faderift | 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'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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Beth shrugs, not looking up from the flowers her eyes've lit upon. (She doesn't recognize them from home, not like the roses growing over a trellis--these ones are on hardy-looking stems, the blossoms entirely unfamiliar.) "Everyone does, right?"

Jone shrugs. "Some more'n others. Lemme ask you, luv, how many years you have?"

It takes her a moment to figure out what Jone's question is--how many years I've had what? is her instinctive response. "I'm eighteen."

Jone nods, running the thought over in her brain. "I'd have guessed older, but I always do. Hard to tell at your age. An odd bird you are; you talk so gentle."

"Not always," is her answer. And then, because leaving it at that is just asking for Jone to dig into when, she adds, "I can start swearing more if it'll make you more comfortable."

It's a joke, kind of. Nothing feels funny anymore, this afternoon, but she's trying.

Jone does laugh. Her mood isn't soured like Beth, and while she wonders what has the girl so down, she won't ask. At that age, your confidences are your own, or they ought to be.

Jone doesn't want to try remembering what her mood was, at that age. Wild. Not good. At eighteen, motherless and in another country entirely, Jone can't help but think of herself. And in comparison to herself, Beth's a bloody joy.

"Not what I meant. Though you're welcome to take up the offer." She laughs again, a gruff little thing. "I meant, you speak like you're well learned. Not coarse, like some backwater thug."

Like her, essentially.

"People go to school longer, where I'm from. Or--they used to." She's had this conversation with Bastien, if briefly. Going to school for ten years didn't feel like enough at home, but it's more than most of Thedas gets, apparently.

And this much, at least, is easy to talk about. If she doesn't sound particularly cheerful at the moment, she doesn't sound particularly miserable, either. "I knew backwater thugs. But I wasn't one."

(She's thinking of Merle, mostly.)

"Oh, who doesn't know some. Good thought, I'd have steady work in your home as well as mine."

It's a joke, mostly. What are mercenaries, if not thugs at your beck and call?

"You probably would." It's not a happy thought. The only kinds of people out there who'd pay for her to kill were a hell of a lot worse than Riftwatch. Worse than some of the stories she's heard from others, too--she's the Monster of Denerim. "Or you could...you know, just help out someplace. Build something."

If she'd shown up at the prison gates, Beth thinks they would've taken her on.

A shrug. "It'd depend on the pay." Then she considers her hand, glowing faintly green. "Or not. Depend on a heap of things, I think. Pay's shite here, but I soldier on."

Anything she could add would just be work to explain. We didn't have money. Not anymore. But Jone would've found ways to get the things she needed--Beth's certain of that. So it doesn't really matter how it would've worked for her.

Instead, she asks something that feels like it's probably a terrible idea. It's just that it takes until it's out of her mouth for her to realize it.

"Is that why you stay?" she asks, nodding at Jone's palm. "Just because of the shard?"

Luckily for Beth, Jone's already answered this question for far more judgmental folk. It doesn't feel as fucking stupid when she's saying it to a teenager, that's for sure. "At first, yeah. Then I grew fond of you lot, and I reckon, if we're to go to war, I ought to have your backs on the field. Half our recruits can't fight to save their lives. I mean that literally."

Beth laughs a little, despite everything else that's happened today. It's the way Jone's willing to be so earnest about answering that really makes it possible to laugh, not just the fact that she said something funny. "Maybe they're trying to get everyone to underestimate them."

"I would love that," Jone says without hesitation. "Might cry to see it. But I don't think they're that clever, like."

"They better be," she says, conversational, "or they're not gonna survive very long."

Jone sighs. "Don't I know it."

CLOSED | treehaus.

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