MOD PLOT: The Earth Trembled in Holy Terror

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Riftwatch returns to Nevarra to look into Curious Happenings and gets a little more Curious Happening than they bargained for.
WHEN: Guardian 9:51
WHERE: Nevarra City, the Necropolis, and beyond.
NOTES: If you have any questions, ask on the OOC post!

I. THE SURFACE

It's taken years for the Mortalitasi to cleanse Nevarra City of red lyrium-maddened undead, clear the streets of corpses old and new, and restore the dead to their necropoli, Grand and less so. But finally, citizens are beginning to return to the city. Wagons and carts are gradually filling the streets, the sounds of construction are everywhere, and a few enterprising traders have rushed ahead to set up shop—in makeshift stalls and tents, or in storefronts that may or may not have been theirs before—to corner the returning market. It's given this grand old city a strangely frontier edge, at least for the moment. Riftwatch isn't staying in the city proper, just passing through on their way to the Necropolis, but in the few hours they might spend there, they might get a general sense of how things stand in the city:

• The dragon damage to the royal palace (ironically, the Castrum Draconis) is mostly repaired, and Pentaghast soldiers and servants are making a show of preparing it for Queen Aurelia's return, ensuring it and the area around it is decked out in Pentaghast banners.
  
• The many ornate statues of royals, generals, and various heroic ancestors around the city are being restored not just by the servants of nobility in the wealthiest districts but by groups of returning locals hoisting their neighborhood's namesake princess or dragon hunter back onto their plinth.
  
• As the banners on the walls and the palace make clear, the Pentaghasts consider Nevarra City theirs. Van Markham statues are mostly being left in whatever state they're found in, but the long history between the families means it's not always clear cut—more than one statue's re-raising leads to a heated argument about whether its subject had more Pentaghast or Van Markham blood, or whether marrying into House Pentaghast counts if the marriage was short-lived, etc.
  
• In a few cases, this conflict seems less superficial: here and there but particularly in the noble districts, someone attempting to move back in will be met by angry accusations that they are actually Van Markham supporters, clandestinely or changing sides now to get their property back. It's hard to tell how many of these are fair accusations vs. opportunities to get an upper hand in old grudges between neighbors or rivals, but at least a few end in arrest by city guards or Pentaghast soldiers.
  
• Because while signs of community are everywhere—tearful greetings between long-separated neighbors, sharing supplies and sturdy roofs—so is opportunism. Squatters gleefully occupying a mansion, shopkeepers returning to find someone has already taken over their storefront. The mostly makeshift city guard seems to be operating at a constant jog trying to keep things reasonably orderly.
  
• Every so often clearing construction or opening a basement reveals a few straggling undead, calling Mortalitasi out to collect them for cleansing and restoration.

II. THE NECROPOLIS

Just outside the city lies the Grand Necropolis, a mausoleum that's stately but reasonably-sized surface structures have nothing on the layered maze of cavernous underground chambers that house ages of Nevarran dead. As invited guests, Riftwatchers will be housed in an assortment of chambers, most decorated with skeletal imagery, a few shared with occupied burial vaults. But the majority of the dead are on display, mummified and dressed as they were in life, possessed by spirits who shamble through the motions of life in tableaux within elaborate facades mimicking homes.

In the half-day they have to kill before the expedition that brought them here, there are a few things to do besides wander around gawking:

• Lend a hand with rewrapping and costuming the mummified undead who are still being restored after their misuse in the attack on the city.
  
• Step in to provide an objective outside perspective on disagreements between the Mourn Watch and mortalitasi loyalists from both the Pentaghast and Van Markham camps, each endeavoring to have their dead out-honor the other side's via more prominent and heroic placement in various tableaux.
  
• Meet with the Mourn Watch to discuss what precautions they're taking to prevent future problems with unhoused spirits, such as those previously funneled into cities by the Venatori during attacks, and press them to prioritize the matter.
  
• Tag along to assist with the routine outbreaks of unruly spirits — or wander into one inadvertently and deal with it alone.

The true purpose of Riftwatch's visit, however, is to aid in the investigation of the mysterious corridors discovered and cleared of a fade rift last time they dropped by. While there's no particular expectation of violence, the Necropolis' overseers have decided what they've found there might in fact be out of their wheelhouse — or at least of benefit to Riftwatch, whom they owe a few favors. There's no expectation of violence, so there's no need for anyone to remain behind. Along the long walk — more of a hike, really, up hills of sand and down winding cliffside paths to reach the most convenient entrance to the corridor in question — their guides describe what they've found so far in enough detail that those listening in and familiar with Riftwatch's other work may guess that the Old God temple structure they're talking about, which they're pleased to report they've batted several groups of Venatori interlopers away from in the meantime, is actually a gate,

Their hosts will lead the way deep into the Necropolis, along the same route they traveled before. This time they continue down the elf-made hall, through which they will find that the doors along the hall previously glimpsed past the rift have now been forced open. Most lead to partial rooms ending in rough stone walls, but one overlaps with half an ornate doorway. This leads into a much larger, but partially collapsed elvhen space. Among the ruins, Riftwatchers will spot the crumbling remains of mosaics and large statues that might once have been some sort of bird.

A passage through the rubble (cleared by the Mortalitasi, they'll explain) leads upwards, the Old God structure apparently layered on top of the elvhen site. As they climb up through the floor into the Old God structure, they'll hear a clamor of sound, amplified and echoing too wildly off the walls for its location or nature to be identified though the obvious guess is that something's happening to the colleagues they left behind. The Mortalitasi lead the way toward the strange (gate-like) chamber, which is not a straightforward process. The halls are a maze, and the veilfire torches seem to be positioned to cast confusing shadows and shifting reflections off the onyx of the walls at angles that somehow always flare light directly into eyes. Combined with the noise, the effect is disorienting, maddening.

When they finally reach the central chamber, those in the front of the group will quickly discover several things that despite all the chaotic noise of battle still ringing off the walls, the Mortalitasi left to keep an eye on the chamber are already dead; that this space is definitely one of the Seven Gates; and that the Venatori are just completing the ritual to open it.

As they cross the threshold there is a sudden rush of energy, like the air being sucked from a room though no physical breeze stirs, a sensation as if a great soundless bell has pealed vibrates through walls and bones, and then anyone who has not already stepped into the Gate chamber vanishes.

If your character had already crossed the threshold into the Gate, proceed to Part III. If they had not, proceed to Part IV. Any character can be in either group, but you have to choose.


III. THE TEMPLE

The force of the ritual is stunning, but there isn't time to be stunned. Almost before the sensation has faded, things are happening. In the center of the ritual chamber, a rift tears open onto perfect blackness, tendrils of Blight beginning to reach out of it and into the room. Some of the Venatori spot Riftwatch's entrance and lift staves or draw weapons, moving to intercept.

At the same time, a group of armored men enter from a passage across the chamber. Some might spot that their plate does not resemble the familiar shapes of Venatori armor, but it won't take any feat of perception to guess they're not Tevinter's reinforcements when they begin attacking the Venatori. A chaotic battle ensues, the elves—as it will become clear they are—intent on killing the Venatori but not hesitating to defend themselves against any attack by Riftwatch, real or perceived, and the Venatori fending off all comers.

As soon as the last Venatori falls the elves depart as quickly as they arrived, disappearing back through a nearly invisible door without a word to Riftwatch. In the aftermath, Riftwatch agents will find themselves with a few things to investigate:

• The Riftwatch agents who were standing behind them a moment ago, who have just vanished. The portion of the temple they just passed through to enter the Gate chamber is now gone, replaced with a similar but not identical section of corridors. It's also different in that it doesn't contain any of the Riftwatch agents the other bit did. They are nowhere to be found.
  
  
• The elves. Agents can find the almost seamless door they came and went by, but the passage leads to a set of crumbling stairs and a hole punched into the elvhen space below, where an eluvian is found. The few dead elves left behind lack vallaslin and wear armor that those present in Arlathan (or, years ago, in the Arbor Wilds) will recognize as an ancient elvhen style.
  
  
• The open Gate. It appears stable. As with the Gate seen in the Crossroads, the Blight is somehow contained within a perfect circle a few feet around the rift. It would be wise to stay outside that boundary. The floor beneath it has patterned channels, repositories for collecting blood, and other features similar to those noted at the Temple of Dumat, all freshly used.
  
  
• The dead Venatori have left behind notes and instructions on conducting the ritual they've just done, which corroborate what Riftwatch learned in Arlathan. Unfortunately they haven't left behind any extra materials that would allow Riftwatch to close the Gate, although review of their notes and comparison of the containers left behind suggest that they did bring extra artifacts that now seem to be missing.
  
  
• The temple housing the Gate is dedicated to the old god Zazikel, Dragon of Chaos. (Some might best remember him for the time his former head priest, the Madman of Chaos, flew the undead corpse of a dragon around Nevarra City several Satinalias ago.) Fittingly, the labyrinthine passages and distortions of sound and light continue throughout the structure, making losing one's way—and one's temper—a very real concern for even the best scouts.
  
  
• The elvhen temple beneath. This does not appear to be another case of veil-thinning effects pulling pieces of buildings out of place, or the necropolis's own strange habit of shuffling rooms about. Some walls and pillars of the two sites are continuous structures or even single pieces of stone, with only the style of decoration changing, making clear that they were built this way, the old upon the older. Sharp-eyed explorers will find patterns in the decorative mosaics that resemble wings, and statues intact enough to be identified as owls. One scrap of an inscription mentions "Dirthamen's shadow," and, "Lethanavir." Dedicated scholars of the elvhen gods (or those who go digging through libraries later) will recognize these as indicating a temple to Falon'Din.

IV. THE DEPTHS

Those beyond the threshold of the vanishing chamber will find themselves in sudden quiet and sudden darkness, save any light they provide themselves. The door that led deeper into the temple now opens into blackness that investigation reveals to be a cavern. There's no light to follow out, and though there is airflow, it seems to shift direction rather than come from a single source.

No magic button for putting the chamber back where it belongs presents itself. Attempts to reach the surface through the sending crystals only work intermittently, and there's nothing anyone can do to reach or help them anyway. Journeying through the caverns takes a few days (though it may feel longer), with no clear evidence that anyone is heading in the right direction. A path that seems at first to be heading up may instead head down; many promising routes end in dead ends. Aside from staring at the walls by firelight and endlessly walking, those seeking a way out might need to:

• Seek out water sources, most urgently. Some limited water might be found dripping from the ceiling at the outset of the journey, and just as things begin to get desperate, they'll be able to find a flowing stream of fresh, clear water flowing from a spring.
  
• Scrounge or hunt for food — the most accessible items being nugs and mushrooms, though the deeper they'll go the less familiar the fungus they'll encounter, including some identical to safe varieties that will instead cause hallucinations.
  
• Find a way to record the ancient dwarven symbols on the walls, not quite understandable even to those who can read more recent dwarven texts.

While few if any among Riftwatch's number may be familiar enough with Shaperate records to name what they've found themselves within, observation alone will allow the conclusion that it somehow feels alive, especially when they reach caverns threaded with of exposed raw lyrium veins that slowly pulse with light as if in time with a heartbeat. Upon entering this area their sending crystals, already malfunctioning, begin broadcasting anything they say through the lyrium veins in the walls, surrounding them with their own voices.

In time they also find the heart, a stone-encrusted node of lyrium suspended in a cavern that, on examination, has a spine and a ribcage larger than any dragon's (though only so much larger). They'll only have a half-hour or so to investigate, however, before a person with the build of a dwarf, indistinguishable beneath crown-to-toe nugskin armor save for glowing blue eyes, arrives and gets their attention across the language barrier.

Though armed with unfamiliar weaponry, their new companion shows no inclination to harm them (unless threatened), though they do seem eager to get everyone away from the heart and may slap a hand away from touching anything. Riftwatch would be forgiven for thinking the dwarf intends to guide them to the surface out of the goodness of their lyrium-imbued heart, but they're led instead to a cavern where two other nearly identical dwarves are facing down an arcing stone protrusion across a chasm that's laced with red-tinged black instead of blue. They quickly make it understood that they're trying to remove this section of the rock — an emergency amputation. The creature they're protecting is not so very large, but there are only the three of them acting on its behalf, armed with pick axes and small lyrium explosives, and they're able to communicate with pointing and a quickly-agreed upon language of thumbs-up and thumbs-down that they need help:

• Use magic to pummel the stone or fire to burn back the encroaching veins of Blight.
  
• Help them place their explosives into hard-to-reach crevices, invent creative ways to hold them in place, and rappel around the edges of the rocky limb to get at it from new angles.
  
• Grab a pickaxe and get pickaxing.

And do all of this while dealing with earth-rumbling tremors and the occasional outright visible movement of the stone, as if it's struggling, all of which can only be calmed by the song hummed by their mysterious dwarven companions. As the work progresses they'll become more insistent that their assistants join in. Once the stone is connected by slivers of what it once was, the guardian who fetched them from the ribcage beckons them to cross over it to the other side, where they can watch as the two who remain behind detonate the last explosives to drop the arc into the chasm below.

The one who crossed with them will lead them from there through a maze of connecting caves, outward and upward, sometimes squeezing the largest of them through perilously tight squeezes, until they reach a point where the occasional ancient carving in the stone walls bear signs of elven and then Nevarran influence. The dwarf will decline to go any further. But from there only an hour's more exploration will allow them to emerge into a dusty chamber where a wandering, helpful Necropolis spirit can assist them in reuniting with the living.

Comments

astrid | scouting (i, ii, iv)

[brennvin]

i. the surface

During the excavation, one of the basements has opened onto shambling undead downstairs, and the construction workers have called for help. The Mortalitasi’s currently over on the other side of the city, though, and they’re a little short-staffed what with the current troubles, and Riftwatch happens to be nearby while en route to the Grand Necropolis, so why not enlist them to corral the undead and get them safely rounded up —

Why not indeed.

Astrid’s standing in the street, fidgeting, looking intensely uncomfortable. Mouth twisting, biting her lip. She doesn’t want to go down those stairs and face whatever’s down there.

“Um,” she says, and, “I’ve never, like, seen a zombie before?”

ii. the necropolis

Mages, politics, the undead: this is not the hunter’s forté.

They’re in the middle of a Riftwatch meeting with Mourn Watch, discussing precautions for the undead — wards? magical barriers? — but she lingers at the back of the room, shifting her weight from foot to foot, like some truant student not paying attention in class, next to a fellow pseudo-classmate.

“When d’you think we can get out of here?” she might whisper to you at some point; or, if pressed to offer an idea for a solution in containing the dead: “I dunno. Booby traps? Snares baited with… whatever spirits like?”

iv. the depths

Astrid’s used to being atop the mountains. Not, strictly speaking, inside them. Still, scouting means she helps the group work their way across crevasses and treacherous ground, eagle-eyed. She thumbs her crystal every so often, checking for a response like an automatic tic, never hearing anything back.

After a while, she finds herself claustrophobic without fresh open air or sight of the sky, but she keeps hunting for food. Her arrows finding the throat of a nug across some cavernous hall, or the woman squinting at a mushroom, examining its stem and taking spore prints and looking quizzical, trying to remember which one’s which.

When they reach the lyrium heart, she goes completely stock-still. Stares at it in the eerie blue light. Spine, ribcage, what looks like bones wending into the walls of the mountain itself —

Astrid’s legs wobble and she sits down abruptly, shaken. She’s usually laughing, smiling, cheerful and perpetually unserious, but there’s something unexpectedly somber to the woman now.

“Where the fuck are we?” she asks, her voice funereally quiet. Her next words have the sound of old rehearsed repetition, the beginning of a story: “Even mountains had a heart, once.”

wildcard.

( feel free to wing anything at me, or hmu @ quadrille on plurk/discord if you wanna brainstorm! )

clarisse.

[brennvin]

They’re capable, good with weapons, and so it had been natural enough to let the two women take the next hunting rota while the rest of their party paused to rest for a while. They need food and drink, and both are technically obtainable here. Astrid’s got steady feet and a good sense of direction, even underground, and tends to remembers the twists and turns of the tunnels they’ve been taking.

The oppressive darkess has been getting to her, though. One hand permanently latched around a torch, only able to see by ripples of firelight on the walls, the tunnels sometimes too narrow and too close; they occasionally reach a dead end and have to stop and turn and make their way around. The mountain sits heavy above them, all that weight and stone.

“I miss the sun,” she says suddenly, blurting out the admission. “And the sky.”

[laruetheday]

Clarisse wouldn't ever say this out loud, she's not the type, but she's really grateful to have Astrid with her right now. She trusts Astrid, who seems steady despite the darkness and almost always remembers which way they should go. Clarisse, meanwhile, feels like she's stumbling around like an idiot. Not literally stumbling, but all these tunnels look exactly the same to her. And it's hard to hunt in the dark, go figure.

Astrid's sudden admission is surprising, because she's seemed to be doing okay so far. Or maybe Clarisse just hasn't been paying enough attention, too wrapped up in her own anxiety. In retrospect, it's probably the second one.

"You ever done anything like this before?" she asks quietly. "Back home, some people do stuff like this for fun." Dudes with GoPros squeezing into holes underground. Freaks.

[brennvin]

“For fun?” Astrid repeats, mildly aghast. Simply can’t imagine it: all that darkness, stale air, cut off from the sky. “Not really, no. We build into the mountains for shelter, a bit, but not too far in: you still need fresh air, you still need to get out if the rock collapses on you. Any dealings with dwarves I’ve had, it’s not been this deep.

“Maybe some idiot here or there likes caving, but mostly not. Like, you always run the risk a tunnel might connect to the Deep Roads and then you’re gonna get eaten by darkspawn.”

Her gaze is still locked ahead, trying to follow the twists and turns of the path, the dim shadows surrounding them. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned darkspawn.

[laruetheday]

"Oh," Clarisse says, nodding in agreement even though Astrid's not looking her way and probably wouldn't be able to make it out even if she was, "same thing happens where I'm from, too. Monsters find someone who accidentally crossed into their territory and you never see them again. Of course, most people where I'm from don't believe in monsters, so they think the person just got lost or something."

For a few seconds, talking about it, she feels a bit better. That's one thing their group hasn't had to deal with yet down here, darkspawn. Then she sobers again, thinking about how much that would suck. Down here, in the dark...

She kicks a small rock and sends it clattering against the nearest tunnel wall.

[brennvin]

Astrid listens to the rock bouncing, tries to build a sense of the cavern shape from its sound, and fails. Echolocation, not a strength.

“I don’t like bow and arrow down here either,” she adds, because if they’ve opened the box of complaints, she’s gonna companionably grouse. “There’s not enough space.”

Sometimes they’re able to shoot a nug or over-sized lizard down the tunnel, but a lot of the time she’s having to use her hunting knife and get up close and personal. Her free hand hovers near the sheath.

And perhaps it’s because she’s now so focused on listening, on craning her attention wondering what might be sitting out there beyond the feeble light of their torches, that she stops paying quite so close attention to her footing. It’s the stupidest banal thing: the ground falls away too-steep, an unexpected slope which rolls her ankle at the wrong angle and Astrid loses her balance, yelping a “fuck!” as she wobbles and then


falls. Her torch goes rolling away from her and she goes sliding down a slope until there’s an even sharper drop, the pitch-black world spinning, then sudden disorienting impact as her shoulder hits a wall, scraped raw. She slides down, wedged into what feels like a crevasse around her, heart pounding, ankle throbbing in white-hot pain. Fuck.

[laruetheday]

Astrid yells as she loses her balance and disappears over the side of the slope, but the silence afterward is so much worse. Clarisse hisses, "Shit," peers over the side, but it's pitch black down there. There's a hot, prickling panic on the back of her neck that's fighting to spread, to take over every part of her. Her fingertips are bloodless gripping the rock ledge.

"Astrid?" she yells down, and doesn't wait for a response before she plants first one boot and then the other onto the slope and starts making her way down it. Much more slowly than she'd like to move, but if she slips, that's two of them hurt. Or worse—

"No," Clarisse rebukes herself. Shut up, shut the fuck up. Nobody is dying down here.

"Astrid!" Her own voice echoes back to her.

[brennvin]

“Here!” Astrid shouts back, head craned up. She can’t see anything, the torch vanished, but she can hear Clarisse’s voice bouncing around somewhere up there and getting closer.

She tries to move and clamber back up to her feet, pushing herself up using the sides of the gulch, but her ankle crumples the moment she tries to put weight on it. Her fingers grope for her own leg. A tentative touch delivers a stab of pain, but she doesn’t feel wet blood, so that’s a good sign. Probably.

“Think I busted my leg,” she calls out, “but I’m not like… bleeding and there’s no bones, so I’m… okay? I think?”

She’s still stuck at the bottom here with no way up by herself, but it could be worse. She’s internally kicking herself for the carelessness. Growing up on a mountain, they always teach you to look where you’re stepping, to test the path, to never trust the ground beneath you because the snow could slough off and hide a deep crack in the stone. But she’d gotten bored in that endless dark, and stopped checking.

[laruetheday]

The reply she gets makes Clarisse's muscles feel all loose with relief. She pauses in her climb down, breathing deep before continuing on. She moves a little easier now, finding footholds in the jagged rock despite its cold, slightly slick surface. Climbing is muscle memory, it's just that she's unfamiliar with the layout of this rock. Occasionally she has to shift to one side to avoid an outcropping.

Astrid's lucky she's not bleeding out, that a busted leg is the only thing wrong.

A minute later she arrives at the spot where Astrid is leaning heavily against the rock. The torchlight Clarisse brings with her sends flickering light over the other woman as she tries to assess her condition.

"Shit," she breathes, more to herself. Then, "Did you hit your head?"

[brennvin]

The torchlight as it bobs into view is finally a relief from all that numbing darkness: seeing Clarisse’s face cast in flickering red and oranges, bringing comforting illumination with her. Astrid’s expression, tight with fear, relaxes slightly at being able to see again, although her dirt-smeared face is still strained with pain.

“Don’t think so. I’m good at tucking and rolling in a fall. But—”

But she’s favouring one ankle, and evidently can’t stand on it. Sprained or outright fractured, she can’t tell the difference yet. Her elbow is scraped bloody, but that’s the lesser problem.

She’s stuck a little ways below Clarisse, down a steep stretch of rock with few handholds. She stretches up a palm, trying to see how far she can reach above her. Clarisse is taller than her, more muscled than her. “Can you haul me up?”

surface

[armd]

Abby knows that look — just because you grow up in a world that's already overrun doesn't mean you're fine with that. Most people aren't and do exactly what Astrid is doing now when they know they're about to walk into a building they're not familiar with: stand and delay, make awkward conversation. She's got one ear on the conversation they're about to have and the other ear on the building across the road, the one with stairs that lead down to 'zombies', bodies that move. It's not that Abby wants to go down there herself more that she knows she can and somebody has to.

"It's gonna look gross," she says. Trying to take the sting out of the reveal. Her gaze turns to the building. "Old and falling apart, and angry."

[brennvin]

“Okay. Yeah,” Astrid says, filing away that warning. She has a strong stomach for so much — hot animal entrails, fresh kills, even sky burials, even shoving a knife into someone if she has to — but there’s a difference between the freshly-dead and the rotting. A perversion of the natural order; something hanging on long after it should’ve moved on, should’ve fed the grass and beasts by now.

“Were you here when it happened?” she asks, still stalling.

It’s a reasonable assumption, maybe. The other woman’s an experienced Riftwatcher and speaks with firm familiarity; and Astrid knows, vaguely, that this organisation was Involved Somehow when Nevarra first fell.

[armd]

"Nah," Abby says on the exhale, looking to her. She adjusts to realising Astrid doesn't know where she came from with well-practiced ease — and a shrug. "The world I came from was full of infected. Zombies. It was stuck in a sort of permanent Blight."

It sounds like a big deal but it really isn't. It's actually been a long time since she's had to deal with any kind of walking body but her own doesn't forget how to anticipate it. There's a part of her that wants to run, there always has been. Maybe it's like that for everybody but over time you get better at ignoring it and standing your ground. Is that bravery, or stupidity?

[brennvin]

“—Oh. Huh. Shit.”

It’s a startling statement which takes her aback for a moment; she’d arrived at Riftwatch too late for that Fade-crafted version of Seattle, too late to really know Ellie either. Seeing Abby striding purposefully around the Gallows, she’d just thought she was a rifter, but: someone who looked like they belonged.

Astrid’s head cocks, processing that information. Suddenly the prospect of a handful of left-over undead doesn’t seem quite so bad compared to a permanent Blight. At the very least, she shouldn’t be whining about it.

“So this must be like… nothing, for you.”

[armd]

"I wish."

If it were nothing she'd be at ease right now but instead Abby feels each point where her teeth are pressing against each other on one side. She doesn't bother to try and relax her jaw, that won't make it stop. "They're so unpredictable, that's the worst part about them. Getting too comfortable about killing them is what'll get you killed, every time." Not to freak Astrid out, but Abby would rather have her freaked out than at ease.

She looks at her then, looks her over. "You're gonna want to tuck in or take off anything it could grab and hold you by."

Don't point out her braid though.

[brennvin]

A long blank stare back and a twist of Astrid’s expression which resolves mostly into a muttered “ah fuck”, and then she obediently works on readjusting her clothing. Unwinds a neckerchief and some loose dangling thread with some weird blobby carved figurine hanging from the front of her jacket, and drops her satchel of supplies and arrows next to a crumbling statue.

Her hair is more of an issue: the long messy braid, the various ornaments tied into it. Her fingers run along some beads; it’s gonna take forever to untangle them, so she just goes for her hunting knife and snips the lock of hair loose, tucking the beads away into her bag. She’ll tie it back in again later. She pinches a feather loose, stuffs that in the bag too. None of it cost a lot. Her decoration and accessories are less like rich jewellery; more like a magpie having picked up shiny things along the way.

Then she undoes her braid, to recapture all those loose stragglers and bind it back tighter, neater, her movements quick and brisk, and then she stuffs the braid down the neck of her shirt and cocks a questioning eyebrow at Abby. A combined how about you? and is that good?

the depths

[reparo]

A waterskin is thrust in front of Astrid's face at this point, the arm that thrust it belonging to a similarly-awed Hermione. She's assuming it's a mix of thirst, hunger, and the depression of marching into the mountain that's made the woman sit.

Or, alternatively, the big blue glowy rock. Thedas never ceases to astound her, surprising her with new things to discover for someone as out of place as a Rifter. (In terms of the Riftwatch, she thinks, she still counts as new.)

"It does look like a heart," she murmurs, hearing the rehearsed line. "Made of lyrium?"

[brennvin]

“Is it lyrium?” Astrid echoes, still a little too thunderstruck to fit those particular pieces together. She accepts the waterskin absentmindedly and simply holds it between her hands, staring.

She’s only seen lyrium inert before, carved out of the mountain and turned into commodity for trade; a particularly weird mineral but still a mineral, at the end of the day. Not this humming pulse around them like a heartbeat, like a song. There’s a prickling unease shivering its way down her shoulderblades, telling her: They shouldn’t be here. They don’t belong here.

She finally looks at the waterskin, and takes a deep draught from it. Wiping her mouth clean and then glancing over at Hermione, she continues: “Korth devised a plan that he might never be betrayed by his own heart, by taking it out and hiding it where no soul would ever dare search for it. This feels like…”

Her voice tapers off. She doesn’t want to say it out loud.

[reparo]

She would more than agree - they very much do not belong down here, and maybe there is something in the light and the stone heart and the silence/sound of the space that feels -

"Sacred?" She feels a little silly saying it like that, because faith is not a thing that Hermione feels much of. She puts faith in her friends, she has put her faith in knowledge and justice, but gods?

It does not help that Thedosian belief systems are a bit beyond her, still. Everything is complex, rich in history, shrouded in mystery and suffering. As a rifter, all she can do is approach it with curiosity and show respect, despite the differences with her own world, because to fight against this would be to court madness.

She is so bloody tired, though.

"Like being inside a living cathedral," she murmurs, and picks this moment to join Astrid on the ground. Rest her legs. Draw her knees to her chest and look up-up-up. "Who is Korth?"

[brennvin]

It’s one of the more bizarre places to stop for a breather, but it’s better than running around in this eerie haunted space with loud voices, disrupting this somber underground silence. A living cathedral.

“Korth the Mountain-Father,” Astrid explains, finally relaxing enough to stretch her legs out in front of her. “Oldest and strongest of my gods. The Avvar live in the Frostholds, a huge mountain range, so that tells you how important he is— like, he’s sort of everywhere. He carries the whole mountain on his back. He hid his heart away. But it’s myths, y’know? Just stories, bigger than life, not something to be taken literally, ‘cos mountains don’t have hearts. Except…”

She gestures, helplessly, to the massive glowing organ in front of them.

[reparo]

Except, indeed. Hermione lets out a tiny little laugh, not quite as hysterical as it would've been three months ago. She's asked Astrid about the Avvar before, and doesn't forget out of disinterest - but there is so much to absorb still! Plus, from time to time she gets the impression that Astrid enjoy telling her stories of her people, and she would not deny her that joy either.

"I can understand the awe. If I were more faithful myself, I'd point out that a lot of tales carry a semblance of truth to them. If I were more of a cynic, I'd say that it was possibly a molehill turned into a mountain over time, in people's memories and their imaginations. Realistically, I'm pretty sure that's lyrium."

Still, she lifts both shoulders. She can understand the awe. "Makes you feel like we've reached the heart of the mountain, if that's possible."