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.

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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?"

Too late.

It- she- the spirit knows they're there. Merrill swallows and then takes a step forward, ready to defend the other two if it's needed.

"Our apologies- we were walking, and followed the path to here. My name is Merrill; what is yours?"

Spirit or demon or ghost, whatever it is most likely has a name. Knowing that may help them know- many things.

It stops before Merrill, the face of an old woman hovering in a body formed of semi-solid light. Proximity to Myr has her stable, her watery form not shifting to the mass of dark limbs and armor that paced between steps before he entered. She regards Merrill and it takes her a moment to see--her eyes drift across them and return to Merrill's face.

"I am Odetta," she says distantly, "Reverend Mother of this Abbey."

She drifts toward them, her steps soundless against the icy floor, and seems to grow more solid the closer she comes. Unfortunately, the air curls with cold the nearer she gets to them, until it is almost crystalline.

"This place is destroyed, you must leave it."

This doesn't happen.

Or it isn't supposed to. People aren't supposed to remain around as spirits after their deaths; especially not Revered Mothers, who have earned a place in the Maker's bosom if anyone has. Myr's expression is--put mildly--spooked as the spirit draws closer, though the shivering and gooseflesh on him are products entirely of the cold she brings with her. (Though it could always be something from the Fade pretending. He tries to remind himself that.)

"W-we--we'll do that, Your Reverence," he says to her, striving to keep his teeth from chattering, his breath a plume before him. "But what--what destroyed it? What's k-keeping you here?"

Edited 2018-10-01 03:09 (UTC)

Her gaze has weight as it drifts to Myr. It is full of a cold sort of sadness, tinged with an edge of fear, like the grief and resignation of someone caught in the tide. She is tired but hungry, desperate, and the chill in the air ripples just slightly as she regards him.

"I want what I cannot have," she says quietly. "It keeps us here, bound to this place. It is not safe."

Maker's love.

He doesn't say the words, afraid he's got a limited supply in the cold with each breath so dear. It is not safe. Obvious as her warning is it sends a new shiver down his spine. "No--b, but we'd help how we can. How can we--can you be freed?"

It isn't a Reverend Mother, that much he's twice certain of. That's not how it works. She's a spirit, taken some odd shape as it looks through some thinned gauzy length of the Veil; or she's something different and stranger and worse reaching its hard through toward them. It isn't what it says it is.

Marcoulf's hand quietly closes on the back of Myr's sleeve, tugging at him with just his fingertips. Let's go, it says. Leave it be. No need to ask so many blighted questions.

"I do not know. Destroy it, perhaps, or pray that there is someone who survives it better than we," she answers and something in her voice drifts as she resumes her pacing. She is distracted and distant, but she does not seem to forget they are present.

"It is not safe," she repeats and then begins to speak the chant again, quiet murmurings of those same verses.

Destroy 'it'. Pray that someone survives 'it'. What is 'it'?

Merrill looks between them all - though Myr can't see her, maybe he can feel the weight of her gaze.

"Revered Mother-" she manages, turning back toward the spirit, the thing that thinks it's the dead. She moves her staff as she speaks, to try and gently herd Myr and Marcoulf back behind her. "We will leave. But what is 'it', so that we might know enough to stay safe?"

What happened in this place?

Odetta pauses in her step again, her murmuring silenced as her dull eyes fall on Merrill. Something shifts on her face, that hunger is more present and the edge of that hollow, darkened monster seems to press up against the veil, against the shape of her, once more.

"That precious thing," she says, her voice falling to something more akin to a hiss than words. "The relic from the rift--it cost us everything, but what else could we do?"

Her words are a lament, punctuated with a sob that carries the edge of a wail. Her eyes linger on Merrill, but something in her fades just so. Dims with the expression of that grief.

"We had no choice, none at all--"

He inhales sharply where he stands behind Merrill at her response--at her hopelessness. This is not the way the living speak of it (but it is--wasn't Luca as despairingly bound to her fate?); but the dead--

No. You know better. (Don't you?) Ghosts don't linger. (Except--)

"Who has it now?" he asks, sharp and sudden with worry.

That hunger, that hiss; it's all the confirmation that Merrill needs. She does step back, this time, her staff coming up between her and the thing wearing Odetta's face.

"Greed," she whispers, and there's a weight to it. The weight of a name, directed entirely at whatever spirit is before her.

"We need to go." She's louder now, more insistent. Spirits and demons are one and the same, but that doesn't mean Merrill wants to mess with one. Audacity was bound in Sundermount, but this entire abbey has been affected by these spirits- and dragged the living in with them.

Oh now they need to leave. Certainly. Not moments ago when he'd first insisted on it. Blighted mages and elves and-- Marcoulf takes a more insistent hold on Myr's arm. His grip is stronger than what seems obvious given how lean and sharp he is.

"Leave it. Come along."

That would be a tidy explanation, wouldn't it? Easy to grasp. It's just demons, it's just unbound demons running around the abbey doing all of this and there's none in the Fade because they're all outside of it.

Wait, Myr wants to cry; there's something here that still wants understanding, like what the relic is and where it is and why all of this is happening. Wait, let him talk to Odetta (or the spirit pretending to be her) until he's unraveled this, let him just--let him ask--

Except a Harrowed mage knows better than to ask questions of demons and more importantly, it's two against one. He bites his tongue and nods mutely to Marcoulf's orders; they're going.

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Simple Gifts [Closed]

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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