[CLOSED] DON'T DUMAT OPEN INSIDE

[katabasis]

WHO: Adrasteia, Laura, Ellis, Tony, Val & Holden
WHAT: Exploration of the Temple of Dumat
WHEN: Drakonis
WHERE: Northern Orlais, Ghislain, ...The Temple of Dumat
NOTES: Mild horror; content warn as necessary; OOC Plot Information; Original Investigation Report

Though the end of winter is hardly the most pleasant time to go trekking through old ruins, returning to the excavated Shrine of Dumat in the heart of the Ghislain region of Orlais is simple enough. Thanks to the collapse of the Venatori-Ander force's hold on the region, they face no opposition and will easily find their way there. While a small contingent of Exalter Marchers has been tasked with keeping tabs on the ruin to make sure no enemy return to it, they've been wary of digging too deep into the sanctum's lowest levels. So congrats: you all get to pick up right where the last group of Riftwatchers left off (or finish what you started in the first place, Tony).

The team has been tasked with two primary objectives:

• Follow up on the first team's work. Explore the ritual chamber of the shrine where the rumored "gate" is located; recover any artifacts or clues therein and retrieve as much data about the rift as possible. If anything isn't safe to bring back to the Gallows (like, say, a certain blighted Venatori mage's corpse), conduct a thorough study and then destroy whatever can't be recovered lest it fall into enemy hands. If you can figure out how to close the gate, then all the better.
  
  
• Thoroughly explore the remainder of the ruin. Verify that there are no ancillary shenanigans on site beyond those found in the ritual chamber. Collect any additional information or traces of Venatori activity on site.

How This Works:
Objective One, which features the exploration of the ritual chamber with its tainted rift and the miscellaneous clues which can be found there are a free-for-all mingle zone. The whole group can interact with that area.

Objective Two, the detailed exploration of the additional chambers, will consist of two branching paths. Look for the header with your character's name in it. These sections will consist of a series of dungeon rooms featuring good old fashioned traps, puzzles, with general exploration hi-jinks encouraged.

Each chamber will be described upon entry and have its own conditions for solving the area and allowing characters to progress through the dungeon, but don't worry if you're not big on puzzles. The ruins have seen better days and what may have once been problems with definitive solutions may now be a little less rigid.

As your characters explore and attempt to solve the puzzles they come across or wander across taps, I will interject here and there with relevant updates. If at any point you get stuck, you can attempt a Perception Check by bolding the relevant section of your tag (i.e. 'She studies the runes on the doors and [blah blah blah insert the rest of the tag here.]') and putting CHECK in the subject line of your comment. I will then roll to see how much information your character manages to glean in order to provide additional hints and clues.

These clues will be oocly visible to everyone, but icly known only to the character who made the check.

If the group as a whole at any point decides they're done playing with puzzles and want the cheat codes for the current room, have the next player put SKELETON KEY in the subject line of their comment and I'll provide you with the solution. I'd much rather we have a satisfying narrative adventure than trap anyone in rooms just because folks aren't feeling a particular puzzle.

If you have any questions, ASK ME HERE.

Comments

THE RITUAL CHAMBER ↠

[katabasis]

Following in the first exploration team's footsteps down into the belly of the Shrine, the team soon finds themselves subject to the same relentlessly oppressive atmosphere. Otherwise, Tony (and anyone who read the provided paperwork) will be able to confirm that the state of the temple is largely unchanged from the first incursion into it's densely dark, unnaturally quiet depths.

Following the (extremely rough) schematic provided will eventually find them travelling the faintly downward sloping 'bladed corridor.' The passage's elaborate images, depicting Dumat's legacy in all its blood stained glory, are writ in shapes so sharp-edged that they threaten to slash open anyone who makes the mistake of brushing too closely. Not to worry though; that blood won't go to waste. There are channels carved into the walls and floor to capture anything spilled.

About halfway down this chamber, the team will discover the grotesquely-twisted and tainted corpse of a Venatori mage where he was skewered on a particularly prominent series of carvings by the original exploration team as they made their hurried escape. The walls and channels have done as they were designed to do, and a great deal of the passage about and below the corpse are marred with tar-like black and blighted blood.

When they move past the corpse and eventually make their way to the great ritual chamber beyond, the team will find that void-dark rift waiting for them. With no one alive left to assault them, if they make a thorough search of the massive pitch-dark chamber they may also find:

• A stack of about a dozen bodies arranged so neatly to one side of the room they must have been put there by someone still living. Though several months old at least, they appear to be mummifying rather than decomposing naturally. Presumably this is some effect of the room's unnatural qualities. Several are in Venatori robes and appear to have died from injuries consistent with some sort of explosion. The rest are dressed in plain black robes and while they may also show signs of having been impacted by an explosion, they also appear to have suffered fatal deliberate cuts to various major arteries.
  
• Around the rift in the center of the room there are channels in the floor which appear to form patterns similar in concept to glyphs but not forming any glyphs anyone's seen before. The outermost channels begin at 8 curved depressions in the floor, essentially bowls. It will be easy to detect the remnants of dried blood in them.
  
• The rift is perfectly centered over the pattern in the floor, and directly beneath it is a sort of grating. Getting close would be ill-advised, but there appears to be a small pile of debris/sand/ashes sitting atop it. The scorch marks on the floor also appear to radiate outwards from this spot.
  
• A large chest against one wall of the room may be recognized as dwarven in design. A dwarven coat of arms is stamped into the metal bindings.
  
• There are some bits of burned papers here and there around the room and among the corpses. Most are quite damaged and in the extremely lightless state of the chamber it won't really be possible to effectively examine them on site. At most, it can be discerned that most seem to be in Tevene or possibly Ancient Tevene, and only a few in Trade.

tonyspark. ota.

[propulsion]

Tony is over there, taking a knee on the hard floor as he sets up the last of four tripod-looking devices, spindly and delicate and inscribed with little runic marks. These glow gold once the fourth is set in place, each at equal distance to one another, with the void-black rift at its centre. He works quietly, hands quick, by the struggling light of a lantern set down beside him.

If anything can put a damper on his regular energy, volume, and verbosity, it's ancient magics that suppress sound, mood, and light, but only those.

Still. He springs up once done, reaching for the satchel he has hanging from a shoulder to tug free the thaumoscope, a handheld device of similar brassy tone and runic markings, with little clockwork indicators and dials. It begins to click and activate, but after a glance, curiousity is given to snagging on the rest of the chamber that he didn't really get to absorb before the panic blur set in.

But rather than foreboding ash piles, mummified corpses, blood bowls, it's the dwarven chest that snags his attention. Out of place in an ancient Tevinter Indiana Jones movie set. Tony drifts that way, pronounces, "This seems like the least haunted thing here, right?" as loudly as he can raise his voice without ripping his throat raw.

[kantikoy]

Everything about this place is making Adrasteia want to crawl out of her skin. The first thing she's going to do, once she gets outside into the sunlight (or moonlight, as the case may be) is sing a little. She can't even muster the energy to hum right now or bounce about to the variety of tunes that are usually in her head at any given time.

She's been loathed to put her back to the black tear in the Fade at the center of the room, instead slowly circling the edges of the room. The corpses have garnered half her attention, the rest of it on the Rifter setting up his devices; she's figured out that the bodies entirely in black were probably ritually killed, if not suicides following whatever explosion took out the Venatori. There are also bits of paper she can't make out in the dark, and these get collected and wrapped in a clean handkerchief and placed within her Warden armor as she finds them.

Tony's movement and query, though difficult to hear, ping her attention immediately. With a gesture she casts a protective spell over him and the chest.

Just in case it's booby-trapped. Or something.

Look, this place has her on edge.

[propulsion]

He's pivoting around to see if anyone is paying attention just as the Morale Officer casts some magic. Well, that's nothing if not a sign.

Tony approaches the chest. He has on some tough leather gloves, scratched up and flexible, more something he would wear in a workshop than a battlefield, but it seems salient in a temple full of sharp things, Tainted things, and everythings in between. He feels along the edge of the chest lid, finds a grip, hefts it—

It flips backwards, heavy, thumps against stone wall. Tony leans to look, suddenly stiffens as if taking an electric shock to the spine, springs a step back.

And pivots. "Nothin'. All clear on the empty treasure chest."

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia sighs, though it feels like it's just a breath and can barely be heard in the oppressive atmosphere. She eyes the chest and the dark portal before shaking her head once and returning her attention to Tony.

"Can't say I'm surprised." She doesn't distrust him so much as she distrusts this place and thus is tempted to go and look at the chest for herself. Instead she gestures at the devices he's set up in the room. "What do those do?"

[justashotaway]

Laura's kept her hand claws out since they lost what little light came from outside. In the oppressive darkness of the chamber, they don't make much difference, but it's something. Particularly when an attack might come at any moment.

She follows Tony, and pops the claw of one foot as he sets up his mechanical...things, holding it close in hopes that the the blue-white glow of it will give him more to work with. There'll be a hole in her boot after this, but that's frequently the case; she's grown used to cold toes.

"What is that?" Shouting feels unnatural to her normally, but especially when it results in so little sound.

[propulsion]

"Sensors," he shouts back.

And a glance at the spectral raptor claw doing the most over here, followed by a tipped look upwards. Sure, why not. From the leather satchel that house these things, Tony takes another brass prong and carefully slides it into the other, then twisting it to secure.

"Magic sensors. They'll feed back a reading on how much output this thing is giving off," a break to fill his lungs, continuing, "and what kind. Last time we were down here," breathe, "we picked up on a new signal. Usually it's just raw Fade energy. Also known as Fadeiation," with emphasis to ensure everyone's on the same page.

[justashotaway]

"Fadeiation," she repeats, dubious. His machine seems very complicated, and fadeiation doesn't sound like a real word. "That is the green light?"

It must be--this rift seems to lack it, or at least to be filled with something else that overpowers it. His "new signal."

[propulsion]

"That's right."

The sensor is set to balance in place, and Tony stands up. He turns his left hand so she can see where his anchor shard glows through little window-crystal in his glove, that same odd green they normally associate with rifts. He isn't looking to her, but towards the rift, thoughtful. "These attract energy out from the Fade through the rifts, then directs it into strengthening the Veil. Far as we can tell anyway."

The sensors begin to glow from their little runic inscriptions, not enough to cast light around the room, but equally more visible than usual in the deep shadows around them.

"Last time we hit it, something went wrong."

[heorte]

Of all the things that could draw Tony's attention, the chest is possibly the least anxiety-inducing option. Merciful, for Ellis, whose attention is split between their group moving around the chamber and the inescapable pressure dragging at the edges of his mind.

"Can it open?" Ellis asks in return, moving along in his wake.

Even existing in this chamber is impossible. It's Ellis' instinct to put himself between the most dangerous thing in the room and Tony. But there's no way to do that without interfering in Tony's work, and Ellis is harboring some quiet resentment over it.

The sooner they can accomplish what they came here to do, the better. (It occurs to him he will have to try and explain what he can feel in this room to Tony, but maybe not until they're on the way back to Kirkwall.)

Val de Foncé || OTA

[degenere]

"!!"

Even a room that muffles sound cannot entirely suppress Val de Foncé. He is ignoring the rift completely, preferring instead to collect the scraps of paper off of the floor to be pressed, carefully, into his commonplace book. This is after he has tried in vain to read any writing upon them. The scraps that are found on the corpses are likewise collected and carefully pressed into the book, in which--with this task done, or at least no longer very interesting--Val flips to a blank page, crouches down beside the stack of bodies, and begins to sketch.

An artful and accurate rendition of the mummified and withered face of one of the corpses begins to fill the page. In the margin, Val begins to note their wounds. He might as well be at an outdoor art seminar in high Orlesian summer, for all the lack of fear and attention he is giving their surroundings. And should anyone else approach the bodies--

"Don't!"

--loudly, and thus quietly, and harshly, and distinctly Orlesian, though he doesn't raise his head from his work.

"I am nearly finished."

[justashotaway]

Laura's hand pauses, half-outstretched, where she'd been about to touch one of the corpses' sleeves. They're as much curiosity as horror, smelling more of dust than rot to her. And in a room drenched in the odor of blood, that's something else to focus on.

"Something burnt them." This, too, in Orlesian. That's what the marks on them look like--to her, at least.

[degenere]

"Burnt? But the cuts," still in Orlesian, and he gestures to his own neck, here and here, "you note these, yes? Which has been burnt? Turn his face this way."

He turns a page, ready to draw what she reveals to him.

[justashotaway]

It's careful work, moving the body she wants: the claws of one hand disappearing, the other held close in order to light what looks to her like the aftermath of some kind of explosion. The body itself is firm, but not like the stiffening that happens soon after death; this is something else, something that feels almost lighter than it should.

"They feel wrong," she shouts, and that, too, feels wrong. Marks on this one's hands are visible now, though, her clothing discoloured at the chest as well. "Not like corpses."

ellis | ota.

[heorte]

As they descend, the song comes rising up to meet him. Them. (Adrasteia is not in his sightline, but does she feel this too? She must.)

By the time they've reached the shrine itself, the melodious, hissing pressure of the Calling is beating like a second heartbeat in his ears.

It's not like the False Calling. It's bigger than that, all-consuming. The unwavering, disquieting rise and fall of it holds Ellis' attention as he moves along the edges of the room, taking in the rift in the center, one hand trailing very carefully against the slick, sharp stone walls. The familiar, eerie presence bears down on him like a physical force, something prying and pulsing in time with the rift in the center of the room. Nearly fifteen years of instinct turns his attention in towards it, steps slowing in his circuit around the rift. This is the same way he'd have turned his thoughts towards the humming presence of a hurlock tugging at the corners of his mind, but this is not a hurlock. What he receives in turn from the narrowing of his focus towards this is the sense of being clawed into, some vast, ancient consciousness winnowing it's focus down solely to him, sinking into his head and wringing forth—

Ellis wrenches away from that presence so violently that it becomes a physical movement. He staggers unsteadily backwards to collide with the unfortunate person who'd happened to step into place behind him. Oops.

[kantikoy]

It's Adrasteia who is behind Ellis at this moment, a hand up to steady him as he stumbles into her space. Her hand lands somewhere near his shoulder and she pats it once, twice, emitting a thin wave of spirit healing into the man in front of her. Should he turn to see who's behind him (if he can't tell from the buzzing sensation of spirit magic upon his person) he'll see that her eyes are wide, pupils blown even moreso than the dark calls for, and she isn't smiling.

She is sweating, however, and her brow is wrinkled in effort; clearly he's not the only one to feel/hear/sense the Calling emitting from the rip in the Fade.

"I suppose it would be preemptive to leave now." She isn't entirely serious, but some small part of her wishes it were an option, honestly.

[heorte]

There's no guesswork. The warm wash of spirit energy comes through; as skilled as Adrasteia is, what can her magic do against the lancing spear of that focus?

Instinctively, his hand comes up to grasp her elbow. The grip is just a shade tighter than it should be, hanging on to steady himself even as he recognizes a mirrored shock in her eyes.

"We should," Ellis yells back, wholly serious while knowing they won't. Can't. This is bigger than either of them.

They'll need to tell Vance. (Adrasteia will need to tell Vance.)

"Have you ever...?"

The trailing break in the question is more for lack of readily available description, for knowing the futility of the question. If any Warden felt this, wouldn't the word of it had spread as lightening fast as the False Calling.

[kantikoy]

She shakes her head, once. Not even in her deepest nightmares has she felt anything like that, the narrowed focus of something ancient rifling through her thoughts like a fascinating book, and she knows at this moment that it's going to stick with her for a long, long while. The song of the Calling is still filling her ears with more pressure than the atmosphere that is forcing her voice to strain to make even the softest sound.

"If we can't close it..." She presses her heels into the ground, steadying herself, and leans forward a little. It's a struggle not to shut her eyes at this moment, but she bears through it, focusing on various points on Ellis's face. "Can we destroy it? Turn it to rubble."

It shouldn't remain, not with that rip in the Fade above them. Not even, in her opinion, long enough for other Wardens to deal with it.

[degenere]

"We are on a mission, monsieur."

Val generally does not bother to learn anyone's name until it interests him to do so. Rifthwatch, therefore, is made up of a great many people who he knows without knowing. One does not make camp without learning by what they are called, but when there are two Wardens who might both be called Warden (Apparently Possibly Human Warden, Elf Warden; Beardier Warden, Not-At-All-Beardy Warden; Rugged Warden, Pretty Warden; et ainsi de suite), and when one is otherwise engaged with notes and study and various activities far more interesting than socializing with Wardens--well, one might be forgiven for not yet learning the name of the man that has trod backwards and practically pushed into one's chest with an elbow.

Thus does Val not realize he is giving a genial and bracing slap on the back to his great rival.

"It is overwhelming, yes? This place? Such a," he waves a hand in the air, then grimaces a little and touches a hand to his throat. "Am I shouting? I feel as if I am shouting."

[heorte]

Meanwhile, Ellis knows Val on sight. For better or for worse.

The slap is good though. Ellis appreciates it. There's something grounding in it, though it doesn't do anything to dislodge the overwhelming chorus of whispers rattling in his head.

"No, it's not—"

The first, rushing attempt at explanation breaks. It's just as well it's swallowed up by silence. Even in the snare of the temple's magic, Ellis knows how shaken he'd sounded. Straightening, he shakes his head a little.

"Do you feel something amiss in the air here? Not just the...this," Ellis attempts again, voice pitched loud enough to carry, gesturing between them. "Something else. Something unsettling?"

[degenere]

Hm. Thoughtfully, Val cocks his head. His eyes look toward the dark ceiling, his mouth pinches in a moment of strict concentration.

"I suspect my innate curiosity and desire to understand this place is suppressing such a feeling," he eventually announces. "I feel, perhaps, and only if I think very, very hard, a small itch at the back of the neck which suggests there might be something to beware. It is a misgiving of self-preservation which I have often felt in similar situations and when crossing thresholds into venues where I might not have been entirely welcome--but in truth, this only makes me more curious at what we might find within. I take, by your question, monsieur, you are feeling such an unsettling much more strongly than I, yes?"

At this rate, he is absolutely going to lose his voice. Untroubled, Val smiles.

holden, ota.

[acreage]

This isn't so unfamiliar.

Descending into the deeper darkness of the temple, sounds and light fading out, not exactly knowing what's at the end of the journey —

("If I slip off, how long will I fall?"

"Mm...rest of your life. Watch your step.")

— and even once they're in the chamber, the tear in the Veil like a ribbon of void overhead, he wonders if some Theodosians a thousand years from now might stumble on this place as a remnant of a forgotten war. Then he shakes off the thought.

After a moment with the bodies, he spends some time circling the rift. His focus is on the barely visible patterns on the ground; he crouches whenever he finds a bowl carved into the earth, getting a closer look. With gloved hands, he feels around on the inside of them, comments,

"Someone poured blood into these."

[kantikoy]

"Probably theirs," Adrasteia replies, pointing in the direction of the bodies slowly mummifying and stacked along the wall. "The ones in black were cut to bleed." And it doesn't seem, upon first look, that they struggled much in the bleeding so she presumes they did it to themselves, or willingly at the very least.

Not the most pleasant of thoughts, really.

"Don't remove your gloves before we leave this place."

[acreage]

He nods in acknowledgment of the bodies, of Adrasteia's answer (and suggestion). It'd make sense, answer the question of what happened to those people and where the blood here came from. Blood sacrifice, he's heard, about this place. And he's heard, too, in Isaac's story of Corypheus and the breach.

He looks from the bodies, down to the floor glyphs, and up to the dark rift.

"Think they had something to do the gate up there?"

Either opening, or corrupting it. Or, hell, maybe both.

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia nods, but doesn't strain her voice further to answer. Does she know what, exactly, took place in this temple? No. But everything in her is singing to the blood, to the Taint in her own, that she knows that blood definitely had something to do with it.

She purposefully does not follow his gaze upward.