player plot: the horror of sarrux's pass

[aberratic]

WHO: Caius, Gwen, Hermione, Jayce, Ness, Siorus, Stephen, Vanya (sumptus, elegiaque, reparo, pathlit, aberratic, wildered, portalling, wearyallalone)
WHAT: The Horrors Cometh
WHEN: Beginning of Harvestmere (October)
WHERE: Sarrux's Pass, outside Wycome
NOTES: OOC post here. TWs for body horror, NPC death, ghost town/apocalypse vibes, children in upsetting situations, and general horror stuff.

Characters

CAIUS

GWENAËLLE

HERMIONE

JAYCE

NESS

SIORUS

STEPHEN

VANYA

The residents of Sarrux's Pass, a small village tucked into the mountains of the Free Marches, have long held that their settlement used to be a bustling trade city where dwarves were as plentiful as humans and they had constant contact between the surface and the Deep Roads. These were assumed by the surrounding cities to be nothing more than fanciful legends for decades, but any long-time resident swore it was the truth, lost to time and "monsters in the deep."

Residents were finally vindicated a few months ago when an earthquake caused a landslide in the surrounding mountains, revealing a long-lost outlet from the Deep Roads. At first, residents of the pass were apprehensive, all too aware of the dangers posed by such an opening, but the longer they went without Darkspawn spilling from the entrance, the more eager they became to investigate.

Eventually, the bravest among them began to enter the Roads, in search of ore and artifacts. They were vindicated again, finding both, and Sarrux's Pass quickly became a magnet for treasure hunters, Lords of Fortune, historians, archaeologists, and anyone in search of a quick buck. Even in the face of the Venatori invasion of the Marches, the promise of fame and riches drew handfuls of people seeking their fortunes to the Pass. News from the area was steady, and filled with discoveries and success stories—as well as the brawls, backstabbing, and even the occasional murder that comes with any good gold rush town.

It's been a few months since the reveal of the Deep Roads entrance. News from Sarrux's Pass has slowed to a trickle, then a drip, and now, in the past weeks, nothing. The last message to make it out of the village three weeks ago said simply: "We weren't just right about the dwarves." The parchment was stained with an unidentifiable liquid—not water, not blood—which smelled of the sea.

Riftwatch has been tasked with investigating the village, with three goals: find out what happened to the residents, recover whatever valuables they can from the Deep Roads, and, if necessary, close the entrance again. There may be Venatori in the area, or Darkspawn, or territorial prospectors—without contact with the village, there's no way of knowing what Riftwatch may discover. © tessisamess

Comments

mutations;

[aberratic]

"You've been saying that a lot," Ness pipes up from where she's come to Stephen's side, inspecting the door with him. "Gee-zuss Kryst. What does it mean?"

She draws the violet orb of light that's been following her closer to them both, trying to use it to tease out any of the door's secrets. Her eyes are itching and her sight's getting blurry, but that's probably just from seeing through violet for the past who knows how long. Hours, if not days, at this point. She shuts her eyes tight and rubs them, hard, then opens them again and sighs.

"Maybe we should have listened to that old man," muttered to herself as she presses her hand to the stone of the door.

[portalling]

His lips start to shape the word Don’t, but Ennaris has already touched the door too, and he doesn’t even know if there’s a correlation or what, specifically, to warn her about. His hand doesn’t hurt, aside from the usual ever-present thrum of pain from his nerves. It only itches, a little.

You might think all of this might be reminiscent of their previous underground adventure, but it’s not. The Grand Necropolis’ lower levels might have been dusty and long-forgotten, but it had been venerated; human hands had built it, worshipful and reverent. Created it to last the long haul and made it look ornate, pretty. These chambers they’re in, though…

“What?” Strange asks, distracted, before hearing his own words back out of her mouth. “Ah. It’s— like when the Andrastians say Maker or Maker’s breath or Andraste’s tits or whatever. The name of a religious figure. A common expletive from Earth, although I’m not religious myself. Does your world have something similar?”

He’s crossed his arms and tucked his palm away for the moment. His hands are fine, don’t worry about it.

[aberratic]

"Oh, yes. Doesn't every culture?" she glances to Stephen and smiles, but looks back to the door too quickly to notice if there's anything squirrely about his behavior. There has got to be some indication of how to open this door, or what's on the other side, somewhere...

"In Candlekeep, most worship Oghma, called the Binder of What Is Known, or just the Binder. Binder's knots gets thrown around a lot when people get annoyed. We don't tend to refer to his anatomy or his breath, though."

The conversation is a pleasant diversion from the air of foreboding that Ness can feel pressing on them almost like a physical weight—and if she can feel it, she has no doubt that Stephen can too. There's something heavy about the air here, something oppressive and unpleasant, beyond even the overwhelming smell of brine that somehow her nose still isn't blind to.

Something down here wants... not to kill them, that's not right. That'd be unsettling, but not quite so deeply as this, because whatever is down here, it wants to keep them.

Ness steps back from the door and sighs, rubbing her itching eyes again.

"Who even needs a door this big, honestly."

[portalling]

“It might be, y’know,” Strange drops his voice, conspiratorial and joking, “compensation. The front doors at the Sanctum Sanctorum weren’t even like this.”

His palm prickles; he can feel the shape of the fleshy sphere beneath his thumb. Is the entire door made out of lyrium or something? He can’t stop thinking about the logistics now: he can’t see anything more, it’s not like he’s peering out at the room from his hand, but that makes some sort of sense. It doesn’t have an optic nerve running up his arm, surely. It can’t transmit information to his brain to decode those signals.

Desperate to think of anything else, he glances over at her, only for his brow to crinkle in further concern.

“Ennaris, your eyes—”

🎀, we're completing threads if it kills us

[aberratic]

It takes her reading his mind to see what he means, which turns out to be a mistake. She's almost paralyzed by the terror of ceremorphosis, pushing through it purely on the power of her stronger terror of uselessness. The possibility that it's the work of the door somehow takes her clear across the room once they figure that out—though not before her fingers have begun to ache with shifting bones and a waxy, gray splotch has started spreading from her left eye. She's far enough from the door after that to shed the strange mutations—

but too far to be of any use when the brothers show up again.