faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ BEFORE THE GATES

Entry tags:

MOD PLOT ↠ BEFORE THE GATES | PUZZLE LOG

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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

Waiting for them at the end of this ordeal is a small room much taller than it is long or wide, bare save for the presence of a towering mosaic on the far wall. It begins as Mythal—but then it might transform, tiles flipping in waves to transition between Mythal and Sylaise, Dirthamen and Junsomeonee, any member of the pantheon save Fen'Harel (whose inclusion post-dates the construction of this place).

The voice comes from the mosaic. Maybe. It's loud, especially in so small a room, as if very large were speaking into an empty jug, and that makes it difficult to tell exactly where it's coming from. But the mosaic and the voice shift together: a little more feminine for the female gods, more masculine for the male, smirking or stern or mysterious in turns.

It says, "WHAT IS THIS WORTH TO YOU?" And then, prompting: "YOUR LIFE?"

That's just how it introduces itself. It will further explain what it guards ("THE SEALS OF THE GOLDEN CITY") and what it can provide ("THE KNOWLEDGE TO OPEN, OR THE KNOWLEDGE TO CLOSE") and why it's guarding the entrance ("THEY KNEW THEY WERE FADING"). And it becomes clear, through similarly dramatic answers to any question it's asked, that it wants a life—"OF A SEEKER, NOT A SLAVE"— in exchange for passage.

The spirit haunting the mosaic is, generously, willing to leave whose life up to the people there to decide, with limitations: it has to be one of their own. They can't leave and come back with someone else—there is no way back up the shaft they came down and no other exit to be found. Even if they could blast their way out somehow and find their way back again, in the meantime the Venatori who were approaching the temple behind them could get here first, and they probably won't hesitate to give someone up.

It's up to them to choose who among their number will give up their life for this, if anyone. If they choose…

↠ SOMEONE, the mosaic spirit will be pleased with them–their decision-making ability and their understanding of how important this is. It will let the chosen sacrifice live, and instead offer them a chance to offer other, smaller sacrifices for the right to pass. It will offer each person two sacrifices to choose from, and might be amenable to bargaining if there's something else they're willing to give up instead, as long as it's of the same importance. The sacrifices it requires will–at least nominally–be less dire than they might have been. (This doesn't rule out a serious sacrifice if you'd prefer, it could just mean it claims that under the circumstances it's willing to take only one eye instead of both.)

↠ NO ONE, SCREW YOU DEMON, the mosaic spirit will be annoyed and disappointed. Do they understand the importance of what they are asking it to let them have? Etc. But it's benevolent enough (not a demon, thank you) to be willing to compromise. If they all sacrifice a piece of their lives, they can pass through. In this scenario, there will be no choice and no negotiation; it will name what it wants from them, one after the other, and if they agree it will take it. If anyone refuses, they'll all be barred from going forward, and anyone who sacrificed something before the refusal will still have lost it and be shit out of luck.

In both scenarios, as the mosaic demands sacrifices from each of them, the tiles will click and voice shift among different elven gods with different demands. Andruil wants something useful in the hunt; Dirthamen wants a secret; June a skill; Sylaise something that makes you feel at home.

The process is quiet. Lost memories disappear and leave nothing behind; body parts that once were there are gone, leaving fresh scar tissue rather than wounds. Sacrificed secrets appear in the backs of the minds of the others in the group, there to be known without trumpets or ceremony.

Each sacrifice makes the mosaic glow a little brighter, until the last is made and it slides out of the way entirely.

This round chamber is decorated like the great hall through which they entered, its walls shining gold undimmed by the ages. At its center is a glowing portal not unlike the doorway of an active eluvian, except it simply hangs in the air without a frame. Its size and position are steady, without the twisting or the sickly green glow of a rift, and it barely ripples as the four members of the team step out of it.

They step up to a carved stone block that is unmistakably an altar with a collection of objects arranged upon it. Each illusionary double—they are more clearly incorporeal here than they were in the forest—steps up to a place around the altar. One stands before an orb into a stand, another a shallow dish with a dark viscous liquid that shines red when the light catches it, the others to a pair of objects that flicker and change as if unable to settle on a single form: first a dagger and a cup, then a small finely carved statuette and a pendant, a piece of embroidered cloth and a battered tome.

As the team watches, they act out a ritual, the person with the orb (the reenactment doesn't seem to care who is or isn't a mage in reality) drawing power that sets it glowing, another casting a spell that causes the blood in the dish to bubble before it is poured, boiling, over the other objects. Words are spoken in an ancient tongue, fast and low and unfamiliar. The blood-soaked artifacts are left, dripping, in the center of the altar as the figures step back from it. Around the room now appear ghostly flickering images of elves, taller than they are today, dozens of them lined up in concentric circles. As the team-member with the orb chants, the others make their way through the room, methodically slitting the throats of the elves and arranging their bodies so that the blood flows down the almost invisible slope to the center of the room to pool at the base of the altar.

The orb is placed in the pool, and the four of them, surrounded by elven corpses, chant the final refrain of the ritual. The glow of the orb flares blinding bright, a wave of searing heat and cold passes over them, and then the room returns to normal, and the portal at its center is gone.

For a moment, the mirage is still, frozen in place, and then it flicks back to life again. The objects are once again on the altar, the elves standing around the room. The ritual is almost identical, but for the words. At its end, the portal opens. Another pause, and then the reenactment begins again, closing the portal once more. It plays on a loop, opening and closing, eight times, before it vanishes.

As it dissipates, the team will realize they are not in the chamber alone. There are new faces scattered around the room, some of them suddenly so close to you that you really ought to have known they were there. Fortunately, they're familiar faces: other teams of Riftwatch members who have gone through the same ordeal at both the same time and a different time, finally arriving at the same point. And a previously unseen door opens, a long hall sloping back up to the surface and the forest above.

—which leaves the Venatori and their allies, trying to reach the temple. They've made a startling lack of progress, for how long it feels as if Riftwatch has been inside. But between those in the chamber and any who were kicked out for failing the sacrifice test, Riftwatch now numbers seventeen, instead of four or five. Even though they may have fewer eyes between them than when they went in, that's plenty to wipe the enemy off the map before they realize exactly what they've found. Just remember to make sure no trace of Riftwatch's presence is left.

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.

Still rewinding bandages cooled off the ice magic of Hakkon's Wrath around her arm where the beam of hot sunlight had caught her unwarily when it focused, Gwenaëlle has been quiet in a way that's— well, usual to her at work, actually, and only Derrica is not much familiar with that among their party. So maybe it doesn't strike anyone as out of the ordinary, her subdued consideration of the prospect at hand, pragmatism warring with irritation warring with the absolute certainty that whatever these things are, they're no more gods than Solas turned out to be.

Inconvenient that quibbling about their origins or nature is not going to get anyone any further through whatever the fuck this is, which they had better find out before the Venatori, probably.

But setting aside elvhen bullshit, of which there is altogether too much in the world considering they're meant to be dead, the logic seems to her straightforward. Flint and Derrica occupy important roles within Riftwatch's structure; Loxley holds experience and competence that her comparatively few years in training and the field can't compete with. If they're making a decision about sacrifice, then they should be thinking about value, about who it is important walks out of here, and—

“I'll do it,” she says, working her way to the end of that thought. “If we're thinking about what Riftwatch needs, then I can do it.”

There is one point she's overlooked.

Loxley repeats some things he's done several times throughout their journey through the temple: a roaming perimeter check, feeling his hands lightly over cracks in the wall, peering at uneven stone tiles in the floor. He has been, by now, on plenty of dungeon crawls, and knows to look for signs of traps, and in this instance, signs of possible escape. Rudely, a little, getting his black-grey fingernails or the edge of a dagger into the grooves of the mosaic.

There is often a trick, is the thing. That's the only useful quibble he might have, as far as whether these entities are godly or no.

And he hasn't ceased, just because the parameters have been made clear. Fuck that.

Or he would say fuck that had Gwenaëlle not said differently. From where he stands at the mosaic, back to them, he lets out a dry huff of mirthless laughter, something unspoken. For the moment. Scrape-scrape-scrape, of the dagger.

Derrica is quiet as well, letting Gwen's offer settle.

Doing her own calculations. Watching Loxley at work. Aware of the Commander, close at hand. Of what Gwen is capable of with her bow. Aware of her own injuries, and that they must still trek their way out of this place, that there is likely danger waiting for them in the process.

It cannot be the Commander. Between the remaining three of them, is Derrica so vital she cannot be spared?

She turns entirely to look at Gwen, measured and still in her assessment. This is not a small offer. Derrica doesn't doubt that Gwen's made her own calculations.

Her attention is weighted. There is acceptance couched there, perhaps, alongside apprehension and objection. The possibility at hand is so important, but still—

That rasp of the mosaic's turning tiles—a sound like some massive and formidable deck of cards being shuffled for an unpromising game of chance—has settled now. As if, having said its piece, the spirit is now happy to leave them on their tenterhooks.

In that lonely little room, Flint half turns toward Gwenaëlle. It's an abrupt, thoughtless thing. His hand, which has had little reason to wander toward the pommel of the sword at his hip since they'd slipped past the Venatori, moves absently in that direction now. Nevermind that there is arguably less reason for it here than anywhere else. It's hardly as if stabbing the wall is getting Loxley anywhere.

—Warrants a sharp look in his direction, which skates naturally on toward Derrica. It's a sharply critical examination of the both of them, and the silence hanging thick over their heads in shadow of what's been volunteered.

When the point of his attention snaps back to Gwenaëlle a second time, it's lands with far more intent.

(Let us draw lots, should be a ready alternative. Only it can't be him.)

"Give that to me."

With a twist of the shoulders and a single step, he turns fully away from the shivering mosaic and takes over the end of the bandage Gwenaëlle is turning about her arm. Her elbow is briskly braced. Flint resumes the effort of wrapping the length of frost crinkling cloth over scorched skin. The look he gives her is a searching thing, as private as is possible in a narrow room crammed with two other people.

(Fuck Derrica and Loxley both for raising no instant objection.)

It occurs to Gwenaëlle that if she's going to do this, then she probably doesn't even need a bandage, really, what's the point of it—

she swallows what might have been a laugh, in case it had sounded like some other, worse thing, and relaxes her arm in Flint's grip. Most of the time, she likes to pretend not to notice how much she tilts towards these small gestures of care; don't read too much into it, don't assume too much, don't need it too badly in case it's taken away. But it feels good, is the thing, and she presses her lips together and for a moment avoids his gaze, in case. Just— in case.

“I have the least useful experience to preserve,” she says, in the same brisk, businesslike way, “I don't hold any office of authority, I don't have even a half decade of training,”

it makes sense, she thinks, for it to be her.

(In another elvhen temple, ruined by time and intent, shades of the Baudins had held their arms out to her, and it had been Iorveth to drag her away when she might have walked into them.)

It's true; Loxley's objection is not instant. It is a prolonged few seconds of facing down the reality that there is no hidden switch or something behind the rippling tiles, of drawing in a breath as he goes about re-sheathing his dagger.

"This isn't a matter of experience, darling," and he really only darlings when he is putting up a bit of a front. Both women in the room likely know that, a bit, but when he turns back to face all three, there's an easy smile, summoned from nowhere. "It's a matter of how there's a clear answer, isn't there."

The smile dims, his hands sort of opening out, not quite a shrug. "I might disappear tomorrow," is a little less ostentatious in delivery. "And if I do so not even having done anything very heroic—"

Then what is the point of him.

He is also mostly addressing the huddle of Commander and Orlesian in their corner, but there's an intensity between the two that forces him to also glance to Derrica. His hands go to his hips, taking a sharper breath in, as if to catch it. "No, not you," quieter, to Gwenaëlle. "If it's to be one of us, I should."

Years ago, Derrica had sat on the ferry in the cold with Richard Dickerson. He'd put a question to her, in the course of that return trip: Would she choose a rifter over her countrymen?

Neither of them could have known that there would come a point when that theoretical was made very real.

"Stop it," is so broadly directed that it includes even the Commander, who must have opinions though he has not voiced them. She finds them telegraphed in the knife-edge of his expression. There is a split second where she might wish to take those words back, or temper them in some quiet deference to him, but the urge is set aside.

She has made herself very still where she stands, spine straight in spite of the weight leaned onto her stave.

The choice must be made. Derrica can see no way past it, because the information is so precious. Leaving without it is not an option. The Commander volunteering himself is not an option.

More time to think on it isn't going to change the confines of the choice set before them.

"I can try to speak with it," is a tenuous, maybe useless approach. Derrica knows better than perhaps anyone in this room how intractable spirits can be. "If we can persuade it to accept a different barter..."

No one has to argue over which of them dies here.

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.

"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.)

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-!"

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.

They ought to have insisted on bringing a mage, is what Bastien thinks first, and for the first time in his life.

On its heels is don't you dare.

This is not thought at the demon in front of them, or around them, or wherever the it is. Not at himself, either. It's thought at Byerly. The thought stays unspoken, but he wraps his uninjured hand around By's arm at the elbow without subtlety. No adjustment of fingers to bard-sign anything more complicated. Just a firm grip that says don't you dare all on its own.

"Bullshit," does not come with a quaver. He stops gawking at the mosaic to look from face to face. Surely they are all in agreement that this is bullshit.

It does cross his mind. And it doesn't leave his mind, not entirely - because if the choice is him or Sidony, or him or Bastien, and there are no alternatives, then he knows what he will insist upon.

(Him or Josias...Well. That's - more complicated. Which is a thought he won't dwell upon.)

But it's also not an option that attracts him in the least. A mildly surprising thing, that realization - for there had been a time when a heroic sacrifice hadn't been an idea he'd disliked. But that was before he'd had what he has now. To die would be to lose it, and that thought is intolerable.

"Bullshit," Byerly agrees, and grips Bastien back. And he looks over to Sidony, trying to communicate as much to her: bullshit.

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."

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?"

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.

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."

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.

"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?"

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."

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MOD PLOT ↠ BEFORE THE GATES | PUZZLE LOG

I. PUZZLES

II. SACRIFICE

III. RITUAL

IV. LOOSE ENDS

marcus. ota for team strangely hostile energy.

arrr, me mateys.

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nerd party @ sylaise and june's

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elgar'nan

team fakers @ elgar'nan and andruil

can't fake their way out of this one.

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rest.

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