[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

[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.

[heorte]

Turning this entire place to rubble is very much what Ellis would like to do, but—

"I don't know," he shouts back, steering her slightly away. The angle of his body slants between her and the rift. "The Herald said the gates have to be protected, but what that means—"

He breaks off, making a sharp, indecisive gesture with one hand. Sweat is gathering at the nape of his neck, prickling at his hairline. There is a threat here and he can do nothing about it.

What does protection mean in this case? There Herald had been clear in her instruction to administer it, but this isn't such a straightforward thing. Is it enough to remove the gates entirely from play, make them inaccessible to anyone else? Ellis can't imagine leaving this, sat unattended, with the prying clutching attention of something ancient lurking in the dark unchecked.

[kantikoy]

Protected is a very different word from destroyed or closed; Adrasteia also notes, in the back of her quietly panicked mind, that gates implies that there is more than one of these.

She doesn't doubt Ellis' recounting of the Herald's dreams and what she's come to consider the geas of the dead woman to all of Riftwatch — to change the future or fall prey to its machinations. He moves, slightly, taking up space in her line of sight. It doesn't lessen her awareness of what's behind him, not when the darkness emits a lack of light that settles around Ellis' head like a halo.

But the next breath comes a little easier anyway.

"Then it has to be cleansed. A connection to the Fade directly is dangerous enough, but this?" She shakes her head, fingers of the hand still lingering on his upper arm curling inwards. "It can't be left like this."

[heorte]

Cleansed drags up all the old rumors, tales passed on and on and on between Wardens until it meant nothing. He'd never asked Alistair of any of them, had pivoted so sharply from the discussion of Fiona that mentioning any other rumor was impossible in the moment.

But even the prospect of reaching out to other Wardens makes Ellis hesitate. It's hard to tell how much of that is his own reluctance to present himself to any of his fellow Wardens and ask their attention and how much stems from what he and Vance had worried about: the prospect of infiltration, of the potential that Corypheus' agents had spread farther south than anyone knew. How could they risk calling something like this to his attention?

"No," Ellis agrees. He can feel the pressure of the Calling like clawed fingers dug in at the nape of his neck, not increasing but holding, steady and intolerable. "But we might not come up with a way to deal with it today."

Even shouting, his voice doesn't carry beyond either of them.

"As long as it's kept hidden, we'll have a chance to neutralize it."

Is that a reassurance? He isn't sure that it is.

[kantikoy]

Someone did this to the rift, twisted it until it was as black as the darkest hour before dawn, as far as Adrasteia can figure which means... she hopes, beyond all sensible hoping... that there is some way to undo it. To make it just a hole in the Fade, or to close it entirely.

Then again, it's a temple to an Old God. Perhaps she's being too hopeful in general.

"Okay." The sound of her agreement barely carries; in a normal room it would be pitched low, quiet, and here the vocalization is swallowed by the same growling pressure she can feel all around them and knows the source of which is that tear in the fabric of reality above and behind Ellis.