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

[meds4sale]

"Perhaps a little like a map of a train system," he muttered softly to himself, finally looking up from whatever long contemplation he'd been having.

"Morrigan," he said, his voice no longer a whisper, "may I ask - when one passes through an eluvian. Do they simply come out the other? or is there more to it?"

[mythalenaste]

"They are thick in the middle and tapered at the ends. If that is Corypheus' purpose, and we have reason to believe he has a use for this map, that does lend credibility to the hypothesis that they are places where the Veil is especially thin. Somewhere where he can tear through to the other side." Pel considers for a moment, then looks back at the list.

Eluvians
Elven Ruins
Ley Lines
Weakened Veil
Other old, cursed as fuck civilizations

"Don't they look like tears in the map?" she muses. "Isn't that exactly how you would portray a giant tear in the Veil, if you could? Although they don't look anything like the Breach. But they don't look all that much like each other, either."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Hey, uh, so this is probably a stupid question, but that's what I'm here for. Shouldn't we also consider who made this? Like, okay, it was in some creepy elf ruins, right? But to just say 'elves made it' doesn't help...super a lot? I mean, they help us think maybe it's to do with these transporter doors."

Listen, if he ever goes through an eluvian and comes out covered in black stuff on the other side, he's quitting Thedas forever.

"But I mean like societies make different things for different reasons. One group of elves isn't gonna have the same ideas and ideals as another. For all we know, this could just be like...a big map of trade roads. I know it's not, but I'm just saying. What do we really know about the people that might have made this, and how does that influence the possibilities of what it could mean?"

[arcaneadvisor]

In response to the Medicine Seller (what is a train?) she shakes her head slightly. He'd put the puzzle of the eluvians together far faster than any other from them talking together previously but there's still more to discuss. "A door requires a key. So does an eluvian, if you have the key then yes you will proceed as you will but if not, if you choose blindly, there is every chance to become trapped. So many are sealed. Gone dark."

Church if you go through an eluvian and come out covered in black stuff you might have to talk very nicely to your local Grey Wardens but that's still not a guarantee about not leaving Thedas forever.

"As for the maker, the ancient elves have a-- poetic vagueness to anything written that makes it near impossible to interpret meaning. I have studied long years through ruins but never have I come across something such as this. Whereas elves after the fall of Arlathan then the Dales have tales that overlap then change in the telling." The look of irritation on her face isn't directed towards the question, more an older thing, remembering long days and nights poring over the same phrases to find a meaning lost to time. "If there were those who did recall the eluvians perhaps they attempted to repair one. 'Tis no small task, let me assure you, and to attempt to find the way back..."

Had they tried to find the Crossroads? Somewhere else? Had their doorway been sealed shut behind them?

[aforethought]

This is all out of her league, not that she's about to admit as much. Melys slouches in stubborn place, tries to play catchup —

"D’you get stuck in the Fade? Or in," Her face screws up, "Void?"

She finally offers, for lack of better word. It falls a little flat. Who understands elves today? Let alone dead ones. Church's point seems half-reasonable:

"What purpose is there t’opening the Veil if you ain’t Corypheus?" Why would they care about weak spots? Maker, all this magic nonsense. They'd be welcome to keep it for themselves, if it didn't go messing up life for the rest. "An' if we're worried on him using them, why not just. Seal the ones what still work?"

[motherfucking_ghost]

"It's all just guesswork." Church slumps back a little, rubbing his chin. "God damn I miss the internet and crowdsourcing information. Okay, so end of the day, we can do whatever booklearning research we can, but we still have to send people out and see if they can physically see anything. Maybe some mages, a Rifter or two? The most likely people who could sense a disturbance in the force. Or the veil, or the fade, or the whatever."

[faithlikeaseed]

"The Magisters can't be the only ones who wanted the power opening the Veil would bring them," Myr observes to Melys' question, before turning a puzzled expression toward Church's voice.

Only about 35% of that was in Trade. He's certain of it. "Someday," he says to no one in particular, "we're going to start a rifter phrasebook. --A couple of shardbearers wouldn't be so bad an idea, either, if there's Veil tears present. The ones we encountered in the thin spot around the Blackmarsh only tore wider the first time someone tried closing 'em. Like new rips in rotted cloth when you try to mend the old."

If the intersections are thin places in the Veil, it stands to reason the rules would apply there, too.

[aforethought]

Guesswork. Melys feels a surge of frustration bubble up, and maybe that's what they've all got to be feeling at the answer. Somehow, that just makes it harder to swallow. There’s a line, isn’t there? A line where you should really know what you're talking on. She’s never walked it, folks have done their part before to make that clear. Just always figured someone else was.

A flicker of small, instinctive panic. Loud as she’ll object to the idea of some lofty, intellectual elite —

Well. Not so easy to give up on the things you’ve been told to believe in. Frightening now, to reckon they’re all standing in place. The talk of the Blackmarsh finally does it:

A muttered excuse, she makes her way out.