faderift | [ CLOSED ] Lathbora viran

"He also had a twin brother, right?" He's still not great at remembering the Dalishs' Creators, but at least he knows something - that and the brother's name started with 'Dirth'.

The ruins were beautiful, but in a creepy, forgotten kind of way that sent a shiver up his spine and left the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. So far there hadn't been any issues, but there is still something about the place - maybe residual magic - that doesn't sit exactly right with him.

"We'll just have to be careful of what we touch, or just don't touch anything but the necessary things while we're here, right?" he asks, looking over his shoulder at Malcolm,

When Ellana first asked her friends to come, she realized belatedly that she'd asked none of her fellow Thedas elves to come (there's Katniss, of course, but she wasn't raised in a clan). She could have rectified that, but she didn't want the party to be too large, and she knows that it says something about how far she's gone beyond her clan and the isolation she once lived in. But when both Korrin and Sam correctly identify Falon'Din, she feels her heart lift. She knows she made the right choice in inviting these people, because they've been willing to learn about her culture. And Mal, well, he's not wrong. Places like this are filled with dangers and ancient magic. He's right to stay on guard.

"You're both right," she says, quickly sketching out the Creator's stylized features. "We call him the friend of the dead, because he guides us across the Veil to our rest. And his twin is Dirthamen, the god of secrets. He commanded ravens to serve him, and held the bear in high regard, because it was the only animal entrusted with a secret who kept it."

Turning back to the others, she nods at Mal. "I know there's a good chance we might run into trouble, but that's why you're all here. You're all incredible fighters." More so than Ellana, at any rate. "Let's keep barriers up as often as we can, all right?" she adds to Korrin and Sam before starting up the stairs. "I hope these doors open as easily as the others."

Though there hadn't been time to do much in the way of research beforehand, Korrin at least tried to do what she could, and she'll make up for any lack through questions and more questions. She may not feel the same pull toward her own heritage, but that doesn't mean Ellana's can't be respected. She listens with interest to what's said, trying to keep it in mind for later. Mention of bears has her lips twitching for a moment as she glances to Mal. "I'll have to tell Asher that one, if he doesn't already know. And not to worry, Sam and I can always trade off on barrier casting."

At least it's not all left up to her, which definitely helps. Having worked with Sam before, she's sure they'll continue to pair well together, especially now that he has that kickass sword. As they start up the stairs, Korrin makes sure everyone's close enough together before casting it. Maybe it won't be needed right away, but...just in case.

"Let Jayne keep t'the front, I'll bring up the rear. Somth'n looks off you let me or him go head." Sure, he don't much like the idea of pok'n around and he don't much think he's got much cause to be down here- but if somth'n is gonna go wrong? Better it happens to him. He can walk it off. The Mages? Not so much. Jayne does what he's told, keep'n a few feet ahead of Ellana t'sniff out any danger or keep an eye out for anything what's mov'n that shouldn't-

Mal tightens the setting of his spear on the haft, mak'n sure it's all lined up good and fine for when they find trouble.

Cuz he knows somth'n is gonna go wrong. It's too damn quiet otherwise.

Katniss was still standing outside the walls, her eyes wide with wonder as she put her fingers along the cool grey stone. She couldn't feel it - not the way that Ellana or Pel could ... but this answered to her.

In a quiet way, a real way. This was real, she was here.

The others had moved ahead, and she pulled herself out of her daze and moved to catch up, just in time for Mal to talk about taking positions. Both of her eyebrows raised, and she just said, "Trouble?"

While pulling her bow free, of course, and an arrow besides.

Sam smiles lightly at both Ellana and Korrin at the mention of barrier duty - no surprise there. "Yeah, it's easier trading off or covering more ground in case we end up getting spread out." Not that he wants trouble, but there is always trouble - nothing was just an easy stroll in the woods, or in this case ruins.

With everyone falling into a marching order he takes up a spot in the middle, which made it easier for him to get to everyone equally. At the aspect of danger and the fact that Katniss and Mal were already donning their weapons, Sam makes a point of drawing his hilt and carrying it in his hand, just in case.

"Thank you, Jayne," Ellana tells the dog, letting him lead her up to the front doors of the place. Her staff is held in her hand, and for this first push into the building, she'll cast the first barrier. Looking back to see how many of them she can cover, she sets down the glyph. Any who are too far back can get the benefit of a barrier from one of the two other mages present.

These doors are in better condition than the ones leading into the courtyard, and she senses no magic clinging to them either. With only a moment's hesitation, she moves to push open one of the doors, and finds it opens easily. Either the ancient elves didn't lock the door behind him, or people have been here before. More than likely, it's the latter, and she can only hope something is left for them to find.

The first room is surprising, because it's not a room at all, merely a short landing, then a flight of stairs down. Obviously the elves loved building stairs, if they built them up to this door, only to turn straight back down again. Ellana waits for Jayne to sniff things out, but once he seems satisfied, she starts down the stairs. Now the room opens up a little. Tree roots grow down through the stone ceiling, and grass peeks up through the floor, untouched by Emprise du Lion's cold spell. There's a cool draft coming from further in, and Ellana walks slowly towards it. Perhaps there are inner courtyards? Her eyes take it all in, both saddened to see it abandoned, but also content that nature has taken a bit of it over too. Elves always plant trees above their graves, and here trees grow above their ruins too.

She's quiet as everyone enters, but finally breathes out: "Look at all this. Look at how it's all still standing. Who knows how old it could be?"

"Rule one with creepify'n ruins what haven't been looted to the void and back- there's always gonna be traps, there's always gonna be trouble, and there's probably gonna be some undead." This place seemed relatively undisturbed- which makes it easier on Jayne to stick ahead, sniffing out possible points of interest- mushrooms or roots or vines or triggers.

How a dog smells a trap trigger, Mal don't rightly know. Rust, maybe. But so far it seems plenty clear.

Which makes it all the more eerie to Malcolm.

"Couple thousand years, probably more. Stonework like this don't just happen, when it gets built? It's built to last. And see'n as the old elves and such were immortal they probably wanted their buildings t'last as long as them, yeah?"

"Oh, there'll definitely be undead. Jayne, be careful." Korrin's hilt and staff are pretty much always out and ready, having been on too many expeditions to assume that they're safe at any given moment. Alert but calm, Korrin remains only a little behind Ellana Jayne, trusting his nose to root out anything off but wanting to be close to the action, when there is any.

As they enter the room, Korrin peers around, nodding at Mal's assessment. "Exactly. If you're going to be around forever, might as well put in the time and effort to have it done right. I don't sense anything particularly odd here, but we should still remain alert. Who knows what we'll find." Hopefully something for Ellana to squee over, maybe even bring back to Skyhold for study. As long as it's not a trap that gets anyone hurt, Korrin will call that a win.

Katniss notched her bow and looked around herself, grey eyes narrowing at the shadows, before she stared at one of the plaques on the wall, trying to figure out which of the elvhen gods this place worshiped. As it was, she hooked her fingers a little more tightly around her bow, her voice quiet. "Whatever is here -- it's going to be cursed. No one would leave this temple intact otherwise."

Edited (edited because this is not the temple of the three ways my bad!) 2016-06-26 14:39 (UTC)

Ellana can be a little more optimistic about the place, but it would be foolish to dismiss what the others are saying. There is still so much about the ancient elves that's a mystery, and traps and curses could certainly lie on this place. She takes a moment to say a silent prayer to the Creators to protect them, because they only wish to learn, not to destroy.

This room is large enough for the whole group to fit comfortably in, but Ellana is still interested in that draft, and she moves on, passing decorative wall alcoves framed with gold gates, and a strange statue that Ellana can't place. She tries to draw it into her journal to ask Morrigan about later back at Skyhold.

The far end of the room has an open doorway with a short set of steps leading down. Ellana lets Jayne go first, and once down into the next room, Ellana lets out a soft noise of surprise and awe.

There are beautiful mosaics on the wall, and a statue of Fen'harel in one corner, keeping a watchful eye over the room. Ellana busies herself with sketching out the design of the mosaic -- that repeats along the wall -- to allow everyone else the chance to come in. Jayne wanders away, some smell attracting him towards the far end of the room. In a moment, he'll be letting Mal know he found something not good down there.

"This pattern is so beautiful," Ellana says, before pointing at it and silently counting each point in the design so she gets it right down on parchment.

"Considering how well Skyhold has held up with the conditions it's in, not too surprising that other locations have weathered just as well." There was plenty of stone cracked, misplaced, or broken, but obviously the work done it, as well as the vegetation has kept it intact.

Also probably some sort of magic.

"Well if anyone finds anything we should take it slowly and test it for traps and magic." Last thing they needed was getting blown up or setting something off without being ready.

"Say it and it'll happen." Mal weaves about to walk over to Jayne, crouching at a fair distance to squint at whatever the shit he'd found. Don't much look like a trap but he's not really a rougish type. More a stand and hit things with a sword type. "Katniss- you know all them fiddly traps and whatnot, yeah?"

He ain't walk'n further till he's sure it won't get him blown up. He'd really, really like not to be blown up.

The statue and mosaics are interesting, but not having a hand at drawing other than making crude maps, Korrin paces carefully around after a brief inspection. She's of more use looking for anything potentially dangerous. If those undead are close, she'd rather know now than be caught by surprise.

"Slowly, it is. I can be patient, promise." If it's for a job -and she's treating this as one- then Korrin will take all the time she needs to see it done right. That's how she's lasted this long as a mercenary, after all.

Spotting Mal crouching, she frowns a little and calls over. "What exactly did Jayne find?" She'll head over to see for herself in a moment anyway, certain it can't be good.

Katniss is looking around with a hunger she knows she'll never be able to feed -- but then Mal draws her back to the present. She tears her gaze away from the mural and then moves carefully over to where Mal and Jayne are kneeling, holding up a hand to the rest to stay where they were at.

Hooking her bow across her back, and her arrow back into her quiver, she moved to Mal's side. "Yeah, Zevran gave me the full course. What have we got?"

Jayne moves back to Mal's side, not setting off any sort of trap as he makes his way back. Then he turns, looks at the far end of the room, then back at Mal.

Go on. You know you want to.

What the group will find will be two dead bodies, long decayed though parts of their clothes are still intact. One wears long mage robes, in a style that possibly suggests Tevinter. At the corpse's side is a staff with a dragon's head carved into it. The other corpse is wearing simple, unadorned armor and a sword still stained with now dried blood lies just past the reach of its hand. Notably, this corpse is wearing a heavy collar around its neck, the lock front and center. Nearby is a journal lying face down, as well as a couple of rucksacks. Nothing about the scene seems to suggest that something here in the ruin led to their deaths.

Of course, nothing about the scene says the ruin didn't either.

Ellana turns away from the mosaic when everyone's attention is drawn towards Jayne, and she walks slowly to join the group, stuffing her journal and charcoal back into her satchel and retrieving her staff. She's too far back to see the scene just yet, but Jayne now moves forward, ready to lead the group there, though he doesn't seem happy about it.

Curious as well, Sam moves closer to where the others are, making sure to stay in the back so that Jayne and Katniss to do their jobs. That doesn't stop him from peering over them though in hopes of seeing what was up ahead. The fact that Jayne didn't look all too thrilled certainly was something to go off of.

"What's the call, Katniss?"

Being the leader of this exploration means Ellana doesn't want to cower back in fear while making all the others do the work, so she keeps walking forward to follow Jayne, reaching out to pat his head in comfort as he walks.

"It's all right," she says soothingly to him. "We'll sort it all out." It may be that it's something truly bad and a dog's senses can tell that, or it may be the creepy aura of this place putting Jayne on edge, but Ellana steels herself and keeps moving forward until she can get a good look.

"It's-- they're bodies," she begins, before casting a barrier over herself and Jayne and getting on her haunches down in front of one. "They've been here a long time. One has blood on his sword. There's blood on the other's robes." Her gaze shifts and she shakes her head. "I can't tell if they were fighting each other or an outside party."

"We have right over there, maybe it will tell us something." Assuming the pages haven't rotted away and are still legible, and that they'll be able to read them in the first place. Korrin doesn't have any great hope in her deciphering abilities, but she is here with those who can. It's worth a shot, anyway, rather than just blundering in blindly.

Getting up, Ellana moves around them to carefully lift up the journal. Dry, old pages crack as she turns the book over, reading over the last words. She frowns and moves back a page, wincing as the bottom of the page cracks.

"At least it's written in the trade tongue," she murmurs, more to herself than the rest of them. If it was ancient Tevene, she'd be lost.

"Let's see... it's talking about wanting to see if the elves left any clues as to their magic here... mentions it could be something to pair with blood magic. Oh, wait." Ellana squints at the words and then reads: "'Julius is acting suspicious. I know I should have brought one of the other slaves. This one has always been too willful. With no one else around, I fear he will try to use the opportunity to take his freedom. I will be on my guard.'" She turns the page and continues. "'I haven't been able to sleep for fear Julius will slit my throat. I cannot trust him anymore, and will have to kill him first. Regrettable, but I will hire someone to be my valet on the way back.' That's all it says." She looks between the two.

"It looks like nothing here did this to them. They just killed each other." Now she sets down the journal and -- with a curious expression -- picks up the mage's staff. "A staff without an owner."

Though faded through time it was still a gruesome sight to see, especially with the text to go with it. "So there were looking for elven magic?" Sam gives the bodies a fair amount of berth as he moved across to get closer to Ellana, curiously looking at the book in her hand.

"They mentioned that Julius was acting 'suspicious'. Do you suppose it was the prospect of freedom or something was making act out?"

"If you were a slave alone with your master far from home, wouldn't you consider it?" Ellana glances up at Sam for a moment before examining the staff. Being that she's Dalish and her people's philosophy is to never submit, she has a rather limited view on slaves and how they might think. She assumes all would strive for freedom.

"Well, he's not going to need this anymore. I wonder what he'd think of an elf taking it." Hers now, loser. "Let's keep going. I doubt they can tell us anymore about what they were doing here."

She passes through a doorway and they find themselves in a large room with a balcony running around a second floor. The greenery is a welcome sight, and Ellana smiles, eyes searching out every corner she can find. In the center of the room, flanked on one side by a small tree, is a series of floor tiles. Along each wall are numerous golden gates. And finally, at the far end of the room is a glowing door.

[ CLOSED ] Lathbora viran

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