andres ♔ but what he told me last night lays on me like lead

[affianced]

♬ dear ophelia - abney park

WHO || Buffy, Myri, Finnick, Spike, Kat, Gar, Archer, Des, Rafael, Fred Jr., Vi, Rocket, Lara, Dimitris  [Closed]
WHAT || A diplomatic mission to Andres Isle goes about as successfully as one would guess
WHERE || Andres Isle
WHEN || August 15th  [backdated]
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread.

Even the briefing for this mission went well, with Wynn walking in on Dragon's Claw Jack Chessing macking on Sir Gar, in direct violation of his vows of, er, abstinence, both romantically and physically.   Following the briefing, and the team's attempts to make Wynn see reason in the face of Jack's resignation, they gathered up a large amount of weapons of all kinds into their private plane and took off for Andres Isle.  

Upon arrival, they found the island did not match up to their expectations.  Instead of fields of torture, they found themselves in a very upscale part of the city, full of affluent manor houses close to the palace.   They spun a cover story upon learning about a party there, using Finnick's celebrity on Andres to get access to the festivities.  

Inside, they met Dimitris Sarandis, Prime Minister of Andres Isle, who invited them to stay for the party, which was being thrown in honor of Countess Lara Tamon, who had helped Jack, Spike and Myri escape from their torment on the Isle.  They took the opportunity to chat up the local aristocracy, picking up the vibe that most of them had either benefited from Dimitris' rise to power, or were too afraid to stand up to him.  Spike talked to the Marquesse de Lyons, and learned that her son, Percy, had been a friend of the late Prince's, and had died shortly after voicing his belief that Sarandis had framed the Andres family in order to seize power.   Archer was shocked to find his manservant Woodhouse employed at the palace, and extra annoyed to learn that he didn't remember him.  For once, Archer found a reason to care about liberating the Andresians... if not purely for selfish reasons.

The party itself was to announce the breaking of the betrothal that had long stood between Lara and the late Prince, even after his death, a blemish on the reputation of the Tamon family that Sarandis sought to rectify by arranging a new betrothal: between Lara and her childhood friend, Lord Michael de Collines (aka Michael Collins).  Neither of them seemed particularly thrilled about the arrangement.  Lara managed to sneak a message to Myri to meet her that night under the bridge.

Following the announcement, the gang went to speak to Sarandis in private and find out his demands for the safe return of Sir Thomas Bancroft.  He wasted no time in making clear his position - he painted the Knight's vigilante attitude towards policing the world as the ultimate evil, and warned that no more Knights would set foot on Andres, lest they be killed.  He also demanded that Wynn himself bring the artifact Excalibur to the island to give to him - so that Dimitris could behead Wynn in exchange for Thomas' life.  The demands were met with outrage by the Knights, and in the face of their fear that Thomas was not even still alive, Sarandis agreed to let one of them stay the night to speak with the Dragon's Claw.   He specified that Kat be the one to stay, and despite protests, she agreed, and convinced Gar to let her stay.  

The other Knights headed back into town, where Gar, Fred Jr., and Vi headed to the nearby hotel to wait to hear from Kat, and be ready in case they should need to reach the palace quickly.  The others headed to the bridge across the river, where they met with Lara and her friend Lord Dana Green, another of her childhood friends.  They explained the situation on the Isle, and how many of the younger generation wished to see things returned to the way they'd been before, but the challenges they faced in doing so seemed almost insurmountable to them.  Lara expressed her fears that toppling Sarandis' rule would only wind up putting Andres in an even worse position.  They also related how Dimitris had created programs and taxes that had basically banished Shadowkind to the other side of the river and left them all but destitute, all while pumping more and more money into the coffers of the rich, particularly those serving on his Parliament.   She secured the Knights' promise to help in every way they could, and Myri asked her to show the way back into the woods where she'd found them before.

Finnick, Archer, and Rafael crossed the bridge into the Shadow village to do some recon, and spoke with a local tavern owner/dwarf who related that people down here were turning up missing more and more often - likely to feed Dimitris' experiments in the woods.  They seemed largely disheartened, but could potentially be talked into fighting if giving the means to do so.

In the woods, the others ran across a strange talking raccoon named Rocket, who was running for his life from a beholder, which the party managed to take down.  They discovered that Rocket had escaped from captivity in Dimitris' labs, and he was none too happy at the prospect of going back, even to show them where it was.  They argued briefly over the best course of action - whether the break out would be the best or worse time to try to make their way into the lab, particularly given that Dimitris had Kat as well now. 

Comments

[beatupgrass]

Dumb luck, mostly.

[he's 100% serious.]

Speaking from experience, it could be much worse than this. You just need a plan. One he ain't gonna see coming.

[quill would have one. rocket can mastermind a jailbreak in twenty minutes but hell if he knows how to liberate an island from an oppressive dictator. some guardian he is. all he wants is to run.]

[loyaliste]

And as much as I hate to be the one to say it, one that's better than banking on our long lost Prince showing up alive and well and everything magically falling back into place again. [ lara looks down, flushed, and dana frowns deeply, but michael sighs and continues: ] Look, I'd love to hold onto that fairy tale forever, too, but so far all it's done is convince us that waiting, that barely holding things together so we can all get by, is enough.

It's not. If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. And we might need help, but we can't expect anyone to fight our battles for us.

This? [ he gestures at rocket, and at the woods ] This isn't a fairytale. It's a nightmare. And I for one am not gonna let my friends have died in vain.

[beatupgrass]

[rocket plops down on the ground, clearly exhausted by... existence.]

I just hope your standin' militia's got more than three people on it.

[andresian]

The Shadowkind. Most of the nobles don't dare to make a move, but--

Maybe it's that they feel they have less to lose. [ he looks at lara sadly ] Either way, we've been communicating with some of them, although they wish to remain anonymous for now. [ he nods to the papers in the box ] I can't blame them. If I were them, I'm not sure I'd trust anyone who lived on this side of the river.

[beatupgrass]

That'll happen when you keep gettin' kidnapped and tortured. Hell, I wouldn't be sittin' here under this bridge if I didn't know I could kick your candy asses up and down this island.

[that is a good basis for trust in a non-trusting world.]

Gettin' caught is game over for them. There's Shadowkind that got picked up after me that snapped like twigs. Once you go in there, you don't come out sither in the literal sense or the metaphorical one. [he laughs bitterly.] Except me and that's only 'cause Sarandis couldn't do anything to me that ain't been done before.

[affianced]

[ she looks like she wants to ask, but that her polite rich person sense of decorum won't allow her to. ] There's Shadowkind who have lost family -- friends. And all of them lost the sense of security they once had living here.

Things weren't always like this.

[beatupgrass]

All it takes is one genocidal maniac to screw things up.

[He scratches the back of an ear.] But there's no sense in thinkin' about how it used to be. You got what it is and what it could be and just about anything would be better than this. I don't even live here and I could tell you that. [Long suffering sigh] That is the last time I go for a bounty without checkin' the sources.

[Hah. Hahahahaha. #thingshedidn'ttellfailboat.]

[loyaliste]

Bounty? [ the others didn't seem to catch that, but he sure did ]

[beatupgrass]

[Rocket doesn't even look that ashamed of it. Yeah, dude, I'm a bounty hunter. What the fuck did you think I did for a living???]

Yeah, someone told me there was a bounty on Sarandis. I came out here to collect.

[Awkward silence.]

I realize now that was probably a lot of bullshit, but money's been tight. I didn't know he was gonna be that hard to kill.

[I MEAN REALLY, HE HELPED KILL ONE NIGH-INVINCIBLE KREE TERRORIST WITH A MAGICAL MACGUFFIN OF DEATH, HOW HARD WAS KILLING ONE RACEWANKING HUMIE DICTATOR.

EVIDENTLY A LOT HARDER THAN KILLING BLUE LEE PACE, LEMME TELL YOU.]

[andresian]

I thought bounty hunters typically took their prey alive. That sounds more like assassin work.

[beatupgrass]

That's just how you backwards Terrans do it, 'cause you get a little squeamish about semi-legally justified murder.

[Seriously. It's not his fault that it's assumed DEAD OR ALIVE when there is not a specific method of delivery in the (now known to be fake) documents.

WE FOLLOW WILD WEST RULES IN SPACE. BITCH.]

[affianced]

I'm surprised he left you alive, if that's what you were trying.

[beatupgrass]

[He's about to say something and then doesn't say it- just shrugs, instead. No big deal. No feelings on the matter at all.]

Like I said, he had somethin' he'd never seen before, but I knew that interest wasn't gonna last forever. And I got no illusions about what's gonna happen if he catches me now.

[loyaliste]

Good thing for you then that we're not gonna let that happen. [ he nods to lara ] We've gotten people off this island before. Dimitris still doesn't suspect a thing.

[beatupgrass]

Even with those imbeciles runnin' around? 'Cause they sure don't fill me with a whole lot of confidence. [Look, they're not here. He can insult his ride off the island all he wants when they're not here.

And even if they were here... What are they gonna do? Leave him to get murdered???]

[andresian]

I doubt they'll be on the island long. Hopefully any damage they do is off set by the help they can provide.

[beatupgrass]

Much as I hate it, they're my ticket outta here. You three might be good at gettin' people off this island, but these ain't normal circumstances and like hell if I'm gettin' anyone killed 'cause of me.

[He might kill people, but he has a soft spot for red shirts, okay. His cold cyborg heart mourns them.

A beat.] That ain't askin' for it, anyway.

[Failboat might be asking for it. A little. No one under this bridge has called him a rodent or threatened to shove him into luggage or told him to pretend to be a scarf. You're cool, les amis.]

[affianced]

We'll be alright. [ lara even reaches over to squeeze his little arm :) ] It's you we're worried about.

[beatupgrass]

[Yeah, yeah. You're adorable. See Rocket. See Rocket roll his eyes in a way that's just him being dramatic about you all having FEELINGS. BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE THOSE. EVER.] That was the twenty-fourth prison I've busted out of- I think I'm gonna be okay.

[Except for the internal emotional scars, but, you know, he's got a lot of those anyway. Yay.] I'm just beat.

[And because she's closest, Lara gets the lucky distinction of having her knee used for a pillow, because what is personal space. There's no such thing. Did we mention the prison part yet.]

[slay]

[ swans across bridge dramatically in pursuit of menfolk ??? ]

[graveflowers]

[ ♫ ]

[bigbad]

[CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP also Spike's smoking. Enjoy that smell.]

Think the party's still going on down there?

[graveflowers]

What party? Down where? [ hahaha she's a dumbass and she's having a dumb. ]

[witchwoman]

We left Rocket with Lara. They were to come back to this bridge. [Myri fills Vi in quickly.] I'm not certain if they would remain here, though.

[beatupgrass]

[OH YOU CANDY BITCHES. Yeah, j'excuse les amis, while Rocket decides he's suddenly not as tired as he was, BECAUSE SOMEONE IS BEING WRONG IN REAL LIFE AGAIN. Ugh. You people.

'Sup gang. There's a raccoon climbing up onto the bridge impressively (climb 26). That's your fucking party.]

What the hell are you doin' now? Did you not get enough potentially gruesome death before?