MOD PLOT ↠ SECRET STEEP'D ROOTS

[faderifting]

WHO: Open
WHAT: Trapped! Trapped in a jungle!
WHEN: Bloomingtide 9:46
WHERE: Unknown
NOTES: OOC post! The three starters in the comments can have multiple threads, and feel free to ask us on the OOC post if you have any "what will happen if I x" questions.

When the eluvian shatters, there's a stutter in the flow of the fight. The eight Venatori nearly all freeze in place for a moment when the glass cracks, watching their way out and their plan crumble, and afterwards they never quite manage to get their rhythm back. But they don't quit, either. In the end, they all go down fighting.

Riftwatch takes no casualties, and the four members of Riftwatch who were taken captive are all alive, accounted for, and mostly unharmed.

That's the end of the good news.

The massive, shattered eluvian was set within a ruin carved and built out of a steep embankment, now almost entirely reclaimed by the jungle. All that's left are the remains of walls—some full height, others crumbling where vines have pushed between the stones or spreading tree roots have disrupted the ground. But with daylight fading and several injuries that need attending to before anyone can move, the surviving walls and thick plant growth form the best shelter anyone can hope to find before nightfall.

When the sun rises and better stock can be taken of their position, the jungle in which everyone finds themselves is still not immediately recognizable. It's hot compared to Kirkwall at this time of year, with temperatures hovering around 75-80F and kept relatively consistent between day and night by the high humidity and non-existent breeze. It rains with some frequency—light showers that are little more than mist by the time they reach ground-level or torrential downpours that start with little warning and drop several inches of rain in an hour before disappearing as abruptly as they'd arrived.

Most of the ruins extending up or out from the embankment are little more than chunks of moss-covered stone buried in the undergrowth. Searching around them will find them a stream running through the remains of a carved stone channel, fast enough to be safe to drink, and they can follow that a short ways out of the ruins to where it joins a much larger river. They won't see any traffic along it except for a variety of river creatures that would be happy to eat them. Judging by the position of the sun and moons, the river leads south.

There is one half-sunken portion of the ruin complex that's more intact, but after exploring it confirms there is no back-up eluvian on offer, there's little choice but to set out into the dense growth of the jungle. Huge trees create a canopy far overhead, and the floor is soft and springy with dead matter. Giant ferns, vines of every variety, and flowers of every conceivable color crowd them at every turn, making travel slow and damp. Overhead, and all around, are the sounds of other creatures moving through the same space. Birdsong, monkey screeches, the constant buzz and chitter of insects. The fauna in the jungle is a mix of the usual sorts of beasts one would expect in such a climate: parrots, monkeys, snakes, absurdly large insects, the rare big cat, whatever other weird animals walk around a jungle.

The walk south along the river will be a long and difficult slog through dense jungle with no real respite from the environment along the way—and no real certainty about their destination. They'll have to make a new camp each night as best they can and push on the next morning, hiking through seemingly-endless forest. At first, they will have the benefit of a path, a trail south alongside the river that appears to have been cut less than a month ago. It will lead to a second set of ruins where signs of Venatori presence will be obvious. They will make camp here for a couple days while they explore more thoroughly for clues about where they are and what the Venatori were up to.

Beyond that point it will be necessary to cut their own trail, an exhausting process that means even slower going and tired arms for everyone who takes a shift at the front of the line. The only break will come when the jungle abruptly gives way to a deep gorge, the river taking a hard west-ward turn and dropping down a series of magnificent waterfalls to what looks like a very large lake at the bottom. They can either find a way down the falls and hike west around the lake, or cross the river via a narrow rock bridge over the falls and continue south back into the jungle. They'll stop here and make camp among the rocks for another couple days to try to identify the lake or the falls before they go any further and risk walking miles in the wrong direction.

The journey will take a few weeks in total, with plenty of time and opportunity for a few people scouting ahead or foraging for food to find trouble (or fun) on their own. But the entire group will also encounter a few hazards together, including, in chronological order:

• Shortly after leaving the elven ruins where they came through the eluvian, a flash flood will catch the camp one evening, despite its position on the best available high ground, sweeping away some supplies and ruining others. People outside of the camp, for whatever reason, will lack the high ground and might experience a more dangerous rush of water, and everyone will have to go to sleep damp and hungry.
  
  
• A day after the group leaves the dwarven ruins, a swarm of dragonlings and several drakes will emerge from a mountain cave when the group passes too close, breathing fire and intent on chasing them away. Their high dragon won't appear for the fight, but several days later she will fly overhead, barely visible through the canopy but obviously very, very large.
  
  
• A few days later, they'll come upon a hot spring that appears crystal-clear and fine for drinking and bathing, but will result in people developing minor, mostly auditory hallucinatory effects an hour or two after their exposure to it. The plants growing nearby will show to have an even stronger effect, if anyone is foolish enough to eat them to find out.
  
  
• In a few areas, the river will cut gorges through the mountainous terrain, and following it will require either walking along narrow traversable paths on the cliffsides or holding supplies overhead and fording through the water. Watch out for dickfish.

Comments

bastien.

[cozen]

[ Open & closed starters below, wildcards welcome, or hit me up for plans. ]

open: a monkey.

[cozen]

It's midday, warm and misty and miserable, and not very far from where everyone else stopped to rest, Bastien is standing beneath a cluster of vines and branches and juggling rocks for a monkey.

The sound of someone approaching makes him stop. He fumbles one of the rocks in the process, but he doesn't take his eyes away from the trees to see who it is. "We are negotiating," he explains in a whisper, tilting his head and speaking a bit out of the side of his mouth, as if it's a secret the monkey might otherwise understand.

He holds up the rocks in offer. Wiggles them a little. The monkey—one of the larger sort, brown and black—continues chewing slowly on the laces of the boot clutched in its sneaky little hands, contemplative but unmoved.

"Non? Pas intéressant?"

He drops the remaining two rocks to the ground on either side of his bare feet—which are swollen, pale, and blistered. Thus the bareness. He'd been investigating why they hurt so much. One boot and both of his socks are still accounted for, on the ground nearby.

"I let my guard down," Bastien admits to whoever has joined him, "because it was cute."

It would be embarrassing even if it weren't comeuppance.

[hassaran]

Yseult, because she at least tries to be a good friend, laughs only for a moment and very quietly, not enough to spook the monkey opposite, and then bites her lip.

"Does it play the cello too?" she asks in a whisper, as she sidles around the edge of the little clearing, aiming to cut off another angle.

[cozen]

Bastien holds up a waggling finger, as if to tell her to hush, but right away it wilts, and his you're not funny expression wilts along with it at the devastating realization:

"Oh, no. That would be adorable."

He's not really so distractible, of course, not even by the thought of a monkey with a tiny little cello. He shifts on his feet—which hurt like bitches, both of them, but he ignores it as gamely as he would ignore a stab wound in a ballroom—to be better primed to go the other way if the monkey makes a move.

"If I can distract it," he says quietly, fishing carefully and slowly around in his pockets, "enough for it to loosen its hold a little, and you scream at just the right moment, maybe it will be startled into dropping it."

Or maybe it will run away with his boot forever.

[hassaran]

"Or it will run away with your boot forever," Yseult says, very sensibly, and then adds, a bit less so, "And then you'll die out here."

She continues to move very slowly into position, stilling whenever the monkey fixes its gaze on her.

"What we need is a sack," she says, "or a net," but of course there's neither to hand, nor any obvious substitutes within reach as she quickly looks about. So: "Toss me your shirt."

[cozen]

Bastien raises his eyebrows, but the expression isn't suggestive. It's more reminiscent of a man who's been handed an instrument he's unfamiliar with and told he's on in five. Or, more precisely, it's the cultural norms of a nation where even a bare face can be gauche and people are sometimes difficult to find beneath their ruffles and layers, trickling down to the maskless lower classes and making being shirtless—outside, in the daylight, in front of someone he doesn't intend to sleep with even a little bit—feel uncouth.

He's still going to give her the shirt, though. He can raise his eyebrows and unfasten buttons at the same time.

"Elves have survived without shoes for hundreds of years," he points out in the meantime, keeping most of his attention on the monkey, who in turn seems interested enough in the buttons to ignore Yseult's advance for a few seconds. The shirt is stained, by now, and smells only as good as he's been able to make it smell with river water. But she asked for it. He bundles it into a ball and tosses it underhand.

That makes the monkey straighten up out of its hunch for a moment, braced to flee, but once it's decided the shirt isn't a danger, it sticks its arm all the way down into the boot to pat around in search of treasure or edible insects.

open*: late.

[cozen]

[ * to people who wouldn't have seemed irritated by his presence, because he would have left them alone ]

Maybe they’ll be stuck here forever, and they’ll all learn to make jungle yurts or build charming little cottage-fronts onto cliffside caves, and Bastien will hang up garlands of tropical flowers and make a bed out of animal pelts. But until forever seems a little more likely, he’s sleeping wherever he falls, in the clusters that form around campfires at night—or on people’s shoulders or legs, if he knows them like that, until they shove him off—or stretching out at a respectable colleague distance away from anyone who looks isolated, so they won’t be dragged off by a jaguar without anyone noticing.

He sleeps easily but lightly, waking at every distant screech or cry and every nearer crack of underbrush but usually falling right back asleep as soon as he’s noted that it’s nothing to worry about.

But this time he catches the glint of another set of open eyes, so he whispers, “Are you awake?”—very quietly, just in case.

[sulahnan]

"Yeah, what's up? Oh," She raises her hand to block the glint of her elf eyes and smirks. "Sorry, did I wake you up with my...wakefulness?"

Athessa could sleep, and likely should, but it's been a while since she's slept in a forest--jungle? Jungle. It's kinda nice, even under the present circumstances. She sighs, puffing out her cheeks.

"Wish the canopy weren't so thick. It'd be nice to see the stars."

[cozen]

Bastien scoots over in stages—legs first, then arching his back to move his torso, then shoulders and head—until he's close enough to keep whispering without waking anyone else up. Close enough to lie on bits of her hair, too. He lifts his head again to move it so he won't make it pull.

"The Dalish must have different constellations," he says. "Or at least different stories about them, if they are the same—do they?"

[sulahnan]

Athessa smiles to herself, amused by Bastien's scooting and shifting, but she refrains from laughing. Just like him, she'd rather not wake anyone.

"Some of them are the same, I think," she whispers. "You can probably guess that the horse one is a halla to the Dalish." Kind of obvious, that one.

[cozen]

"Ah, yes, that is what I had heard about the Dalish before I met you. Two things." There's a breeze—not for them, trapped on the forest floor, but the leaves in the canopy rustle. "They like halla, and they are predictable."

[sulahnan]

"Predictable enough," she agrees with a shrug, and gestures at the stars they can't see. "Which one do you want to know about? I'll see how much I remember and make up the rest."

[keenly]

Colin doesn't respond right away. He'd almost like to be left alone. But only almost. He sighs and sits up, resting his arms on his knees.

"I heard something."

[cozen]

"Me, too," Bastien murmurs. He lifts up on his elbows, for the sake of being good company to someone sitting up. "What do you think it was?"

[keenly]

"Some kind of bird." That's what he's been telling himself repeatedly for about sixty breathless seconds.

[cozen]

"A brightly colored jungle owl," Bastien says, tone musing rather than teasing. It could be. If it is, he'd like to see one. But a important thought follows right on its heels: "Do you want to go sit by the fire for a little while? My heart is going—"

He taps his chest rapidly with his knuckles to illustrate a quickened beat.

Really, his heart rate is normal. He's fine. He could fall back asleep without delay, if he wanted to leave Colin alone with his thoughts.

[bouchonne]

"No," Byerly replies, rolling over to face the fellow, just to ensure that there's absolutely no way to interpret his quip as an actual rejection. And, for good measure, he further elaborates - "I've just established astonishing control over my dream-state. Ooh, that makes me sound like a secret mage, doesn't it?"

An insect buzzes around his ear, the same that's been whining and keeping him awake for an interminable stretch of time. He slaps the side of his face. No success.

[cozen]

"The Apostate of Dragonmount," Bastien murmurs thoughtfully. He shifts onto his side, too, with his head pillowed on one bent arm. "Crossing the continent in a haze of wine and women, careless and seemingly harmless, but a dark power simmered below the surface. He could never truly escape his terrible gift. And on the night the bugs finally drove him over the edge—hmm."

Has potential. But what's visible of his smile, given the dark and the deep shadows left behind by the low-burning fire, fades while he hums.

"Are you all right?"

[bouchonne]

It's a strangely sincere question. So By responds with a bit of levity - though levity that is, quite unfortunately, dreadfully true. "I haven't shat in two days. Otherwise, hale and hearty."

Then, because it is Bastien, By allows, "They didn't manage to make off with my cousin. So I'm all right. Even if we all die out here, at least we accomplished that."

[cozen]

"If we all die out here, it will be in forty years, give or take," Bastien says, "in a charming little village we built for ourselves, surrounded by grandchildren. Other people's grandchildren, perhaps, but all the same..."

A digression. A fanciful one. It dissipates.

"I am glad she is safe. I like her. Not that I wouldn't still be glad if I didn't like her, of course." For Byerly's sake, and for her sake as a person whose life wouldn't lose value just because she'd never made Bastien smile, et cetera. He shifts and stretches. "I never had any cousins. Did you grow up together?"

closed to marcoulf: a swoon.

[cozen]

He's been on his best behavior for three days now. He's sharpened so many sticks into spears. Stirred so many boiling plants to extract the fiber for rope. Eaten so many charred bits of meat or bizarre vegetation without complaining. He's entitled to a little bit of joy.

So when he's standing to survey his future-rope fibers and Ser Lucien the Lionheart strides past with some of tonight's firework braced on his shoulder—glistening in the humidity, dappled gold and green by the mottled light through the canopy, and trailed by a lovely swirl of disturbed pollen and jungle-dust—Bastien watches him pass for the whole 180 degrees, with a slow mouth curl and not a lick of subtlety.

That's not the bit of joy.

The bit of joy is putting the back of his hand to his forehead and collapsing back against Marcoulf. It's not the most realistic faint he's capable of. Not even close. But he's committed enough that he will fall all the way down without intervention.

[esquive]

Marcoulf has been on his best behavior for thirty years. For the past three days, that has taken the form of charring pieces of meat over fires, collecting bits of edible vegetation, and using sharpened sticks to stab the sorts of things that warrant stabbing way out here in Maker knows where. All things being as they are - namely, the fear of starvation and being lost forever -, there are worse occupations. Some people might find a kind of pleasure in the simple abject misery of being eaten alive by insects and sleeping four hours a night for fear of being eaten by whatever big cats insists on screaming in the night.

No. But might it perhaps be preferable to the drama of the Gallows?

He is in the process of stripping bark from a series of future sharp sticks as Ser Lionheart makes his sweeping progress past them. The hacking of his knife strikes come a little more sullenly in reply. That he doesn't catch Bastien when he swoons with the knife is a small miracle, for the record. That he manages to stay halfway upright under the collapse of weight is mostly luck.

"C'est pas vrai—"

[cozen]

"Ah, mon coeur," Bastien moans, mercilessly boneless. "Ah, ses épaules. Did you hear of the eaglets he rescued when they were swept from their nest in a storm?"

[esquive]

This whole catching him under the arms thing is more limb-juggling and dealing with someone else's sweaty armpits more than Marcoulf anticipated to be doing this afternoon.

"I'm certain they're very grateful," is awfully tart. Get your feet under yourself, you fool. "As is everyone else who's had the pleasure of the gentleman's company."

Is that some trace of sarcasm? Surely not. Say it isn't so.

[cozen]

"They still remember him when he passes by Velun," Bastien says, though he does right himself—or accept Marcoulf's attempts at righting him, more accurately, with a little bit of staggering that lands him close enough that he could lean into the man's shoulder. But he doesn't. As a treat. "They fly to meet him. The eagles, not everyone who has met him."

He looks at the ground as if trying to remember what he was doing before being blinded by Ser Lucien's light.

"Do you know him very well?"