wilderlogs | THE LAST HOMELY HOUSE ※ RIVENDELL ※ LOG 2

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THE LAST HOMELY HOUSE ※ RIVENDELL ※ LOG 2

THE LAST HOMELY HOUSE
OOC POST
The group is told to take a week of rest in the Last Homely House as the injured and sick among them heal. The Elves promise them that at the end of that week, there will be a great Council, with representatives of several peoples in attendance.

Until then, they can wander the peaceful halls of Rivendell, which are filled with travelers from all over the Wilderlands who are making a rest stop while they travel through the lands of Middle-Earth.

The most notable part of Rivendell is the Hall of Fire, a great feast hall where people can eat, drink, and be merry. This is the great social hall of Rivendell, where the Elves and their visitors share news of lands far beyond, tell stories, or perform music. The music here almost sounds divine, especially when the Elves sing and play, but they're just as eager to hear songs from other lands, so if any of the squad decide to share, they'll be glad to listen.

Some of the hall's guests are a touch more lively than the others, like a party of dwarves staying at Rivendell. Their stories are a mite more adventurous and if you get in their good graces, they might be willing to share some of the beer they brought with them. Listening to their stories or their talk about their craftmanship is a way to get into their good graces.

The Elves love learning, so there are libraries the group is allowed to browse, though they mostly only contain tales of Middle-Earth (for now), though the Elves seem to be collecting what books about other lands they can. These libraries often have viewing stations with telescopes pointing at the sky. The Elves have been almost delighted by the changing skies, enjoying the challenge of trying to understand how the sky has been knitting itself together with the addition of new worlds.

There are also beautiful balconies here, overlooking the gorge and the waters below, and terraced gardens filled with flowers, bushes, and flowering trees. Their rooms are open to the outdoors and have beds that seem grown into the shape of bed-frames instead of carved. The bathrooms actually have running water. The Elves have figured out how to direct the clean running waters of the gorge in primitive indoor plumbing. Water for hot baths has to be heated first in brass cauldrons over coal braziers before getting dumped into the bath.

It's time for the squad to rest, eat, and regroup. If a great Council is going to be called involving them, it might be a good idea to make sure they go into it as a united front, lest decisions about their fate be made for them.

NOTES
✦ Joint log: Since this camp period won't be particularly long, everything will take place in a joint log. Players can post starters with prompts for others and tag into other players' prompts.

✦ Post in actionspam format. Plots and mod-run events in the game are meant to be in actionspam format to keep a brisk pace.

✦ Cursed Weapons/Powers: So they know about how they'll be treated: those with cursed weapons and dark powers will be tolerated by the Elves after entry. While they'll get the same general treatment, the Elves around them may at times seem uncomfortable. Those with cursed weapons will only be distrusted a little, as the weapons themselves will seem more suspicious than their bearers. Those with dark powers or some kind of dark nature (such as being a vampire, Necromancer mage, werewolf, etc.) will be treated with the greatest distrust.

✦ Fairy Swaps: The Elves may be slightly alarmed by the Brugh fairy swaps but get over it easily. However, if the character swapped in is one of the "dark" characters, the swap might be extra cause for alarm. (A potential prompt idea).

✦ Npcing: There will be two npc threads. The "Random Encounters" thread is for characters to have a totally random encounter with an npc. These npcs will be fellow travelers from lands beyond. While they can't give much information about the group's status as Chosen Ones (that will happen during the Council) they can provide info about events in the Wilderlands beyond that may come to affect the squad in their travels. The "Specific Requests" thread will be for more specific issues your character might want to discuss with the Elves. While they'll push any Chosen Ones discussion off to the Council, they're willing to discuss issues with the characters, like if they have questions about having received magic, about being bound to their weapons, etc. The Rivendell Elves have heard a lot of gossip from all over and can potentially provide info based on things they've heard.

✦ Clothes: The group will not yet be fully equipped for their travels (that will happen upon leaving) but everyone will at least be given new clothes since theirs are dirty and sometimes torn. Characters without appropriate travel footwear will also be given light and sturdy boots that will somehow be in their size without their size being asked. They'll also be given basic toiletries like scissors that can be used to cut hair and beards. There are no razors, however, because the Elves don't need to shave so they don't keep them on hand.

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[Revan, seated in an arbor with a book--the elves are very generous about library loans, at least if you're as good at asking nicely as she is--feels the brush of a stranger's mind, one that's aware and purposeful the way the Force-blind aren't. She reaches out to meet the newcomer halfway with mingled greeting and curiosity...and a sudden flash of frustration when she realizes she can't seem to attach words to the mental touch.]

[From up high on the balcony, Mita takes in a sharp breath. A psyker. Or at the very least, a sensitive. Her heart beats wildly in her chest. She could only pray - no, not pray - hope that this was not one of the eldar.]

[Her brows furrowing in concentration - and caution - she focuses on bringing her desired parts to the fore. Formality. Greeting. Conditional respect. A carefully curated distance, tinged by unease. There is a burning curiosity in her, yes, but it is a curiosity too tainted by fear to let show.]

[Revan raises an eyebrow at the sudden shift in the mood that the stranger's choosing to project. Not expecting to find anyone listening, hmm?

She can fake being formal when it's useful, but her innermost self is generally sprawled on the metaphorical couch in comfy clothes tossing popcorn kernels in the air and trying to catch them in her mouth, and she responds with reassurance and a ripple of humor. Relax, all is well.

Shutting the book with a snap, she gets up to follow the mental trace. Unfortunately, the Force has terrible routing algorithms and the straight line path is both upwards and directly through a rose bush. This might take a minute.]

[Mita senses a shift of now motion. Action. Whether it's closer is debatable, but they are definitely on the move. She stands rooted to her position, unsure of whether to bolt or to stay where she is. There is something she doesn't like about her location being connected like this. Paranoia, likely. A paranoia that is not stayed by the ripple of reassurance.]

[She sends a flicker of curiosity and keeps the edge out, an emotional medley of what why move. And then, who.]

[They can't very well have a decent conversation when they can't even use words, now can they? Unable to assuage Mita's nervousness with mere emotion, Revan navigates around the garden beds, hot on the trail. She replies to the curiosity with a mental image of herself, a dark-haired human woman wearing knee-high boots and a plain, unassuming tunic and robes in shades of tan and brown, metallic cylinders hanging at each hip like weapons...which, she realizes too late, is her self-image, not what she's wearing right now, the Rivendell elves being given to finer fabrics and far more embroidery than the Jedi.

Oh well, close enough. Her face is the same.]

[Oh. Mita takes this all in. She's human, which is the important part. Hardly dressed unusually, in the style of psykers and Administratum scribes galaxy-wide. What an unusually focused person. What wouldn't Mita give to have that kind of sense of identity. She's very pretty, she notes.]

[Mita tries to respond in kind, but her mind tastes the self differently. A cloud of cloying incense. Silks, parchment, wet ink and rags. Stars, a wet ribbon of the Warp that winds its way into your mind and out again. A spark of a sound, of bones crunching. Ceremite shrieking-]

[Perhaps that's enough. Mita has enough control to reel it back and leave it at that.]

[All that vision-sharing with Bastila had given Revan a crash course in how to control a mental exchange, though even as she "learned," she now realizes, she had merely been remembering. Besides, her sense of self had been strong enough to survive the combined might of the Jedi Council attempting to crush it. A friendly chat is nothing.

Combat doesn't surprise or shock her. What stops her, figuratively and literally, is the taste of Mita's power, an alien thing that seems separate, dangerous, not the warm immanence of the Force that sings within Revan like her own voice joining a mighty choir when she seeks it. She echoes the unsettling sensation back to Mita, attaching her curiosity, and then offers her own experience. Warmth. Belonging. The weight of a lightsaber hilt in her hand, the snap-hiss of ignition, the hum and glow of the blade as welcome as an old friend. Her own body, moving with the naturalness and inevitability of the tides as the world slows around her. Joy, by turns fierce as Tatooine's twin suns and profound as Manaan's ocean depths. And underneath it all, the peace which passes understanding.]

[Mita feels something wet trickle down her cheeks, and she reaches up to find that she's crying. She puts her hand up to her mouth, covering it. The moment passes, but the warmth of the other's fleeting experiences lingers. If only to live that comfort and sense of belonging for a second - to Mita who had lived her entire life feeling the outcast, having never once been comfortable with herself - that taste was enough.]

[How did it feel when she experienced her visions? The pater donum was the rare reward, the feeling of warmth and contentment that would follow a scrying trance. But she had asked. And Mita will answer.]

[The deep, crushing power of the Immaterium. The second world. The horrors on the other side of the veil. The abyssal nothingness, shadows lurking in the dark. Danger, always danger. Nausea, vomit. Disgust mixed up in your stomach with pride. Vulnerability, the soul and self on display for vultures to eagerly pick at, how tiny you are. How truly tiny. The screams of a Navigator, echoes and echoes and echoes of suffering, picking up and rippling like a disturbance in a pond, thousands and thousands and millions of souls, scratched upon the raw flesh of her flayed brain and scarred forever.]

[Whatever quasi-meditation she had dropped into to summon up her perspective on the Force, having Mita's psychic garbage can of sensation upended on her head knocks Revan right back out of it. An unremembered lifetime of discipline keeps her from breaking contact, but the sudden mental distance is as clear as someone physically recoiling in horror.

Her fault for asking.

Revan shudders, not letting that through to Mita, and forces her mental presence back into equilibrium--apology/solemnity/acceptance/sympathy--locking away her other, less worthy feelings behind her formidable will. It's not the other person's fault. Probably. She hopes.]

Edited 2018-06-16 03:47 (UTC)

[Apology. Apologies and apologies. Mita is slightly regretful, even as she drinks in the sympathy like a starving woman in the desert at the same time. She sends some of her reassurance back with a little petulant sting of well you asked that's more angry at herself than her, as shriveled and atrophied a thing as it is, barely resisting the urge to close the distance again.]

[How is it that this woman's relationship with the Immaterium is so peaceful, so full of understanding? Had she embraced it wholly? Perhaps those of Chaos felt like this instead, so submerged in its depths it wrapped around to the other side? Mita wanted this. She desperately wanted this.]

[Even the dark side, in those moments when it surges around her in response to her anger or despair, doesn't feel like what's she's just experienced secondhand. (Fortunately, fortunately secondhand.) The dark side howls promises of savage power or whispers plots of exquisite revenge, always wearing the guise of a friend as it sets its snares. Whatever power this stranger calls upon doesn't even pretend to care about the souls who touch it.

Revan quashes the desire to write this all off as a bad job and go back to her book, and after a moment, she continues in the direction of the mental trace, sending a sensation that might as well be a raised index finger. Just a sec. She rounds the side of a trellis graced by a spray of blooms she doesn't recognize, emerging from the gardens onto a stretch of patio overlooked by a balcony. Her mental and visual impressions converge on the blond-haired woman standing at the railing a good five meters above Revan.

Figures.

Triumph evaporates into irritation. The image of a staircase, metal and utilitarian. It morphs quickly into stone and wood and the art nouveau flourishes of the elves, with a sense of questioning attached.

Where the hell are the stairs?]

[Mita, who's been staring blankly ahead during this mental conversation, blinks. She can only offer a series of snapshots from her memory, which is completely useless considering she came there from a different route. Hallways, more identical hallways. Wood on skin. Apology. Even her attempt to make a mental map failed in her initial rush to avoid the elves. The other must be close, then.]

[Eh, screw it. A breezy sense of I've got this suffuses the mental connection.

Stuffing her book under her belt, Revan stands directly below the balcony, taking a moment to gauge the distance. Doable, even here, after a glance around to make sure no one's watching...she jumps. With an assist from the Force, she gets high enough to catch the edge of the balcony, and then it's no problem at all to pull herself up the rest of the way.]

Hello. [Says the human woman in elf clothes who's now sitting on the railing, radiating smugness physically and psychically.]

[Mita backs away sharpish when she sees the hands suddenly appear on the edge of the balcony, raising her own hand in readyness. Although for what, she's not entirely sure. There's a little flash of surprise as she lowers her hand. A psychic connection isn't necessary to see that - it might have been easier to hide in that case to be honest. It's clear on her face.]

Hello. [Mita straightens up, wiping it away and raising her chin.]

[Revan, who hasn't had the benefit of a mental picture, glances Mita up and down, eyes catching almost unnoticeably on the spot where her arm should be. Amputated limbs are normal where Revan's from--so normal there's a name for the specific technique of lopping 'em off with a lightsaber--but it's weird to see a missing arm that hasn't been replaced with a prosthetic. The merest flicker of surprise (entirely untainted by disgust or contempt) flashes across her mind, but largely her mental presence reflects her physical one--friendly curiosity laced with self-satisfaction.]

I'm Revan. Welcome to Rivendell.

[Without fully realizing she's doing it, Revan turns on the charm as she hops off the railing, her smile bright enough to read by.]

[Mita isn't easily capable of charm. Too stiff in her manners, too proud, too secretly insecure. She's hardly a social imbecile, but being resigned to the fact that most would hate her despite any charm she could muster up makes it a skill hardly-practiced and barely-used.]

[Which is why Revan's smile hits her hard. It's not often a smile like that is turned her way. Mita is - is suspicious that her mental presence matches her physical one so perfectly, but she is ever paranoid.]

I am Mita Ashyn. It - erm, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Even in a place such as this.

[The little erm comes from her noticing how close she is. Mita takes a little step back to make room for Revan, otherwise they would be very comfortably close on this balcony.]

[If Revan wanted to, she could lie without so much as a ripple in her aura, but right now she's perfectly sincere. Everything's fine!

And yes, maybe she didn't fully think through the personal space implications of Operation Balcony, but Mita's cute and Revan is celibate, not dead, so she's not going to regard this result as a mark against her planning abilities.

She looks around the portion of Rivendell visible from the balcony, taking in the graceful buildings, lush gardens, and general aura of serenity, and then looks back at Mita, curiosity shading into puzzlement.]

"A place like this?"

[Maybe Mita's more into Rendili Industrial architecture.]

[The instinctive hatred runs deep, a vein that stretches all the way down into her soul. Her expression turns sour, disgusted.]

Its inhabitants cannot be trusted, and neither can their generosity. I don't know what these Eldar have in mind, but this place is better off left in ashes.

[Revan blinks at the disgust that washes over her from Mita, so blatant and shameless that she's taken aback. There are certainly racists where she's from, but most clothe their hatred in more civilized garb, at least until they've sounded out their audience. The closest she's ever seen to this is the contempt Czerka Corporation representatives have for the natives of Tatooine and Kashyyyk, and that does not put Mita in illustrious company.]

I've sensed no duplicity from the elves, and this place is strong in the light side...can't you feel it?

[Of course, she hadn't picked up any duplicity from the Jedi Council either, the Enclave at Dantooine is every bit as peaceful, and neither had stopped the Jedi Council from tearing apart her mind and then lying to her face about it.

Still, those were unique circumstances, unlikely to be duplicated here.]

Of course you would sense no duplicity. They are masters of the psychic arts. They would enslave you to their will sooner than call humans equals. But the light side... What I felt - what you felt - is that what you call it?

[Her confused words say no. Her fingers twitch as if she's unsure of what they want to do, but she desperately wants to know more about that peaceful sense of being, the warm immanence. She can feel no such thing here, and she feels blind as a blunt, stumbling her way through fields of invisible senses she has no idea of.]

The light side of the Force, yes.

[Revan happily seizes on a discussion of the Force rather than one about racism, or the even more uncomfortable concomitant one about her own resistance to mental manipulation.]

What you feel when you step outside your own desires.

[It's almost a question. Has Mita ever felt that? The Force moves in everyone, or should, but whatever that psychic touch was that Mita echoed to her felt nothing like it.]

In all my scryings, I have never felt this. I have never read of it, either. And what do you mean when I step outside my own desires?

[Mita's face grows a little hot, even a little offended. Of course she's stepped outside her own desires before, what does that even mean?]

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THE LAST HOMELY HOUSE ※ RIVENDELL ※ LOG 2

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