Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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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.
no subject
And then, with a clink of talons on glass, the eagle releases the jar.
no subject
When the base of skull’s jar makes impact, it caves in the red Templar’s own skull so quickly that the body takes a moment to register that the head on its shoulders is not its own. The Templar’s brothers and sisters in arms freeze in various masks of shock and horror at the sight, forming some kind of grisly tableau in which a haunted chunk of bone and glass grins at them at eye-level.
no subject
A sentiment evidently shared by the Templars surrounding the body as it collapses, taking the jar and the skull contained inside it. Half of them scatter in random, confused directions. The other half remain too shocked to do much of anything even as the jar strikes the ground either with enough force or the correct angle to dislodge it from the gory pulp of its borrowed shoulders.
"Oh well done," calls the eagle from above as it whirls down toward the melee. "Try rolling toward the one closest. I bet they'll-- do that."
The nearest Templar gives the jar a jerking, desperate kick. It sails, gore and all, into a second Templar who drops their sword in a panic to catch the jar.
no subject
To his surprise, the Templar shakes their head in response to the facetious question. The swirling smoke and plasm within Skull's jar coalesces to form a hideous, melting version of the Templar's own face, the jar posing as a parody of their helmet.
At that, the Templar's shock breaks and they drop the jar, sprinting in the opposite direction. Yet another Templar rushes forth, wielding a great sword and intending, it seems, to shatter the jar. The Skull makes its plasm mask grin excitedly, cheering the Templar on.
no subject
From his vantage point above the fray, Bartimaeus-- well, it's not really practical to say he leans forward given that he's not currently on anything but a particularly nice thermal of hot air2. But the mental image the phrasing evokes is more or less accurate to how his attention fixates on the swing of the blade. Were the moment longer, he might even think to himself: 'You know, old Bartimaeus? As fun as this whole torturing lesser spirits stupid enough to get themselves stuck in jars has been, shouldn't you give some consideration to getting the pathetic creature out of there? One really must indulge in a spot of charity every four thousand years or so.'
Luckily for everyone involved, but specifically his own self-respect, the moment does not last that long. CRACK says the sword as it strikes and bounces off of the jar.
"Ah well. Nothing to be done," Bartimaeus sighs to himself. Then, with a subtle adjustment of the eagle's wings, he drops out of the sky and falls talons first with all the force of a pouncing tiger on the Templar with the great sword.
no subject
No more Templar goo-mask, just slightly frothy plasm surrounding a manky old skull. The Templar looks as though the shock of hitting an unbreakable object is still reverberating in their teeth.
Comically, the Templar looks around. As if wondering what duck, where? until the Bartimaegle lands, talons slipping through the face hole of the helmet and hitting squishy meat-flesh.