Listen. This is the noise of myth.

[arcaneadvisor]

WHO: Morrigan, Korrin, Ellana, Thranduil, Alistair, The Medicine Seller, Kit
WHAT: Morrigan takes a bunch of the Inquisition folks deep into the Korcari Wilds in search of Flemeth since she still hasn't shown herself which is a record for Flemeth not showing herself when times of change and crisis are upon us in the Dragon Age
WHEN: Early August
WHERE: Korcari Wilds
NOTES: ooc sign-up post and ic chat post about it; will update with any warnings but given Flemeth please assume all the standard canonical warnings for Flemeth and Chasind related content. As much Korcari Wilds info as you might need can all be found here

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the wilds;

[arcaneadvisor]

[Far from Kirkwall has the Inquisition come with Morrigan as their guide on this quest of hers, all to look for signs of her mother not present thus far or in the shadow of Sundermount the Inquisition sits under. So to where it all began for Morrigan. For her involvement in this age. The Korcari Wilds.

A place with a reputation for danger as told by Morrigan herself with great trees gnarled and twisted upon themselves in ways that look unnatural, as if frozen after experiencing great pains. Their roots sink deep into the wet, black earth or into waters dark enough that it is impossible to tell if you might sink only to the ankle, the hip, the waist, or would be swallowed whole. (What dwells in those waters, do you wish to find out, how many do you think are bones in the rusted remains of their armour, lost and forgotten by all but the darkness.)

Careful to keep in sight of one another, there is a mist, there is always a mist, it is thick and it is clinging to all within the Wilds as the shroud sticks clings to the body.]

There are few maps of these lands. Those that there are, I would be...hesitant to trust. I know the way still.

[[ooc: endgame of this thread is getting to Flemeth's hut to investigate but if you want to create you own adventures under this thread or thread out the travel to the Wilds, please feel free.]]

[gatheringstorm]

[Leaving Kirkwall for a time seems to do Korrin some good; the further they travel, the more she's able to shed that moody antisocial aura that's been clinging to her in recent times. It's not entirely shed, but she's better able to focus and coordinate with the group. What they're doing will need her sharp, she's certain of that.

Still, there are quiet moments that don't demand her undivided attention. After camp is set up yet again, Korrin plops down by the fire she just created (literally summoning flames for the tinder, she needs to feel warm and dry as soon as possible). This is normally where she would pass around the drinks and demand a story or tell one, but the moment has her turning a tiny, rough dragon scrimshaw over and over in her hand, staring into the flames with a melancholy she's careful to shed whenever spoken to.]

[ragweed]

Kit is careful not to let on just how the fire that blooms into existence on the bits of tinder spooks him, lest he inadvertently insult the woman casting the spell. Once the fire crackles and burns evenly across the logs that feed it, he comes over to seat himself on a stretch of canvas he drops down near(ish)by.

He notes the little dragon scrimshaw in her hands but doesn't comment on it, at least not yet. Instead he fishes out some paper and smoking herbs and rolls himself a cigarette, then leans as close to the fire as he dares to light it.

"Quite the trip so far, huh?"

[gatheringstorm]

The sudden voice snaps her out of her thoughts and Korrin straightens abruptly. She doesn't move away, though, the scent of cigarette smoke not bothering her in the least. Her lips curve in a small smile and she nods, rubbing at the back of her neck with her free hand.

"Yeah, but it's good to be out of Kirkwall for a while. Staying too long in one place gets me stir-crazy. On the road, on a job, everything's much easier to handle.

Think we'll actually find the legendary Flemeth?" Yeah, she was said to have been killed, but so what? Who knows what sort of strange powers the witch had that kept her alive or even brought her back? Morrigan must have reasons to think as she does, so Korrin will go with it.

[ragweed]

"No idea," Kit says. A pause. Then, "We, uh, don't get that many stories about Flemeth down in the Deep Roads. I've heard tell of a few of them since I've been on the surface. She's some apostate mage?"

An incredibly powerful, he assumes, given her history with Morrigan. Given what little he knows of the Inquisition's mysterious arcane advisor, he can only speculate what sort of person Flemeth must be to put her so on edge.

[gatheringstorm]

"If you want a better-told, more accurate version, you'll want to talk to Morrigan. What I know is that she's a shapeshifter, the Witch of the Wilds, and supposedly been around since the Towers Age.

Since then, she has a habit of inserting herself into history in times of change or crisis, like when saved the Hero of Ferelden's ass at Ostagar, along with Alistair. And there was that she saved Champion of Kirkwall when her family was fleeing the darkspawn horde near Lothering. Varric's book Tale of the Champion covers that part. So, it's pretty odd that she hasn't surfaced at all in light of the Breach and everything that's happened after. She's around to help Maric Theirin take the Fereldan throne, but not shown herself when some magister asshole punches a hole in the Veil? I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, to be honest."

flemeth's hut;

[arcaneadvisor]

[What wonder of the world do we have here?

Flemeth's hut. Where Morrigan grew up. Empty. Abandoned. But not reclaimed by the wilds as it perhaps should be, not ransacked by any daring marauders or Chasind passing by.

It almost appears as if these are the first since the Wardens at the time of the Fifth Blight.]

How disappointing, though if she is how I thought I might leave her, we may not notice her at first. [Not quite so easy for Morrigan to joke about all this now when she's standing here where she hasn't in over a decade, when it hurt, when her mother could be here, when Flemeth might steal her skin from her.] Be on your guard, she is more dangerous than even the legends would have you believe and wise enough to pretend not to be when she must.

[[ooc: if you want to explore Flemeth's hut, feel free, if not you're good skipping this bit or having your people sidebar with other stuff.]

[gatheringstorm]

Well, this wouldn't be a grand adventure if something didn't go tits-up. Warning noted.

[Dryly spoken as she's peering around the seemingly innocuous area with interest. Korrin's mind strays to what it must have been like during the Fifth Blight, with the armies at Ostagar overrun and the legendary witch as the Wardens' rescuer. Strange times.

So of course she's eager to inspect the hut even as she doesn't expect to find anything vital. It's still a chance to explore a piece of history, even as she's careful not to touch anything she shouldn't.]

No one's has been brave enough to go looting, even after her 'death'. Can't blame them, I suppose.

[arcaneadvisor]

What is there of value here for a looter? [It's as she left it. Morrigan isn't entirely certain of what she expected to find, really. If she even expected to find it at all or if it too would have been swallowed and reclaimed the way the Wilds.] There are few to ever visit. Scavengers. More creature than man where those are ever concerned.

[The Hero of Ferelden lay in that bed, she doesn't say. People would care or might. Might touch it as if something more than dust would transfer; if they got the Blight somehow from it, it would be what they'd deserve from such foolishness.] She will not want whatever is left here though I claimed the grimoire years ago.

[gatheringstorm]

[She paces and crouches by the embers of a fire long since gone out.]

It's a good place to practice one's magic away from Templars, I'll give it that. I can't imagine many of them would bother to trek out this far...or find their way out alive. [That makes her smirk, figuring that it's only what they deserve after instilling terror in so many hunted apostates.]

What does the grimoire say, that could be relevant to our search? Is there another place she's likely to go?

[arcaneadvisor]

Templars came. [More than once has she spoken of those who came to the Wilds in search of apostates in hiding, for whatever reason they might have had, whatever motivation that drove them deep. Or when she had been older and they had glimpsed her.] Even their bones are long gone these days.

[The Templars then were doing a job. And Morrigan was a girl playing a game. Life was simpler.

But the grimoire, Morrigan raises an eyebrow, feels a muscle jump somewhere in her jaw as she moves to the fireplace where many a meal was once cooked by her, looking over her shoulder.] What do you suppose a grimoire is for? Do you believe she has lived this long so foolishly spelling out all the plans for her longevity? [Okay, maybe, but you don't actually know the lore and Morrigan's personal plot quests in Origins.] She went to Sundermount, as I said, I had thought to find some trace of her there but 'twould seem we must return here for there was nothing but what had been written.

[Poorly.]

[meds4sale]

The Medicine Seller had spared the hut only a brief glance. It was a bit like looking at an empty seashell - whatever had lived there before hadn't in a very long time, and he doubted he'd pick out anything Morrigan wouldn't already recognize as useful to her quest.

He'd migrated instead to a small knoll, right on the edge of where the soft earth became deep mud and, further along, the murky waters of the swamp. There was a familiar scent under the soggy smell of rotting vegetation, and he picked through the moss and weeds. His fingers came away smeared dusty black and holding bits of charcoal. He shuffled his foot, scuffing away a bit more of the growth to reveal more charcoal and blackened lumps of metal that had melted and solidified, years old and mostly dust and rust now.

He made no sound, putting what he found back where he left it, pulling the cover of moss back over the mess. That hadn't been from any cooking fire, that was for certain.

[arcaneadvisor]

Despite having not lived in that hut for years, despite Flemeth not sitting there waiting for her with that damned smile of hers, despite the fact that she is not alone and with far more than those who went to slay Flemeth years ago, to step out of the hut for a moment to breath is to lift a weight from her shoulders.

Much has she kept to herself on the venture here. Telling them what needs to be known, camping a little apart on the way, keeping them on the trail lest they find themselves hopelessly lost or attacked by something (someone, who knows what might be here now, there was Flemeth, there was always Flemeth, how bold a thing might grow without the nightmare to hold it back) on the way. But she will not ignore someone else out here, not someone who might have found something when she has found nothing. Less than nothing.

Sundermount a disappointment and already she could choke on her bile here. "Anything of interest?" Not hopeful but still she cannot help herself for wanting something for dragging these people all this way with her.

[meds4sale]

"It might have been a dagger once," he said, brushing the dirt and charcoal from his fingers. It was just a rusted lump of metal now. In a few hundred years, it would probably have dissolved into nothing.

"What will you do when you find your mother?"

Not if. From what Morrigan had told him and what reading he'd done, there were no 'if's on the matter.

[arcaneadvisor]

"Once my mother told me that when he was still but a rebel prince and before his companion ever earned the name the Hero of River Dane long before his fall, that once Maric and Loghain ended up before her." Would that have been theirs? That of their companions? Or is this something dropped from the time Jonas agreed to face the thing her mother became, returning to her with a grimoire she has never removed from her person since he pressed it into her hands?

The words buy her time, of course it would be this one with a mind sharper than any mirror shard she has reforged that cuts through what she intends. Alistair knows her too well, knows Flemeth too well. The rest know the tales and tales of Morrigan too, Thranduil...well Thranduil is something else again with his own agenda.

She sighs. Of course she's thought this but to give it voice is to give it life after all.

"I would know why it is she has kept her silence and her distance this time. This is chaos. This is war. Twice she intervened before yet now when all dances so close to the brink, when so much is unknown and now is the time she hides away?" That should trouble more than just Morrigan. But people are too fond of their stories and how they're told wrongly no matter how she tells the truth of her own so small wonder they're too wrapped up in themselves. "And I would know what she is to have evaded death so."

chasind trail signs;

[arcaneadvisor]

[When the hut does not bear fruit (Morrigan perhaps didn't believe it would, doesn't seem entirely surprised when there's nothing of any great substance there) she has another idea because witches never come unprepared.

Not everyone might casually announce that they will seek out The Chasind as she does but given the legends and how Morrigan has spoken of what is truth and what is fabrication, how else is there to be any clue found of her mother?

Chasind trail sign hunting it is. Be wary. There are plenty of dangers lurking the Wilds. Wolves for the most without the fear of man most wolves might have. Darkspawn might even linger in a pocket or two from the Fifth Blight, lost in the swamps or soldiers turned and not yet finished off. There may even be a demon or two.

Or simply the monotony of travel as the cold and damp sinks into you, as you wonder was that a branch or was it a snake you saw, one of the silent creepers, the length of an arm and black as night. Aren't they poisonous.

(Why does it feel as if you're being watched?)

(You are. This is not the civilised lands, you are trespassing, you are drawing closer to a place not yours.)]

[serannas]

This land has an aura about it that isn't familiar to Ellana at all. She may have cast off the clan life, but she's still a child of the forest and that often means she finds comfort in the woods. Not so here. The trees seem to press all around them, looming and staring down, as if judging if they're worthy to walk through. It's a tense situation, but Ellana treads carefully in her boots that fell from a rift, muffling her footsteps slightly more than regular boots would. Her ears are taking in every little noise, because darkspawn can't be wholly silent and she's fought enough to last a lifetime already. (She's fought darkspawn once. That's enough.)

She's leaving the search for trail markers to Morrigan because Ellana knows she's likely to walk right past them. After a long time listening and not talking, she catches a sound, then movement out of the corner of her eye and lifts up her staff at the ready. It's black and long, slithering closer. Ellana slams her staff blade into the dirt and the vibration sends the dark mass retreating. It's easy to assume it's a snake, but she doesn't assume here.

"Careful; something on the left. It went back into the brush."

[ragweed]

This is the creepiest surface outing Kit has ever been on, and that includes a foray into a forest where the trees tried to eat him.

"I saw it," he replies to Ellana quietly, already reaching for his axes. His eyes search the dark shadows created by the trees, but every time he thinks he's spotted it, it retreats further away. Ancestors, what...?

[gatheringstorm]

"Something on the right, too." Busy narrowing her eyes elsewhere as she reaches for the staff on her back, Korrin glances back over upon hearing the two and angles her steps closer to them. It's not wise to get split up, not in a place like this. Like Ellana, she has no idea what to search for so her plan is to follow Morrigan and watch for any signs of trouble.

...and of course they're being watched in turn. That doesn't surprise her, but all they can do is keep their guard up and see what awaits them. "...can't believe I'm saying this, but this area has me thinking the Fallow Mire wasn't all that bad." That place was a sodden mess full of undead and rifts, but she can handle undead. It's the living who have her wary.

[serannas]

Ellana snorts at Korrin's observation. This place is pretty creepy. To think: this is where Morrigan grew up. Anyone could see how it's shaped her.

"I figure we keep moving forward, but stay alert. Pursuit would be a bad idea here." Sure, she's curious as to what these black, shadowy things are, but she's definitely not about to let them draw her away. The Dalish have stories about children getting drawn deeper into the forest. Most cultures do, she imagines.

the chasind;

[arcaneadvisor]

[Few can say they have truly met the Chasind.

Fewer stil can say they have come to one of their homes and been welcomed in but there is a daughter of Flemeth, daughter to the Mother of Vengeance, or perhaps it is that the sky has split itself open so that is why those who know the oldest ways realise that there are times when things must be shared.

Be on your best behaviour, do you recall the time Morrigan regaled you with stories? Perhaps don't share any terrible rumour that might have been told of the Chasind or that you read but hold them in your heart to help weigh up the consequences of something that might offend the hosts when this is their home and their lands that they know far better.]

The Mother of Vengeance has taken flight, you search in the wrong place.

[The voice comes from a shaman, disembodied and echoing slightly, out from under the skull they wear (the robes make it difficult to tell if man or woman, the voice impossible) of a stag, old vines curling round the antlers. The smell of deathroot rolls off them even over the wildwine they've been given as guests.]

Come, sit, listen all.

[rowancrowned]

[ he is ever respectful, fully aware of his nature as a guest, and honor-bound to treat these men with their due. so, as guided, he sits, fingers curled around the cup, the scent in his nose and like to stick to thranduil's hair and the cotton of his shirt.

morrigan's position might protect him for moments should he make a gaff; but he is appreciative of this place, of the wildness of it, of the bog and peat and the twists of low trees. it reminds him of mirkwood, when the spiders are beaten back, and mirkwood will always be a part of him.

the stag, though, that has him truly fond. he is a very good listener, gazing at the shaman. ]

[ragweed]

This is the strangest collection of surfacers that Kit has seen in some time, and none of them behave in ways he's accustomed to. Kit awkwardly tries to mimic the seriousness of both Thranduil and Morrigan as he sits to listen to the shaman's words, looking from face to face.

[arcaneadvisor]

[]Some word has reached them of rifter though not that word, not precisely, but word came when the ones that do venture out go to trade on the outskirts. The ones that fall through the sky are just as rare as dwarves and horned ones and Dalish here. Morrigan herself is...more rattled than she lets on. Making mockery of rules and tradition in Orlais is simple enough with few consequences but here at the edges of the world she knows enough to be wary. There is no Flemeth to swoop down now.

Not that they have seen thus far.]

The trail was followed, we have come this far. []Morrigan says the words and knows them to ring true; survival has meaning out here after all in a place where a lesson may be learnt only by those who hear tell of the misfortune befalling another.]

You know the ways. You are her daughter, she taught you well but those with you - do they know what they march beneath? The Watchful Eye of the people we were. Is it a weight? [The question is not for Morrigan, it's for those with her, any who can meet the eyes staring through the hollows and find their voice.]

[gatheringstorm]

[Yes, Korrin's heard all those horrifying rumors about the Chasind, but she has sense enough to keep them to herself even as she can't help but stare. Given that it seems mutual, the Vashoth will give herself some leeway on that. Sitting town, she takes hold of her cup and meets the gaze of the speaker. Her explanation is more for the rifters and the less familiar.]

The Watchful Eye...I've heard of it as the Maker's gaze, guiding Andraste's faithful against Tevinter's army. The earlier Inquisition made it part of their symbol, before adding the sword later. When it ended, the Seekers of Truth retained the Eye. And now it's come full circle.

[Pause.]

It is what it is. It still guides, or so we hope. That's all we can ask for, and doing our part in turn.