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Entry tags:
CLOSED | treehaus.
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: 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.
ROLL
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.
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And then he puts that thought aside.
"There is music. Do you hear it?"
ROLL
It's not just annoyance--there's a little embarrassment, too, at getting the equivalent of so what? in response to an earnest attempt at figuring the stupid thing out. But it doesn't matter, once it's clear Gabranth's attention has gone elsewhere. She watches him, waiting for whatever he's looking for to come clear.
"It sounds like..." Closing her eyes, Beth stands up a little straighter, as if that might make it easier to hear. "Flutes? And maybe someone singing."
But if they are, she can't hear the words. More importantly, the sound doesn't do anything to help with the horses blocking their way. Turning her attention back to them, she asks, "Do you want us to answer a riddle? Or--?"
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A muses' job must amuse us,
Though we suppose you could simply remove us.
Pray don't be a bore;
Bring this thought to the fore:
Entertainment will never confuse us.
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"Dance for them."
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"Sing, then." he commands, voice rasping metallic beneath his shadowed helm. "Perhaps that would be enough."
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"If you sing with me. I'll teach you a song." They said muses. That's both of them. And even if performing on cue is technically her job, she prefers getting the request from someone who isn't demanding it. You can't just order me around.
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Were he even dully aware of the picture they paint, he might hope the spirits find bickering amusing. As it is, he only bristles.
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"No one will hear you except me and the trees. And I'm not gonna tell anyone." Beth doesn't smile, but her voice goes gentler. It's the kind of compromise that doesn't really count as compromise--you're either singing or you're not, and she's determined to get him to sing with her--but it sort of is, in her mind. "You don't have to sing the whole thing, just the chorus with me."
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Instead he is woefully frustrated, and his inability to sink into compromise of any sort only seems to further inspire the growling catch of his own voice.
“Enough, Beth. There is no bargain to be struck between us. Sing. Now.”
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ROLL
After a moment or two, she decides that refusing to give Gabranth any more of her voice doesn't mean she has to just stand here in silence. Turning away from him, she brings her attention back to the bushes blocking their way.
"I guess we're just gonna stay here," she tells the horses. There's a sigh in her voice, an annoyed one, but she's trying to be polite about it. (Someone ought to.) "Do they call you anything?"
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If horses made of shrubbery can look expectant, they do.
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"Know that I shall blame you for it."
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It's not like last time--you don't have to kill him, he's just being a jackass--but that doesn't matter to her tensed muscles, or the bitter taste at the back of her mouth.
"I don't let people talk to me like that." Not anymore. She never sounds quite like anyone else in Thedas, but especially not now, her vowels broadening around words that don't sound as confident as they might have a minute ago. "You're not the only one who wants to find Jone. You're just--you're just the only one who won't do anything about it."
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"Ask yourself what stalling here is worth to you. To her. And see if you still find yourself content in your chosen silence."
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All she can think, besides her lost-in-the-woods thoughts of listen for noises, make sure he doesn't get too close, don't piss him off so bad he hurts you, look for movement in the hedges, is of how stupid all of this is. It might be the single dumbest argument she's ever had, and she can't stop any of it. Not the way she's tensed to run, or maybe to absorb a blow, not the words she's spitting at him. "If you really gave a damn about finding her, you wouldn't be trying to make me do all the work."
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He feigns at composure, always. It is a veneer, a veil, a lie. They did not come here to sing, to bring cheer or to hold hands or become closer as friends. Their work was simple before Jone vanished, and now that she is gone it has become all the more simple, and all the more dire—
The growl in his throat is a potent snarl, his shoulders high, those pauldrons looming like ramparts in the shadow of twisted horns.
“Do I hold a blade to your throat? Do I torture you unkindly? I have done nothing but bid you make an attempt, and you have spurned my patience as you so surely spurn reason. If this is the measure of your competence then pray, quit as you will, for I’ve no use for fools.”
ROLL
"Fine. I quit." This is so stupid. All he had to do was hum along to the Smiths for twenty seconds. They would've been done by now. This would all be over, and she wouldn't be standing here with her fists clenched at her sides. "Find your own way through."
And, provided the hedges haven't shifted in the interim, she turns to stomp off the way they came.
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ROLL
With a single, breathy snort he turns— away from the pathways and back towards the equine spirits, closing the distance.
The answer is obvious enough by now, he thinks. And thankfully, he’s spared an additional audience when he—
Well, when he sings.
Something old and half-forgotten, hardly in his own dour, throaty pitch, and more than at odds with the image of a cold, unfeeling automaton.
But it’s a song, all the same.
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