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faderift2017-09-23 01:13 am
faderifting) wrote in faderift2017-09-23 01:13 am
THE SEAS SHALL RISE & DEVOUR, Part II
WHO: Any Inquisition members + all new rifters
WHAT: A semi-involuntary tropical island vacation, continued
WHEN: Kingsway 28 onward
WHERE: An island east of Rivain, the sea, and Llomerryn
NOTES: OOC post. Please direct any questions there and note that a follow-up to the ruins and negotiations with pirates will take place separately via the optional player-led plots described in that post!
WHAT: A semi-involuntary tropical island vacation, continued
WHEN: Kingsway 28 onward
WHERE: An island east of Rivain, the sea, and Llomerryn
NOTES: OOC post. Please direct any questions there and note that a follow-up to the ruins and negotiations with pirates will take place separately via the optional player-led plots described in that post!
I. THE RUINS
The island is littered with bits and pieces of ruins, but enterprising explorers will discover the largest and most intact at the top of the island's central peak. It's a long-dormant volcano, broad and not especially tall, as if the mountain's top was lopped off about halfway down. The ruins are nestled in the crater, completely hidden from view until the summit is reached. They're heavily overgrown, the rich black volcanic soil feeding a riot of ferns and fronds and vines that twine around the walls and columns. But if you bother to look past all the moss, it quickly becomes clear that what at first appears to be a single large building is in fact a composite of several overlapping structures or settlements. The oldest and most damaged elements are clearly elven in style, and if examined carefully will prove to be the remnants of a single large temple. Most of the identifying features are gone, worn or hacked away over the years, but there are tall, bulky statues, elven in style, flanking several of the doors. It's difficult to tell precisely what they once depicted, but there's a distinct impression of wings.
Built into the skeleton of the temple are smaller buildings in a human architectural style, enough to form a small village that shows signs of having been abandoned many ages ago. Most recent—so recent that unburied skeletons may be discovered—a contingent of Qunari (or more likely Tal-Vashoth) appears to have taken up residence and repaired or rebuilt some of the structures before being wiped out. In the center of both the elven temple's foundation and the "town square" of the human/Tal-Vashoth village will be a perfectly circular pond full of muddy, leaf-filled water which, on closer examination, is an artificially dug pool with ancient tiling along its sides and bottom, fed by a sluggish, dying spring.
The ruins will seem very bright and welcoming at first: exactly the right temperature, alternating shade and sunlight, with a faint fruity smell that promises a nearby food source. If your character and his party linger there, however, they'll begin to pick up on indistinct whispers—fleeting and almost more sensed than heard—and feel something like a pull to remain. Mages and rifters will feel these things more strongly than any non-mage natives—and may be able to sense how thin the Veil is—while non-mage natives may think their friends are behaving oddly at first but will eventually sense it as well.
The longer anyone remains in the area, the more insistent these impressions will become. Over the course of a day they'll be joined by more impossible things that remind characters of whatever they may miss from wherever they consider home: someone may find a toy they lost as a child in the rubble, or step through a crumbling door and find their family sitting around a table waiting for them. If they are hallucinations, they're shared ones; everyone else will be able to see and confirm what's there as well. While mages and rifters, in particular, will be able to tell that something is amiss, the impossible people and objects will be visible to everyone, even dwarves, and those without magic, unaccustomed to the lucid dreaming mages experience, will find it more and more difficult to resist the belief that it's real. For those able to continue to sense that something is amiss, convincing everyone to leave may take some cajoling—or some force.
II. THE ESCAPE
Negotiations with the Qunari are fruitful, and once an agreement is reached things move quickly. The camp on the beach is hastily packed up and loaded into longboats, and the whole of the Inquisition party waits poised on the water's edge until the Qunari ship rounds the headland. Its arrival is announced by a thunderous crack and a heavy splash, red-tinted water exploding into the air in the center of the teeming mass of sea monsters. They scatter, only to converge on the newly-arrived ship, swarming over its iron-plated sides.The diversion won't hold for long, despite the Qunari's impressive arsenal, and so the Inquisition longboats race across the bay toward their anchored ships, rushing to unload men and essential supplies as quickly as possible. Most of the boats make it unmolested, but the last trip cuts it a bit too close, and is nearly swamped only a few dozen yards from safety when a pair of serpents break off from attacking the Qunari to come harry the Inquisition retreat.
The danger doesn't end once all are aboard: as the Inquisition ships weigh anchor the Qunari head back out beyond the reef, and while some of the red lyrium-tainted beasts follow them, many linger, harassing the wooden vessels as they attempt to navigate the narrow channel through the reef. None of the sea monsters are quite large enough to sink the Inquisition's ships, but that doesn't mean they're not game to try. Tentacles slap at the deck and wriggle through portholes, crystals of red lyrium scraping along the barnacle-crusted hull with a dreadful shuddery sound. Snakey tails spiked with more of the same rake at the sides and whip at ropes along the rail.
Even once the Inquisition ships reach open water, still the monsters pursue them, and just as it appears they're finally safe, the kraken rises to the surface, its massive, lyrium-lidded eye blinking at the ship, its pincers snapping, and lets fly a burst of lyrium-tainted ink, stinking toxic bile that paints large chunks of the ship's rear with red-black acid that quickly begins to eat its way through the wood. The ships only go free when, finally, something else seems to catch their attention, and then fall further and further back until all that can be spotted on the horizon is a great, shadowy grey shape in the midst of flailing red before it all disappears beneath the waves.
The damage to the ships, while not fatal, is enough to make even the short journey back to Kirkwall impossible, especially given the dangerously low supplies of food and water. After surveying the worst of it, the captains insist that there is no choice but to make for the nearest port: Llomerryn. Though only a couple days' journey, the deteriorating condition of the ships requires constant attention, and all Inquisition personnel who are not grievously wounded are pressed into service to keep things together until they can dock and make repairs.
III. THE PIRATES
It's a near thing--or at least it feels that way--but after a couple days, just as the last of the water rations is running out, land is sighted. The ships limp into Llomerryn harbor and disgorge their thirsty, sunburnt crew onto its long wharf, the sailors to begin repairs and the Inquisition's agents to explore. Some are tasked with errands to run to assist the sailors, things like procuring supplies or inducing local craftsmen and laborers to pitch in, but otherwise the group is more or less at its leisure until the ships are seaworthy once again.At first, the locals may give Inquisition members a hard time. Llomerryn is famed for both is political neutrality and its lawlessness, and the merchants, sailors, and tavern keepers who make up its population have no interest in being drawn into the Inquisition's cause or policed in the name of Andraste. It's a noisy, dirty city whose energy nonetheless shines through the grime, where fights are common and there's a 50/50 chance of them ending in sudden, violent death or back-slapping laughter. Unless you excel at blending in in that sort of environment, most taverns will refuse service (and especially refuse to show you the back rooms) and in many establishments, Inquisition agents will find it hard to even get through the door without being heckled or manhandled back out, at swordpoint if you're pushy. Walking around alone during this first stretch is inadvisable, as you're likely to be robbed. A picked pocket would be counted as good luck around here; getting robbed at knifepoint or beaten for your purse in an alley is just as likely.
But a couple of days after the Inquisition's arrival, something changes. Someone with some weight to throw around must have noticed how much money the Inquisition was spending, or else decided that Corypheus won't be good for business, because doors begin to open, drinks begin to pour more freely, and the Inquisition is slowly given free rein of the town. Its markets and bazaar teem with goods and people from every known corner of Thedas, a riot of color and noise and strange scents and the ever-present flash of treasure of all sorts. They're home to nearly anything imaginable--likely stolen, but that's not your fault--including a number of items that most likely fell from rifts somewhere in Thedas. There are relics from every culture scattered throughout the stalls (though very few of them are authentic), and at least one merchant has a metal box containing a sliver of red lyrium, straight off Meredith Stannard, she claims. It would be in everyone's best interest if she didn't keep it, whether that means buying it or stealing it off her.
Others are selling treasures of a less material sort, including a particularly persistent fortune teller who keeps materializing out of the shadows at the market's edges to spout cryptic warnings in a sonorous whisper, the onyx orb that has replaced one eye glimmering. His messages are difficult to parse, and it's hard to see past his open hands, constantly thrust out to demand payment of anyone who seems to linger to listen. But even so, there's something strangely familiar in each of his foretellings, some unlikely detail that just catches the attention enough to make you wonder.
Whether a pirate's life in Llomerryn is for you or not, it doesn't last. By the fifth of Harvestmere, the repairs on the ships are complete, the crews have fully restocked, and it's back to Kirkwall.
III
The market easily draws her attention, of course, and she can be spotted lingering near sea-themed jewelry (no doubt thinking of spoiling her kadan), or conversing with a vendor about a small cube of softly glowing pink granite. Or more accurately, listening to the vendor gesture dramatically as he brags about its potent properties. ("If placed in a liquid while that liquid is consumed, it will triple the effect!") She seems to be giving this due consideration, though of course the Vashoth woman knows better than to just take him at his word. It's time to verify this, one way or another....