faderift | the heat was hot and the ground was dry

As soon as they find the third symbol, there's a problem. The trail disappears into a cloud of noxious gas coming up from somewhere under the sand. It's impossible to pass through: it burns at eyes, stings in the throat. A single breath is enough to make one's vision blur.

Inquisition forces could build a way around it, maybe. But it will take time.

Sherlock stumbles backward out of the cloud, eyes shut tight, one arm wrapped around the lower half of his face. Once he's clear, he blinks his watering eyes open and looks up at the greenish, billowing gas. In a back corner of his mind, he's already wondering how he might recreate and weaponize the effects for later use...

...but that's only a side thought.

"Problem," he says, as soon as he can speak without dissolving into a coughing fit.

It's a rare time when Jamie doesn't tend to have a large kerchief of some sort on him, and here it's no exception. Mostly he's been wetting it and using it as a way to keep his head cool, but when the noxious green cloud surrounds them he's quick to pull it out and clap it over his mouth in an effort to try and keep whatever that is from getting in his lungs. It's like the time the Doctor had him and Beta make that special sulfric acid, only worse, and he takes a couple of steps back for good measure, eyes watering as much as Sherlock's are as he looks over at the others.

"Aye," he manages to get out, although the word sounds strangled, as he tries to stop himself from going into a coughing fit of his own. "What is that stuff, anyway?"

Katniss begins to choke and cough, before backing up and going to where there was breathable air again. She wheezed. sucking in as much air as she could to clear her mouth and lungs. She wheezed a little, putting one hand to her chest.

"...Sulfur gases." She whispered, putting one hand over her mouth while she coughed again. "We'll need to build some sort of bridge, to get over to that."

Being an elf apparently wasn’t enough to prevent the air from scorching his lungs. His hair would stink of sulfur for weeks, now, but that wasn’t the main concern. He was far too determined to see what lay at the end of these marks, and even as he steps over to Katniss to offer her a drink from his waterskin, he’s shading his eyes from the sun and guessing the length of the distance.

“There was an abandoned mine shaft—“ broken by a ragged cough. “Not a twenty minute walk that way. Perhaps if we salvaged the boards, we might build a bridge for someone light-of-foot enough to see the sign and lead the rest of us?”

As for building the bridge, well. Don’t look at him. Not his area of expertise.

Sherlock isn't looking to Thranduil, or in fact to any of them: he's looking back the way they came, toward the nearest camp.

"We'll send back for more troops. They could have a bridge built in a matter of hours."

Two different options, with one not necessarily all that much faster than the other. Salvaging the boards'll take time just the same as getting the troops, but it's not the only factor, and his eyes flick from Sherlock to the cloud and back to Sherlock again.

"They'd need something to try and protect themselves from the fumes," he points out, the words somewhat muffled by the cloth he still has over his face. "Do we even have enough kerchiefs or cloths for that many people?"

Katniss looked across the smoke, her gaze narrowing as she went looking into the dust. "Is there something we could build, to lift the gases? I'm not a person who understands engineering but there should be way to ... make the gas go away, right?"

"Theoretically." But he refuses to be the one to suggest a giant fan- that the idea occurred to him at all suggests some sort of gas-induced lunacy. He switches his attention to Sherlock.

"You can convince Requisitions to donate the materials needed?" He's not that attached to his own idea.

"Seeker Pentaghast's curiosity ought to be enough to sway them." It had been no more than luck that Cassandra had discovered the symbols at the same time Sherlock had. Still, he's not above taking advantage of that fact, engaging in a little name-dropping. In any case, even if they do wind up using the materials from the abandoned mine, the extra hands will make it go all the more quickly.

He turns on the toe of a boot, already walking in the direction of the camp. Or at least getting farther away from the cloud.

Jamie hadn't realized that Cassandra had known about the marker, but as far as he's concerned, that should make getting things that much easier. Worst case they're missing some parts and then they can go back and get things from the mine. He nods, satisfied.

"Aye, alright. We can let them know about the cloud at the same time, so they'll know what they're getting into. Maybe someone can come up with something there."

Some sort of magic, maybe. Or a giant fan. If nothing else, getting away from the cloud sounds like a fine idea to Jamie, and he shrugs at the others before turning to follow Sherlock.

Katniss watched Sherlock and Jamie start to turn back towards camp, and her grey eyes narrowed in thought. She looked over to Thrandruil, before nodding to the cave.

"While they go back, we could get started moving the lumber down here. Make quicker work of it when they return with the other soldiers."

He hasn't done this sort of labour in years, but he knows he can. Not much different, really, in weights, only in materials. There's no shame in it. Thranduil tugs down the arms of his tunic to protect himself from splinters, and nods.

"Do you have a knife? Some way to pry the nails from the wood?"

Sherlock and Jamie return some short hours later with a small team of scouts, who survey the area and draw up the plans for a bridge. More soldiers are sent for, then: hands to load carts and hammer planks together.

Though he may not typically be one for manual labor, Sherlock participates in the construction - rather diligently, too, up until the point that the beginnings of the structure are tall and sturdy enough for him to climb upwards. He wants to see beyond the cloud as soon as possible, to gauge how close they are getting to the end of the trail.

If Thranduil is of a similar mind, he might find Sherlock seeking his observations of the horizon. The elf, he's noted, has remarkably good eyesight.

In response, she reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of leather gloves which she handed over to Thrandruil, and pulled a knife off of her hip.

That way, by the time Sherlock and Jaime return, they have already amassed a fair amount of lumber. Katniss keeps building, and she is talking about what they can do to keep the gasses low.

The gloves shielded his hands, though they were perhaps too small. The kind intentions with which they were given was more important, and he nodded in thanks before beginning the difficult task of pulling nails from lumber. Mostly useless beyond the heavy lifting, he follows Katniss' directions, and cannot suppressed an easing of his shoulders when Sherlock and Jamie return with help.

He offers Katniss his water, and tucks the gloves into his belt. Sherlock seems to have eased himself into the position of leader, and so it is Sherlock he addresses. "Do they have an estimate of how long it will take to finish?"

"A matter of hours, now" Sherlock says, idly adjusting his own gloves. "We'll be able to push onward at dawn."

Traveling at night being as treacherous as it is. You don't want to run afoul of a pack of darkspawn.

Sherlock nods in the direction they'll be heading, through the Springs. "How far can you see past the gas clouds?"

Edited 2016-06-01 18:37 (UTC)

"Not very." Legolas, young and uninjured, would be the best for this, and Thranduil is also not inclined to hand out information on his abilities freely as sweets. "Perhaps if I had the advantage of a higher perch..."

He trails off, scans the skyline. "Wherever the scouts are being placed to watch for darkspawn would be enough."

Katniss climbs up the hill, catching the last bit of this conversation. Sweat is clinging to her forehead, as she speaks, "It seems the Wardens put in towers, along the bridges. The engineers are confident that it's these that are used to vent the poisonous gasses - I don't understand the half of it. However, the scouts are using those as towers."

She sucked in a few mouthfuls of water, before adding. "But if you want someone to scout ... Hello. I'm a scout." She smirked faintly.

"Aye, but the lands around here are dangerous."

It's the first thing out of Jamie's mouth as he wanders over to join the conversation, adjusting a larger-than-normal kerchief around his neck as he does so.

"Might be better to go in pairs, just in case one of the beasties around here decides to get any ideas. I may not be one of the official scouts, mind, but I've done my share of something like it back home."

"We won't be going far tonight, in any case." Darkspawn, and all.

But if they're to pair off — Sherlock scans the other three. Their skill sets, including his, are all vaguely similar to one another. It comes down, then, to which one he trusts the most at this juncture.

"Katniss," he nods. It leaves him without a rifter, but he doubts there'll be any need of their particular abilities before they're moving on. "With me."

The remaining symbols are found with plenty of patience and attention to detail, but without much incident. The seventh pillar points toward the mouth of a cave, which shimmers with a magical barrier. More than likely, that's their destination...

They'll just have to fight through the White Claw raiders who've made camp between them and the cave.

"Katniss! I need cover-" He's never fought with so few archers before. Sherlock is- he's not sure what Sherlock is, but he's not currently in Thranduil's field of view. They're outnumbered three? to one. He's not fought with any of them before, and the Raiders have been in one another's company for moons-

He can manage himself, but he'd prefer not to have to explain to Cassandra how he lost a member of the Inquisition whilst out in the middle of the wilds.

He needs to know where the other one is, the other Rifter, and he can't remember his name, because there's a mage off on his right waving her hands and that cannot end well.

The mage waving her hands suddenly has an arrow sticking out of her chest, and Katniss twists just enough to start laying a steady stream of arrows, her arms a blur of movement.

"You have cover." She states grimly, not taking her eyes off the field. "Go, Thranduil!"

She shifts on one heel, pivots, and yells out, "Jamie, whatever you're planning, do it now!"

She isn't about to give away Sherlock's position -- she has a feeling he's going to pop up and things are going to explode.

The rocks jutting out of the sand at this location provide an effective cover. As soon as the fighting started, Sherlock had darted away, positioning himself to one side, preparing to attack the raiders' flank while the others distract them.

Katniss' prediction is not at all off-base. Before Thranduil reaches the raiders, a Combustion Grenade is hurled toward them from the side. It explodes, setting the nearest raider's hair and clothing on fire. While that one screams, another peels off from the group to try and find whoever threw the grenade. The others stand their ground, prepared to face Thrandiul and Katniss.

From off to one side is a yell - Jamie, letting out his usual battle cry of 'Creag An Tuire' as he pops up from behind a large rock that's kept him mostly hidden until now. The cry is loud, meant to distract the raidersand draw their attention towards him and away from Thranduil and Katniss.

Just in case that's not enough, though, he also adds in a rather large rock, hurled directly at the mage that's waving their hands about in that way that he's interpreting as 'going to cast a spell at someone'. Katniss's arrow's likely already done the trick, but a little extra insurance can't hurt. Jamie doesn't wait to see what happens with that, though, instead stepping out from behind the rock, to close with the enemy, his red kilt easily setting him apart from the raiders as he brings his sword up and readies it for the fight to come.

Edited 2016-06-07 15:50 (UTC)

He thinks, rather abstractly, between watching the mage fall and raising his sword to parry a strike from a raider, that whatever Jamie has said sounds-- familiar. The difference between it and Sindarin the call of two different species of songbird. He'll mention it when they make camp.

Thranduil is too busy to allow his attention to drift from his own task, minding only the raider he's fighting. Now that the mage is down, it's all he needs, and he cannot help but think of mercy. It will be a little more work to disarm his opponent, but with all the death around them already--

Sherlock has commanded leadership of their little party. It will be his choice, in the end.

Katniss has little thought for mercy, considering what these bandits had done to innocent scholars and students for the Venatori. Her aim towards the next raider is proof of that - taking him in the chest and then in the throat once more.

The third raider, however, gets around her arrows and heads for her directly, slashing her across the chest. Her armor takes the brunt of it, but she knows she is bleeding, and so out comes the daggers, and she begins to dance around him, a blade in her hand as she looks for an opening.

What matters first and foremost is ending the fight. As far as Sherlock is concerned, if any raiders remain alive and surrender, they're welcome to become the Inquisition's prisoners... or pick a direction in the desert and start walking.

For now, he's being stalked by one of them, who is able to blend in with their surroundings and mask their footfalls in the sand, effectively enough that for a second or two, he loses sight of them. But then — a flicker of motion to his right, and Sherlock darts to one side and away, flinging a second grenade. This one explodes into sticky black tar, forcing his opponent to slow down.

After that, his own daggers come out. Looks like it's close combat after all.

Close combat seems to be Jamie's preferred method of fighting as well, as he steps up to go toe to toe with one of the raiders. The raider is larger, but Jamie seems to be quicker, dodging a swing from the rather cumbersome looking weapon the raider is carrying. If that hits, it's sure to do some damage, so Jamie is determined not to let it hit. Instead he sets up a pattern of dodging and striking, moving around so that the raider has to move too to keep up with him. Not all of his blows hit because of that, but the ones that land are having an effect, slowing the raider down and making his part in things that much easier - at least for now.

One of the other raiders who'd originally gone to face Thranduil and Katniss moves away from them and towards Jamie. It's not one of the ones that can blend in with their surroundings, but like Jamie, they're a smaller and more mobile fighter, and seems to have every intention of going in and making things more difficult. But Jamie is just as determined to get through his fight, so he switches his fighting style accordingly, adjusting for two attackers and doing his best not to let either get through his guard.

He finishes his opponent with a hard blow to the back of the head. Not dead, or so he suspects, but it's enough. Across the field, Sherlock dispatches his enemies with knives; Katniss shoots; Jamie- struggles with two opponents.

"Katniss-" He'll have to thank her, after, and she probably sees anyway- they're down to three opponents, but it doesn't hurt to remind her. A drink in the tavern- two drinks to thank her, he thinks, even as he moves to help Jamie.

Katniss is dancing with one of the raiders who can also fade into the background - he leaps for her and she parries him, before shifting around to stab him with both knives in the back. He gurgles down to the ground, and she turns at Thranduil's voice, looking where he is looking.

She pulls one of her knives free and throws it across the field into the larger of the two enemies, hoping to slow him down a little more as she pulls her bow from her back once more. "On it."

the heat was hot and the ground was dry

Death Drink Springs

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White Claw Troops

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Breaking the Barrier / Exploring the Cave