CROSSING THE CROSSROADS

[writteninblood]

WHO: Marcoulf, Solas, Sorrel, Steve Rogers
WHAT: Crossing the Crossroads
WHEN: Solace 10-15
WHERE: The Crossroads, and the Temple of Mythal
NOTES:

I. The Crossroads

It's a dim, oppressive place, the world on the other side of the looking glass. There's something of the Fade here, in the silence of it, and the little noises too far to understand, or too close-by the dismiss. It's creepy, almost deliberately creepy, like an unfamiliar house on a dark night, or like a familiar one with an uninvited guest. There's even a road! A cobbled path choked here and there with creeping vines that wind through the cracks and across the by-ways.

Never when you're looking, but often, they snatch at the feet of anyone who isn’t either a mage or an elf. Don't trip! If you trip, they'll wind around you, and you'll need to be cut free. The crossroads doesn't like visitors.

Unless you're an elf, of course. The way to the indicated mirror is complex, but not particularly hazardous. It's a long walk, in that strange half-verdant twlight, and the for anyone not born with pointed ears walks that twilight, the each step seems to take very slightly longer than the last. It's a good thing you have such good stamina, isn't it? And it's such a long, heavy walk, until the silence is interrupted by a curious honking sound.

And a spider the size of a dog, with jaws like a dragon, and too many eyes, and a wobbly, bright-eyed manner about it; it's a baby. It's obviously a baby. You'd probably better find a way to keep this curious baby Varteral off your packs and your backs, before mommy comes lookng for her darling little one.

Or else when mommy shows up, you'll all have more to concern yourself with than wild-mirror-hunts or Venatori encampments.



II. Venatori Encounter

The Venatori themselves are a sorry sight. They're huddled around the base of the great mirror like beetles around a lamp, just as hunch-backed and simpering. The camp, if it can be called that, is a mere handful of men, all three of them sallow-faced and disconsolate from the weary days in the Crossroads. If the humans among the Riftwatch team think they're tired, this is a vision of what it would look like to sleep, to eat, to attempt to live in this oppressive atmosphere.

They sit, huddled around a pitifully small campfire, discussing in low Tevene the options for moving forward. Even their tents seem to droop, poorly supported in the so-called soil of the crossroads grounds.

And while they're staring inward, or at the stubbornly closed mirror that is their target, they're nothing like wary, or watchful. Only one has a staff close at hand, the others appear totally unarmed. Presently, one stands, wavers slightly on half-numb legs, and moves to separate himself from the group.

Showtime.



III. The Temple

There is no password among the Venatori's effects, once their tiny camp is looted and turned over, but a few educated guesses from the mages of the group are enough to make what several, perhaps many, otherwise well-educated Tevinters have accomplished seem like a joke. It didn't take half an hour for the Riftwatch team to breach a barrier it had taken the enemy a week to fail at crossing.

The mirror glows, rippling with life and light, with power.

The room beyond it is larger, perhaps, than any they have seen in Thedas. It's roof is not whole, nor its floors, both fallen prey to the inevitability of entropy, but the room itself is more than grand. Bright stone, calm pools, shafts of sunlight and vaulted domes, every vision of the meaning of the word Temple written in architecture as clearly as if it were words. Whoever built this place knew what it was to feel small at the feel of the eternal, and they had made their own eternity out of evoking that feeling in others.

"Holy Mother Mythal," Sorrel swears quietly, hushed in the natural silence of it all, "What is this?"

Whatever it is that lies beyond the coveted Eluvian, they only have a few seconds more before they're noticed, and sent a volley of arrows for their trouble. Watch out!