faderift | ↠ WHAT PRIDE HAD WROUGHT

Entry tags:

! mod plot,
! open

↠ 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!

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.

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A soft clink of metal. A rustle of the dense foliage. Farther, but not by much, there are sounds of steel on steel and shouting the aborted shriek of someone dying. And here, there is blood gurgling out into the dirt and trampled grass and half buried paving stones, and there is a pale wiry man with a sword in his right hand and a dagger in the left coming through the tangle of bushes now.

He stops abruptly there at the edge of the space, just clear of the dismemberment's gore. Two blinks: a blank look for the not-corpse, then one for the familiar face not-quite-standing-over-it.

Crack, crack, crack, say three heavy blows of something like a hammer against a skull or a chest plate nearby.

"Alright?"

Not quite standing upright, either, until the arrival. His spine's exhausted bend straightens as his body turns, head comes up, fingers uncurl in a particular arrangement—but mind catches up with reflex before he raises either hand. His skull's angle changes, too, to soften the brow and relax the intensity of his mien. (Not a reflex; executed naturally nonetheless.)

Crack, crack, crack—to either of them, it seems, no more concerning than birdsong in the woods.

Nodding, he blows a heavy breath and wipes again at his forehead, takes his time to answer, "Nearly didn't make it that time." A lie; he looks poorly enough to convince. Not a lie: "I shouldn't have chased him so far."

"Then it's fortunate we've found each other." A lie for him too. He'd have preferred to see no one here, to slip along the margin of the fighting unnoticed. Now he'll have to return to the line, to rejoin the swirling push pull fray of the combat. He won't get a second opportunity to disappear.

"We can see ourselves back together." A slight shift in his grip on the sword. "Once you've caught your breath."

Ignore the rattle of the not-corpse here. The irony would be gauche.

Ugh, he doesn't say aloud, but his body's ready to pick up the slack. The sag of his shoulders, not an act.

"Yes... I suppose we can." A glance to the expiring body on the ground, and another, lengthening, becoming a stare. An open grimace as he watches—exhaustion, ache, but it may pass for dismay, and the tilt of his head may pass for pity, or some other appropriate thing. The morbid fixation that any person might experience in his circumstance. This awful, violent thing he's done. He should look away; he can't. (He doesn't want to miss it.)

"It may take a few minutes." Still watching, discomfort in the creases of his young face. Like he's beginning to drift, "I haven't been feeling very well."

"It's fine." He's in no hurry. "I'll wait for you."

Better here than there, thinks some small piece and then his eye wanders down again. The length of the limbs in their sleeves is all wrong and there's no spirit in the dying man's face, but he's still unpleasant to look at. Marcoulf tips his face away. He counts backwards from twenty.

At four, having noted the final stilling of the chest, Leander releases a measured sigh. Lets it hang there, his lungs empty, as though trying out the last breath for himself. He wonders what this mage would have thought of the strange vigil he's just received—one witness turned away, the other too intent—but at least they were there.

Spitefully enjoying his next breath, he explains, "It's a terrible thing to die alone."

A thin, weary smile as he raises his focus to the man with the two blades.

"Did you find whatever you were chasing?"

It's easy to miss that last tired exhale if you're not looking. So at some point there is a dying man at his feet and then at another--

Marcoulf looks up. He blinks. The sharp edge of his rapier has lowered at some point in the intervening moments, and he meets the other man's eye but after what appears to be a brief struggle can't come up with a satisfactory answer. He settles on changing the subject.

"Have you caught your breath?"

The smile broadens, in shape and sincerity both, and that seems to deplete it.

While the Venatori was barely a person before he died—and only by virtue of being a mage—now he's nothing at all but materials. The body receives no further glance as Lea leaves it. The swordsman, though, he receives a few.

"You're usually with the horses, aren't you?"

A little small-talk, perhaps, to distract him from whatever's stiffened his walk. (A talon, skimming the surface, looking for any suggestion of an aperture.)

His grip shifts - thick fingers rearranging thenselves thoughtlessly (compulsively) around the sword's grip. He takes a half step back, twisting as if to lead the way from the tangled clearing. His attention doesn't stray from Leander though, head cocked like a listening dog as he waits for him to pick his way around the corpse and across the dirt dark and spongy with--

Anyway.

"I am. And you're in the library."

"That's right," he says, and seems pleased for it. That he's been noticed; that this man has made observation a habit; for any private reason.

Dark and spongy dirt, imbued with vital minerals, has been commonplace in his life of late, and he crosses it without difficulty, physical or otherwise. When he first took his time with it—out in the land, with his fellows—he stepped again and again to see if the mud would leave a rust-coloured ring around his boot. It did. Some of the lads laughed for, not at, the strangeness of Leander's curiosity, and for them his observations became a source of good morale on the road.

Now the lads are dead, if they're lucky—otherwise worse in the hands of the mage-hunters that came for them.

"I've spent more time in libraries than out-of-doors, I think. It's nice to get out more often." With a glance back, "For the most part."

"Mind not to say so very loudly. The Inquisition will make a point of putting you of-out-doors more than you could care for." Riftwatch, he mentally corrects but doesn't bother with sorting out loud. Instead: a half shrug. What are you good at?, ask outfits like this one. That's fine. Take it outside.

With a nod toward the underbrush in a direction distinctly away from the ring and snap of metal on metal on lyrium stone laced flesh on armor on bone, he says, "Last I saw, our line was moving on. We have some chance to skirt the fight and come up along behind it if we go that way."

Regardless of whatever they're calling themselves now, the sentiment lands well. He's too tired to affect another smile just yet, but one can tell these things even without. On that note: bless you, he doesn't say, and communicates it nonetheless.

What he does say is, "I'll take that chance," and follows the suggestion readily, neither trying to overtake Marcoulf nor falling behind too far.

Apart from the staff he carries, it'd be difficult to call him a mage from a distance, as the skirt of his layers is limited to common knee-length rather than the long robes one tends to imagine. Not very flashy. Likewise, the staff itself is plainer and shorter than some prefer, with well-worn leather grip; he steers it easily between branches.

"Do you hear that? The birds are still singing out here."

In moments, the mangled body of the mage is lost to the tangle of the foliage closing behind them.

"And rabbits in the undergrowth, surely." Maybe. If rabbits live in places like this. The point being that no bird cares much about some fool swinging a sword about their heads so long as it doesn't strike the branch they've picked to occupy. There are too many out here to be fussed by the trespassing. "They must know that they will outlast us."

Here. Specifically.

A sidelong glance. Marcoulf's stride isn't so long and his progress through the foliage isn't so quick. Between the two of them, they're better off careful and quiet. The fighting isn't so far removed, even as they work to cut this long way around.

Leander returns the glance just so, and once more—and it lingers the second time, long enough for him to smile through his breath. This ginger swordsman's uncommon profile, fairly dominated by his nose. The timbre of his voice. He seems at once composed and uncomfortable—is that always his way, or is it only the battle that's done it? How easy might it be to change? (How easy, to leave his body out here in this quiet place for the birds and the flies to perch upon.)

Leaning to miss the leafy twig-end of a sapling's branch, "Perhaps they think it's our music. All the fighting, the shouting." Isn't it? "They might simply be singing along."

It's a strange thought - equal parts unpleasant and reassuring. Maybe it is. Their version of music. Do more people know how to hack and chop and swing a sword and bleed things than those who can play an instrument or sing in tune? It feels like that could be true.

"Says strange things about what birds like if so."

"They're already strange. Colourful little fragile things that hop about and whistle. Even the large ones—they're more or less the same. The only real difference is in what they hunt."

These are thoughts he's had before. As entertaining as it can be sometimes to catch people off guard with such observations, it's also a lonely place to sit; he's glad to share in context now and then.

"And chickens, they're very strange, if you think about it."

His hand pauses, gloved fingers tangled in the fine branches of a segment of brush he's half bent back. The look he gives Leander-- half baffled, half not. A flicker of a vague grin, like smiling at a joke he doesn't quite get, twitching behind the wire of his beard.

"How do you mean?"

Crack. The halfway distant sound of something snapping or striking. Marcoulf holds the brush back for Leander to pass between it and the dense stand of narrow trunked trees.

Another note to serenade them on their stroll.

"Well— oh, thank you." Entering the space Marcoulf has made for him, calm and careful, he leans first to see if there's anything ahead worth their concern before moving through completely. Nothing exciting has appeared, and the fighting sounds just as far as it was a moment earlier, so he goes on, "Have you ever looked at one? Really looked, I mean."

"Cooked or uncooked?"

He ducks after him, and doesn't shuffle along the non-existent path to retake the half step lead he'd established.

Even if he had, Leander would soon insinuate himself into even stride. He notices, of course, and savours that mote of gratification a while—

And laughs, in a sudden soft burst of breath. A few pleasant notes to mingle with the birdsong.

"Stop, you're going to make me hungry. And then I'll be obliged to feel awkward about it."

What with the killing and all.

A soft sound, something between a hum of a dismissive hiss. "You'll find yourself hungry regardless. The fighting will do it even if talk of chickens doesn't. There is no beast more ravenous than a person who has avoided being murdered by another one."

And that much, at least, Leander seems perfectly acquainted with.

(Which is unsurprising. Mages did fight a war and he must have been one of hem. Which doesn't make a man with his arms wrenched off any more pleasant, but it leaves the small hairs on the back of Marcoulf's neck to prickle slightly less and they push their way through the underground around the margins of the combat.)

"Mm, true. I'd almost forgotten that part."

No he hadn't. He may not have been thinking of it before, but he most assuredly is now, and the twitching start of a smile he snuffs might suggest there's a memory attached. His pallor has lingered, too, not the deathly chill of a man who stood so close to horror, but the sign of an ailment less inspired by morality, still gathering damp at his hairline, surfacing in the occasional tightening of his lips or flare of his nostrils.

All the same, with a level disregard for his condition—and steadily, if not quickly—he presses on.

"I suppose I'd better get into the role, then, hadn't I... but what if another member of the Watch comes this way and finds you taking a companionable stroll beside a ravenous beast? Better start thinking of what you'll tell them."

That strikes some nerve. The traces of easiness, however thin, slide briefly from the man's thin features and he doesn't laugh. Yes de Ricart, what will you say? That he had been drawn into the undergrowth by the sound of a shout, perhaps. That he had good reason to stray and was now intending to make his way back directly to fighting rabid Templars. Never mind that he had heard no unusual cry and that they now loop wide around what must be the hottest fighting.

He shifts his grip on the bare sword in his hand. "I'm sure I will think of something." A gesture indicating a new direction. "We should cut up here."

Well.

That was interesting.

Leander is a dab hand at playing oblivious; he applies that skill now, following the motion with his eyes before his body, too, turns after it. Why here? To lessen the chance they'll be discovered, perhaps? Self-preservation, is it, or misdirection?

There's no diversion in the way he tugs his water skin free, he's only thirsty. After a wisely meted mouthful, he sighs, "Honestly, this part's a bit tedious, don't you think? The fighting. I'd much rather be exploring the temple ruin."

It's just a load of rocks stacked on top of one another, he does not say.

"I don't mind it," he lies. The clash-crack of fighting grows louder as they make their way in this direction.

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↠ WHAT PRIDE HAD WROUGHT | OPEN LOG

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