faderift | EVENT ↠ THE DRIFTING ROADS

Entry tags:

EVENT ↠ THE DRIFTING ROADS

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: A Crossroads Adventure
WHEN: Most of Cloudreach 9:46
WHERE: The Crossroads
NOTES: OOC post!

A team recently discovered a cluster of eluvians, one of which leads into the attic of an occupied home in Minrathous. This could be an extremely useful route if it can be made safely accessible, but that will require careful planning. In the meantime, Riftwatch needs to urgently explore the other eluvians in the cluster to ensure that none of them make the Minrathous route too dangerous to keep open (for instance, if another leads into the center of Val Royeaux or the royal palace in Cumberland, or anywhere else that a party of enemy combatants could quickly cause terrible trouble).

To that end, teams are assigned to explore and (as much as is possible in the Crossroads) map where the others lead and what the paths between them are like so that the danger/usefulness of each can be assessed. Because there are dozens and this needs to be done as quickly as possible, anyone with any time may be ordered to take on an exploration shift. Assignments will be given to small teams or pairs, but never to just one person alone. Some people may be assigned multiple shifts. (These assignments will be made IC, but OOC you're free to choose your own teams.)

The aim of this event is to focus on the Crossroads themselves, so the eluvians investigated will almost all lead to other eluvians and to islands of disconnected pieces of the Crossroads. It may be necessary to travel between and through several successive eluvians to different portions of the Crossroads to ensure there's no access to a vulnerable location.

The portions of the Crossroads teams will be exploring now will come with a variety of frustrating geographical hazards, any number of which your characters may encounter during their travels:

RECONCILIATION ROAD: One eluvian will be positioned in the distance on a narrow island of the Crossroads and reachable only by two paths that unfurl ahead of people as they walk and finally converge to reach the island. The paths will slowly angle toward one another if the people walking on each of them discuss a topic of disagreement, coming together to meet at the eluvian if the parties are reasonable and calm during the discussion and make some earnest effort to find common ground along the way. They won't have to wind up in perfect agreement to reach the end, but breaking into fighting or being stubborn or petty will result in the paths diverging instead of coming together. People who already agree about something won't be able to make it work—they'll have to find something to disagree about, even if it's just the best color of flower. A monument at the beginning will explain its purpose (using Veilfire writing that gives mental impressions, rather than requiring knowledge of ancient elven languages): the paths were designed to require people to calmly discuss their differences on their way to reach someone appointed to mediate disputes at the end, rather than allowing them to barge in shouting.
IMPULSE AVENUE: An area will be populated by spirits who will act out a form of people's repressed feelings/impulses on their behalf. That might mean a nonverbal wisp or a more distinct verbal spirit. So a wisp who is acting on behalf of Person A might shoot little icicles at Person B because Person A is annoyed with them, or a more substantial spirit might hit on Person B because Person A thinks they're cute, et cetera. The spirits won't volunteer to explain why they're doing this, but the verbal ones could identify Person A as the source of the desire if pressed on the subject, especially if Person A secretly wants it known.
INNER CHILD BOULEVARD: Teams may need to pass through a particularly twisty, shifting maze that's only passable with the guidance of spirits—specifically, spirits who, for some unknown reason connected to their original purpose when the Crossroads were a thoroughfare, present as ghostly forms of the people they're guiding as they were when they were children. They'll know that they're spirits and that their purpose is to guide people through the maze, not mistake themselves for "real" people, but they'll behave and speak in the manner of the child they're imitating while doing so. (Like all spirits, they rely on the information available to them from people, so if there's some significant difference between the way a person recalls themselves as a child vs. how they really were, the spirit will only be able to imitate what the person recalls.)
SUSPICION CIRCLE: A pack of fear spirits (specific breed: suspicion) has control of a dark, tunnel-y portion of the Crossroads. They're able to rearrange the paths to lead people in circles rather than allowing them to escape, all the while trying to stoke fear and drive wedges between people by whispering to them about any fears they may harbor (or that just seem reasonable) about their companions' motives, loyalty, etc. Resisting the fear will prevent the spirits from feeding and eventually make them unable to keep up with rearranging the paths, allowing people to escape. Otherwise, if people do give into fearing one another and thus feed them, they'll have to be fought or outsmarted some other way.

They may also encounter other minor hazards and irritations, such as:

SPIRITS OF VALOR: Bridges or paths may occasionally be occupied by these fierce spirits who will demand that any who wish to pass first best them in single combat. They can also sometimes be passed without a fight, if you manage to out-swagger them.
WILD GOOSE SPIRITS: Spirits that will lead anyone who follows them in pointless circles for as long as possible. They may appear offering assistance, claiming they know the way to the party's destination and can lead them to it, or claiming to have been sent by another group that needs their help urgently. On rare occasions the aid they seek will be real, just far too late--they may lead people to scenes of spirits falling to their deaths as paths crumble, crying out for help but unable to be saved.
MOOD WISPS: Characters may encounter clusters of small wisps that will follow them about and change color depending on the mood of the person they're hovering near. If that person's emotions are particularly extreme they may also hum a little, annoyingly, in a way that vaguely indicates the relevant feeling.
TRUTH PATHS: Paths that will fall away if you tell a lie. It doesn't require active truth-telling to cross, so you can be silent the whole time if you like, but if you lie about something while wandering the path will vanish ahead of you and will not reappear until you correct the lie. They aren't clearly marked.
PUZZLES EVERYWHERE: There are puzzles. They're everywhere, and they're frequently required to unlock an eluvian or make a pathway appear. Some of them might require people to play Ancient Elven Symbol Twister. Or Ancient Elven Symbol Hopscotch, if that's more your thing.

This project will be ongoing, in addition to characters' normal duties, until events TBA.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"We know that now." She gestures with her head, a slight movement at the rocky precipice they're standing on. Even after a few hours spent in the Crossroads, Laura doesn't trust herself to move too suddenly in this eerie place; the whole world threatens to disappear around her at any moment. "We should know where it leads to."

"Yyyeah, but we gotta mark this one's location on the map, first. Then when we know where it goes, we make a note about where we were." Or at least...that's how she thought she was told how to do it. She frowns down at her map. "...Right?"

"If we went through it, we would know where it went." She sniffs it again when Athessa looks down, suspicious and fascinated in equal measure. The surface of the mirrors is almost like metal and almost like water, but not really like either. If it reminds her of anything, it's of her claws--but only in the way it seems to exist without entirely existing. "We are just making marks on parchment."

Athessa blinks, looks at Laura, looks at the map, and back. Then, starts to roll the map up to stow it.

"Okay, let's just go through," She stands up from the rock she'd sat on, and stands beside the mirror. "You want me to go first?"

"No," Laura says immediately. "You should be second."

Because I cannot defend you from behind is waiting, but she remembers their conversation on the roof. That, she suspects, is something she shouldn't say.

And then she pauses to consider the issue for another moment, frowning. "...We do not know what is on the other side. And that is why they do not wish for us to find out. Isn't it."

"Who's they?" Did she miss something? She looks once more between the mirror and Laura, and she looks behind the mirror just for good measure. "I don't understand what you mean. We're finding out what's on the other side as part of this whole process."

"Right now, we are supposed to map where they are in the Crossroads. We were not told to map where they go to." Right? Perhaps she misunderstood; the language of mission and objective has always felt familiar to her, even in Riftwatch, but that fact might have left her open to mistakes. "I wish to know where it goes, but not if it will harm the mission."

They've managed to turn what seemed a simple mission into a head-scratcher. So Athessa scratches her head.

"I assumed that the whole point was to map where they go, not just where the mirrors are."

Well, when Athessa puts it that way...Laura frowns, looking from the mirror to Athessa and back again. And her claws come out.

"I will go through first." Temptation calls, and whatever the mirror leads to can't be worse than the dizzying sight of the Crossroads. "And you will follow."

And their map will be all the more complete for it. Which is really the mission, in the end--though the thought of what if something is waiting on the other side, what if it's dangerous, what if it is not supposed to know we know about the eluvians still itches in the back of her mind.

"Right. We can always come back through, if it ends up being more than the two of us can handle."

Athessa, for once, is not feeling any negative effects from being here. The colors are vibrant, and she can tell the difference between all of them. It's bittersweet, because what a gift to be able to see them, but in a place she can't stay.

Laura considers, and she nods. It feels halfway forbidden--she wasn't told to do this, and while that's not a problem every day anymore, it feels like a boundary in a mission as important as this--but Athessa doesn't seem concerned. And their backs will be to the eluvian when they emerge on the other side; they will have an easy exit if needed.

Her claws light from her knuckles, and she walks through. The world throws itself around her all new again, making her dizzy--but only for a moment. They're in a dark room, filled with shelves and boxes and trunks of who-knows what. And all her claws help with is lighting the way.

Good. It will be safe for Athessa. Laura starts looking at the shelves, holding claws up and squinting through the lyrium-light.

Athessa appears behind Laura, takes one look around, and makes a face.

"Musty. I guess this one's in storage," she makes a note on her map real quick, just that the mirror they went through leads to a cupboard or something, and looks around again, more purposefully. "I don't see a window anywhere. Can you see a door?"

In the darkness, she can't--but after a few moments of wandering around, she does find one. Carefully, she tests it. This feels more like what she was trained for than what she's been doing for Riftwatch, and the discrepancy is strange.

"Locked," she reports. And then, silently, she goes back to all the shelves, curious to see what they might contain. There are labels on some of the jars and containers, fortunately. "I think we are in Orlais."

"Or... lais... question mark?" She narrates as she writes, then tucks map and graphite back where they belong.

"We shouldn't stay here long, in case somebody's home," Athessa steps carefully, so as not to disturb too much dust or nudge anything too loudly. "But we should see if there's anything here that might give us a better idea of where we are, or if there's anything useful."

Shes not suggesting they steal anything, of course. Just... catalogue it. Sort of.

Looking through the nearest box of gloves and boots, she thinks it's safe to say:

"It's definitely not Kirkwall. Nobody would've out away their winter clothes already."

"Or Orlesians in another country." That's certainly possible. Laura looks for other languages, but everything looks Orlesian to her--and mostly commonplace items, to the extent that she recognizes anything as commonplace. (She's learned a little, over her months in Kirkwall.) "How long does Orlais stay cold?"

If Athessa knows. Laura finds a heavy-looking chest in a corner and pushes up the hinged lid, breathing in a sharp scent she doesn't recognize in among the clothes.

Athessa doesn't know, so she shrugs. She's guessing at best.

"I dunno, but it's hard to imagine a place like that having the same shitty weather as Kirkwall." Near the shoe-and-glove box is a small bookshelf, which holds a few books and bottles.

"These are in Orlesian too, I think."

Laura forgets to reply; she's too busy pulling a strange material from the chest, holding it up in an attempt to figure out what it is. A sort of leather, maybe, but with harder pieces running through it.

"This could be Orlesian." Inasmuch as it could be from anywhere. Laura has no idea. Standing, she sweeps it across her shoulders experimentally. "I think it's a cloak."

One that looks wing-like as it hangs from her shoulders, lacking in any decoration besides its own shape. Orlesian clothes are usually frilly, aren't they? Not so plain, somehow.

Okay, forget the books, whatever Laura found is much more interesting. Athessa maneuvers her way over, dodging stacks of this and that until she's close enough to Laura to see what she's trying on.

"What's it made of?"

"Leather," she says, but it sounds a little like a question. She holds up a fold of the cloak, a little bony bit at what would be a hem on something else, so Athessa can touch it. "But I have not seen an animal with anything like this."

What little light is in this room reflects off of Athessa's eyes as they widen and she looks at the bone and grazes the pad of her thumb over the leather. She's seen something like this before, in a market stall outside of Kont-aar.

Because the Qunari settled Kont-aar, and because the Qunari are all about dragons, a lot of merchants would set up shop nearby and try to sling their fake dragon-hide wares. Some younger Qunari would be taken in by the fakes, but most of those merchants were either forced to move on because they couldn't shift their product, or they were scared off by knowledgeable kossith exposing them.

This cloak is much too good to be a fake.

"I think this is dragon leather."

Laura's eyes widen, too, at Athessa's declaration. She looks down at the cloak again, reconsidering it in the lyrium-light.

"I thought dragons were bigger," is all she can think to say, though she thinks better of it right after the words leave her mouth. Perhaps this is only part of a dragon's wing, or perhaps it isn't a wing at all, just meant to look like one, with its wide scallops of hem and bony little hooks.

The thing she doesn't say, doesn't quite realize she's thinking, is I want this to be mine. It's warm, but not unpleasantly so, only weighty enough to feel solid, and there's something comforting about having it draped over her, hiding her in its folds.

Possibly at the same moment that Laura thinks it, Athessa says: "Maybe it's only a piece of one, but it's definitely dragon." She taps on a piece of bone, tilting her head to listen to it. It's not an easy thing to forge, the sound of real bone. Wood is too dense. The bone of a different animal would likely be too brittle.

"That's one hell of a find."

Laura doesn't answer, still looking at the leather in her hand. It's the most beautiful thing she's ever held, a strangely reassuring weight around her body...and it belongs to someone else.

Reluctantly, she lets her claws disappear, the better to take the cloak off and fold it back up. "Stealing is wrong. But I wish to be a thief."

Athessa looks around at the stuff around them. It's all pretty dusty, save for the winter clothes that were only recently put away. She gestures at the trunks.

"Which one did you find it in? We might not be able to put it back without it being obvious it was displaced."

She's fairly certain which trunk it was, but she didn't stop to think about the precise manner in which is was folded. That was stupid. It isn't the kind of mistake she was raised to make.

"If it is missing, that would be obvious." But there's a note of doubt in her voice, driven by all the cobwebs and dust in the room, not to mention the darkness. Wherever they are, it feels like it must be deep within a building. It feels less like the storerooms at the Gallows, where people go in and out constantly, and more like a forgotten corner of the world. "If anyone comes to look for it."

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