faderift | Player Plot: The Brecilian Ruins

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Player Plot: The Brecilian Ruins

WHO: Merrill, Ruby, and Pel
WHAT: Researching werewolves and elves at the Brecilian Ruins
WHEN: Early Firstfall
WHERE: The Brecilian Forest
NOTES: Warning for ghosts. Boo.

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She stops. She's not, at first, entirely sure of what Pel is even referring to -- a malevolent bottle?

But then it makes sense. She can feel it, the ache familiar enough that it makes her own hurts ache in sympathy. She knows loss. She knows, and Merrill nods as she looks back up to Pel.

"Yes. I- we should help it, shouldn't we? I mean, we can't just leave it here."

The spirit in the phylactery reaches out to Merrill now, crippled with pain, but able to remember some of what it was. It lived in the time of Arlathan, it served a great house as an expert in the dirth'ena enasalin. It remembers training, remembers fighting, technique and form and magic, and will trade the memories of it to this bleak world that long since forgot it in exchange for oblivion.

Pel peers into Merrill's face. "Do you...feel it? Do you know what we can do?" Merrill, after all, has the real experience with spirits.

"It was an elf," Merrill murmurs, almost dazed. That is not what spirits are meant to be, is it? Yet here this one is. It was an elf, or believes it was one, and is that not close enough? "From Arlathan. An expert in dirth'ena enasalin, which so many have thought was lost for so long -- it wants to pass its knowledge on so that it can finally rest, I think. So- someone has to learn what it wants to teach us."

The poor soul inside likely can't feel it, but Merrill lightly strokes the vial just in case it can. "Hold on, I'm going to see-" and she focuses, both with her mind and her magic and her voice, in case it can sense one but not another. "How would you give those memories?"

Pel looks faintly worried, for obvious reasons. As much pain as there was in the spirit, it could still prove treacherous.

To show what it means, the spirit channels a flash of imagery into Merril's mind--no, more than imagery. Memory. Smell of woodsmoke, touch of steel, burn of muscles as they hold a form with a sword, channeling magic inward. But the self of the spirit remains in the phylactery.

Well. That's something. Merrill almost coughs at the sudden smell of smoke, even though it's only in her mind.

"It can show us its memories," she says, once the shock (and awe, if she's being honest) has worn off. "I- would you like to try?"

Pel's eyes widen. She's having to wrack her mind to come up with dirth'ena enasalin at all, for a moment, but if it is lost, it does not matter what it is. She trusts Merrill, and Merrill is offering it. She holds out her hand to receive the phylactery.

"What knowledge is it which leads to victory?" she asks quietly. "What does it want to show us?"

There is a breath. This is important, if she's correct. Learning it, preserving its way is important -- and helping this spirit is important, also.

"You have seen what humans call the path of the Arcane Warrior, correct? Where they use magic and physical combat together? I think- I think the People developed it, first. It feels something like that."

"Like Knight-Enchanters?" Pel hesitates, but her mind races on. "If it knows a lost discipline, could it teach us more about ancient elves? Maybe we can...Merrill. What if we took it with us?"

"Yes- and maybe? I don't know how much it knows, or how long it can last... It's been here so long."

She looks back down at the vial and gently strokes it, again. Poor dead elf. :c

"I mean- I suppose I wouldn't be very good at it, so unless you wanted to learn it, we would have to."

"I...do want to learn." Pel is practically salivating, thinking about gaining knowledge directly from an ancient elf. "More than anything. But...what if we still took it back? What if we could question it and learn about our people from it?"

It sounds incredibly cruel, but maybe they could make the spirit comfortable. Maybe they could...she doesn't know what.

"We have to ask it," Merrill says after a moment, firmly. "It's up to it."

Again, she focuses on the vial, directs her thoughts to it.

The culture of the People is almost lost. My friend wants to know if you could share with us anything you know, anything you remember. She will learn what you have to teach her, and we will share it with others so that your gift to us is remembered.

She wants to ask you questions, bring you back with us to where we are living, but I don't think that's necessary. It's up to you, hahren.

I know only what they drilled into me, is the jist of what the spirit sends back. I know the way of the knowledge that leads to victory. I have forgotten the names of my family, the names of places or the shapes of words. Everything but what I was taught never to forget.

Do you know who drilled it into you? Merrill asks, right before looking back at Pel and shaking her head.

"Everything but the Way has been lost, forgotten. I'm seeing if I can can get a little more, but... there's no reason for it to lie when it could gain from tempting us with knowledge."

Pel looks momentarily disappointed, but there is no point to remaining so. The spirit offers everything it can, asking for nothing more than it already has. The decision is sealed, then. She holds out her hand.

"I will learn," she says quietly. "Everything it can teach me. And I will release it."

Merrill smiles at her, soft, grateful. Pel's resolve is passed on to the spirit, and then she hands over the vial.

"Good luck, lethallan," she murmurs, just before it's out of her touch.

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Player Plot: The Brecilian Ruins

bites you for... being considerate!!!

<3

<3!

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