NOT IN MY CROSSROADS

[inkindled]

WHO: Barrow, Derrica, Matthias
WHAT: the gang visits the spooky crossroads
WHEN: Harvestmere
WHERE: the Crossroads
NOTES: part of the September

assignments.

"A team of Venatori were discovered in the Crossroads prior to the attack on the Temple in the Arbor Wilds, and the prospect of the enemy gaining greater access to the eluvian network opens up a host of dangerous possibilities. A Riftwatch team will be sent back into the Crossroads to try to discover where that group of Venatori entered from and prevent future use of that entrance....."

Comments

one cut corpse: the dead body

[inkindled]

The eluvian stands like an archway, tall and shimmering and flawless. Except, you know, for the smear of blood and gore at the base. And the corpse at its feet.

Well, half a corpse, really. Matthias crouches beside it with a grimace. The body is fresh enough that it smells only a little. Not as bad as a six-day-old battlefield, only the faintest hint of bloat in the face below the half-mask, and the heavy sweetish scent of rot has just begun to settle in.

"Posh boy wasn't fast enough," he says. Keeping his nose plugged from the inside, it sounds as if he has a headcold. He leans in to look at the face, examining the lips and the skin and the eyes, which are still open behind the mask. The slackness of death has stiffened up his expression, peeled back his mouth from his teeth and cast his expression in a bizarre grin. "Or else something went wrong. Anyone ever actually seen one one of these things before? The-- eluvie, not the dead body. Seen those."

[tender]

"I haven't," Derrica tells him, rightly assuming Matthias isn't talking about the corpse. "I wasn't even sure they really existed anymore."

Derrica looks up, considers the eluvian itself for a long moment. The urge to tell Matthias not to get too close to it comes and then goes.

"Here, help me. Maybe he's carrying something useful."

She crouches, begins carefully going through his pockets.

[thereneverwas]

"Never heard of them till recently," Barrow admits, keeping on his feet while the other two crouch to investigate the body, his hand on his sword pommel as he scans the area and the large mirror with growing distrust.

[inkindled]

Agreeably, Matthias crouches, and shoves his hand into the blood and gore damp doublet, searching for interior pockets. He's not squeamish about it in the least, not even when he finds rot-soft spots under the fabric of the corpse's shirt, or when he has to shove aside cloth and fabric and really get in there with his fumbling. A little less careful than Derrica, but his looting has always been functional, and brisk.

He grins over his shoulder at Barrow as he works. "Dare you to put your face through it and see what's on the other side."

Still with his nose plugged from the inside, so. He sounds a bit funny. Maybe the dare is a joke. Considering they're going through the pockets of a man that got cut in half from his attempt, hopefully it's a joke.

[tender]

Derrica makes a soft noise of objection almost immediately. But Barrow doesn't move, so she doesn't follow it up with any more concrete expression of disapproval. She comes up with a palmful of coins, a gold bracelet, some bits of wire and a button. Nothing of note.

She holds the bracelet up for a moment to inspect before speaking.

"I don't think he was anyone important," Derrica tells them, though she sounds a little sad. "They just left him here after whatever they were trying to do went wrong."

[thereneverwas]

Barrow scoffs, smirking a little. This fucking kid.

"Why don't we chuck you through it," he amiably replies, but falls silent when Derrica chimes in. He grimaces faintly, looking over the corpse again.
"Nothing unusual about that."

[inkindled]

"We can burn him, before we go."

Matthias pulls his hand out again and transfers his find to his other hand, so he can wipe the dirty one briskly on the front of the dead man's doublet. Two pieces of silver, a scrap of paper with a faint scrawl of writing on it, and that's all. Not all that exciting, even if the coin is nice.

"I'll give it a go, if we really want someone to. I'm not scared of it." A little nervous to be cut in half, perhaps, but if Barrow is going to make it sound a challenge, you bet Andraste's arse Matthias will take it. "Or I'll put my hand through it and we can see what happens. Here, why don't we put his hand through it?" He pats the corpse on the chest a bit. "He's not using it. And if it's off, he'll not complain. They're meant to connect to another eluvie, aren't they? So we've got to know where this one goes to."

[tender]

"His hand, if you please. Not yours." Derrica's voice is firm. "I don't want to try reassembling limbs in here."

It's a tricky, exhausting business. Derrica puts the bracelet on as she speaks, shakes her wrist lightly to see if it will fly off. It's pretty enough to keep, though no one has really discussed what they're doing with the loot.

[thereneverwas]

"I'm not bringing you back with only half your limbs," Barrow says pleasantly enough, eyeing Derrica and the bracelet but saying nothing on the matter, "either we bring you back whole or not at all."
He's probably joking. He pops a rolled cigarette in his mouth and lights it, looking back down at the boy. "...try the stiff's hand."

[inkindled]

"Okay okay," Matthias says, agreeable and cheerful, and grabs hold of the corpse's arm. "C'mon, Gareth, help us out--"

The surface of the eluvian looks very solid, but perhaps that's the trick of it. There's a particularly corpsey stiffness to the half-bloke, so twisting his arm about takes a bit of work, and a great deal of sickening snaps and sinewy sounds besides. But eventually, the hand is in the right place, and Matthias takes a breath, and pushes it forward--

THUNK, goes the flat dense sound of a very dead hand hitting very solid glass.

Matthias frowns. And tries again. THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.

"Hang on. There's meant to be like, a password, or something. Isn't there?"

THUNK, goes the hand again. Behind the frame of this eluvian, there are others visible, rising up like giant silent Chantry sisters, with their heads bowed and shoulders slumped. Among them--if any of them take a moment to lean to peer around this eluvian--they'll see the one they're probably actually looking for: a springy carpet of new-grown grass at its feet, instead of half a dead man, and the sign of footprints trod about it, a well-worn and telltale path.

Matthias is way too busy to see any of that. THUNK.