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

The scene Dick skids into requires math, a flash of confusion bright in his eyes as he slides to a halt, scattering loose rock. If an enormous bird picks up a particularly small dwarf while attempting to travel westward but a Dalish elf grabs on approximately two feet below its center of mass --

He reaches for the dagger at his belt first, weighs his options, and dips down to pick up a fistful of stones instead. Friendly fire will be less deadly that way. Probably.

He hesitates only very slightly before he cocks back and fires one off into all the flapping. There’s a bony snap in there somewhere, a lurch and and a warbling screech as the beast flounders, one set of talons torn loose. The rock drops out of its feathers and through the talons onto the pair swinging in its grasp.

This would be something to consider if Richard hadn’t already pelted rocks #2 and #3 into the mix like a uniquely scholarly gibbon in a vest.

Yuan-ti are known for their sophisticated application of strategy under pressure.

"I'm--oof--trying! Ow!"

It's hard to tell whether that hit was a rock or a foot, but somehow Athessa manages to reach up past Sawbones to grab the bird's leg. It squawks and kicks and struggles and scratches the hell out of Athessa's arm, but it can't fly and shake her loose at the same time. It starts to dip, shallow then steep.

"Fuck off, bird!" Somehow, she gets enough swinging momentum to deliver a swift kick to the bird's underbelly. It has the intended effect of making the damn thing drop Sawbones.

Say, the ground is approaching a lot faster, now.

Sawbones does what she can to help, though that help is minimal at best considering her current position, dangling precariously now.

And now they're falling. "Fuck!" she shouts again, because really, there's little else she can do. Dwarves are no better at flying than they are at magic. She has only a moment to reflex that at least they probably weren't high enough to get themselves killed before she and Athessa land.

To sprint in with arms open, to slide, to afford this pair any buffer between their fall and the rock beneath them with an attempted catch in spite of any danger or the potential for personal injury -- that would be the heroic thing to do.

Richard stands on his little rise of rock and watches them plummet with a critical eye.

He moves again once they’ve hit the ground, down the rise to assist, remaining ammunition dropped. He dusts his hands off on his trousers along the way, in anticipation of open wounds. Sanitation is key.

Luckily, any open wounds they may have sustained are from the bird and not because they've been impaled in their plummet back to terra firma. Athessa manages to twist in mid-air so she lands flat on her back with Sawbones on top of her, effectively breaking the dwarf's fall and driving all the air from her own lungs. If getting the wind knocked out of her is the worst of the damage, she counts herself lucky.

"Ow," she croaks, and lets go of Sawbones. Her arms fall aside so she's laying in the iconic making a mud angel position. "You good?"

The fact neither of them is dead is luck enough at the moment.

"I'll live," Sawbones says, rolling off Athessa so she can at least attempt to breathe normally. It's not a lie, though it might look it at first glance. The wounds from the bird aren't terribly deep, but they are bleeding and there's a ringing in her ears that suggests she ought not try to stand just yet. But more pressingly: "You still got feeling in your fingers and toes?"

Because that is the main concern, what with the rock headed move Athessa pulled.

A thumbs up and a "yep" serve as the answer to that question.

A shadow falls over them, made less alarming by the distinctly human trek of Richard’s step that precedes it.

“That was dramatic.”

Dick makes this simple observation just before leaning into view -- neither commendation or criticism. But the lines over his brow betray worry, and there’s still a trace of adrenaline intensity to the harried zigzag of his visual assessment. All extremities are still accounted for, their necks aren’t twisted. Nothing looks broken.

He crouches, and reaches to press at Sawbones’ near shoulder to better judge the depth of a puncture there. What he does not do is ask for permission first.

“Can you stand?”

Athessa assumes he's talking to Sawbones, which leaves the elf to take a few deep lungfuls of air and run through her little how badly concussed am I routine. She counts her fingers, holds up one, then two, then four, covers one eye, then the other. No double vision, she can remember her letters and everyone's names including her own.

She sits up too fast, reeling a little because she did still get her bell rung by that fall, but she's fine.

"That was one helluva bird."

"Reckon I can, but don't think I will for a minute more," she tells Richard. He escapes a scolding for not asking before touching because Sawbones certainly wouldn't have if their positions had been reversed. The wounds are deep enough to be worrying for people trapped in the jungle, but nothing that will kill her once the bleeding is staunched.

"What kind of place grows birds that large to begin with," she says, hissing a little from the pain, "I thought only things like dragons did that."

With both of his hands occupied with Sister Sara, Richard stiffens abortively at sudden movement from the elf beneath her --

“Please don’t -- “ but Athessa’s sitting upright before the words thread through his teeth, angled that much closer to the weariness that’s taken his shoulders, the resignation in his eyes. He holds there a beat, long enough to see that she’s capable of clinging to consciousness.

Then he’s back to work.

He leaves discussion of the bird’s nature to the pair of them for the short term, muttering instead under his breath in an ancient, hissing language too long-suffering to sound especially sinister in his voice. The wounds don’t close over, but the pain will ebb and the punctures will shallow, provided she doesn’t try to backflip out of his hands like one of those pop-up toys with a spring and a suction cup.

She doesn't know what he's please don'ting about, which she expresses with a wot and a shrug. Then she's back to the bird discussion, musing softly.

"D'ya think that's how we got griffons? A big bird and a big cat foolin' around?"

MOD PLOT ↠ SECRET STEEP'D ROOTS

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