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

"Days I guess, maybe more than a week," the boy answers and rolls his good shoulder in a shrug. He is disaffected to a truly impressive degree, but his eyes still light up a bit at the mention of Kirkwall.

"So you all came here from Kirkwall," he repeats back, some of his eagerness and imagination peeking through the general aura of malaise that comes with waiting in a Chantry. "You must have some truly terrible injuries in your group, yea? Got from fighting dragons or battles with darkspawn?"

A week sounds right. A month might even, given the state of the infirmary. A boy's ruined hand likely falls to the bottom of the priority list. Maybe he'll be waiting here forever, made to be satisfied with the abbey's hospitality and well wishes and little else. It's a better shake than he'd have anywhere else, maybe even including other chantries, and both of them must know that. It doesn't warrant remark.

"One of our party is blind, though I believe he's been in that state for some time. We're here to pay our respects to the Reverend Mother and the work being done here, not for healing." But, in the spirit of being anything but a complete disappointment-- "We've been lucky. The last time I fought darkspawn, no one was so much as scratched."

That's a lie. He'd come home with a nasty burn on his spare hand, bright smoothed skin healing still across his knuckles, but it's a harmless story. Better to speak to that than tortured captives rescued out of Minrathous.

"Have they been good to you? As you've been waiting."

The boy's eyes widen with open and honest interest as Marcoulf offhandedly mentions fighting darkspawn. He is sold, entirely, on having conversation with the man so long as it results in more tidbits or some interesting fact being tossed his way. Surrounded by only the pious and the ill, he is wasting away for entertainment and Marcoulf just stepped into the limelight.

"What? Good?" He asks and is briefly confused. He glances at his arm and shrugs a bit, his frown contemplative and exceedingly temporary. "Yea, suppose they have. Plenty to eat, somewhere to sleep, blankets when they got them. It's usually dry. If it weren't for all the holy spirit in the air, it'd be a right nice place to live.

"Well, the holy spirit and the rain. Can't do much about the rain though," he concludes and uses his good arm to adjust his bad one. He grimaces a bit but seems more comfortable, less hunched, once he's done it.

"So you came to pay respects, like--building stuff like those guys?" he asks and gestures at the cadre of carpenters traveling into the large doors at the end of the Main Hall. "Or are you just saying hello and burying the dead? Gonna take a lot of rocks and dirt given all the rain, hope you're good at shoveling."

With a tip of the head, Marcoulf follows the gesture to the door and the carpenters disappearing through it. "Something near it. We have one or two significant members of the Inquisition in our company," he says, looking back to the boy. "I imagine they'll see to the Revered Mother and what the abbey might need in the long term. The rest of us are more or less able hands. I imagine digging could be managed."

It's near enough to the truth that he doesn't mind saying it. What the Provost and his company can possibly want from or to do for the Abbey, he can't say. He's here only to see to it that the visit or the roads leading to and from don't turn sour or deadly. The sword at his hip is well loved.

"Have you seen any part of what they're building yet?"

"Yea," the kid acknowledges and looks at Marcoulf. There is a moment of silence as he arches both his brows. He will expect an interesting story in return for this information. He sees that well worn sword at your side.

"Big like triple panel thing with art on it. Fixin the roof and putting up an archway and a big to-do for when they have the big ceremonies and stuff." He looks to the side and motions to the elder of the carpenters, Herkle. "He's the one who's been gildin' the whole thing. Looks damn near Orlesian."

Then he stops and stares, pointedly, at Marcoulf. He will take that story now.

He makes a small face, nose wrinkling thoughtfully as he glances again for the door. Gilded? That's an awfully silly thing for a chantry at the edge of nowhere in dire need of a half a dozen other things that could be bought for the same. Granted, the same could be said about what they'd evidently sent to the Inquisition. For better or worse, someone is putting an extraordinary amount of faith in-- well. Their faith, he supposes.

Which: fair enough, though he's never known the Maker to give him a bit of bread without someone first showing a coin for it.

Marcoulf scratches the side of his nose. He makes a low, humming noise, but selectively says nothing at all about the improvements being made behind the door. Instead he hooks his hand lightly over the silvered pommel of the sword, returns the boy's arch look for a beat, then surrenders.

"Speaking of Orlais," he says. "Have you heard of what happened to Chevalier Desmarais's men in the Dales during the war?"

When the answer is, inevitably, no - as no one does, save those men and Desmarais -, he'll spin the story in unpretty terms as a boy might like to hear. It's all ambush and sabotage, fighting Dalish in the dead of night, with some nod given to the strangeness of entirely fictional ruins around which the skirmish had been fought (which is more romantic than the hillside where it had actually been done). It's a fair enough exchange, he thinks. When he's done, Marcoulf begs his leave - "Good luck" and "mind your manners" and a ruffle of the boy's hair calculated to annoy preteens - and then he's on his way.

Simple Gifts [Closed]

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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