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

[cozen]

Bastien answers with a quiet little snort.

"I will take as a compliment," he says, "unless you are older than you seem."

[keenly]

"Twenty-six?"

[cozen]

"Not quite as a big a compliment as I thought," Bastien says, because he would have put Colin a few years younger than that, "but still—thank you."

He looks at the fire for a moment, then sideways at Colin.

"Do you want to talk about it, or do you me to try to distract you?"

[keenly]

A smile that barely reaches his eyes. "I don't know," he says honestly. "My mind has been racing since we were taken. I'm sick of thinking about it, but I can't stop. And I know from experience ignoring it only makes it worse."

[cozen]

Bastien nods. He might not share the experience—not dwelling is one of his specialties—but sympathizing with other people's experiences is one of his other specialties, so it's an understanding sort of nod, and he leans back on his elbows to look at the fire.

"D'accord," he says, decisive on Colin's behalf. "Tell me all about it. Or whichever parts you would like to tell me when you do not know me very well."

[keenly]

"You already know some pretty terrible stuff about me," Colin points out. "Especially for someone I don't know very well."

[cozen]

"Not by your choice," Bastien says. "It is different."

[keenly]

Colin nods a little. He can't really argue with that. Trouble is, there's no way of knowing where to begin now. He can't think of much in the way of stories from their captivity; it was all a hazy, blurry mess that mostly involved running. His brow furrows as he tries to think.

"It was my fault," he starts quietly. "I wasn't looking. Stepped into a glyph of neut--a, a magical trap that cut off my magic. One of them held a blade to my throat and made everyone cast off their weapons. Everything after that's sort of a blur. We had to keep running all the time, and barely had any rest. They kept threatening to kill me or John if they were disobeyed, but never the women. I...didn't have a good feeling about that."

[cozen]

"Too much to hope that they were being chivalrous," Bastien says. It's an observation, not a question. He nudges one of the rocks around the fire into a more even position with his foot, then looks sideways at Colin. "I do not think it is ever your fault when someone traps you and takes you hostage. It is generally their fault."

[keenly]

His eyes slide shut briefly in faint irritation. "You know what I mean."

[cozen]

Bastien smiles a little—the sort that’s more acknowledgment than expression of any happiness—and makes a little mouth-sealing gesture. He’ll be quiet.

s2g I thought I replied to this

[keenly]

Colin releases a breath. "I...don't know what else, except it was already a bad time of year for me. I thought this mission would get my mind off of things."

He doesn't seem upset, just tired. Burnt, perhaps.

[cozen]

He's quiet for a few beats—that semi-awkward sort of pause that comes from trying to make sure one doesn't interrupt or cut someone off when they only needed a moment—before he unseals his mouth to ask, "Why is it a bad time of year?"

[keenly]

He doesn't think Bastien is particularly nosy or pushy, just that he asks questions about things he doesn't know. It happens that he's asking a question about an incident Colin has difficulty discussing with his friends, even the ones who were there for him at the time. He's lost a friend over this. Bastien isn't quite a friend, so the stakes are relatively low, but he also seems much less likely to react strongly. The question, then, is logically whether Colin wants to talk about that right now, with someone he doesn't know well, who already knows so much that Colin didn't want him to know.

"An anniversary," he says quietly after he's had a moment to think. "Something I'm still not sure...I still don't know what to think about it."

[cozen]

"I'm sorry," Bastien says, because whatever ambiguity Colin feels, it can't have been something good if it's a hard time of year for him now.