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

He glances around quickly at the use of his name, but they're alone and he can relax.

"Fantastic, ill-advised food choices," he says with no little amusement. "What's life if you can't eat too many little tiny fried fruit pies every now and then?" There. There's some herbs, and Anders squats down to start to pick what will be useful despite all of his misgivings about how it might be grown.

Some of the amusement fades away as he works, though. It's hard to be in a good mood where people come with empty hopes only to die.

"As far as how I am, I'm... I don't know, Myr." He sighs. "How are you?"

It's only after Myr's used the name that he realizes what he's done; he drags his hand down his face and heaves an exasperated sigh at himself. "Maker's bits--I'm sorry; I know better but I've a lot on my mind lately." What was the assumed name they were supposed to call him? He's silent a moment retrieving that; manages a laugh nevertheless at the little tiny fried fruit pies. Those had been worth making regrettable decisions for.

"Worried." And hopeful beyond all reason, but that's not something he's quite up to explaining yet--even if it shines through in his mood. "Something's stalking these people and I don't know where we'll begin unraveling what it is."

"I think we could start with their priorities," he says grimly, "and don't worry about the name. There's no one else here right now."

That could change, but he wants to be clear he's not upset.

"If we weren't alone, I'd steer clear of anything serious, honestly. They either invited the thing that's stalking them, or they're empowering it. Using it. Maybe both. Do you know how much Mercy hates this place? I can barely get her to respond, and even then I know she wants to be back away from it as soon as possible."

Chantries. They're not good places.

And like that, something in Myr's smile frosts over.

He'd been trying--Maker, he'd been trying--since Luca's comment to believe that Anders was simply his abrasive self out of excessive concern. (Which, to be fair: He clearly was, but not directed in the direction Myr'd hoped.) But expecting a variation from a groove worn by a life lived exactly one way, with total utter conviction, was--

Naive. Trusting. Everything that would get thrown back in his face for daring to take these people on their own terms rather than assuming the darkness lay within them rather than without. Breathe in, breathe out.

"What other evidence have you got for that? All magic's difficult here, once you get too far away from casting it."

He raises an eyebrow, and realizes that like the gesture, part of what's going on is something Myr literally can't see.

"Light and warmth flicker and fade, sometimes going out completely. I'd wisps out to light up the library and they were all extinguished, one after the other. Pilgrims come here, at least one a day, sometimes five a day, all hoping for a miracle and the Abby lets a vast majority of them die. And when I say lets, I mean it. The brother in there is doing what he can, but he's entirely untrained, and those people... They're left to die in drugged stupor. So many come, so many die, and a few get some miracle, there's a darkness that presses in at all times, I've found signs of violence and blood..." Anders exhales.

"Healing is a challenge, and I've healed all over. There is something that resists good forces here, healing and heat and light, and the staff acts like nothing is up. Maybe some are genuinely unaware. I'd believe it of Brother Estmond. But I fear the price for each miracle is paid with the deaths of many. She's performed around thirty miracles, all told... and it would be safe to say hundreds have died here."

He's braced. The cold look on Myr's face means he may be about to have knowing about hundreds of dead thrown back at him, but he knows he's not wrong. This place is not as good as it wants to seem.

He does Anders the service of listening in full, at least; in all their exchanges, that's worked...somewhat better than attempting to interject, whatever his heart cries out for him to do on hearing the facts of the situation arranged in a way that suits a particular, unwavering agenda.

And then, because listening requires hearing, he's silent long after Anders is done speaking, picking his words carefully and well aware he won't get much of a chance to lay them out. Perhaps not any chance at all.

But--Void take it--if it means the difference in succeeding and saving the abbey and what they've grown here, or half-succeeding with the place torn down to suit someone's arrant, pigheaded idea of justice-- (Bite your tongue on that. Breathe.)

"They are," he says very quietly, "quite aware that something's wrong. You need only ask them without accusing them of it being their fault."

He lifts his head as if he could look back toward the abbey and whatever broods over it, wandering the halls to snuff the candles Brother Morley so bravely keeps lit. Snuffs magic, too, erasing his glyphs the instant he strays too far from them--and it doesn't much like wisps, either, so that's at least something learned from all of this.

"Have you seen the bodies? Did anyone die while you were present? D'you know when those miracles were performed?"

Edited (minor text fixes) 2018-09-11 05:56 (UTC)

Myrobalan the blind, he uncharitably thinks. Willfully blind as well as physically so.

"I have come across a room with signs of violence and blood," he slowly repeats. "No one has died while I've been present simply because I've started treating them; they weren't being seen to with more than numbing drugs, Myrobalan. Brother Estmond himself acknowledges that most will die without ever seeing the Reverend Mother. They work on improving the appearance of the place, fine glasswork, added sculptures, but they haven't hired anyone to take care of the people who are dying. What is here actively resists healing and chases Mercy away. Mercy, who should be drawn to a place like this if it was as it tries to seem."

The next herb gets ripped up instead of carefully picked. Myrobalan is judging and not actually listening; the comment about accusing says as much. The reaction is based on Anders' past, on Myrobalan's impression of him, rather than anything Anders has found.

"You want to believe. I can't blame you for that. It would have been nice to find a place where healing was a focus, where anyone seriously injured would be welcomed. But things don't fit."

"Those thirty miracles," still soft and even, still so careful, because if he loses control of himself now-- (a mage without control is a danger,) "were performed in the span of a week. By the current Revered Mother, a woman no older than her replacement, Sister Luca.

"Three thousand dead in a week! If, as you say, they were paid for in hundreds of lives, the dead would be stacked thick as cordwood on every flat surface, to the burying of the living wounded, because they cannot burn them."

And that, when he puts it at last into words, is the worst part of whatever's come over the abbey--the unfortunate dead stripped of the last dignity that might be offered them. "And you know what follows from that. They haven't templars, Warden. They haven't a single person among them who could fight even a rage demon if it stole a corpse they can't burn."

He gets up from where he's seated, the hand on his staff steady but the one by his side trembling with a fury that hasn't made it to his expression. And yet his voice remains--level, almost, and he doesn't take the step toward Anders that fury demands, nor does he launch himself to tackle the older mage to the ground like he'd gone after the bullies in Hasmal's Circle when he first learned he had a weight advantage on them.

"They've been fortunate so far. Blessed. But something's taken notice anyway, something that hates light, and magic, and snuffs out any spirit that draws close. Something is chasing Mercy away. And these people--these people, without fire, without light, without spirits who'd care and watch over them--are doing their damnedest to fight against it and you dare, you would dare--"

He cuts himself off in something like a frustrated sob as he realizes just how loud he's gotten. It isn't fair. None of this is fair. None of it is just, and Justice's once-host is leading the charge.

His voice is cold.

"These people, without fire, without light, have stayed here. I would absolutely dare, because this miracle is not being taken elsewhere. It's not hundreds each, it's hundreds of dead total, and there is something specific to here, specific to that miraculous week you're so sold on, that they are staying for. I dare to ask you to think rather than be swept up in what you want to feel."

There's only so much chosen naivete a mage can afford without dragging others down with them. The curse of the Loyalists, really. They close their eyes, and everyone pays the price. But he'll not be paying a price here.

"Contain yourself and hear your own words. What follows from corpses that can't be burned? And yet they stay. In this place that they say has always been like this. They could use their charitable donations to depart. To find a new place free of the darkness... and they do not. It is tied to it."

Now he stands as well and dusts off his robe. "People are dying here. Coming here, full of faith and hope, and finding nothing but a long, slow death. Thirty did not. Hundreds have. Even if I were to stay here I could not save a fraction of those dying in the infirmary right now, people who could have lived if they'd gone to a healer rather than trust in miracles. Most of them are too far gone now, their chance at life gone because they believed in the wrong thing. And now, since I've gathered a few more herbs to help, I'm going to actually save a few of them who would have otherwise died waiting in futility."

It steals Myr's breath with outrage how quickly the target shifts to serve Anders' narrative. He's a time getting it back, begging the Maker with each indrawn lungful of air to grant him calm, grant him the words needed to be heard.

(There may not be any. Petrana had warned him as much, near on a year ago; a man could not do what Anders had done without becoming something more, and less, than a man.)

"And I ask you to think," Myr replies softly, once all the fury's bled out of him at last, "and not perpetuate the injustice the Chantry did you on people who deserve none of it.

"Find me those hundreds of bodies, Warden, and I'll believe you. Until then, I take these people at their word. They haven't turned me aside for who I am," for being an elf, a mage, a loyal son of the Chantry, "and that's the Chant lived at its best."

It is best to let such things go, Luca had said of Anders' interrogation and disbelief. From the woman who stood on death's threshold knowing she wouldn't last much more than a day as the vehicle of miracles--it carries uncommon weight.

And if nothing else, Anders is right the wounded aren't being cared for as well as they ought. Even if most of them will walk away whole, (thirty healed in a week, one or two or five a day brought in--it was almost enough to pull even, if they triaged the worst cases first, but any extra influx would tip the balance until they began to pile up,) it's against their dignity to lie drugged into a slumber the whole time.

"Do you need another pair of hands?"

Edited 2018-09-11 15:32 (UTC)

Find Myrobalan the proof, because the elf certainly wasn't going to challenge himself to do so.

"No," Anders says, before clarifying. "Yes, more hands will help, but no, I will not find you the bodies. I'm taking Estmond at his word that there are many dead, and I'm not going to push into a sensitive subject because you think what I've seen and what I think is worthless."

Yes, he's suspicious by nature anymore, but the light here is linked to the darkness, he's certain of it. At least he goes in looking and aware. Myrobalan has chosen blindness and will be blindsided.

"Besides that, who turns you aside for who you are? You come here wanting to believe, of course they'll welcome you. It's easy to get along when someone comes with faith already." And it's an uphill struggle to get anywhere when everyone puts what they want to see of him on him. He's not a person with any sort of valid anything to so many, he's an idea, a threat, a danger, something to be mitigated and not fully engaged with.

He can't have faith in others when no one extends it to him. When no one will take him at his word.

The look on Myr's face in response to this is somewhere between incredulity and scorn.

He's at least wise enough to check the thoughts that come behind it; if there were hundreds dead you'd have seen the mountain of corpses and could point me at it, chief among them.

"Then I will," he says, simply, and steps onto the path to depart.

"And if any one of them has hassled you for being a mage, I'm sure you'll give it to me later, canticle and verse."

Edited 2018-09-11 17:11 (UTC)

He rolls his eyes as he starts walking.

"Please." It's bitter and tired. "I said nothing about magic influencing it, only your clear desire to believe. You practically radiate a desire to put your faith in more places and more things." It's something he's admired before, but right now he sees it as a weakness. Especially when it's getting him the same treatment that caused him so many issues with the Wardens.

"You treat me like I look for a reason to point to the flaws. I'm not an optimistic person, but that doesn't mean I want to see everything collapse. I'll thank you to give me an ounce of faith, even as just a Warden." He hadn't missed that change. "Our entire organization is shady. I can recognize other shady things. But no, it's just you-know-who being you-know-who about a Chantry, isn't it."

He stops and turns to look at Myr. "Actually, you know what? I'll go on alone. I don't need to deal with someone who has faith in literally everything here except me while I'm working and trying to encourage patients. There's a laundry somewhere and Estmond is far behind on clean linens for the infirmary and I'm sure he'd welcome your hands there. I'm good. I'm done."

Then he's walking away, shaking his head, more exhausted from one conversation than he's been from trying to heal here.

There is no response Myr can give to that that doesn't end badly, further splitting their strength and distracting their attention.

So he does not; instead, stops in place to let Anders finished speaking--he knows very well by now any attempt to walk away from it unhearing will make things worse--and waiting for the older mage to at last depart.

Only then does he resume his own walk to the abbey, all but trembling with leashed fury.

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Simple Gifts [Closed]

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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