[ closed ]

[rowancrowned]

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.
 

Comments

[serannas]

Ellana has a theory that these elven sites have needlessly complicated forms of entry as tests for the people who wish to access them. A sort of laugh beyond the grave for those who can't figure it out and a slow clap for those who do. She can't say she approves, but at least such a security system has kept most people away for so long that elven ruins are often untouched.

"Huh," she says, mostly to herself as her hand registers a bit of heat, but certainly not enough to burn her. It's fire underneath metal. It should definitely be hotter. Standing up, she waves a foot over it before shrugging and holding her hand down parallel to the grate. Better safe than sorry. "It's not even that hot, but I'm going to cover it up anyway." Ice spells are her weakest, but she can at least do the simplest ones, and a layer of heavy frost shoots downward to cover the grate. The fire wants to melt it, so she keeps it up, building up layers of ice that will last a little longer. Well, until her mana runs out.

"Trouble," she answers as she eyes her ice shell. "These places almost always have corpses possessed by spirits, or skeletons wandering around. It's a really big downside to not burning our dead." She will admit that right up front. Laying their loved ones to rest and planting a tree over them? Beautiful, poetic, a fitting tribute to a people so attuned with nature. Also? Really inconvenient when the Veil is thin and spirits are in a possessing mood.

"But if I have to guess what else? Probably gold, maybe an ancient weapon or two, and -- if we're lucky -- another piece of the elves' lost history." Ellana really does love getting to fill in those missing pieces. One more story to bring back.

[ipseite]

Much as Petrana can appreciate the need and desire to fill in the gaps of one's history - hasn't she despaired over how little of magic could be saved from the church's fires? - it is little more for her here than an abstract idea, the history of a people whose present she knows even less of. It's hard to muster much excitement or interest at the prospect of what they might find behind those possessed corpses when she's stuck on the possessed corpses part of what Ellana's just said, falling back a step without her own say-so, an instinct.

Marius had taught her magic to protect her, but that protection had always been in buying her time, in a last ditch effort, in the hope that if she were pressed to the wall she would have a means to escape. It had been heating the water around them when she clutched Veda to her chest, hiding beneath a pier with her hand over her daughter's mouth and listening to the heavy boots overhead - it had been flinging a handful of fire at the drapes on her way out a window and onto her horse below, kicking it into a gallop before she'd properly got her seat.

It's never meant fighting for her life. She finds herself in no particular hurry to rush forward -

though she'll follow rather than be left behind.

[aforethought]

Melys snorts derisively as Ellana speaks of not burning the dead. You don’t grow up in South Reach without developing a healthy respect for funeral pyres.

"Great. We gonna get a move on, or?" She jerks a thumb to the melting ice. "Be a real shame to miss all the fucking corpses."

Seeing as they’re so historical. If she doesn’t have an ounce of appreciation for whatever unnecessary mystery a bunch of dead savages cooked up down here, plenty of folks with money do. She’s been banking on some ponce paying for secrets of legend and all that nonsense (like it’s going to do anyone an ounce of good to know how much spiderweb it takes to choke a statue —), but weapons, artifacts. That’s something else. That’s gold itself, right there.

That’s a lot harder to tuck away when no one’s looking, but she’ll cross that bridge when she comes to it.

"Y'should go in the middle," She nudges Petra with an elbow. "I got your back."

And a blocked exit. If they've got to bring out everyone they brought in, better no one bolts dumb down some corridor, gets stuck full of the elves' lost pit spikes.

[serannas]

"I know you must be bursting with excitement," Ellana says in response, clearly kidding about that. Few people jump for joy at the thought of facing corpses. It's just a necessary thing in these dark, abandoned places. But she opens her bag and sticks several shards into place without further ado. They light up once all are in the door, and then it splits into two, revealing itself to be two doors as they open inward.

By now the ice is melting, and Ellana turns back towards the two. "It feels hot inside, but not unbearable." In fact, she's pretty sure this fire is just for some sort of ambiance instead of roasting feet. At least they won't have to slip slide over the ice to get through the door?

"Want me to sneak ahead and see what's what in there?" She doesn't mind going in alone, especially now that she has stealth spells.

[ipseite]

"No," involuntarily, and then, in a more moderate tone, "I think we ought not separate."

Three together have better odds - certainly the one in the middle - than two and one separated by God can only guess what might lie ahead. Who's to say that they will be able to follow if parted, that Ellana will not find herself in some mischief that prevents ready aid?

Better they not risk it.

[aforethought]

Melys hasn't read a lot of books, or she might invoke one here and now, about the part where the foolish young search party decides to split up —

She hasn't read a lot of books. But this isn't the first time she's gone into a shit situation, as tail or point, and what she knows is this: It's damn easy to get picked off, one at a time. They don't have the numbers or need to justify much scouting here.

"Pass." Whatever's in there, it's going to find them one way or another. "Let's get this over with."

She cracks her neck, taps a foot; the picture of impatience. Like everything she does, it's an exaggeration — not every day you see something like this, and she's not entirely immune to wonder.

It's just that 'wonder' is so often a synonym for 'pain the ass'.

[serannas]

"Sure," Ellana answers. She's not pressed either way, but she'd thought she would afford them both the opportunity to not head into the unknown without any information first. However, since they're all going in together, Ellana starts in, staff held in one hand. The entrance is simple: a sand-covered floor and bare stone walls with alcoves filled with fire and covered by grates leading up to a wall up ahead. The path then turns right. The air is humid, but not unbearably so. This is just another of those ancient elven things that Ellana can't begin to understand until she fills in more missing pieces. What do these fires represent? How have they stayed lit out here for so long?

Moving along, she turns right and sees the room open up before her. In the middle lies a sarcophagus atop a dais with grates on the floor on either side. Firelight and shadows bounce off the walls, but those aren't the only shadows she sees. Corpses are loitering around the space, carrying swords, and she spots a fire mine on the ground up ahead to the left. With a sigh, she turns and sets a protective barrier over the three of them. "This will protect us for a little while," she explains to the rifter, before adding, "Don't step on the glowing orange glyph."

[ipseite]

Ellana's spell layers over her own, and Petrana has the brief thought that that answers one question - that her own witchcraft does not consider theirs so alien as to need to protect her from it. It will merit more study.

She should have thought to warn; she should have, she realises, thought to share, but the only one not herself she's ever had to worry about is beyond worry, the instinct in the moment to reach out to someone is different from the muscle memory of preparation that's never involved anyone taller than three feet high. Nevermind it, done is now done, and she can't berate herself for not sharing the instincts of warriors and their kind, can only remind herself to learn from the experience.

Presuming, which she still does not entirely, that she will live through it.

[aforethought]

Real polite of ancient mages, ain't it, to make sure their horrible traps glow for easy recognition. Or maybe it's like that Orlesian thing, aesthetics —

(Who's in charge of arranging the bodies for all this? Elf number one, you pulled short straw, so it's your turn to drag in the corpses,)

— Swords aren't great news. Dead things, they're mostly dumb, most don't have much beyond intent to keep them moving. She still doesn't like the odds on closing that distance without making a few close calls. She hasn't fought along enough mages to guess how long the shield might last.

"There's gonna be some awful shit in that box," A prediction she really wouldn't mind being wrong about. "You take left, I'll take right."

Better someone who can put fires out handle that nonsense.

"If nothing comes up from behind, yell,"

Casually, to Petra. Without further ado, she swings her blade and moves in.

[serannas]

Awful shit is sort of what the ancient elves excelled at. Eighty booby traps and a battalion of corpses and everything else they could have thrown at the hapless treasure seeker as a deterrent. If there's a clearer way to say "Don't touch our shit," she doesn't know it. And yet Ellana keeps poking because there are answers to be had. She just likes it when those who are with her have signed up for this instead of being drafted.

"Got it." Though Ellana has a better idea than just avoiding the fire mine. She waits until the corpses linger a little too near it before setting a static cage above it. They keep lumbering forward, swords lifting for the attack, when they reach the outer corner of the cage and are immediately dragged back to the center, over the mine. That sets it off and a burst of fire kicks up, engulfing three of them.

[ipseite]

Petrana -

she would like to be able to say that she does something brave. That she contributes in some useful way. That, at least, she keeps her wits and her dignity about her.

What actually happens is that she flattens to the wall behind her like a frightened animal, reaching blindly for a hand that isn't there and curling her own into a fist when she realises her (stupid, stupid--) mistake. (He is not here, he has not been here, he will not be here. No one is coming to protect her.)

The flames rise and the roar of them covers, for the most part, the sound she makes in her shock; in the quiet immediately afterwards, she realises with a start the lowering reality that she is crying.