Simple Gifts [Closed]

[laurenande]

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.

Comments

[justice_is_blond]

She drops down so casually there and Anders feels a flare of anger rise up. He tries to fight it off, picking up the herbs that will help since he's not going to struggle through trying to heal for someone who isn't currently dying from anything other than time.

"An ailment of the old, something that the boy who was lying there yesterday will never be?" he snaps, mashing them together into a paste. "Yes, I can help with that. I can ease your discomfort."

Finished, he brings it over and gestures at her. "Bare the joints and I can put this on them, or you can do it yourself. It doesn't matter to me."

[laurenande]

She watches him work, his anger bleeding into every motion, and a slow sort of smile spreads over her face. When he arrives at her side, her face is creased with the expression and she holds up a hand to take the poultice from him.

"Oh I can manage, I expect," she replies, her grin almost splitting her face. "But you said you were a spirit healer--do you use spirits for this sort of thing?" She shakes her thin leg a bit and then gestures to the bed next to her--the woman covered in burns. She is soundly asleep. "Or is it reserved for that sort of thing?"

She is being deliberately crass. Why, it is hard to say, but the attempt to rile him is clear enough.

[justice_is_blond]

His expression is ice.

"I reserve it when I work in a place where even Mercy is loathe to come. Where the light serves only to show off the greater darkness looming about it. Where they've pretty glasswork and fresh ironwork and the overwhelmed man in their infirmary hasn't had a chance to learn anything about effective potion making, where the only answer to blind faith is wasting away, drugged."

He shouldn't say all of that. He shouldn't have said even a fraction of it. But he's raw and upset and she's smugly gesturing to a woman he's worked so hard for and will work hard on again and even then can't yet guarantee she'll make it.

"I did use it on her. She might make it, now. But him?" Anders gestures toward the man who had lost part of his leg and almost all of his blood. "He probably won't. So you can take your self-satisfied grin and shove it up your ass, madame."

[laurenande]

"The worst of them was this boy, you know," she reminds him, her tone far less smug and suddenly with a touch more patience to it. Her expression doesn't shift much, the smile persists, and she turns her attention to her knee, rubbing the crushed mixture into it with thin, gnarled hands.

"Already he had begun to rot," she explains and there is a touch of regret there, alongside the sigh she lets out. "I worried about him, but pretty glasswork and fresh iron don't help. That you're right about."

She finishes and lowers the hem of her dress.

"And you're right, there is very little Mercy here. I'm not surprised your spirit is loathe to linger. We use all of it up, over and over, until there is none left inside us."

[justice_is_blond]

"I know he was," he says, and for a second some of the anger slips and there's pain in his eyes before he's right back to pure anger. It's not just his mood. It's his shield, too. Losing people, even people he's only had as patients for a few hours, hurts. And children hurt the most of all. "If he'd had a healer instead of..."

His words turn to mute anger as he gestures at the place before stalking back to the herbs. This boy. Him. Anders doesn't know the boy's name, and he doubts she does either, and that makes it so much worse. After several minutes pass in silence save for the sound of chopping, after he's cooled off some, he looks tiredly back over at her. She's some sort of attendant, has to be, if she'd noticed the rot.

"Mercy would be getting books so Estmond can learn more. He wants to learn. Mercy would be increasing your infirmary staff rather than giving to the Inquisition. You've people who are putting all their faith in miracles and dying instead."

The pleas are doubtlessly falling on deaf ears, but he has to try. More pilgrims will come and they deserve to have a chance in this place that won't give it to them and likely feeds on death.

[laurenande]

"Aye, we do have people dying for the want of miracles, that is true," she agrees again, almost entirely ignoring his anger. "But books won't help Estmond, and healers won't help those who have come to us."

She looks to the woman on the bed beside her and her expression is almost wistful. She runs fingers through her matted hair and shakes her head.

"Do you expect they didnt have any healers before they came? You traveled here, we are not near to anything of value, and very few are ever assailed en route.

"This is a conflicted place and it is not comfortable, perched on the edge of the precipice of death as we are. It is a last resort." She looks back at him as she wipes her hand on her gown. No soil comes away on her hand or mars the white of it.

"Surely you've seen that sort of desperation before, yes? And you must know how rarely something comes of it."

[justice_is_blond]

"It will help some," he replies stubbornly. Desperation is something he's known far too well, something he really doesn't want to talk about, but there it is anyway. All the same, his voice is no longer angry. It's hushed. Braced. Ready to be dismissed or ignored, because who is going to listen to a mage who isn't one of the faithful?

"I have known desperation. I am a mage, and it is your people that have caused me to know it intimately." For a long second, he considers saying his name... but that would gain no one nothing. People he's been around cannot see past what he's done. She certainly wouldn't. "Many do not have healers, because many of my people still are not safe thanks to being hunted down by Templars, which is another cause for many to become desperate, mage and not alike.

"Thedas is not comfortable, if you get down to it. But belief in empty promises does not help. Thirty healed, and how many dead? Do you know?"

[laurenande]

"I do," she says and rasps out a dry chuckle. There is no humor in it, not this laughter, and she shuffles toward the door and, by dint of the space available, toward him as well. Her smile creases her face, but it is a rueful thing.

"Thirty and soon to be thirty-one."

[justice_is_blond]

"Dead?" he echoes incredulously. "That can't be right. Estmond was talking about people not making it to get the Reverend Mother's blessing. About people arriving constantly, sometimes five at once, and if they're all in this state that can't be the sum."

She's coming closer, still smiling, and Anders is incredibly uncomfortable. One for one? One death for one life? And whose life? The boy's, for who?

[laurenande]

"Estmond has been here for some time, it is true, but he hasn't seen anyone perish before they can be saved." She explains and is amused by his discomfort. She is just over half his height and so frail a breeze could topple her--his fear, however mild, is hilarious.

"Oh, he worries over it, but so too does everyone," she cedes. She pauses before him and peers up at him. Her eyes are pale and ice blue, set deep into her skull.

"He didn't explain at all, did he? That or you didn't truly ask him. Estmond...he can be flighty and easily put off course. I am not surprised he failed to speak it."

She draws a deep breath and lets it out. It is a fond sound.

"My name is Alvar, I am the Reverend Mother of this Abbey. Thirty people have perished here, no more, no less."

[justice_is_blond]

The Reverend Mother? His eyes narrow. She'd hidden that rather than introduce herself right away, which is as deliberately manipulative as he'd expect from one.

"Estmond was distressed. I wasn't going to make him more distressed." He shoves his hands in his pockets, still ill-at-ease. She's physically small, but she represents so much of what's deliberately hurt him. A Reverend Mother would hardly have issue with what's been done to mages. He doubts she's any exception.

"What's behind all this, then? Mother." If he has to use the title, he'll use it, but there's no reverence in the word. "How does a miracle work when magic hardly does?"