tired of it after a while.

The others soon joined the first, and he straightened, dusing his hands off on his pant legs. "Let's get underground, then, shall we?"

Setting

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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It was all quite startlingly-efficient, really. A practiced sort of operation, at least on the parts of the two Lions in the group. He could see the ways they understood and compensated for each others' strengths and weaknesses, no doubt so practiced that it hardly required consideration anymore. Automatic. He'd had that once, or at least something close, with a group. Though he doubted such noble souls as theirs would welcome the comparison. Few of the upstanding liked to be compared to Vito's ilk, after all.

When the guards were tied up and gagged, Vito led the way to the hatch. It wasn't especially well-concealed, but he doubted the average observer would pick it out as anything unusual. Crouching next to it, he ran his fingers along the sides, humming slightly when he found the catch he was looking for and flipping it open. That allowed the handle to be used smoothly, and he pulled it upwards, letting the more armored members of the group pass through in advance of him before dropping in behind.

It put him in a short, narrow passage, one that wouldn't allow them to go more than single file. The end seemed to be dead, but he was betting the boards in front of them were just plywood, easily removed and replaced. The hatch had the feel of an emergency exit to it, which meant there were probably other egress points.

Reaching over Evie's shoulder in front of him, he tapped Corvin's. "Mattone, I think we are likely to encounter problems keeping everyone in place down here. There will be several exits, probably up into more than one house on the street above." Chances were good that this was larger than one basement, particularly if they were moving the amount of product Kotter was rumored to. Even one of four or five such locations would need to be large to cover all the padrone's operations.

No doubt Corvin could break through the flimsy cover at the end of the passage if he so wished. But there was no telling exactly how things would be arranged behind it, or how many people would bolt as soon as they did.

Corvin paused, and in the dim light, Vito could see him turn so that he was in profile. "Got it," he said softly. "I don't think we'd be able to contain everyone anyway. Better to let them run if they want to, and fight the rest." There would no doubt be some that wanted to, and information was the priority. Still, he nodded slightly. Appreciation.

"I'm going to put us through this wall now, before someone finds the guards outside," he added, making sure everyone else was prepared before he did, gesturing everyone a few steps backward and taking three paces away himself. The wall was about five feet in front of him, and all at once, Corvin burst into motion. Shifting his body, he collided shoulder first, splintering the plywood with a loud crack that would no doubt get them noticed immediately. He didn't seem to much care, grabbing a large chunk of the split barrier and hurling it at someone Vito couldn't see further in before drawing his sword.

"Drop what you're doing and show me your hands!"

From the amount of noise, some people at least did just that, though more shouting followed, suggesting a less-than-cooperative audience. "Kill 'em," shouted one, and at that point Vito made it through the opening behind Evie, knife in one hand, sphere of water already in the other.

It looked like whatever this place normally did in terms of production had been haltedā€”nothing was cooking in any of the alchemy equipment, at least. Paper-wrapped bundles, tied with twine, were stacked on nearly every available surface, halfway to being packed in the crates that lined the floors immediately next to the tables. The workshop was indeed larger than one basement, stretching far enough in either direction that it had to take up the space under the next three houses at least. The ventilation was poor, from the smell of it, but not nonexistent, from the fact that anyone could still breathe.

Even now, a cluster of those working had their hands in the air, backing away from the intruders as quickly as possible. More importantly, though, others were drawing weapons and hopping over worktables to draw closer. The confines of the room were going to make maneuvering difficult, and Vito would have to be careful with his magic, too. If those packages contained ember like he suspected they did, letting it into the air could be a disaster.

One of the faces was familiarā€”he'd been fleeing the warehouse with Kotter when the fight broke out there. A man of middling height and rough exterior, a large scar cutting across his brow and the same side of his face and forehead. He drew a knife from his side, sliding the blade across his forearm without any hesitation.

Vito barely had time to think blood magic before the first spell, a nasty blood lance, was streaking across the room towards Corvin. Quickly, he shaped the water in his hand and froze it, propelling the ice dagger towards the mage in an effort to draw his attention.

It slammed into the man's unprotected shoulder, staggering him before he could get the second spell off, and he adjusted to face Vito, lips pulled back from his teeth. The return volley of ice was in needle shape; Vito grimaced and waved his hand, flash-melting them back into water and gathering them over his hand, thrusting it out towards an approaching melee combatant instead. It hit him square in the face, leaving him vulnerable while he tried to recover his sight.

Corvin took the mage's first attack at close range, the lance slicing into his thigh, just under where his chainmail fell. The leg almost buckled, but held, and he swung the flat side of his sword into the head of an approaching rogue, rendering him unconscious outright. The wound on his leg limited his mobility, and he had to shift around tables the long way, slowly orienting himself towards the mage Vito was fighting, though it would take him some time to move through all the fighters standing between them.

Evie on the other hand hadn't traveled as far from Vito yet, and helped to clean up the man he'd left stunned. She flipped the sword in her hand, grabbing it near the tip instead of the hilt and used it as an improvised club. She struck the side of the man's head with the steel pommel and dropped him. She stood over him for a moment, sword raised in case it took two swings, but it didn't seem like that was required. She turned the blade back around in her hand, gripping it by the hilt again and scanned the area--seeming a bit overwhelmed by all the activity at the moment.

She lingered on her back feet for a moment or two before finally she began to work her way into the room.

Lia didn't move much from their entry point, kicking over a rectangular wooden table to use as cover if she needed it. Her first arrow went for the mage, and he only barely shifted to the side enough to dodge it, the arrowhead skimming over the side of his torso and leaving a shallow cut along with the tear in his clothes. Her second arrow he was ready for, a fast arcane spell shattering it out of the air.

The sound of sudden movement drew Lia's attention left, where one of the workers who had been appearing to surrender now rushed her with a short knife. Her first swing caught air as Lia dodged away, whipping the end of her bow up across the woman's cheekbone. It made sliding around the stab easy for her, and reached behind her opponent's head, grabbing hold and shoving down hard, propelling her forehead down into the solid wooden edge of the table she'd tipped. It was enough to dent the wood, and the worker dropped unconscious, the knife clattering to the floor. Immediately Lia drew another arrow from her quiver.

The blood mage was skilled; Vito was having difficulty concentrating on anything but deflecting increasingly-aggressive spells from his direction as they got a sense of each other's magic. While he would discard the injunction not to kill if it became necessary, the prospect of something going awry and loosing any of the contents of those parcels into the air was hardly appealing. It forced him to check his blows regardless, and there wasn't much time to do anything but deflect. It left him only a few opportunities for the kind of careful aim that meant he could safely attack.

One such moment came after a lash of blood magic caught him across the face, opening up a deep cut on his cheek and forcing his head to the side. The other mage let up for just a second, as if to assess the damage, and Vito used it, bending back and shooting a compressed pocket of air over the tables. It caught the other man in the stomach, hard enough to double him over, and the follow-up ice needles pierced him in several places, leaving him with a multitude of minor cuts to go with the arrow-wound Lia had delivered.

Corvin was still moving slowly, but steadily through those who moved to attack him. Several had abandoned the effort outright, dropping weapons and fleeing to the stairs, and he'd reached the point where he was almost close enough to threaten the mage. A few steps more, and he swung.

Kotter's underling just barely avoided the worst of it, catching a long, bloody line on his right arm for the trouble. Staggering away, he used his left to launch a fire spell right for one of the nearest piles of narcotics. Vito didn't need his alchemical know-how to understand what that was going to do.

"Get down!" Taking his own advice, he dropped to the floor, holding his sleeve over his nose and mouth, and importantly his cut. Without knowing more about just what kind of substance this was, he didn't want to risk exposing his blood to it, to say the least. The jagged slice on his face stung hard enough under the pressure to make his eyes water, but when the spell collided with its target, the resulting explosion was enough to make the floor tremble, and heat pass over his skin. Worth the pain for the protection.

For several long moments, everything was silent. The noise of the impact had deafened him, only a slight tinny ringing registering to his senses. Still breathing through his silk sleeve, Vito clambered to his feet.

Powder fell over the room like snow, settling on the remaining surfaces. Tables had been blown to the far sides of the workroom with the detonation, a few of them broken or warped out of shape. Touching his free hand to his ear, Vito found that his fingertips came away red and sticky. His eyes sought the othersā€”they'd all been closer to the blast than he was. Of the blood mage, there was no sign.

Lia's cover seemed to have saved her from most of the damage the blast could do. She'd drawn up a cloth mask over the lower half of her face, conealing her nose and mouth, but her eyes were already peering through the cloud, searching. One of the first sounds to cut through to Vito was a shout, one of the gang members charging Lia from the side, emerging from concealment in the dust. Lia reacted quickly, turning and loosing the arrow she'd already drawn right into the man's chest. He staggered forward a few more steps, already losing control of his body, and Lia was forced only to step back out of the way for him to crash and fall to the floor.

She didn't linger on him long, though, drawing another arrow and stepping forward cautiously. "Cor!" she shouted, eyes searching the room for him.

If Vito had been deafened, it wasn't a bad guess that Corvin had been as well, as close to the mage as he was, and on the wrong side at that. There was no immediate response, but eventually, someone coughed, and the groan that followed sounded like him. A hand appeared at the edge of one of the overturned tables, gripping the wood, and the elf hauled himself upwards, still coughing. He didn't really have any way to cover his mouth, Vito could see, given that his upper layer was all armor and no scarves, hoods, or cloaks supplemented it at the moment.

He reeled backwards, shoulders hitting one of the walls, and blinked blearily, eyes unfocused.

Cursing softly under his breath, Vito summoned another wind spell, using this one to push the remaining airborne powder away from the lot of them. He wasn't sure if Corvin had inhaled enough to constitute a dose, but he watched him warily, just in case. "I can flush his system if we get out of here." That, he directed at Lia, in case Corvin was still deaf or in fact under the influence of the ember.

That still left one member of their party unaccounted for, though.

And she looked to be in even worse shape than Corvin. While he'd at least made it to his feet, Evie was having trouble staying on both her hands and knee, much less trying to stand. When she did finally manage to hold herself up with her hands, she arched her back and vomited into the ground. The force was enough to take one of her arms away from her and she toppled over to the side, appending an agonized wail onto it. She tried to get back onto her hands once more, but her body didn't seem to want to cooperate with her.

Lia remained in the center of the room for a moment, bowstring drawn back while she waited for anyone else to try attacking her, or at least for the dust and powder to settle. The silence won out, however, and it seemed the fight was over. She looked back towards Vito, making sure she had his attention before she gestured to Evie with the arrow still in her hand. She returned it to her quiver soon after though, and slid her bow over one arm onto her shoulder.

The priority was clear: get their allies moving and get the hell out, before anything else could pose a threat to their team, now down almost at half strength. Lia went to assist Corvin, grabbing one of his arms and placing it over her shoulders, saying something into his ear that Vito still couldn't hear from the ringing. But they were clearly on their way out.

Vito had a bit more work to do, as Evie wasn't in much shape to be walking on her own. Fortunately for her, this was not the first time he'd had to carry a patient, and while she was hardly feather-lightā€”especially in all that armorā€”he managed to arrange her in a rescue carry over his shoulder.

"Let's get back to the shop. I can treat them there."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Lia would've preferred to stay with Cor and Vito and make sure everything turned out okay there, but someone needed to fill the city guard in on what had just happened. They'd left an absolute mess behind, with criminals tied up, knocked out, or dead that needed tending to, and a whole load of dangerous drugs just sitting around for the taking. Their group had been too beat up to do much of anything about that.

When Cor was able to get his feet under him and keep them there enough to walk, Lia split off from the group, letting Vito get the two of them back to his shop for healing while she brought the news to the guard headquarters in the Administrative District. It wasn't something she was looking forward to, but it had to be done.

She tried in vain to sort out her appearance a little as she weaved her way out of Riverbend. She made a brief pause at the river itself to attempt washing her face and hair of the damn powder and dust, though she had no idea how successful she was. Getting it off her clothes and gear would take even longer, so she didn't bother. There were sporadic bloodstains on her, some of Cor's, some of it belonging to Kotter's thugs, and somehow none of it her own. All in all, it was pretty obvious she'd just been in a fight.

The guard headquarters were strategically positioned near the end of the Avenue of the Sun closest to the markets, Riverbend and the Harbor District, since that was where the majority of the city guard's most important work had to be done. Lia jogged up to the entrance, not bothering with a mask, and holding her hands up and open when the two guards at the front door barred her way with their spears, noting her suspicious appearance.

"I need to speak to the guard captain, Bernard," she stated clearly, keeping her tone from becoming impatient. "It's about an incident that just happened in Riverbend. I have information regarding Kotter's gang. She'll want to hear that, right?"

Those certainly seemed to be the right words, some combination of what she'd said and the color of her uniform relaxing the guardsmen enough that they shifted their spears back. "Aye, miss." The one on the left shifted his hand down to the latch on the door, lifting it and pushing it in. "Captain's office is first floor, end of the hall."

The path inwards took her first through a large, central room, many desks arranged into rows. Only a few of them were currently occupied, but even despite her disheveled appearance, none of those present tried to stop her. The hallway in question was a relatively short one, with only a few doors, and the one she wanted was already half-open, brass nameplate with "Captain Bernard" just visible at her angle.

The captain herself was out of her armor at the moment, behind a desk and dressed in the dark blue characteristic of the Guard, the bronze bands on her sleeves the only indication of rank she wore. Her appearance was otherwise quite tidy, short hair gathered into a neat queue at the nape of her neck, uniform free of wrinkles. She glanced up as Lia entered, fixing her with dark eyes.

"It's Scout-Captain, right? Come in." She said no more than that, doubtlessly trusting that Lia would make the relevance of her appearance here obvious in short order.

"Thank you, Captain." She stepped inside and came to a stop before the captain's desk, remaining standing for the sake of the furniture. "I just came from Riverbend. Alphonse Street. There was a drug production facility there run by Kotter's gang, but it's destroyed now. We weren't able to secure the area, though, so I thought it best to warn you immediately. You'll want to send guards there if you haven't already."

The captain grimaced. "A moment, please." Shifting her eyes to the open door, she raised her voice. "Jardin!" After a few seconds, a young man's head appeared in the doorway.

He smoothed away a bit of tousled blond hair. "Yes Captain?"

"That disruption Martin reported, near the Mudway? It was Alphonse Street. Get your squad and hers down there right away. You're cleaning up after the Lions, and you're going to want a wagonā€”sounds like a bust. Don't let your guard down."

Jardin nodded a few times before he remembered to salute, but Bernard was already shooing him out of the room with a gesture. Lia could hear him snapping orders to some of the others in the front room, before the noise faded out entirely. Bernard, meanwhile, turned her attention back to their end of the conversation.

"Thank you for that. Can I ask how you came to have involvement in this matter? I can't imagine someone hired you to raid anything of Kotter's. At least not anyone you'd take a job from." A tinge of skepticism entered her voice, but she wasn't outright dismissive.

"It's a bit of a long story," Lia explained, "but it's actually Inquisition work. Captain Pavell and I were brought here to find the source of the recent racial tensions. Since the riot, we've been trying to track down those responsible. Kotter's responsibility is only partial. The drug he's been peddling, Ember, it induces a mindless rage in those that take too much, and helped to start the riot, but he's only looking to make money off of it. There was a former chevalier involved, but he's dead now, and we don't yet know the true source of the drug." It wasn't anyone in Val Royeaux, Lia had to feel. Maybe they had hands here, pushing Jean-Louis and Kotter around, but whoever was behind this couldn't be local.

"At the Alphonse site it looked like Kotter was preparing the drugs for transport. From a conversation we overheard, he didn't approve of the riot. I think he's trying to move the rest of his product out of the city, and soon."

Bernard expelled a weighty breath, one that became a low whistle at the end. "And here I thought my biggest problem was going to be keeping people from getting upset enough for round two." With a small shake of her head, she set aside her idle quill. "We'll set up some extra protections at the roads out, see if we can't catch this and get it out of circulation. Thanks for the information, and if we can help you prevent another riot, let me know."

"Thank you, I will." Honestly, Lia hadn't been sure what to expect of Guard Captain Bernard. Their only encounter had been an uncomfortable one at the Alienage gates, and she was a new emplacement at the position besides. At least, Lia didn't remember her from before she left the city. She found herself pleasantly surprised; the Guard Captain was going to be someone they needed to work with often, if they were going to root out the real problem in the city, and it was a relief to find she wasn't the sort of person they'd need to struggle against.

"I should be getting back to my friends," she said, glancing at the door. "It wasn't the cleanest attack, as I'm sure you can see. Thank you again, Captain."

"Of course. Take care."

Lia didn't waste any time getting out. Though the guard captain seemed amiable enough, she wasn't about to go easy around the rest of them. She kept her pace at a jog, just barely catching sight of the group of guards making their way into Riverbend before she ducked down a different street, following the now familiar path that led her towards Vito's shop. She could see the girl, Marisol, watching over the entrance, and she preemptively pulled open the door for Lia as she approached. Vito appeared to still be at work inside.

"City guard is taking care of the rest," she informed them, pulling off her bow and quiver and setting them carefully down across an empty table. "How are we doing here?"

Vito had dragged a couple of canvas cots out from somewhere, and the debris of a rather involved healing process were scattered around on the counters. Empty glass flasks, half-used rolls of bandages, and soiled clothing, among other things. The man himself had swapped shirts for something with shorter sleeves, probably to make working near injuries easier. There was a fair amount of blood on his hands; apparently Cor's, since he was just stepping away from where her friend sat.

"Oh, we'll live." He said it sardonically, almost, but softened the tone of the words with a slight smile. "I've flushed the Ember from their systems and started on the wounds. Mattone here is... oddly difficult to heal." He patted Cor on the shoulder and stepped to the counter, pulling a washcloth out of a small bucket there and wiping down his hands and arms. "But I've stitched his leg to keep it closed, and the other injuries were minor. Evie's a bit worse off, but at least I'm not worried that my magic's suddenly terrible in her case." He nodded to where the other woman lay.

"It's not a problem unique to you," Cor reassured him, shifting a bit stiffly. Either he or Vito had removed most of this armor, but the long-sleeved tunic and trousers were still the standard Lions' uniform, down to where the blood from his leg wound had soaked into the pant leg a bit. Even injured he seemed rather hale; without the Ember to worry about it seemed he wasn't put out by his wounds much.

He pursed his lips a bit, though, then focused on Lia. "Guards were civil?" It had been sort of an open question whether they would be, when the Lions had first come to Val Royeaux, and while eventually most of the company had won at least grudging respect and cooperation, that didn't always hold for their non-human members.

"Surprisingly, yes." She sank into a cushy chair, pulling her hair free and slouching fairly low. She'd never been the best with posture. "The captain seems reasonable enough, and the rest didn't give me any more trouble than was warranted. The uniform still comes before the race, I think." It didn't mean things were ideal with the guard, but it meant they could at least work together if they needed to.

She appreciated Cor asking the question. It was concerning to hear that he still wasn't healing well. Vito wasn't the first healer to report that, as Cor mentioned. Ever since Emprise du Lion... but that wasn't a topic they needed to cover right now. "How're you holding up, shem?" She lobbed the question in Evie's direction. "That fight got a little hairy."

Evie was awake, and had been though she hadn't moved much since Lia had returned. She still laid in the cot Vito had found, her head turned toward their conversation. She too had been peeled out of her armor and was left with the coral shirt she wore when she'd found them. When she was finally addressed, Evie slowly raised a hand and gave her a thumbs up, before letting it fall back to her chest. The expression on her face revealed that she wasn't pleased with the result, but she was alive and that counted for something.

"So..." she said, quietly, "What now?" A minor coughing fit followed.

Lia shrugged. "Not sure. We dealt a blow to Kotter's drug trade today, but he obviously doesn't want to sell it here anymore. Seems like it'll work its way off the streets soon. That should help keep things calm for the moment, but we still don't have much of a lead on who your uncle was working with, who's really behind this." Unless there was something she'd missed, it seemed to Lia that they'd more or less broken up the plan by now, if indeed the plan of their enemy was to create multiple riots and bring about chaos in the city, for whatever reason. But since they didn't have those responsible in chains, they had to assume they'd try something else, and sooner rather than later.

"So for now, we wait. Ask around where we can, see if any leads come up, and take care of what work comes our way in the meantime." She paused, crossing her arms. "Any chance the rest of your family knew anything about what your uncle was up to? You all live here in the city, right?"

"I don't think so," she said with a shake of her head. "Father is too concerned about our image to have let things progress this far," she said sourly. It sounded like she apparently wasn't on the best of terms with her family presently. "Everyone else has too bright of a future to have known and not said anything," she said, her frown deepening. She closed her eyes and inhaled, and shaking her head and wincing. "I'll... try to talk to them, see if they know anything that could help. If they'll even talk to me," she added.

"Seems like that's all we've got for now." Cor flexed his hand a few times, rubbing absently at the spot on his leg where Vito had stitched him up. "The rest of us will just have to keep our ears to the ground." Knowing him, he considered this something of a defeat, but he also wasn't the type to show it in front of people.

Bracing both hands on the sides of his cot, he stood, testing out his leg and nodding slightly. "Thanks for the help, Vito. We'll be at the barracks if either of you need to see us. If we're not around, ask for Captain Donnelly."

"Think nothing of it, Mattone. I'll get Evie here back on her feet, and tell some people to keep their eyes open for me."

Evie adjusted herself on the cot to get a better look at him "And I thank you for that... Hey Vito?" she said, looking thoughtful for a moment.

"What kind of muffins do you like?"

Vito's brows arched, then furrowed. With a soft huff, he shrugged. "If you're in the market for thank-you gifts, I accept standard rate for my services." Having said that, though, he amended. "Chocolate is also nice."

"Seconded," added Marisol.

"We'll get you more than standard rate for today," Lia promised him. He certainly didn't have to come along and fight one of the most dangerous criminal elements in the city with them. Lions were expected to do that kind of work, but he was just a shopkeeper by all appearances, and poking the hornet's nest like this too many times would eventually put a target on his back. That blood mage he'd traded spells with came to mind. The man had disappeared into the wind.

As for the shem... Lia supposed she held it together well enough. Helped them get the information that led them to the site, and didn't hesitate too much when it came to blows. Took an explosive blast pretty well, too, for someone who clearly wasn't the most experienced with that sort of thing.

They were no Inquisition Irregulars, this little group they'd formed, but they'd gotten the job done so far.

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Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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It was a lovely day--well, as lovely as it could be in Riverbend, Evie supposed. The air had always retained an essence of desperation here, instead of the rolling scent of flowers on the wind like in the Gardens. The place was oppressive in comparison. Maybe it was the ambiance that she missed most of all... Or maybe it was her kitchen. Attempting to bake a half-dozen muffins in a rundown shack with what would be an insult to the wood stoves she was used to cooking in took the better part of her morning. The ingredients? The better part of her coin. Maybe she could have skimped on the sugar, or used cheaper flour, or even less chocolate--but Evie didn't do such things in half-measures, especially not her baking.

Not that she couldn't say she didn't enjoy the time she spent over her tiny oven. It was one of the few times she could take her mind off of every thing, even for a moment, and there were plenty of things that wanted to weigh down her shoulders. Even now, she couldn't help but let the thoughts bleed in during the short trip between her now-home and Vito's shop. The revelations that her uncle was well and truly involved in this dark business stung, and no matter which was she looked, there was no escaping it.

So she had to bottle it up. Keep her head down and keep pushing forward. One foot after the other. With her sword on her back. And a covered basket of fresh muffins in her hand. She glanced back up and looked around carefully. Riverbend was dangerous for those unprepared-- her sword maybe the only thing keeping her from getting mugged for the basket. Regardless, she picked up her pace until she finally reached the familiar storefront.

The Elixir Mixer.

Her mother would've enjoyed the shop's name. The sign in the door still indicated that the store was open, and she took the invitation to let herself in. "It's Evie," she announced, "I have presents."

The interior of the shop was still in poor repair, the front window boarded up. Someoneā€”Vito, probablyā€”had lit some magelights to compensate, and they floated freely in the air, a deep purple in color, casting a moody, low light. Timbers were stacked against one wall, what looked to be a large, wrapped glass panel and several buckets of something next to them.

Despite this, the shop was extremely clean, the counter currently manned by Vito himself, a thick book on the table in front of him. He turned a page just as she entered, absently stirring a small cauldron with some kind of implement in his right hand.

He looked up at her announcement, blinking slightly. "Ah, Amatrice. I am always in the mood for accepting gifts. Please come in."

Amatrice. She hoped it was complimentary.

She did as asked and entered the shop properly, shutting the door behind her. It looked much like the last time she'd been there, though this time her view wasn't restricted from a cot. She'd felt helpless, having done nothing of note during the raid just to get unceremoniously laid low by an explosion, all just to be carried back out by Vito. All just another screw up in her cap, it seemed.

She set the basket on the counter near Vito and pulled back the handkerchief to reveal the muffins. "Chocolate, right?"

Vito hummed, tilting his head to inspect them for all of a moment before he plucked one from the basket. Removing the baking paper from the bottom with only one hand was an exercise in deftness, but he managed it, breaking off a chunk of the confection and eating it about as politely as one could, with one's hands, while still in the middle of potionmaking. His brows arched; he hummed something that sounded like approval.

"Chocolate indeed. You've a bit of a knack, don't you?" The question seemed to be rhetorical, because he flashed a brief smile before turning his attention momentarily to the cauldron. Something he'd chopped, some kind of leaf, went in then, before he was able to return his attention to her. "You should feel free to have a seat, by the way. We're a bit lacking in chairs at the moment, but the countertops are clean."

Evie nodded and accepted the open invitation, slinging the sheathed blade off of her shoulder and leaned it up against the counter she lifted herself onto.

"I was raised in a cafƩ, though I fell in love with the baking side of things," she explained, half smiling, "I always told myself if nothing else worked out, I could always open up a bakery," she said, only partly in jest. Opening a bakery would require capital, coin she certainly didn't have at the moment, and it wasn't like she could take a loan out any time soon. She definitely couldn't ask her parents. She then frowned at how low her own aspirations had lowered of late. She considered it a success if she could scrounge enough money together to survive the month.

She crossed her arms and looked at the shop once more, biting her bottom lip as she thought. "The riot got to you too, huh?" she asked.

"Too?" Vito inquired, glancing at her askance. It as hard to tell from far away, but this close she could tell that his eyes were actually violet. Not an unheard-of color, by any means, but a rather unusual one. "Did your home also suffer some form of damage?" He raised his stirring-rod, tapping it a few times on the edge of the cauldron to rid it of the last drops of near-blood red and setting it aside. He had a sort of slow, methodical care with the process, it seemed. Unhurried.

He closed his fist, killing the small flame beneath the cauldron, then formed an ice spike in one of his hands and eased it into the iron pot. Steam hissed sharply and rose towards the ceiling, but the smell was only mildā€”something earthy and slightly bitter.

She leaned over, curiosity finally tweaked by the contents of the cauldron. She pursed her lips trying to deduce the concoction, but was eventually stumped. She simply shrugged and nodded at his question. "I had a rock violently introduce itself to my window." Her only window, might she add. Without that little bit of natural light leaking into her house, now it always felt dark and dreary, even on the sunniest days. "Something it looks like we might have in common," Evie added, pointing at Vito's own boarded up window. Chances were, that was how it'd stay for the foreseeable future too. She didn't really have the income at the moment to replace an entire glass window yet.

"What's that you have there?" Evie finally asked, the curiosity of the pot finally getting to her. "If... you don't mind me asking," she added, reeling herself in.

Vito's smile was entirely too sly for the benign nature of the question. He lifted an eyebrow. "Curiosity is generally an admirable trait, but it does have its drawbacks. This is a tonic for the treatment of a particular type of, ah... intimate rash. I batch-cook it for a few of the local brothels, along with a variety of related items. It's curable, but while the employees are at pains to keep themselves clean, the same can seldom be said for the clients, you understand. A certain amount of pathogenic recidivism is an occupational hazard, so to speak."

Evie frowned and slowly retrieved herself away from the cauldron. "I see," she said flatly. She had rather wished she hadn't asked now.

Vito barked a short laugh. "Do you find that distasteful, Amatrice? That such things are necessary?" His tone gave no hint as to his feelings; he might as well have been asking her about her favorite colors or something equally banal.

"No, no, it's not that, it's just..." she said, before she found herself chewing on her bottom lip again, "I wasn't expecting that answer, is all." She drew her legs up onto the counter as well then, sitting atop of it cross legged, and with a frown forming at her lips. "I forget I'm not still in the Gardens, it slips my mind sometimes." She had undoubtedly seen a couple of the brothels in question while she was out and about, but she never really tried to get a good look.

"A sharp difference, to be sure." Vito did not ask about it, something which could only have been a conscious decision on his part. "Have you found anything to like more now that you're here, or is it all doom and gloom?" Picking up a ladle from its spot on a hook in the wall, Vito started to shift the cooling liquid into glass vials. The color of them, tinted brown, suggested they were made quite cheaply, but considering where the shop was located, that wasn't surprising.

She let her elbows rest on her knees as she began to rub a spot on her thumb. "I'd like to think I'm too optimistic to call it all doom and gloom, but," she said, pursing her lips, "It's not been easy." She felt... stuck, she supposed. No way to go back, no idea how to move forward. She offered her help to Lia and Corvin to try and make things right, of course, but also in an effort to do something that'll finally make a difference. And even then in the end it felt like her help didn't amount to much.

"How about yourself? You seem to wear a lot of jewelry for Riverbend, if you still don't mind my prying," she asked. She couldn't help but wonder how many times someone's attempted to mug him for it, though she kept that thought to herself.

Vito snorted. "Most of it is much cheaper than it looks, Amatrice. The work of skilled counterfeiters. Some of it my own work, though those are slightly less convincing to the discerning eye." He smiled, pinching his sleeve in his hand and spreading it out. He tilted it to catch the light, and she could see something it was hard to notice before: how thin it was, obviously repaired and maintained carefully. With a shrug, he dropped it again.

"But I do not think this is so bad. Comfort is nice to have, but freedom... you can't put a price on that."

"True enough," Evie agreed, "But you have a purpose too," she said, her smile wistful. He had both a shop and a daughter to care after, noble goals both in her eyes. Meanwhile she was still searching out past what little jobs she could scrounge together to keep her head above water. She stared at her hands for a moment or two before she finally tilted her head back toward Vito.

"What do you think of the Lions?" she asked.

Vito went back to filling vials, stoppering each with a cork and shrugging. "I do not think I am the person to ask about them." Laying the full vials aside he summoned water into the cauldron and shifted it around on the counter, stirring it into a miniature vortex. "I know probably less than you do. They are mercenaries, very capable ones. They seem to do good work. For any more than that, I would think Mattone or Spina better to ask."

Well he was probably right with that one. Evie chuckled to herself quietly and nodded in agreement, "I should probably do that," she admitted, finally peeling herself off of his counter top. "Thanks Vito, for hosting me. And for making sure I survived the other day," she truly appreciated both of those things.

She reached down, plucked her sword up, and slung it back over her shoulder. "I'll come back for the basket," she noted, glancing at the muffins, "And if you ever need anything that I can help with, just let me know and I'll be happy to lend a hand," she offered with a bright smile.

"Grazie, Amatrice." He flicked his fingers in a lazy salute. "And for the muffins. I will be sure to share them with Marisol."

"Oh, and tell her I said hi too," Evie tossed back with a smile, and pressed through the exit.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Lia was better than most at waiting around.

Patience was the difference between a good scout and a dead one, after all. Or in plenty of cases, it was her friends' lives depending on her information, not herself. With the Inquisition she'd sat and watched roads for hours on ends, observed enemy troops walk along battlements, well within range of her bow. How many times had she been forced to sit still in some place where giving herself away would likely mean death. Times like the boathouse where she'd been exposed were the exception. She'd been lucky both sides fought each other, and that she had friends ready to bail her out.

Waiting in uncomfortable positions was something Lia was good at, but this bothered her. She wasn't waiting for an objective; she had the objective already, she just had to wait for a way to complete it.

When last she'd lived in Val Royeaux, she'd been able to seek out opportunities on her own in the times when contracts weren't readily available or no positions needed filling. She always kept busy, setting her own goals if she had none given, but now she needed to stay available. She found she couldn't make herself get involved in much when she could be needed at any time on whatever Julien tasked her and Cor with next. Something would turn up eventually, but whether eventually was hours or weeks was impossible to know.

In the meantime, there was always training to do. And since she and Cor were still in a sort of awkward place between Inquisition agents and Argent Lion mercenaries, they were ideal training partners. The others had actual contracts to take care, and all that.

For the moment Lia was working on testing Cor's defenses in a drill forcing him to remain on his guard and block whatever she threw at him. She fought with a training sword, not her usual weapon, but one that suited the practice better. Her blade was lighter and quicker than his, forcing him to react extremely quickly to block everything. "Come on, faster," she urged.

"Make me," he shot back, shifting one arm out and grabbing the blade of his hand and a half with the other, blocking a jab at this left side and thrusting up sharply to deflect. To make the exercise even more difficult for himself, he'd drawn sharp lines in the sand. It simulated the need to hold a single position and removed most of his footwork from his arsenal. He'd worked up a thin sheen of sweat by this point, but he was holding admirably steady under her swift assault.

He lasted several more minutes before a particularly clever strike forced him a large step backwards and over his self-imposed line, at which point he held a hand up in surrender and sheathed the blade, rolling his shoulders out. His breathing was still steady and even, but he seemed satisfied by the duration anyway, and mussed the lines with his boot, picking up their canteens from the ground near the fence and lobbing hers at her in a gentle arc. "Anything you want to work on?"

She took a long drink from her canteen, pausing to wipe the sweat from her forehead afterwards. "I'd say moving target practice, but you'd probably accept."

"I'm ever at your service, my friend." The grin he flashed her was all cheek, but that was entirely ordinary for him.

Before they could move on to the next training exercise however, they were interrupted by a familiar face. Evie seemed surprised to find them so easily, and maybe even a little bit relieved. From the short time they'd known her, she didn't seem to be as protective of her facial expression as some of the other Val Royeaux natives. She stood awkwardly for a second, obviously unprepared and whatever mental script she had thrown out the window. She blinked once and then finally moved to speak. "Oh, hello. I thought I would have to ask for you inside," she said with a tilt of her head.

She was in some armor, as chainmail shirt peeked out from beneath a simple sky blue tunic, and her boots were heavy. Her estoc rested against her back this time, but most curiously was a covered basket she held in her hand, which she apparently just remembered she had, glancing down at it and then holding it up for them to see. "I brought shortbread cookies," she offered.

Lia wasn't sure how to react. She wasn't sure what to make of Evie, either. The noble family had been established, and though she didn't seem to be a chevalier herself, she clearly fancied herself some kind of fighter. Sword and mail or otherwise, she still reeked of the Gardens. It wasn't a smell, though. Smells were easier to cover up. Some people felt at home in places like Riverbend and the Harbor District, and some people just didn't. It was clear enough that Evie fell into the latter category.

"Thanks?" Lia flipped the practice sword over in her hand and went to hang it up on the rack. If she expected them to sit around eating cookies together because they'd hit one gang hideout together, she was going to be disappointed. "What are you doing here?"

"I... had questions," she answered, her eyes flicking to the building behind them, "About the Lions, I mean. I know I asked you once before," she said, looking at Cor while she spoke that time, "But I just wanted to know more."

Her eyes fell down to the basket in her hand and then back up to them, "I was hoping I could bribe you with cookies."

"Uh... how about we go inside for a bit?" Cor offered, stowing his practice gear as well. "I don't see the others turning down free food, thoughā€”maybe don't call it a bribe. We're kind of against that sort of thing as a rule." His tone suggested a light remark, but as with a fair number of things he said, there was a more serious thought beneath it.

Lia was glad she'd been training with Cor, as she wasn't sure how well she'd be able to navigate the conversation here otherwise. She'd always thought of the Argent Lions barracks here as a sort of safe haven in the city, free of any possibility of nobles too sophisticated to immerse themselves in such a mess of people lower on the social ladder. And again, Evie wasn't threatening in the same way the shrewd Castle District masks were, but she was still a noble.

The mess hall was sparsely populated at this hour of the afternoon, allowing Lia to pick a table for them near the edge of the room that gave them some degree of privacy. She untied her hair and sank down onto a stool, laying her hands down on the table. "I can't promise you we'll answer every question, but... ask away."

"I understand, I'm just happy you both are talking with me," she said with smile, setting the basket down on the table. She flipped over the cover to reveal the cookies beneath. "I'm sorry if they're a bit plain. I don't have all of the ingredients that I'd like, my pantry's a bit bare these days. Vito got the last of my chocolate," she said, sounding a bit put down by her own comments. Obviously she was used to having more. "But please, help yourselves," she said, attempting to sound a bit more chipper.

She then took a seat opposite of them both and appeared to try and collect her thoughts. She slowly seemed to formulate where she wanted to go in her head before finally speaking again. "Have the Lions changed much since you two joined?" she asked, apparently trying to ease into her questions.

Lia found the whole situation vaguely nauseating, not to mention confusing, but she did her best to suppress that. If Cor wanted to try the cookies, he was welcome to go first. "Sure, of course it's changed. Sort of had to once we moved part of our numbers out of Kirkwall. New city, new home, and eventually not the same Commander." As much as she wished Lucien could still manage their day to day affairs, like how it had been years ago, she wasn't dissatisfied with the current setup. Donnelly and Hissrad were more than up for it.

"Not like our numbers have ballooned that much, though. Most of the people here joined back in Kirkwall, not Val Royeaux." That was both because one of Lucien's methods had always been to keep the company's numbers small and tight-knit, and also because the process of joining was a strenuous one, testing more than just a mercenary's capabilities. They were far from the only mercenaries in the city, and some of the other companies had little love for the Lions at this point, given how many people that they'd turned away had eventually ended up elsewhere. No one liked rejection.

"Any reason in particular you're curious?"

Evie straightened in her chair and inhaled, but she didn't look too surprised at the question. Rather she looked like she expected it eventually, if not immediately. She nodded and offered them a mild smile. "I was hoping to make an attempt at joining," she offered, looking between the two of them when she answered. She didn't retreat when she stated it either. "Eventually, of course. I want to prepare myself first, take my time this time-- thus the questions," Evie added with an outstretched palm.

For some reason, Lia hadn't expected that. Now that she said it, though, it seemed obvious. Bit strange that she and Cor were the two seemingly being interviewed in that case, and Lia wasn't sure what she'd wanted to hear out of the first question, either.

"This time?" she echoed. "Have you tried to join other mercenary companies or something?" If so, Lia wasn't sure what her chances would be of sneaking into the Lions. It was strange of nobility in general, too, to seek this particular profession. Not unheard of, but people of Evie's class often had other means of making their wealth. More wealth, even, and with far less personal risk involved.

That was the question that made Evie shift uncomfortably in her seat, though she didn't try to avoid their eyes either. "No, not a mercenary company," she began with a sigh, "The chevaliers."

She was quiet for a second afterward, taking to chewing on her bottom lip before she shrugged and continued, offering to explain more than that of her own volition. "I thought having been trained half of my life by chevaliers, the Academie would be a touch easier than it was. I was wrong. Really wrong. Turns out, I'm the first in many years to wash out of the Academie in my family, which led to my current predicament," she deflated as she spoke, placing her elbows on her table and hunching her shoulders.

"Lost more than just joining the chevaliers," she stated quietly, almost to herself.

Cor made a sign Lia recognized as uncomfortable, shifting in his seat. Despite his more welcoming attitude, he had sat quite quietly through the explanation, hands folded on the table, cookies untouched. "I think you should consider that very carefully," he said at last, with an uncommon firmness. "We're not the place to go because you couldn't do what you really wanted. And it's... for a lot of us, this, getting hereā€”it's a huge part of who we are. It's made us who we are." His jaw flexed when he exhaled, but he kept his tone measured and calm.

"It's a life, not a job."

"I understand that," Evie said thoughtfully. "This isn't just a passing fancy of mine, I've thought about it for a while now," she said. She slipped into chewing on her bottom lip again before continuing. "I've had time to think about it, since the Academie. I was... lost and confused for a while, and wasn't sure what it was I wanted to do. But... I know I wanted to do something. I worked too long to be a chevalier to just... forget everything I learned," she continued, clasping her hands together and placing them in her laps.

"And the Lions do things. Heck, maybe even more than the chevaliers. That's why I wanted to try and join," she said, her shoulders stiffening. "You guys don't just take any job for the coin, and you don't let just anyone in. There's principle and honor here. I want to do some good, somewhere, and I can't do it on my own. The Lions do good," she said, letting her eyes finally fall to the table.

She inhaled and shook her head again, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ramble, but it's a process. That's why I wanted to talk to you two first instead of the other Captains. I want to make sure this is what I want to do, I want all the information I can get. I want to be prepared to make this choice."

Lia had tipped her head over slightly to rest against one hand as she listened. She wasn't sure Evie meant for it, but she still reeked of the noble's mindset. Denied the chevaliers, apparently out of any employment altogether, yet still being incredibly picky about what organizations she was willing to work for. It was either honorable or stupid, but then again the two often weren't that far apart, and treading the line was difficult. There seemed to be a compliment in what Evie was saying about them, and Lia was willing to accept it.

"Well..." She lifted her head and let her hand fall flat onto the table. "Cor and I can't deny you the chance to try joining, if that's what you really want, but we can't make you a Lion, either. You'll have to present yourself to the Captains, and then there's a long series of evaluations after that, both in training and in the field." Lia supposed she or Cor could vouch for her to help the process, but she wasn't sure Evie had done anything to warrant that yet.

"So... you're sure you want to start down this path?" She'd be lying if she said she was thrilled about it. Lia was predisposed to dislike Evie's type, and her family's activity did nothing to help that. But if this was what she wanted to do, then that was that.

Evie nodded and smiled mildly. "Yes, I think it's time I finally start somewhere."

Setting

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Another week later, and the case still hadn't moved forward at all.

The Alienage and Riverbend were both quieter, the last echoes of the riot quiet for now as everyone turned their focus to their own neighborhoods and repairing the damage. Corvin had helped out where he couldā€”it wasn't like he lacked for time at the moment. Between helping out Vito and Marisol and Riris and the Alienage, there was never any shortage of menial tasks that needed doing. It took his mind off other things for a while, anyway, and he could work for long stretches without breaks, so he liked to think he was at least putting a dent in the long list of things to do.

But this morning, Julien had sent for them, claiming that he had a job for them to do. Not related to the riot directly, apparently, but if it was Julien asking, there was bound to be a reason he was asking for them in particular. And nothing settled Corvin better than a missionā€”no amount of mundane work comparedā€”so it was off to the castle again for he and Lia.

Winter wasn't giving up on Val Royeaux yet, and this morning had proven to be especially chilly, enough to cloud his breath in the air and frost the barracks' windows. It wasn't unreasonably early, but he had the feeling they'd been sent for first thing, so to speak.

"I hear Varric's coming to town," he remarked to Lia as she joined him at the entrance. "When Sophia does, so like a week or so? Must be for that play of his." Sophia, of course, was making the trip because it was probably a bigger deal than it should be that the heir to the Orlesian throne actually be born in Orlais. Corvin didn't really understand the split-residence thing Lucien and Sophia did or how exactly it was timed, but he supposed it made sense to visit Kirkwall in the winter, which was milder there and a more social season in the Free Marches than it was in Orlais. That was the thing to do, right? Be in the place during the social season? It was all sort of over his head.

Lia tugged the maroon scarf away from her face a little to be able to speak more clearly. "You think Julien could get us tickets? If Varric's writing it, it'll have to be... interesting, at least." Probably not the exact truth in many places, no doubt, but that was because the exact truth in this case was a messier and probably less inspiring to the average audience than the romanticized version. All the more meaningful to the people that had lived it, but perhaps harder for the delicate sensibilities of the Orlesians to swallow.

"I wouldn't mind seeing it, anyway." She shrugged. "Just out of curiosity."

"I think we'd be able to get in," Corvin replied, shrugging. They'd been there for a lot of it, after all. That was probably good for something. Julien's influence would be good for the rest, no doubt.

He tugged his own scarf a little tighter around his neck and stepped forward, only to pause a moment later as he caught movement from the corner of his eye. "Huh. Wonder what she's after?" The approaching figure was Evie, it seemed.

She seemed startled to find them out in the street, though she recovered soon after. The chill in the air looked to force her into heavier clothing, as well as a pink knit cap that sat over her ears. Just like the last time she found them earlier than she thought to, she hesitated, but found her footing a little more quickly this time. She offered them an apologetic smile and a little wave. "You're probably tired of me by now," she said, sounding embarrassed.

"But I don't think I've taken the opportunity to say a few things that I need to say, if you don't mind. I'll try to be quick," she said, noticing that they appeared to be in the middle of something.

It wasn't hard for Corvin to see Lia's lack of patience, but it seemed she had just enough to pull up to a stop, settling hands on her hips and waiting expectantly. "Please do. We're on our way to the Castle District." It went without saying that the two of them wouldn't be going to that part of the city unless it was for something important.

"Yes, of course," she said, visibly relieved by the chance. She inhaled deeply and began to speak, somewhat practiced, probably rehearsed in her head on her way over. "I... know my uncle is-- was," she added, with a wince, "a terrible person, and what he did to the Alienage is unforgivable. I was too blinded by everything that he did for me that I overlooked a lot of his shortcomings but," she continued, her lips pursed, "I can't overlook this one. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it all, but I wanted to just... apologize. I know it probably means next to nothing coming from me," she said as she chewed on her lip.

She wasn't really wrong about that, and they weren't really the people to be apologizing too, either. On the other hand, probably better them than Riris or somebody.

She tilted her head, nodding herself forward and kept speaking. "Which brings me to the next thing I wanted to tell you. It... wasn't right of me to look so far ahead at trying to join the Lions' when Jean's mess is still in the present. I can't move forward until I can do, I don't know, something to try and fix the damage he caused, but I can't exactly go into the Alienage to try and offer my help there. They probably wouldn't take too kindly to that suggestion," she added, absent-mindedly rubbing a nail on one of her fingers.

"All I am asking for is a chance to try and make things right. Jean trained me, it's only right that I try to fix some of the things he did. So, if you two need anything, an extra sword, another pair of eyes, another hand, whatever it is just let me know, and you'll have it and I'll try my best to be as useful to you as possible," She dropped her hands and straightened her back to look at them straight on, though she still seemed a bit awkward. "I shouldn't try to move on while his actions are still lingering."

Make things right, huh? Corvin exhaled a long breath, darting a glance at Lia before returning it to Evie. "I can't promise we're going to be able to help you with that," he admitted honestly. "I don't know what it would take to make something like that right, but... I can appreciate the desire." He smiled slightly. Evie seemed like a person who honestly had a lot to learn about what the world was really like, but then he'd been the same once. Everyone had. If most of the people he knew had to learn a lot earlier, well, that wasn't her fault, exactly.

"So... how about we try this out? Julien's got a job for us, and if it's something that you could possibly help with, we'll take you along. If that goes well, and you still want to take the risks, we can keep doing it." Maybe an extra pair of hands wouldn't always be necessary, but it would be nice to have, especially when the other Lions were busy. "But here's the catch: you've gotta be willing to follow orders. Evenā€”especiallyā€”the ones you don't like." The Lions left room for personal ethics, but not for glory hounds or cowards or personal vendettas of any kind.

It wasn't audible, but something in Corvin's words made something in the young woman click. Her posture remained straight, but her shoulders went rigid and it looked like she finally figured out what to do with her hands, as she held them rested against her sides. Evie did say that she attended the Academie, albeit briefly. It was probably muscle memory kicking in.

"Yes sir, I'd expect no less," she stated.

Pretty unnecessary, by his lights, but he wasn't going to nitpick. "All right. Let's go then." He figured she was prepared enough for a visit to the Castle District this morning, and if she wasn't, she'd know to be next time. Corvin led the way, selecting a few of the Lions' more frequent shortcuts to avoid the inevitable merchant traffic at this time of day, but the trek was still the better part of an hour.

When they were admitted to Julien's office, he didn't react much to the extra presence beyond a slight nod before he redirected his attention at Corvin and Lia. "We've had a request from the Chantry," he said, leaning back against the front of his desk. He didn't bother with his mask in his own office, and scrubbed his hand freely down his face. "Not Galatea, mind you. Camille Duret, one of Val Royeaux's Revered Mothers. It seems some lyrium shipments have gone missing en route to Val Foret."

"Bandits?" Corvin asked. Normally, he expected that the Templars would handle this sort of situation, but there still weren't that many of them, and he could see where an extra problem would need extra hands.

"The Revered Mother seems to think so. I'll let her expound upon her theories in person, though I do apologize for how unpleasant that is going to be."

Lia seemed to pick up on something there, tilting her head to the side a little. "If you don't mind me asking, is there a reason you're sending us specifically? Not complaining about having something to do, just wondering why we're the ones helping the Chantry." She was obviously referring to her and Corvin's race with that.

Julien's mouth kicked up into a half-smile, and his eyes narrowed. "Challenging preconceived notions is something often best done directly," he replied, shrugging offhandedly. "You're more than capable, the job will get done, and Camille's just going to have to live with the fact that her problemā€”the Chantry's problemā€”was solved by some elves. At least in the main."

He lifted his arms to cross them. "Also she'll be insulted, which is good, because the manner in which she demanded imperial assistance was also pretty insulting. If you don't mind me putting you to use that way, there are many birds with a single stone here." With a lot of people, the caveat would have been a real formality, but Corvin knew that Julien meant itā€”if they were uncomfortable with being used for some petty revenge on top of the actual job, he wouldn't do it.

But Corvin wasn't above a little petty revenge at all, honestly. "Sounds like a bonus to me."

Lia didn't look so sure, but she raised no arguments, and it wasn't hard for Corvin to know why: it was either this or back to the waiting game. "All right. Where are we meeting her?"

"The Grand Cathedral," Julien replied, tilting his head to the left, which happened to be where the building was visible out his window. "Her brother, Duke Mathias de Churneau, should be on hand to receive you. Normally I would send someone with a bit more political expertise with you, but..."

It almost went without saying that all kinds of hands were in short supply these days. The downsides of a rebuilding empire and a job with short notice.

"Don't worry," Corvin cut in. "I'm pretty good at talking to people who don't like me at this point." They didn't have to like him, reallyā€”a job was a job. If they wanted it done, they'd be cooperative enough.

"So you are." Julien dropped his arms and pushed off the desk. "Best of luck."

Within a few moments they were out of the palace and back on the streets. It wasn't far from here to the Grand Cathedral, but the Orlesians did like to make their streets wide, long, and as impressive as possible. All part of the show, of course.

"This is something you're interested in, I'm assuming?" Lia asked, glancing back towards Evie. "Stopping bandits from harassing the Chantry, making sure those poor templars can get their lyrium?" Lia didn't have the highest opinion of templars, Corvin knew. It was better than it used to be, after her time in the Inquisition, but not enough to make up for her experiences in Kirkwall's Alienage. Frankly he wasn't the biggest fan himself, but he'd trained alongside the remaining ones too closely and for too long to give his lingering discomfort much weight.

She nodded as she followed the two of them, though she didn't note her own opinions of the templars. "No doubt that the bandits don't have any good uses for lyrium. The quicker we get it out of their hands the better," she said. She had been quiet during their meeting with Julien, lingering mostly in their shadows and simply listening as they spoke.

For a moment, Corvin wondered if she had any opinions, or if the insulation of her position had protected her from the need to form them. She didn't really seem to express any, but that might have been discomfort with them or some odd concept of politesse. His confidence aside, he knew the likes of he and Lia weren't exactly everyday personalities, even in a city as big and varied as this one.

Unlike the Imperial Palace, the Grand Cathedral was at least in principle open to all, though the sweeping elegance and obvious richness of it had a way of making undesirables uncomfortable, anyway. So much of the city's exclusion worked like that: instead of being forced away from things, the people the nobility didn't want around were just made implicitly, silently aware of the fact that they didn't belong, and the divisions took care of themselves.

Corvin made a point of fighting back against that kind of thing whenever he could, and so he walked into the Cathedral straight-backed, chin tilted and head high. Not enough swagger to be ridiculous, but enough to negate the way even he felt out of place anywhere so obviously designed for the affluent.

A group of four guards met him after he'd taken no more than five steps inside. No city guards, either, judging by insignia on their breastplates. Personal household guards, then. The man they were guarding put a hand on one's shoulder and halted them, slipping between two to stop before Corvin. He was right around a match in height, short blonde hair shorn on the sides, his broad shoulders garbed in a two-tone scarlet and deep blue cloak. His own armor was a scaled and bronzed breastplate and pauldrons. He had to be none other than the Duke Mathias Duret.

"Argent Lions," he commented, his voice quiet and controlled, kept respectfully low in the echoing halls of the Grand Cathedral. He spared a glance for the two women with Corvin, but obviously judged him to be the lead here. "You're the ones Marquis D'Artignon sent?"

"That's us," Corvin replied, at about the same volume. He wasn't inclined to jump to conclusions about their reception, or get defensive, so it came out even and neutral. "We understand you have a... supply issue." Even quiet, it was probably better not to mention lyrium theft in such a public place.

A soft grunt was all the assent Mathias gave him. "D'Artignon has some cheek, doesn't he?" The question was entirely rhetorical, as the Duke immediately and gestured with a finger for them to fall in behind him. He and his personal guards escorted them further into the Grand Cathedral, though they were turned aside before they could reach the great central chamber, where the voices of the choirs singing the Chant of Light in perfect harmony filled the air with constant, soothing noise. Divine Galatea would be here somewhere, if her work hadn't taken her elsewhere for the day.

But they were not due to catch up with the Divine, instead stepping into the Revered Mother's office chambers behind Mathias. The Duke's sister was seated and writing at her desk, her red cowl set off to the side, leaving visible her short hair, the same sandy blonde color as her brother's. Her eyes lifted to them as they entered, fell, and then lifted again, narrowed this time. "What's this?"

"The Marquis's best," was Mathias's answer. He gestured for them to step forward as he situated himself off to the side.

Camille rolled her eyes. "Of course they are." She pushed her chair back and stood, her height a few inches shorter than her brother's, but that still left her above both Lia and Evie. She came around to stand before her desk, inspecting them a moment before she turned her eyes on her brother. "This is insulting."

Mathias didn't seem as offended. "D'Artignon's not so great a fool that he'd send them just because they're elves. If they fail it only reflects poorly on him."

"I suppose that's true." Lia shifted behind Corvin on his right, where she'd come to occupy his shadow, her typical position when they had to deal with people of this sort. Camille didn't spare her so much as a glance, though, her attention instead settling to Corvin's left, on Evie. "And you? No Argent Lion, no elf ears. You don't seem like Julien's type. Who are you?"

"Lady Evelyne Lafayette Lafleur, your Reverence," Evie answered with a respectful bow. She appeared to feel a bit awkward to find herself under the Revered Mother's scrutiny. "But... Evie is fine. I'm here to simply help in whatever way the best that I can," she continued as she rose, her hands clasped in front of her. She still managed to offer Camille a warm smile at the end.

"Lafleur, is it?" Camille seemed surprised to hear that, arching an eyebrow. "I think I understand now. No matter. The task I have for the three of you is to attach yourselves as guards to a lyrium shipment departing the city tonight. You're going to be bait for some bandits for me."

"Our caravans have been attacked en route to Val Foret," Mathias explained. "In Clairtaillis, more specifically. The forest offers the attackers cover and concealment for their strikes. They take no prisoners, and leave nothing of their own behind. The bodies we found had the arrows pulled back out of them."

"They're Dalish," Camille declared. "No clan has wandered this close to Val Royeaux in living memory, but then, we seem to be living in an age of absurdity. If they're not Dalish, then they are some organized group of elves that learned to fight like them."

"Whatever they are," said Mathias, "We want them caught, dead or alive. We could attach guards or even chevaliers to the caravan, but then they'd simply let it pass and wait for the next. We're not interested in a deterrent. We want these thieves caught and ended."

"Will that be a problem for any of you?" Camille's eyes swept over all three of them.

It wasn't hard to read the intent under the question. Seeing as how Evie didn't seem to be doing much better in front of nobles than she did in generalā€”though not much worse, eitherā€”he took the liberty of answering for the group. "Your Reverence, if your caravans are being attacked and their guards killed before the supplies are stolen, then you're asking us to chase down murderers who are attacking for supplies that are not even survival-necessary. It's not a problem."

Corvin hadn't lived the kind of simple, safe life that led him to reason in moral absolutes. Not all killings were the same. Not all thievery was the same. But the lyrium black market was alive and well all over Thedas, and people killing and stealing for profit got no passes from him, elves or otherwise. If it turned out to be something else, then they could reassess in the field. He wasn't stupid enough to say that in front of these two, though. No use getting into the nuances unless the situation forced it.

"Good," Camille nodded. "The caravan leaves through the Night Gates at sundown tonight. Mathias will provide the details." Her brother held out his hand, indicating for them to turn and lead the way out.

Well... that wasn't so bad. With a short nod, Corvin exited first.

Setting

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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While she was glad to finally be doing something, Evie had to question why the caravan had to travel through Clairtaillis at night. Logistics like these usually eluded her, and like a good little soldier she did as she was told, but still. At least in the day time they would be able to see their would be attackers. Presently, their only light sources were the the number of lanterns that hung off of the side of the half-dozen carts they were to be escorting and the moon above, and even that was obscured by all of the trees.

She'd taken a seat next to the driver of the fourth in line, where she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and scanned the darkness in the trees on the side closest to her. Fortunately, they had time until they had to meet at the Night Gates to better prepare. Evie had donned her armor, as well as a scarf and another tunic over her breastplate to escape the night's chill. Her estoc rested in the middle beside her, while another shortsword was strapped at her waist. They'd also collected Vito as well before they had set out.

"I can't see a darn thing," Evie said, squinting to try and get a better look into the forest. Still, she was happy to be doing something other than sitting at home feeling sorry for herself. The last time she had left the city on something like this was before her attempt at the Academie with her father on patrol. Of course, that trip was during the day, and along a more traveled path. They were able to see the troublemakers.

One cart ahead of her, there was soft laughter. Vito had kept the driver of his section of the caravan entertained for the better part of several hours, telling stories too softly to catch most of them, the conversation occasionally punctuated with chuckles or exclamations in jovial Antivan. Apparently the driver was from there, or had learned the tongue from someone. But the mood had sobered as night fell, and though Vito still carried on as if nothing was amiss, he did so with even less volume now, meaning that she only occasionally caught snatches of words she did not understand.

Lia had taken up a seat on the front cart, and ever since the city walls were out of sight behind them she'd had her bow in hand, arrow nocked and ready. She seemed a little tense at all times, but honestly it had been worse in the Revered Mother's office than it was here, in a dark forest expecting an ambush. The few regular caravan guards with them were all on edge, knowing full well what happened to some of the other crews. The timing of this shipment was just begging to be attacked. No doubt the Revered Mother was counting on that, and wanting to see if Julien's agents were as good as he said they were.

A hand went up from Lia to bring the caravan to a halt. Some ways ahead Evie could barely see a thick tree trunk fallen across the road. The carts hadn't come right up to it, but turning around was still a difficult prospect in the forest, where the road narrowed and room to maneuver was limited.

She exchanged a few words with Corvin, after which she disembarked from her cart and headed off to the left, disappearing into the darkness of the woods. Corvin proceeded to move back along the line of carts, explaining to each what the plan was.

When he finally reached Evie's spot, he gave her a grim smile, the gleam in his eyes betraying excitement for whatever was to come. When he spoke, his voice was low and urgent, quiet enough not to carry far beyond them. "There's crossbows in the wagon behind you," he said, tilting his chin towards it. "Loaded, so be careful taking them out. We're going to hit the ambush soon. When we do, Vito's going to throw some lights up into the trees. Pick a target, fire the bolt. The archers will be the only threat for the first few seconds." He glanced between Evie and the driver, an aging man who looked like he'd seen more than one ambush in his time.

"After that, reload if you're a good shot, drop it and get into melee if you aren't. The strikers won't be far behind the first volley. Keep them off our shooters, and mind your head. Some archers I know take visor slits as a challenge. Got it?"

"Got it," Evie answered, and swiftly slid the helmet's visor down over her face, though she didn't forget his comments about the slits. She ventured a glance into the cart behind them and then spoke to the driver on her side. "Are you going to be okay, mister?" she asked the older man, to which he answered with a grunt and nod of his head.

She felt her heartbeat rising already in anticipation, and the adrenaline was already making its way throughout her body, putting a slight tremor in her hand. The waiting had always been the worst part. She caught sight of a crossbow that Corvin was talking about and nodded, formulating her own plan for the next few moments. She was decidedly average in her aim, but both her uncle and her father made sure that she knew how use one, just in case. She was a lot better shot with one than a bow in any case.

Evie inhaled and exhaled measured breaths to try and to slow her heart, at least until it began.

The warning had been timely; it wasn't more than a minute or so before the first arrow whistled through the air. A shout went up in the front, and Vito reacted quickly as promised, flinging magelights into the air that scattered towards the trees, flaring amidst the boughs. They cast several dark-clad figures into eerie, purplish relief, making them for a moment appear to be more shadows than people, crouched with bows drawn taut. They didn't seem to have much armorā€”probably for the sake of stealth.

A few were dazzled by the sudden appearance of lights so close to them; at least two outright fell, thudding to the ground below. But the rest recovered, and the steady hum of arrows splitting air only increased in volume, dark rain descending towards the caravan and its guardians.

Evie didn't wait around for one of them to find her. She shoved the older man down and then rolled into the cart behind her. She could hear the arrows thump into the other side of the wood, just an inch or so away from her head. She was able to find the loaded crossbow Corvin spoke of and took it into her hands, careful not to set it off. She waited for a lull in the thumping before risking poking her head up above the lip. With Vito's lights, she was finally able to get a better look at their surroundings. Not for long, however, as she zeroed in on her first target, one of the ones that had fallen to the ground.

She drew the crossbow to rest on the edge of the cart's siding and loosed a bolt at them. She didn't take the time to see if she made contact however, slipping back down behind the side, and quickly set about reloading. Her father had drilled her in a lot of things, and reloading a crossbow had been one of them fortunately. She stuck her foot into the stirrup at its mouth and heaved on the string until the mechanism that held it clicked, and then slipped another bolt into it. Like before, she tossed it on the edge of the cart's siding, and carefully found another target before loosing it.

Again, she didn't wait to see if she hit. Instead she dropped it after the second shot and reached for her estoc still sitting in the front seat. She drew it from its sheath and tossed the sheath into the cart before hopping over the edge.

By that point, the melee part of the ambush was in full swing, the first line of assailants hitting the defenders hard and fast. They were well-coordinated with the archers, letting one last volley fly before darting in, and the sounds of steel clashes filled the narrow corridor between the trees. There was a shoutā€”someone going down, perhapsā€”and she could just make out Corvin further up near the front, turning a knife aside with a kite shield and making some kind of attack with the shortaxe in his other hand, blade flashing in the dim light. Whatever it was, it felled his opponent, and he caught a pair of arrows on the face of the shield before slamming the edge of it up into the chin of the next attacker to step close enough.

More cries sounded out from within the woods, accompanied by the telltale thuds of Lia's arrows. The foliage gave her much better cover to work with than if she'd remained with the caravan, and closer range to the targets held aloft by the tree branches. Two more fell with arrows in them before Lia was found out, one of the archers turning a shot on her. She dipped sideways behind a tree, but not before the arrowhead opened a bloody line across her arm, a minor injury in the scheme of things. When Lia turned to shoot again the archer leaped from the tree, hoping to plunge down on her with the sword he'd drawn. Her arrow hit him in the throat on the way down, wrenching his head back violently before he smashed into the ground.

A blinding flash of lightning tore across the road, hitting the lead cart and igniting it, forcing the guards on it to abandon their cover. One took an arrow to the chest and went down. There was a mage somewhere up in the trees with the archers, no doubt preparing another spell.

An unnatural breeze skimmed through the visor of Evie's helmet, then abruptly shifted direction, almost pulling her a step forward when the balance of air pressure around her suddenly changed. Vito concentrated the force into a blast, only barely visible as a distortion in space, the debris that went with it glinting in the light. It must have hit something, because a startled cry could be heard even over the rest of the din, though the thud she would have expected afterwards was swallowed by other noise. Since there was no more lightning, it was a safe bet Vito had hit the mage.

He refocused on the ground level, firing occasional blasts of wind into the trees with his left hand, but channeling a steady spray of water towards the burning cart with his right. The coordination wasn't perfect; sometimes his focus shifted, and the unattended spell flagged a bit, but he was still effectively managing two jobs at once.

Unfortunately, that left his back rather open, and she could just catch a flicker of motion out of the corner of her eyeā€”a darkly-dressed rogue was trying to flank him with a knife.

Whatever indecision that may have plagued her soon evaporated after that. She had a heading, Vito was only a cart away and after tossing one last wary glance into the trees, Evie ducked in and set off into a dead sprint toward him. Undoubtedly as the sole mage in their party, Vito was garnering attention from more than the rogue, and would need backup--rogue or not. As she ran, she readjusted the grip on her estoc so that she held it by the blade instead of the hilt.

There was still a bit of distance between her and the rogue before he could plunge the knife into Vito, but her estoc closed that distance quick enough. She hooked the crossguard around his neck just in time and yanked, pulling the rogue past her and putting herself between him and Vito. He recovered quickly, quicker than she could completely reverse the grip on her sword. With one hand still on the blade and the other finding the hilt, she caught the stab meant for her throat between them and pushed it away-- though the blade screeched where it drew a line across the side of her helmet. She didn't hold it for long and readjusted her position so that while the dagger was up and away, the tip of her weapon was pointed down and at him.

She guided the blade with both hands down into his chest, piercing up to where her hand still held the blade and retrieved. She took a step backward and reset her stance, both hands finding the hilt as the rogue dropped. She nodded and spared a glance for Vito, but the momentary distraction proved inopportune, as an arrow found a gap in her breastplate in the upper part of her shoulder. "Dammit!" She hissed through her helmet as the arrow punched through the chainmail. Still...

"At your back," Evie grunted at Vito between grit teeth.

"Grazie."

Up ahead, Corvin's situation was taking a turn for the worse as well. A group of three raiders had swarmed him, led by someone wearing some kind of hooded cloak or cowl. The light scattered from it as though it were a fur or pelt rather than simple linen, blending into the night behind and leaving their silhouette indistinct, as far away as Evie was.

Corvin staved off an attempt at a lunge from one, only for the second to leap onto his shield, latching on and weighing his arm down. The cloaked figure took the opportunity, darting in and sinking some kind of dagger into a weak spot in his armor. He half-choked, hurling the attacker off his shield in a tremendous heave. The first one was back, though, throwing herself just as recklessly at him the second time. A frustrated growl and a crack followed, a hard elbow finding her temple, but the seconds were enough for the leader to twist the knife and tear it out, the blade dark and unmistakably shiny. Corvin staggered, swiping at the figure with his sword, but they bent back, blade whistling over their nose and missing by a matter of inches.

An arrow came in from the left, striking the cloaked fighter in the upper chest near the shoulder. Lia had worked her way up the flank, shooting and carving through the enemy as she went with a brutal efficiency. She hadn't struck the figure's throwing arm, it seemed, as the knife they'd just pulled free from Corvin they flipped over and hurled in her direction with speed and accuracy. She was forced to duck down and bring her bow up to block it, the blade clanging off the wood and falling aside, and the figure drew another in its place. The distraction was enough for another on the treeline to charge into Lia, driving her away until her back hit a tree. The woman that had caught her by surprise drew a knife of her own, trying to plunge it down with both hands, but Lia managed to get her bow in the way, blocking her at the wrists. Her guard was steadily being pushed down, though, a contest of strength Lia was clearly losing.

Vito had obviously noticed; with a grimace, he stopped flinging air at oncoming projectiles and drew the curved knife at his belt instead. It had an unfamiliar shape to Evie; clearly not anything that typically showed up in chevalier training. But the heft was clearly goodā€”it settled comfortably in his hand and glowed for a brief moment before he thrust it forward. The light flared, coalescing as ice. A lance of frost extended from the end with the motion, streaking towards the woman who had Lia pinned. More precise than most of what she'd seen him do, it sunk into the spot between her second and third ribs with almost surgical precision. Vito snapped the knife off the end, leaving the frozen spear to sag towards the ground.

Without the constant shifting wind to interfere with their aim, though, the few archers remaining in the trees had time to aim, and the common sense to aim at the unarmored mage. An arrow thudded heavily into Vito's thigh; he staggered, then collapsed sideways as his leg gave out underneath him, smacking his temple on the wooden wheel of the cart as he went down. Two more melee fighters broke off from another skirmish, closing rapidly. There was no one else around; Evie would have to deal with both.

She didn't have another curse for the predicament she found herself in, simply a drawn out hiss of a sigh. She reached for the arrow still in her shoulder and snapped it near the tip and tossing the shaft away. Then she slipped into another stance, her estoc held up and away from her head, tilted inward-- a form meant for parrying. The first fighter to reach her had a sword in his hand, and went low and at an opposite angle from her own blade, obviously believing her open in that direction. She proved him wrong as she quickly shifted the stance to meet the blade, and with the tip still pointed inward was aimed at his chest. The fighter proved quicker than that however, and pulled his body out of the way of her thrust and she found her estoc countered by the other combatant and her twin knives.

Evie opted to disengage and step backward, contorting herself just in time to avoid another stab from other's sword. She whipped her sword around desperately and got lucky, striking the man across the head with the blunt blade. That still left the woman with the knives, and she was not so quick as to avoid the downward stab of one, impaling her on her already injured shoulder. She yelped out in pain unconsciously, but soon turned into a bracing hiss afterward. She grabbed the rogue's arm that held the knife in her shoulder and pulled hard, bringing her into a hug and repositioned herself so that so that the rogue was between her and her partner. He seemed conflicted, but only for a moment as Evie thrust out with the estoc, and impaling it through his gut.

That left one to go, and she was already bringing her other knife around to plant into her back. She felt the impact and the shearing of metal as the dagger punched through the back part of her breastplate and the chain beneath, but fortunately slowed it down enough that it wasn't immediately fatal, though she could feel the blade being worked in deeper. She let her estoc fall with the rogue, and drew the shortsword at her side, her other hand still bound with the woman. She stabbed upward into the woman's chest, and she felt the grip retreat as they both slid to the ground.

Evie panted heavily, blood spilling from her shoulder wounds, and dripping down her back, but still she pushed the woman off of her. From there, she part hobbled closer to where Vito laid and fell to her knee in front of him protectively, her shortsword held across her body with one hand, the other no longer any use to her. "At your back," she mumbled this time, unsure if he could even hear her.

In the same span of time, Corvin had dispatched the two raiders with the cloaked one, but he was down a sword, now with a shield strapped to one arm and his other hand empty. If that threw him, though, he didn't make it obvious, still moving around with more agility and precision than should have been possible, at the rate that wound was bleeding. It was like he didn't properly feel it.

If anything, this unnerved his foe, who had since drawn a slightly longer dagger. They circled each other like wary cats, placing their feet carefully and fluidly, some kind of waiting game only they were at proximity to understand.

The raider's patience ran out first, and the figure lunged, seeking to exploit the wound on Corvin's unshielded side. But without their allies to help, he was faster, and his deflection was textbook-perfect, the turn of the shield throwing the rogue's arm wide. He had no stabbing implement for the natural follow-through, so he reached out instead, pulling the figure in by the cloak and bringing his forehead down on theirs, the helm thudding hard against what was probably no more than a layer of fabric. The figure reeled, lashing out blindly, but Corvin leveled the shield until it was horizontal, twisting his whole body and slamming the edge of it into their jaw.

They dropped, the brute force of the hit more than enough to shatter their jaw outright.

Corvin took a few rapid steps backwards, leaning against the nearest cart and bracing himself with his free hand. It was hard to tell with the helmet, but he seemed disoriented, or maybe lightheaded.

In the time it took Corvin to dispatch them, Evie had fallen off of her knee and sat in front of Vito now, her short sword trembling from both pain and adrenaline. The blade would prove to be unnecessary going forward however, as apparently with the fall of the cloaked figure, it took the courage out of their allies. The others began to disengage from the battle and flee back into the woods. Evie kept a grip on the sword until she was sure the last of them had turned tail and escaped before finally letting it fall to the ground.

Her hand instead went to the wounds in her shoulder, careful to avoid the arrow tip embedded somewhere in there. She bunched up what was left of her tunic to help stem the bleeding and leaned forward. As the adrenaline ebbed out of her, she was left with her whole body shaking, and a rumbling in her belly. It was all she could do to frantically paw at her visor to raise it before she vomited off to her side. "Again?" she asked herself as another fit wracked her frame.

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Well, that took care of that.

It was an unearthly scene, with Vito's magelights still hovering in the trees, creating a disorienting mix of bright light and deep shadow, no longer punctuated by glowing orange and red from the flaming cart that had now been put out. The sounds of battle had been replaced with the sounds of the aftermath. Screams of injury were replaced by groans of those now steadily dying, unless Vito could do something about it, though he needed to tend to himself first. A few looked to have gone already. Cor was injured, Lia noted, and Evie even worse. Still alive, though, and that counted for something given what they'd come up against.

Lia had escaped with just the slice to her right arm, which stung as it bled, but in total was only a minor annoyance. She slung her bow over her shoulder, drawing Parshaara instead in case any of the dead attackers were not so dead after all. They seemed to have fled entirely, though, disappearing into the woods. The group was in no condition to pursue, but even if they were Lia would be against it. They weren't being paid to do that, and when working for someone like these Duret siblings, that was really all that mattered.

"Nobody's dying, right?" she asked, making her way towards the head of the caravan, where Cor had gotten himself caught up in that fight.

"Not any faster than usual." Vito answered first. The fight had bunched up, at the end, and he wasn't too far away. Within earshot, clearly. There was a gash on his temple that would probably be a livid bruise the next day, but of greater concern was the arrow buried in the meat of his thigh. Swilling from a potion flask, he gripped as close to the head as he could with steady fingers and clenched his jaw, tugging it out with a decisive pull, a grunt and heavy, forced-slow breath following before he put a purple limned hand over it. "Spina, can you tell me how quickly he's bleeding?" From context, he could only be speaking to her, about Cor.

She wasn't sure what he'd just called her, but the tone didn't make her think it was anything rude, and she had more important things to worry about anyway. "He'll keep for the moment," she assured him. "I think that one could use you a little more to start." She pointed to where Evie was downed by some mix of her injuries and the weight of the fight, it looked like. She was quite visibly bleeding, too, but unlike Cor she'd have no difficulty receiving Vito's healing magic. Lia pulled a healing potion from a pouch on her belt and shook it at the mage briefly. "I'll give him this in the meantime."

She stepped over more than a few bodies on her way to the front of the caravan, and Cor. Black-garbed, lightly armed and armored. There were already troubling thoughts swirling in Lia's mind, looking at their physiques, their choice of weaponry. She pushed them aside for the moment as she came up on Cor, lightly touching her knuckles to his upper arm and offering him the potion. "Hey, drink this."

He sat on the edge of the lead cart, his helm and shield discarded behind him and sword nowhere to be seen, for the moment. He blinked a few times, shaking his head slightlyā€”more to try and focus than in denial of anything, because he reached out and accepted the potion readily enough. Downing it, Cor made a face and exhaled heavily. "Thanks." He managed a brief grin, but he still didn't quite seem to be able to find her eyes right. Already the rate of his bleeding had slowed, though whether that was the potion, the hand he'd pressed there, or something else wasn't completely clear. There was still plenty smeared and drying on his armor, probably not all of it his own.

With a frown, Cor shifted his attention momentarily to the front of the cart, where his last three opponents lay. "I tried not to kill a few, but... I thinkā€”" He winced. "I think I misjudged the force."

She shifted her attention with him, adjusting her grip on her dagger and approaching the bodies. Two of the black-clad figures were definitely dead already, but this one in the wolf pelt cowl... Lia took a few cautious steps to her side, crouching down and carefully reaching out, knife at the ready. She removed the cowl and tugged away the black cloth mask underneath, finding the face of the enemy's leader to be a female elf. Cor had done a number on her, though, inflicting significant damage to the jaw that left the lower half of her face a bloody mess. Lia found a pulse, but it was a weak one.

"This one's alive, but... not for long, I don't think." She had other wounds, like the arrow Lia had shot into her, and if she had to guess, there was also some skull or neck damage. Hard to say if she'd even be in a state to speak if she woke. "Could see if Vito can save her, though I think some of our own need the healing more right now." It wouldn't do to let any of them die for the sake of an enemy.

Lia wasn't particularly surprised to find that the leader was an elf, but it still left her with a sinking feeling in her gut. She carefully unmasked the others and found the same: more elves. "Shit." She stood, sheathing Parshaara and pacing a few steps back and forth before she forced herself to stop, take a breath, and look at them again. "They're no Dalish, no vallaslin. Honestly, it might've been better if they were Dalish." At least for Val Royeaux. Instead it was just as Camille Duret had predicted. Some gang of aggressive elves bold enough to attack caravans of Chantry lyrium. News of this would bring nothing but trouble if it spread.

Vito stood from where he'd knelt next to Evie, handing her a potion as he went. "No one you recognize, though? Not that I expect you to know every elf in Val Royeaux, mind you, but as I understand it the Lions have a lot to do with many of the ones who can fight, yes?"

"We didn't teach them this, though. We were trying to help them defend themselves, not teach them how to become bandits." The company stirred up some ire as it was, teaching the locals some self defense techniques. If anyone had thought they were preparing the Alienage to execute guerrilla warfare, there'd have a lot more trouble to deal with.

Still, that was beside the point. "I don't recognize any of these three. I'll, uh... I'll check some of the others." Her thoughts were annoyingly flustered, already thinking ahead to what they should do about this.

"Their tactics were all wrong," Cor agreed, seeming to regain some equilibrium. Despite the persistence of his injuries, he pushed away from the cart, pausing to steady himself on his feet. It didn't take long to figure out that he was checking the faces too, just in case. "When these three came at me, the first two were almost..." He grimaced. "They were too reckless. Throwing themselves on my shield like thatā€”it's not smart, but surprising for that. It was like they didn't care if I got them as long as it opened the way for her to stab me." And that kind of disregard was definitely not part any Lion-taught self-defense lesson.

He crouched, as if to see about helping the cloaked woman, but the attempt ended early, in a grimace. Gone, apparently. With a soft sigh, he turned her pockets out instead, looking for anything that might provide a clue as to who these people were. "No ashes," he murmured, then hmmed thoughtfully.

When he stood, there was something dangling from his fingers: a leather cord with a crude wooden pendant on the end of it. Nothing of value, clearly, but an odd thing to carry into a fight. Perhaps a personal trinket of some kind.

Vito sighed. "Hold still for a moment, Mattone." Picking his way to where Cor was, he wreathed both his hands in light green for a moment, passing them in the air over him and expelling another short breath. "This would be easier if you sat and removed the armor, but I'll just stop the bleeding for now." The light changed colors to something more blue. "So suppose this is in fact a gang of discontented city elves. Lyrium seems a strange choice for theft. There's a thriving black market for it, to be sure, but it's much more difficult to offload than mundane goods, and it's not useful to most people. Why not steal from merchant caravans? Less guarded, less likely to bring professional retribution, more lucrative."

Lia tore the mask from another of the fallen, finding another unfamiliar elven man's face staring blankly back up at her. "They're not after money, then. At least, not by stealing this lyrium. They must want it for something else." Lia wasn't an expert on the uses of lyrium, and she doubted anyone else here was, though Vito probably knew more than the rest of them. She did at least know that it was a versatile thing, used for far more than powering flagging mages and helping Chantry templars dredge up their powers. What a bunch of angry city elves would want with it was beyond her. The quantity too was an issue. There was no way their gang had enough mages in it to demand ambushing entire supply caravans of the stuff. "Any guesses?"

"Explosives?" Cor's tone was hard to read. "Angry people tend to like blowing things upā€”just ask Kirkwall." It would be extremely grim news if true.

"An alarming possibility." Vito lowered his arms and stepped back from Cor, apparently satisfied with his condition for the moment. "Enough of it, or in the right form, would be highly toxic. Poison is an option, though there are a number of plants that would be much easier to procure and kill someone just as dead, so to speak. This seems too dangerous to have been a mere distraction for something else; the number of things that would be worth this much risk is... limited."

Evie finally seemed to get a bit of air back in her lungs, at least enough to move around without any aid. She'd sheathed her shortsword and retrieved her estoc, now carrying it loosely with a hand. The other still didn't look like it was in the best of shape as she cradled it close to her chest, and her tunic had been more firmly tied around her wound.

She crouched near the last fighter she'd felled, and inspected her face, though even in the dim light Evie looked like she was a bit green in the face. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand and turned away, instead going to look at them. "What else--" she paused for a moment, pressing her hand back to her mouth until the episode passed, "What else can lyrium be used for though?" she managed to ask. "I highly doubt they have any templars in their employ."

"Whatever they need it for, they aren't getting this shipment here, and now they've got actual losses to deal with." Lia had no idea how large of a group they were dealing with here. It was possible they'd just killed their leader here, and it was also possible that this was just the tip of the spear. Either way they'd been dealt a blow.

"Cor, a word? The rest of you should keep working on these bodies, and clear the lyrium from one of the carts." There was enough room in the others to divide up one so that they could take it back while the caravan carried on. Grim as it was, the bodies also needed to be taken back for possible identification and then proper disposal. She was willing to bet the gang would take care of them themselves if they left them here, but on the off chance a lead could be provided, they had to try.

When she and Cor had separated themselves from the others, she started working on binding the cut to her arm, keeping her voice low. "They aren't Ashfingers, but... I don't know what else they'd be."

He grimaced, clearly having thought something similar. "Slim chance that there are two well-trained groups of city elves with a penchant for disrupting the the powerful," he agreed, reaching up to scratch his cheek. He was biting the side of his tongue, she could tell, and clicked it softly against the roof of his mouth before continuing. "But we don't have enough evidence to confirm, and honestly I think it's better if we don't even mention the similarities to certain parties until we do." He had to be talking about the Durets.

"I can try finding Kestrel. No guarantee that'll work, but it might. She'd know one way or the other." His brows knit. "It doesn't quite seem like her style, but... neither did that vandalism, before the riot."

Lia had a much easier way of reaching Kestrel, but it wasn't one she wanted to take unless she had no other choice. Considering how anonymous the Ashfingers were supposed to be, she couldn't imagine Arrin approaching Kestrel and asking for an audience on Lia's behalf would go over well. But Cor was right: first the vandalism, and now this. Intentional or unintentional, the Ashfingers were going to have a much harder time staying hidden if this kept up.

"So do we lie to them?" she asked. "Try to pass this off as run-of-the-mill bandits getting way too aggressive? I don't know how long that'll hold up." The Revered Mother could just have her own people questioned, and while Lia had no love for her, Camille Duret and her brother weren't enemies she really wanted to make right now.

"Why lie?" he replied with a shrug. "These were bandits, with no detectable affiliation with any known group, and we can't say more with any certainty. That's the truth. They're going to draw their own conclusions no matter what we tell themā€”we might as well just give it to them straight, and keep the guessing out of it. Their people will be able to say exactly as much as we do, and we live up to our reputation of honesty. For now, it's a win-win."

She exhaled a long breath, and nodded. "All right." She cinched bandage around her arm, offering a somewhat guilty smile up at him. "It's times like these I'm glad you're the one that does the talking. I never did learn how to not piss people off."

He grinned back at her, more than a little sly. "The people who matter find it charming." With a gentle little shove to her uninjured side, he pulled in a deep breath. "Back to damage control we go."

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Vito wondered if his mother would be disappointed that, after more than three years in Val Royeaux, this was his very first visit to the Grand Cathedral.

He hoped she'd understand that it was a desire for anonymity more than a lack of faith that kept him awayā€”and suspected she'd be both awed at the grandeur of the building and a little disappointed that so few of the people inside were of the lower classes. He didn't think about it quite so much; there were plenty of other Chantry buildings in the city, and this was the stately one where the nobles went and the high-ranked clerics had their offices. It was hardly surprising there were few poor penitent in attendance, that the charity took place elsewhere. Even the religious had to worry about things like image and reputation. And just like with criminals, a concern with image didn't necessarily reveal a flaw of character.

Nevertheless, he was as out of place as he'd always suspected he would be. More perhaps than even the elves he walked behind, and certainly more than Amatrice. He eyed a shadow behind one of the back pews, feeling the unmistakable urge to meld into it. Old habits died hard, and even now, his discomfort at being potentially noticed was prickling the back of his neck. Seen was fine, noticed not as much.

But he was not the sort to leave a job undone, and perhaps in a group of this sort, he would not be noticed much at all.

They were escorted through the halls towards the office of their employer for this job, the Revered Mother Camille Duret, who was apparently expecting them. The ride back through the depths of Clairtaillis and into the city had taken up the rest of the night, a bright and clear morning greeting them as they had entered the Castle District. The Chantry, as always, was not one to sleep in, and the Cathedral was alive with the Chant, welcoming them in, or so it seemed. The armed guards flanking their little group didn't look like the singing types.

Camille Duret was already standing when they were shown into her office, browsing a selection of tomes on a nearly floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, while her brother Mathias was reading one such book from an armchair nearby. At their entrance he snapped the book shut, rising to his feet, and Camille paused her search, turning to face them and taking in their battle-worn appearance.

"Bloodied but alive. I'll take that as good news. What happened?"

As expected, Corvin took up the conversational burden. "We got pretty deep into Clairtaillis before they took the bait, but they did. Set up an ambush. There were about twenty-five elves or so, with a clear leader. Most of them are dead now; a few ran off into the forest once things were clearly hopeless for them." He frowned, a pensive expression dominating his face. "We found no evidence of connection to any known groups in Val Royeaux, but they weren't Dalish either, so in terms of information, there's not much to say. They were dressed to blend, no emblems or distinguishing tattoos, items, or features."

Camille seemed pleased, of all things. "Elves. Did I not say so, little brother?"

Mathias's arms were crossed, and he briefly rolled his eyes. "You did say so, yes."

"It's ridiculous. In two years they've come to see us as soft. Push, and we give ground. Demand, and we acquiesce. And when there is resistance, they now feel the need to take what they desire by force. That's the state of this city and this empire now." The pleasure of being right had drained from the Revered Mother's face, replaced with sheer irritation. Her words seemed directed at her brother more than anything. No doubt she figured those she'd hired would have deaf ears for it.

"We've come to believe there is an active group of elves in the city working to sow chaos," Mathias explained to them. "This all but confirms it. They were subtle in Celene's day, but now they've grown bold, confident. They'll make a fatal error sooner or later, and be forced into the light."

"None of you would happen to know anything about that, would you?" Camille asked, narrowing her eyes at them. "No doubt your work enables you to hear a great deal."

"Hearsay and rumors," Corvin replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Little concrete information, and nothing about these recent changes. If the pattern continues, I'm sure all of us will know more soon enough." He shifted his weight slightly from one foot to the other, but he didn't look uncomfortable. There were no obvious signs of deception, probably because he was walking a very fine line between telling the truth and holding it back from them without actually lying.

It was quite impressive, in truth. Vito probably would have just outright lied to them in a similar position, and he was quite good at it, but there was something to be said for indirect deception instead. Plausible deniability was powerful, moreso among those who cared about legal distinctions than those who did not, but not burning bridges was usually the better call.

Perhaps he'd been a bit too hasty in likening the kid to a brick, even if it was only gentle mockery.

The Revered Mother hardly seemed surprised by Corvin's answer, and neither did her brother. "If any of you should happen to hear something reliable," he said, "we would be very interested in having it passed along. Whoever these people are, they've made a powerful enemy by attacking the Chantry."

"What about you, girl?" Camille asked, turning her searching gaze on Lia next. "You've been awfully quiet in this one's shadow."

"It hasn't been my place to speak, Your Reverence." Lia's answer was ready, recited quickly and clearly, her eyes only meeting Camille's for as long as it took for the words to come out.

She hmmed softly. "And now that it is, I assume your answer is the same?"

"Yes, Your Reverence."

Mathias uncrossed his arms, glancing sidelong at his sister. "I think that concludes our business? They've served their purpose."

She held up a hand. "I'm curious, though, about the people the Marquis chooses to rely on, and by extension the Emperor and the Marcher Queen. Their effectiveness is not in question, at least, judging by the body count in Clairtaillis." Her eyes shifted to Vito. "And who are you? I think I would've remembered had you been here before."

Vito laid one palm flat over his chest, dipping his head politely. "Merely an alchemist, Your Reverence." He was not as pious as his mother had been, by quite some margin, but he prayed nevertheless, and had long made study of the Chant. He respected Camille's position, even if he reserved judgement on the woman herself. As such, his use of the title was a little less perfunctory than the others' had been. "Bloody business is best attended by someone who can help repair the damage." She didn't seem especially interested in names, from the way she'd addressed Spina, and that suited him just fineā€”he didn't give his.

There was no mistaking his accent, though, and he didn't even try to hide it. While he doubted it would much move Camille, there were some here who found it charming, and it was one more layer he could pull over himself to divert attention from his actual secrets, such as they were.

"Argent Lions have useful friends to call upon, it would seem." Camille studied them a moment longer before she shook her head, discarding whatever thought had formed there. "Well, we had three payments prepared, but I think it can be made four easily enough. Mathias will see to it."

The Duke nodded, gesturing out the door. "If you'll follow me..."

Before long each of them had a small pouch of sovereigns for their trouble in the woods, and they were back in the sunlight of the Castle District, the morning going on as usual around them. There wasn't much point in parting yet, though, as they were all headed back towards Riverbend and the Harbor District anyway.

"They're going to be trouble," Lia commented quietly. "If they don't find their target soon, they'll end up making one instead, just so they can hit something."

Vito pursed his lips. He didn't think she was wrong, in all honesty, and there didn't seem to be much they could do about it, except hope that the real perpetrators revealed themselves sooner rather than later. Not a guarantee by any means. Perhaps he could speak to some people, see if any of his contacts knew more than he did. He had the distinct feeling that both Lia and Corvin already did, but now hardly seemed like the time to question them about it, if any time would be appropriate. "Something to warn your Marquis of, I supposeā€”if he doesn't already know."

"He probably does," Corvin admitted. "I wouldn't put it past him to have arranged this whole thing partly to warn us. He's like that sometimes." He pushed out a breath, glancing back and forth between Vito and Evie. "Thanks for your help, though. Both of you. Don't think we'd have managed so well without you."

"I'm sure you would have found a way," Evie answered genuinely. She still weighed the coin pouch in her hand, looking like she was trying to count them through the bag. Her other arm was still tied up in a makeshift sling. "But I appreciate the opportunity," she added with a smile, and tucked the coin away into a pocket.

She then gazed up at the sun still rising, trying to gauge the time of day. "I would offer breakfast," she began, bring her eyes back to toward them, "But I don't think I'm in any shape to cook something," she said with a measured roll of her injured shoulder and an apologetic look.

"Saves me the trouble of turning you down, at least." Lia seemed to add the comment without much in the way of thought, and after a moment she hesitated. "But... yeah, Cor's right. You did okay. If we come across anything else where we can put you to use, we'll... we'll keep you in the loop." She obviously had some difficulty parting with the words, and once they were out her eyes remained on their surroundings, wary as she always seemed to be.

"You're also welcome to my help, if you've further use for it." Vito injected his own words to smooth the transition over a bit. Fortunately, he didn't think they'd have daily jobs or anything of the sortā€”he did still have a shop to tend and Marisol to look after, though she needed it less and less as time passed. But he'd enjoyed helping, and wouldn't mind the occasional odd outing to continue doing so.

It had been a while since he'd really been able to relish danger. Perhaps a trait of his that could find better use here and now than it once did.

The company wasn't half-bad, besides.

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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And Shartan looked upon the Prophet Andraste
And said: "The People will set ourselves free.
Your host from the South may march
Alongside us."

The giants of the South rose to their feet as one
And bowed. And Andraste said:
"It is done. We march as one."
-Canticle of Shartan 9:27-28

Image

Of all the things he expected to encounter on the way back from the Imperial Palace, Corvin couldn't say the soot smeared on his windowpane was high up the list. It was barely visible as he and Lia approached, given that the night had drawn into dawn by this point. Their visit had extended to a lingering stay, much of it spent with Stel and Ashton and Rilien, though they'd been invited to meet Arielle themselves just after Ashton did. Corvin wasn't much for babies, even if he liked kids well enoughā€”but something about this one had been charming. Maybe it was simply the infectious joy of her parents. Predictably enough, the bet had gone to Rilien when no one else was right: she was the spitting image of her mother, but for Lucien's steely grey eyes.

The warmth of the thoughts left him rather abruptly upon return to the barracks, its cause obvious. There was no way his window had been chosen by accident; it was the only one marked in the entire large building, as far as he could tell. There was no damage, no other signs of disturbance, but he knew at least one Ashfinger who would hardly be stymied in the least by the lock on the window. He tensed almost against his will, grimacing and turning to Lia.

"Something tells me we're not going to be sleeping for a while."

Lia stopped and reached up to rub at her forehead, clearly in fatigue. Both of them had come back here expecting to fall into their beds for much needed rest. This was a sign that couldn't be ignored, however. The Ashfingers were not a group that they could tell to wait and still expect to meet them, nor were they a group that called to outsiders lightly. Whatever this was, it was important. Tired or not, they'd have to find the energy for this.

"Okay," she said, exhaling. She seemed to shrug off the comfortable mood she'd been in the whole night, settling back into a more familiar unease. "Whatever this is, let's deal with it. Gear up and meet back here."

Corvin exhaled harshly, then nodded. Parting from Lia inside the door, he made his way down the hall to the room that served as his, checking the door just in case before opening it slowly. He didn't think the Ashfingers would want to harm him for any articular reason, but he tried to be careful when he could. Nothing seemed to be amiss, not even when he stepped inside and glanced around. His armor was still on its rack, undisturbed, and the rest of his gear left in its ordinary places.

The only thing that seemed to be different was the square, white envelope sitting atop the tucked blanket on his bed. Well, that'd be the reason for the ash, then. Grabbing his breastplate from the rack, he dropped it on the bed and hurriedly changed his shirt to something that would sit comfortably underneath it, pulling the armor down over it and fixing the straps in place before he took up the envelope. It was entirely blank, nothing stamped into the grey wax seal on the back.

Frowning, he broke it, extracting the small piece of paper inside. The handwriting was beautiful, to the point of artistry rather than utility alone. His brows knit; he scanned it several times, murmuring the words as he went.

Corvin,

I understand you've recently encountered a conundrum for which no easy solution has presented itself. I may be able to help you rectify this, if you're willing to solve one of my problems in turn.

Redthorn Tavern serves a respectable breakfast. I'd love to meet your new friends.

-Q


Corvin's breath left him in a short gust, something uncomfortable turning in his gut. Kess.

Donning his gauntlets and greaves, he strapped a longsword to his side and a kite shield to his back. Redthorn was the opposite of upscale; patrons in armor would hardly be uncommon, and he expected that whatever she'd want them to do afterwards would require it.

Exiting his room, he reconvened with Lia at the front, handing her the note without a word.

She was geared up in full now, leather armor sitting over her Argent Lions uniform, dagger at her side and a stuffed quiver resting on her back next to the whitewood bow. She read the text carefully, before folding the letter up and handing it back.

"Great. 'Your new friends?' Vito's going to love this." It made sense that she would know who they'd chosen to work with on the job for the Durets, but clearly Lia was surprised Kess wanted to meet with all of them. Perhaps it was only fitting. "I'll fetch him, if you want to go wake up Lafleur."

"Sure. I think the shop's closer to Redthorn, so we'll meet you there if she's up to it." He certainly wasn't going to force her to come along, though he had the feeling she'd be more than willing. Corvin had seen more than one young soldier who wanted to prove themselves before, and while the desire didn't seem to burn as bad in Evie as it once had in him, he figured she might have a bit of it, at least. Maybe he was just projecting.

Parting from Lia with a nod, he set himself on the rad to Evie's house. He'd only been once, but he was pretty good with directions, and only had to stop to orient himself once before he reached what seemed to be her front door.

It looked a lot like the last time he'd seen it, though a few boards had been nailed up across the window. A broken table also leaned against the wall on the other side of the doors, the bottom legs broken off. Other than that, her house was as nondescript as all the others along the row.

Stepping up to the door itself, Corvin knocked. Loudly enough to wake a person, but not so loud he'd be doing it rudely, hopefully.

There was a moment of silence before something began to scurry behind the door. It continued to scurry for a minute or two, the walls or floors or both thin enough for Corvin to hear her footsteps from outside. Eventually they made their way to the door. The sounds of a pair of locks being undone proceeded her opening her door.

"Hello?" she answered still in her nightclothes. She seemed surprised to see that it was Corvin and looked the man up a down for a moment before she raised a brow. "Should... I go put on my armor too?" she asked, her eyes still on his own.

"Only if you want to." Corvin made a point of fixing his eyes over her shoulder. For some people this sort of thing wasn't a big deal, but he knew enough others who guarded their privacy to opt for decorum when he wasn't sure. "There might be a lead on the investigation, and the person offering to trade for it requested you and Vito as well as Lia and I, so it'd be appreciated."

She ran a hand through her hair and nodded, "Give me ten minutes." The door closed soon after and the shuffling began anew.

Eventually after around the allotted ten minutes she returned to the door. She had donned her breastplate and chainmail-- both sporting a few not unsubstantial patches-- along with her shortsword tied off at her waist. In one hand she carried her helmet, and the other she held her estoc by the sheath. Her short hair was also tied back into a ponytail, probably to save time trying to straighten it and forcing it to sit flat on her scalp.

"Okay," she began, looping the estoc's strap over head so it came to lay against her back, "So, where are we going and who are we going to see?"

"Redthorn Tavern." Corvin gestured for her to fall in step with him, and started to lead the way to Vito's. "We're meeting... a friend, of sorts. I'll let her explain whatever she wants to, but the important part is that she apparently knows something about what's behind the riots and all that."

He knew he really had no reason to keep Kess's secrets for her. Not after everything that had happened. But he was hesitant to say more, especially to someone he hadn't known long enough to trust. Whatever else they were now, he and Kess had been friends, once, and he didn't want a slip of the tongue to end with her execution, as her crimes would almost certainly warrant if ever they were proven.

It was really too much to think about on this little sleep, so for once in his life, he erred on the side of caution. They reached the storefront shortly after, and Corvin lifted his arm to wave at Lia and Vito, slowing long enough for them to join the procession as well. Redthorn wouldn't be far.

"I'm guessing Lia gave you the basics, Vito?"

"Enough to understand the importance of the summons." Hardly a precise answer, but probably good enough for present purposes.

Corvin nodded, and the group made its way to Redthorn. At this time of the morning, it wasn't much occupied; a pair of laborers sat in a corner table, eating breakfast and ignoring the single bleary-looking waitress, as well as the figure at the far end, sitting at a medium-sized table by herself.

Kess was more or less as Corvin remembered her: lustrous dark hair braided and then gathered into a knot at her crown, eyes sharp, features exceedingly delicate-looking even for an elf. She cultivated this impression on purpose, of course. Even when he hadn't known who she really was, he'd known she wasn't half as fragile as she looked. At the moment, she was dressed to blend, her garments well-maintained but plain and in drab colors, as was typical for the area. She didn't make any overt gestures to draw attention as the group entered, merely glancing up and making brief eye contact before gesturing to the table with her chin. An invitation to sit.

Of course, it was an invitation with the weight of an ultimatumā€”and there wasn't much choice about it. Corvin took the spot directly across from her himself, falling more heavily into it than he really needed to, and holding eye contact longer than was polite.

"What am I calling you today?" He'd never learned her actual name, whatever it was that her parents had called her before she was Kestrel. Now that he thought about it, maybe that should have been a hint that they weren't as close as he thought they were.

As if she'd read the direction of his thoughts, she smiled, more a sly quirk of her lip than anything, and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. "Kess will suffice." She tilted her head, eyes flickering over his face and armor perhaps a bit too long before she turned her attention to the others. "I hope nobody minds, but I've taken the liberty of ordering breakfast for us all. It was a bit of an early summons; I thought it the least I could do."

Vito, at least didn't seem to lack for alertness, and immediately smiled broadly. "I'd think that remarkably kind, if I believed there was any such thing as a free lunch. Or breakfast, I suppose."

Kess's eyes narrowed with mirth. "Something tells me you'd know, wouldn't you, signore?" She paused only long enough to move her attention to Evie. "Some of us are come to such realizations much more recently, though, no?"

Evie seemed confused by the insinuation, a subtle tilt of her head, though the slight narrowing of her eyes also said that she wasn't fond of the tone used. However, she had nothing to say on it for the moment.

Kestrel raised both eyebrows. "Well, I suppose we can't all be interesting." She shrugged, bypassing Evie and giving Lia a small nod instead. "In any case, perhaps I should move more directly to the point. In the interest of being sure we're all on the same page here, you've been sent to cool the heels of recent insurrection? How much do you know?"

"Not much," Lia admitted. She might've been as delicate-looking as Kess if she didn't make almost every effort to cultivate the opposite impression. She sat at the end of the table, one hand resting loosely atop her bow, which she'd needed to remove to properly sit down. "The group responsible incited the riot in part with the drug Ember, using the Untouchables to distribute. And more than once they've tried to make it look like you and yours are behind it. But one thing the Ashfingers have never been is careless."

"Unfortunately, that's both true and false as of the last few weeks." Kestrel looked genuinely bothered by that, brows knitting.

She paused a moment when the waitress approached, laden with a large tray with several plates. Corvin was served eggs and toast with a side of potatoes; Lia's plate was much the same, minus the starch and with the eggs over hard. Vito received a small quiche, and Evie wasn't given breakfast so much as a snackā€”a fruit tart drizzled in honey.

"My favorite." Vito sounded somewhere between surprised and amused at this fact, nodding slightly to Kestrel before he tucked in.

Kess herself inclined her head in return, then cut carefully into a pain au chocolat, lifting a small piece and chewing a bite before she elaborated.

"My hope is that you will agree to carry a message to an acquaintance of mine. I would do it myself, but he knows me and the people I'd trust to make the delivery, and I doubt at this point that any of them would be able to approach. But if the message is satisfactory to him, it may end the recent troubles we've been dealing with, and I would like very much to accomplish that without further violence."

He couldn't help but believe her. Maybe it was some residual sense of trust, or perhaps it was merely the fact that he couldn't imagine she had any reason to lie. This would have been a needlessly-elaborate setup for anything but what she was asking. Corvin exhaled through his nose, swallowing a bite of toast. "Does your acquaintance have a name?"

"Presumably." She arched an eyebrow, but then shrugged, slicing off another bit of pastry. "To us, he is Braven. You'll find him at a bolthole just off the main road on Sunshore. I will, of course, be happy to mark it for you on a map. As I said, he won't allow me or my agents close, but you should be careful, too. There's no one in this line of work who isn't paranoid, and he's worse than most in that respect."

"Braven," Lia repeated, reaching down into the bag she'd set at her feet. She looked none too pleased about being served breakfast how she preferred it without even being asked, but had reluctantly begun to dig in. From the bag she pulled her map of the area, which she unfolded and slid Kess's way. "I'm getting the sense there's a lot of trouble in your organization. Do you think Braven might be responsible for some of the things that have happened recently?" Corvin knew Lia well enough to know that if he was, she'd be inclined to aim for further violence, not avoid it. Especially after what they'd seen.

It was entirely possible Kestrel had guessed as much also, because she paused slightly before answering. "I have my suspicions. But you have to understand: Braven is a founding member of the Ashfingers. That means he has been operating within our boundaries for years. It's true that he's always been more inclined to push for open actionā€”but not like this. It is this discrepancy that concerns me, and that's why I am trying to get a message to him instead of simply..." She frowned, contemplating her phrasing for a second, perhaps. "Well frankly instead of just asking you to be rid of him, though I don't think that would be an easy task, either."

She exhaled, almost a sigh. "He's always been so adamant that we protect the community. You can see why I would doubt he is really capable of the recent unpleasantness. But if he is, that is something we all need to know, however different our reasons might be." She leaned forward enough to mark a small 'x' on the map with a piece of charcoal, then straightened.

She wasn't wrong, and Corvin suppressed the remains of his personal unease with the situation. No use letting history get in the way of doing the right thing now, and this was evidently important enough to do.

"All right," he said quietly. "Give us the message, and we'll get it to him." One way or another.

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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This whole thing just rubbed Evie the wrong way. She poked at her tart hesitantly before ultimately deciding to not take a bite. It was her favorite treat that her mother used to make for her when she was a young girl, and though it felt like ages since she'd last had one, it just felt... off. She trusted the tart about as much as she trusted Kess. How this woman managed to find out her favorite treat however, was concerning and it only made her wonder what else she knew about her and her family--probably because that was the intention. She tossed a sidelong glance as Kess took her leave and maintained it until she was well and truly out of sight.

"Well, I don't like this," she said in a matter-of-fact manner, pushing her tart away. "But I assume we're still going to deliver the message," she added with much of the same tone. It wasn't as if they could decline the task, that much was made clear. Plus, maybe the message could do some good. Evie had always been an optimist of a type.

She shook her head and sighed, "Sunshore is a ways out, anything you guys think we should worry about between here and there?" She asked the table at large.

"Well I should think the main concern obvious." Vito, in sharp contrast to Evie's suspicion, had tucked into his food with enthusiasm, and when he pushed his plate away, it was entirely clean. His eyes flickered to the tart with apparent amusement before he shrugged, clearing his throat and finishing the thought. "If Kestrel cannot deliver her message because this Braven knows her and her people on sight, we should be prepared for a rather unenthusiastic reception once he finds out we are acting in her stead. Possibly even before then, depending on the extent of his paranoia, sƬ?"

He expelled a deep breath, more from satisfaction than anything, if the otherwise content slant of his posture was anything to go by. The table had a small container of toothpicks at the centerā€”he took up one of these between his thumb and forefinger. "I sensed little deception in her words, personally, but the two of you know her better than I, of course." He left the observation there, an indirect invitation for input if ever there was one.

"I don't know how much experience you have with liars," Lia said, sliding out of her seat, "but Kess only lets you sense deception if she wants you to." She'd cleaned her plate as well, albeit with less enthusiasm than Vito had. As far as Evie understood it, she and Corvin had both been out all night, so no doubt they were starving coming in here.

Lia rose to her feet and secured her bow back in place over her shoulder. "Evie's right, though. Sunshore is a good walk, and these aren't the kind of people to react well if we keep them waiting, I think. So let's get moving."

Corvin nodded slightly. "Look alive, I guess." Tucking the message itself away into what seemed to be a waterproofed leather courier's pouch, he tied it to his belt and led the way out.

The first part of the journey out to Sunshore was quiet, at least on their end. The city itself was beginning to rouse in earnest, the rising sun tingeing everything with a mellow golden light. They exited through the busy Night Gate, bypassing clusters of merchants setting up in the markets and weary caravaners making their way in from the settlements between Val Royeaux and its many, many tributary cities. Seeing everything like this made it impossible not to understand just how much it really was the beating heart of Orlais, tides of people coming and going like so much lifeblood.

Traffic thinned out considerably on the road proper, though; they'd elected to go without horses since discretion was advisable. Not that Evie owned a horse anyway. It was unlikely Vito did, either, so maybe it was easier this way in general.

Corvin dropped back a little once they'd reached the expanse of road before them, the morning frost already melting away from the grasses to either side of the packed earth. Evie could tell that he was deep in thought about something, but he didn't seem inclined to share. At least not right now.

This was obviously not a problem Vito had, as his thoughts were given voice. "Ashfingers." He tried the word out on his tongue, drawing out the sibilants slightly and rolling the r by what may have been instinct. "I think I have heard vague murmurs of this word, but until this morning, I had not even been sure it meant anything. But the two of you were neither surprised nor confused." It wasn't an accusationā€”or it didn't sound like one. Just an observation.

"I don't suppose there is anything more you are able to say? I am willing enough to take things on faith if needs must, but I confess I find that difficult when I could have information instead." He shrugged, evidently content to leave the decision to Corvin and Lia.

"I'm surprised you've even heard vague murmurs," Corvin said, shaking off whatever malaise had settled over him. He furrowed his brow blinking a bit at Vito like he was seeing something different from usual. "But, uh... the Ashfingers are probably either freedom fighters or dangerous insurgents, depending on what your opinions are about... related issues." He grimaced. "Mostlyā€”maybe entirelyā€”elves, and set either on the goal of getting us equal rights or just toppling the government in general. It's sort of hard to tell, even for us."

The elf rolled his shoulders, adjusting the strap that held his shield to his back. "Pretty much all of them are sleeper agents, I guess you could say. Hidden in other places. I'm kind of surprised Kess showed you her face, but she must have figured you weren't a threat to her, or something. She's the only leader of the group we know personally, I think. And know is a bit of a stretch." That part was noticeably acrid, especially for someone normally so friendly.

"Thought we knew, more like," Lia clarified. "She used to be a friend of ours, a while ago. She might say she still is. As for the Ashfingers, they're half a step away from being our allies sometimes. Some of our goals are the same, and to be honest I'd rather not fight them if we can ever avoid it." She'd grown uneasy, as she often seemed to, a demeanor that only worsened as she carried on. "But they have a habit of threatening things we care about outside of the elven world. So we do what we have to."

She looked back to Vito and Evie. "Word of advice? Don't tell anyone about them. They really hate being in the light, and they don't deliver warnings to people who piss them off."

Evie absently played with the strap of her helmet that dangled from her chin, finally shrugging after Lia spoke. "It's not like I have a whole list of people to tell in the first place," she replied. The lack of familial contact tended to curb the number of people she could gossip with, and she wasn't quite on first-name basis with her neighbors yet. "But duly noted," she nodded. She'd still make the mental note to not let the Ashfingers slip into casual conversation. This Kess made it abundantly clear that she could get to her if she truly wanted, and Evie wasn't about to chance it.

It all felt a bit too cloak and dagger to her, and maybe even a touch overly political. She was more of a creature of action anyway-- though she was just presently getting back into the action. "I don't think I'll be asking many questions about them, personally. Plausible deniability, let's say." Less of a chance of her waking up to something more worse than a tart that way. She'd trust Cor and Lia to keep her looped in with the need to know information.

Kess herself on the other hand... "Did you know her before or after the Ashfinger thing?" she asked.

Corvin shrugged. "After, but not too long after, I don't think. She was a bard back then. Or her cover identity wasā€”however that goes. Not really the subterfuge type myself." He indicated his plate armor with a wry flourish. "Honestly, I get why she did what she did, mostly. And why she still does it. But sometimes I think she enjoys it too much."

"Elves started to learn about the Ashfingers after Celene decided to purge the Alienage," Lia explained. Her tone was understandably harsh regarding the event. "When fighting back only gets you, your friends, and your family imprisoned or killed, it's easy to see the need for a group willing and able to put up a silent resistance. But what to resist, and how violently to resist it, isn't so easy to decide."

"No, I imagine not." Vito tugged absently at his goatee as they walked, squinting slightly against the still-low sun. "That decision seems to be the crux of our problem here, no? Judiciously-applied violence is one thing, but if this Braven has anything to do with recent events, I daresay he forgot the 'judicious' part."

"No kidding." Corvin paused a moment there, pointing to what seemed to be a very faint trail diverging from the main road. "I think this is our most direct line to the bolthole. I don't know if that means we should take it, but I don't know the landscape out here well enough to have any better ideas."

"Good thing I brought my hiking boots," Evie said with mild sarcasm, tapping the ground with them. Without any better ideas, they took the trail and followed it for a time. Evie had not seen a lot of Sunshore, to be honest, only what little she could see when her father or her uncle had decided to take her out on one of their patrols, and even then they never ventured too far off of the main path. What she knew of the land, however, was that it was mostly comprised of rather impressive hills and rather tall grass. However, she wasn't prepared for how tall.

As they followed the path, their sight line became impaired due to the length of the grass, in addition to hills that hid their sight to the horizon. The gentle wind rolled the grass in waves, making it seem more like a sea of green than a field of weeds. "Er, do you have a better view?" Evie asked the taller elf.

"I can see over the grass a bit, if that's what you're asking," he replied, grimacing slightly as a soft tail of some wild plant brushed his cheek. He'd elected to pass through with minimal disturbance, at least as much as someone of his dimensions could.

"You know, I almost understand why Lucien used to carry a scythe around," he grumbled. "Would have been useful out here."

"No kidding." Lia hadn't looked at any of the three of them since they'd split off from the main path, her eyes always up on the hills, peering at the grasses watchfully. Soon she held up a hand, commanding the group to a stop. "I really don't like this. I'm going to take a look around."

Nimbly she scrambled up the face of the hill on their left, climbing through tall grass off the path to gain some elevation and get a view. Something made her stop halfway up, and for a moment there was nothing but the sound of the coastal winds blowing across the hills.

"Ir him din'an!"

Evie didn't have to know the meaning of the words to recognize an elven battle cry. More echoed across the hills, and it was hard to tell their exact location from the way the sound bounced around them. Two of them quite obviously popped up out of the tall grass in front of Lia at close range, though, their bows already drawn. There was no time for her to draw her own bow or close to melee range and still have a chance; her only choice was to dodge and fall back.

She avoided the first arrow by luck more than anything, ducking and stepping out of the way preemptively, but the second found her left leg above the knee. She cried out briefly, tripping and falling and tumbling back down the hill to the path. When she thudded to the bottom she twisted around in place, putting her back to the hillside for the visual cover the grass provided, and drawing her bow to aim at the other side.

At nearly the same moment, two more emerged onto the path behind them, giving themselves clear shots at the group's back, currently occupied only by the unarmored Vito. The first arrow struck him square in the meat of his shoulder, an alarmingly-small number of inches from his neck, where it had probably been aimed. The second was turned aside by a sharp gust of wind, diverted somewhere into the grass. The archers did not wait to be countered, disappearing into the grasses as quickly as they had emerged, only a whisper of sound left behind.

"Lovely."

Corvin was a bit more fortunate; the arrows aimed in his direction pinged off his armor instead of hitting him. He immediately grabbed both shield and sword, remaining on the path itself, the clearest area there was. The shield stayed in guard positionā€”the blade, he thrust experimentally into some of the grass, then shifted sideways, bending the stalks aside.

"Vito, stay between me and Evie. Backs to each other, everyone." It made senseā€”if any of them exposed a vulnerable spot, they could find an arrow or a knife in it quite quickly.

"Got it." She answered Corvin, already in the process sliding her visor down and facing outward from their little group. Evie settled in a neutral stance with her estoc, but she wasn't sure how helpful it would be at this stage. Without visibility or the sight line to their enemy, she felt exposed and vulnerable. She forced herself to take measured breaths as she awaited the next attack, and she needn't wait a long. A face appeared between the grass with a bowstring pulled taut against his cheek. An arrow followed soon after, and it was all she could do to shift just a tiny bit to her side. It was enough to save her from catching it in exposed flesh, instead embedding into the iron shoulder strap of her breastplate. The tip raked her skin beneath, and the barbs meant it wouldn't come out easy.

She would just have to deal with it, and she broke the shaft off near the tip. It was more out of frustration than anything that she fanned her blade out in the grass in front. It revealed nothing of course, and she took a small hack at, the blunt sword bending the blades of grass. "Any other suggestions?" she asked, taking careful steps backward toward the rest of her group.

Lia had her back to Vito, her weight heavily favoring her left leg. The arrow shaft in her right had snapped during her tumble, the back half of it hanging on by a few stubborn splinters, while the front half had only worsened the wound such that crimson lines ran down the lower half of the leg. She made a quick shot into the brush the next time on of their enemies popped up to take aim, a loud shriek all the confirmation they needed to know that her arrow found its mark. There was no doubt about it now: these were more of the elves that had ambushed them in the forest aiming for the lyrium caravan. Their tactics were too similar, the occasional sight of a wolf's pelt headdress all too familiar.

"Is water all you can do?" Lia asked over her shoulder, at the mage in their party. "Something a little warmer would be nice right now." To flush them out of hiding, no doubt, or otherwise drive them off.

"Ask and you shall receive." Fire didn't seem as quick to his fingers as the water from before, but the grass was plenty flammable, and the gust of wind he pulled in fed the tongues of fire until they were eating through the ground cover at an alarming pace. Fortunately, that also meant none of the smoke blew back into their faces.

It almost seemed to be a force of its own, actually; Vito made some push-and-pull motions with his hand that dropped the dark grey cloud into the grass. If the ambushers weren't worried about burning, they should probably still be worried about that. He left the space near the group open, both in front and behind, the controlled burn sweeping in such a way that if they didn't flee the fight entirely, the only way for them to safely move was into view before either Evie or Corvin.

Flushed from the grass, one of the archers all but staggered into the path in front of the elf. With a grim frown, he stepped forward and swung, smashing his kite shield into her head. The blow was hard enough to produce a ringing sound, almost like a large bell. Unsurprisingly, the woman dropped, unconscious at the very least.

To their credit, the ambushers were quick to adjust, and with the stealth option so emphatically-removed, they shifted into swarm tactics instead. Corvin knocked away a second rogue, only for a third to jump on his shield and drag it down with his weight. Corvin shook him off, but not before another of them managed to slide a knife into a gap in his guard, the blade sinking to the hit between his ribs, in a joint of his armor just under his elbow.

The knife's wielder was paid back with a sword in the belly, but two more were already incoming.

Evie had shifted her stance away from neutral and into aggressive. Her sword now rested on her shoulder, elbows bent in anticipation for a heavy swipe. The blunt blade meant there would be no cutting, but hitting someone hard enough would break enough bones to put them out of the fight regardless. What little grass that wasn't on fire in front of her began to sway unnaturally, and Evie readjusted her grip. It wasn't long before the ambusher struck, leaping out from the grass with his dagger glinting in the sun light. Evie timed the blow and swung diagonally across her body.

The elf proved wily however, and pulled up short to let the estoc cut harmlessly through the air. However, Evie wasn't foolish, and remembered her lessons from her teachers on that particular stance. She pulled her blade at it's lowest point, the tip still aimed for the elf. She took the step the same time the elf did, and running him through the with point. The dagger still found enough purchase to bite through her chainmail sleeve, but he was dead before he could work it in any more and leave the arm completely useless. Evie grumbled and she threw the body off of her sword with a shoulder and took a step back, stance shifting in anticipation to counter. She could feel the blood run down her arm as she lay in wait, and she grimaced beneath her visor.

As they had in the woods, these attackers crumbled when they began taking casualties. The fire was clearly not something they were expecting, and it gave them immense difficulty in keeping up their attack for long. Another fell to one of Lia's arrows, and already the assault was lightening. A few more, and they'd clearly broken off. The tall grass concealed them, but it no doubt also made it difficult for them to communicate with each other, and without solid leadership of the smaller groups, they cracked one by one after they encountered more than they bargained for.

Lia waited through a few tense, silent moments, the only sound being that of the crackling magical fire, and a few groans of those not yet departed. She then groaned softly herself, limping over to the side of the path and lowering herself to the ground. "I think we're clear for now. Might want to put that out, Vito. Once we're patched up we can follow their trail."

Vito's expression twitched slightly, and he exchanged his wind for water, hosing down the flaming grass until the fire had been suppressed. Once that was done, he clapped his hands softly, rubbing his palms together and flexing his fingers in what looked almost like an attempt to restore circulation or something like that. "Very well then. I probably won't be able to fix everything on the spot, but the potions should help. Who is hurt?"

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Ambushed by elves again.

Lia much preferred when her opponents were racist and deluded shemlen trying to wipe her people from Val Royeaux. The victories felt a lot less hollow that way, like she'd actually done some good, rid the world of some scum. After these last two ambushes... she only felt like it was a waste. All of these elves could've contributed, made real progress in improving their lives in the Alienage. All they were doing was setting themselves back, and worse, setting every elf back, even the ones who wanted no part of this. A disgusting waste.

She finished carefully checking the dead, retrieving a few of her arrows in the process. No wolf pelt this time, so she had to figure whoever was leading this bunch had been among those that retreated. She'd worked the arrowhead out of her own leg with Vito's help, and given it some healing and bandaging. It was going to be stiff and sore, but it was nothing she couldn't work through.

"They went northeast, as far as I can tell," she reported, returning to the group and sliding the last of the arrows she could find into her quiver. "Not the easiest trail to follow, but I can get us wherever they're going." What they found there would probably be unpleasant, but Lia was all the more invested now that they'd tried to kill her before she could reach it. "I suppose that ambush was meant for Kess, then. Or her people, at least."

"Seems she was a bit too optimistic about the chances of this working out." Vito, just now finishing up with Cor's injuries, rose from his kneeling position and dusted off his knees. "Or she wasn't, and simply failed to warn us of the danger. I confess I don't have enough sense of her to say which is more likely."

"I'd like to think she wouldn't do that," Cor replied, prodding at the spot under his arm where he'd been stabbed earlier. He winced, but it was more theatrical than genuineā€”they'd both fought through a lot worse than this before. "Anyway, lead on then, Lia. I think it'd be best if we all tried to keep as quiet as we can so... watch your steps." The last was obviously not directed at her, but the others.

"I've a bit of practice being quiet." Vito said it with a hint of amusement, but shifted his eyes to Lia, clearly still of the mind that she was the expert here.

It wasn't easy going by any means; they had to leave the path behind and trek over and through the hills instead, as their quarry seemed to be taking a direct route to wherever they were going. Favoring speed for the price of making their trail easier to follow. Maybe they knew they'd be tracked down regardless. It wasn't just light footprints and broken stalks of tall grass Lia followed; drops of blood here and there caught her eyes, red against the pale yellow of the grass. Someone she'd hit with an arrow hadn't been killed by it, and the elves were taking the wounded back with them. Dangerous, but it would be extremely cold to leave them behind, and though these elves had shown themselves to be killers if need be, they were still people that cared to look out for each other.

Lia felt no guilt at using that against them. She wouldn't kill any of the common fighters unless they tried to kill her first. Their leader, however... if they were taking her back to this Braven, and he was indeed responsible for some of what had happened recently, she didn't know what she'd do. Ashfingers were dangerous enough, volatile enough. A violent, aggressive offshoot of that was far worse. One arrow could put a stop to it, cut off the wolf's head and leave the rest to flounder until their will broke, and they simply went back home in peace.

She didn't know how long they walked for, but it was around midday when she thought of the time again. They'd moved deep into Sunshore, to the point where the shore and the sound of the sea weren't really noticeable anymore. The others stayed some distance behind her, never far enough to lose sight, but with enough space that she'd be able to work, and make sure the way ahead was clear for them to proceed. It wouldn't do to walk into another ambush after they'd just survived the last.

It was as she neared the top of the next rise she heard voices, a pair of men from the sounds of things, one much angrier than the other. Lia lifted a hand in caution behind her, lowering herself and ignoring the protest of her sore leg. She crept up to the top of the hill for a better look.

"Get the wounded inside!" The man barking the order was an old elf, light brown hair beginning to fade into gray, long and coming together in a sharp widow's peak. Older though he was, he did not lack for physicality, and carried a long, slightly curved sword on one hip. Not at all unlike the blade Ithilian used to wield alongside Parshaara. His most notable article of clothing was the great white wolf pelt around his shoulders, not drawn up like a hood as the other leaders had. No doubt to better show his face. Whoever these people were, he was the leader of them. This had to be Braven.

"The rest of you, fan out and keep your eyes open. Our business here is not concluded yet. Yevvin, with me. I'll have your report once we're through." He turned and marched away, the pelt-wearing leader of the ambush group following him. It seemed they'd almost caught them in their pursuit, if they'd only just arrived. They entered a large wooden house, two stories tall and quite old by the looks of it, in serious need of some repairs. Likely abandoned. Lia figured it would make for an excellent meeting place, if that was what Braven had meant when he said his business was not yet concluded.

"I want in there," Lia whispered to the others, who had crept up quietly alongside her. "Braven's inside, and I don't think he's alone." Getting there was no simple matter, though, as taking on all these elven fighters would be difficult in of itself, not to mention it would ruin their chance at any valuable information they could secure here.

"Well I don't think we're walking through the front door," Cor replied in a similarly-low voice, grinning slightly even in present circumstances. "And they know they haven't put us down, but they did injure us pretty well. They might not be expecting company quite so soon." Braven might have set a watch, but that didn't mean all areas of the hideout would be covered equally well. "You think we can get in through the side? Window maybe? It looks like a normal house to me."

"Loath as I am to suggest anything that further divides our little strike force here, I think perhaps if there is to be sneaking about and looking for windows, Lia and I should handle it." Vito smiled a bit to gentle the assessment, waving vaguely at the metal armor the other two were wearing. "I assure you that if we enter a dangerous situation that requires a more percussive solution, I will be happy to provide the two of you with an obvious cue."

Had she only intended to eavesdrop, Lia would've suggested she go alone, but if the people inside the house were as high-value of targets as she suspected they might be... she wanted some form of backup, for the all too likely scenario in which she chose to strike. Somehow she doubted Kess would even mind, given that Braven clearly didn't care if she died. And Vito had a point: there'd be no one better for making a signal if they needed help, and also no one better to enable a retreat if they needed to make it.

"I'm fine with this," she said, taking another glance to make sure none of the insurgent elves were creeping up on them. "We'll get this done, and be on our way. Agreed?"

Cor clearly wasn't especially happy about the idea, but he had to see the practicality in it. He wasn't graceless like some armored fighters, but he would certainly make more noise than either she or Vito. He grimaced and pushed a breath from his nose, sending a baleful look in the direction of the house. "Last time we split up, you fell off the ceiling in a boat," he pointed out, managing a tinge of levity in his tone that his face just couldn't make convincing.

He abandoned it altogether after that. "Just... look after yourself, okay? You're good at that." If he'd guessed at the likelihood of Lia using the opportunity to take out a target, he wasn't showing itā€”with him, that probably meant he hadn't guessed. Cor was decidedly less-ruthless than she was, at least in that sense. The option probably hadn't really occurred to him, not as a serious choice.

He nodded shortly to Vito. "And maybe use that signal at first hint you need to."

"We'll be waiting for you both," Evie said, giving them a thumbs up in return.

Lia nodded, and then with a sideways tilt of her head she directed Vito to follow, and they separated from Evie and Cor. She knew he worried about her, she wasn't blind to it, and it wasn't unwarranted; what she did carried great risk with it, and required the utmost care. She worried for him, too, when he led the way into every fight he got into, when he felt the need to be every bit the hero Lucien always was. When he did idiotic things like diving on explosives to take it all himself.

But she couldn't manage to make herself put her own safety first and foremost here. Not if she was given a chance to do what Lucien and Sophia had brought her here for. She'd failed to bring them any kind of results for long enough.

The house was situated in a natural valley of sorts, with a thin stream running through it and heading towards the sea. Lia paused at the edge of it, before leading Vito quickly over into the grassy cover on the far side when it was clear. She kept her bow over her shoulder for the moment, and her hands free. She wanted optimal balance for this.

Cor's suspicion was right: they didn't seem to be expecting company immediately, especially not from a flanking direction. Most of them had spread out to the front of the house, leaving the rear approach largely vulnerable once they slipped past two of the elves. They didn't have a choice about leaving the windows open; most were shattered and completely unobstructed, letting the air pass freely through. Lia crept up quietly to one of these, pausing just below to listen for any occupants on the inside. Nothing.

Cautiously she grasped the windowsill and pulled herself up, silently planting a boot there as well to help get the rest of her through. Her feet touched down on a large rug in what looked to have once been a study or office. The room was empty now. Turning, she helped Vito climb in behind her. She could hear voices coming from the room beyond, one of them strangely familiar. She took slow steps across the room towards the open doorway. On the way she noticed a small hole in the deteriorating wall, much better for spying through to the other side than poking her head into the doorway would be. She pointed it out to Vito, and then lowered herself into a crouch to take a look.

He'd kept up pretty well thus far, and didn't ruin it now, crouching next to her and cocking his ear towards the gap.

"ā€”supplier was one thing. I don't care much if one mule dies, though finding someone with the same connections will not be easy. Of more concern is the Chantry issue. We need that lyrium, and we don't need any idiot humans figuring out what we're doing with it." The voice was distinct: low, almost raspy, but feminine and tinged with an accent not completely unlike Stel's.

Through the gap, Lia could just make out a fall of deep red fabric and the glint of gold against dark skin. Only northern elves ever looked like that, and even then it wasn't especially common. The woman faced mostly away from her, but Braven was in three-quarter profile just beyond her.

Braven answered with something, some less than pleased response about the worth of the lyrium, but Lia barely heard it, suddenly feeling breathless, her heartrate picking up rapidly. It clicked for her who was in the room with Braven a few moments after she spoke. She'd only heard the woman's voice a few times, and seen her just as rarely, but it wasn't someone Lia would forget. Leta, the apprentice of Marcus Alesius, the man who had been the general of Corypheus's army, and the leader of the now shattered Venatori. Perhaps not as shattered as they thought.

Leta was many things. Spy, assassin, a vicious fighter and a powerful mage. Skilled enough to fight alongside her master against Lia's father and Amalia. She hadn't been there when Lia helped her mentor cut down Marcus once and for all, imprisoned as she had been at Skyhold. But in Corypheus's attack she'd escaped, vanishing into the wind. It seemed the wind carried her here.

"My people have shouldered the burden thus far," Braven said coolly. No one in the room sat; Lia could make out another Venatori by the front door, staff in hand. They weren't wearing the white robes anymore, but a few of the armor pieces were unmistakable. "The Vhenallin have fought and bled to light the fire, and what has it burned so far? The human highborn are untouched. Perhaps it's time your Venatori came out of hiding and demonstrated their worth."

Vhenallin. Not a word Lia heard often, but Ithilian had taught her enough to deconstruct it. Friends of the People. The name of Braven's rogue detachment of the Ashfingers, no doubt. And they were working with the Venatori, now led by Leta, apparently. Lia wasn't sure what more she needed to hear. Lighting the fire... they'd all but admitted responsibility for the riot. Slowly, Lia reached a hand up to draw out her bow, carefully sliding an arrow free from her quiver with the other.

Leta sniffed, shifting slightly. It was just enough to compromise Lia's shotā€”she could still take it, but there were enough obstructions in the way that it would have to be a damn good one to hit her. "If by 'shouldered the burden' you mean 'tipped your hand,' then certainly." She expelled a breath through her nose. "But fine. The growing is moving quickly enough. Find me a suitable venue, and I'll help you burn the heart out of the Empire."

Lia shot Vito a look, one that was less worried over what was just said and more apologetic for what she was about to do. Her intent was clear enough, though. One arrow would be enough for one of the leaders, at which point they'd need to make an immediate escape if they wanted to live. Lia didn't have to think hard about who she wanted to take aim at. Leta would kill both of the two people closest to her if she got the chance. She'd been twisted by a horrifying past to the point of no return. She would never be forgiven for her crimes, and so she would keep committing them until someone stopped her. These were things Lia knew when she'd trained to capture Leta to begin with, and they still held true now.

But the angle wasn't right. The hole in the wall was barely big enough for the arrow to begin with, and with the obstructions... she'd be lucky to get a life-threatening hit on her, let alone a kill shot. She'd have to use the doorway. She'd be more exposed, but the shot would be clean. One room length, right through Leta's heart to leave no doubt.

She visualized it happening, took in a breath, and then made the one step necessary to place herself in the doorway, drawing back the bowstring as she did, and letting her arrow fly.

But the release of a bowstring wasn't noiseless, and the proximity was just enough that Leta must have detected it. She twisted, not enough to escape the hit, but enough to thwart the kill, and the arrow struck her well to the left of where it had been aimed, embedding itself just below one of her shoulderblades. Her cry of pain was muted, cut off by sheer force of will, it seemed, and she didn't pause to assess who had shot her before she turned and fired a barrage of icicle daggers for the doorway.

Lia didn't have time to get back into cover, her only defense being to throw her arms up and turn her face. Several shards deflected off her archer's bracer; Amalia had crafted her a dragonhide one a long time ago, and it still held up strong. She couldn't block everything, though. Both of her upper arms took slashes, and the lowest of the daggers pierced deep into her abdomen, striking her just under the ribcage. She staggered back into the wall, a splotch of blood falling to the floor where she'd stood.

"You've been breached." Leta's words to Braven were hissed more than properly spoken, but she paid him no more mind, tearing the arrow out of her back and advancing for the doorway.

"Time to go, I think." Vito was already making for the same window they'd entered through, shooting a cluster of lights out the broken pane in advance of his exit. They'd certainly make a bright-enough flash to alert Cor and Evie.

Lia looked up and made brief eye contact with Leta. They were both injured, but Lia was aware enough to know that she faced certain death if she stayed. She pushed off from the wall just as a lightning bolt from the other Venatori mage cracked against it. She vaulted out the window after Vito, a sharp pain from the dagger still embedded in her forcing her landing to be none too graceful. She fell briefly to a knee, but forced herself up and pushed forward. They needed distance, and they needed cover to make their escape.

"Fire," she managed, pointing back. "At the window."

"On it." There wasn't time for lilting pleasantry or lighthearted jokes at the moment, and in the absence of such, Vito's expression was hard, his motions swift and efficient. It took him a couple casts to have the ruined wood burning merrily, but he managed to cover the exit before anyone got to it, in any case. A frustrated shout from within could well have been Leta, but it would take her time to exit some other way, and in that time, they could be gone.

Between the lights and the fire, though, some of the Vhenallin outside the building had figured out that something was going on, and their reactions were quick enough to prove problematic. Three of them came around the side of the house before Lia and Vito could slip away, the first to spot them raising a cry of alarm.

Fortunately, the shout was cut shortā€”Cor and Evie fell upon the small group from the side. A heavy shield to the side of his head silenced the first of the group, and his nearest compatriot took a broad slash across the chest with the longsword. Evie intercepted the last, and the way was once again clear. At least for a moment.

Lia chanced a look down, finding that the ice of the dagger hilt had been coated red by this point. The magic's chill had started to seep into her, making her limbs feel sluggish. She was suddenly and painfully aware of the fact that she hadn't gotten any sleep the night before. They were in the clear for now, but they had a long run ahead of them, with no clear indication of when they could stop.

With Leta on the hunt, there was no stopping, not really. Not until someone was dead.

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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The walk back to Val Royeaux was hardly a triumphant one.

Vito honestly thought they'd done quite well, considering all that had been stacked against them. But he could see how it might be difficult to see things that way when they were essentially retreating, message undelivered, its answer perhaps sufficiently clear in other ways. He'd done what he could to attend to the fresh injuries, but that would be no substitute for bed rest and extended careā€”he was hardly a worker of miracles, even minor ones.

Disinclined to leave silence to reign given their relative safety back on the main road towards the city, he instead turned to Lia. "The woman inside, with this Braven fellow. You recognized her?" He could hardly imagine her risking their cover to take a shot at a complete stranger, even if her words did suggest some alliance with these Vhenallin.

She hummed a quiet confirmation, the first sound she'd made in quite some time. Of the four of them, Lia was easily the most injured, the magical attack she'd suffered having done a significant bit of damage. Their need to flee at speed from the scene meant she'd lost a fair amount of blood, too. At first she elected to continue walking on her own, but she'd since started using Corvin for some support, falling-over tired as she appeared to be. Talking would likely do her some good, at least until they reached a place she could sleep.

"Her name is Leta," she explained. "She's with the Venatori, or whatever's left of them. I helped capture her with the Inquisition, but she escaped when Corypheus attacked Skyhold. She's..." Lia paused, either pain or hesitation forcing it. "She's extremely dangerous. I should'veā€”" But she cut herself off, frustration clearly responsible this time.

"The Venatori?" Vito had heard stories, as one inevitably did in Val Royeaux. "If that's so, I think we were all quite fortunate to escape with all our limbs intact." He thought perhaps she was blaming herself for not slaying this Leta, but that seemed unfair to him. No doubt such a one was quite the formidable foe, and the mere information that she was involved in all of this had to count as revalatory.

He wondered, now, just how much Kestrel had known when she sent them out to the bolthole.

Corvin's expression had contorted in obvious surprise when Leta's name was mentioned, but it wasn't until then that he spoke. "It's a little more even than that," he murmured, shaking his head but keeping his steps steady. He apparently took his task as partial support for Lia quite seriously. "The man she used to work for was the Venatori's leader, and probably the second-most dangerous person in that army aside from Corypheus. She's... a hell of a mage, and I wouldn't put it past her to be capable of a lot more than what we've seen from these people so far."

He pressed out a breath. "Did you two manage to hear anything? We're in serious trouble if this is actually an alliance."

Vito hummed softly. "I wouldn't say they seemed to be on the closest terms, but they were definitely working together." And really, for something like that to work did not require that the people involved were close friends, by any means. Mutual interest was often sufficient to do the trick, and that he suspected they had.

"They admitted responsibility for the lyrium thefts," Lia added, rubbing at her eyes with her free hand, the one not latched onto Corvin's armor. "Leta's using it for something. Braven mentioned starting the fire, I don't know if he was speaking metaphorically, or if..." She paused a moment to swallow. "They may well be responsible for triggering the riot. Braven seemed frustrated that the nobility hadn't been hit much yet."

"So... The Ventatori are involved in all of this now," Evie had been keeping quiet during the whole of the conversation, soaking in the information, only now offering her own words. All things considered, she appeared to still be in good shape, only minor wounds centered on her shoulder and arm. Mention of the Venatori had deepened her frown and deflated her shoulders. It was abundantly clear this was all far deeper than she expected it to be. "And they're targeting the nobility," she sighed and shook her head, before she continued, "I'm willing to bet that they're going to start getting even bolder now."

She stared ahead distantly and deadpanned, "That isn't good."

Corvin shrugged his free shoulder. "Actually... it could be a lot worse. You can't get at a bunch of the nobility as easily as you can get at a bunch of ordinary people. A riot in the street won't touch them." He paused a moment, giving all three of them a significant look. "Narrows down both the methods they could choose and the venues they could target. And believe it or not, that makes our job easier."

Ah. Clever lad. "I suspect you've friends in the information business. At least it's not nothing to tell them." The temptation to think more deeply on it was there, of course. Vito knew some people he could lean on, but the trouble was that when one made a habit out of that sort of thing, one could very well accidentally wind up at the center of a dubiously-legal enterprise, and that was something he wasn't looking to do. Better to let the real spies do their spying, and confine his adventures to the aboveboard and preferably anonymous. He had a lot to look out for these days, after all.

They entered the city a great deal wearier than they'd left it, any lift in their steps rather weighted down by injury and the slight bitter aftertaste of a job that could have gone much better. Not entirely surprisingly, Kestrel was already inside the shop when he brought the others by for more thorough treatment; she looked as any other customer, browsing the wares with vague interest. When they entered, she took in their condition and frowned, but did not immediately speak. Apparently, the choice of priority was theirs to make.

Marisol broke the silence first. "Merda, PapĆ . What did you get yourselves into?" She stepped around the counter and approached, taking in the not-insignificant amount of dried blood on their clothes. It inaccurately reflected their current states given the patchwork healing they'd received, but still had to be somewhat alarming to look upon. She suddenly turned to Kestrel with an apologetic look. "I'm very sorry, you'll have to come back later."

"She's here to see us," Lia explained, separating from Corvin so she could lower herself slowly into a chair, exhaling deeply when she'd finally taken all the weight off her legs and could try to relax. "Probably figured something happened when we didn't come back right away."

"Oh." Marisol regarded Kestrel with a wholly different expression, no doubt seeing the woman in a new light. "I'll... be upstairs, then." She turned, and quickly disappeared, headed for her room.

"Three of the red ones next to your elbow, please." Vito figured as long as Kestrel was going to stand there, she could make herself useful. He'd have some explaining to do to Mari later, but for now the space to work was appreciated.

Kestrel didn't seem inclined to argue, and obligingly retrieved the items in question, sliding them down the counter towards him but maintaining her distance from the group of them.

"I take it Braven was not receptive to my message." Her expression pinched, a flicker of strain showing through the practiced placidity of her face.

"We did not in fact get a chance to deliver it. But I'm going to suppose he is not." Uncorking the first bottle, Vito handed it to Lia directly. "Slowly, pleaseā€”that's the strongest one I have; it's been known to turn the stomach." She took his advice, taking it a sip at a time. It seemed she preferred to leave the explaining to Corvin, though.

"How much do you know about the Venatori?" he asked, exhaling heavily and leaning back against the counter. It was the first time he'd expressed any fatigue yet, though there was a certain tension to him that gave away the fact that he wasn't entirely out of energy even now. "Because your friend is making new ones without you, and they're not exactly upstanding people, even by your standards." He lifted his arms to cross them over his chest, exposing the bloody side of his mail, where the ambusher's dagger had found purchase. If he remembered it was there, he was doing a very good job of not acting like it.

"The lot of them are calling themselves the Vhenallin now, apparently. And they're looking to trade any hint of subtlety for outright violence." His eyes fell to Lia for a moment before he flicked them back to Kestrel. "It sounds like they're moving a lot of stolen lyrium, and that they started the riot, so I'm willing to bet those two things are connected."

Kestrel blinked, then furrowed her brows. "You think the drug contains lyrium? That would explain some of its properties... but lyrium is quite expensive for something mass-distributed that way."

Vito, setting another potion down next to Corvin's elbow, shrugged slightly. "Actually, it's not. The Chantry keeps a tight lid on it, especially in this country, but there's plenty of it to be found if you know where to look." Such alternative sources were the entire reason he could afford to make lyrium-based potions himself, though they were weaker than standard. "Besides, the amount you'd need in something like that probably isn't very high. Just a pinch of the dust would do, if the goal was to amplify the addictive properties of something else, which I presume is what they'd use it for here."

Kestrel blew out a breath, halfway between a sigh and something more ironic. A huff, perhaps. She shook her head, briefly disturbing the wisps of dark hair against her neck. "Well. This is quite a lot to think about. It seems we've all upheld our ends of the bargain to the extent circumstances permit, so I'll call it even in any case." She paused a moment there, almost hesitant.

"I will... look into this. I suspect we will be in touch. In the meantime, do try not to die." With a swift nod, she took her leave, the bell on the shop's door jangling softly in her wake.

Corvin smacked his lips together with a grimace, setting the empty bottle back down where Vito had placed it originally. "That's, uh, something." Shifting his attention to the door for a moment, he straightened, flexing his hands in their gauntlets. "Julien's going to want to hear about all of this as soon as possible. I can handle that, if you all want to get some rest."

"Appreciated." Lia looked to be about halfway through her potion, her pace of drinking it slower now than when she started. She didn't seem to have paid all that much attention to the conversation with Kestrel, lost in some of her own thoughts instead "I'm just gonna..." She trailed off, lifting her eyes until they found Vito's. "You have somewhere I can lie down here? Just for a little while." It was a safe bet she'd be asleep for more than a little while if she was allowed to.

Not that he minded. "Of course. We've a spare cot upstairs that you're welcome to." With a sturdy smile, he nodded his thanks to the other two. "The rest, I think, can wait."

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"Here kitty, kitty, kitty," Evie beckoned, but the cat proved stubborn, and continued to stare at her like she had something on her face. She huffed after the calls had no effect and inched closer to the feline on top of a roof she absolutely did not trust. About twenty minutes prior, she had been safely on ground level, practicing her forms on the legs of a broken table she had found and propped up next to her door. She had just taken a break when a young girl, no more than fix or six, had wandered up to her. From her clothing Evie could guess that she was another resident of Riverside, just like her, a neighbor perhaps. The girl had tears in her eyes, and when Evie asked what was wrong, she had pointed at the cat that stared down on them from her roof.

The same cat that stared at her like she was a fool now. The roof of her house was not the sturdiest and already she had put her foot through a rotted corner-- she was going to have to find another bucket to catch the water when it rained. From then she had taken her time to crawl across her room, careful to stay on the crossbeams that held the roof up in one piece. Less likely for her to fall through on those, though not impossible... "Come here sweetie, someone misses you," she pleaded with the cat. Nothing, just more blank stares. She grumbled with herself and too another movement forward as she crawled ever closer.

She had given up trying to reason with it by that point, and instead focused not causing any more damage to her roof or even worse, taking a nose dive off of the side. Eventually, she did manage to reach the cat, and fortunately it appeared friendly enough to allow itself to be picked up without clawing at Evie's face. That was good, and slowly but surely she made her way back and began to climb down the side of her house with the precious cargo under her arm. Almost reminds her of her brief stint in the Academie, except the climbing exercises there required her to do in her full plate and gear. In comparison, carrying just a cat was a breeze.

Eventually, she reached the ground and the waiting child. "Kitty!" she said as Evie deposited it into her arms. "You know better, mommy told us to stop climbing houses," she chastised the cat. Evie agreed with the mother, if the other houses roofs were anything like hers. "Thank you miss!" the child said to Evie. She nodded her head and crouched to better see the child. She smiled and ruffled the fur on the kitty's head as she spoke, "You're most welcome, just try to keep this troublemaker out of trouble," she said playfully.

She hadn't quite made it back to standing before a familiar voice called out to her. "Evie-girl!"

The speaker wasn't exactly unexpected; he showed up with a military sort of regularity to check in with her, though little trace of the same could be found in his appearance now. Marcel, her older brother, was dressed neatly enough, and the sword at his hip probably never left it, but the bright orange scarf wound around his neck was assuredly not regulation, nor was the length of his dark hairā€”longer than she kept hers, actually, and pulled into a queue at his nape, bits and pieces escaping the discipline as always.

He grinned, flashing bright teeth, stepping up to where she and the little girl stood. "Making new friends, I see." He offered her neighbor a gallant bow, more than a little overblown quite on purpose. "What might our new friend's name be?"

The little girl's eyes lit up at Marc's timely appearance and seemed rather taken by his panache, but before she could give them her name, it was yelled at them from down the row of houses. "Christine!" the voice called, and looking behind Marc, Evie could see that it belonged to an older, portly woman. She stood in front of a house a couple down from Evie's own, but most notably [[[she had her eyes were stuck]]] on Marc, even as she spoke. "Come on home now," she said, and the little girl nodded.

The girl, Christine apparently, looked back to Evie and said, "Thanks again miss!"

Evie smiled again and nodded, "Anytime, just take care of our furry friend," she offered, and watched both child and cat wander back home, where undoubtedly the mother shuffled her back inside the house. Evie watched for a moment before turning to Marc, "You know, something tells me the mother doesn't like you," Evie noted, and she had a feeling she knew why. The lower classes she found did not trust the Chevaliers, and though it probably wasn't immediately apparent that Marc was an officer, there was something very obviously military about him, plus the sword at his hip probably didn't help.

He shrugged, obviously unconcerned. "Perhaps not. More importantly, Evie-girl, are you going to invite me in, or will we be having our conversation in the middle of the street?" He quirked a brow, tilting his head towards her front door.

"Had I spent a few more minutes up there, I don't think there would've been much of a difference," she said with some consternation as she looked toward where she had put her foot through her roof. Turning back to Marc she nodded, "But sure, let's move this inside," she offered, leading the way toward her door. She paused a moment to retrieve the estoc she had left leaning against the desk and then moved in, leaving the door open behind her for Marc.

The inside was much like the outside. Plain and uninspired. The first room they were in was a sitting room in the front, with a pair of chairs and an old fireplace and a kitchen in the back, with a counter and a an even older wood burning stove. Another door led off to the side where her bedroom was. There wasn't much in the was of decoration, aside from a single sword hung above the fireplace-- the sword she had taken from her uncle's house back when she had first accompanied Cor and Lia.

"I would've baked you something, but... my ingredients are running low," as they always were these days.

Marc sighed quietly, taking one of the chairs. It creaked almost alarmingly under his weight when he did, but held steady for now. "No need to worry about that." He smiled again, though it was a bit more strained this time. "With no war on and no field duty, I might actually have to start minding what I eat!"

The smile faded; his eyes landed on the sword over the mantel. His brows furrowed for a moment, but it was hard to tell exactly what he was thinking. He shifted his attention back to her, deftly untying something from his belt with one hand. When he set it on the table, it jingledā€”clearly there were coins in it. "There's the usual allowance in there, plus a bit from mother, and a bit from me. Maybe hire someone to get this roof patched." He couldn't hide his displeasure at having to say that, but he tried.

Evie frowned herself. She wasn't fond of having to have an allowance, but the fact remained that without it, she would probably go hungry. The jobs from the Lions were few and far between, and went to other things like armor repairs. At this point, her breastplate was probably more patch than original metal. Then she moved to the hole in her roof-- or holes, rather. There were more than the one she just made. She shook her head and took the seat opposite of Marc and began scratching at her hairline. "Maybe," she said with the same level of enthusiasm Marc had. In all honesty, she didn't like to dwell on her current lot, and would rather be doing things that took her mind off of it.

In that vain, "How is mother, anyway?" she asked.

"Same as always." Marc hummed, mostly to himself. "We're... talking to father, she and I. About you. I think part of him regrets what's happened, and after all this business with Uncle Jeanā€”we might be able to bring him around." He leaned forward slightly, bracing both his forearms on the table and ducking his head slightly so they could meet eyes directly.

"This isn't forever, Evie. Just... try to keep your head up, okay? You won't have to live like this forever."

"Yeah, that's the plan," Evie said, a little more resigned than he had. She too had leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. "One foot after the other right?" she said. She wasn't so sure about it herself. Her father had been very... Firm on his decision, and he was never the type of man to go back on the things he decided on for no reason. However, Marc was right on one thing. She would not have to live like this forever-- though that relied more on her than them. She would have to improve her situation somehow.

Easier said than done. In essence she was starting from the beginning, and she had no idea how to begin again. She supposed helping out Cor and Lia was a start, but that was sporadic, and never felt focused. She was there to give aid when they needed it. Thinking about it made her feel lost and and threatened to drag her back out of inaction. It was why she always felt like she had to be doing something, moving, training, something other than laying in bed and relying on the allowance from her family. But to do something more? She didn't even know where to start. She shook her head slightly, thinking about it too hard made her feel trapped.

Marc cleared his throat, as if to remind her of his presence. "Anyway, tell me more about how things are with you. What keeps you busy these days, Evie-girl?" He must have sensed at least some of her unease, for he showed no inclination to linger on the topic of their father.

She wanted to spill everything to him, and almost had before she reined herself in and bit her lip, both metaphorically and literally. "A little mercenary work here and there, but other than that," she said, glancing at her uncle's sword. "We're trying to look into what Jean had gotten himself into..." She admitted. Between them, Evie had the closer relationship to their uncle. She wasn't blind, she knew how her uncle's actions had turned the opinion against him, she could see it in his eyes. What he did was horrid and irredeemable, but despite herself, she could only see the man who had taken it upon himself to train her to be a Chevalier. Clearly, that too had failed, but she would always appreciate the effort.

"He definitely got in over his head," she said, with a look at Marc that stated the obvious. She refrained from mentioning the Ashfingers however and the Venatori involvement. Both because she did not want him to worry-- and letting any information about the Ashfingers slip would invariably not be a good thing. Kess was a woman of means, she she'd rather not have it turned against her.

Her brother did indeed furrow his brow a little at the mention of their uncle, but since he'd brought up the topic himself earlier, it probably wasn't just that. "Who's 'we'?" There was evident curiosity in his toneā€”clearly he hadn't expected her to be part of any such investigations.

"A couple of Argent Lions," she answered, "And a rather unique Antivan fellow." She frowned after that and crossed her arms. "The Lions were the ones who found Jean, they've been investigating ever since. I asked to tag-a-long because... well, he was our uncle," she said shaking her head, "Feels like the least I could do is try to clean up his mess."

That brought something to mind. She glanced back up at Marc and asked, "How's father and you handling it? The Order hasn't been too hard on you because of the relation, have they?"

Marc shrugged. "Nothing especially difficult. Of course the Emperor prefers his knights with clean noses, but he is not the type to condemn a family for one member's... indiscretions." It was difficult to read his tone. Marc had always been of the view that soldiers ought not express their political inclinations one way or another if at all possible. They were the blades of the Empire, not its philosophers or politicians. It wasn't the most common view, but it wasn't exactly fringe in the ranks either; enough people thought the same that he never lacked for agreement on the point.

He waved the matter away, however, refocusing his attention on Evie. "But Argent Lions, Evie-girl? Is that really entirely... necessary?"

"Marc, I don't exactly have a lot of resources to call on here," she said, gently motioning toward their surroundings. "And besides, they were the ones who uncovered what Jean was doing first, it's technically more their investigation than mine," she said, leaning back in her seat. Maybe if she had visited more or been with him more, she could have seen what he was doing and steered him elsewhere. Jean had always been a difficult man to move, but maybe she would've had a shot. Instead she failed out of the Academie and spent the following months pitying and feeling sorry for herself. Still sometimes did, it appeared.

She shook her head and looked back at Marc. "And I'd rather not involve you and father if I can help it," she said. "You two still have your honor and image intact. I'd rather you not risk it by rooting around in the mud with me," she said with a self-deprecating smile. It was one reason, the others involving Ashfingers and Venatori. She'd rather they didn't find themselves a target for either group.

"Don't worry about me Marc," she said, her smile warming up, "I may not be a Chevalier, but I was raised by them. I'll be fine." At least, she hoped. She didn't exactly measure up then, and she hoped that she would not find herself wanting again on down the line.

The shuttered expression on his face, while difficult to interpret, suggested that her persuasion had not been especially effective. Marc sighed almost under his breath, then dredged up a smile. "Well... I'm sure the official inquiry will conclude soon regardless. Whatever else the mercenaries are doing won't have much to do with you, no doubt." He shrugged, patted her hand, and then reached down to his belt, untying another pouch.

This one, though, looked to contain a deck of cards. "You still know how to play corners, I hope?" That was clearly teasing, and his whole face brightened with it, boyish grin flashing and lighting his dark eyes.

"One way to find out," she answered with a sly grin.

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Before the crack of dawn, even before most of Riverbend had roused itself awake, Evie was up. The first few days of forcing herself awake at this hour, her body and mind revolted, but eventually it relented. She had lost the discipline necessary to wake before the sun once, instead slipping out of sleep whenever she could sleep no more. Instead, she would lay in bed and let the day pass her back wasting her days in self pity. Regardless, she found it far more difficult to wake up without a drill instructor yelling in her face. She had to shove a number of tacks into her candle for them to jangle loud enough on the copper candle holder to wake her up.

It'd gotten easier. It was never easy but it had gotten easier. She didn't need as many tacks these days, and after the first fell, she dutifully rose and began to dress. As became part of her morning routine, after she dressed and slipped her pant legs into her boots, she slipped her estoc's sheath over her shoulder and stepped outside. She didn't plan to go far, and turned to stand in front of the broken table that leaned against her makeshift home. The bottom legs had broken off, and it was kind of charred from the riots, but it served her purposes. Evie drew her estoc and stood in front of the table, imagining an enemy. She proceeded to step through her stances, complete with parries and imaginary strikes, working through her whole repertoire more than once, until the sun began to rise over the horizon.

She had already developed a sweat when her practice was interrupted. "Miss Lafleur?" Evie turned toward the voice that addressed her, estoc resting on her shoulder. The man speaking was a city guard-- strange enough to see in Riverbend-- though he was a younger one. A rookie, if Evie had to guess. "I have a message from the Guard for you." Definitely a rookie. The guard pulled a letter out of his armor and offered to it, the seal of the city guard keeping it folded. After she accepted it and nodded her thanks, the guard took his leave.

Evie took a seat on her steps, her estoc leaning against her knees as she opened the letter and read. It was from the guard captain herself, and said that there had been a development concerning her uncle's case. That if she was curious or interested in following the lead, she should report to the guardhouse. It wasn't a difficult choice to make, and after about twenty minutes, she had donned her breastplate and a tunic over it, and was beginning to make her way in that direction.

Her path eventually led her to the said place, the Guardhouse. It was a stark and orderly contrast to the roughness of her own adopted neighborhood. After speaking to another guard and explaining everything, she was taken in and led toward the captain's office. As the door was opened for her, it seemed that she hadn't been the only one to receive a letter. Corvin, Vito, and Lia were waiting for her, but not for long if their posture was anything to go by. She gave them a small wave before turning toward the Captain. "I guess this means this is bigger than just my uncle then?"

The office was sparsely-appointed and immaculate, though there were enough chairs in it for all four of them to sit if they so desired. Vito and Corvin had availed themselves of the opportunity, and the former offered Evie a small smile before returning his attention to the woman on the other side of the plain desk.

If the signature on the letter was anything to go by, her name was Captain Ines Bernard. Dressed not so differently from Evie, she wore serviceable light ringmail with little to distinguish her rank save the subtle embroidered stripes on the high dark blue collar that showed beneath the layer of armor. Her hair was chopped to the exact level of her shoulders, an unremarkable chestnut color with the first few hints of grey barely visible in the mix. Her eyes were dark, assessing, and she gestured shortly at an empty chair before folding both hands beneath her chin.

"It was always bigger than Jean-Louis Lafleur. You discovered that yourselves, if I'm not mistaken." The Captain paused, taking a long draw from an opaque cup. It smelled of coffee, which correlated with the dark circles beneath her eyes.

"I won't bore you with details unless you want them, but the reason I asked you here is because we finally managed to track the "M" from his letters. Trouble is, he's holed up in a place the Guard can't reach."

Evie's back straightened as the captain spoke. She glanced at the other three collected in the room and then back to Ines before she spoke again, "I am curious, but the details can come later," Evie agreed, "Though, I guess the most important ones are where are they, and who they are?" Evie asked, brows raised.

"Who is still not entirely clear." The Guard-Captain set her coffee cup down with a long sigh. "M is apparently male, dark-haired, human, and entirely unremarkable, which I suppose is what you want to be when you're handing out orders to the lowest level of some sort of criminal organization." Ines, of course, didn't know nearly as much as the four of them knew about exactly what kind of criminal organization it really was, or who ran it.

"What I know a little better is where. He's rumored to be in a section of the Riverbend sewers. Problem is, the section is in the kind of neighborhood where the Guard isn't much welcome. Not the Alienage, but in theā€”" she paused, clearly searching for the right word. When she found it, her tone hardened. "ā€”jurisdiction of a particularly difficult gang. They call themselves the Untouchables, which should give you some idea how they feel about city guards operating in their territory."

"And you're concerned that this gang is hiding M or something?" Corvin wore a puzzled expression, as though it didn't quite add together the right way in his head, but gave the Captain respectful silence in which to answer the question.

The captain shook her head, the ends of her hair brushing armored shoulders. "It's just the opposite problem: they're hunting him, too, and what they have in mind is not an arrest and a trial." She grimaced, then elaborated. "Kotterā€”not his real name, I'm sureā€”was moving that Ember you found out about. But not while knowing exactly what it would do. Petty crime lord he may be, but it's not in his interest for his customers to die or be that debilitated, and no doubt he was... unhappy to discover what the stuff did."

Vito blinked. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Captain, but why not just let them have him? Do you think he has some information that makes all the trouble worth it?" His tone was delicate, but it wasn't too hard to make out a bit of disbelief in it too, for some reason.

She sighed. "Honestly I have no idea. But he's the best lead we have, and so yes. I'm hoping we can get him first. I'd like to say something here about justice and fair chances, too, but I can't really claim the courts would do any better. Not always known for fairness, as you're probably aware."

"So I've heard," Corvin replied dryly. "So if I'm putting this all together right, you want us to see if we can figure out exactly where in the sewer he's holed up before they find him, and get him out alive for questioning?"

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. The posture didn't seem defensive, only thoughtful. "Is there anything more you can tell us about this gang?"

Captain Bernard hummed low in her throat, a contemplative sound. "The Untouchables are run by a dwarf named Kotter. As I said, probably not the name he was born with, but that hardly matters. We don't know much about his lieutenants save one. Human fellowā€”the others call him Bleeder. Rumor has it he's a blood mage, though no one's been able to confirm that." She wrinkled her nose, distaste for the possibility clear. "They're well-organized, and they operate in a cell structure: everyone knows what they need to know to get their work done, and no more. It means even if we can arrest one of them, we likely don't get anything but one or two more names or aliases. None of the low-level people know anything about the leaders or what they do exactly. I only know this much because I managed to plant a couple guards in the ranks, but the trouble is keeping them there."

"And is illicit alchemy their main business?" Vito rubbed at the edge of his beard, partway up his cheek.

"As far as we know. Of course, you have to commit a lot of other crimes to be successful at that. Smuggling, probably some extortion... we suspect them of a few murders, rivals that met a bad end, but I can't say it was certainly them without more evidence, so I won't."

"And what's the driving force behind the people going against the guard here?" Lia had been silent thus far, sitting straight-backed and somewhat ill at ease in her chair. She seemed more... rigid, perhaps, in this building than elsewhere that Evie had seen her. If she was making any effort to hide that, it wasn't working. "Are they afraid of retribution from the Untouchables if they help you?"

The guardswoman shook her head. "I don't think so. No doubt there's at least some of that, but for the most part..." She grimaced, pushing a breath out through her nose. "There's a lot of history bound up in this, and I doubt I need to tell you that the Guard itself hasn't always... cared. About certain areas of the city. Leave a place like that isolated for enough time, and someone else becomes the stabilizing force. Local law, if you like. The Untouchables are like that. Much as it pains me to say so, by and large their community looks to them for leadership. There's a loyalty there, and that's the real issue for us in terms of getting the information we need."

"So we can't expect much outside help if we find ourselves against the Untouchables," Evie noted, crossing her arms while shaking her head. Sounds like their best bet would to try and get in and get out as quickly as possible, though such plans rarely go so smoothly. "Regardless, it sounds like this is a time sensitive matter if they're looking for this M as well. Unless there's anything else we should know, we should probably get started then?" she asked the others for a confirmation.

"Let's." Vito lowered his hands to the arms of his chair and pushed himself out of it with perhaps a bit more vigor than was necessary. Touching his open hand to his chest, he inclined his head to the woman at the desk. "Thank you, Captain, for the information. I'm sure it's not... regular, for a relative to work on anything in connection with a case, nor..." He paused, glancing between Corvin, Lia, and himself. "Well, any of us, really."

Captain Bernard huffed softly through her nose. "If you get the job done, serah, I couldn't possibly care less. Good luck out there."

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Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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The 'Switchback,' as this particular Riverbend neighborhood was called, was more or less exactly what Vito expected it to be. The whole area was in a similar state of shoddy repair to the rest of the districtā€”roofs missing shingles and patched with straw, crumbling foundations, and buckled cobblestone alleyways narrow and reeking. But there was nevertheless a certain order to it: the streets were clear, mostly free of refuse and debris, the uneven windows in poorly-made frames were clean. A few flower boxes supported wilting blooms or herbs.

There was nothing well-to-do about the place, but the sense of pride and community was there. Subtle, hard to detect, but present. If the Captain was to be believed, it was a criminal organization that provided at least some of this unity, and Vito had no difficulty believing that at all.

He had seen it before.

There were a few people out and about; late morning as it was, though, most had already settled into whatever their work would be for the day. The echo of a forgehammmer rang down the street; a few merchants reclined under their awnings, already done with most of their business after the morning grocery runs. Rough-looking men and women loitered on a few of the corners, apparently preoccupied with dice or cards, but Vito knew them for eyes and ears, probably with a direct line to someone who could pass the information up to the area's boss.

"It is almost like being home." He grinned. "I think we'll want to be careful with our words, yes?"

Lia's hand didn't linger on the hilt of her dagger, but the keen-eyed could notice that it never wandered far from it, either. This was not the Alienage nor the Harbor District; being an elf or an Argent Lion would afford her and Corvin few advantages here. Still, it was a step up from being a city guard.

"We shouldn't split up, either," she advised. "No need to make ourselves any more vulnerable than we have to. And there's a foul mood here today besides."

"Glad I wasn't just imagining it," Evie noted. Her eyes had been drifting to their flanks ever since they entered the neighborhood. Fortunately, she too kept her hands away from her weapons, and even decided to forgo her helmet this time.

Still, her body language was rigid, and her shoulders were stiff. "I second not splitting up too," she said, glancing back at them for the moment, before returning to their vigil.

In contrast to the overt wariness of Vito's other two companions, Corvin looked as at-ease as ever, apparently unconcerned with the tense mood, though from his lack of surprise at their words, clearly not oblivious to it.

"We need to know where in the sewers this fellow is, right? Bad mood or not, I think that's going to take some asking." He did frown slightly then. "Probably better not to pick someone at random though. What d'you think, Vito?"

"I think we need to find the kind of person who doesn't mind talking to an outsider." Or who might not yet know how to pick one out of a crowd. There was a sort he had in mind, but it might be as much a matter of luck as anything. Still, the first thing to do was find a sewer entrance, or an area nearby one. Chances were, the average person here didn't know much about what was going onā€”they could be as charming as they liked, but it would be a waste if their target didn't have the information they wanted.

Val Royeaux had a decent infrastructure for these things, but in places as old and worn down as this, it was obviously not in peak condition. What had once been efficient channels cut into the sides of the streets, funneling runoff into grated openings, was now interrupted by uneven ground, bucked by years of alternating heat and cold, broken cobblestones, weeds sprouting from the cracks, and general neglect. Some of the water had come to rest in still, stagnant pools, the smell nearly enough to wrinkle his nose.

But Vito had grown up in worse slums than these. He followed the street, pausing only to glance over each grate for hints of tampering. A few were rusted or missing a few bars, but not enough to admit a person. All were still relatively secure in their housing.

It wasn't until he rounded a corner that they struck pay dirt, so to speak. Just what he'd been looking for. A cluster of three young children, somewhere between seven and twelve, were crouched in front of another grate, peering down or cocking their ears as though listening for something very particular.

"I'd be surprised if they don't know anything."

Lia approached first, squatting next to them, propping her elbows on her knees. "What're you kids doing?" she asked.

The one nearest her, a small boy who had to be the youngest of the group, shifted away from her by about a foot, little eyes quickly sweeping her up and down. "Papa says I'm not supposed to talk to you."

"No?" Her eyebrows lifted. "And why's that?"

"You're an elf," the child replied. "Papa says your kind are dirty."

Lia didn't react much, only looking as though she'd just smelled something foul. They were next to a sewer grate, after all. "Ah. Well, I'd bet a silver your papa's gone longer than I have without a bath. You too, for that matter." The child had no reply to that, instead turning his gaze on the others in the group of strangers, and examining them as well.

Vito, well aware of his obvious foreign-ness, glanced for a moment at Evie, but had second thoughts almost immediately. Antivan he may be, but he was willing to bet he still knew better how to speak to a child of this sort than someone raised to nobility.

So he too crouched, on the other side of Lia, for once not too worried about dragging his sleeves through muck. He'd worn more fitted ones for this, though the tunic to which they belonged was only slightly less vivid in its colors than usual. He leaned a little further forward, the better to make eye contact with the kid around his companion, and arched a thick brow.

"Rat hunting, eh?" He smirked in a knowing sort of way, and jerked his chin at the grate. "Probably didn't let you come with, right?" It was just a guess, but it was an educated one.

The boy's eyes widened fractionally, but he nodded. "Papa says I can't go till I'm big. But I know that place just as good as Thom does!"

Vito hummed, bobbing his head in an agreeable way. "I think your papa is forgetting that brains are just as important as being big." Propping an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, he continued very seriously. "Are they doing it right down there, you think?"

The child's little face scrunched in thought, but after a while he shook his head. "The rat's got the place all rigged up, I bet. They went down from the big entrance by Kerwen's."

Extrapolating the likely implications, Vito stroked his goatee. "I bet lots of people know that one, including the rat." He paused a moment, as if in consideration. "Which entrance would you have used?"

The boy hesitated, his eyes flicking between the four of them. Vito didn't push any harder, keeping his expression open and friendly. He wouldn't get an answer if he applied too much pressure.

"Why're you askin'?"

Vito shrugged, a loose motion with no particular urgency. "We've got a rat to hunt, too." From one of his sleeves, he produced a silver coin, palming it, then holding it halfway out towards the boy between his thumb and forefinger.

This seemed to be an acceptable motivation at least. No doubt the bribe helped. After a moment more thought, the boy snatched the coin as though it might disappear at any moment. "I'd use the one behind the cathouse. Rat used to be sweet on one of the girls there."

It certainly stood to reason that this mysterious fellow wouldn't trap a passage he intended to use. Perhaps he still did.

Corvin's eyebrows were somewhere up near his hairline; he'd grinned through much of the exchange between Vito and the boy. "Looks like we've got an in," he remarked with a vaguely-perplexed smile. "What say we take it before our window of opportunity gets shut in our faces, eh?"

"A most apt suggestion, Mattone." Vito pushed himself back into a stand with his hands on his knees, then dusted himself off a bit by reflex. As promised, the day was apparently going to include an expedition into the sewers. How lovely.

Finding the 'cathouse' in a neighborhood of this size was at least partially a matter of asking around, and he was sure they made an unfortunately-memorable group of inquirers, at that. It was difficult to imagine that none of the Switchback's more criminally-inclined had not observed at least part of their progress; he honestly wouldn't be surprised if the boy they'd spoken to had immediately told just such a person about the conversation. It was just good business sense, after allā€”he might find himself with another few coppers for the trouble.

Having once been such a child, Vito knew the stupid ones rarely survived all that long.

Still, even in a neighborhood like this, there were plenty of people apathetic enough to point them in the right general direction without batting an eyelash at the picture they made, and the four of them had just entered what he suspected was the right block when a pair of shadows detached themselves from the close alley walls and blocked their way forward.

Ah. This would be the other shoe falling, then. Kotter ran an efficient operation, it seemed.

The first was a dwarf, young, female, with more than enough brawn to make up for her lack of height, while the other was an older human man, at least fifty, with greasy long hair and a full beard, the type that looked like he'd been in this sort of life forever. It came as no surprise that Kotter's outfit attracted more of his own kind, as they were very likely to share some of his experiences and relate to him in a way they never could with a Val Royeaux local.

But neither of them spoke at first, perhaps hoping their message would come across nonverbally, and while it did, the effect was negligible. Lia crossed her arms. "We're going this way. Move."

"I'd advise you go the other way," the dwarf responded, "straight back home. The Untouchables know why you're here. Kotter only wants to gut one person today, but if you force the issue he has no problem making it five."

"Gruesome," Corvin observed, though he didn't sound particularly threatened. "Thanks for the advice; I do like my guts best inside my body." He shrugged a little. "But... we're still going this way, if you'll excuse us." He took a step forward as if to emphasize the point, looking for all the world as though he fully intended to keep walking right into the pair of them.

Whether it was merely the utter boldness of this move, the strangeness, the elf's considerable build, or something else, they both shifted out of his way. "Fuckin' knife-ear," the man muttered, but it sounded more like confusion than vitriol.

For his part, Corvin gave a careless little salute in response, a clear indication he'd heard the words and was ignoring them as surely as the warning.

Vito just barely resisted the urge to laugh at the looks on their faces, managing only to constrain his mirth into a light chuckle. There was something to be said for a sense of self-possession so robust as that. He and the others followed the path their warrior friend blazed for them, and they were harassed no further on their way to the brothel.

As their erstwhile informant had promised, there was a grate set into the alley behind the building. It smelled exactly as he expected it to, considering that a large residential building disposed of waste here. Rank.

"I suppose I should be grateful a city of this size has a consistently-functional sewer system at all." The observation did not stop him from wrinkling his nose. Thank the Maker he'd worn boots and trousers today. The idea of anything down there soaking into the hem of a robe was nauseating.

Glancing around briefly, Vito observed no watchers. So he reached for a gentle application of a telekinetic spell and used it to shift the grate aside, so as to not need to touch it. It scraped with a dull rumble over the broken cobblestones next to it, before coming to a stop a few feet back. "All right then. Who would like the honors?"

"Can't be any worse than Darktown," Corvin observed, moving up to the exposed gap in the street and peering down to confirm the distance. "Bit of a jump, but the end looks pretty clear, actually." It certainly stank regardless, but it was a degree better than the alternative.

Lowering himself down, Corvin disappeared a moment later. It took a couple seconds, but he called back up. "Bit slick on the landing; rain I guess. I'll stand close so no one falls."

"Rain... right." Lia finished tugging on a pair of leather gloves, full-fingered rather than the open style she seemed to prefer. She was also prepared enough to have a cloth mask she could pull up and fasten over her mouth and nostrils. She lowered herself through the opening after Corvin.

"That's what I'm telling myself, anyway," Evie replied, as if saying it would make it true. She too had already pulled up her scarf around her nose and mouth, and had ever since Vito began to move the grate. She stared at the gap for a moment, internally struggling and before sighing and resigning herself to her fate. "Never saw myself in this position a year ago," she muttered before following behind Lia.

"Well I certainly hope not." Vito, without a scarf or any other such protection against the stench, was simply going to have to make do.

He lowered himself as far as he could before dropping the rest of the way, landing and immediately steadying himself as his left foot threatened to slip out from beneath the rest of him. Fortunately, Corvin was present as promised, and a hand on the sturdy elf's shoulder was more than enough to keep him upright.

The sewer was as ripe and dank as expected; it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, punctuated only occasionally by shafts of weak light from grates in the street. And better to keep away from those, lest something be deposited through the slats at an inopportune time.

"Best be on the lookout for these traps, then." Soft purple light bloomed over his hand, and he sent it to move ahead of the group, hopefully a little bit of warning before they stumbled across something deadly.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: [NPC] Bartender Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Lately pretty much nothing had been able to turn Corvin's stomach, and he wasn't terribly surprised to learn that this was no exception to the new rule. He supposed he'd always had a pretty good oneā€”the first time they'd both seen a charred dead body, Donny had puked his guts out on the Coast, but Corvin had been fine to run all the way back to Kirkwall for help. Not for the dead bodies, of courseā€”for the one among them that wasn't quite so dead.

Maybe it came of being raised in a place that didn't smell too much better than this.

He led the way through the sewer tunnel, occasionally sidestepping something that looked particularly rank, but runoff rainwater mostly did its job in washing the worst of things into the deeper trough at the center of the passage, where it was eventually carried to places he'd really rather not think about ever. There was still enough light coming in from the grates overhead to occasionally illuminate their way, but Vito's magelight was a much more consistent, welcome aid to vision.

If the hints they'd heard so far were correct, there was every reason to suspect that parts of this passage were trapped, so Corvin kept his eyes moving, looking for tripwires in particular, as they were the easiest kind of mechanism to set up on short notice and in a place like this. He couldn't imagine anyone wanting to stay here long enough to install a pressure plate, but magic was always an option too, so he wasn't going to be stupid and careless.

"Which way do we want from here, exactly?" he asked, pausing at an intersection. It seemed pretty systematic down here: north-south tunnels met east-west ones, and they were pretty much all arrow-straight. He had a pretty good sense of direction most of the time, but it was a lot harder without being able to see the sky.

Evie spun on her heel, taking a look down all four tunnels, even the one that they had come down moments ago. Her facial expressions were hidden by the scarf pulled up over her nose and mouth, but it was still obvious she was just as flummoxed as Corvin was. "Dunno..." she said, eyes lingering on the left-hand tunnel, "They all look the same to me. Any of them particularly look like they've seen more foot traffic then the others?" she asked over her shoulder and directed the query to Lia.

"I remember when my assignments took me to faraway forests," she said instead. "Snow-capped peaks, vast deserts... now I get why Dad needed to get out of Kirkwall so often." Lia wasn't unfamiliar with Darktown or Kirkwall's sewers, Corvin knew, but she'd barely been old enough to serve with the Argent Lions back in the city, and when she did start the scouts were more often employed on the coast, where they had more room to operate.

"We should go this way, by the way," she added, turning them east, her eyes rarely leaving the ground in front of her feet. "This has to be dwarven." She pointed to a print in a disgusting bit of something, the shape of the foot too wide to be human or elven. "Suppose that means we need to pick up the pace. Just watch your feet, we know Kotter doesn't want to be followed."

"This should be interesting." Vito's murmur from the back was just loud enough to pick up on, and then a field of very slightly purple-tinted translucency appeared in front of Corvin. "I'm no barrier expert, by the by. That's more likely to slow something than stop something."

Corvin took the warning for what it was and hefted his own metal kite shield on his arm, leaving his sword at his hip for now. It'd just take up space if he held it, and he really didn't want to assume that this was going to turn into a bloodbath or anything. He wasn't sure exactly how it was going to go instead, but that was for figuring out later.

Bearing Lia's advice in mind, he quickened his steps, hustling them down the passage at a shuffling jog, not wanting anyone to lose their footing on the slick stones down here.

"Whoa, whoa, hold up," he said abruptly, holding up his free hand to repeat the signal and drawing to a stop himself. "Tripwire. Careful over it."

Vito's magelight had hit it just the right wayā€”he could've easily missed the thin length of metal twine otherwise. The trap was quite crude besides that, though, and clearly rigged up in a hurry. That too seemed to suggest they were headed in the right direction.

Carefully, Corvin stepped over the wire, taking a couple of steps forward to give the others more room to do the same.

He snapped his shield up by reflex when his foot caught on the second, more cleverly-concealed wire, and it was probably only that which saved him injury: the twin arrows launched by the trap hit Vito's barrier at nearly the same time. It deflected the first, but the second punched straight through, smacking into the metal face of the shield with a clang.

"Oh forā€”" Another look proved that there was a third wire in the sequence. Fortunately he hadn't triggered that one. He wasn't sure if it was the sewer rat or the crime gang that had fashioned all of theseā€”probably a bit of both, Kotter's agents building on what was already there to make it harder to follow them than it already was just to navigate.

Lia rose slightly from the crouch she'd dropped into when Corvin set off the trap, making herself a smaller target in case any of the arrows came her way, but nothing did. She scooped up one of the fallen arrows, perhaps examining its quality, but apparently found it less than remarkable, for she tossed it aside where it was no threat to anyone.

"Probably better to just ease through rather than try to disarm these," she decided. She would know how to get that done, but it would take time they didn't have to do it safely, and if the Untouchables planned to come back through this way, they'd either have to do it themselves or suffer the consequences.

Lia led the way herself past the third tripwire, but hadn't made it more than a few steps before finding yet another trap, this time in the form of a pressure plate well concealed beneath her feet. The result of stepping on it was a sudden cascading stream of fire flung down from above her, spanning the entire width of the hall. She was caught by it a little, enough that her right sleeve caught alight, and she was forced to roll forward to smother it in the muck.

It was hard to see through the constant flames to where Lia was now cut off from them, but she seemed to be all right, though more than a little disgusted. Anything she thought to immediately say, however, was cut off by the deadly whistling of a crossbow bolt that narrowly missed her, flew through the flames, and nearly hit the rest of them.

"Ambush!" she called back to them. "I've got no cover."

A jet of water flew over Corvin's shoulder, aimed for the source of the flames. It wasn't enough to extinguish them immediately by a long shot, and the contact hissed and steamed, adding spoke and droplets of scalding water to the mix. With some time, it would probably douse the cloak of flame between Lia and the rest, but considering her predicament, that may well be time they lacked.

Corvin didn't wait for the smoke to clear or the flames to gutter outā€”he just went. Pulling in a quick breath, he held it and plunged through the dying sheet of fire and hissing water, unflinching even as some of the latter fell into his face and scalded his cheeks and brow.

The trigger of another crossbow sounded just as he reached Lia, reaching forward with his empty hand and gripping her firmly by the shoulder to pull her back and pivot himself forward into the space she occupied, leading with the shield. Desperation and close timing made his deflection less than ideal; the bolt and its immediate successor clanged into the metal face of the shield hard enough to jar his arm, and he hissed on the exhale, releasing his friend and drawing his sword.

The walkway was narrow, but the angles were a disadvantageā€”they were coming up on an intersection in the passage, and there seemed to be enemies positioned both to the right and left ahead, giving their bolts and arrows a lot of places to come from relative to what his shield could protect from.

"We've got to get up thereā€”now. Evie, take the right with Vito. We'll go left. Don't let anything get our backs." At range, two of them were near useless with the kit they had, so the only way to do this was to take the fight to the ambushers.

Corvin advanced at a jog that verged on a run, narrowly knocking another bolt out of the air with his sword.

"You got me?" He heard Evie ask Vito. Unlike himself, her kit didn't include a shield and she was unlikely to dodge all the bolts shot at her without a little intervention. It didn't sound like she waited for his answer however as metal scratched on metal, the unmistakable sound of her estoc leaving its sheath.

Her footsteps, still behind him, added to his. Her pace was quicker by the sound of it, perhaps in order to try and use her smaller frame and agility to avoid some of the the bolts. Still, they were on a narrow walkway, and there weren't many places for her to go, and eventually a bolt leveled itself in her direction.

A gust of wind buffeted Corvin's back near the split, knocking the bolt enough askew that it glanced off Evie's shoulder sideways instead of point-first. "Not the best with shields, Amatrice," Vito reminded her, but their progress forward seemed to allow him to cast more offensively, too, and a swell of filthy water rose up from the channel cut into the passage and doused the first visible ambushers, sending several of them reeling back in some combination of surprise and disgust.

Vito chuckled softly, saying something under his breath that was difficult to hear over the din but sounded suspiciously like how's that for fighting dirty?

Lia kept close behind Corvin as he made a swift advance, close enough that her arm was actually in contact with his back most of the way. Bolts and arrows kept coming in, but at one point Lia found an opening to shoot back, sending an arrow right over Corvin's shoulder no more than a foot from his left ear. It sailed forward and thudded into the upper body of the nearest of the ambushers, sending him staggering backwards with a loud, pained cry. Lia ducked back down behind Corvin's cover.

"Leave him for me," she said roughly, her tone some mix of a foul mood and the need to be heard clearly. There were several more at least positioned farther back, but Lia was already replacing her bow with her dagger, intending to deal with this first one herself.

Corvin wasn't about to question it. Lia knew exactly what she was doing, and he trusted her besides. Lengthening his stride, he accelerated, shield forward, and ducked around the arrow-stricken ambusher. That put him on a pretty clear path to the others, and he took it with a fleet, almost reckless stride, heedless of the slippage of his boots on the wet stone beneath him.

They got the idea pretty quickly, abandoning their crossbows and drawing melee weapons. The first didn't get her own shield up in enough time, and Corvin slammed into her, leading with his own. She lost her footing, falling into the filthy water behind her, and he swung the shield in enough time to intercept the next blow, aimed high.

The one that cut low, from the dwarf in the trio, was more of a problem; he had to parry at an awkward angle, softening the hit instead of turning it back entirely. Kicking out, he staved off the follow-up just long enough to slam the rim of the shield into the human man's chin, sending him reeling a few steps back.

A fluid, powerful stroke disarmed him, and the second blow from the shield knocked him cold, toppling him like a sack of stones. By then the dwarf had recovered, and the woman was pulling herself from the muck, swearing in a florid blend of the trade tongue and native Orlesian, only some of which Corvin understood.

He got the gist, though, and grinned.

"Well I think that's at least third-date kind of stuff, and I don't even know your name yet." She lunged for him, and the clang of the parry was accompanied by the ring of his laughter.

The distant clash of other weapons was a different sort of ring, no doubt caused by Evie contending with some of the foes on the other side of the passage. The hum and rush of magic was there underneath it, too, blasting water and air the obvious cue as to Vito's contribution. From the fact that the grunts of pain were in unfamiliar voices, it seemed likely that they were holding their own.

He figured he should finish things as soon as he could, then. Staving off another blow from the woman, he turned into the dwarf's axe, letting his armor absorb the brunt of the damage. It hit hard enough that there was sure to be an impressive splotch on his ribcage tomorrow, but that was hardly unbearable. With a flourish of his sword, he slid the blade between the axe's haft and head, twisting suddenly enough to disarm and delivering another solid hit with the shield, taking its wielder out of the fight.

Angry as she was, the remaining fighter was almost trivially-easy to deal with: he tripped her as she charged, bringing himself down with her as she fell, knee planted on her back. The shield bludgeoned her until she was out, too, but none of them was dead.

As he preferred it.

Of course, not one of them was in a position to do much talking, either, but Corvin figured Lia had that under control.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lia Tael Character Portrait: Corvin Pavell Character Portrait: Vitorio Sansone Character Portrait: Evelyne Lafleur
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Lia descended on her target as soon as she was in the clear, landing a strong right hook across his jaw that spun him around to face away from her. "I want this back," she growled, reaching over his shoulder, grabbing the shaft of the arrow she'd put into him, and ripping it free. Blood spattered the wall in front of the thug, and his scream of agony echoed as she replaced the arrow into her quiver. He dropped his crossbow, and didn't seem to have the presence of mind to reach for the knife openly sheathed at his hip. Lia eyed it a moment, then pulled it out herself, tucking the blade under her belt. Not a bad piece of work.

She was in a very bad mood, admittedly. This place was disgusting, she was filthy, the people here hated her, and she was working a difficult mission with little information to go on. She had burns on her right arm, and this shem attempted to put several bolts into her without a second thought.

With an angry little snarl she planted her free hand against the back of the thug's head and smashed his face into the sewer wall. There was an awful crunch of the nose breaking, and Lia seized him by the shoulder, hauling him back until he lost his balance and fell backwards to the ground. In an instant she descended on him Parshaara practically hissing in her hand like a dragon.

She straddled him, planted her elbow across his chest near the neck, and flipped the dagger backwards in her hand, letting the point hover near one of his eyes. Good to prevent sudden movements. "You might be the most worthless life this dagger has ever taken, you know." Her tone was dark, angry, but quiet and serious. "And there's a fair bit of competition for that. But if you spill something useful, I might let you go in time to get help before you bleed out."

The man's expression had shifted as she spoke, from something like indignation through a familiar spectrum that passed surprise, incredulity, and landed on a still-disbelieving sort of fear. It likely had something to do with the dissonance between the threat Lia seemed to present and the threat she actually was, like it was slow to get through his head that she was in fact pointing an enchanted dagger right at his eye.

He went completely still under it though, probably helped by the fact that he'd surely be able to feel the heat of the dragonbone blade at the distanceā€”enough to be more than a little uncomfortable. "W-what the fuck d'you want?" he managed, not quite stammering, but near enough that the failing of his courage was audible as well as visible. Whether it would actually yield anything remained to be seen.

Her elbow was near enough to where she'd pulled the arrow out of him. Without letting her gaze waver she shifted it ever so slightly, and pressed. Subtle enough that it might look like she didn't even notice she was hurting him. "How many of your people are with Kotter?" she demanded to know. "How much further is he? Are there more traps ahead? I don't have time for games, and neither do you. And if you lie to me and I live through today, you'd better expect an arrow in the back of your skull sometime soon." She'd do it, too. Lia didn't need anyone's permission to hunt down a worthless thug that no one would miss.

A pained hiss left him; he squirmed under her hold, struggling to hold his head still under the knife. His eyes started to water. "Don'tā€”don't know how far he's gotten." His throat worked as he tried to swallow, not entirely successfull from the way he choked as he continued to speak. "Rat's supposed to be holed up 'nother mile in orā€”nngh."

"And how many of you are there after him?" Vito remained at a fair distance, his expression quite neutral. It was a rather sharp contrast to the usual pleasant smile he wore.

"Uhh.." He clearly had to think a moment about this. "D-dozen? No traps of ours what I know about. Rat might have some?" His eyes shifted from where they'd moved to Vito back to Lia. He swallowed again, thickly but well enough that his next words came out slightly clearer. "You with M or somethin'?"

"Not in the slightest," Lia answered dismissively. She was inclined to hurt him more for having the gall to ask her a question, but if she was going to let him live, she didn't want even the false rumor going around that they were aligned with someone on Leta's side. Cast off or not.

Holding silent a moment longer, Lia decided that she'd heard enough. She pushed off of him and got clear a step, allowing him to get up if he was still capable of it. "Get out of here, then. Try not to kill yourself on a trap on the way out." His friends could sleep in the shit a while longer, for all Lia cared. From the sound it they didn't have time to deal with them any further.

The man looked rather surprised to actually be allowed to go, struggling to his feet immediately. The wound in his shoulder looked to be giving him some trouble, but between his other arm and his legs, he managed. "Uh... yeah." His brow furrowed for a moment when he considered the still bodies around him, but he must have reached the same conclusion she had about letting them come around on their own time.

He wasted no more of his own, beating a hasty shuffle back from the way they'd come.

Cor clicked his tongue against this teeth, arms crossed over his chest. "If it's only a mile they're probably there already," he noted, eyebrows furrowing. "I guess we're going to have to try anyway. Maybe they won't mind negotiating." He didn't sound especially hopeful about the prospect, but that he'd mentioned it at all was a fair expression of the optimism he at least tried to maintain most of the time.

Lia would've been more optimistic, if their position had been more advantageous. Criminal leaders were rarely zealots in the way the cults she'd fought were. They lacked ideologies that would lead them to throw their lives away even when it was unnecessary, instead seeking survival at all costs, and profit after that. But if this was going to play out how Lia expected, it wasn't Kotter's group that would need to negotiate for survival. They were four, in their enemy's territory, and they were very likely too slow to get what they wanted.

They pressed on another half-mile, a little more recklessly than before, but the thug Lia interrogated proved to be good to his word, and there were no more deadly traps they needed to navigate around. Instead she could focus on the trail, and before long it became quite fresh. They were getting close.

"No one draw first blood," she suggested, sheathing Parshaara. "We're not here to bring down the gang, just for the Venatori."

"Mhm," Evie agreed quietly. The estoc remained perched on her back, and her shortsword hadn't budged from her side. The same thought that crossed Lia's mind must've crossed Evie's as well, and though the mask still obscured much of her face, her body language wasn't that of a relaxed individual. "Think this'll work?" she asked aloud for the others. Her own tone was rather uncertain however.

"No." Vito's reply was rather solid; he offered a small shrug and an apologetic smile. "Doesn't mean it isn't worth trying, however. Gangs like this are often committed to their own senses of justice and fair reprisal for misdeeds, but they're fundamentally pragmatic, at least. Shouldn't try knifing us in the guts unless we're too disrespectful to tolerate. Or try to press the point too hard."

They were definitely getting close nowā€”there were raised voices ahead, just loud enough to hear as they approached.

"Just kill me then, if that's why we're all here!"

The plea came from a young man, his accent plainly Tevinter. They rounded the corner into a convergence of the sewerlines, a large rounded chamber lit mostly by torches, though some natural light filtered down from a grate above, where a steady drip came through and plinked against the stones underfoot. The torchlight belonged to the Untouchables, who were gathered here in force and armed to the teeth, all surrounding their dwarven leader and his bound and bloodied captive.

There were no less than twenty of them, and Lia was sure more would be in the shadows or on watch down the other paths. Kotter, the leader, would be a difficult fight on his own. He'd fled from a previous encounter, but here he had the advantage, and he had a fearsome maul and the strength to wield it. With twenty of his best, including his blood mage, a fight wasn't an option here. They were good, but Lia guessed they could only take half of them in these tight quarters before they were overwhelmed and killed.

No few of them reacted in surprise to their arrival, and the rather unstealthy manner in which they made their entrance. There were shouts to get Kotter's attention, and he stepped back from his prisoner to face them. The prisoner had to be this 'M' they wanted; he looked as much a Vint as he sounded, even without the telltale white robes of his cult.

"I remember you," the tattooed dwarf remarked, gesturing with the head of his maul towards Cor. "One of the mercs that crashed the meeting with that Castle-town tin can." He tilted his head a little, as if trying to see past him into the blackness beyond. "You lot kill any of my people getting here?"

Cor, who'd stowed his blade like the rest of them but kept his shield on his arm, shook his head. "Not unless someone got really unlucky." It could be hard to gauge exactly the amount of force required to knock someone out, and Lia knew he'd had a few odd mishaps recently hitting much harder than he'd intended to, but unless there'd been an accident, it was pretty obvious that no one should be dead.

His eyes flickered to the young Vint, brow furrowing faintly. He didn't look like he'd been having a great time of things, from the blooming black eye and the smears of blood visible on his clothes and skin. It didn't seem to be that in particular that perturbed Cor, though. Maybe it had more to do with what it meant for their chances of getting M out of here alive. "I'd uh... really prefer it if no one was dead at the end of all this, actually." He tried for his customary good-natured smile, which looked rather natural on his face despite the circumstances. It might've even been strange if she'd not known him beforehand.

He looked for all the world like an elf expecting a positive answer, though he surely wasn't.

"You might be surprised to hear that I'd prefer the same," said the dwarf. His accent, like most surface dwarves, was still thickly that of Orzammar, and he made no efforts to hide his origins there, his brands and tattoos identifying him as both former Casteless and former Carta. "I try not to kill too often. Takes the enjoyment out of it. So I really only kill when I have to, and today is one of those days. I've waited quite a while to get my hands on this Vint piece of nugshit."

"We're not here to save him," Lia assured him. "He's as much our enemy as yours, but we need him alive. He's no head of his organization, but he could help us get to them. We'd be more than willing to take the fight to your enemy for you, in that case."

"I've got nothing for you, or any Argent Lion," spat M, with disdain. "Little more than lapdogs of the Inquisition."

"He called me worse," Kotter said, apparently amused. "But you see? Fucker wants to die. He's been cut loose and he knows it. I've already pried at him, gently by my standards. Nothing. Even trudging around in the sewers you lot look too clean and shiny to do worse. He's useless to you."

"You don't know me very well," Lia said, her tone almost a warning. She didn't look like a torturer, and maybe she wasn't, but her years and her experiences had given her a will and resolve to do what she had to. Especially where the Venatori were concerned.

"You're right, I don't," Kotter conceded. "I also don't know who sent you. You are fancy sellswords, right? Is it true what the Vint says? Inquisition pulls your strings? Or is this personal?"

Cor raised a hand, tipping it back and forth in a 'so-so' motion. "Fancy sellswords, yes. Bit of both on the other part," he admitted freely. Nodding at M, he explained a bit more. "This blighter's with the Venatori, and the Inquisition has quite a lot of reason to want to root that sort out, you understand. But uh... we're none too pleased with his most recent side project, either. Riot in the Alienage; I'm sure you heard about it?" Given their reason for the first confrontation with dwarf, it was all but a certainty that this would connect several dots for him.

It wasn't uncommon for Cor to walk this particular line. Everything he said was true, but he also left enough out that the elements most likely to irritate Kotterā€”in this case, the Guard connectionā€”were absent from the explanation entirely. Lia knew he wasn't fond of doing it, but he was also very good at it, and tended at least to let people do most of the work of filling in the gaps themselves, letting them reach an incomplete or slightly-off understanding that he seldom corrected.

Nevertheless the dwarf did seem a little irritated, or perhaps just tired of speaking with the unwanted guests. "Too smooth by half, you are. I'll tell you straight who sent me and mine here: the people. The people of the Bends." He nonchalantly allowed his maul's head to fall to the ground, and it just so happened to smash the Venatori's toes, eliciting a pained groan. "The people found this fucker out for me, and the people have demanded a corpse. I intend to deliver, because I prefer having the people on my side. I made a mistake before, one that gets rectified right here."

Lia grimaced. This wasn't going particularly well, and they were probably lucky Kotter didn't feel like attacking on sight. Safe bet he didn't want to lose the people it would take to bring down the likes of them, though he had the numbers to do it.

"Here's the compromise," Kotter continued. "If one of you wants to kill the Vint and make it quick, go right ahead. Otherwise piss off and leave me to it. The people want one corpse today, not five."

They were going to move him from this, it seemed. Tactically it was a nightmare. The Untouchables stood ready with arrows nocked and crossbows loaded, knives and axes held in steady hands. Lia had an arrow already free of the quiver herself, but didn't dare nock it yet. "Not sure there's a choice," she said to her allies. "I can do it, I'll make it clean. None of this is worth dying for." There were times not to give ground, but this wasn't one of them. She waited only to see if there were any objections.

"About as good as it's going to get, I suppose." Vito didn't seem especially perturbed by this, and actually went as far as to offer Kotter the slightest nod, as if in acknowledgment of something. The bargain, perhaps.

Cor looked markedly less satisfied, but it was obvious enough that there was no getting anything better out of the deal than that, and a merciful death was probably better than whatever M was going to get at Kotter's hands. He met Lia's eyes, and gave her a tiny nod.

That was all she needed, but Lia still lifted a hand before she thought of lifting her bow. "Might want to take a step back, Kotter. Don't want anyone to think I'm about to shoot you."

The dwarf obliged, though he gestured to her hip with his maul. "I like the look of your dagger. Sure you wouldn't rather use that?There's something so impersonal about the distance an arrow provides." He wasn't wrong about that, but Lia figured it was for the best. Killing a defenseless prisoner wasn't something she'd done before. Even if he was Venatori, her enemy. Even if it was mercy.

M never broke eye contact with her, even as she pulled the arrow back until her breath touched the fletching. Only when it whistled into his heart did he flinch, and then his head did lower, and his eyes closed. There had been no look of thanks there, just the steady burning gaze of an enemy to the last. Lia lowered her bow.

Kotter approached the body to confirm the kill. "Seems that concludes our business here. I'd prefer if we didn't have business again but... somehow I doubt that. Until next time, then."

He didn't have to tell her twice. The dwarf probably considered this a good day, with the Venatori dead, a prize to deliver to the poor and outraged of the city. He was a bad man, there was no doubt about that, but Lia wondered if it wasn't for the best. He was no friend to their enemies, and while he had power their enemies would find it difficult to regain a foothold in Riverbend. Not what the guard captain wanted, exactly, but she and Kotter could battle it out another day.

Somehow Lia suspected the Argent Lions would end up in the middle on that day, too.