faderift | ↠ WHAT PRIDE HAD WROUGHT

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!

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No one had told him there would be lizards, you see.

(Maybe someone had and Yngvi had missed the memo or hadn't bothered paying attention because why should he care about weird old elf bullshit that doesn't pertain to him at all?)

There are lizards, small and delightful and skittering about underfoot where they probably aren't exciting compared to the splendour of weird old elf bullshit from days gone by and weird old elves who remind Yngvi, worryingly, of some of his tutors in childhood who were only doing things because it was expected of them and not out of any real desire to do the thing they were doing. Anyway he doesn't jump when someone crouches by him because that's the sign of a guilty conscience that is and what does-- right, fine, a hundred things to be plenty guilty over but not what he's up to, almost got it--

"Dunno," he says, face half-turned but eyes firmly on the lizards who hold very still as if they won't be seen before they skitter with the tiniest pattering of feet over the ground. "Have to catch one first but I got big pockets, left the nugs and the cat back in Kirkwall for this, there's only so much I'll subject the innocent to."

Thranduil weighs his options, and looks at the very small, jewel-toned lizards, and does not look up at the very large, jewel-toned elves. He could, he supposes, attempt to communicate with them—such is elven grace—but his talents had always lain with the birds and the deer, and the other sort of creatures who had called his land home.

His gloved hand snaps out, too fast for the eye, and then—

A lizard, gently held by the ribs between thumb and forefinger, somewhat dazed, and then squirming frantically, climbing a wall that is not there.

At that, Yngvi does flinch because who wouldn't?

(Or: they would but wouldn't end up trying - mostly failing - to not spill themselves into the worst of the dirt. Thanks dad.)

"That's cheating," is what he says, dusting off his dignity best that he can which only really makes him dirtier as a result but no one was going to be awarding him prizes for cleanliness before he stepped through the mirror to get here in the first place. "There's a whole art to it, to stalking, and pouncing and--"

And a bunch of other things but Thranduil has a thing that Yngvi wants and he's over quick as a flash, hand out with all the grace the gods gave a goat which is none (have you ever met a goat, really looked one in the eye?) "Give us that here, let me have a look what d'you need with a lizard."

No he's not bouncing but it's a near thing.

“Not to elves,” Thranduil says, and he gently places the lizard into Yngvi’s outstretched hand. “Careful. Mind it—”

It’s a lizard. It’ll do what lizards to, but Yngvi is at least a sackful wilier, and Thranduil, like a fond uncle, has every confidence in him.

“What do you need with a lizard?” Is it for someone’s boots—it is for one of the sentinels. These are things he does not say, lest they be used.

"I make traps, I know what I'm doing, I'm not some overgrown lumbering thing." How does it taste, Thranduil, from your lofty height up there, to know how a dwarf truly sees anyone larger than him when he wants something?

Only Yngvi is gentle, hands cupped enough to hold a lizard with more spines or ridges up along the back than he could make out during capture attempts, a thumb outstretched should said lizard like to sniff it. He's assuming they can smell, most things have to be able to, they've got faceparts don't they? Now that he has it his whole face lights up and softens with the lizard held towards it then out to Thranduil so he too - if he bends enough - can get a closer inspection of their new comrade as he considers.

"Honestly?" Which is a loaded term with Yngvi, a bowstring drawn, vibrating. "I wanted to say hello, something to do that wasn't dead boring y'know but there's lots of things. Catching beasties. A tasteful paper weight for them what has desks."

(Yngvi, it goes without saying, does not have a desk.)

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