MOD PLOT ↠ BEFORE THE GATES | PUZZLE LOG

[faderifting]

WHO: Bastien, Byerly, Cosima, Derrica, Edgard, Ellis, Flint, Gwenaëlle, Josias, Loxley, Marcus, Mobius, Redvers, Sidony, Tiffany, Tony, Viktor
WHAT: Puzzles and sacrifice
WHEN: Mid Kingsway
WHERE: A temple in Arlathan Forest
NOTES: See also OOC post, open log.

The search pays off, after a few weeks, when a team—every team, independently, separated from the others by foliage and time, and unaware they aren't the only ones—stumbles upon a sizable contingent of Venatori and their allies making steady progress toward a ruined temple complex. It's too large a group for any four- or five-person team to combat directly. But they can outrun them. Whether they dash ahead of the enemy unseen or pause first to ambush or delay them, they'll beat them to the ruins. The forest is so densely grown up around and over its remnants that it's impossible to get a sense of the full scale, but something about the size of the walls and doorways arching high overhead, the opulence of the carvings and mosaics even encrusted by millenia of moss, suggests an important site. And there's a feeling, too, a spine-prickling sense of mingled excitement and foreboding, that whispers this must be the place.

That feeling is confirmed by the contents of the mosaics lining the walls, depicting a glowing golden city with a familiar arrangement of spires and towers. Looking at it causes a strangely powerful sense of deja vu until someone puts it together—these same towers now haunt the Fade, their blackened heights always visible, never reachable. The mosaic of the city circles what looks once to have been a great temple hall, perspective sloping to draw the eye to the only other doorway out of this space, an arched portal opposite, gilded to appear as if it's part of the mosaic, as if walking through it might take one through the walls of the golden city itself.

Each team will reach this temple alone and will travel through it alone. As far as they will be able to tell, they are the only ones to have made it here—perhaps the only people to set foot inside it in a thousand years or more—and the combination of time distortion and crystal lapses will make it impossible to determine otherwise. They can send all the messages they like while inside the complex, but will receive no replies until it's all over. As far as they know, they are the only people with this chance to investigate by far the most promising site Riftwatch has found in the forest. The enemy is going to arrive soon to take whatever is here, and if they leave here now who knows how long it might take to find it again.

Once they're inside, their passage through the temple will follow a linear path, with no opportunities to branch off or divide their party. There is a single route to follow, and the walls are still high and sheer and thick enough to stop them going over or under or through. Each room will present a new trial, a puzzle to be solved, feats of strength and cunning and bravery to be accomplished before the way forward is revealed. If they take the time to clear away some of the vines and study the statues and reliefs, they'll find that each room is dedicated to one or more of the Elvhen gods, which may provide clues if they know their pantheon.

Comments

I. PUZZLES

[faderifting]

The first of these rooms is dedicated to Ghilan'nain, goddess of navigation but most importantly mother of the halla. Her puzzle will require the team to pull two large stone aravel through a maze to places marked with symbols of Ghilan'nain—the white deer with their twisted antlers now tinted greenish brown with grime. And they'll need to move quickly, before the mosaics along the walls ripple and shift, stones flipping and rearranging, the halla symbols vanishing to reappear elsewhere and have to be hunted down all over again. Once they succeed in getting the stones into place, a mechanism will trigger the opening of a door into the next area of the temple.

This precinct is decorated with images of Sylaise and June. Here, the team will have to shift the pieces of an ironwood puzzle-knot as big around as a large oak. Solving it is complicated by the gutter surrounding the pedestal that roars into flame whenever the puzzle is in motion. It's possible to stand inside the ring of fire and work the puzzle, but the heat and the risk of getting singed will grow unbearable, so the team will need to work fficiently or find some way to repeatedly quench the magical flames. When the knot is finally unraveled, another door opens, this one dug into the earth, the path sloping steeply downwards.

It leads them into a semi-subterranean level of the temple, light filtering in through narrow slits running parallel just below the edge of the ceiling. The room is empty, and at first may appear featureless as well, but careful examination (and more light) will reveal that the mosaics so common elsewhere cover these walls as well. Unlike those they've seen in the rest of the temple, these tiles are so dark they're difficult to make out, and some patterns are more easily felt than seen. The images appear to repeat, each perfectly mirrored on the facing wall, but there are subtle differences woven in that distinguish Falon'Din from his twin, Dirthamen. Finding each of the hidden motifs of these gods and simultaneously pressing on the associated pairs of tiles will trigger the opening of the next door.

Again, the path slopes downwards, spiraling another story into the earth. The chamber it leads to is larger than the last, and startlingly—almost painfully—bright, as are the mosaics of Elgar'nan that cover its walls. Its light comes from a single narrow shaft in the center of the ceiling, and is diffused through the room with a series of angled mirrors. In the center of the room is an octagonal pedestal and, growing out of the basin at its top, what appears to be a miniature tree. It's overgrown and twisted now, too big for its pot, but its leaves are green. Through experimentation they'll eventually discover that by realigning the mirrors in a particular pattern they can direct all of the light inwards onto that tree—and the beam of concentrated sun becomes hot enough to burn the thousand-year-old plant to ash. Once it's destroyed, the pedestal sinks into the floor, which opens to reveal a pit too deep to see the bottom. There are no handholds on the smooth mosaic walls, decorated with the figure of Andruil. A dropped pebble will be heard to land, but with less echo than might be expected. The light points them down. Time for a leap of faith into the abyss.

They fall into darkness, for long enough that if they strike the bottom now it will be a killing blow. But they don't. After a moment long enough to inspire panic, their descent begins to slow, a magical barrier depositing them on the stone floor with barely a thud.

marcus. ota for team strangely hostile energy.

[luaithre]

The oppressively relentless linearity of their journey should not be as stressful as, say, the way their crystals have failed to work, the dark unknown they steadily progress towards, or the Venatori at their heels. But if there were alternate paths to take, chambers to explore, opportunities to split away—well, it would be a relief. As it is, Marcus falls back behind the group with the clear preference who would prefer outright enemies only at his back. Quiet, keeping his own company, dressed in his elaborate layers of mage armor and keeping his bladed staff in hand.

Whenever they dip through a dark tunnel, he lets the runes cut into the iron of his weapon flare an angry, bright orange, making the air immediately around him uncomfortably warm, offputtingly smokey.

Once they've progressed to the puzzle of Sylaise and June, Marcus at first hangs back, uncertain, while others brave the perimeter of the ironwood puzzle-knot, and at first sign of fire, he brings his staff around in a swift motion. Frost ripples across the ground from the toes of his boots right up to the perimeter as he summons an icy gust of winter, suppressing the flames, saving them from a scorching. This becomes his role, laying down sheets of ice as they suppress and melt in cycles, too focused to become impatient. Or at least express impatience verbally.

No, that's for the puzzles of Elgar'nan and its angled mirrors. Instead of quietly feeling his way around the puzzle as he'd done in the previous, Marcus is more inclined to bark orders. Some are polite enough, if brusque, like, "Turn that one around, upwards," and other times, less so, "Don't touch that," you idiot pronounced more implicitly, or simply moving past someone to physically undo or correct the thing they just did—and worse, he's right almost every time, a strong beam of light piercing through the gloom in a new and promising direction.

In between these tasks, when they rest, Marcus will take out his crystal, hopefully checking it for any sign of message, sitting on crumbled stone and checking to see if anyone is watching before he tries to send another message. Variously: Petrana de Cedoux, Enchanter Julius, Commander Flint, and Derrica.

elgar'nan

[favoriteanalyst]

Okay, so, this has been an auspicious start. Mobius has been having some real shit luck at these puzzles. Not, he thinks, because he's not smart enough for them, but because shit just happens, and it happens to involve him so far. And Redvers, that one time, and Tiffany another.

So. He's not having a great day. And the asshole who thought it would be fun to interrogate anyone he thought might be suspicious, aka any Templars or Seekers or, fuck, anyone associated with the Chantry, Mobius guesses, is having a great day ordering everyone around like he knows everything about everything.

Doesn't matter if he does or not. Because it still pisses him off. Just in a quiet way. A way that he can set aside for the sake of the goal.

The quiet way is about to become a real fucking loud way for the way Marcus steps in and has a very particular tone that he's smart enough to read between the lines of. Mobius doesn't move the mirror. He is perhaps a lot less cognizant of his immediate surroundings when he lets go of it, though.

"If you want to do it all yourself," he says with only the thinnest veneer of calm, motioning to the room as a whole, "then you can say so and do it. It is hardly my fault if your specific instructions leave a little to be desired."

Which is about when he realizes the edge of his sleeve has caught however briefly in the strong beam of light. And caught alight.

"Shit-!"

[luaithre]

Pointed silences, rolled eyes, even muttered protest is all the sort of thing Marcus is happy to brush aside in his aim towards completing a task that feels very plain to him in the way it all sort of makes sense. When Mobius speaks up, however, the fullness of Marcus' focus finally turns to him, delivering a look that pierces through thin veneers of any kind.

Follows that look with the slow turn of his body language, ready to respond—and then a ribbon of flame, blossoming, flashing across Mobius' arm.

Ice is not Marcus' instinct, but after a previous puzzle, it's easy enough to pull through the Veil only uses his hands, fingers that claw and then flourish as he sends ice-cold mist coating over where fire is caught alight. It is not, exactly, a gentle thing—harsh cold stings before it numbs Mobius' flesh, especially where it's exposed, and it won't be immediately clear how much more of a mercy it is than the fire.

But it doesn't spread. So that's something. There is a split second after where Marcus realises his own action, hands flexing into fists and slicing his focus up from Mobius' arm to his face, assessing.

[favoriteanalyst]

Fire is not what he would call a fear of his specifically, but there are associations with burning that are undesired in this moment of weakness. His options include: flailing, ripping the fabric off, wasting the rest of his water on it.

Or magic. He has no problem with the existence of magic. He has no problem with magic being used in general. He is, however, wary of it being used on him. Ellie had been a little confused at his hesitation when she had offered her own magic up to show him. (Though he supposes she must be a lot less confused about it now. Given the circumstances.) It surprises, then, when the cold cold colder than cold envelops the damage. Snuffs out the heat the burn the flame. Leaves behind a different kind of burning sensation. When the nerves become too overwhelmed by extremes in temperatures, hot and cold end up feeling just the same. The numbness feels like a tight pull to the skin and a dull, aching tingle.

But the fire is gone, and Marcus has not only proven himself to still be right, but also has saved him. So that's great. That's real great. Mobius gingerly tugs back the remaining fabric. It's angry red to the skin nearest the damage, but Marcus reacted quick enough that he doesn't immediately see any of the awful warping nor charring that can come from prolonged exposure to flame. Too early to tell if it'll leave a scar or simply be irritated for a time before being done.

His heart is still hammering as he cradles the arm close and steps back from the mirrors further. "Call that karmic justice," he murmurs weakly. "Thank you." It's not hard for him to say in the wake of that. "I'll...stay out of your way."

rest.

[atonally]

Unlike all of his ideas about mirrors, one of Marcus' pre-crystal snoop checks does fail. Only by a hair. Redvers emerges into hearing distance at exactly the right second, entirely by accident. But it's enough to hear a name.

His eyebrows tic upwards. He picks his way across the moss-lined stone floor to stand beside him with some difficulty. In the first of these obnoxious chambers, tasked with hauling stone aravels through a maze, he'd pulled something in his lower back. It twinges erratically. He can only partly ignore it.

"Derrica," he echoes. The crystal isn't going to say anything. "What Circle is she from?"

[luaithre]

Marcus closes his hand around the crystal, as if hiding it from view would reverse time by a second. For the principle of the thing, really. Futile actions all around.

He brings a hand up to open up his own collar, and drop the crystal on its chain back beneath his armor. As he does, so, he gives a side-along glance at Redvers, resentment and resignation for the man's continued existence all simmering low and plain in the angle of that look and what can be made of his expression. It's the raised eyebrow that recognises a callback when he hears it.

Not above making it weird by simply saying nothing, there is maybe purpose in that he answers. "Dairsmuid."

[atonally]

"Ah."

Redvers could leave it at that. There's a few seconds, clear and visible, where he's considering it. It's an interesting fact—one he probably could have found out any number of other ways, but interesting nonetheless. Something to inform one or two of his contacts of.

He leans his back against a pillar. Cautiously. He doesn't trust it not to crumble until he's pressed his weight against it, a bit at a time.

Then he says, "Where they taught possession."

nerd party @ sylaise and june's

[heorte]

Ellis is not under any illusion that his role here extends beyond putting his full strength behind shifting what need be shifted, and putting down any potential threats that arise in the course of their expedition.

If the usual agenda item of "keep Tony from sticking his fingers into the first dangerous magical thing that arises" happens to dovetail with these objectives, it is only happy coincidence.

However, having graduated from heavy stone to open flame, Ellis is reconsidering the difficulty of that goal.

"It would be more bearable if I could afford to take off the armor."

Except that would waste far too much time. So the endurance test of cooking in plate will be obliged to continue.

Does Ellis intend this to serve as motivation? It's hard to say.

[grindset]

"I'm not certain a wardrobe change is the most efficient use of our time here," says new guy Viktor, in half-distracted validation. He's standing well clear of the flame gutter, sending crystal in hand. What he now performs is a very technical form of troubleshooting known as shake the thing and see if that works, followed by a few good, solid flicks.

He was very quiet on the way in, lamp-eyed and taut with nerves, still buzzing from the surreal thrill of the eluvian. Mirrors as gates, metaphysical pathways, folding space—his mouth scarcely closed for a good forty minutes.

In Ghilan'nain's maze there was plenty of pushing and pulling to be done, of which he could do very little, and thus plenty of reason to question the wisdom of bringing him here at all, but he played his part—though spotting antlers in the mossy dim was only a small part, by his reckoning—and their success has pried him open at least enough for a little commentary to slip out.

His gently smarting fingernail confirms the expected: "Still nothing."

(In time, Ellis will no doubt learn that more than ten of the fingers present in this ancient room are liable to be stuck in something dangerous.)

[propulsion]

Tony is standing inside the perimeter, hands in his hair and staring daggers down at the ironwood puzzle. Sweat, frazzle, and a fresh burn mark rippled up a pant leg as high as his ass from the first time they discovered how much fire happens when you start fucking with the mechanisms. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows and dampness coats down his back and under his arms from both the heat and the labour, thus far, involved.

Because the heavy lifting can't all be Ellis and his muscles, they'll probably need those for later. But at least he'd left his own plate back home.

"I'm doing the best I can under very stressful circumstances," comes at a flat clip, as if anything Ellis and Viktor had said could be skewed into criticism or complaint, or maybe Tony is just informing the room before breaking the bad news; "But I think we need to redo the thing we just did. See there?" He points out where one of the pieces jars against another. "That's a non-starter."

He squats right down (wincing a little, because, singes) and tips his head, studying the current entanglement. "I'm going insane," another update.

[youwonscience]

"Hey guys, teamwork, okay, positive thinking." It's not exactly that Cosima is feeling especially positive, just now. It's that the more time they spend complaining ⁠— or worse, threatening to fall into actual bickering ⁠— the longer this is going to take. Unlike Ellis, she has removed a layer, her outer tunic tied around her waist to leave her in a sleeveless linen undershirt. Her damn glasses keep fogging up, no matter how far she adjusts them down her nose.

She has the brief, slightly surreal thought that at least she isn't trying to do this with a lung disease. Apart from everything else, it lets her exhale as heavily as is required by Tony's point.

"...yeah, I think you're right. About backing up, not about losing your mind. Here, look, I think we only need to back up like 3 moves, because then this one can go left." She points to the one she means. "And that would make a space for this one to go that way. See?"

team fakers @ elgar'nan and andruil

[cozen]

By now, the pleasant can-do attitude Bastien's exhibited through the previous chambers—through the sweaty manual labor of the maze, through the puzzle-knot's attempts to burn them to death, and through most of the spot-the-difference-in-the-dark game they've just left—is beginning to flag.

This is mostly because he cut his hand, in that last one. He cut it wide open on a jaggedly broken tile that he should have noticed but did not, and then it took several seconds for the pain to sink in as something worse than a surface scratch. By then he'd already smeared blood on one of the mosaics in the dark, making that the biggest difference between them.

His hand is wrapped up now. Blood's spotting the outer strip of cloth, but it's not going to soak through. The frown he aims at it is almost sour. Then he looks up and catches his reflection in the nearest angled mirror, fixes his mustache with his knuckles, and turns on everyone else with a faint smile.

"I'm sure we're almost there," is what he said last time too.

[bouchonne]

Byerly knocks his knuckles against Bastien's shoulder, and smiles at him. In an odd turn of their usual circumstances, he's feeling actually cheerier than Bastien is. Perhaps it's because a few of these puzzles he actually managed to help figure out - a rare thing for him, comparatively speaking - or perhaps it's the company - or perhaps it just giddy relief, that his beloveds came away with only minor injuries - but he is, though not happy, in better spirits than some others.

"I'm sure we are," he says. And he gestures ahead - "Look, it's already looking brighter."

[indissection]

It's not as though Sidony is in much of a better mood than Bastien, considering. There is something to be said for the company - it is true enough that she enjoys it, relishes the chance to spend time with her husband without too much pretence, but there's a touch of bitterness to it. Her own lover has left Riftwatch and she is once again alone, so any tenderness glimpsed between her husband and his partner makes her sour.

Not jealousy because she wants Byerly, but jealousy because she misses her own tenderness, and because she failed to say the right words when she'd had the chance.

Alongside it all is her own fair share of scrapes, hurts and wounds, only some of which she has shared with the others, given Byerly's nature of being concerned for her. Let her fingers be broken and let her leg be scratched, it hardly matters in the end - this is the first time she has been part of a mission for some time and she has nothing if not the desire to prove herself.

Lifting her head, she gazes forward before she breathes out.

"I think I need to buy new shoes." She turns her head back to look at Byerly, mustering a smile - for him and Bastien both, if only because the stranger with them has yet to earn her gentle affection. "These must be thrown away."

[cozen]

Brighter has what might be the intended effect: Bastien contorts his face as if to groan at the pun, but what comes out of his mouth is a laugh, while his shoulder twitches as if to knock By's knuckles back.

But his attention turns quickly to Sidony's shoes. What is left of them, at least, beneath the mud and tear. He nods, laugh fading away into a cheerful-eyed solemnity.

"Burned, I think," he says, "to be safe. You would not want them rising again."

A little Nevarra joke. He means it well, capping it with a friendly smile back—still weary, but only at the edges—while he rolls his shoulders and considers this new chamber. No way to go but forward.

mobius : team strangely hostile energy

[favoriteanalyst]

Setting aside the small personal disaster of Elgar'nan and the accidental self-immolation:

Ghilan'nain seems simple if irritating enough. The aravel are heavy, though, and have plenty of unfortunate momentum once they get going. It feels like a fluke at best, a mix of mixed signals of where to go and where to stop and how to stop, when the aravel moves too fast or perhaps himself too slow. He refuses to let the ensuing injury slow him down, even if it involves a good deal of bruising right in his chest. Could be those ribs are going to cause him pain for a good while. But he'll try not to let it show. So long as nothing is straight up broken.

The puzzle of Sylaise and June goes well, frankly. "We can't rely on snuffing the flames out the entire time," he suggests, mindful of the fact that Marcus certainly can't manage it the entire time they puzzle it out without exhausting himself. "We'll figure it out and then work in rotation." So no one's caught in ice or flame for too long a time. It's not the most difficult thing to figure out, between the lot of them, thankfully.

In the room of Falon'Din, he also doesn't feel like anything is particularly his fault. If only because somehow they've startled a small family of jaguars that made this room home, napping in a thin beam of light. It's entirely possible they make their way through the slits outside by the ceiling through some feline cunning and fancy footholds. But, they are unhappy with the intrusion. Mobius doesn't hesitate to take up his sword. They need either scared off or fought to the death, whichever comes first, so that their merry band can match the motifs unmolested by claws and jaws. He's handy with his shield. But perhaps he should have brought his armor, no matter how heavy and unreasonably impractical it would have been in the dense jungle and heat.

The drop of Andruil fucking sucks, and this elven bullshit can stop anytime now. He nudges a pebble over the edge. It...is longer than could reasonably be guessed to survive, but it's hardly endless if they can hear it. "Maybe it curves into something of a slide," he comments wryly. Not very likely. "Anyone pack a good deal of rope?" He isn't afraid to take a leap of faith when his faith calls for it. This is...less that, especially in his state. But he'll do it if he has to.

the pit of Andruil

[fairforce]

Tiffany edges forward carefully so that she can peer over the edge. The light doesn't carry very far down, so mostly what this does is afford her a better look at the absolute darkness of the pit below them.

"I have some," she offers, without much confidence. "Enough that we could lower someone a little more, to see if there's any hand-holds just out of sight. Besides that, I don't know that I'll be of much use either way. My arm is feeling worse, not better."

What had seemed a minor tumble in the chamber of Falon'Din is--well, maybe still that. Even so, her arm is definitely hurting more, though she's kept it tucked close to her side.

"Surely there's a way to solve it. What sort of puzzle is 'a great big hole'?"

[favoriteanalyst]

"There's no reason the puzzle can't just be a test of...faith?" That still feels like the wrong word. "If your will's not strong enough, if you don't believe you'll survive it when something will save you on the other side, then you're stuck here and fail the test. So on."

He frowns. Down into the hole. "But that also seems a little too simple. Could toss a little magic down there, see for ourselves if a fireball doesn't get snuffed out immediately. And so long as there's someone with a firm grip, we can lower someone at least a ways. We've got options." Things to explore carefully. On the other hand: "Not a whole lot of time, though."

loxley. ota for team pirate vibes.

[charmoffensive]

"Oh," says Loxley, first, after what is a probable and healthy length of baffled silence from the group at large, "it's a fucking puzzle."

Which is (unfortunately) not uncommon in ancient elven ruins, nor is it uncommon in the kinds of dusty, mossy, dripping temples that Loxley has delved into back home either. There is almost something like relief tingeing the light-hearted exasperation in his tone, voice echoing off the shadowed corners of the chamber—it is, at least, a familiar sort of obstacle to encounter, and who knows? If it doesn't progress them further, maybe treasure will come out instead.

Hauling stone in this hall of Ghilan'nain, anyway, is not his strong suit, but it's a simple enough requirement of him that he participates with willing and enthusiasm. Built for quicker movement and agility than brute force, but not unaccustomed to a little physical hardship either—and look, there's even a grizzled pirate captain on hand to really make it nostalgic.

It appears to take a lot out of him, given how average he does for the rest of their time together.

Eventually, standing at the edge of where the pedestal descends in the many-mirrored room of Elgar'nan, revealing the. Bottomless pit? Of Andruil. Loxley, alarmingly comfortable with heights despite his tall centre of gravity, bends at the waist to peer down into it. It's as an aside to Derrica that he says, "I used to have a spell for this," before twisting in place to see if there's a good place to hitch a rope.

If they have rope. One problem at a time.

[elegiaque]

For her sins, Gwenaëlle has been obliged to trudge through a number of elvhen ruins — mostly temples — just once she'd like to trudge through the ruin of someone's extremely normal house — and when Loxley says it's a fucking puzzle the dismay she probably felt the first five times someone came to the same conclusion elsewhere is muted by that familiarity. It grinds up something more like exasperated irritation, equally familiar, ancient fucking elves and their fucking riddles and they can't do anything straightforward, can they—

And she doesn't even know Solas is presently dicking about, in this very forest.

It is probably a combination of that irritation and the still-pinching burn she ought to do something about shortly that provokes, “I could try screaming into the void,” dryly, “recreate the experience of talking to these people—”

There was a time she cared for Solas, now known to be Fen'Harel, even if her pride would like to pretend she knew better all along. On the other hand, Flemeth can and indeed has always had the option of sucking her dick.

puts thumb over timestamps

[tender]

"I think the puzzle are meant to do that."

While Derrica has no experience with speaking to ancient elves, she suspects the puzzles will be as frustrating to deal with as Gwenaëlle is implying.

There is quiet dismay in her voice. She isn't much for puzzles. There is obviously a solution, some arrangement they'll have to hit upon with all these moving parts. At first glance, Derrica can't see it. She looks askance at them, before descending, giving a small, testing nudge to get the weight of them.

"Where should we start?"

gwenaëlle. ota for me mateys.

[elegiaque]

“Maker, but they fucking love a mosaic.”

It's darker here, now that they've solved two of the temple's tricky obstacles and spilled into the third— dimmer, harder to see, but still all these fucking mosaics. You'd think that after some years and several ruins now, she'd have a knack for this, which is the sort of thinking that saw her trudging through a ruin on Flint's island now lodged somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, and—

wait.

Her eyes narrow, and she slides her hand along the wall.

Wait,

“No, I know this one,” she says, frowning at the design, trying to dredge up the memory.

[charmoffensive]

"I can see alright, actually."

And it's true—to look over at Loxley would be to see the dull gleam of night-seeing eyes, where light reflects off the backs of his eyeballs. The absence of colour is a hindrance, however, as is the absence of any knowledge as to what this bullshit means.

He prefers a puzzle you can trick when need be. So far, none of these are that. "What should I be looking for? And also, how do you know this one?"

[elegiaque]

“The first temple I ever went to, I was— I wasn't a member of the Inquisition, yet,” as she studies the tiles, feeling the variations in the stone with her fingertips, “I just wanted to be out of Kirkwall before I strangled my husband.”

A nose wrinkle,

“Ex-husband, of dubious legality. I had to strip half-naked and wade through blood, which is a lot like some Orlesian marriages,”

Gwenaëlle.

“—it was Falon'Din, I remember Solas banging on about the blood. That Falon'Din bled those who wouldn't bow. The blood of those who wouldn't bow filled oceans. Charming lot, Fen'Harel's old knitting circle.”