Entry tags:

Simple Gifts [Closed]

WHO: Galadriel, Thranduil, Solas, Myrobalan, Merrill, Kitty, Lakshmi, Teren, Marcoulf, Jang, Obi-Wan, and Anders
WHAT: A trip to a perfectly normal Chantry in the middle of nowhere.
WHEN: Current.
WHERE: The Island of Alamar, Ferelden.
NOTES: Current warnings, to be updated: Graphic Descriptions of Gore

The Abbey on the White Cliff

Travel to the Abbey on the White Cliff is no easy matter. While it stands not far from Amaranthine, the waters between the mainland and the island shores are a wicked confluence of eddies and razor sharp rock. The rain is ever-present here and the wind moves unpredictably at the best of times. Ships of size cannot travel easily to the island of Alamar and small boats are rarely steady through the choppy water. Fortunately, as the Inquisition approaches, the world takes some pity on them and the waters seem to still and calm. The clouds linger but, at the very least, they don't open above them until they have reached the land.

The island is a grey affair, all rocks and scrub and damp. The village, an austere looking outcropping of buildings, is entirely made from the local stone and, were it not for the red clay roofing, would blend into the landscape seamlessly. Very few people have strayed into the rain to greet the Inquisition and, without the voices to echo off the stone, most sound is drowned in the lapping of waves and the heavy fall of rain. As a result of the weather and the lack of citizens, the town has the general quality of a graveyard.

The merchants who work the docks are affable enough and, after unloading their haul and securing it somewhere a bit drier, offer to take the Inquisition up to the Abbey proper. The rain slows before long and the merchants lead the Inquisition to the main roads and, let them on their way. Fortunately, the Island is not terribly large and, even walking, it will take only a few hours to arrive at the far side of it.

As the party leaves the village and the shore, the island landscape opens before them. Sloping moors give way to periodic outcroppings of rock and, against the horizon and the far end of the island, there rests a dark forest of pines. The Abbey on the White Cliff stands at the far side, at the top of the hill and overlooking the waves. The road they travel is an easy one, well worn, and the buildings come into view long before they reach them--they stand several stories tall, made of the same stone as the village. They are moss-covered and have the look of an old building that has been questionably kept--at least, from a distance.

The closer one gets to the buildings, the more obvious the additions and repairs become. Windows that have no business holding glass have had colorful windows inset to them. The doors are heavy, wooden, and new. The ironwork on the walls is polished and unworn by the rain. There are no torches lit but, once the Inquisition members have reached the doors, they open promptly.

They are greeted by a Chantry Sister with a bright smile and rosy cheeks and, without hesitation, the lot of them are welcomed into the Abbey.

OOC:

Hey guys! So I plan on aggressively GMing this one. Basically I want to run this like D&D, or as near as I can manage.

The location threads below are available for single player/two player exploration, I will be tagging you with information based on where you go or what you do, but if you want to do a bigger thread please just use the team threads at the bottom. That way if you all decide you want to check out the [INSERT LOCATION HERE] and it leads you to [DIFFERENT LOCATION] I can move you along without changing threads.

Because of your proficiencies, different characters will have advantages in different areas/while talking to different people, so groups are best. I will also be PMing your character journal periodically with any information that your character may have picked up on that nobody else would.

The NPCs are available for talking to or questioning by any number of people. Their general locations are in their thread headers so you can travel there as a crew or ask me to send them at you, if you so desire.

Feel free to do new top-levels if you guys really want, I am just here to try and make this fun.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They're just wisps, but losing them hurts anyway. They'd been there helping him and now they're dead, all three. The injured had made this mission a little personal. This? This makes it very personal indeed, because something here has just killed three tiny almost-lives who had been almost-allies, and it's bloody cold.

"What are you?" he asks the darkness. Who knows, it might have an answer for him. "What do you want? They weren't hurting anything. They were just existing."

Despite talking, he doesn't exactly expect an answer. Instead, after making a mental note of the shape he'd briefly seen outlined by dust, Anders heads out and toward the room with the unwavering light, tapping on the door before pushing it open. He might be invading in on someone's personal space, but he doesn't really care. People are dying, his wisps have been snuffed out, and he'd actually like to find someone to bicker with.

The darkness, unsurprisingly, does not answer Anders, but the oppressive nature of the room lingers even as he passes out of it.
"I don't feel the Fade. I don't feel magic at all...Maker, I think if I tried anything like that I'd be torn apart."
The room with the candle, however, is a different matter altogether. The door swings open without resistance and Anders is bathed in the golden light of the steady candle flame. The air lifts and warms, becoming far less oppressive and far less chilled--the silence here is not laden and heavy and the presence, the roll of thunder, seems a distant thing.

For all the calm that permeates this room, and it does, in every shadow there is warmth here--for all that calm, the room is in dreadful disarray. There is a decanter spilled over the floor and two glasses. One is shattered to pieces and scattered about, the other rests on the very edge of the desk. There are two chairs, one pushed back in order, and one on its side with a broken leg.

More than that, however, there is a smell of medicine, of wine, and of blood. On the edge of the desk there is just a sparkling hint of liquid red. To see it properly he will have to step behind the desk, but the darkness looms beyond the window. Whatever force had dispatched the wisps lingers still.

Teren moves through the driving rain with speed and stealth, invisible against the inky black of the Abbey yard. The ground curves down a bit as it approaches the building with the lit window and as such the sill stands at just above five feet. It is not an easy window to enter, nor to see through, and the view it provides is largely of a ceiling and of the items directly before it.

The room inside is a library, or so it seems from afar. There are shelves that line the walls, the ceiling is unadorned, and there is a lit candle very near to the window. The shadow that moves through the light rises again and, at this distance, it is clearly Anders, lit in gold and with a mixed expression on his face.

Edited (CORRECT ICON.) 2018-09-10 03:14 (UTC)

If he were afraid of the dark, he'd...

...oh wait. He is. Thankfully the room isn't a tiny one, the door is still open behind him, and he can at least feel his magic. Anders steps around the desk, being careful to not kick any of the shards of glass. Two people had been here, something had happened to one, and if he's lucky there will be some sort of trail.

If he's not lucky, it will continue to be the story of his life.

Just in case Anders isn't on-edge enough, there comes a brisk rapping at the dark window, the glint of eyes and a thin, pointed face silhouetted by the torrent of rain in a flash of lightning.

Anders whirls, fireball in hand, ready to fight for his life against something that can absorb fire and magic with those exact things... and sees her face. The fireball dissipates.

"Are you, you... Maker's arsehole, Teren, are you trying to give me a heart attack and get yourself set on fire?" Why would anyone startle a mage? "If you want to be a human torch, wave a knife in Nate's direction again. That will be easier."

As he talks, he's looking for a clasp on the window that he can open to let her in.

The clasp on the window is easily found but it takes a moment and some effort to lever upright. The cold air floods the room but the candle flame remains strong and does not flicker. The rain outside is suddenly loud--or, perhaps, it is only that it is no longer stifled in volume by the room itself.

Because of the driving rain drowning out all other sounds, Teren can see that Anders' mouth is moving, but can't hear a single thing he says. For that reason, she's relatively unbothered-- even relieved-- when she hoists herself up from the windowsill and sloshes into the room looking like a wet cat. She lands gracefully enough, despite the puddle that forms rapidly around her feet.
"What are you doing here," she asks brusquely but, all things considered, a bit relieved. The puddle grows as she wrings out her braid, watching Anders.

"Asks the woman climbing in through the window? To a room with blood in it, soaking the floor, Maker, you terrified me and you're not even sorry, are you."

He shakes his head, more glad of her company than actually annoyed. "Careful of the water, don't let it get in the way of the other mess. Some got hurt here, or offed, I've no idea which, and hopefully there's some indication of where they got dragged since they're not here. Also the candle has to be magic and somehow connected to the other fires without being connected because the wind did nothing to it."

It's a lot of words. He's feeling a lot of things. It happens.

"Blood?"
That's the only thing she caught. For the record, it hadn't even occurred to her that she might be imposing, or that she should be sorry for anything. Instead, Teren simply scans the room to see what he's talking about.

He sighs and jerks a thumb in the direction of the mess.

"Blood. I've dealt with too much of it to not know what it smells like. But be careful where you drip? Someone likely didn't leave this room on their own power and we need to figure out where they were taken, if they're still alive, who they were, and so on."

She's so oblivious to his annoyance that he has to wonder if it's deliberate.

"Right," Teren mutters, and steps away from the bloodstains, shaking out her feet like a disgruntled cat as she does so. It's not that she's oblivious: it's just that, as with most people, Anders is annoyed often and she doesn't care. What she does care about is not disrupting the crime scene, hence her easy cooperation and the way she now scans the room, looking for anything Anders might have missed.

Teren's arrival has dragged in a reasonable amount of water--the blood behind the desk thins and pools with it, making a relatively small pool seem massive and dramatic by comparison. The water creeps under the desk and toward the window. The floorboards creak as the two of them walk around the puddle and move out of the way, attempting to keep from disrupting things more than they have already.

The chair lies broken on the floor before the desk, shards of a broken glass pepper the floorboards around it. The matching decanter is overturned on the floor, contents soaking into the cracks of the wood. There is a single sliding hand-print on the desk, it is wrought in blood and trails toward the ground by the window. The glass on the desk is filled with drink but remains full.

He frowns at the very short trail.

"Did you see anything outside? A body, I mean. There's nothing in the hallway, and there would be if they went through there; there's too much dust for a cleaning not to be noticeable. So it's window or a secret passage."

The latter is certainly possible in an older place like this. Anders starts rapping on the walls lightly, listening for hollow places, while waiting for her answer. Frankly, it's dark and wet out there. He doesn't expect anyone would have seen anything.

"Nothing outside, that I saw--" Teren begins, but her eyes catch on the floor near the desk. Wrapping her braid up behind her head again, she pins at loosely and stoops to squint at a mark in the wood. "A blade," she muses, and scans around again, searching for-- yes, there. Pointing at the doorframe, she stands to run her fingers along the indent of another weapon, likely something swung. "Both were armed."
After contemplating the mark a moment, Teren turns to look at Anders. "Do we know anyone who wields an axe?" Almost everyone has a dagger.

An axe. Anders frowns.

"No. I think Marcoulf could, but I don't think he brought one. We're a lot of mages, you, Kitty, Marcoulf, and then Obi-wan with his flashy glowy sword."

There is a strange moment, then, as they speak and stand within the walls of the library. The air shifts--it does not become unwelcoming, not precisely, but something within the bounds of it moves aside. It changes goes from an embracing sort of warmth to a dead heat and begins to chill. The glow of the candle, perpetual and even, flickers and seems to withdraw toward the wick. That it burned strangely at all was hardly apparent until, at once, it ceased in its extraordinary nature.

The window Teren had entered through rattles and there is a sound outside of it, a furious, impossible sound both gutteral and grinding, immediate and distant. It passes with a hiss and a slide of rain against the windows. The rain is suddenly so much louder and the protection of the walls seems so much less.

Cold creeps in in a distracted way and the candle flame begins to thin, rising high toward the ceiling, stretching out. It will not be long before it snaps and extinguishes itself.

The dead girl in the chest. Ghosts are real. Teren has met one.
By the time the moment is over, she's pressed back against the doorframe, staring at the open window through which That Sound was unmistakeable despite the accompanying rain.

"Anders, what was that," she asks in a soft voice, almost gentle with fear. He'd better know.

"Um." His voice is hushed, as if talking any louder will get them murdered, and he's back against the wall as well. He stares at it, trying to put anything together and coming up with nothing.

"I don't know, Teren. I've no idea what's going on," he finally admits. "People are dying, people are getting miracles, fire doesn't work right, wisps don't, magic doesn't, what even does that to a candle?" It's a whole list and it doesn't add up. "If it was just magic having issues that would be one thing, but fire..."

Darkness, cold, silence. He associates that most with Templars and Circles, but that's not relevant here.

"Some sort of Despair demon, maybe? I really don't have what I need to guess well. I've not heard of this before."

There are some things you don't fuck with. Not when there are two of you, and the thing can't be stabbed, and is clearly, ever-presently fucking supernatural.

"...perhaps.... we should go," Teren murmurs, glancing meaningfully back toward the window. The woman who will launch herself at a Harvester and cut it to ribbons while a mage-made blizzard rages around her really, really does not want to tangle with an invisible predator.

The candle on the table goes dark, extinguished by nothing more than a stray breeze from the window, and they are left in the cold, quiet library. There is a stillness here that is unnatural, that hearkens to a tomb, and before either of them move into the room and away from the walls, there is a soft sound that echoes down the hallway.
"When I forgot you...were you sad? Mad?"
It is nonverbal, but not metallic, not grinding as the sound outside the window was. It is a quiet sound, not unlike a sob or the muffled notes of a voice through a doorway. There is a breath, deep and gasping, and then the sound of something very heavy, quite probably metallic hitting the ground and being dragged over the wood.
"...most are forgotten after their deaths--it felt like dying?"
Whatever it is at the end of the hall, it's coming.

"Why? Maker's sake, why?" The window is very tempting, but at the same time whatever's being dragged might be the ax that killed someone and might help them finally figure out even a fraction of this.

He glances between Teren and the door and the window, trying to decide. Fear suggests he just run for it. But there are people dying here, and maybe they can stop it.

"Maybe if you get by the door you can slit its throat. If it has a throat."

For all her courage, Teren is ready to book it. But perhaps it's Anders' stubbornness that inspires hers, and, not about to run if he isn't, Teren nods.
Knives out, she slips over to the doorway, watching it closely, hands shaking in spite of herself as she listens to the approach of... whatever it is. Occasionally she glances back to Anders. If this is it, if they die here, Nate's going to blame her.

The sound approaches--there are footsteps but they are strange. They are hollow, too light to be bare footfalls but metallic and with heft behind them. They sound far off, almost, insubstantial in a curious way. The metal that drags against the floorboards, however, that does not sound insubstantial--the weight of it is much larger than an axe, much larger than it should be, and the sound fills the hallway. It nearly drowns out the pounding rain.

For just a moment, just outside the doorway, the footfalls halt and the dragging slows. There is stillness for just a second before whatever lingers there turns and moves into the room nearest the Library.
"...it is the deepest shadow, the oldest fear--"
If they should lean to check, they will see the barest hints of it as it passes into the next room, a dark and ragged shape with limbs long and gnarled, trailing as it vanishes into the open doorway. Behind it, it drags a long bar of twisted metal that glimmers just barely in the darkness. It scrapes the floor terribly but, somehow, fails to leave a mark.

He slips to the doorway when it doesn't come in, catching a glance of something that looks like a tree. Jonas' stories come back to him about demons in the trees, and he looks back at Teren, trying to do the mental math. There's no mark left, but the mark on the desk was solid; they'd hate fire but surely one sylvan couldn't take out all of the fire.

"It doesn't have a throat," he finally says weakly. "It looks like a sylvan. But one sylvan can't do this. I don't think. And I'm... I'm not sure it's actually here. It might be some sort of memory. I've seen it in the Deep Roads."

She probably has too, for that matter. Sounds and visions that weren't really happening now, but had happened before.

"Teren? I think it's time to do something very stupid."

Simple Gifts [Closed]

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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