↠ WHAT PRIDE HAD WROUGHT | OPEN LOG

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[esquive]

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.)

[sarcophage]

"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."

[esquive]

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."

[sarcophage]

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."

[esquive]

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.