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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The trip to the Hinterlands is cold; hope you packed your warm clothes. The trip there is cold but clear, with foothills evening out into long, grassy fields for a time before they begin to roll again.

On the way back, a light snow begins, and about halfway to Skyhold it becomes thick and heavy. Pel springs for a room at a local tavern that night, though you'll have to provide your own meal. There are plenty of trail rations.

The ruin in question (from this quest in DAI) is too ancient to date accurately, built into a rocky hillside and covered in cobwebs. Local accounts suggest it was a religious site, but there is no archaeological evidence of this. There are, however, demons: shades, spirit wraiths, and a despair demon. Watch out.

When the demons are cleared, the space can be quickly explored. Pel lights a Veilfire beacon and discovers a Veilfire rune in the wall. That's the sort of thing she was looking for.

Toward the back is an ancient device, globular and heavy. Pel will be busy with the Veilfire rune when it is discovered. It can be activated, but will require research to discover what it is and how it can be used.

Pel shines the fire in front of the rune with an elated smile.

"Salem, come here. Book, now."

That's as much talk as she can manage. She's gonna be parked here for hours.

Katniss had her torch, bow on her back, as she had already cleared the place as 'nope, no traps'. Now she was carefully going around the rubble, picking through to find artifacts to show to the others, and inspecting the large murals that covered the walls.

She frowned, tilting her head this way and that, before she said to no one in particular, "... is it just me, or all these guys bald?"

Pel seems a bit distant during the trip. She eats and sleeps alone unless tackled down, and only socializes when it's about the research. She's animated, in fact, any time she's discussing the research. Any other time, she tends to grow quiet, almost melancholy, but not cold. Bug her any time.

"Jayne leave her alone." It's more exasperated than angry- she don't have food for him to steal so the Mabari's less look'n for a meal and more sitting next to and oozing into her space in the vain hopes of ear scratches.

"Is it all right if we make a detour?" Katniss suddenly says, as Pel falls into one of her silences. They are traveling through a familiar valley, and Katniss has been carefully hiding something inside her cloak since they had started back.

The look on her face is ... strange. Tight and sad, but quietly resigned. As if she is both looking forward to, and dreading this particular detour.

Not so vain; Pel relaxes and starts giving him those ear scritches, deftly avoiding slobber.

"He's fine. Or she." She's not sure which it is. Wait. She takes a peek underneath. "He," she confirms immediately and easily. She looks up at Mal with a smile. "Thank you for coming."

"How far?" They don't have a lot of time or money, but if it only puts them off a few hours, it should be fine.

She doesn't know very many of the people on the expedition, but that hardly matters. Merrill doesn't think she's very good with people anyway. What she is good at is the history of her people, and she's looking at the murals, absolutely enthralled, when Katniss speaks.

Merrill tilts her head, too.

"...it does look that way, doesn't it?"

On the way there or on the way back, Merrill is -- at least -- wearing shoes and being careful not to get in the way. Her staff marks her as a mage, while her vallaslin marks her as Dalish. There is one oddity that doesn't quite point to anything, though: a small rag doll, well-loved and clearly made for smaller hands. Every so often while they're at camp, Merrill will pull the doll out to look at it and smile.

"He." Mal props his spear against his shoulder, peer'n down more at the dog than the Dalish. "He's a sucker for pretty girls. Keeps think'n if he's cute 'nuf they'll feed him."

A beat and he shrugs, settling down to sit next to her. "Me? I'm a sucker for work. Long as I get paid and what needs do'n gets done? I'm happy. Been 'round similar ruins 'nuf to know it ain't gonna be a walk in the park."

"Not far ... just up that hill there." Katniss stops, and doesn't look around at anyone. In fact she doesn't even look at Pel. She just looks at the hill.

"I want to go say hello -- to my sister. Makes sure she is ...resting easy."

"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?"

Demons, Sam can handle. They were bad and they needed to be gone for them to get any research done. Ancient Elven ruins? That was something he was a whole less familiar with, making sure to keep his hands to himself mostly; he didn't know what any of this stuff was.

Which was particularly true about the odd globe type thing further into the room. "Hey... anyone know what this is?"

When one has studied as Morrigan has studied, hours can be spent in a place such as this, these relics and outposts with no true path to lead to them - did an eluvian once stand in these lands? Sam's voice gets her attention as she inspects the statues with the aid of the veilforce torch in her hand, staff still in the other out of habit.

"Elven," she replies near instantly but given where they are, that's hardly surprising though it bears closer inspection and so she approaches, kneeling and setting the torch down a safe distance away. "I have seen their like before, thought not where they should be."

Elven

The immediate response has Sam giving an amused snort and a slight roll of his eyes. Well he had figured that much out, but he still finds the answer humorous, mainly since he might have done the same.

"Not where... they should be? Are you saying it should be placed someplace else?"

Salem might not have been completely happy with his being made to carry the heaviest of the supplies for this expedition, but being here in the first place more than made up for it, and he was mildly awed when he stepped into the ruin, hopping down over broken stone and holding one of the books close to him. He looked up when Pel called for him, holding it out immediately then tilting his head as he looked over the rune glittering faintly in the fire she was holding aloft.

"Brilliant," he said quietly, grinning right back at her then kneeling down and pulling his codex from its belt on his hip to copy down the most important information as she relayed it.

[ Sabine is an unknown quality for most in this little band of adventurers. They'd needed some muscle, and got it in the form of someone who moonlights as a kitchenhand in Skyhold when she's not whittling down arrows for the Inquisition's archers, if only for virtue of the fact that she is pushy that way.

She keeps her hair roped back into a thick braid of red, and has traded out servant skirts for light leathers. Her bow is Inquisition-standard issue, but her knives are her own.

Although she does not have a reputation for being quiet, she keeps to herself. At night, she takes watch. During roads once known for bandits or bears, she sneaks ahead, and heralds when the coast is clear. After they've rested for supper, she can be found having scaled one of the sturdier trees they've camped beneath, lounging belly-down like a cat with ankles hooked in place, more comfortable than watchful, but that, too. Every now and then, light-reflecting eyes flash as it grows darker. ]

[ Because demons are a big deal, for those who have never met one.

Sabine is among those that take point, and fighting demons sounds fine, in theory. They're made of ordinary enough stuff that smart use of arrows and knives should work out just as well on them as bandits, and yet. She is a tense, nervous shape in the gloom as they creep within the dark tomb. Or maybe it isn't a tomb, Sabine doesn't know.

It feels like a tomb. Water in the stone and cobwebs and dust tickling her nose. When the first demon rears its head -- a shade, long armed, screaming -- Sabine lifts her aim even as a wave of-- something. Magic? Leaves her feeling dizzier than she began, and her arrow flies, sinking into the unnatural, twisting flesh. A second arrow, loosed quicker after the first than she's ever had to draw before, sinks into where she approximates its face to be.

More demons. More fighting. Somewhere, magic is being flung about, making the hairs on the back of her neck raise as she glances. She's never seen a mage in full swing, either.

Once the shade is dispatched -- Sabine fixed in place, bow and arrow ready, wild-eyed -- she sees out the corner of her eye a dark, drifting shape, one that's holding back. She reacts before she comprehends what's happening, as a steady stream of impossible ice magic jets directly to where she was standing. With some miscellaneous Orlesian curse word, she lunges out of the way, hitting the ground in a roll and righting herself to fire her arrow-- and forced again to take cover as the stream of magical cold comes for her, painting stone in a thick layer of ice, plummeting room temperature to a temporary winter. She ducks behind a pillar, bracing herself as coldness streams on either side. ]

Edited 2016-01-24 00:23 (UTC)

[It's the first few days of the expedition, and despite her and Pel's current differences, Sina committed to being on call in the library and that is what she will do. She spends her days reading the old tomes and drinking cup after cup of herbal tea, always around and listening for any sort of message to come for her over the sending crystal.

Above all she is bored out of her mind and wishing she were with the expedition.]

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

Journey

The Ruin

veilfire rune

Around the Ruin

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Katniss gets personal

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Demons and devices

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scouting ahead, watchful eyes.

demons, demons, despair.

via Sending Crystal