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]

[ Congrats, Kitty. There is, finally, visible frustration in the clench of Yseult's jaw and the slow breath she takes before speaking, tone still the same, but slower, more precisely enunciated. ]

Who have I turned my nose up at? Whose life have I been careless with? If you're going to make accusations, be specific.

[rathercommon]

[ Her eyes narrow. ]

You know that you just said that you only respect people if they earn it, right? That means that you disrespect those who haven't earned it. So - Like - All of them?

[hassaran]

No, don't assume. Give me actual examples. When have you ever seen me treat anyone else with disdain? When have you ever witnessed me be anything but careful with the lives under my command, including your own?

[rathercommon]

[ Well - ]

I haven't. But you think the way you treat me is completely okay and totally flawless, right? You don't see anything wrong with it? Think you're always correct?

[hassaran]

I could have been kinder when we spoke in the mountains. But you pushed for my honest opinion, so I gave it to you.

[rathercommon]

[ Uhhh ]

What did you say in the mountains?

[hassaran]

[ Nonplussed is the only word for it. Yseult blinks and her eyes narrow. ]

When you say "the way I treat you" what do you mean, exactly?

[rathercommon]

[ A question which transparently annoys Kitty, but she answers: ]

Acting like I'm here to be schooled by you. Turning every time we talk to one another into a chance to enumerate the flaws in my personality or my outlook or my intellect. Acting like you're my mum.

[hassaran]

Kitty, I have never had any interest in mothering you. I've tried to offer some professional advice based on my experience, because you're young and you have potential but no training and I thought I might be able to help you. But as I told you last time we spoke, I have no intention of trying again.

[rathercommon]

[ A scoff. ]

Professional advice.

[hassaran]

[ Flatly: ] Yes.

[rathercommon]

Yeah, 'cause what's more professional than telling someone about their personality flaws? Isn't a great and professional leader supposed to take people as they are and work with 'em like that, instead of going on about how they're supposed to change?

[ She droops, suddenly, both metaphorically and literally: a bit of the fury ebbs out of her manner, replaced by melancholy; at the same time, she sinks down onto her haunches, squatting down to pick up a spiritual simulacrum of a stone off the spiritual simulacrum of the trail. ]

And why would you even think I'd want that, anyway? Your professional advice? All it does, all it's good for, me conforming, is making me easier to use. Well, I don't want to be easy to use.

[hassaran]

[ Yseult observes this sudden change with suspicion, watching Kitty more closely than she had before. ]

That wasn't my intention. Nor was changing your personality. I didn't suggest you be something else, I suggested you learn to better hide who you are so that you can attract allies more easily and your enemies don't see you coming from so far off. But again: I am done. Do as you like as long as it doesn't hamper Riftwatch's work.

[rathercommon]

[ Bitterly, and with no great belief: ]

Yeah, sure. I bet you are.

[ And she chucks the stone miserably into the void. ]

[hassaran]

[ Yseult shrugs and says nothing. ]

[rathercommon]

[ And Kitty scoffs bitterly in response to that. ]

Fine, then. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm stuck here, in this place, with people like you who don't even give a shit about the people they use.

[ Unsurprisingly, the road doesn't change at all in response to that particular, um, apology. ]

[hassaran]

[ Yseult shakes her head once. ]

Another baseless accusation.

[rathercommon]

Yeah, sure.

[ She scoffs and shakes her head. ]

Maybe I'd believe that line if I were ten years old. But I've seen a bit too much of the world to be that naive.

[hassaran]

[ Yseult's eyes roll to the ceiling, to the extent that there is one. Maker preserve her.

Flatly still: ]

Then support it. I've been head of Scouting for a year and I helped run the Hostile Powers project for six months before that. If I 'don't give a shit about the people I use' you should have ample evidence by now.

[rathercommon]

[ A shrug. Defiantly: ]

If it hasn't happened yet, it will soon.

[hassaran]

[ Her laugh is abrupt and incredulous. ] Alright, [ she says, with a shake of her head ] I think we're done here. You and Rowley [ (the NPC guardsman who has been politely not-listening from the main path) ] can head back to the Gallows.

[rathercommon]

No.

[ She turns her eyes upwards, face stubborn. ]

I won't. You stand there and laugh at me? You're laughing when I say that you can - and likely will - do wicked things?

[hassaran]

[ Yseult is not halted by Kitty's refusal, having already turned and begun to walk off the bridge. She responds without stopping or turning back. ]

There's a time and a place for stubbornness. Rowley, make sure she gets back safely when she's ready. I'll be fine on my own.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty raises her voice and takes a few steps to follow her. ]

Do you have a single fucking emotion?

[hassaran]

None that you're entitled to know about, [ Yseult calls back, continuing on her way. ]