faderift | I have moved and I've kept on moving, proved the points that I needed proving

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I have moved and I've kept on moving, proved the points that I needed proving

WHO: Pel Ashara, Morrigan, Salem Ghilain, Katniss Everdeen, Mal Reynolds, Sam Gareth, Merrill, Sina Dahlasanor (via sending crystals)
WHAT: Studying elven ruins in the Hinterlands
WHEN: End of Wintermarch
WHERE: The Hinterlands
NOTES: Some fighting, altogether Indiana Joneslike archaeology. Meaning it's not really archaeology, it's just fighting and mystical weird ancient places.

Starters below. Or make your own WILDCARD!

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"It really does. Look." She lifts the torch a little higher, as she squints in the darkness. "There's another one. Were the ancients without hair? Was that a thing?"

She leaned back, thoughtful. "Was this what they looked like when they went to the Uthenera?"

"Maybe not without it entirely, but- perhaps they cut it off? Or shaved it?" Though she supposes it is possible that they were far more hairless; another division between human and elf that no longer exists quite as much.

Her fingers trace over stone, just outside of the murals; she doesn't want to hurt them, but she can't help the instinct to touch. "I suppose it would help stop them from getting bed-hair, if nothing else. Practicality."

"That's possible. But why? And why all of them?" She frowned as she stepped closer herself. Not touching, but almost.

"Heh. Considering how tangled my hair gets, maybe they weren't that far off." She stated with a wry smile, as she scanned the mural. "What are they doing? Playing instruments?"

"It could be part of a ritual; all of it. There is a poem about uthenera that I once recited as part of a ritual; even that much held great power."

But past that... she doesn't know, and that's frustrating. What are they doing? "It might not even be literal at all."

"Really? Just part of a poem?" Katniss had to shiver a little, as she looked at the high ceilings, and at the strange carved faces on the pillars again.

"So all these bald elves that look like they are tossing their hands in the air could be a metaphor for ... what exactly?" She asked, arching an eyebrow, "And are our people known for metaphors?"

"Really." She remembers it like it was yesterday, still holds the words that Asha'bellanar -- that Flemeth -- said to her close to her heart. But that doesn't really bare repeating, now.

"I'm not sure. I'm not very good at metaphors, myself. And- I mean, our people don't even know what our people are known for." That Katniss says our but looks human doesn't escape her, but Merrill hardly minds. Elf-blooded children exist, and she has always considered them still part of the People. "Perhaps they're reaching for the Fade?"

"Magic is powerful stuff." Katniss murmured quietly, her own hand going to gently trace the stone with her fingers.

"Well, that would make sense. The Ancestors were supposed to be one with the spirits and the like." She sounds a little wistful, before she looks around, "Perhaps this was some sort of ... I don't know, not a burial chamber, but a temple?"

"A sleeping place," Merrill says at once, as if startled by the realization. "So- sort of a combination. A place to enter uthenera, where some would die but others would live in dreams. Like Sundermount, outside Kirkwall."

And perhaps this made more sense than the top of a mountain, when it came down to it.

Katniss started a little at that, before she looked excited, "So ... perhaps they came here to be prepared, to slip to the other side, one way or another?"

Oh, if that was true, this could be a huge find for the People.

Nodding, almost frantically thanks to her excitement -- and perhaps more importantly, being able to share it with someone -- Merrill turns back to the art and claps her hands together.

"It would explain the demons, too. And it's out of the way, protected." There could have even still been dreamers here, once upon a time.

Katniss is looking equally excited, and probably for a lot of the same reasons. There it was, a connection to a shared past - even if it was only half of Katniss's? It was a connection she never had before either.

"Okay, yes, that makes sense!" Katniss stopped, then frowned, "...but how did they keep the demons away? Doing this, so many deaths in one place? I don't know a lot about magic or the Fade but wouldn't that make the Veil dangerously thin here?"

Another nod and Merrill frowns slightly, looking around the chamber. "I imagine they would have had guards stationed here, making sure no one interfered with the dreamers, but that wouldn't necessarily stop a really determined demon. Still, there had to be some way..."

The artifact further in, but it's not as though they know that -- or as though Merrill has even really noticed it, distracted as she'd been by the murals.

"More magic, potentially. Wards around the dreamers. And I'd imagine most of them had experience with spirits already, enough that possession seemed less likely."

Katniss pressed her lips together, then she started to snap her fingers. "What about along the walls, or around the altar? There could be more Veilfire runes that act like, I don't know, barrier spells or something?"

She really has no idea how runes work -- but it seems like it would be something that would make things .... more defensible.

"Or even spells that they cast, yes! Or even regular runes, though those may have been taken from here or scratched out."

It's been a long time since this place, whatever it was, was used for its intended purpose. Merrill looks back up at the murals. "Maybe they were even part of the art."

"We need to get more veilfire." Katniss stated firmly, before handing Merrill over the torch she is holding. "I'll be back. See if you can find anything that looks like it might hold a deeper pattern."

There's a bit of fumbling with the torch, but Merrill gets a grip on it and goes to start inspecting the old art further. So much of it seems out of place, clearly not elven; very interesting, of course, but not what they're looking for.

Which means, when Katniss comes back, she's mostly just scowling at the stone and waving the torch at it as if that will reveal a secret.

Katniss returns with the weird magical fire that is not ... actually fire, and offers out the veilfire torch to Merrill. "Here, let's trade, and start scanning the walls."

Trading also takes a bit of finagling; the torches are rather large and bulky, especially the veilfire torch. Once she has it in hand, it's time to lift it up and start looking.

"Let's see..."

Katniss nearly had her eyebrows singed off by magical fire, but they managed it well enough. She held up her torch, so Merill could better read with her own.

"Do you think we can find like, another Veilfire rune? Or maybe just some hidden script?"

"Maybe. Or at least traces of them, but so many have come through here and it's not as though most have respected our people's culture." Most recently the mages fighting the templars, the signs of magic and ritual fresh but not elven, but before them? Dozens, if not hundreds, of others.

"There are those crumbling bits in the middle of the floor, there; it could have been an arch once, proclaiming something or with protective runes on it. Now? Nothing but dust."

"It's true. The Tevinters, the Avvars, and of course, my fellow Fereldans." She sighed as she peered closer at the walls with her.

"What about the ground itself?" She said, sweeping her boot along the dust covered stone floor, seeing if she could find anything down there.

"Maybe. Hopefully not any traps, because then we've likely triggered some on accident." Which- means they haven't noticed, but maybe that just makes the traps that much better. Still, Merrill crouches down, casting the light from the Veilfire across the stone.

"There's no traps." Katniss stated with firm conviction. There was a reason she was here, after all. She swept her gaze around with the torch, before she tilted her head at where Sam and the ... rather frightening Morrigan were.

"What's that thing, Merrill?"

Merrill takes that at face value, with a chipper "oh, good!" before casting her gaze the same way. There's a slight frown as she looks, and then she rocks up onto the balls of her feet, trying to get a better one.

"I'm not- entirely sure. Though Morrigan may tell me, if we don't get a chance to look at it."

Katniss smirked in turn, before she looked at the device again. She glanced over at Merrill, then back at the device.

"We ... can always go over there and look?"

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now that i've recently done this mission /coughs

Re: now that i've recently done this mission /coughs

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