CLOSED | treehaus.

[poleaxed]

WHO: Jone, James Holden, Beth Greene, Gabranth, Margaery Tyrell, Adrasteia, Edgard
WHAT: Haunted hedge maze.
WHEN: Mid-Ferventis
WHERE: Orlais!
NOTES: A way less sexy Labyrinth.

WHAT'S GOING ON: To review, Jone has been asked to sort out a hedge maze on the Gaume estate. It seems to be haunted-- spirits have taken the form of various plants and trees within the huge hedge maze out back. While traveling through the maze, the walls will shift; your characters will be split up into groups, re-split, etc.

While it's possible to beat the shit out of some enchanted plantlife, for whatever reason, you can't hack your way through the walls of the maze. More shrubbery grows in its place no matter what you do. Otherwise, this would be over very quickly. Don't question it. This is a video game, and we should probably just all relax.

HOW DO THE MECHANICS WORK: This is a plot with rolling!

The main focus of the plot will be overcoming riddles and puzzles to reach the end, but you can get clues with rolls. Unlike in Murderhaus, rolls function to investigate the situation, not determine the outcome of actions (IE, I'll give you clues). When you want to roll, put ROLL in the subject of your comment, and bold what your character is investigating. I will reply with a clue, the helpfulness of which will be determined by behind-the-scenes rolls. Likewise, since there is a plant NPC for each scenario, do the same to ask them a question; their helpfulness will be determined by rolls as well.

For example: Bob studies at the strange pattern of pebbles on the ground, etc. Alice asks the enchanted tree, "what the fuck?" and so on.

If you think you've come up with the answer to the riddle, put ANSWER in the subject line, so I know to pop in and NPC spirits' reactions, etc.

(I've purposefully given you guys puzzles and riddles that have multiple potential answers! Likewise, if you come up with something I wasn't expecting but still works, I'll count it as a success. I'm not here to make anyone squirm. Have fun, and if you get bored of a puzzle, do the following...)

If your characters are out of ideas and just want to move on to the next action, put NO ANSWER in your subject line, and feel free to wreck the shit out of some enchanted shrubbery. While your characters can't beat up the walls, decimating any spirit-enchanted topiary NPCs will get them through the conundrum. I won't need to NPC this, because the spirits won't put up much of a fight. Please imagine some sad little Henson-esque 'wahh oh noooo' noises, though.

If you have any questions, hit me up!

After characters have solved a certain amount of puzzles / riddles, I'll open up a new toplevel and link you to it for endgame. Instructions on how that will work will be revealed there.

WHAT DOES MY CHARACTER SEE:

Upon coming up to the maze, the entrance is blocked by a network of vines, all entangled in one central knot. A spectral voice emanates from the maze:

O! Challenger, come forward now,
to give us peace in your solemn vow:
untie this knot and enter as our true friend.

Jone studies the knot before rolling her eyes and slicing it through with her poleaxe. There is a screeching scream from somewhere far off, twisted and inhuman. The cut vines turn vengeful, and quickly pull Jone inside the maze before here is time to react.

Entering the maze, there is no sign of Jone or where she may be. The hedge walls quickly begin to shift, separating the group.

Comments

BETH, MARGAERY & EDGARD.

[poleaxed]

Making your way through the maze, you come upon a huge chasm. It is too far to jump across without aid, and while the bottom can be seen, it's far enough that landing in it could easily result in a broken leg. Both sides of the chasm are at an unforgiving angle, making it look very difficult, possibly impossible, to climb.

On the other end of the chasm is a topiary statue of a snake. It is coiled in on itself, but its eyes are made of irises, blinking. It hisses a warning as it rises, revealing a cobra's hood colored by interwoven snapdragons.

It speaks:

You came and sought to overcome,
Yet haste has done you favors none,
I wonder what good faithless stalling does you?

[muckspout]

Edgard's eyes widen in alarm and he stumbles back a few steps. Then he whispers to the other two.

"Does he want us to go over there or not?"

He grimaces. Edgard is not into snakes who give mixed messages.

[littlemissfutility]

Her knife's found her hand, or the other way around--she's gripping it tight, staring at the bush across the torn-up ground. If not for Wysteria's wedding, she'd be way more freaked out. Right now, she's tense, ready for an attack, but uncowed.

"I dunno." The words hit her ear almost like another language, the phrasing of the message just formal enough to take a moment to think through. Haste has done you favors none. "Maybe we're supposed to wait."

ROLL

[molineux]

"What good faithless stalling does you," Margaery repeats, more to herself as she considers the chasm, and the snake. "I think you're right," she says with a glance to Beth. "We're clearly not meant to gain anything from being hasty, so perhaps we're meant to see what waiting will bring us."

She glances around, wondering if there's some hidden mechanism that's meant to show itself at the appropriate time now that the snake has awoken - or perhaps lurking danger, as a reward for their faithless stalling.

HOLDEN, GABRANTH & ADTRASTEIA.

[poleaxed]

Inside the maze, there is a sudden incline: the maze once went over a hill. However, this hill has been made into a dirt wall by the spirits, impossible to climb. Further, the wall is covered in rose-vines, thick with thorns.

Luckily, there is a seesaw-like device at the bottom of the wall, and four metal weights. Each are very heavy on their own, and for the sake of measurement, all four weigh roughly as much as Gabranth in all his armor.

One wall's leaves and branches begin to shift into a face, its eyes shifting back and forth, watching, but it doesn't speak. Yet.

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia looks at the face, and then back at Holden and Gabranth.

"Do we ask the spirit about how to continue or do we simply load this thing up and hope for the best, here?"

[archademode]

He is furious to the marrow. Impatient. Already he's done his damndest to cut through brush, and already he has learned the futility of it: what then remains is to play whatever wretched game bars them from their path forward— and he has little patience to spare for the task.

If she is in danger—

"Ask of it what you will, lest I test its ability to bleed."

BETH & GABRANTH.

[poleaxed]

You come to a dead end in the maze. The way is blocked by three topiary horses. They speak in unison:

Some trespassers once came upon us
Ill conduct they thought would confuse us
But now they must stay
A particular way
Unless their muses amuse us.

The horses then whinny and clomp their leafy hooves, waiting.

[littlemissfutility]

Wander around a haunted maze long enough, and bushes talking to you stops making you jump--but something in Beth's jaw still clenches like she wasn't quite expecting it.

"It's a limerick," she says to Gabranth, when they've finished their poem. Riddle? The whole thing has been puzzles so far, and this feels like something out of a myth, getting stopped by something magical and having to answer a question dressed up in rhyme. Wait, do they have limericks where he's from? "That's what kind of poem it is."

ROLL

[archademode]

"I care not what it is, nor if it was penned by the gods themselves."

Doubtful, considering the quality of this garden.

Instead he ignores the poem, the stamping of false hooves, twisting his helmeted head about the area to measure what options might otherwise be theirs to explore: the walls that surround them, the greenery, and, should he fail to notice anything out of place— would move to grasp one of the topiary horses by its snout.

Decorum and delicacy were never his truer traits.

MARGAERY & HOLDEN.

[poleaxed]

Another dead end, in this one you find a… garden? Be careful not to step on the various vegetables underfoot, especially because you might offend the their guardian. From the fruitful center of the garden, creature emerges, and speaks:

A wonderful help I am
to women across all the land,
For with them I make something new:
A hope that will make futures true.
No danger am to any, save
My slayer, a hard-working knave,
Who would have me strangled,
Taken from my high bed, mangled.
A peasant daughter most often has me uncovered,
Her eager fingers seek and discovered,
My red skin, my shifting set;
At our meeting, her eye will be wet.

The garden guardian man then crosses his legs, sits, and waits.

[acreage]

"Of course it's a fucking riddle," is what he says, looking to Margaery with a sigh.

The riddle is, apparently, more worth comment than the appearance of this spirit. Thing. It's made up of fruits and vegetables and flowers, why the fuck not.

"I'm going to go out on a limb," he says, pun not intended, "and say the answer is probably a plant."

[molineux]

Apparently, she's been overthinking it - once Jim's referred to their surroundings and the spirit guide's appearance, Margaery frowns at how she's very obviously overlooked the more crucial (obvious) clues.

"I think you're right," she says slowly, considering. "A hardworking knave could be a farmer of sorts?"

EDGARD & ADRASTEIA.

[poleaxed]

Another dead end! This one is decorated with marble pedestals, and each seat topiary statues of artistically naked women, all reclining in various states of beauty. They open their plant mouths to sing a song in strange, reedy harmony:

Formed marvelously, with rulership no man can truly claim,
I loan my sweetness to those clever enough
To have my wares through kindness, striking me not
Though through other manners I have been wooed,
In disguise, my beloved pretends to be someone else entirely.
Yet in defense I bear always the spears of terrible cruelty,
A harm you shall survive, but forget? Never.

Finished singing, all the topiary women sit up straight, staring with rosebud eyes, waiting.

[muckspout]

Edgard grins at Adrasteia and elbows her.

"Is it just me or are they flirting with us? Snake didn't talk about getting wooed."

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia snorts softly, pushing her hair out of her face. "I think it's a riddle, but I'm not sure what about." A harm that can be survived but not forgotten. Childbirth? No, that doesn't make much sense. She shakes her head. "Something that doesn't apply to men, maybe."

ENDGAME.

[poleaxed]

TBA.

BETH.

[poleaxed]

Eventually, you reach the maze's heart-- which probably makes it more of a labyrinth. A thing of gnarled wood sits in its center, a tree-like creature. Tangled in its branches is Jone, who seems to be unconscious.

The creature speaks. "A contemplatious creature who upon the labyrinth's steps did walk now visits me intending to speak knowledge. I wonder if in asking I could learn how spirits judged thine eye; for surely like each branch they are my brethren."

[littlemissfutility]

Beth spends a little while trying to find the way back, and then just trying to make herself breathe normally. There are more riddles to solve, while her heartbeat settles back into its usual rhythm, and she kind of sucks at them--everything in her that was ready to solve problems is burnt-up ashes right now. All she really wants is for this to be over.

But Gabranth's warnings still chase her, everything that boils down to if Jone's dead, it'll be your fault, and when she no longer feels like she might barf into one of the hedges, she knows it's at least partly true. Jone's gone, and they need her back.

She's already running toward the huge tree when she realizes consciously what the flash of red in its boughs must mean. Jone's up there somehow, and all they'll need to do is climb up. God, please don't let her be dead. Please don't be dead. Please don't--

Of course, then it talks, and she skids to a halt, a brand-new adrenaline pumping through her veins as she stares up at the thing that has Jone. She'd really thought it was just a tree, not an extra from The Wizard of Oz. Swallowing down a wave of fear, she asks tentatively, "D'you wanna ask them or me?"

GABRANTH.

[poleaxed]

At the maze's heart, its pure center through which all must walk to make their exit, rests a giant tree. Upon Gabranth's entrance, it shifts, and begins to move, awakening into a creature of knowledge.

"Judge, peerless in a battle's press-- much has been made of strength and poise-- now come upon us who judge man's intentions. How did you fare within the maze, a test not of your fighting arm, but honor in the field of common hardship?"

[archademode]

A treant.

Considering the permeating haze of this place, the tangled weave of Mist that he can only assume coils throughout the maze and all its surroundings— as it would within the thicker forests of Ivalice— he cannot claim astonishment. Yet without anyone at his side to pay witness or party to the exchange, his embittered impatience bares teeth with all due sincerity.

“Poorly.” He snaps, glove edged across the pommel of a sheathed blade. Resting for the moment, though wholly ill at ease. As much a warning as bristling fur, or perhaps pinned ears.

“Where is she?”

BETH & EDGARD (& JONE).

[poleaxed]

It's been a few hours. The tree looms over Beth and Jone as they talk and try to decide what to do. They sit in a large clearing at the heart of the maze, in what was clearly once a stone walking garden. Mossy statues of indeterminate forms flank them, and a pebble path is not completely overgrown.

Jone looks up when she sees Edgard find his way into the clearing. "Oi! Took you long enough!" But she's smiling, clearly happy to see him.

[muckspout]

"Jone!" He runs over to her. "Riddles." He says in explanation, shakes his head and spits on the ground.

He turns to Beth, nodding at her too. "Everyone alright? Did this" He gestures to the tree. "ask any questions?"

Edgard rolls his eyes, he's finding himself a little impatient.

HOLDEN AND / OR MARGAERY.

[poleaxed]

Within every labyrinth, there is a heart. Not the center of the puzzle, not its end, but the place one must walk to exit. The heart of this labyrinth is an old stone garden, moss-covered with age. An ancient tree stands at its worn and broken gate, speaking to Jone.

"Just- go. We'll burn you down if you don't."

The tree answers, "I worry not of pain and death, for such things never entered yet the mind of creatures born without flesh's feeling."

Jone rolls her eyes. "Oh, for Maker's sake."

[acreage]

"Were you arguing with the trees this whole time?"

He asks Jone, bemused. He's had the chance to get re-dressed, mostly, but his shirt is still in his hands as he makes his way into the clearing.