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

The forest is thick, and old, and Merrill feels better upon entering it- right up until Myr casts his spell. She freezes then, immediately; a doe that has just stepped on a twig and heard it snap, who knows her location has been broadcast to any who wish to hear it.

"Don't," she whispers, a bit hoarsely. Her fingers come up to grip the necklace around her throat, other hand reaching back to find Myr. "Did you feel that?"

Something didn't like that. Maybe the forest itself. Maybe whatever remains from before - and there was certainly a 'before'. Merrill's looking at the evidence of it.

"An archway," she says, once nothing comes lunging for them. "Like the ones in the cloister of the Abbey. It looks abandoned, and there's three paths - one straight, one to the right, and one to the left."

She looks back, trying to find Marcoulf among the trees; none of them should be alone here, especially with the sense of foreboding that's settled over them like mist. "Have either of you heard anything about the Abbey being moved, before?"

He's not so far removed - lagging a half dozen paces behind Myr on the ghost of the foot trail, head cocked to listen and his hand easy at his belt. With little fanfare, he steps out to the side of the path to get a good look at the stone arch and its branching paths past the pair of them. If there's a hush in the wood, an uneasy sensation of watchfulness, it seems to his hear like the plain density of a wood during a summer storm. The trees might insulate against the wet, but the strange sounds of it murmur down through the branches and pool here. It's reasonable to feel that like a creeping breath across the back of the deck. Only maybe not for a Dalish elf (who should surely know better).

"The builders might know." Meaning no, he hasn't heard anything significant. "A second outbuilding, maybe - and too expensive to maintain if they're been so spare for long."

Oh-- The sense of something hateful settling over them stops Myr in his tracks surely as it does Merrill. A breath later the barrier disintegrates into so many glowing sparks, dispersed back into the Fade. "Maker's breath, did I ever," he replies in a near-whisper. "Something didn't like that."

That feeling of being watched makes him measure his steps to a creep as he comes up alongside her, head tilted this way or that to listen for what echoes the place might give back.

"Not a thing." No one he'd spoken to had said anything of it. "--But it might be a third dormitory. Or what's left of it, though that still leaves why they'd have abandoned it to the forest."

Edited (a clue!!!) 2018-09-14 02:06 (UTC)

Now that Myr is up to her, Merrill is refusing to let go of him. He may not know her very well, but that isn't stopping her from deciding that their hands need to get acquainted, because she's absolutely holding his. She isn't too proud to say that it's because of whatever didn't like that barrier, either; she won't hide behind altruism, even if it's there.

"The builders- yes, maybe someone should ask them when we're back." Someone who they aren't likely to immediately cast judgment upon for being a Dalish mage in a Chantry. (That probably means you, Marcoulf, as you're the least mage and least Dalish among the three.) But Myr has heard of something, and Merrill hums slightly. "A third dormitory? What happened to it? I don't know very much about building these sorts of places, but- these trees are large. If it was attached, it would have been a while ago, unless... unless these trees are as unusual as the plants in the garden." And that could certainly be the case.

If it's a dormitory, though, then perhaps there isn't as much to fear from it. Merrill takes a breath and then steps forward. She'll let go of Myr if he pulls away, but otherwise- "I think- to the archway itself, first? Maybe following the path that goes the most straightforward, and the right-most path when that fails." They're already there; might as well look around.

They approach the archway and, as they near it, the path around it becomes clearer. This particular piece was never part of a building properly, it was part of a covered walkway, like the ones that travel between the transepts and the adjacent buildings apart from the Abbey proper. The paths that lead away from it are overgrown but only one of them was ever paved in stone.

The path straight ahead curves left, back into the trees and, if one has a sense for distances, around the back of the main hall of the Abbey. This is the only paved path of the three, but it has not been trod in a while, months at the least. The others have been walked more recently, but they lead to the cliffs and along the woods toward the moors, or that is where they seem to go.

The sense of foreboding doesn't abate as Myr's barrier drops, but it does thin, it becomes more absent and overarching. In time it may fade.

Ahead of them, every few feet, there is another piece of rubble, a hint of another archway that is gone now, crumbled or torn away. The longer they walk, the darker the sky above becomes and the dimmer their view ahead. Eventually, however, they reach a place where the trees are not so steady and one of them has been felled across the path.

Marcoulf trundles along in easy silence in Myr and Merrill's shadow. The darkness and the cold might touch him, but the fingertips of foreboding find no fixture on him. The forest is dark and damp, the shadows long but most woods are all of these things.

The felled tree might as well be expected. That the path isn't more overgrown should be more of a surprise.

Shy about contact as Myr can be--old Circle habits die hard, even in a year out--he's not objecting in the least to having his hand held. Not with something out there that hates them for as little as casting a barrier. "Wouldn't rule out the forest being as unchancy as the garden," he remarks as they follow the path. Every so often, he extends his staff out to check the edges of the walkway, noting the bits of rubble he finds so with a thoughtful frown.

"Suppose we'd have a better guess if we knew when they abandoned this."

He'd seen a plan of an abbey like this once, long enough ago only the hazy details of it stick in his head--but that's sufficient to build up a picture of how it might have been before it had been abandoned and the forest encroached. (Encroached after it was abandoned? Or forced the abandonment? He shudders at the thought, for all it's odd and improbable. But then what's not, here.)

His staff ticks off the downed tree with a dull thunk and he stops right there, in place. "Can we get round?" he inquires in an undertone. It's colder here and closer and he doesn't like either feeling one bit.

"If we go off the path, probably."

She bites her lower lip, absently squeezing Myr's hand in hers as she thinks.

"There's fewer trees, here. As long as we're careful about where we step, it ought to be okay... just need to make sure there's no holes to sprain an ankle in."

Glancing back at Marcoulf, Merrill shrugs. It's less foreboding now, but it isn't lessened enough for her to forget the feeling.

"If it's an old dormitory, maybe we'll find some things that were accidentally left. We could return it to them. I think that'd be a nice gesture, don't you?"

That sounds like how horror movies start, actually, but okay Merrill.

Traveling around the tree takes them quite a distance from the path and, once they move to the other side of the tree the ground slopes down. This is new, a landslide perhaps, or just soil shifting because of the heavy rain. The trees here are at angles and fallen into one another, the forest is denser for it.

As they travel back toward the road, however, part of a building becomes clear through the trees. The building is of the same style as the dormitories, it is clearly a spare building that has been lost. Why it is not used becomes obvious as they approach. It is mostly demolished, a long pine has fallen across it and part of the building has fallen into the sloping sinkhole that has opened across the path, but front doorway is unobstructed.

"Then let's go off the path," Myr says gamely (even if he's not feeling that)--and so they do.

(He suspects that anything anyone had left behind would be rotted through by now, given the weather--and says as much--kindly, for Merrill's impulse is a sweet one. But if they do find anything, no reason not to bring it back...)

The prickling between his shoulders has nearly subsided by the time they find that other building, enough for his native sense of adventure to return. ...Mostly. "Shall we go in?"

He turns halfway back to Marcoulf on the question, inviting their human tail forward to join them in this ~~mis~~adventure.

"It's different here," Merrill says - as softly as she can, though she hopes Marcoulf can hear and anything lurking cannot. It feels different, and she is certain that if she slept here, there would be spirits in her dreams again. She is also certain that sleeping here would be unwise, not least because she can hear something that sounds like it shouldn't be here.

It's not going to stop her from going in, though. It's a spirit, not an Archdemon.

She hopes, anyway.

"Well, I'm going in," she decides, and it sounds like Myr is on board as well. Marcoulf is glanced at, but she isn't going to wait for him. She goes in, grip loosening on Myr's hand just enough that she can release him to grab for her knife, if need be. If something in the forest doesn't like magic- well, she's not great with a blade, but it'll do in a pinch.

The building is identical to the other two dormitories, at least in architecture, but the interiors differ rather greatly. The halls of the kitchen dormitory are clear and clean, the Library dormitory is congested with old storage--this one is still decorated as it was when it was inhabited. Decorations adorn windows, however mild they are, and personal items have been scattered by the storm and the destruction. They mold silently in the mud as Merril passes through the doorway and onto the rotting hardwood floors of the first level.

The walls are opened in places, broken and crumbling where the worst stresses of the tree brought them down. Others stand tall but are drenched in water and detrius. The huge tree looms overhead, still present, still pressing down on the building, but it seems to be stable where it rests.

Down the hall, past all the gaping darkened doorways, there is a soft sound and a whisper. It is a gentle thing, and distant. The cold here is different from the abbey but it grows as they proceed, becoming a fine frost over the surface of the stones--turning already slick footing to something risky. It does not help at all that the whole floor seems to slant to the left.

Myr's the same thought as Merrill does about the need for weapons, shifting up his grip on his staff so he can check the lay of his own dagger beneath his robes. The spirit blade--hilt in its usual place on his hip--might do them more harm than good in the long run.

He follows along a half-pace behind her as she enters the building, mindful of where he steps and listening to glean whatever he can from how their footfalls echo back. Once, he starts as something crunches wetly underfoot; once, he hesitates at the distant sound, head cocked birdlike to catch it. "Did you hear that?" he asks in an undertone, when he's certain he has heard something.

It is only on stopping that he notices how cold it's gotten, cold enough to bite even through the heavier quilted robe he's wearing. He shivers, abruptly, convulsively, then wills himself still--a hard thing, when it feels a little like he might start to slide downhill at any moment.

Marcoulf follows after them, mindful especially of his footing on the broken floor of the dormitory. The whole building sits dull and mud scraped, crumbling around them, and there's such stillness that even the great tree that had ruined this place doesn't shift or creak.

It's quiet. The heavy shadow here in combination with the foul weather above the trees has pitched the rooms into true cold that fogs the breath but--

He's nearer at hand now that the floor's begun to slope away so sharply, but his hand is hovering at the height of Myr's elbow rather than at either the knife or the sword on his belt. He'd rather not have to carry anyone back out of the wood, which means preserving Myr's ankles and making sure dalish girl doesn't fall through holes in the floor while they're both round-eyed and staring.

Her nod is immediate, born of the need to be quiet and careful that every Dalish is taught from the time they are small. She realizes a moment later that Myr can't see it, and swallows tightly; whatever is here doesn't need to know that they're here. Still, he deserves an answer, to know that he is not alone.

"Yes," she murmurs back, toes curling. Bare feet give her slightly more purchase on the frost, but she's all the colder for them. Still- there's definitely something here, and something that they ought to verify the nature of. This close to the Chantry, it could be a danger.

Merrill cups a hand to her ear, listening to the whispers. She wants to try and make out what they're saying, but more importantly, she wants to try and pinpoint the direction they're coming from. Once she thinks she has an idea, she'll go further in, relying on steady barefoot elven footing and her staff to navigate the slick, sloping floor.

The longer they listen the more apparent it becomes that it is a single whisper. There is one entity here and it speaks clearly even if the words are half nonsense. At the very end of the hall, there is a single doorway. It is what would lead to the cellar in the Kitchen dormitory or the Library in the northern building. The ice covers all surfaces by the time they reach it and it is perfectly clear, undisturbed save for the falling of more rain. The texture of those drops makes it a bit easier to grip with uncovered feet, but it is still dangerous and slick.

The doorway is dark, gaping open with no door to close before it. There is only sound emminating from the darkness, but occasionally there is a flash and fading slide of blue light. THe light is always followed by a sigh, a breath, and more whispered words.

Though softly spoken, whatever is in there is speaking the Chant of Light.

He has, at least, one winter's experience walking on ice and so knows to be certain of how he places his feet. It isn't so different ultimately from a knight-enchanter's practice at balancing, at how to shift his weight and center of balance just so-- But different enough much of his focus is on that and not taking out either of his companions should he lose his footing, and so the whispers don't immediately register.

When they do, it's cause for an indrawn breath; awe, alarm, something, there's emotion behind the little hitch of sound. "That's the Chant," he names it, in an even softer voice.

Someone's out here reading from the Chant in cold that could literally freeze one's bits off. (Unbidden, he thinks of Vandelin, at home and safe and warm and still missing toes from a cold like this one. He's changing to woolens if they ever make it back to their dormitory. When they make it back.)

He stays nearly on Merrill's heels as she advances toward the whispers; curiosity and fear are at war in him and curiosity's winning because it has his own stubborn pride fighting beside it. He's in it now and there's no turning back.

Myr on Merrill's heels, Marcoulf on his - he strays after the two of them, minding his own footing on the frost slicked terrain with almost as much intent as he does Myr's. Down here, there's a small sound like a breeze whistling through some crack in the stones but his ear struggles to capture it. On his own, he might not have noticed it at all - not in a forest when there's rain falling, which is an invitation for all kinds of soft winnowing sounds.

But there, the two of them fixate on it and he finds his ear drawn in kind. When they reach the doorway, he pauses and will proceed no further - stationed there like a keen dog with pricked attention.

This isn't right. This isn't supposed to be like this, and Merrill tightens her grip on her staff. Her other hand is fully gripping the hilt of her knife now, ready to draw it.

She doesn't look back at Myr and Marcoulf. Looking back would reveal her back to whatever is before them, and she doesn't trust it. Not one bit.

But she steps forward into the dark doorway, into the cold, toward the whispers.

The room beyond the rotted door is small, a room for prayer and reflection. There is a statue of Andraste, or the better portion of it, standing on a wooden platform against the far wall. The floor is in a better state in this room than anywhere outside of the Main Hall. It is encased in a thin layer of ice, as are the walls. The rain that falls through the roof here freezes before it strikes, and there is a considerable amount of that. The top floor is destroyed and part of a tree extends through that destruction and the ceiling. A large bough is what has broken the statue of Andraste in two.

The room is lit intermittently, not by candles or torches, but by the winking shapes of wisps. They are a soft blue and hide among the needles of the fallen pine, glittering through the frost and ice that covers them. They are dim lights, hazy to look at, and they pale in comparison to the spirit that treads the length of the room. It is a blue figure, clear and nearly solid--a woman in her late fifties, her face severe and drawn, her eyes closed and her head bent to her folded hands. She repeats the Chant as she paces--every ten steps or so, however, she vanishes and a great looming shadow takes her place, moves along her path, and speaks her words. The shadow has more form and its footfalls land heavy on the ice, but all too soon that tall, gangly shape is gone again and the spirit returns.

"Maker's name."

Those who had sought to claim Heaven by violence destroyed it.

The oath's no more than a breath out and plumes white in the cold. What Myr cannot see in detail he can nevertheless sense the shape of through a mage's contact with the Fade; the frozen wisps like prickling stars and the greater spirit a frigid moon with its own perceptible gravity. He does not know what to make of what he hears before he steps across the threshold, a tread lighter then heavier then settling lighter again as its owner recites from the Chant.

What was golden and pure turned black,

It's so unsettling a situation he finds himself grasping for whatever might be familiar, mouthing the words the spirit speaks half-consciously as he clears the doorway, takes up a defensive stance to one side. Does not draw his own knife--not yet; if this is of a piece with whatever glowered at them from the Fade, mere steel might not avail. And its voice--her voice--

Not everything that speaks from the Chant is well-intentioned; his own pride demon has taught him that if nothing else.

Those who had once been mage-lords, the brightest of their age,

Yet he has a little foolish hope, unacknowledged but there, that whatever-this-is might yet bend to the Maker's will, enough to speak with it, enough that it's tractable.

Were no longer men, but monsters.

Even if nothing from the Fade could be wholly safe.

Edited (added additional EXTRA) 2018-09-20 05:09 (UTC)

There are places in the world where the Veil grows strange and thin - in Dalish ruins and dark marshes and in quiet, bone still woods. It should prickle the hair at the back of the neck; it should be as a cold hand against the skin.

And it is a little like that. The shape that stirs in the shadowed, broken room prompts the flesh along his arms to creep. It prickles a hindbrain wariness, a caution that sticks him in the rotting doorway even the murmur of the chant fills the little side room. But if there's a presence here, a strangling sense of oppression or real fear to accompany the pacing shape, it doesn't find him even as the figure flickers, changes, reverts--

He makes a soft sound, touching Myr at the elbow. "We shouldn't stir it."

It has been years since she first argued with human mages that spirits and demons are just two sides of the same coin. Years, and for all her knowledge, Merrill wants to leave the ruins at a run. Maybe it's because it seems like it should be blasphemy even though it isn't her religion. Maybe it's just the unerring sense of wrong that permeates through the ruins, from the sense of foreboding that came from the casting of a barrier to the slick ice under their feet. She isn't sure, but she knows one thing. This, whatever this is, isn't normal.

She takes a step back unthinkingly, swallowing hard. She wants to run, but at the same time, she wants to know what is going on in this place. It has her somewhat frozen - and besides, she's not going to leave without the others.

"Have you seen anything like this before?" It's whispered, and while she knows Myr can't exactly see it, he can sense it. Marcoulf can see it just fine, though.

He goes still at the touch on his elbow, shoulders tensing as his concentration's knocked askew--but it bleeds away in a breath once he realizes there's no threat here.

Beyond the very obvious one pacing before them.

Myr can't exactly see her and so cannot notice that since his setting foot in the room, she's stabilized as a woman and not a monster. But he listens a moment longer to those lighter footfalls--why had they stopped changing?--before tendering a reply to Merrill, sotto voce: "She doesn't feel like anything I've ever run into."

He tips his head toward Merrill, toward Marcoulf. We shouldn't stir it is sound advice, but there is a mystery here that the abbeyfolk don't seem to comprehend and there may be no other ways to get answers on it. "We may need to," softly said, still; this is wrong, but avoiding wrongness wouldn't put it to rights in the end.

Edited 2018-09-26 05:33 (UTC)

"Hello?"

The voice is clear and calm, as though they had just walked into a normal chapel and had struck up conversation with a normal Chantry Sister. Her voice is a touch watery, has a distant air about it, but it is not faded or difficult for any of them to make out.

"What are you doing here?"

Simple Gifts [Closed]

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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