faderift | player plot: the horror of sarrux's pass

Entry tags:

player plot: the horror of sarrux's pass

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

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For downtime threads of any kind, at any time—threads around the campfire, in tents, et cetera, on the way to the pass or the Deep Roads or back. Do what you want, I'm not the boss of you.

On the outskirts of Sarrux's Pass, before any sign of the village, there is what appears to be a derelict cabin. It's easy to miss, but the local guides Riftwatch hired to lead them to the pass—brothers Kittrick and Holden Chapman—point it out as Old Man Mercer's. It and Mercer have been here for as long as anyone can remember, they say, but they can't agree on what that makes Mercer—he's an abomination, says Kitt, while Holden insists he's just a weird old man.

  Whatever he is, he's here, and he doesn't want Riftwatch to carry on into the pass. He warns Hermione and Siorus, in no uncertain terms, that there is nothing to gain in the village and no one to save. Once the warning is served, no matter how Riftwatch take it, he disappears, and can't be found again.

In town, things look bleak. As far as can be told from the streets, there are no survivors, which means there is no one around to stop you from looting, if you wish—there are supplies of all kinds still left in the general store, and many homes seem to be awaiting their former occupants, still fully stocked and furnished.

Following a stench of burned flesh leads Gwen and Caius to a large group pyre in the middle of the village, which smolders still. The roads are covered in puddles of a strange grey liquid which stinks, incongruously, of the sea. Mounds of displaced earth mark holes in the ground which appear bottomless. The village well has been boarded up, and, if opened, smells faintly of the same brine as the puddles in the road.

  In the root cellar of one home, Jayce and Stephen find the first indication of what may have happened here—two siblings, a young teenager and a child, huddle in a corner of the cellar, dirty, emaciated, cowering. In the opposite corner, there is a large hole in the wall, as if something burrowed through, and a large, bloated corpse. An ogre, perhaps, but also not—its large horned form looks wrong somehow, even for a body days deep into decay. Closer inspection reveals more limbs than usual, and horn-like growths all over its body. The children may be convinced to leave the cellar or to stay, depending on what seems most safe, but they don't speak. They won't eat. They just stare at everyone, and cling to each other.

  The village inn is almost as poor in answers as everywhere else, save for one item: a journal, which Vanya and Ness find tucked under the pillow of someone's bed, chronicles their arrival to the pass and their search for treasure in the deep roads. The last entries become panicked and almost incoherent, their pages stained with the same grey liquid which pools in the roads: the well is poisoned. Some who go down to the Deep Roads come back wrong, or don't come back at all—and there are sounds, now: sounds from the deep, skittering, scritching, greedy sounds. Someone has to kill what's down there. Someone has to cleanse the well.

In the middle of the night, a rumble of earth shakes the camp. Two screams pierce the silence, and then cut off, sharp. Anyone who investigates will find Kitt and Holden have disappeared. A short distance from camp, a large mound of displaced earth sits beside a hole in the ground—neither of which were there when you made camp.

What once may have been a beautiful open archway into the Deep Roads is now nothing more than a jagged wound in the stone, through which a small antechamber and a very steep staircase are dimly visible. The antechamber holds no evidence of recent use, by animals or anything else, owing perhaps in part to the faint but offensive smell of brine and rot emanating from the entrance. Light from outside is enough to see by in the antechamber, but beyond the first few steps the stairs become pitch black. Unlit torches have been anchored to the wall at regular intervals, evidence of the path's recent use.

Descending the stairs takes only minutes, but it feels longer. Siorus' Blight sense alerts him to Darkspawn more and more insistently the deeper the party goes—a fight awaits in the chamber ahead.

The fight is difficult, but not unwinnable—these Darkspawn are few in number, hurlocks and genlocks mostly, with no extra mutations. There is a giant hole in the middle of the chamber which may have been their source, but there are also two open archways leading further into the Deep Roads, down which the smell of brine begins to fade. Rubble has amassed in the corners of the chamber, near which campsites lie abandoned. In one of these abandoned campsites, Jayce finds lyrium charges, explosives dwarves use to clear rubble and open mining paths in the Deep Roads.

It's Vanya who finds the secret door on the south wall, through which the scent of brine grows thicker and more oppressive. There is no sound down this winding, sloping path—none but what the party makes, and some may feel encouraged to lighten the mood with talk but others may think it best not to draw the attention of... whatever lies in wait ahead.

The path stretches down for what feels like hours before it begins to level out, the brine-and-decay smell growing more and more assertive as the party descends. Carvings, many too ancient and faded to hold much detail, begin to pepper the rock—not of dwarven make, but not human, either. What can be made out depicts a priestess, a supplicant, and a monster, and while the supplicant and the monster change slightly with each iteration, the priestess remains the same. Their eyes all seem to follow you, and no one can quite agree on what they're seeing.

Is the priestess' smile benevolent—or cruel? Is she wearing a crown—or are horns growing from her head? Does her dress flow beautifully around her—or are those tentacles?

Is the supplicant paying respectful deference to the priestess—or pleading for mercy? If they are pleading, who with—the priestess, or the observer?

The creature—does it resemble the supplicant? Is it in pain? Is it even a monster at all?

The party finally come to a set of massive, forbidding doors, left barely open. The vast chamber beyond them is clearly of elven design, held up by finely-carved columns. The horn-like striations worked into them shift and change even with eyes on them, so you look to the walls instead and find massive bas reliefs, running in three horizontal bands. What at first appear to be pigments or paints in the reliefs, on closer inspection, are revealed to be thousands of tiny jewels.

It's difficult to make out, but at the end of the room there appears to be another massive set of doors, though these are tightly shut. It's impossible to know what lays beyond them for sure, but Siorus' Blight sense is buzzing like mad—there's plenty of darkspawn. If any rifters get close to the doors, their bodies react and mutate, as they would in the presence of lyrium. Stepping away from the doors, far away, negates the effects, and the mutations return to normal.

While the party observes the reliefs and searches the rest of the chamber, a deafening scrape heralds the opening of the massive doors at the back. Through them come Kitt and Holden, maddened out of their minds, to abscond with Gwen, Siorus, and Caius. If anyone manages to confront them, they can only babble about how they want to offer the other three in trade to "her", because the children weren't enough. They pull their three captives through the giant doors at the end of the room, which close behind them with a thunderous thud.

There are a few ways to follow after them: forcing the massive doors open with magic, blasting them open with lyrium charges, or, the easiest and most subtle way, a smaller, circumspect door set into a corner. No matter how the party follows, their presence is expected.

All hell breaks loose when they make it into the last chamber. Dozens if not hundreds of mutated darkspawn and other creatures swarm the party, many of which look like they may have once been human—though they very much are not, now. It's hard to note anything about the chamber in the chaos, only the obvious immediately able to register:

The room is massively cavernous, with ceilings barely visible; giant hart statues overlook the room from beside an equally giant throne; the stench of brine and rot is overpowering here; the hum of a sickly-green lyrium stalactite drowns out most other noise.

Where the rest of the mutated creatures attack the party, one monstrosity wanders, dazed and weeping. The siblings found in the root cellar have melded together into one fleshy mass, with two heads and a ratking for a fist. They will not attack anyone or anything.

In the middle of the chaos, Kittrick and Holden lead Gwenaëlle, Siorus, and Caius to a large pool in the direct center of the room. They've been force-fed some of the liquid, and as soon as they touch the pool, the lyrium hanging above begins to act on it, mutating them. If they become fully coccooned in the liquid, their mutations will become too severe to ignore.

The rifters, exposed to this strange lyrium, mutate as well, more quickly and extensively than those exposed to lyrium have before.

The crystal must come down. The monsters must be killed. Someone has to be warned of what's happening here. How will the team get out? Do they want to bring back some of the liquid, or a shard of the lyrium? Do they want to leave the chamber intact, to study all this one day?

It's a bit rude, isn't it? The whole speculation between their guides about who lives in the derelict cabin. Imagine living in a place your whole life, trading and working and maybe even making friends, only for the people of that place to know you as Old Man Mercer.

(She tries to imagine herself, surviving - living until she's that old, even. What would the new recruits call her? Old Riftwitch Hermione has a good ring to it.)

Of course, it stands to reason that as she shakes off that thought, and turns to chide Kitt with you can't just call old people abominations, the door to the cabin opens. (Falls open? Falls?)

Out rushes what could potentially be described as a weird old man, waving his arms in a shoo-ing motion at the group.

"Leave! Leave, there is nothing left - nothing past this pass for you! Leave if you know what's good for you!" he shouts, ominously.

"Told you," Holden Chapman mutters as an aside.

"Not you," Old Man Mercer's quick dismissal, complete with a bony-hand wave-off. He sets his eyes instead on the two dressed like Riftwatch people, addresses them, fingerpoint and all. "You leave. Heed my words, you fools!"

If Vanya privately suspected before they even arrived that there were no good answers awaiting them as to "why a town full of treasure hunters seemed to empty overnight," he kept the pessimism to himself on the journey here. Similarly, now that they're searching, he focuses on the task at hand, reserving any opinions if he has them. (Those who know him well or who are especially observant might have seen a small, involuntary flinch when they found the pyre.)

The inn seems a likely avenue, as it's where those drawn here specifically by the lure of the Deep Roads may have stayed. If it's unlikely to offer anything especially upsetting, well, all to the good. As he and Ness start working through the rooms, she can see his calm, systematic approach at work. The fact that it isn't yielding much initially doesn't seem to shake him from his method. Vanya neatly closes the doors of each of the rooms they've been through behind them, marking their progress.

He's checked under the pillows and mattress of every bed before this one, too, and when he withdraws the journal he turns it over, as if to verify it's an actual clue rather than wishful thinking. He looks up to Ness. "I didn't bring my spectacles," he says, offering the journal to her. "Why don't you take a look?" He's not so nearsighted he couldn't manage, but he may as well take advantage of the more youthful set of eyes.

Vanya doesn't keep himself apart, exactly. Certainly not the way he would when he first joined Riftwatch, at least. He's quiet by temperament, but he willingly talks with anyone who initiates a conversation on the road, and though he's not chatty, he joins everyone for the meals that they take together without resistance.

That said, it is somewhat unusual when he comes to sit near Gwenaëlle near the fire after dinner, when neither of them is on watch for a while. Perhaps more unusual still when he observes, "Carsus thought I needed a push to say yes to your social invitation, which surprised me." An opening gambit that he might not have made a year ago.

The lopsided smile he earns for that is less surprised as she leans sideways to bump her shoulder into his (or, more accurately to their height difference: his arm)—

“I told him you'd come if you thought you were being helpful, you love that,” which is not disagreement with Cedric's premise, exactly. Sure, she's pretty sure Cedric thinks Vanya is both sadder and older than he actually is, but it's not as if he's not a bit sad and old. “Plus, I make your duty schedule.”

As if that settles it. Certainly so far as can Vanya get out of it.

“We're friends because how stoically you take being hit in the balls started to actually make me feel poorly about doing it, Orlov, you don't have a face that says social butterfly. But he underestimates how charming and likable I am because I make him want to throttle me regularly, it's probably me as much as you.”

"What a churlish reputation I've built," mild and not actually disputing it directly. "I'll be honest, I was lightly surprised Carsus still wanted to speak to me when he arrived, considering. Maybe he likes people who frustrate him." Evidence could suggest.

"If it makes any difference, I can't remember ever wanting to throttle you." For what it's worth.

“I know, it's a source of endless bafflement to me,” she says with easy affection; it's not as if he would never have had cause. She had, in point of fact, worked quite hard to give him cause,

it had been a difficult time through no doing of his, when they met. Gwenaëlle's desire and willingness to spread her misery around with a shovel had not been subtle.

Maybe she could leave it at that. Maybe she should, considering where her thoughts percolate. Since should has rarely entered the math on what conversation she makes, “He and I, there's things we understand about each other. But I think the ways you're opaque to him are things he chooses.”

"Which ways are those, do you think?" The way he asks isn't entitlement, but earned confidence she'll decline to tell him if she doesn't care to. It's not as if her ability to accurately see Vanya isn't incidental to their friendship, after all.

And if she does answer, perhaps he'll avoid tripping into a disagreement with Cedric by accident, at least some of the time. Worth considering, now that they're at such close quarters back in Kirkwall.

“He and I don't talk about Chantry politics,” she says, a thing that could have been incidental but at a certain point had become a choice— her choice, certainly. The question of how deliberate that is on his part ... she thinks that might go either way. He's smart enough not to go around the Gallows pointing out who'll be staying in them at the end of all this; it's more a toss up whether he had decided not to discuss it with her, particularly.

Her opinions are strongly held and not difficult to find out. That Cedric takes lyrium and thinks Keen is a neat guy is also not difficult to clock.

“A lot of people don't talk about Chantry politics with you,” which is wild, her tone suggests, “but I think you'd be much less mysterious in general if they did.”

Edited (ammmy you give me the past tense disease) 2024-10-03 23:34 (UTC)

Gwenaëlle knows what burned flesh smells like.

Even before it had been her own sizzling horrifically under the claws of a rage demon newly corporeal, she won't soon forget the smoke that rose over Halamshiral; the terrible knowledge of Magalie's end, choking on smoke within a burning building that Alix hadn't made it inside of. She has been on too many battlefields, and set too many fires of her own since—

probably anyone would have followed a stench like this one, though, with the size of the pyre in front of them. How many of the village had burned in it? How many had survived to do the burning? The quiet around them tells its own story. Not enough. The fact they're following rumours tells it, too; no one to ask, no one to give answers. The brothers Chapman aren't exactly primary sources.

She glances sidelong at Caius. “I can't tell if the brine smell is coming from the pyre as well or not,” is just a statement, more than a question. Seems unlikely he can tell any easier.

"I think they generally assume they know," which is not at all the same as actually knowing, of course. "Or maybe they don't care. I've never lied to anyone about them since I arrived."

But she's correct to observe that it's rare he's been asked.

"I think I unsettled him when I mentioned I'd been sparring with Commander Rowntree. It took me by surprise, a little, how strongly he reacted." In this context, it's clear he's suggesting that the surprise was less Cedric's underlying politics than that Cedric would think Vanya would avoid such an arrangement when it was offered.

Her scoff is immediate— “What? Rowntree's a fucking beast. You'd be an idiot to pass that up.”

Gwenaëlle is not without her own blind spots, or she'd probably twig faster to the implications of why Cedric (with Cedric's politics) might have objected in the first place. For a moment, she simply lives in a world where getting to spar with the Commander is sick as hell.

"I've found it exceptionally useful," a little quieter, though more thoughtful than muted. He considers what he wants to say, then, and how he wants to say it.

"...Carsus expects, I think, that the moment Corypheus is defeated, the Mage-Templar War will pick up where it left off. I do not think it is an uncommon assumption among Templars. But that it is an inevitability is a conviction I did not share even before I left." And so.

“...I don't think it's an uncommon assumption, in general,” she says, after a quieter pause, derailed from what might have easily become the verbal equivalent of doodling in the margins about how impressive their boss is.

Her head tilts, and she studies him, considering the idea of that not being inevitable. Considering that being his perspective, particularly, when she herself has more or less operated under that same assumption for years now, with slowly increasing investment in the actual outcome. An inevitability that she had begun to see as one she wouldn't be able to avoid entangling in herself, too.

“So long as the Chantry still wants mages back in towers and mages don't want to go, it's hard to imagine there'll be no fighting.”

"I grant you. But I've long thought there's a difference between likely and inevitable. If nothing else, the past decade or so has illustrated that sometimes significant events are unforeseen." Important people die and are replaced by those with different aims and temperaments. Institutions find themselves stretched too thin, or re-energized by a victory. A great many things can happen.

That, however, is a deeper pool than he'd intended to dive into. He circles back to the reason he brought it up instead.

"Carsus assumed that Rowntree offered to spar with me so he could study my technique up close. For an edge, when he's fighting Templars again one day. I am ... skeptical that it is mainly that." Diplomatic but: Marcus Rowntree has historically fought a lot of Templars who are younger, in better shape and still have access to Silencing. Vanya's not convinced he's learning a lot he didn't already know, in their best-of-threes.

Still, he adds, "Maybe that's it, you know. No one believes there's any such thing as an ex-Templar. So when I don't think of myself as one of them, people are thrown." And, possibly, why no one asks him about his politics.

Besides the numerous Templars who Rowntree could have studied (as he killed them, presumably), Gwenaëlle is nearly about to start in on the other half of the argument that she'll in a few moments realise Vanya certainly already knows (what, the Commander of Forces doesn't already have all the access he needs to the Templars under his command?) —

but the last part distracts her, again, and she bumps her shoulder into him and leans there. Tactile affection: it's not just for people she's sleeping with.

“I didn't go to all the trouble of defining ex-Templar for you not to respect it when you made the choice,” she says, stoutly. “I know what you are and I think it was brave. If,” turning his own words back on him, “it makes any difference to you.”

That she had considered his delaying up to that point cowardice doesn't seem contradictory to her; rather, it underlines how brave it was to take a step he was patently afraid of.

It gets a smile from him, quiet but real. "It does. And I know you know the difference, I didn't forget your thoughts on the subject. But I suppose I sometimes think." He looks down, the smile lingering but taking on the hint of a twist. "Well. I suppose if I wanted to be understood, I could have taken a variety of other approaches."

It probably hadn't been the first thing he'd thought of saying when he broke off.

“Tell me,” she invites, guessing precisely that it wasn't. “The thing you think.”

He is quiet for a moment. "I told you that I am not doing it to be admired, or even forgiven. It is not why. But I do get..."

He glances up. It's not that there's anyone with them he would deeply care about overhearing. But he's suddenly aware of the way he's made himself vulnerable, and the instinct to protect himself is still present.

After a moment, he goes on. "It is sometimes a bit tiring. To be so widely misunderstood." The quietest admission.

"Aw. Unnecessary," Siorus says, quiet and wry more than properly scolding. However limited his experience with old people—which is very—he knows they're due a modicum of respect, raving or not. "Are you the famous Mercer?"

He also knows Old Man Mercer is probably not the best thing to say to his face. And he knows that these men would have called his childhood shaman an abomination, too. Mercer very well could be possessed with something. But something keeping to itself and warning people away from danger, that's not so bad.

"Best not to engage," Kitt Chapman tries to say behind them. Siorus looks back at him. (Back and down. But not as far down as he's been looking, among dwarves for most of the decade, so it practically feels like looking up.) Then at Hermione, deferential. Does she want to engage?

A shutter on the sagging house behind the old man shifts and creaks in the wind.

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player plot: the horror of sarrux's pass

Characters

i. making camp

ii. a warning

iii. the village

iv. the descent

v. shit gets real

vi. the lyrium chamber

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Inn

for Gwenaelle (and optionally Strange)

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the pyre.

unfortunately the past tense disease is a chronic illness

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