faderift | 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

They have taken turns in leading and following. Loxley, when in front, picking out the simplest paths in complex structures of strange tumbled brick, floating pathways, normally moving with an abrupt rapidness in the interests of scouting ahead.

However, now it is Richard taking the lead in accordance with written instruction and note making. The terrain, if you squint, looks like a vast mountainside, adorned only with half-collapsed stone walls and rippled stone paths, vines and moss growing over and through. Up close, however, it feels like they are walking on a mere shell of landscape, where gaps between winding paths show infinite void beneath a few precious feet of earth and rock.

Occasionally, a carelessly placed foot will have the ground crumble and fracture ever so. They are moving slowly.

And amicably. It has been business as usual between them, with light commentary on the playful activity of the spirits on the increase since the first time they were there, and factual exchange of information as to what they are doing.

And Loxley asks, now, apropos of very little, as he follows Richard at a comfortable battlesquare length of five feet or so, "Did you leave anyone behind? Among the Yuan-ti."

If Riftwatch and its allies are actively exploring unusual means of collecting information on Tevinter, it stands to reason that the opposite must be true in reverse, particularly if the Vint’s closer connection to demonkind lends them greater insight into goings on within the Fade. Anyone with an eluvian can access the Crossroads, and they’ve been trekking around in such numbers that identifying trace evidence of enemy passage would be nigh unto --

Having paused to consider a suspiciously heel-shaped impression in the not-earth ahead, Richard lifts a look back to Loxley in a rare moment of unguarded surprise.

His exposure is total. No room to maneuver, out here on bare rock and soil; open and honest answers do not require deep contemplation. Betrayed by distraction, complacency, and maybe just a little bit by Loxley himself, Richard opens his mouth, closes it, furrows his brow, and tries again.

“Not -- in the traditional sense.”

The hold he has on his journal stiffens, as if he might somehow absorb extra seconds from the pages. He gambles for more time to gather himself by answering the natural follow-up on his own:

“My mother. Technically.”

Loxley is not wholly innocent to the bite in his question, but bolstered with the confidence that it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, friend to friend. Has not Richard asked him of his own family, in gentle(r) nudgings, aware of the sensitive nature of infernal hereditary bloodline, its place in society, the stark contrast in the way that their ranger had come into the world.

So his expression is guileless, to a maximum of maybe 80%.

And interested, standing patient with a foot balanced on a raised cropping of stone and hand resting on the hilt of his blade. "Traditional," he repeats. "You mean family. What of friends?"

Yes but that was all useful information for him to have personally. It’s different.

“W…”

Richard’s dumbfounded staring continues unabated at the same distance, unbroken save by one soul-searching glance away and aside.

“We don’t. Typically. Engage in -- what you would call ‘friendship.’” As a people. His answer is stilted, more disoriented than deliberately avoidant. Where even to begin, with that question. “Alliances exist. Of course, I was rarely in Sylvica after I was assigned...”

Short answer: no friends. But he’s already more secure in his footing, having successfully dithered his way into an excuse that makes some kind of sense.

Loxley keeps watching Richard as he staggers through his answer, more patient than anything else. Determined in his patience. The idea of an entire species who do not engage in friendships is-- perhaps so strange that it doesn't quite sink in all the way, likened more to the criminal underworld as his point of reference. No friends, only allies.

But even that's not true. Not in the way that Richard is saying.

Quiet, then, as Loxley reaches for another useful question that would get him closer to what he's looking for. A question of personal stakes. He moves from his post, carefully navigating the uneven ground, pushing past the arsehole-clenching moment when one steps over a gap in the rock that shows infinity beneath.

"You know, I have this feeling that Oghma is not a typical Yuan-ti deity. Do you-- you do follow Oghma, yes? Or..."

Richard waits warily in that quiet; there’s a sidewinding quality to the way he squares against Loxley’s approach, gathering himself up into a more defensible coil. He does not like this, but his liking it is not a requirement for his participation.

He narrows his eyes at (valid, tbh) Insinuations made about the nature of Yuan-ti deities.

“I didn’t choose to follow Oghma. But I am in his service.”

So chosen, however dubious a choice that might have been.

“I was raised in a temple of Dendar,” he adds, approximately 10% spicier in answer to the feeling Loxley had. This is clearly a more tender subject than the notion of friendship. “The Nightmare Serpent.”

Loxley's eyebrows go up.

"The Nightmare Serpent."

Can you blame him for having a feeling, then.

He has stopped at more of a side along position, still at a reasonable distance, just shy outside of conversational. "They don't do much by halves, then," is a small attempt at humour, offered a little like a whimsically waved olive branch.

Richard Dickerson’s eyes flash with iT’s nOT fuNnY anger, impulse choke chained into an abortive clench that flushes hot under his collar.

Too late, he registers the ridiculous intensity of his own reaction.

He removes himself without removing himself, recognition and realization a visible process. He looks away and then down to replay the exchange and reorganize his thoughts, up to and including the swift removal of any embarrassment over what could have been an overreaction if he’d followed through but it definitely wasn’t and Loxley probably didn’t even notice, look at him.

Dick looks at him.

“They don’t.” Point blank assurance, olive branch accepted, he manages half a smile and everything.

Nailed it.

EVENT ↠ THE DRIFTING ROADS

truth paths. richard dickerson.

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