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faderift2017-06-05 10:46 pm
rowancrowned) wrote in faderift2017-06-05 10:46 pm
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WHO: Thranduil, Morrigan, Ellana, Anders, Alan, Melys, Petrana, the Medicine Seller, and Beleth.
WHAT: Finally, the crew arrives at Solasan
WHEN: Early Justinian
WHERE: The ~Forbidden Oasis~, Solasan.
NOTES: Rookery Post, Original Log.
WHAT: Finally, the crew arrives at Solasan
WHEN: Early Justinian
WHERE: The ~Forbidden Oasis~, Solasan.
NOTES: Rookery Post, Original Log.
The door shudders open once the shard pieces are slotted into place, and Thranduil strides inside, a mouthful of stale air and shelter from the heat and bright sun of the oasis the first things he's greeted with. No rattling bones or the arcane shrieks of demons follow, and as his eyes adjust to the light, he turns back to look at the group gathered behind him, ignoring for the moment the sarcophagi at either side of the hall, and the piles of what are surely elven bones.
"Morrigan, you will take Anders and Alan. Ellana, Melys and Petrana will go with you. Healer," he says, gesturing to the Medicine Seller, having no better name,"-you will come with me, Beleth will be our translator should we encounter any more Elvhen writing, like that at the door. Go slowly. Turn back if you find yourself in need of aid, and use the crystals. I assume you all have food and water."
As he speaks, he passes two small pouches to both Morrigan and Ellana-- a third of the morbid stash of shards each-- and waits for the groups to sort themselves.
THE COLD ENDURED (Thranduil, Beleth, the Medicine Seller)
The unease creeping down the back of his neck has dissipated, rolled off like clouds after a storm, and he finds himself able to step a little lighter.
"Healer," he calls, not looking back, "have you another name for yourself?"
no subject
Thranduil's beckoning is answered without hesitation, and bow lowered but still ready for trouble, she hurries after him. Back straight, face all business, look at how serious she is, she's totally ready for this!! Despite the attempts at serious business, she still steals looks around her, craning her neck as she tries to take in as much as she can. So far, it looks pretty standard for an Elvhen ruin. Random skulls lying around, rubble, the usual.
Keeping close to Thranduil, she can't help but turn her curious glancing to the Medicine Seller as his name is asked after. It's certainly something she'd wondered herself, but had shied away from right out asking. Go Thranduil.
no subject
He arched a sharp, pale brow at the question.
"Healer is far to auspicious a title for a humble merchant. I am only a medicine seller."
That was about as much as that question was going to get answered. Sorry Thranduil, it was a good effort.
"Would you both be so kind as to extend your fingers?" He asked setting his medicine box down on the flagstones of the steps. There was an ominous, muffled rattling that could be heard occasionally from the top compartment.
"...You see, I will need to make some preparations."
no subject
"Oh?" Thranduil says, and because he is fairly sure of himself- or at least sure in the fact that the Medicine Seller has ambitions in Thedas that do not end with a comrade killed in a temple, he makes short work of the ties of his bracer and gloves, and offers one uncallused hand, and all the fingers on it. Better him first, and then Beleth, once she sees it to be safe.
"Would you respond to Glaewron? Your title would be a mouthful, if we find ourselves in combat." Patient, though, and open to an objection, should he give it.
no subject
Wait. A man reluctant to provide names, wants body parts, attracts demons--Creators, he was a blood mage, wasn't he? Just her luck.
She spends plenty of time staring suspiciously at the box, then suspiciously at the man, and then worriedly at Thranduil. This is so suspicious. But Thranduil seems to trust this man, so she reluctantly, still staying close to Thranduil, holds out her hand. "What kind of preparations? What's it going to do?"
no subject
He tucked the moss away in the bottom drawer of his pack for later inspection, and opened next the middle drawer. What came out wasn't some toolset for unholy blood rites and human sacrifices or snipping off proffered fingers.
It was a set of scales. They were small, delicate looking things, and shaped like white birds taking wing. Their frames were lined with gold, and inlaid with precious gems. They lifted up from the drawer to perch on the Medicine Seller's extended finger as if it were an actual bird. Beleth may recognize the set of one of many that had been all over the floor when she saved him from the flying vase.
"There are already demons here," he explained as a pair of gold bells dropped from the scales' trays. He twitched his finger upward, and the scales lifted into the air, hovered a moment, and then drifted serenely down to rest in Thranduil's hand. They even dipped a little bow before righting themselves. Another pair emerged from the drawer, and he sent them to Beleth.
"These weigh the position and distance of such beings."
He paused, recalling the scales were not always perfectly reliable.
"...Usually."
A third pair emerged, which he set on on his shoulder, and then he rummaged through the top compartment of the medicine box. The rattling grew louder, more insistent, and then there was a click of a box opening and the noise quieted. He tucked a short sword into his sash. Its sheath and handle were red, and like the scales was inlaid with jewels and gold, with the same eye motif he had on his box and robe. It was certainly a pretty thing, save for the carved head of some grotesquely grinning goblin creature that served as a pommel decoration.
With this and a few other bits of paraphernalia which he tucked into the folds of his robe or some pouches he looped onto the rope that tied his sash, the Medicine Seller closed the drawers, and hefted the pack onto his shoulders.
no subject
Once more armored, he takes it back, looking over some of the finer detailing. “I am intrigued that you were able to attune it to the Fade.”
But a free hand is a free hand, and surely they do not need three scales, so after examining it with one last glance, he inclines his head politely and offers it back to the one he’s decided to call apothecary in his mother tongue. “I am grateful, but would prefer both my hands free.”
no subject
So she takes hers with a nod, then Thranduil's, as well. Both of the scales are brought close to her face and squinted at. Well, if what he said about them was true (and Beleth can't help but snort when he tacks on the 'usually'), then they would be pretty useful. However, like Thranduil, she needs both hands free (more than Thranduil does, truthfully. Have you ever tried firing a bow one handed? Of course you haven't, because it's impossible). But after a moment of thought, she takes hers, and places it on her shoulder like the Medicine Seller has. Well, it works for him...
"Do you really need to take that sword?" Is the only comment she has to offer, staring at the red goblin face that she quite clearly recalls having moved on its own at one point, and now it appears to have been the source of the rumbling around. That thing is cursed. "It's...loud."
no subject
"Regardless, as you can see, they are quite capable of moving without needing to be held onto," he explained, gesturing to the pair that sat neatly on his shoulder. "And they will make you easy to find, should we become separated." Or at least easy for the Medicine Seller to find them - the scales were bound to him after all, but from his perspective, that was all that mattered.
Most of the time, he would be content to remain ambiguous about the nature of his tools. But that was when he was working alone, or with the occasional foolish charlatan who's experience with spiritual matters was born from superstition. These two were no charlatans and they were far from fools, and even in all his apathy, he was aware enough that there was more at stake in this venture than a handful of mortal lives who probably had it coming anyway.
And Beleth's expression could mean problems later if a weird sword was enough to evoke that kind of tone. So the Medicine Seller offered something he was not very used to giving.
Reassurance
"I am taking it," he affirmed. "There is no cause for alarm. It is not something that can harm you."
Well. It was an attempt. Maybe one day he could even inject something that sounded like sincerity into his voice rather than the constant, slow drone that had all the emotion of a graham cracker.
no subject
The door is unexpected. Most of the works of this temple are unexpected. He takes a moment to savor the cold, to lay his hand upon the door and savor that he, excluding a few rats and insects, is the first to touch this door since one of his kin. Their fall was such a short time ago, the space of a breath, but still forever to Beleth and the Dalish.
He pours a few shards into his hand, and offers them to her- the number suggests there will be more locked chambers after this one and that Glaewron will have his chance, but the first belongs to Beleth, for the symbol if nothing else.
He looks to Glaewron, steps back, feeling the cold settle around him, and prepares to guard Beleth should anything leap from the new room and aim for the rogue.
no subject
Reassured (to a degree), she instead turns to the matter at hand: the door. And more importantly, the fact that Thranduil is offering her the key to opening it. Her eyes widen, and she glances up at him, then back to his hand, before carefully scooping up the shards. There's a moment where she has to take it all in--standing there, in front of this door created by her ancestors, side by side with two other elves (Glaewron was an elf, right? Yes, it's been decided, sorry dude). Who knew what lay on the other side, what fragments of history long lost could be revealed?
Once the moment of drama has been allowed, Beleth proceeds to actually open the stupid door. It's a little slower than she'd like, because the door is really damn cold, and the chill renders her fingers clumsy. One the pieces are pressed into place, she steps back, holding her hands up to her mouth to breath on them as she watches the door light up brilliantly. Then the door swings open, and Beleth only has a few seconds of attention to spare, taking in the large, snow-covered room, before something more pressing catches her eyes--corpses. Lovely.
(Elven corpses, of those ancestors I was reminiscing about. She thinks to herself, dourly, only slightly comforted that these are not the actual elves, but demons possessing abandoned husks.)
"We've got enemies!" The announcement is useless, as both men have perfectly functional eyes, but it seems like the thing to do. That, and notch her bow again, fingers almost fully recovered from the cold door.
no subject
As the last piece was inserted and the door lit up, each of the scales, almost in perfect unison, tilted towards it, the tiny bells dangling from their trays giving a soft chime.
He made no move to draw his sword when the door opened, nor when Beleth shouted her warning. In one swift motion, his hands disappeared into his sleeves as he drew out what appeared to be many bits of paper, tightly folded. As the corpses shambled upright, he flung them outwards, where they unfurled, creases rippling away to smooth paper. And then they launched forward towards the desiccated bodies with a momentum that should have been impossible. The rectangular papers stuck to them, black writing appearing on the sheets. This, apparently, slowed them, and they moved as though they were trying to wade through molasses.