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

[propulsion]

What was comparable to Morgan Stark? The place where a memory lived is felt around, trying to determine its shape and size, trying to navigate and track the trail of negative space, but it's just for a second before Tony blinks hard in an effort to stop himself from driving himself crazy over figuring out the thing he gave up.

That's for later. Possibly forever.

He re-attunes to the present, enough to parse the dim shape of the things being lifted out of his companions. His body still feels it, that immediate stab of mourning from half a minute ago, even when the object of that mourning vanishes for him. Phantom pains. But it's just One Thing in the churn of everything else. Anger, relief, dread. And now,

the mosaic scintillating and bristling, tiles parting, showing a way ahead.

"Yay," Tony says into the after, flatness of tone dry and tired. "We did it."

His hand closes on Ellis' elbow as he steps up. Keeps it there, moving forward.

[youwonscience]

Her face is still wet, though between the broken elbow and the argument they'd just had over Ellis sacrificing his own life, that might have been true even without whatever it was she'd just sacrificed. (She can't help a brief, involuntary inventory: her parents, Delphine, Herian, her sisters.) With her good hand, she smears the tears that have gotten low enough that her glasses aren't in the way and says, "Let's get the fuck out of here, then."

[grindset]

It's a relief not to be the only one who balked, it's a relief to see the passage open before them, and it's hard to call it relief at all, when everything is surpassed by this sudden awareness of absence. He searches, too, standing there. Impressions remain, events left mercifully intact, but the figure that shared them is now elusive, vibrating just beyond the limit of perception. A vague shape; a voice muddled into low, soft sounds; no warmth or weight of presence; and, he notices, with private awkwardness, as if anyone here might read his thoughts, no smell.

Each of them holds the memory of a memory now lost: a home, a child, a friend. How strange. How sad. If any of them had shared more of themselves, they might be able to fill in the gaps for one another.

Yay, we did it, let's get the fuck out of here: Viktor's feelings exactly.

He's slow to muster any movement, the slowest of stride by far. Every step is an effort. The bolts in his knee and hip are loosening—not literally, but that's how he thinks of it, fixtures coming unfixed, wobbling in spare millimetres. They'd collapse if not for the scaffold around them. There's a dry film of blood lingering on his lip, and on his hand where he wiped at it, smeared from finger to thumb, a remnant of the bear's aftermath. His aches are numerous, and growing.

But the ache of omission eclipses them all, and besides, he is determined: he walked in, and he is walking out.

slaps down haphazard bow

[heorte]

Tony's hand at his elbow is a blessing.

The sharp, distant ringing in his ears had risen up in the wake of this startling absence. Ellis is examining the ragged edges of the hole in his memory at great remove. (The Bannorn is vast. Ellis remembers all the ways he'd traveled across and through it, but the roads and landmarks that might have guided him back to his village are so neatly excised he might never have known them at all.) Unprompted, he might not have moved. He might have remained there until the Venatori crowded into the chamber themselves.

But he is stirred to motion alongside Tony. Allows himself to be drawn forward and swept up in the momentum carrying them onwards, towards the knowledge that Ellis knows to be worth any price they've paid.

He reminds himself of this, as they walk forward together into the final, darkened hallway: this knowledge was worth everything they gave away.