CHAPTER THREE ♔ what's done in the dark will be brought to the light

[wynn]

♬ god's gonna cut you down - johnny cash

WHO || The Knights
WHAT || The aftermath of Chapter 2
WHERE || London, England and variou
WHEN || Evening of June 7th --> onwards
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread.

In less than twenty-four hours, everything has turned on its head.

A Knight and her allies were kidnapped by Iscariot agents for execution in Rome, barely escaping with their lives.

A mission meant to free one Knight from the influence of a dark god succeeded - at the price of another's life.

A simple recon mission at a Keijen Blade concert nearly led to two Knights committing mind-controlled suicide in front of an eager crowd.

Several Knights went to see Draken Crombe, leader of the Church of the Lord's Humanity, speak in person, and learned just how sinister his religion's dogma is.

A call from Sir Hathaway alerted Wynn to the escape of the doppelganger from the Knight's dungeons, an escape perhaps aided by Elena Gilbert.

A demigod interrupted what might have been a simple smash and grab retrieval of an artifact.

And most horrific of all, in the middle of the night, hundreds of Shadowkind in New York City awoke, and walked in a mindless trance down to the Hudson River to drown themselves. Only the quick thinking and combined efforts of the Knights present and their allies prevented all of them from succeeding.

Beset on all sides, a dark time awaits for the Knighthood - who were already suffering from the capture of Dragon's Claw Sir Thomas Bancroft at the hands of their long time enemy Dimitris Sarandis of Andres Isle.

In times such as these, the light can be difficult to find. Hope itself seems somewhere just out of reach.

Comments

[mydesigns]

[wheeeeee, they're off.]

[ex_ric243]

[When they arrive, the door is already open. Looks like someone beat them to the punch because Alaric is already standing inside.

He isn't exactly rummaging through drawers, but he was in here not too long ago and he's trying to see if anything sticks out as missing or disturbed.

It was supposed to help him keep his mind off of ... everything, but so far it hasn't done shit to help him keep from worrying about Elena.]

[mydesigns]

[oh. well. will peers in the doorway at ric like wut.]

... Am I disturbing something?

[theminotaur]

[ creeeeeeeeeeepy. she backs up a little to behind will. ]

[ex_ric243]

[He turns at the sound of another man's voice, almost immediately just as suspicious by their arrival.]

Depends. Who are you?

[mydesigns]

Will Graham, former FBI Special Agent.

[theminotaur]

He's a profiler. [ gosh she is so helpful. ]

[ex_ric243]

I guess that explains why you're here. [Well, one of you at least...]

Alaric Saltzman. [Because he'd been given a name, so.] I'm with the Dragon's Hoard.

[mydesigns]

I was just squired last week. [he shrugs, looking around the room from the doorway to avoid making any eye contact with ric. as is his wont.] I thought I'd help by ... doing what I do best.

[ex_ric243]

Knock yourself out. [He steps aside, since this guy looks a little hesitant to enter.]

[theminotaur]

[ she doesn't quite make eye contact for a second, but then she grows a pair and glances up. she can be will's jack crawford right now. ] Do you know Elena? Will needs to know more about her, maybe we could ask you some questions, too.

[ex_ric243]

[All this avoidance of eye contact is making him think they're the creepy ones tbh.]

What do you want to know?

[mydesigns]

[to be fair ... will can come off as kind of creepy. or, at the very least, extremely awkward and aspergers-y. also HE CAN'T WORK WITH YOU STANDING RIGHT THERE OK. he's a diva he needs to be in the space alone. but he steps inside the room and nods at what abigail says.] It's a puzzle, and I don't have all the pieces. I can't draw any real conclusions about what happened until I know more about Elena. How close do you think she was with Kyp? I heard she was sympathetic, but how deep do you think that sympathy ran?

[hisgoldenticket]

[ abigail gives a little nod of her head at ric like come over here, please, so will can be creepy in peace.

she's not very good at being jack crawford. ]

[ex_ric243]

[Yep. Definitely weird. But he moves out of the room after a second or two of debating as much. It's not like he couldn't watch from the doorway to make sure this guy wasn't up to some shady business.]

Kyp was the only other doppleganger she knew. Elena told me they spent months together. I think she viewed him as a mentor. According to her, he taught her how to use her abilities.

[Ric's watching you, Will. In case you try to pull any weird shit in there. He looks toward Abigail, whose name he still doesn't know, as he continues since she will at least ... look at him.]

She also told me that she thought she knew him better than anyone--that she should have seen all of this coming. She blamed herself for everything that happened. [Which he just assumes they know about by now.

And back to Will ... 's back. As Alaric becomes defensive papa bear chan.]

I know Elena. She might have sympathized with him on some level, but he betrayed her. Hurt her friends. She wouldn't have turned her back on the people she cared about for someone like that.

[hisgoldenticket]

She might not have done it of her own volition. It may be possible that someone could have had some level of influence over her and persuaded her to do it. [ wise words from this little girl. she tucks her hair behind her ear as she glances between ric and will. speaking from experience here. ] People can do unthinkable things if pushed far enough. She may have been threatened or coerced. There's no way of knowing yet.

[mydesigns]

[will is all up in the room doing his thing (investigate 21 — he's walking around the room, picking up a few things that might catch his interest, but he's also not rifling through her panties ok.) so he doesn't immediately respond, though he is listening.]

Kyp wasn't trying to escape. No sound of anything like that from the people I talked to, nothing to indicate that from what I saw. There was no sign of a struggle at his cell. No trying to force the lock or pick it. [a beat, and then, like this is a normal conversational progression] Did Elena leave the castle regularly? What kind of places did she go?

[ex_ric243]

She was usually away on missions. [Well there is more but he is kind of holding back because he's not trying to implicate her further. Whether they realize this or not is up to y'all, I guess.]

[mydesigns]

[sense motive 22 — he's (probably) aware, but it's not like it's unexpected.] How do you know Elena? Just through the Knights?

[ex_ric243]

I knew her before all of this. [He shouldn't just assume that people know what he means, if his conversation with Kat taught him anything.] Before we wound up here--this world.

[theminotaur]

[ wow nat 20 wisdom, abigail reads a fucking 19th century russian novel between those lines. ] Like us. [ like us seems to imply more than just yeah we knew each other back home too. but she will quietly elaborate. ] Will took care of me after my parents were killed.

[ex_ric243]

[Because this wasn't strange enough already. Alaric gives his attention back to Abigail.]

That about sums it up. [You hit the nail on the head, gurl.]

[mydesigns]

[it's like an alternate universe version of them. :'( maybe ric and elena's lives aren't as fucked up as will and abigail's ... jk look at what they're doing right now. they probably are. that's reassuring. he nods in agreement with abigail's words, tho.] Was Elena ever the type to ... do something this extreme before?

[ex_ric243]

[Extreme? Fuck. Elena was all about doing extreme, often stupid things. Alaric chooses his words carefully though. He's banking on the coercion theory. Or brainwashing. Something. She may have sympathized with Kyp to some degree, but given everything that had happened to the people she cared about...]

She wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice herself if it meant saving someone else.

[theminotaur]

[ her nose wrinkles briefly. abigail is a survivor, self-sacrifice is not something she thinks about often. hi, she helped her dad murder people to keep herself alive. ]