WAR TABLE MISSION: Mushroom for Interpretation

[katabasis]

WHO: Edgard, Jone, Ellis, Richard & Isaac
WHAT: Riftwatch has been tasked with investigating strange phenomena in an Orlesian marsh currently scaring nearby residents off from their livelihoods.
WHEN: Firstfall
WHERE: Orlais, the Nahashin Marshes
NOTES: OOC Information; warnings: spooOOooky content. The plan is two have three headers with successive reveals as characters progress farther into the marsh.

It's possible that the cluster of villages which border the northern edge of the Nahashin Marshes would seem less grim and drab during some other season. But here, in the desaturated depths of autumn and populated by extraordinarily common people who have seen a great deal of their industry (and strapping local lads) sucked away in order to support Orlais' many war efforts, there is really no other apt description.

A few days spent collecting information from the locals regarding the strange happenings in the marshes will yield a number of accounts which vary in detail but are consistent in tone. Theories abound - there is a great rift at the marsh's center, someone argues (Has anyone actually seen this rift? No; not since the one in the hills to the north was closed a few years back). There is a horrible Fade-touched beast which roams in the dark. Witches of the Korcari Wilds have grown tired of eating Fereldan children and have come here to try their teeth on more delicate meat. Cateline's sister's husband's youngest brother, Fernand (who had always been such a brave, bright boy, and who might have been troubled since his brother died in the war but who would never be one to be lost or drown), had disappeared into the marsh and all that the search parties had found before they were driven back again was one of the boy's empty shoes.

And so on. While the accounts may not be crystal clear, what is abundantly evident is that without access to the marsh's resources it will be difficult for the villages to make enough of a living to support themselves through the approaching winter.

Comments

day two;

[katabasis]

The second day of travel resembles the first, until it doesn't.

The persistent misting of rain opens up, forcing the party to seek higher ground. It's a miserable, wet slog and by the time they find their way to a comparatively sturdier tree studded hillock it will have taken real luck not to have gotten completely drenched or plastered in mud.

Unfortunately, the relief of firm ground underfoot and the shelter of closely grown tree canopy is short lived as the party will notice signs that someone or something has been to this particular patch of land before them. Though there are now tell-tale signs of places where the blessed morel mushroom were once growing, the mossy undergrowth has been systematically cleared of the fungus leaving only their broken stalks behind. A further examination of the area is rewarded with the discovery of unnatural arrangements of bent branches pointed toward the what must be the hill's center and strange sigils carved into the tree trunks, the density of which increases to an unsettling degree until they reach a clearing.

A broken stone archway stands alone at its center. It's overgrown with moss, green and black with age; if any symbols were once carved into the stonework, they have long since been stripped by the elements. The visible portions of its foundation are broken, and through its cracks reach long stalks of recently harvested mushrooms. Straddling the space beneath the arch is the alabaster white ribcage of some great animal laid on its spine. Inside it, resting on their vertebrae bed, are exactly five roughly human shaped figures made from bent bullrushes.

By the time the weather breaks and the party can locate a place to camp out through their second evening, it is already dark. Tents are pitched quickly, watches established, and it is as early as the first watch that night that those strange sounds reported prior make a return.

Then, in the darkness, a light. A red light, too red to be flame. It is extremely difficult to gauge its distance, let alone its source, but it winks in and out, perhaps like fire, perhaps like something else entirely. When it winks into nothingness, left behind is a more diffused green glow, faint enough and vague enough that it could be almost a trick of the eye, but blink harder, and it's still there. You gauge from your location and the reflection of your own light sources that these lights are coming from across a wide marshy lake, and maybe even further beyond.

And then one last piercing howl, close enough and loud enough to start everyone from their sleep.

ota, threadjacking welcome.

[poleaxed]

a. DAY TWO.

This is the sort of mission Jone is accustomed to, in her way. It's merc work, even under a different name. You go to the place no one wants to go, and you strangle the problem until it's dead. The rib bones jutting out from the earth are to her mind a good omen. Dead dragons (draconids? What else could it be?) are the sign of their age, and the strength of her blood. All good portents, especially for Fereldans.

She picks up one of the bullrush dollies and kisses its head. "Used to make these when I was little. Mine were dead creepier."

b. SECOND EVENING.

A horrible sound in the darkness, angry and feral. Does that rouse you for your sleep, or does the answering call? Jone was on watch, and seeing the light, hearing the sound, the only logical thing to do is answer in kind.

Her howl is well-practiced, but recognizably human. She holds her poleaxe at the ready.

b

[muckspout]

Arguably equally as startling as the noise is Edgard rolling out of a tent immediately after it happens.

He jumps quickly to his feet, bow drawn.

"What the fuck was that?"

[poleaxed]

He's just in time to see Jone answer with a long, lupine howl into the red darkness. She looks over at him with an invigorated grin.

"Whatever we're here to kill."

[muckspout]

Edgard's grin matches Jone's and he laughs at her howl. But, quickly, his eyes flick to the trees.

He blinks at it a moment.

"There's some sort of light out there. Should I shoot it?"

[poleaxed]

She considers it with hitherto unseen seriousness; they're on a job, now, and they'd best not fuck it up. But in the end, Jone's instinct is always to push a fight forward, let it happen sooner rather than later. The most advantageous time is always now.

"Reckon you can hit it?" It's not mocking. She's never seen him shoot from this distance before, especially not at night.

[muckspout]

Edgard shrugs casually. "If I can see it, I can hit it most of the time unless the wind gets in the way."

He draws the bow, his normal slouch straightening, and focuses in on the red light. It blurs a little, but is in the same spot. He takes a deep breath, locks his arms steady, and exhales. The arrow soars across the field and hits its target.

It's hard to see, but nothing appears to have happened.

A

[nonvenomous]

Some feet away, Dick looks up from his notebook mid-sketch at the rustle of bullrush, and requires a solid beat to make sense of what he’s seeing before he can say, “I wouldn’t -- “

She’s kissed it.

He watches her as if he expects she might at any second grow horns, burst into flames, etc, stock still in his furry hat and the rain-heavy bristle of his even shaggier cloak.

[poleaxed]

She watches him, watching her, and when you've an audience, well. She is getting paid for this. (There's a desire to lower expectations as much as possible, always, she's the wretch, the Monster-)

Eyes still on him, expression unchanged, she sticks her tongue out, inching it closer to the doll.

[nonvenomous]

Richard is so reserved it can be hard to read him on a good day. The complicated rage of emotions that buzzes through him as he sees the tongue come out and cocks his head is -- as a unit -- wholly inscrutable. He is confused, he is worried, he is interested, he is scandalized.

The furrow of his brow takes on a decisively dare-shaped intrigue, in the end, with the tip of his pen poised just off the paper.

[poleaxed]

Growing up the youngest of four, one of Jone's first lessons in life was about the importance of dares, and always taking them. Even if you failed, at least you tried. Her eyes don't leave Richard's face as her tongue slowly inches toward, and eventually touches, the doll.

To complete the emotional transaction, she doesn't wipe her tongue off before putting it back in her mouth, and making a show of thoughtfully reacting to the taste.

"Bit bland," she says, looking down at the doll. "Like most Ferelden cooking."

[nonvenomous]

The slightest of tilts at Richard’s head matches time with the tip of Jone’s tongue, until there is contact. He’s poised for a long beat after, just as he was before, but nothing happens. The taste, she says, is a bit bland.

“I’ll make a note,” he says, and does, scritch scritch scritch scritch.

“I’m sure I needn't explain to you that licking haunted effigies is an excellent way to find yourself poisoned,” he steps closer to peer down into the bone bedding the remaining dolls rest upon, “or cursed.”

[poleaxed]

"Immune to curses, me," she says with the confidence of a poker player. She looks over his companion, "but I'm dead grateful for the concern, like. What you writing, there?"

She begins to lean forward, trying to see into the book.

[nonvenomous]

“What I see.”

He doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t turn the cover away either, busy sketching out the rudimentary arrangement of bullrush and ribcage, with an intimidatingly shadowy simulacrum of Jone for scale.

He has to draw quickly, to outpace the rain running down through the tree cover. Upon clocking Jone’s lean, he leans closer to her in turn, using her as an extra buffer for him to scratch out a few more shorthand notations.

“Do you recognize the bones?”

[poleaxed]

"Not really, no. City folk, me, but I hope it's some kinda dragon."

She carefully places the bramble dolly in her pack, hoping it doesn't get crushed, but not really caring if it does. Life's life. It's a dear little thing, still. Also a bit creepy, she will admit, but she's not backing down now.

"Oh, you're a drawer. A sketchy diary, very artsy." She sees immediately what Richard is doing, angling his book under her bulk, and moves to help keep the rain out. "Right lovely, that."

[nonvenomous]

“Why is that?”

Why does she hope it’s some kind of dragon, he means, as he applies a few final strokes.

Which --

Is it lovely? He furrows his brow down at the pages before he closes them away -- the forms are sparse, spare, practical applications of observation onto paper. Just enough to communicate nature and arrangement, amidst the notes and glyphs he’s already documented.

a.

[heorte]

Why.

Though Ellis' misgivings don't make it all the way to his face. He'd been running two fingers along one strip of bone, apprehensively trying to discern something from the leavings, when Jone had made her declaration.

"Careful," is the first, mild reaction he vocalizes, before he straightens up from his inspection. "Guesses at what this was?"

Other than the site of what Ellis can only imagine is bad magic, or questionable tradition.

[poleaxed]

Jone wiggles the dolly between her fingers. "You afraid, big man?"

She's still studying the doll, wiggling it in her hand and resisting the urge to coo outright. They're cute. Crudely made, a bit creepy, but still cutesy.

"I did some jobs, back in the day," how long? Don't worry about it, "for this bloke what wanted to research dragons, right? Killed heaps of the fuckers, I did. Now every dead thing looks like a dragon to me."

[heorte]

A chuckle in response, before he turns to look over the bones again.

"I don't think the climate's right for a dragon," Ellis says slowly. This marsh seems like the last place a dragon would settle, but he's hardly an expert. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, hoping they won't stumble into a dragon. Moving along—

"How hard were they to kill?"

[poleaxed]

She considers the question. He's not a potential customer, so she doesn't need to lie to him, and her ego's feeling good enough to tell the truth.

"First one's the hardest."

[heorte]

"The first one usually is, if you're working it out on your own."

Though Ellis' impression is that dragons are far and away a more difficult proposition than most of the darkspawn Ellis has encountered.

"Did you do it on your own?"

It's not an incredulous question. He doesn't sound disbelieving, just curious. If he has to amend his impression of it, so be it.

[poleaxed]

"Nah," she said. "Merc company took me in. Apprentice. The dragon took the worst of the blows already, it was going down, but I got lucky. Stabbed the thing enough, the blood got in my mouth."

A pause. She thinks about that day, and everything that came from it, with it. "Everything got a lot easier after that."

[heorte]

A soft hum of acknowledgement. The admission settles a few things about her, gives some context to what he's seen of her thus far. They are hardly so different, though Ellis isn't going to volunteer anything of that information to her.

"And you made a career out of it," Ellis say, instead of dwelling on blood and it's uses. "Fortunate for us, so far."

Accompanied by a slight smile. She's here now. Who knows if she plans on staying for more than a few more weeks if it suits her better to go?

[poleaxed]

"Yeah, professional killers come in handy in a war." She lets out a long sigh, that would perhaps be poignant, ruminating on the costly formula that is prolonged war, except the air comes through her lips with a pbthbhhht sound.

"The pay's shite, though. You been 'round, you know it."

[heorte]

"I'm a Warden," Ellis says, as if to rebut the whole of it. He wouldn't know what the pay is like. (Maybe some of his fellows do, but that's neither here nor there at this point.)

"Knew some like you describe some years ago, but that was before the war. I expect what they were being hired for was fairly different."