EVENT ↠ THE DRIFTING ROADS

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[hassaran]

[ With a sigh: ] I assume it requires multiple reciprocal efforts.

[rathercommon]

Well, I assume it requires an apology that isn't just someone saying that everything they've said or done is completely justified and laying out the other person's failings. Again.

[hassaran]

I wasn't apologizing, I was explaining. What is it that you would like me to apologize for, precisely? Because just saying the word "sorry" aloud without it meaning anything clearly isn't going to work.

[rathercommon]

[ Her lips thin even further. And she says, with fierce anger: ]

I'd like you to apologize for explaining.

[hassaran]

[ Genuinely baffled: ] Why? How are we ever going to find common ground without explaining ourselves clearly?

[rathercommon]

[ She shakes her head. ]

'Cause you're not explaining yourself. You're explaining me. Every time you talk to me, it's nothing except a list of all the things I'm doing wrong. The only thing I learn about you when you explain yourself is how disappointed you are in all my failings.

[hassaran]

[ The angle of her head suggests disagreement, but even so Yseult asks: ] What do you want to know?

[rathercommon]

[ A cluck of disapproval. ]

You can't turn off your spy-thing for even a minute, can you?

[hassaran]

Not enough to stand here and recite facts about myself at random in hope that I might stumble on something you want to know.

[rathercommon]

And I don't even know enough about you to know literally anything that I should be asking. It's almost like explanations are kind of crap.

[hassaran]

You complained that you know nothing about me so I offered to tell you what you want to know. If you won't even acknowledge that then we might as well both jump over the side now.

[rathercommon]

[ Exasperated: ]

That wasn't my complaint. My complaint is that you're saying that, oh, we've got to explain ourselves but all you ever do is take that as an excuse to scold me. I don't care about - [ She waves a hand. ] Assorted facts from your life. Why would I? It's not going to tell me anything. An explanation of why you believe the things you believe - that would be interesting. But instead all it ever ends up being is Kitty, you're untrustworthy, Kitty, you're stubborn, Kitty, your defiance is going to get you killed. Like I haven't been hearing all of that since I was old enough to go to school.

[hassaran]

I've told you before why I believe those things. I've told you why I believe this work is important and why I do it. And I've asked you whether there was anything I could say or do that would make you willing to do anything at all differently and you told me no. Why would I bother giving you any more than I already have when you've made clear it won't achieve anything?

[rathercommon]

Oh, look, another explanation all about me.

[hassaran]

[ She does a very capable imitation of Kitty: ] How about you show me how it's done, then, instead of clucking about how wrong I am?

[rathercommon]

[ And Kitty pushes her hair from her face and says: ]

All right. I think that Riftwatch's concerns are small and short-sighted. I think that there are problems in this world much deeper and much larger than Corypheus. There are systems of injustice and cruelty that have gone untouched for centuries, since before Andraste's time. I think that with the current instability, we've got a chance to shake those systems. But Riftwatch barters its power to make real change in favor of victory in the war, peddling itself away to whichever Trade-Prince or Orlesian Duke offers a troop or two. I'll fight for our victory, and give blood for it, but until Riftwatch takes the long view on history, it won't have my heart.

[ And also: ]

And also whenever you tell me about how pathetic and bad my personality is, I seriously want to punch you in the mouth.

[ She crosses her arms. ]

There. An explanation of my values.

[hassaran]

[ Ignoring the rest of it, she replies without any particular force or passion: ]

I already knew that. Just as you already know I'm going to say that taking a position on anything beyond defeating Corypheus will only ensure that Riftwatch accomplishes nothing at all in the short term or the long because no one here agrees on what needs to be done or how to do it and those aren't fights we can afford to have right now. We don't have enough power to divide it any further, or to scruple at imperfect allies. I won't sacrifice the survival of this world and everyone currently in it and risk subjecting them to far worse on the hope that if anyone makes it through some of their grandchildren might be better off.

[rathercommon]

[ With biting sarcasm: ]

Ooh, I sure do like how you say that we ought to explain ourselves and then as soon as I give an explanation your first response is I already knew that. You're just so sweet and charming and not at all condescending.

[ Then, reining in her temper: ]

I disagree with that. All of that. But even so I'm still here. This isn't my world, this isn't a fight I care about, these aren't my people, but I'm still starving and freezing and walking a hundred miles on bare feet for this war. And all I ever bloody get from you and from Flint is I don't even have the time to deal with you. I probably have literally months left to live, 'cause I've already outlasted most Rifters, and I'm using it here, to help you, and yet you act like everything I say or do is just such a waste of your precious time. - And I know that all you're going to be thinking in response to that is I wouldn't act like you were wasting my time if you weren't wasting my time, but truly, if you say anything like that, I will punch you in the mouth.

[hassaran]

[ Yseult stares straight ahead at the distant platform for a long moment before replying. ]

You've also actively undermined our work more than once. The fact that you've done good work too is the reason you're still free despite that, but you can't expect us to treat you as a trusted colleague when you haven't acted like one. And beyond that, Flint and I don't have time for you, just as we don't have time for the individual concerns or priorities of anyone in Riftwatch, including each other. It's a practical reality, not the personal affront you're determined to make it.

[rathercommon]

Actively undermined your work? By, what, not running off and feeding you the names of my contacts soon as I got 'em?

[ She shakes her head. ]

[hassaran]

Yes. You were sent on a mission for us, to make contacts within Tevinter for us. And you lied and hid those contacts from us for more than a year. A year of potential collaboration between Riftwatch and those contacts was lost, and it made clear that you can't be trusted to truthfully report on your missions and share what you gain from them. You also secretly traveled back to Tevinter with Benedict Artamaeus where you narrowly escaped a capture that would have forced us to launch a dangerous rescue mission, and he was predictably turned by his Venatori mother which did force us to spend a great deal of time and energy determining and protecting against the risks that caused.

[rathercommon]

Those contacts would've disappeared as soon as it was clear that they were talking to Riftwatch instead of to Kitty.

[ A slight beat, and then, reluctantly - ]

And I'd thought that Benedict had cleared that mission. I - didn't check. Or ask. [ Even more reluctantly: ] Which was stupid of me.

[hassaran]

[ She swallows back whatever she was about to say when Kitty goes on, and rephrases in light of that concession. ]

Those contacts need the things that an organization and not a single individual might provide: resources, intelligence, coordination with larger efforts. If you had brought me the information and explained that they would likely spook at a letter from someone new, we could have worked with that. We have contacts all over Thedas that other agents correspond with.

[rathercommon]

[ Her response is fiercely earnest. ]

I gave them my word that I wouldn't sell them out. If I'd done that, it would have been a betrayal.

[hassaran]

How would that have been selling them out?