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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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Staff held before her, Morrigan offers a 'shall we' over her shoulder to Alan and Anders as she leads them off from the rest and to the door without further words for Thranduil after their last discussion on this place. More well-preserved than other places she has been to; for all that there are bones, this is truly worthy of the title of temple rather than tomb as more of them might more aptly be named these days.

That this door blooms green has her shifting the staff to a grip better suited to combat. "You might wish to stand ready, there are all manner of...obstacles to be found where the ancient elves once lived and breathed," she warns. There might be green branches and fresh leaves as one would expect but together with such a place it could also mean something like a sylvan. (Morrigan is not fond. Not in the slightest.) It opens to the shards slotted in place and in she heads.

Human for now. We'll see, we'll see.

Alan follows behind, gawking open-mouthed about him. He’s seen ruins before, has slept in them a time, but this place is something else. The carvings, finer; the bones —

— Well. A lot more of those, too.

"Alright,"

His eyes dart from surface to surface, reluctant to leave the sight behind; still, a moment later, air and flesh displace around the lean form of a wolf. Scent paints its own picture, nearly as vivid,

(Please excuse his brief distraction, to paw at a bone. He’ll be in after Anders.)

He glances back at Alan as he shapeshifts before focusing on what's in front again. He's wandered through more than a few old buildings too, but for all of the ruins, there are still things that are intact here. That's new.

"Standing ready," he acknowledges, pulling his staff off his back and casting barrier around all three of them preemptively. It's best to be prepared, and it's easier to put barriers around one wolf and two people versus a wolf and some other animal darting around and himself.

"Have you seen anything like this before?" It's an open question for either, even though he's staying closer to Morrigan.

Well Morrigan did much the same not once but twice in Kirkwall; rot in her nose after the battle when a spider was more useful towards the end both to fight and to terrify Venatori.

"None that felt quite so...vital." Morrigan replies because alive carries a certain weight and certain values with it in Thedas that may or may not apply here, that they are yet to see. A lie however when there is the Crossroads that made her very skin seem to sing at times, a place that she could mourn for when time has forgotten the true name of it, when it diminishes even now, when there is no chance of the likes of that or Solasan ever again. Mankind crushes and this is what they are left with. "Many are in such corners of the world that they have been forgotten, reclaimed by time, reclaimed by others and abandoned time and again until lack of use wears upon them. Then come the wild beasts and the passing of the years where the Veil splits itself so easily that a fingertip would burst the seams.

"Skyhold, perhaps. In its own way. Bones laid upon bones," her gaze slides to Alan, she can't help it, "In many places the magic will seep into the very place itself. The inscription outside should be kept in all our minds as we continue."

A sneeze. Maybe it's agreement; maybe it's just corpse dust.

Hard not to be humble beside the weight of so many unknowns, left for so many years unseen. There were places in Skyhold that none must have laid eyes upon since laying the stones — and not the same places for it any longer. Rock crumbles. Flesh rots, eyes close. Magic seeps,

And what is magic, but the Fade? What is the Fade, but change? Everything shifting, reclaimed. Creation in the raw. There's something vital here, true; it won't be the same vitality those that brought it knew. Perhaps that's not a bad thing.

Knowing didn't seem to do them much good.

Alan trails after, keeps ears and eyes and nose peeled for newcomers. That there'll be spirits here seems a foregone conclusion.

Alive. Places as living things is a concept that takes work to wrap his mind around. He can't heal a place, but could rebuilding be a sort of healing? It's an abstract thought on a trail that doesn't seem significant right now - it's not likely to give him any better of an understanding of this place.

There's a shifting noise, something moving.

"I doubt I'm the only one who heard that. ...And is there some significance to bones upon bones? I saw you look at him."

Even in an impending fight he has questions. He can't help it. He likes to talk.

A brow rises. Poor Kieran, he gets it from mother and father both, his own are likely to take flight one day. Morrigan would laugh but experience has taught her respect enough for that so she allows another look at Alan as a wolf, then to Anders. Perhaps she has spent too long among Fereldans. Or too much time steeped in her own sort of conversations where everything she says does sound as though it has two meanings.

"He is a wolf, they are as fond of bones as hounds in my experience though from the age of these? One cannot be certain of their origin. Unless this is how you wish to experience the world, with your teeth?" A question he can't answer but going after red lyrium like that was...well, call it an experience and you can shade it any way you wish and people will fill it in themselves as they would anyway.

Still, even if she is herself, she listens. As do other things. Several other things. Old and dead but not dead because the dead never rest easy in Thedas, least of all the dead when they're in an elven place; the world built upon the blood of the elves then and now, until it all turns red then wet then black and can you tell what the dust was once? The elves left no roads but they left their bones on their long marches so perhaps they did leave their bones since the world made roads after. Shambling they come, have they waited for this? What comes is called and they have been called and the three walking did the calling as did the rest, entering the temple so brazen, so proud to have come like this--

Ancient sinew tightens around a blade, air passes through lungs almost like breathing as they move, and the moaning comes out of one, angry and hungry, full of hate. Two move together, swinging with their blades and through the air whistles an arrow. It's been so long that the flesh and the bow fused together, a thing that remembers only what it is to draw, aim, release, to kill.

Morrigan curses under her breath and summons a spell, staff pointed at the first of the corpses.

[ closed ]

THE SPIRIT CALMED (Morrigan, Alan, Anders)

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I apologize for the ridiculous delay here.

you were sick, don't apologise it's totally understandable getting better comes first