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

[degenere]

"Scratched," Val corrects, cheerfully. That same garbled shrieking is coming from within the tree as well, muffled by the tree, answering the furious cries of the lucky creature that Richard is holding. Sisters. "They are fierce! We should admire their spirit."

This prescription is entirely for Richard, as Val has already been admiring said spirit. He is cradling the next one he brings out from the tree, holding it to his chest like a small child, wings folded close to its body and great claws held in place by his arms. Its head nearly does a complete turn around as it takes in its new surroundings, black eyes wild and glossy with rage.

Val beams down at it, entirely ignoring Richard in his predicament.

"I would not normally disturb them so--it is against the teachings that I have learned--but their mother has died. I think that they will not last long without her--and I have been observing them so long that I cannot stand to think that they will die! A sentimentalist, I. There is a wicker cage over there--fetch it. These two might both fit within, and then we can rescue the other."

[nonvenomous]

Richard’s grip, although secure, does not restrict the wings in any way. Held out at arm’s length, the jaws of his sister are peeled open, lips pinned back by the snare of his fingers into the folds behind its neck; the talons flex and curl ineffectually.

The wings nearly jolt him off his feet with a bold flap for the outcrop’s edge - Dick stumbles, sending a stream of loose rock slithering downhill.

It occurs to him that he could just fling it over the side.

Ten minutes pass in ten seconds while he considers the vascular structure in the web of one wing in hyper-attuned detail, and he finds that he still has it in twisting warm his hands. Also, Val is speaking to him again. His eyes sharpen into glassier focus in aside, skepticism twisted in hard over his brow. Shit flicks from his elbow with every lurch and flap, already dry at his wrist.

“And then what?”

He does not move to fetch the wicker basket.

[degenere]

"And then we place them in the other cage, which is just there, beside the first--do you see it?--and carry them back to the camp, so that we can continue to observe them and care for them until they are large enough to survive the wild on their own."

A fine plan, which no one would argue with. The creature Val is holding looks up at him now, her eyes set buggy in her wrinkled little face. Val beams at her.

"As I say, it is not ideal. Yet I can think of no better way to care for them. A surrogate? But there are only some animals whose natures allow for such a role and I do not know how we would induce it here. Perhaps it might happen naturally. But what in the meantime is done? No--we must."

He looks around quite expectantly. For Richard, mired in the slow creep of time, it will no doubt also be quite a sudden look.

"The cage, monsieur?"

[nonvenomous]

Dick’s incredulity runs deep, but Val is confident, and has more to say on the subject than he can even begin to diagnose beyond a terminal case of humanity, nevermind argue against. He holds onto the connection of eye contact the same way he’s holding onto the creature in his hands, trace desperation in the bite of his grip, lest one or both of them slide off the edge of this flat, flat world.

This feels real.

Pop, pop, pop, his captive chops her jaws, and after a stretch of wordless doubt, disapproval, and (to a lesser degree) contempt, Richard turns to seek out the cage. Self-awareness knocks some of the edge off.

Can’t be too cross with a man stuffing chimera batlings into his pockets when you’ve been taste-testing psychoactive lichen.

[degenere]

Pleased that at last his instructions are being obeyed, Val turns his attention back to the precious creature he is cradling in his arms. He cannot keep his thoughts to himself, and so he goes on in soliloquy:

"She is a peculiar little thing, as are they all. I have not seen their like. That is not to be taken as an arrogance, please: I do not presume that I have discovered something new. Others may have beheld her before. She is unlike others of her type, in subtle ways--this ridge here, and the thickness of the bone in the wing joint--others may have overlooked--little sister, please--"

Gentle chiding ends in an oh!, pleased and surprised, as the creature suddenly wrests herself free in a brilliant display of strength. Her limbs bunch and then her wings burst forth, with such a force that Val's grips is entire loosened. He stumbles back, wrong-footed; the creature raises into the air, with a frantic flapping of her wings.

"Amazing!" Val offers in compliment. The creature screeches, an alien sound, and then turns her eyes on Richard. The creature that shit on him screeches back, answering, and begins thrashing about, frantic and suddenly very difficult to hold.

[nonvenomous]

The creature thrashing in Dick’s hands gathers herself, quivering, furious, and lashes membranes and limbs and neck out in a singular, explosive stroke. The deployed-parachute power of the wings catching air whips his arms out with force enough to sling still-drying shit off his elbow into a fine mist; her wrinkled hide twists loose through his fingers. She is free.

A clawed wing catches him full in the face; he is blotted out by their spread, staggered, but still standing as she struggles for altitude.

In the half a second he’d have to make a fresh grab for her, Val’s escaped sister slaps down over the top of Richard like a wet towel full of nails, wrapping him down into the mountainside. His initial swear of surprise is muffled through flesh -- he wrests her off, rolls to one knee, and is immediately enveloped again from behind by her scramble-hopping furiously over the rocks after him.

From there he is silent, and his intent swiftly redirects into closing his right hand blind around the dagger at his belt amidst all the jostling, creeching and clawing.

Terminating his career in zoology in 3, 2...