faderift | player plot: thorns of the rose (2)

It is not an easy journey, but it is one that must be done fast. The Left Hand is wasting; dark vines of scar tissue twist around her neck, reach towards her shoulder and up to the opposite ear, she can hardly swallow to eat or drink. Suffice to say it is rather grim, and leave it at that.

They have maps, rations and supplies were readily seen to, and the trip began as soon as it was safe to travel the road away from Skyhold.

On the way to the Brecilian Forest they are attacked by bandits posing as a group of Chantry brothers and sisters. There far more bears than are ideal, and one bridge they would have used to cross a river is broken. The group does, however, make it in one piece, more or less, to a very large and very creepy forest. Yay, congrats on getting to go to there.

( OOC; mingle, chat, be awesome, feel free to just do whatever. I'll be adding more comments below for particular adventures where there will be some NPCing and such. Make good choices, pls don't upset the halla )

Nothing says welcome like a spooky forest full of gnarled trees so ancient that they look like they might just come close to buckling under their own weight. It smells like pine needles and a pervasive, clinging damp. Ferns and moss gross in abundance, creeks flow and bubble, and sometimes there is a tremendous sense of quiet.

Other times, the trees come alive. NBD.

The list of plants characters are looking for is relatively short, but challenging all the same. Some are difficult only because they are so vaguely described, others because they are simply challenging to locate. The first, for example, is only described as a blue power with white stamen that smells of rancid meat and honey. It may grow in bushes, or in vines, or only in the shady parts of riverbanks - accounts vary. The second is called stellae atra, which roughly translates to “poison stars” but doesn’t seem to have a name outside Tevene. The "star" blends into surrounding foliage annoying easily, looks like ivy through the day but at night little red flowers bloom amongst them. The last has something to do with minstrel leaf, and remains a bit puzzling. Who knows what that could be?

Whatever they are, best to grab as much of them as possible - it'd be terribly inconvenient to head back this way.

( OOC; this will be one thread that is GMed! Tagging order isn't strict, but please don't boomerang a bunch so anyone gets left behind. )

Edited 2016-06-23 10:50 (UTC)

The Ruins are ancient, elven, and either have been thoroughly invaded by the forest or have drawn the forest in and claimed it so they are both unavoidably the same.

The halls here are scattered with bones and dirt, and though many of the halls are shadowy there are abrupt shafts of light where dust can be seen dancing on the air in slow spirals, and ivy and leaves flourish, dappled by sun and shadow alike.

Ancient energy runs through this place, and there are unusual plants growing even here. Will you find what you need?

( OOC: pick your own adventure, however! leave a note in the subject line or an ooc comment in your threadstarter if you're open for some GMing of shenanigans and STUFF in your thread C: )

Edited (wow this picture quality is terrible, I am so sorry) 2016-06-23 09:51 (UTC)

TO BE ADDED.

( OOC; this will be one thread that is GMed! Tagging order isn't strict, but please don't boomerang a bunch so anyone gets left behind. )

Edited 2016-06-23 10:07 (UTC)

( to be added )

( i will make terrible slides

or i won't

who knows )

A favor for a favor: emboldened by her ability to continue living while away from Skyhold on one mission, Sina has made it her business to embark on another. She may not necessarily owe Leliana, but Sina is as shrewd as she is honorable and has assigned herself the responsibility of finding the right herbs for the task. She is, after all, one of Skyhold's most dedicated herbalists.

This is the bulk of her usefulness, although she also proves quite adept at navigating a forest, even if it isn't her own. She has a keen eye for game trails, subtle landmarks, and other helpful assets of a terrain not too unlike the one from which she hails. She's the only Dalish here, and her vallaslin honors Ghilan'nain; it'd be more than a little embarrassing if she couldn't competently navigate the wilds.
Especially since she can't fight.
What she can do is cast protective wards over the party as they do so, healing on a moment's notice, taxing her energy to maintain a bubble of protection around the lot of them as they dispatch the bandits. After the encounter, she collapses from the overexertion. This happens periodically, and, like the expedition to the Deep Roads, it often results in her having to be carried to prevent slowing down everyone else. It's not very dignified, and she asserts that she could catch up to them just fine, but also recognizes that this isn't about her and staying together is important to the mission.

Bears she tries to pacify. She doesn't speak to animals, per se, but she understands their behaviors to a degree, and tries to head off conflicts before they arise. Just give him the sodding fish, we can catch another.

While Christine isn't looking forward to smelling the flower that is said to be reminiscent of rotting meat, at least the odor will easily lead them to it. She may be a mage healer, but in her time with the Inquisition, she's slowly been familiarizing herself with herb lore as well. It's good to be well-rounded, especially when a patient requests no magic be used. Therefore, while this mission is about saving the spymaster, it's also a learning experience for Christine. If only these necessary herbs weren't in Ferelden. She's quite all right with the country as a whole, but she's Orlesian and therefore has to pretend she isn't.

"Only in Ferelden would a flower that smells of rotting meat grow." She clicks her tongue and examines the leaves of a nearby bush, because they need three kinds of herbs, and she doesn't want to miss one of the others while waiting for the smell to hit her nose.

Though Bruce can fight if he absolutely has to, he's more content with sticking to the sidelines as well; he's never been one for combat, and even if he can use his magic freely now, he'd rather focus on healing and defence since almost everyone else has offence covered.

And that's probably a good thing as well, since Sina possibly can't handle it all by herself.

After what seemed like the millionth encounter with more bandits Bruce is at her side once the fight is over, doing his best to support her before she collapses entirely.

"Do you need a moment?" he asks quietly. The dracolisk he had with him could carry them both if need be, but he understands that Sina needs her space too. He doesn't want to push things unless absolutely necessary.

On The Road

Bethany was unbelievably grouchy, no lie. Her stitches hurt, her ribs hurt, everything hurts and she's been on a horse for more hours than she wants to think about and Now...

Now these bastards - These Bastards were dressed as the Chantry folk. So yes, she pulled her staff out and she froze as many as she possibly could, with one sweeping Cone of Cold, her expression pulled as closely as possible into a pout of pain.

At Camp

If not for the dire circumstances of Leliana's condition, Bethany would still be sleeping on her cot, trying to heal her wounds and reading as many books as she could her hands on.

Now, she was in the woods, reading through volumes on herbs and potion making, not to mention whatever Brecilian Forest she could find. Which was remarkably little. She occasionally put one hand to her chest, or put the books down with a sigh to pick up her knitting.

If her needles moved a little harder and faster than usual - well, she had to work out her worry and frustration with something. Right now it was a nug sweater.

"And if we needed something nice-smelling and useless we'd go to Orlais," Alistair says.

It's quiet, musing but not particularly cheerful. He's not in a good mood. But he is trying, for everyone else's sake, not to be a furious storm cloud hanging over an already gloomy setting. Being home--in Ferelden, not for the first time but certainly further east than he's dared since he left--helps, a little. At the moment he's crouched beside a tree, examining a plant he doesn't recognize but that looks odd enough that it ought to have a name. Probably not minstrel leaf, though. It isn't very leafy.

"Maybe they sing," he says, half to himself. "Singing plants wouldn't be the weirdest thing here."

She shoots him a withering look before informing him in a prim manner: "Orlais has an abundance of useful plants. Amrita vein, rashvine nettle, vandal aria, dragonthorn. I could go on, but that is not why we are here." So there.

This journey has yet to show her anything truly weird, but she doesn't know anything about this forest. Tales of the Hero of Ferelden leave much to be desired in Orlais. But this is the least she can do to help Sister Leliana after all the support she's given Christine's research.

"Perhaps the leaf resembles a lute in shape?" she suggests. It's all she can think of at the moment.

Sina's eyelids flutter as he catches her, but she offers a small smile of gratitude. It quickly turns into a wince as the shard crackles, magic thrumming all through her body, rendering her limbs powerful in one way and nearly useless in another.
"Serannas," she breathes, her head lolling against Bruce's shoulder. If she were too proud to accept assistance, she wouldn't have lasted this long.

"And Fereldan has elfroot, embrium, prophet's laurel, dawn lotus, black lotus ... " Bethany murmured under her breath, as she carefully edged herself around another tree, using her staff as a balance.

She arched an eyebrow over at Christine, before looking over at Alistair, "I thought there was a singing tree here. Or at least a rhyming one." She angled towards him, to peer at the other plant. "Or if it is minstrel, it could look more like a pipe."

"It could just be that it's favoured by minstrels for its effect." Perhaps it amplified the voice if prepared in a certain way, as well as the healing properties they needed it for. Eirlys hopes not, as it will make it even more difficult to find if it looks similar to the other leaves surrounding them. "It's probably wise to take at least one sample of everything, just in case."

Eirlys spends much of the journey in relative quiet. The attack on Leliana is a sobering wake up call, and she's rather subdued as she tries to fathom what it will mean for the elves both in the Inquisition and in general if their biggest supporter at the top were to die. There'd be riots, she's sure of it, and the shems who stand against them would just use those as proof that they weren't at all worthy of having a voice in the decisions the Inquisition was making.

In the evenings she takes herself to the edge of camp to pray for the gaze of the Maker to turn upon the Left Hand of the Divine, although even as she says the words they feel hollow, and she feels only the vacuum that had developed within her in the Fade, where her faith had previously held strong.

She also takes time to practise her reading, though she struggles without Korrin here to guide her, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment as she quickly hides the book if anyone sees her.

"Perhaps something to sooth the throat?" Christine guesses. It seems why a minstrel would take it, at any rate. She gestures for Eirlys to go ahead. "A good idea. It will be easier to compare notes back at Skyhold. There may be books with diagrams of these leaves."

Alistair nods at Bethany--rhyming, no singing, thank the Maker, the rhyming was bad enough--and at Eirlys, who is obviously the brains of this operation. He pulls the plant he's examining up by the roots, just in case, and brings it to her for inspection.

"Dragonthorn," he says, belatedly echoing Christine, as if he's never heard the word before. As if he hasn't lived in Orlais for ten years. He knows what dragonthorn is. But after a moment of consideration, his verdict is, "Sounds made up."

Bethany moved further up the way, kneeling to look at some other bracken on the side of the road. Eirlys had the right idea, so she carefully snipped off what she could find with her blade.

She paused for a moment to glance over at Alistair, before she let out a choked noise. Sure, you might have thought it was a laugh but clearly it was simply Bethany pressing her bandages again. One hand went to her chest, and she cleared her throat.

"...So, what does it look like? Will it help? We might find some here as well."

"Thou dost seem lost, small living things,"
a voice booms, wood creaking and bark rasping as the source of it lumbers closer, sending small shudders through the ground.

"But--" The Elder Tree looms, then, through some branches it has to push apart, very gentle and mindful of its less lively kin, "Learning is a gift wand'ring brings."

It is a tree. A very large, somewhat demonic looking tree, but with very nice foliage. Only slightly skeletal and creepy.

Edited 2016-06-27 03:36 (UTC)

Sina appears like a tiny, green-glowing, dirt-smudged specter, emerging suddenly from a thick bramble patch in the midst of the chattering humans with fistfuls of potentially useful herbs clasped in her filthy gardening gloves. She is staring at the tree, her face alight like a human child's on Feastday, her already large eyes impossibly wide as it speaks to them.
"Andaran atish'an, ha'adahl," she pipes in sweetly, and would sound a lot more mature and Keeper-ly if this clearly weren't the single most exciting moment of her comparatively short life.

Christine has no words for this moment. Not in the common tongue, not in Orlesian; nothing. Is it possible she's hallucinating? Do one of these plants put out a pollen that causes her to see things?

If that's so, and she's also hallucinating Sina speaking to it, she's going to be so embarrassed.

But she's not taking any chances either. She quickly casts a barrier over as many of the group as she can, before looking at the others for help. She has no idea what to do right now.

Bruce manages not to wince at the crackle of magic that runs through her, the inside of him roiling at the sensation of a part of the Fade so close to him physically. He soldiers through that feeling, however, just as he soldiers through most things these days. It hasn't been that all great since his status as a mage became common knowledge in the Inquisition.

It takes a moment for him to translate the word, but once it clicks to him he gives a small nod. "No problem," he returns, voice still soft. "We can both stop here for a bit, then catch up to the rest once you feel better."

...a talking tree.

A talking tree.

Even for Bruce that was pretty high on his scale of strange things, and that was saying something.

He supposes he should say something, but his own confusion matches Christine's own in this scenario. He glances towards her and feels the barrier that she casts, taking her cue and doing the same for the rest that she can't reach. After talking trees, its much better to be safe that to be sorry.

"...Non questa merda di nuovo." Zevran murmurs, head tipping back to peer up at that same blasted tree. He'd told Jonas that they should have killed it, but no. Now it lives to rhyme another day, a decade after the fact.

"Stand down. It is friendly." A beat. "Relatively speaking."

Annoying, but friendly. Exhausting, but friendly. Frustrating- but friendly.

player plot: thorns of the rose (2)

TRAVEL & CAMPS.

FOREST SEARCHING

RUINS: an optional sidequest.

WEIRD BEWILDERING CAMP THING: an optional sidequest.

POST-MISSION, ON THE WAY HOME

EPILOGUE

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject