crystal ||

[inkindled]

FORM: sending crystal
SENDER: Matthias, on behalf of team rescue
RECIPIENT: everyone. except the dead people :,(
NOTES: info here to help you mourn accordingly. this is forward dated to 5.24 so we can make the most of this tragedy.

This is Matthias. I'm with the team that went after the missing party. They were on an assignment, looking into these elven ruins at Baron Deshaies' estate, and they--

They're dead. [He doesn't sound sad, precisely. It's the calm of someone that's gotten used to this.] We confirmed it with an Inquisition contact. Their capture from Deshaies' was purposeful but their deaths, they were-- The whole thing was the work of these mercenaries. They had a Tevinter mage with them, he was there on an assignment of his own. Somewhere on the way back, our party tried an escape. That mage, he's dead now as well, from their attempt. So they must've come close. Not that it matters now. Sometimes it's a comfort, is all.

We've made our report to the Division Heads and we're coming back, to the Gallows. We've got some of their things, that were recovered. The bodies were burned. But we thought everyone ought to know, now. Instead of waiting.

[That's the script. Matthias hesitates, and in a break from what he'd prepared to say--speaking now with more conviction, speaking in half a rush, as if he might regret what he's going to say and so has to get it all out--]

Their names were Merrill, Kitty, Anders, Sorrell, Teren, Wysteria, Bastien, Gwenaëlle [a name he's practiced saying; he stumbles on just a little], Ilias, Kain, Darras, Iorveth, John Silver, Loki, Sidony, and Magni. Saying their names, it's important. There's nothing we can do to change it or bring them back, but--they ought not to be forgotten.

Comments

[inkindled]

We haven't actually got the baron. He's on his estate still.

[murrika]

I meant 'got' in the sense of he's not dead yet. That we know of.

[inkindled]

Well, as he's on his estate, I'd reckon he's not dead.

[Trying for sarcastic, but failing, because natural curiosity is taking over, Matthias at least has the grace to pause.]

We met with him. Or he received us, anyways, had his people escort us to the camp and all. I couldn't tell, with him, one way or another, if he's worthy of suspicion or not. He was rich.

[Sort of damning on its own, that.]

Dunno much else myself.

[murrika]

Was he willing to have our people investigate his place?

[ kidnappings of that size are not usually done easily, and the mage that organized it would've had to be tipped off that their people would be there at all.

if the baron wasn't involved in the scheme, he sure has some shit security. ]

[inkindled]

He wasn't exactly unwilling. I mean, he didn't take a special interest in having us tromp about and he didn't throw open his larder and treasure chamber and garderobe and say have at it, but he didn't keep us locked outside, either.

What were we going to find there anyways? It was the camp where it happened. Anyone with eyes could've seen it.

[murrika]

But the Baron wasn't at the camp, was he?

[ well, who really knows? he's going of best guesses right now, and trying not to count out any loose ends. ]

We should be checking both. If the Baron was involved, we'll want to look for something linking him to the mage - communications, money exchanged, anything suspicious the servants might've seen or heard.

Did you and the others already look over the camp where they were taken?

[inkindled]

Well--no. He wasn't. 'Course he wasn't, he had a massive estate, he's not got to be grubbing around with our lot. He had them around for dinner and then sent them on. But he knew we'd be coming. I mean, Maker, he more or less invited us around, didn't he. S'not exactly what I'd be doing, if I was trying to doublecross.

[But as firm as he's trying to sound, his conviction sure is wavering.]

We had the best look at the camp, really. Bloody wreck, it was. Not--actual blood. Horses and people'd been all over it, the tents were still there, basically collapsed--you could tell, there'd been a struggle.