faderift | ↠ WHAT PRIDE HAD WROUGHT

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! mod plot,
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↠ 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I am sure, with a clever enough smith," Alexandrie replies, moving to join Loki in his consideration. "Although so long isolated as they have been I imagine their crafting techniques differ vastly from our own." She runs a finger along the etching. "It is a rather elegant look, however, that particular line. To make graceful combatants seem even moreso."

"It would suit you." She reaches to tug at his fingers affectionately and then turns towards where the group is getting more than slightly ahead of their relaxed pace, looking back over her shoulder after a few paces to see if he intends to come along.

Loki has not moved far from the corpse since she tugged at him to follow, and is smug and slightly preening as he considers the lines of that armor and how lovely it would look on him. Whether he has taken anything off that body is impossible to say with his skill in sleight of hand and the nature of his robes.

He follows after, his pace still sedate.

"The enchantments on it are truly interesting. I might be able to duplicate them. We shall have to find a smith who can make such things."

He steps up alongside her before long.

"Do you think you could paint it from memory, so the lines are not distorted by my drawing them?"

"It is the same as those of our guide and his fellows, yes?"

It is, and the little glimmer in her eyes says she knows so, and knows also that he knows very well she knows so. It pleases him to be consulted even so, however, and so she does.

Once it would have galled her immensely to know there was someone who could read her smallest signs, anticipate her workings, but it has grown comfortable with Loki. More than comfortable; she delights in spreading her cards out for him, trusting him to appreciate her designs, warmly self-satisfied when he does.

"I believe I can manage that."

His amusement at her question, at the warning held in her question, is extremely fond. He inclines his head and moves to stand beside her, extending his arm so his hand rests against her back. It absolutely isnt holding anything of value.

"Excellent," he replies and leans in just slightly. "Your talents never cease to impress, my dear."

They are nearly through the crypts, or at lest through the direct path that will allow them entry into the temple. It has been an interesting walk, however disinclined their guides are to speak or grant them attention.

She'd said nothing then, only smiled and raised to her toes to meet Loki's lean, to bump her head against his like a cat might. In the temple proper there'd been exploring, the change of her trajectory to help tend the fallen, and so it's not until late in the evening once their makeshift camp has been set and she lounges against him that she makes murmured inquiry after whatever it was he'd palmed against her back.

"Did you find something besides inspiration for well fashioned greaves, luna mea?"

The Inner Sanctum of the temple is, by Loki's measure, infinitely more interesting than the exterior. The crypts hold more promise, of course, in that they allow passage to other, more secret places than the Riftwatch are technically allowed to occupy, but the Sanctum is...illuminating. Their camp is set well enough and Loki, satisfied with the day's findings and engaged in a mental tally, is distracted enough that he does not register her question at first.

"Hm?" He asks and rolls the words over in his mind. The nickname pulls a reflexive smile from him and, with a skill that would make a pickpocket weep, he lifts the hand he has draped over her, holding her against his side, and produces a ring. The moment is quick, just a twist of fingers, and abruptly it is there. It is gold, unassuming, and so utterly and obviously enchanted that Loki cannot help but hum as he turns it over between his fingers.

"A few things, but this is terribly interesting," he whispers and holds it still.

He is not fool enough to have tried it on--one does not live as dangerously and as curiously as he does by doing things like trying on relics looted from tombs--but even he is sorely tempted.

"This was not being worn by the unfortunate fellow and isn't that just curious."

She knows how he did it, that quick twist. He'd slowed it to a crawl for her, pieced it out step by step until she found the beginnings of it in her own fingers, but at speed she can never follow the whole of Loki's movement. It doesn't matter how many times she begs him, laughing, to do it again. Pebble, coin, ring, card, they come into being and disappear in his hands so smoothly that she dramatically accuses him of true magic, grabbing after his fingers and rifling through his pockets until her hands are in his hair and her mouth is on his and she forgets.

In relative public as they are, there is only the spread of her smile in response and a further tilt of her head towards his to join the conspiracy in full.

"Carried on his person but not upon his finger, you mean? That is curious." She peers at it, sees nothing but the unassuming gold, and surmises there is something magical to it that she cannot feel as he does. "Kept and carried for another, perhaps?" Her smile widens. "Or terribly cursed?"

"It could be one, or the other," Loki cedes. "Or both."

The promise of a cursed artifact is an odd and alluring one. Not that he is eager to be cursed but having those sorts of things around can open avenues that regular bribery cannot. He turns it over in his fingers, flips it like it is a coin, and when he turns it just so there is a sheen of purple along the edge of it. Not quite a light but not quite something else.

"Can you see that, there?" He asks, his whisper dropped to the barest volume.

Her eyes narrow slightly as he turns it. There had been something, some light-like sheen cast from neither sunset nor campfire... there it is again. Alexandrie hums a quiet affirmative.

"A pity we cannot ask its previous owner what it does," she replies as quietly. Or the other elves of the temple. Or, perhaps, anyone who would find appropriating artifacts from the honored dead distasteful.

Watching the purple flick in and out, Alexandrie wonders idly why she isn't bothered. She thinks she might have been, if she thought consequence was likely to come back to their doorstep, but the ring is small, Loki's touch light, and the Venatori had been through the crypts as well, and so she finds she cannot manage even small outrage. Surely some people—Nevarrans, perhaps—would have more to say about the sanctity of the dead.

Sanctity. Perhaps that's it.

"Do you hold anything sacred?" She asks Loki the same question she asks herself, soft and idle, still watching his fingers. "Inviolable?"

The sheen is where the magic intersects the veil, an odd touch in an enchantment, but Loki doesn't explain it. Lexie ruminates on the previous owner and is silent a time as he turns the ring over and over, trying to find the mark where it was struck or a weakness in the magic that is burned into it. He has a keen eye but this ring is particularly well made and a campsite is not the finest place to examine such things.

She asks a question out of the blue and Loki hums as he glances down to regard her.

"Inviolable?" He repeats and sounds, very briefly, as though he is baffled.

He takes the time to ruminate on an answer before he gives it, as he usually does when she asks such things, but he is not quite as discomfited by the relativity of morality and ethics as she is. What would he not do, if anything is held sacred? He believes in the old gods, and wouldn't cross one even if the chance presented itself...probably. When he met her, already he had formulated a rather complex plan to kill his brother and assume his father's seat in the magisterium. If pressed, he would be fully willing to use blood magic on nearly any person in the world.

Oh, well there's something.

"Oh, I suppose so," he replies idly, as though agreeing the weather is fine. "Though they are admittedly few and far between. Why do you ask?"

She lifts the shoulder that rests against him slightly, lets it fall.

"I was thinking briefly of those who would no doubt be terribly angry to know how this particular curiosity came into your possession, and wondering why it is I have no such aversion to the idea." Alexandrie shifts in the evening's dimming light, her hand wandering to find a place to rest on his chest. "It is a question as much for myself as for you."

The idea is absurd and abrupt, despite the gentle worry housed in her comments, Loki cannot match her tone. Her hand rests on his chest and he laughs, quietly and spontaneously, a bubbling and surprised sound. Before she can draw away, in the event that such a reaction offends her, he snaps that ring to the palm of his hand and then takes her hand in his, pressing it down to his chest.

"A spontaneous ethical dilemma?" he asks in quiet Tevene, just in case they are overheard. She speaks the language well enough to have this conversation, of that he is certain, and it does lend a bit of an amusing edge to it, given their surroundings.

"Theft has crossed the line, then? I do not think the fellow who lost it will mind. He wasn't using it."

Oh but she had said the opposite hadn't she. That she was not bothered in the slightest by his taking it and wondered why. It is a strange angle to take and Loki gives her an amused, speculative sort of look, tilting his head to examine her as he had the ring. He looks for the edges, where the concept has crept in.

"I think you are unbothered because it is of little consequence to anyone living, and because there are much more terrible things in this world. Once you have seen a few of those, well, it's hard to let a little light graverobbing spoil the mood."

He was right, to her mind at least, but Alexandrie frowns thoughtfully nevertheless as her hand slowly warms where it is enclosed by him, rising and falling gently with his breath.

"I imagine there are plenty of Mortalitasi who have seen terrible things and yet should have their moods spoiled by such," she counters, joining Loki in his language.

"There are rules to proper behavior everywhere; even in wartime. Even the Grand Game in its often callous cruelty has its tenets, although they may certainly be broken if one is clever enough. I have ever and always done so, holding inviolate only the rule of survival and victory. To best whoever it is stands in my way through whatever method is needed to do so." An approach she knows well enough is familiar to him.

"But Geneviève... she has something entirely different unassailable in her. She takes oaths and holds them, refusing to trade what she has sworn, even for the finest of opportunities, and..." And what? Alexandrie trails off, frustrated by her inability to find what it is that is goading her to be bothered by such disorganized thoughts.

Loki cannot quite contain is eyeroll at the mention of mortalitasi, but he doesn't actually sigh as she brings them up. Instead he listens and waits as she postulates and as her point starts to take shape before her. It is a familiar concern to him, he has had accusations with this shape hurled at him before, and he often wore them with honor. He is the serpent of Marnus Pell, after all, and one does not obtain power and reputation through integrity alone.

"Yes, it's terribly honorable, and that is why your sister is a fabulous commander and likewise why you shall survive being married to a Tevinter Altus." Loki reassures her but, ultimately, this is a question about whether either of them have any moral fiber. Loki would be inclined to say 'No', and it would be a lie, but he is not sure how to explain a 'Yes'.

"You and I hold sacred other things, and neither are given to break our word when it's is traded earnestly." Loki wasn't at least, but he very, very rarely gave his word. "If it truly bothers you, I can return the trinket to the dead elf."

You and I hold sacred other things, he says, and with that and what follows whatever it was that had been picking at her evaporates and she is relaxed again. A soft and pliant weight against his side.

"It does not bother me in the slightest," Alexandrie repeats her reassurance with a touch of amusement, tilting her head up such that she can press her lips briefly at his jaw before she tucks her head beneath it. "The only time I have ever been wroth with you for laying your clever fingers on something is when it was my heart. And that time is long since past."

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↠ WHAT PRIDE HAD WROUGHT | OPEN LOG

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