Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
faderifting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2019-07-18 10:49 pm
faderifting) wrote in faderift2019-07-18 10:49 pm
Entry tags:
↠ WHAT PRIDE HAD WROUGHT | OPEN LOG
WHO: Everyone (except those who remain behind to keep an eye on the Gallows)
WHAT: Just some ruins, nothing special
WHEN: Solace 17-20
WHERE: The Arbor Wilds, Southern Orlais
NOTES: OOC post! Second log post for NPC threads! Image source!
WHAT: Just some ruins, nothing special
WHEN: Solace 17-20
WHERE: The Arbor Wilds, Southern Orlais
NOTES: OOC post! Second log post for NPC threads! Image source!
For most, the journey through the Crossroads is miserable: the world is grey and lifeless, the light twists disorientingly like the world is being viewed through a water droplet, an incessant sound is always just beyond the edge of hearing, and walking anywhere feels like walking uphill.
For elves, it's a world in bloom with a stained-glass sky. La di da.
But everyone does eventually arrive, together, at the site of a large eluvian. There are signs of recent activity; a long-dead guard previously discovered by the Riftwatch team that traveled there before has been moved, and a spear left leant against the side of the eluvian where a new elf may have more recently temporarily taken his place. There's no guard there now.
When the team passes through the eluvian and into the verdant temple grounds beyond it, the reason quickly becomes apparent. They're met not with a volley of arrows from an army of guards, but the warily trained weapons of the small handful that remain after days of repelling an invasion from beyond the temple walls. It's a fight they're losing—one they thought already lost, given their casualties and the fires now burning outside the walls—and their exhausted, bruised leader only needs a little prodding, and only seems a little suspicious, before he orders his people to stand down and accepts an offer of help.
I. REPELLING CORYPHEUS' FORCES
The Temple's Sentinels have been reduced to a handful of wary elves, most of whom don't speak Trade very well, but they manage to give enough direction to get those who will be fighting outside of the quiet Inner Sanctum to the outer gardens. The Temple's outer defenses—powerful enough magic to kill an aspiring god, if it's run into blindly—have finally fallen, but what remains of the Red Templars and Venatori mounting the assault have been slowed by the overgrown labyrinth of gardens, then the arguments and preparations needed to blast a magical hole in the floor to expose the crypts below.
They're taken off guard by the sudden, non-Sentinel reinforcements. But they're still a powerful mix of Tevinter-trained mages and amplified Templars, and—if anyone cares—the longer the fight drags on, the more damage is done to the Temple's gardens. It's not a good time to dally or pull punches. Not even when a familiar face is found among the enemy.
II. THE PETITIONER'S PATH
When the last of the Red Templars and Venatori have been killed or chased into the jungle, the Sentinels—perfectly happy to have most of these interlopers locked outside a little longer—will be quick to disappear, save one, who will direct their attempts to get through the doors again with bored, skeptical broken Trade. The most direct route back inside requires walking the Petitioner's Path, a mazelike path through the gardens, weaving around corners and through tunnels of ivy, in places obscured entirely by the overgrowth.
There's no trick to the floor tiles, here. Only a trick of the mind. Clarity, supplication, a request for justice, and then at points along the path spirits will begin to appear. Some will wear the faces of those who have wronged you—offering excuses, begging for mercy, or refusing to be sorry, and in all cases wanting to know what you think they deserve. Others will wear the faces of those who you've wronged—wanting to know your excuse, asking if you think you deserve forgiveness.
Mercy isn't required, to pass Mythal's test. Only an even hand. The same justice for one as for the other. Succeed, and the spirits will lead you to pass freely through the doors.
III. THE CRYPTS
—or fail, or refuse to participate in a heathen ritual, or see the folly in risking that sort of exposure in less than total privacy, and your option for rejoining the rest of Riftwatch is a labyrinth of a different kind. Corypheus' allies were interrupted before they blew the floor wide open, but there is an opening large enough to pass through single-file into the ancient crypts below. The path through is dark, wet, and winding; now and then one of the dead rattles and threatens to rise; and the Sentinel babysitter, apparently disgusted by the fact that anyone might refuse or fail the test and still enter the Temple, refuses to serve as a guide or provide a map.
But it could probably be worse. Somehow. There could be less historical value in the moldering ruins, for example, or fewer pieces of gold and scraps of ancient jewelry lying around for the taking.
IV. THE TEMPLE OF MYTHAL
Back within the quiet of the Inner Sanctum, Riftwatch's envoy is permitted to rest—with varying degrees of individual acceptance, depending on whether or not they successfully walked the Path to enter, and all of them watched as closely as the small handful of remaining Sentinels can manage. Their leader, Abelas, doesn't shy away from the dire facts. Not enough of them remain to protect the Temple and the Well of Sorrows. Corypheus will likely be back. Convincing him not to destroy it, and finding a viable alternative, will be a task.
In the meantime, those who have better things to do in Kirkwall can return at any time, and anyone ill-suited for a fight but well-suited to assisting in the discussion with Abelas or the efforts to clean up the damage and tend to the fallen—either out of genuine interest in preserving the Temple or in an effort to butter up its guardians a little—can safely cross through the eluvian to help.
For those who are willing to sleep on the ground in a jungle Temple for a night or two instead, while the matter of the Well is resolved, it may be possible to slip away unnoticed to explore the Temple in the dark, at least until caught and escorted back to Riftwatch's makeshift camp, or for someone who's been appropriate respectful to convince one of the Temple guardians to show them some of the murals and statues. But venturing outside of the inner temple walls will require either traversing the crypts or walking the Path to get back inside. Every single time.
thranduil - ota
The sentinel is at least given the space of a few heartbeats before Thranduil makes for the path. There is an air about him, something settled around his shoulders, down the curve of his spine, even with the armor pulling his posture into shape. He does not gawp or gaze overlong at any feature in particular, nor is his step hesitant over the broken stones. Each step is purposeful, even processional; measured and twin to the one previous, which allows him to appear to float, rather than walk.
Both spirits- for his eagerness to begin makes it easy to watch him as he goes- take the forms of elves, or something near to them, and ones with the same excess of height, the same careless length of hair, the same unmistakable fluidity to their movements. His confidence slides off him as theirs steadies.
He flinches away from the first when it appears, taller than him, black of hair and dressed in red--
"Fëanor Finwëion," Thranduil says, to the overgrown garden and to himself, and then the conversation dissolves into rapid-fire Sindarin, Thranduil still throughout; a stag perpetually trapped in the moment of the hunt's horn blowing. But the great elven figure dissipates, finally, and he dips his head.
It remains downcast even unto the second figure, who is more light than figure, the suggestion of a face here, of ghostly flowers blooming where her feet do not meet the ground, a train that mimics starlight even as the sun cuts through it. Their conversation is longer, and anyone who has heard Thranduil speak will hear his accent shift, the ths slipping, the vowels long and lyrical, as he pleads and the spirit coaxes. His fingers twitch as if to reach out for her more than once, but the action is stilled at the wrist, and when it is done and he moves through the doors and into the waiting area, it is with no pride and less triumph.
no subject
It is not so easy, especially with so many eyes upon him.
He waits until Thranduil is done, until the figures are barely whispering in the world, and then he approaches. He must do his own, he knows that, but he ignores the knot in his stomach and the twitching of his fingers as he lays a hand on his friend's arm.
"Are you well?"
no subject
“They are only memories,” he says. “My own heart thrown back at me through a mirror.”
Melian would have never—
He shakes his head, and lays his fingers over Solas’, more to anchor himself than to offer comfort. Then they are gone, and Thranduil settles himself. The glamour holds, as it always does, and soon he will move to the next challenge.
“Are you at liberty to walk with me?” he asks. Through the door, and beyond. There is so much of this place that Thranduil wants to see, and he thinks the sentinels will allow him it, as long as he does not pry into the corners still in use or the sacred parts. “I have questions, and I would not bother Abelas with them.”
(He absolutely would, and will, given half a chance.)
no subject
He knows the pain of memories. He sees them every time he goes to sleep.
Finally, he lifts his head up and looks over at the path in front of him. He is afraid of what he might see, fears what ghosts might come to haunt him, but it is something that must be done. He will not turn away from what remains of the Temple of Mythal, no matter how painful and breaking it might be to witness.
"In a moment," he admits, voice low. "I must do my own, and then I can enter through the doors." He stares forward, takes a deep breath, and nods. "After that I will be willing to answer any question you might have, my friend."
My friend.
How long has it been?
no subject
As though she hadn't, a thundering ball of nerves and forward momentum — both shed now, arrayed stone-faced in the sanctum with the rest of them. There are many things they haven't spoken of; she does not imagine they will now. Who was she? Cannot pronounce her own guesses. They all sound the same way, in the end: Important.
no subject
He takes a moment to pull his waterskin out of his pack, and uncorks it to take a swallow, then offers it to Coupe. It’s clean, and sweet, and cool if not cold—he ought to ask where he might refill it, because it is half-full and this is a jungle, not a forest.
“Who appeared to you?” Thranduil asks.
no subject
The tug of her mouth suggests a joke; the direction suggests it’s not too far from truth. In Orlesian:
"I expected greater resistance," From their hosts, so quick to embrace the destruction of their temple's purpose. She drinks, passes it back (a hand clapped brief to arm). "They are quick to trust we do not seek it."
Considering,
"Else confident that we are more easily turned."
no subject
“Those who could bear it are not willing, and those who would are not able,” he says. Are the sentinels able to understand Orlesian? How old is Abelas, anyway? All these questions and more, Thranduil has not been yet able to sneak into conversation. “And I agree with him. Better it be destroyed.”
no subject
Not the Prophet at all.
"Abelas," The taste of it strange in its syllables. Suspicion of the man stays her, where logic would endorse his plan — in destroying it, they trust the Well is as he claims, they trust this alliance of need is an alliance at all. "What becomes of him, when this is done?"
no subject
"Sorrow," he translates. "With any luck, he and his fellows will find some other quiet place to live. Their lives are too valuable to be risked elsewhere, and I cannot see them taking to Circle life- or Dalish."
He smiles.
"See how proud they are?"
That is its own sort of danger.