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

[muckspout]

Edgard nods curtly. There seems to be light everywhere to him, but he'll do his best.

"It knocked back." He says half defensively, half making a joke.

He tries to adjust it and the light moves wildly. He stops holding up both his hands. Not like that, he supposes. He barely taps it and the light doesn't move at all. He squints at it.

"Doesn't seem to like me very much." He mutters to himself, not considering the fact that present company also does not.

He moves the mirror again and it points all the way down, pointing the light at the floor. He huffs a sigh and curses.

[fairforce]

"Here."

Tiffany had started to enter the chamber at the tail end of all of this. The brightness had blinded her at first, but she'd sensed Edgar in front of her, even blinded, and had hung back to let her eyes adjust. From this position she'd overheard Marcus' clipped instructions, so the moment she's able to see better she steps in to the chamber and moves to help Edgard.

"It's fiddly. I'll hold it still so you can angle it slowly, and get it where it needs to be. We'll just need to be careful when we take our hands off of it, once we're done."

She looks around as she puts her right hand (which now also might be known as her good hand; her left hand is attached to the arm that is beginning to feel as if it might possibly be broken, thanks to the previous chamber) on the mirror, taking stock of their surroundings. The light is still intense, even with her eyes adjusted, but she follows its path around the room, where it is already bouncing off of angled mirrors, where the beam dead-ends against a blank part wall. And there's Marcus--and Mobius, arm burned, hanging back.

"How did that happen?" If the room is trapped, latecomers like her ought to know.

[favoriteanalyst]

"Accident," Mobius supplies sullenly. "My own carelessness. Don't worry about it." Getting burnt and then frostbitten in short order may or may not have consequences, but the arm's not falling off right now, so he'll continue to not worry about it until they get out of here.

A furrow of his brow back at her. "You good?"

[fairforce]

Tiffany shoots him a grim little smile. She does not flex the fingers of her hand in a wave, or give any movement that might jar her arm or her wrist or any part of her left side, really, since the pain is becoming as unspecific as it is sharp, radiating from a general point and sending jolts to the rest of her.

"Accidents are a little too widespread down here for my liking. Rowantree seems to have fared well so far. Maybe we should ask for tips, or listen better."

Which, speaking of. She plants her hand more firmly on the mirror, so Edgar can steer it safely into position.

"Better?" she calls over to Rowantree.

[luaithre]

"Aye, better."

Smoke is rising off where the beam is spotlighting against the stone, dust and earth now vaporised, light all the stronger with the corrected mirror, but the one Marcus is currently operating refuses to angle towards what he'd thought to be the next unused mirror, waiting for that beam of light nearby.

The puzzle serves, at least, to draw his focus from worrying about the conditions of Mobius' participation or Edgard's huffing and sighing, turning in place to track their progress.

On the verge of wondering if everything needs to be adjusted by three inches, Marcus instead makes a sound of revelation, and angles the mirror off downwards against another mirror already coordinating twinned beams of light. Now, a third splits off even brighter, funnelled towards an unused reflection which promptly sends a searing beam of radiance—

Maybe closer by one of his teammates than is comfortable, but. Progress.