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[CLOSED] DON'T DUMAT OPEN INSIDE
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
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.
no subject
There is a lower level. Something within it had vibrated, and Ellis can't quite discern whether it was solely against his consciousness or if that unsettling tremor had been noticeable by all.
"I'll go down first," he shouts, more or less resigned to their course of action. Two chambers down has tipped them beyond the point of abandoning their exploration, whatever else Ellis might want.
But still, a pause before he steps cautiously towards the doorway, as he says, "Remember what I said, about this place."
About what may or may not be done in Dumat's name.
no subject
Well. At the rate they're going, they might.
He keeps a hold on the bell clapper as he follows Ellis below, nodding at the Warden's warning; it's a serviceable weapon, and with the creepiness of that tremor from below, he has a feeling he's better keeping it.
PERCEPTION CHECK
Something is down there, she thinks, something sleeping that they've woken. They are in the shrine of Dumat, about whom Brother Genitivi has written, and Dumat was forced into the shape of a dragonlike Archdemon, the kind the Wardens fight. There could be a dragon beneath them. There could be a demon. Darkspawn. Or something none of them have seen before, something trapped so long that it doesn't have a name on the surface of the world.
She can't see what's ahead as easily as Jim, who has the lean height of an archway, or Ellis, who is in front. But she does her best to peer around them, in hopes of seeing what it is they're approaching. And, of course, she sniffs at the air.
no subject
They are a few steps through the doorway, not yet distant enough to have completely lost sense of the chamber with the disappearing city, when another great shudder trembles through the floor. Behind them, there is a bizarrely muffled deep impact as in the room they've just left one of the ascended bells has snapped free of its old chain hoist and come plummeting back down.
The effect is immediate; a crack spiders along the reflecting pool basin. The newly turned table lurches in its housing as some invisible mechanism supported by the counter weight system suddenly comes untethered on one side, and then the whole rotating table begins to collapse into the hollow space below it. The side of the table closest to the doorway rises--and jams there, cutting the doorway through which they'd just passed in half.
Then, with unsettling quiet, the floor behind them begins to crumble away and the featureless black passage before them likely suddenly seems far more attractive by comparison.
no subject
he looks back sharply at the sounds of crashing behind them, has maybe a second to recognize the blockage of their way out before he sees the ground begin to shatter beneath them. He pulls at Laura's arm with a free hand, then gives Ellis a push, quiet signs to hurry.
"Go!"
no subject
PERCEPTION CHECK
So they run. Towards what, who knows?
no subject
And then in the dark: a comforting flicker of light.
no subject
He's just relieved to see a real fucking room this time, that there don't seem to be any creepy sculptures or obvious traps — yet.