faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ SECRET STEEP'D ROOTS

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ open & closed starters below, wildcards welcome, hmu for plotting etc. ]

i. hot spring

Anyone who's been listening in on the crystal probably knows that Athessa and Jenny Lou ran afoul of some hallucinogens and are under either Joselyn or Isaac's care--or were, as the case may be. Athessa doesn't sit still well, and is bound to apply herself to some necessary task or another despite her impairment.

"You say somethin'?" She asks whoever is closest, whether they spoke or not.

ii. gorgeous gorge

Well, this is fun. Athessa took the high road, or at least the dry one, shimmying along the narrow cliff path and using a knife to carve hand-holds into the earthen wall at steady intervals. Nothing fancy, just little holes so the next person can have somewhere to grip in case they lose their balance.

Not that the fall would kill anybody. The river isn't too far below.

"Is the water cold?" She calls down to someone who chose the river path. Her hair is tied up, but what hair doesn't manage to stay that way clings to her skin with sweat and humidity. If the river isn't as muggy as the air, maybe the water would be preferable.

iii. wildcard

Tavin's not been here (he doesn't think so, he takes notes of the places he's been, he's got maps with pins back at home that are dutifully updated in his absence) but enough places get this sort of warm that he's not uncomfortable. Not yet.

He's rolled his sleeves up, tucked his trousers into his boots because that is the practical and sensible course of action when you don't know what might crawl in there and bite you after all when he hears the calls.

"Colder than the air, honestly it's rather pleasant." He has to squint to try to look for the source of the voice with the sweat in his eyes that he tries to rub with a just as sweaty back of the hand. "Wouldn't recommend diving down, too shallow. But certainly refreshing!"

"Yeah I'm kind of regretting this whole cliff path thing," she says, tugging on a root cluster that's jutting out of the cliff wall. It's in there pretty solid, so it should work as a hand-hold, but she has to pause and cut away some of the tangles so they're passable.

"See any of those dreaded dick-fish someone-or-another was talking about?"

She shouldn't have to worry about a dick-fish, per se, but why chance it? A fish isn't likely to discriminate.

"If only we were as sure-footed as goats or even the nesting birds; have you ever watched any of the chicks that fledge from cliffs throwing themselves off for that first flight, bouncing their way down then they bounce up, ruffle their feathers and off they go." He shakes his head - bit odd without the sweaty ponytail but hair grows again, doesn't it, and less chance of it catching - and smiles up.

Then the smile slides off. Dick-fish? Maybe he has to mouth it a couple of times, looking at the water again--

Really, of all the things-- "Well I'm happy to report as a veteran of fieldwork to have never been a victim of these...dick-fish," he stumbles of the name, more than faintly horrified because really this is where Riftwatch is with these matters? "I wouldn't recommend nudity and urinating in unknown waters so sort of eliminates the risk if anyone's worried about it. Are they? That was the sort of horror story we told new students when I was in university."

With the root cluster dealt with, she's back on her way, getting a little ahead of Tavin and then, because she's considerate, slowing her pace to be even with his.

"I dunno how many are actually worried about it," she says. "But I heard a few of 'em mention it. Also, Isaac found a piranha so even if dick-fish aren't a concern, carnivorous ones with sharp teeth still are."

"I don't know, some of the ideas people have here..." he sighs gustily, disappointment radiating out of his pores along with the sweat. "They get their ideas from bad novels not worth the price of printing, I listen when I'm working and it's worse than the army gossip from my father's friends."

None of them idiots, exactly, but quick to believe in superstition and rumour regarding the local wildlife. Never happy to be shown up by a boy in shorts explaining in complete detail why that was impossible: with pictures!

"Did Isaac find a piranha or a shoal?"

"Well he only had one in the jar but who knows," Athessa says, shrugging. Not that he can really see it. It's the principle of the thing. "It's possible he found more and only managed to snag one."

"A jar," oh that pains him deeply, Tavin had hoped better of a man with a toad. Standards. Decency. Decorum. "We've not any buckets that might be spared? Maker's breath, a piranha in a jar, well on his fingers be it...

"How are you finding it? I realise not everyone is used to this, it's been a few years but it's fun isn't it? Out of the city, seeing the world, meeting the wildlife?"

This is fun, right? Please let it be fun shit is he really that weird guy his sister always says he is no, no he's not, Miri's just teasing him as little sisters do.

"I mean it's dead, so I don't think it minds the confined quarters--" A bit of rubble tumbles down the cliff face as a bit of it crumbles under Athessa's heel. "Honestly it's a nice change of scenery. It's been a while since I got to fall asleep to the sounds of leaves rustling overhead. Didn't really realize I missed it so much."

The jungle is a far cry from the woods she grew up with in the Marches, but it's still familiar enough to be more comfortable than living in a converted prison.

"The heat's really making me want a haircut, though."

MOD PLOT ↠ SECRET STEEP'D ROOTS

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