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

[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.

[dastardly]

Josias, by contrast, is looking back. It's not new - he's done it on each previous chamber, bringing up the rear of the group and lingering at the entrance between each as if he might simply turn tail and run with the slightest provocation. Increasingly dishevelled, increasingly pale, increasingly bewildered. The friendly intimacy between the group make no impact on it, instead only drawing further and further the impression that they are the adventurers, and he is some unfortunate bookkeeper who was pulled along on this trek by accident.

It's not entirely faked. Curiosity was a drive that Josias had indulged his entire life, but even here, with the doubled treasure of seeing what the temple had to hide and examining the dynamic between his companions, the edges are starting to dampen. He's not quite used to so much work - and now, further, with the sight of Bastien's bloodied hand, he's beginning to reconsider if the excursion is entirely worth it.

So, hovering at the door, looking quite ready to dart away like a mouse if spooked, he takes the time to truly examine if turning back is an option at all.

[bouchonne]

"Young Josias," Byerly calls back. It is perhaps not the kindest or most apt title - after all, young Josias isn't a child, is indeed probably only about a decade Byerly's junior - but there's something about his timid manner that makes him seem more childish than, say, Sidony. (That timidity also brings out a certain gentleness in Byerly, who's sardonic and cutting towards most but holds back when it comes to the frightened and the lost.)

"Stay close; we're coming up on the next trial."

And indeed, a mere moment later, they come upon the trial of Elgar'nan. A light shines down from above, painful in its bright contrast to the dark path before. The mirrors set about the room reflect the light in a zigzag pattern, illuminating the motes of dust floating around. It is beautiful, in a way.

"Ah hah," Byerly says cheerfully, "no fire or rotating knives. How lovely."

[cozen]

"But we will be keeping our guards up," says Bastien, whose freshly bolstered mood doesn't preclude some upbeat pessimism, "in case the fire and rotating knives are only lying in wait, non? If you singe off your eyebrows because you get cocky—"

He will regret this flippancy later.

"—I won't feel sorry for you."

He steps away from Byerly, angling to an extended arm to usher Josias forward. If something does intend to spring out at them from any given angle, he and Byerly are for all appearances the best equipped to defend against it. Which means one of them taking up the rear and certainly not insisting on an attempt at a piggyback ride.

"Don't worry, mon caneton. Really, this is more tedious than dangerous. We have come out of much worse unscathed."

He will also regret that.

[dastardly]

Josias allows himself to be drawn away from the doorway, already having weighed that attempting back alone was likely a poorer choice than continuing with experienced company. Still, there is a frustration for all the good cheer beginning to bubble underneath, and without the option to take some time to himself, he'll need to let a little of the pressure out here and there.

"But you're already," is a panicky immediate response, paired with a gesture at Bastien's wounded hand. He doesn't look at it directly, giving the impression that he might turn even paler or perhaps pass out if he does. A merchant's son has little reason to have encountered much blood or injury in his life, after all.