Rifts and the Veil/Elven Artifacts Meeting

[mythalenaste]

WHO: All members of the Rifts and the Veil and Elven Artifacts projects are invited to attend.
WHAT: A joint discussion, trying to solve a puzzle together.
WHEN: Early Firstfall, after Satinalia
WHERE: The Elven Artifacts laboratory in the Gallows.
NOTES: A follow-up to the island elven ruins quest. WTF was that map, anyway? Takes place after this announcement.

Tea and refreshments are offered--nothing elaborate, just something for people to gnaw on in case they get peckish while thinking. The mosaic has been drawn and painted as accurately as possible and hung on a wall for examination. It is a map of Thedas, with most of the south broken away and pieces missing, with green slashes--some straight, some curved oddly, all tapered at the ends and thicker in the middle--cutting across here and there. Where the green lines cross, they are bright red.

"All right," Pel says, pointing to one of the intersections. "Our goal for today is to reckon out what these are, or at the very least, come up with a plan for reckoning it all out. This is obviously a map, but what's it a map of?"

Comments

[motherfucking_ghost]

Church came with the note, because rifts and veils! And he was at that creepy hella abandoned town! It was awful. But when he gets there and is confronted with the map-mosaic, he looks around for a second. "Aaaaam I in the right place?"

Sometimes Leonard Church is a helpful man, and sometimes he's stupidly unhelpful. This may turn out to be the latter. "Are those like ley lines or something?"

[circleprodigy]

Inessa settles in with some tea, her gaze lingering on the recreation of the mosaic she remembers seeing before. Though her attention was more focused on the eluvian and the spirit at the time, it seems accurate to her memories. She cradles a steaming up in her hands, her lips tugging in a thoughtful frown as her eyes trace the green slashes and their shapes/intersections.

Hearing Church's entrance, she looks over and nods to his question with a welcoming smile, gesturing for him to have a seat.

"'Ley lines' is a possibility, though more context is needed. Perhaps they are locations where the Veil is especially thin or malleable. If we can pinpoint those exact locations and see them for ourselves, perhaps what we find there would give us insight." It's not a satisfying answer to her ears, but this is why they're studying it as a group, so that many can do what one or two alone cannot.

[arcaneadvisor]

Having arrived early since she came to the Inquisition as the actual expert on these matters, and since there had been a time when peering at the rifters, asking after them had been a small pet project before it had been given a name, Morrigan has some of her own notes iwth her. Not to be shared freely with the room; how would you ever translate her hand in the first place?

Ignoring Church's question comes naturally since she had years at Court, then time on the road during the Blight before that. Some things you hear without hearing.

"The ancient elves left no roads in their wake, 'twas Tevinter who left them." Said for the benefit of those who don't know the ins and outs of elven ruins, who haven't spent the ten or so years since the Fifth Blight dedicating themselves to their study. "If we are to add the Veil into this, might I suggest including sites of elven ruins. Given that the map was found in one and that they are a more known, fixed thing than the Veil is these days."

[exequy]

Kostos is here, too, standing in the back of the room with his arms clasped behind his back and frowning at the map. His default focused face is a frown. He's thinking—and not saying anything yet, because at the moment he would be talking just for the sake of participating, and that's exhausting.

He's thinking: there were ruins, there was a rift, there was red lyrium, there was an old volcano, there was apparently an eluvian and a spirit, and they wouldn't be remiss in wrapping different colored threads around the ends of pins to stick into the map so they can look for connections. If no one else says anything similar in the next fifteen minutes, he might put the effort into actually voicing it, or he might just wait until after the meeting write a note.

[meds4sale]

He was rather curious about what had been found on the trip to the ruins, having had to stay behind and nurse a swollen ankle he'd carelessly twisted when making a hasty retreat from a particularly territorial jungle cat.

He didn't offer any sort of ideas - he was too busy studying the map, and someone else had already suggested ley lines, but those tended to be marked by lines of even thickness.

He was peering at where the some of the lines crossed at their thickest, right over the island. His nose was only a few inches from the map, his cold blue eyes narrowed.

"...Something being funneled, perhaps..."

It was barely above a whisper, more to himself than to those gathered.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Man, I dunno, but I don't like the fact we've got broken shit in the south. Pieces missing, we can't do much about, but like...if we're going with the idea it's something Fade-related, then yeah, I could see where the lines are thick, then the veil is thicker, and thinner for thinner. We might wanna put together a map of where we've had rift openings, too. But where they cross--wouldn't that make it stronger?"

[serannas]

"That was my first thought, Inessa," Ellana says, her eyes on the red lines. "That the Veil is thin where the red lines are." And then a nod to Church. "So maybe they note places where fade rifts are likely to occur, due to that thinness. Then again, this really thick one is over the island, not out in the water like the fade rift actually was, so... that may not be it after all." But she's willing to listen to some theories. It's really all they can do from their current position.

[mythalenaste]

"Maybe," Pel says, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. "But the Veil isn't static like that. It can be mended, or torn worse. This...why would they create such a piece of art, in such a permanent form, just to show some of the places where the Veil might be thin? Wars happen, slaughters happen, blood magic happens, so a map like that would be outdated before it was even finished."

[circleprodigy]

Inessa nods, frowning in thought as her tea cools a little. "That's my concern as well, that the span of time from its creation may be great enough where the information it reveals may be largely irrelevant. But if even a portion of it is not, and could be of use to us...." Well. They have to try, don't they? "Perhaps it refers to items stored which affect the Veil somehow. That would certainly not be the first instance." She thinks back to the artifacts Solas found, the ones which stabilized the Veil. Though it still seems a stretch, something doesn't quite sit right with her.

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr is late to the party--quite unlike himself--but then from the way he's yawning, the message got him out of bed. It's the nocturnal part of his month.

He installs himself in the back of the room beside Kostos and shortly has a frown to match the Nevarran's--a lot's being said about the map but not enough for him to piece together what the thing looks like. "What are we looking at, here?" he mutters to the other man.

Pride won't quite let him say that any louder and interrupt the ongoing conversation. Not when there's someone else standing over there not participating who might help.

[exequy]

Some elf bullshit, Kostos does not say, because the man who's joined him is an elf, and the project heads are elves, and he doesn't have anything against elves in general. Elves are fine. Some of the colleagues who least made him want to die every time they spoke to him have been elves. Etc. But their ancient weirdness and its frequent proximity to the sort of weirdness that makes him uncomfortable, though, he could live without.

He does look sideways to confirm the impression from his first quick glance gave him when Myr first appeared, that the man is blind (or wearing a blindfold for fun, who knows), and thus has a semi-legitimate reason for asking and shouldn't just be ignored for being an idiot.

"It's Thedas," he says, quiet and sounding a bit grudging even though he's determined Myr is not an idiot, "with lines on it. Two cross over the island we visited. Most of the south is missing."

[mythalenaste]

"Not all of the lines cross," Pel says, frowning thoughtfully. "It might be there's no way to know for certain what this means until we know what to expect at each red spot. Scrying for eluvians in the areas showed no correlation, so they're not likely eluvian paths. Eluvians can be moved, at any rate, so making a mosaic map would have little purpose. But the green clearly evokes the Fade."

[arcaneadvisor]

"Throw a knife, see where it lands then open a book; that is where you will find battle if memory records them at all." Morrigan's look is for Pel who found a spirit in a ruin, alike but not like a phylactery recalling so little of anything but what it had been in the purest sense.

The Crossroads however…

There are older things than these wars. Older than Arlathan. "There are places where it may be broken. Intentionally done," carefully said, even for her. "But I know Merrill's eluvian came from the Brecilian Forest, not the ruins your party went to, and of another in the Dragonbone Wastes. Mine will not fit neatly on your map given 'tis crafted."

While the rest have been speaking, she'd drawn a copy for herself; she tears out the page below for Myr, the lines drawn heavily enough above to be followed with fingers.

[rowancrowned]

Quiet until now, watching the meeting from a seat towards the back rather than participating, Thranduil stands once Pel dismisses the group. He did not bring parchment or a pen with him, no mechanism by which he might take notes, but the map is easily remembered and transferred to one of the many he has of Thedas back in his chambers, and it will be no grand feat to return later, after everyone has been dismissed, and take a closer look for himself, resolve any curiosities that linger without needing to distract the group.

He catches Morrigan’s eye as the gaggle starts to move towards the door, and takes a step back besides, gesturing for her to join him, if she pleases, once she makes her way over to this side of the room. They have not spoken in some time—and if this is not a time where she might bestow upon him some wisdom, then he has no solid measure of her.

[arcaneadvisor]

Sundermount to settle into, Gwenaëlle to catch up with then the Templar that interferes on the edge of her life enough to turn her mouth to a thin line; Morrigan would be busy enough without feeling as if she draws closer to something regarding her mother.

Her own notes aren't yet tucked away when Thranduil catches her, the scowl smoothing out into something less severe, the edge of a smirk without the usual good humour.

"Thranduil," the warmth is there at least, "there is a matter or two we might discuss given...all this. I hadn't planned on it to come tumbling out as it had."

[rowancrowned]

“Would you prefer my office,” benefits of the job, and a lovely new tapestry from Gwenaëlle to admire on the wall, but upon second thought, “—or should we make use of this room?”

Everyone else seems to be filtering out, and he supposes he could commandeer it, especially if she needs access to the mural to illustrate her point.

How bothersome it must be, to have ordered your plans and kept them contained, quiet and sure of yourself and your path, only to have someone else stumble upon a trove of information by accident, and be made to watch as they attempted to assemble them, like an infant given a nesting doll.

[arcaneadvisor]

"Your office," let her be away from this room, everyone in it, and the migraine building in her temples. "If you are to come to my home for dinner, 'tis only fair."

As secure as this room might be, going to where it'll be just her and Thranduil settles her more since there's less chance that someone might decide to lurk, that any interruption will be known, will be announced. Who knows what measures he's taken to secure his rooms but Morrigan trusts it to be well done.

And she's curious, truly.

Nodding to the papers in her hand (one is indeed a sketch of the map) she says, "If you wish a copy, I can see to that as soon as possible." More detailed than what she'd share with others too.

[rowancrowned]

“I would hardly compare my office to your home, my lady,” no, not when he’s far fonder of the room he has in Gwenaëlle’s estate, of the sound of Kieran running down the halls in the morning, of finding Hardie napping outside her door, of Bill, in the gardens. “But it will do.”

He opens the door for her, gestures her in—a very clear invitation, as he gives to anyone who enters here, verbal or physical, and closes the door behind them. He was never as gifted with the craft of Girdling as Melian was, but protecting one room? He could do such things as an elfling.

“I would. It will be kept safe,” he says, and puts weight behind it.

Next to the fireplace is a tapestry—the Inquistion’s symbol, made of woven vines and branches, the background a mimicry of some of the patterns she has seen on his finest clothes, the ones from Arda. There is a small table, and chairs beside it—he pulls one out for her, and then, before taking the other, goes to his desk and comes back with a journal and a map of Thedas. The journal is filled with long scrawls of Tengwar—if she remembers her lessons, she may read on the page several phonetic spellings—Eluvian, which translates quite well, and Cercwal, which does not—which should give her an idea which entry he’s chosen to have at hand while they speak.

[arcaneadvisor]

Considering, she smiles. "No, you needn't bend your head to step in here." Practicality means you build just enough for planning around the possible growth spurts of what's almost a teenage boy. If he gets some height from her, some from Alistair the Kieran's sure to cut a figure either way.

So she settles, claps her eyes on things as a bird does before it alights upon a branch, head tipped to one side. The sigh could come from deep in her bones

"The eluvians and their true purpose coming to light in such a fashion 'twas not what I intended, let us hope the Inquisition dredges up some discrection from some reserve not yet made public." All this time with the truth sworn to secrecy by the few who did know because of the risks, when they were all comfortably housed in Skyhold of all places--

No longer a simple trip to see it with her own eyes. To step into the mirror, into the Crossroads. To trust the words of others who swear all is well with both. Nodding to the word, she looks to Thranduil as her mouth twists. "The Crossroads, you recall them? The place where we went through to go from my eluvian to Merrill's. That is likely what Corypheus seeks: the ancient elves made it, and though not the Fade? It is close. Close enough for him."

[rowancrowned]

“Are they yet your own, or have the advisers indicated that they are… under the Inquisition’s protection?” he asks, careful phrasing to underscore the truth. It is not so much that he doesn’t trust the Organization, moreso that he doubts the training of several of those involved, those in Kirkwall. Revelations like this ought to be kept under lock and key, advantages guarded. And now—well, they have some notice. Some time to get ahead of loose lips.

“I remember it well,” Thranduil confirms. The oddness of that liminal space, compared to the restoration he had known in the Fade. “What is your desire? To secure the remaining Eluvians, or to fortify the Crossroads as best we are able? If they are a hub, as the name suggests, we might well identify what used to be the central places.”

[arcaneadvisor]

"My eluvian belongs to me. I forged it alone, in Serault, for the other I wished was beyond my reach. As for Merrill's, I believe that one would fall under the Inquisition's protection. Given that she is Dalish and I was only given her leave to watch over it when other matters called her attention away." Morrigan is deliberate; her eluvian will always be hers, if that comes into question they will be welcome to attempt prying it from her fingers but as for Merrill's she can about imagine the uproar when there has been resistance in the past no matter how she has tried to be open. To ask for aid. To leave the way open that they might learn themselves.

Attempt to lay a claim to Merrill's and wait for the howling to come no matter how safe it might be with the person who knows them best. Morrigan forged her own.

Who else can say that?

"The remaining eluvians might not be so easily secured: you will recall that I spoke of them requiring a key? There is more. When the elves fell, they sealed the ways behind them. There are paths through the eluvians that shall remain shut for all time, from what Merrill told me of her clan's misfortune with her eluvian at first I do not doubt such a way was found though to encounter the Blight from it..." The Blight, the Old Gods, Magisters and something so old and very definitely elven? A piece doesn't quite fit but here she has it. "The Crossroads shall not last forever. Eventually they will collapse on themselves. 'Twas but a name I gave to them for their true name has been lost to time itself."

As ever that saddens her. How much have they lost in this world? Ground to dust beneath them? All the wonder stripped away to leave but bare dull rock? A world that so many would call better.

[rowancrowned]

If Morrigan is sure in its safety and the good behavior of the Inquisition, he will not push. She has known more of them for far longer than he could ever lay claim to.

"This... key," Thranduil says, looking at her, head tilted at a slight angle. "It is not a key. Not something one could hold in their hand."

Why would it be? The gates to his Halls needed no keys- they opened by his will, and that alone. The Elvhen would not have been much different. They had been so far similar in enough ways that this was just one more.

"Why would my kin bother with such a thing, when they had the skill at hand," he muses, looking beyond her for a moment, then refocusing.

[arcaneadvisor]

"Each eluvian is different. I cannot say if that is fortunate or not; you recall when we ventured to Kirkwall through mine? I know the key, the touch of magic required that I might activate it and allow myself or others passage through it. I know another that I have used in the past in the Dragonbone Wastes though it took much effort to learn it. Knowledge and power, as I have said before, is often enough."

His kin, he says, and again she looks at him as she must from time to time for all that they jest, that he's the one her dear Gwenaelle loves he is so impossibly old. Not of this world. Uthenera would be possible for him even now, if there were any who remembered all of it.

"Not all lead back to our world - can you imagine such a thing?" A dare, almost, he can imagine such a thing. Elves able to do it. Of course Thranduil also knows what happened to the elves. He knows the elves that live now, either in the cities, in the Circles, in their clans. "But of course there were the Magisters, the Fall of Arlathan, the Creators locked away from them; a great many things befell the elves and their history is as difficult to piece together as what we speak of now."

[rowancrowned]

"I have seen great feats of Craft before," elves with good teachers, and peacetime enough to learn for joy over necessity. "But none to this extent."

He shakes his head. Two thousand years- a fraction of time, and the Elvhen people were alive and thriving. Nothing, in the grand scope of the whole of the world. No room for could have, should have, may-have-been. Only now, and the scraps they work through.

"We-- you, I should say-- will recover what can be recovered. Perhaps I might be of some assistance, should you think our histories and manner were of like kind." If she needs someone to think as they had. If she needs anything. She, who he would name elf-friend.

[arcaneadvisor]

"So much has been lost, I cannot measure how little we know now. Of anyone I have met, you might be able to truly imagine the wonders of Arlathan beyond the stories one tells a child." Live the truth, not the tale, and you have less patience for how a person oohs and aahs yet Thranduil is so much older than any of them that he can understand what it is to have been as the ancient elves were, to have been ageless, to have shaped a world and lived in it when it was everything it was meant to be. The Dalish split apart, come together but once every ten years, speaking fragments of a language that a tiny handful of them can even read.

"Would you be of a mind to take a trip to Skyhold again some day? You had so little time before, from one place to the next." If I am ever gone, she thinks, who else might have a chance of understanding them at all enough to be trusted with them. "You might yet be here the day the Crossroads gutters out at last."