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

"Good morning," comes the cheery reply. "If you could find me a plate I'd be grateful, and so'd the abbey that I'm not getting food all over their tables."

Myr leaves off his slow search, straightening up and taking a deep appreciative breath of the tea scent. "That smells lovely. How's the morning find you?"

"I'm very concerned about the state of this Abbey," He replies, with a glance around for witnesses, and then simply holds a hand out to the plate, which obediently flies into his hand, "Here. I've a fresh pot, if you'd like a cup."

Really, it's cold and miserable enough here, that if he doesn't he's a fool. What's shocking isn't that everyone is dying, but that they aren't dying any faster, in a climate like this.

"Actually, I'd like to ask your opinion on a few things. I need a mage's view."

"That," Myr says, losing all his antic cheer, "makes two of us. Or all of us."

Whatever disagreements he might have with some of the others--one of the others in particular--he knows they're not the sorts to overlooking suffering and danger to innocents when they find it.

He--of course--misses the neat trick with the plate, but gets a little of his smile back at the offer of tea. "Please. And--" I haven't any view to give, dies on his tongue; the pun doesn't seem so funny, right now. "I'd be glad to answer your questions."

"The people here. They come in with terrible illnesses, and... leave, with seemingly-miraculous cures," He doesn't sound particularly sarcastic, dubious only. Obi-Wan is not familiar with the idea of miracles that exact no price; there's no such thing as a free lunch, "Furthermore, I've done a little looking around, and I was wondering... How that could be, without a mage."

He's quite still, while he talks, feet planted, hands folded back as if speaking to an authority. It's a thoughtless poise, automatic. But then, this is a very Jedi sort of problem, from the days before war, when a little dangerous strangeness at the bottom of things was all one had to fear.

Obi-Wan says it quietly, "There have been nineteen Reverend Mothers here, in the last three months. It doesn't look good."

Ah, so. The same question they've all been prying at. Myr crosses carefully to the nearby table, finds a chair by touch, and seats himself. "It couldn't," he says at last, slowly, "even with a mage. There's limits on what magic can do, even if you're skilled with spirits; it can't give back a limb that's been lost entirely," or eyes, "without a miracle."

Unless there are far greater and more powerful mages out there than anyone believed; so the ancient Magisters supposedly had been, and so--if one followed the Imperial Chantry--had been Andraste. But that is no satisfying explanation, as far as Myr's concerned; that involves conjuring up an impossibility out of the Fade to put a simple, graspable face on something wilder and more awesome.

"The Revered Mothers--" he starts--halts, before he can go further as something catches at him, pieces locking into place. "--Three months, you said? Maker's breath, I wonder--"

This could rapidly become cryptic, he realizes. "--It isn't--good, exactly. But it's not as it seems; they're paying their lives for the miracles. When one finally--fails, from the healing, another takes her place." Nineteen of thirty-one in three months. Had it been accelerating?

"And the conditions in the abbey have been worsening, these last three months. Candles used to stay lit for a few hours, at least. They don't any longer." There's the seed of an idea here--an explanation that links the disparate facts together--but it's so tenuous and trembling a thing he can't form it yet nor make it take hold.

Perhaps with help--

"Then this is much more than just the lives of one string of women," It's moments like these that one is grateful for a beard to stroke. Or rather,Obi-Wan would be, if he could realize what a picture he made, or remembered he was doing it at all, "Blood magic can't... heal, like that, can it? Could you tell, if it were?"

Perhaps they thought it a fair trade, their lives, foresworn to the religious order, in exchange for the lives of those they sought to better, but if the healing was deranging the fade, if it were all connected to everything else... Obi-Wan knew precious little abou tthe fade, the veil, and all else surrounding it, surely. But even a rank amateur could guess what he had: that no resource was infinite, no tolerance unending, and that when what the veil and Fade could bear was inevitably exceeded by the pressure put on them here...

"We need to figure out how they're accomplishing all this. And see if we can put a stop to it."

It is a sensible conclusion to draw from all the facts presented.

Myr can see, even as Obi-Wan says it, how they all snap together. The miracles cost dearly; women were dying by the score as price for them. The Revered Mothers' deaths had worsened whatever haunted the abbey. The Fade was abnormal here (but peaceful, so peaceful) and something stalked it that hated magic.

One piece didn't exist without the others. It's a sensible conclusion to draw from all the facts presented.

And it's also horrible.

"Why," Myr begins, tone wounded. "Why would you--"

He cuts himself off with an abrupt shake of his head, aware as if Vandelin were over his shoulder how vulnerable he's abruptly made himself. (Ordinarily he wields his soft heart more deftly; never with deliberate calculation, but he's not ignorant to how he's perceived for his habit of wearing his heart on his sleeve. Sometimes, though, the situation requires armor.)

When he picks up again his tone is measured, near-clinical: "If it were blood magic, I'd know when it was used. I'm not so practiced to feel echoes of it. But it still wouldn't work without a mage present to catalyze it." Even if trading life for lives was something a blood mage might do.

"For some, it's a worthwhile trade. Soldiers go into battle, willing to make a similar bargain— and if that were the only thing..." He trails off, stops, and heaves a sigh, rich with meaning. Because it isn't. This isn't about the very devoted losing their lives to the depths of religious self-sacrifice, to the apparent benefit of a community. This was about everything else, around that choice, "I'm sorry."

He sighs again, this time only as punctuation to the rising headache.

"Very well then, I'll trust your judgement about that. It leaves only a few possibilities; we have to find the source of all this, whatever it is. I'll convene with the others and see what we can come up with. Will you do the same?"

There are objections he could raise, and strong ones; we haven't the right among them, if it's the Maker's will, if--whatever's happening continues to endanger no one in the abbey. But sure as he is this is the Maker's will, Myr has no surety that whatever evil haunts the place will continue not to harm anyone.

Yet he dearly wants to believe, and believe also the miracles have nothing to do with the abbey's worsening condition.

"'If that were the only thing,'" he echoes, without much emotion. "I'll bring it to the others." There's a lengthy pause as something about the others catches and sticks in his memory--and at last he unsnarls it:

"Though I fear the Lady Galadriel hasn't been about. ...I don't know for how long." Which is worrisome in itself.

Simple Gifts [Closed]

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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