The Princess and the Tower

[sorcerous]

WHO Anyone who wants to rescue Sansa! Also Loki and Sansa.
WHAT Rescuing Sansa from the Ice Tower
WHERE Upstream on the river.
WHEN This IC day/the next IC day
NOTES I'll be setting up subthreads for the ice maze, the guardians outside the tower, and the stairs inside the tower. The group will start out all together in the ice maze and then be separated into two, I believe. The groups are (correct me if I'm wrong) Cho, Sif and Faolan, and Giles, Helios, Kay and Bakura. It's not too late to participate! If you would like to, hit up the plurk linked in the below paragraph.

The general sequence of events can pretty much be assumed to be: they get through the ice maze, they get through the guardians, they get up the stairs. If anyone would in particular like your group to be the winner, that's cool with me, go ahead and jump in here, otherwise it'll just be whoever manages to RP to that part first.

Comments

Re: THE ICE MAZE

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Faolan held himself very still as he sat in Cho's bag. He was very tempted by the food she had packed, but that would clue people in that he was there. And that was a bad idea. So he just looked at it.

He wanted to help, but Sif said he was too little. He'd show them. He was little, but he was crafty! He could follow along with everyone! He would help! He wanted to find Alayne too! And play with Loki!

[tenuefarfalla]

They began the ice maze together, all of them, one huge and determined group. And then a wall of ice had formed out of nowhere, cutting between Cho and Bakura as neat as a windowshade. She frowned at it, knocking on the cold surface. "Guys? Can you hear me?" But she got no reply. Well, that was that. Just her and Sif.

With one last reluctant look at the new wall, Cho hugged her cloak tighter around herself and pressed her lips into a thin line. "I guess we keep going. If there is magic here that wants to keep us apart, we'd waste our time fighting it." And, all in all, she could do worse for a partner through the maze.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Faolan poked his head out. Of the bag. They had stopped. Were they there already?

[tenuefarfalla]

The extra weight hadn't really caught her attention. After the last venture, Cho had set about expanding the interior of a leather satchel, adding lightening spells and stabilizing spells and a whole host of other magical protection and benefit. One little animal didn't really factor into anything. But the furry nose peeking out, that caught her attention.

"What the--" She pushed back the flap, exposing Faolan sitting on top of a folded up tent. "Faolan? How long have you been in there?"

A wild Sif appears

[brosif]

"The Hel?"

Sif eyes the young pup, already exasperated. When they had assembled for Sansa's aid, she was half certain that they were assembling for Loki's as well. Cho sensed his magic here.

But considering the element that has separated them, the other half of Sif's suspicions are swiftly presenting themselves as more and more likely: that this is another of Loki's jests.

"This becomes a greater farce with each passing minute."

[sorcerous]

A crackling and shifting behind them, and --

Their way out is cut off, by high and sharp icicles.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Whoa, look at that ice! Faolan leaps from Cho's bag to go sniff at it. Then he snuffles around, trying to get other scents. It can be hard on ice, but it's easier than water. At least ice has a shape.

He turns and barks cheerily at Cho and Sif.

[tenuefarfalla]

"If you wanted a ride you could have just asked," she says, checking the bag to make sure he didn't eat all of the food. None of it. Well then. She breaks off a piece of jerky as she walks over to him and holds it down so he can reach it, looking around at their options.

One of the pathways has sealed itself up, and she's not interested in fighting it. No guarantee it would have led where they wanted to go, anyway, and the way back to the rest of the group is still an unmoving wall of ice.

"That path looks like it's headed in the right direction, so I say we take this one," she says, nodding her head at a hallway off to the side that takes a sharp turn about twenty feet down.

[brosif]

"He knows full well that if he'd asked, I would have told him to stay home," Sif says, shaking her head at the pup. Honestly -- does his father spend any time parenting at all?

She trails her hand along the ice that has cropped up, first clenching slightly.

"Were I at full strength, it would be very tempting to smash through all of these walls and be done with it." She shrugs. "There are many paths. What makes you choose this one?"

Sif will assent if Cho's reasoning seems sound. But she must know what it is, first. There are few in the world that Sif will follow without question, and none of them are currently in this world.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Hooray! Jerky for Faolan! He wags his tail at Cho as he eats it, looking back and forth between her and Sif.

Sif wants to know which way to go? Faolan turns and sniffs at the different paths, then points down the one that has the strongest smell of Loki.

[tenuefarfalla]

"Well, I wouldn't have." There's an edge to her voice. She doesn't enjoy being condescended to.

Faolan agrees with her, but if Sif needs an explanation she'll humour her. She points down one path she doesn't intend to take. "That path seems to lead directly to the tower. If I were trying to keep someone away from a destination, then the paths that appeared to lead there would not, and the ones that appeared to lead directly away also would not, since I'd assume that anyone with a mind for puzzles would refuse the obvious way." Now she nods her head at the path she chose, the one where Faolan now waits. "So I'm going this way, and so is Faolan." Sif can come or she can go her own way.

Before they set off, though, Cho crouches down so that she is at Faolan's height and pats her knees to get him to come close. "Listen to me. You can come with me, I'm not going to send you back. But this could be dangerous. I'm your pack mother, and that means it's my job to take care of you. So if I tell you to do something to keep you safe, you have to listen to me. And if I tell you to get back in the bag, you have to. I want you to promise."

[brosif]

If Sif notes the edge in Cho's voice, she does not acknowledge it. What she does instead is raise the tip of her blade to the ice, etching a line in it experimentally. The mark doesn't fade or morph away, as she half expected it to.

"Your reasoning is sound enough. I would only caution, as I suspect you know, that if this maze is Loki's doing the rules of it are like to shift as soon as they are named. I will go first, if there are no protests."

She moves to walk in of Cho and Faolan -- a greater risk is a fair trade, if the sorceress is willing to act as a pack mother. Sif has no talent in the arena. The closest thing she's had to a child in recent memory was a cursed dream she was forced to decapitate.

As she walks, her sword makes swift, nearly soundless cuts into the ice, marking off where they've been behind it.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Faolan raised a paw to Cho to promise to be good. His tail wagged, and he hopped up to lick her face in assurance. Then he darted off after Sif, sniffing at the ice and the air to make sure they wre on the right trail. They neared another branching of the path, and Faolan paused to sniff down both branches. He barked twice, pointing down the one he wanted them to take.

[tenuefarfalla]

"And if it's not his doing, then whoever got the drop on him probably doesn't care about playing fair, either." She hates not having all the information, hates going in blind. "Either way, I suppose it's a good thing I don't play by the rules," Cho murmurs, almost to herself, mapping out the maze in her own way. Raw magic crackles on her fingertips, held at the ready. Facing foes head on is the honourable thing to do... sneaking up from behind the more sensible.

She watches Faolan, tries to move to keep him between herself and Sif. Cho accepts the promise, and trusts Faolan to keep it. He must be able to trust her to keep her promise in return, to trust that she will keep him safe.

She also agrees with his nose, when they reach the next branching off.

[sorcerous]

Behind them, a passage quietly shifted, looping it around to where they were about to turn. Taking them back in the wrong direction.

If it's a scent trail they follow, it seems to go straight into a wall....

[brosif]

If there is one thing that Sif trusts in Faolan, it is his ability to...sniff out Loki, for lack of a better term. He seems to prefer the Trickster's company above all others.

Loki gets along so well with the children pulled here. Faolan, Gretel, and Sansa. They all seem to trust him, to some extent. Trust is such a dangerous thing to give out. Something that the young hold in such ready supply.

It is the gift of an ice flower -- how Loki first introduced himself to Sansa -- that Sif is thinking of when their path is block by a wall. One that has the mark of Sif's own blade etched in it. Vertically.

Sif has been leaving her markings horizontally.

"We are being played for fools, Sorceress."

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Faolan, meanwhile, has been following a scent trail. When it leads to a wall, he whines and paws at it. How is he supposed to find Loki if the trail is wrong?

[tenuefarfalla]

"What else is new?" Cho asks quietly, mouth set in a grim line. She doesn't need the marks to know where they've been. The maze forms itself in her mind, growing more complete with every step they take. She now stands at the beginning of the branch Loki has shifted to lead them back, assesses the distance in her mind and notes where it cuts sharply to the left. "This way leads us in a circle." They won't be taking it.

She walks along the ice walls, trailing her fingers over them and thinking. When she reaches Faolan's wall, she looks down at him. "You want to go this way?" It seems a good general direction to choose.

A dagger slips out of her arm brace and traces a circle in the ice, little flicks of her wrist ornamenting that border with complex runes and symbols. When she's finished, she places the cold steel back against her skin and places her hands in the center of the circle. The power flows out of her, lights up the etchings, and begins to melt the ice. She stops when the hole is roughly the size of a trash can lid and turns to her companions. "I suggest we crawl through the wall. If the rules are being broken, then we shouldn't feel restrained by them. Sif can go--" But the hole, now that she glances back at it, is already closing up. Cho curses softly and then puts her hands back on the wall. Her magic once again begins to melt their barrier.

When it's large enough, she looks down at Faolan. "Get in the bag," she tells him, leaving no room for argument. "Sif, you go through first. Once you're on the other side I'll pass my things through and then I'll follow you."

[brosif]

Sif is not Thor -- she does not betray stealth in favor of laughter. That is a tendency in her friend that has gotten them all trampled by hoards of bilgesnipe in the past.

Still, she approves heartily that Cho is doing with magic what Sif so keenly desires to do with her own sword: tear these cursed walls apart. The grin that she shoots Cho's way is likely the friendliest that the sorceress has ever seen her.

She moves through the hole swiftly, though. A cursory glance around to see that no enemies are waiting for them on the other side, and her gaze is trained back to those still waiting to cross.

[sorcerous]

Oh, no enemies are waiting.

However, once they all get through, they might find that they're in a box of ice.

Also they might find that the walls are slowly growing inwards, encasing them in barriers of increasing thickness. Of course, this growth only starts after all of them are through the hole.

[greatsquirrelhunter]

Faolan obediently climbed into the bag. Because he was a good boy, he would stay there until Cho told him he could get out.

[Until then, assume he's being good and still. He can be skipped in posting order until he is released.]

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho passes her bag through, with Faolan safely inside, then her weapons. Then she slowly starts to work her own way through the hole, balancing and stretching and twisting around until both her legs are on the other side and her back is resting on the ice, hands still pouring magic into it. "Sif? When I say go, I want you to pull me through as quickly as you can."

The ice will begin to close the moment she takes her hands from it, and she doesn't exactly have the leverage to guarantee that all of her is through to the other side before that happens. "Ready? Go!" As soon as she says it, she sticks her arms out above her head so that Sif only has to pull her straight through.

[brosif]

Sif sets the bag onto her back, not trusting the land around them well enough to set Faolan down. When Cho gives the signal, she grabs her legs and pulls. Hard. Sif may no longer have the strength of a god, but she is still more stalwart than most mortals.

Cho gets through safely, but the moment they are once again assembled, the ice creaks. Shifts. Sif growls and shifts around, yelling towards the direction she thinks the tower may be.

"Enough of these games! We have a child with us, you petty idiot."

[tenuefarfalla]

As soon as her hands are off the ice, the hole begins closing up. By the time she's on her feet again, it's down to nothing. She hears Sif shouting, but she ignores it. Whoever is watching them knows Faolan is there.

She just walks to the other side of the rapidly shrinking box, the spire of the tower right ahead of her in the distance. "Faolan, stay in the bag." The dagger comes back out of her sleeve and her off hand traces a symbol in the air, throws it into the leather of the bag. Sif may notice that it stiffens against her, the leather suddenly as unyielding as stone. Cho traces a new circle on the new wall, an exact duplicate of her last one.

With her hands in the center of it, the ice begins to melt. "I can do this all day," she says, eyes on the far off spire. Her voice isn't anywhere near as loud as Sif's shouting, just slightly raised, as though issuing a challenge to an opponent sitting just above her. Her voice will not carry to the tower, but she's sure she's being heard. "If you're not playing by rules, then neither am I. I will burn through every wall between you and I, and then I will burn through you. If you want to test me, go ahead, put me in another box."

When the hole is large enough, she shifts around to expose it. "Sif. Same as the last one." Her eyes don't leave their mark.

[sorcerous]

Once they are free of the box, it appears that there are no more special obstructions.

Of course, that would be until they run into the first invisible wall. Or fall through the first visible but insubstantial wall.

You brought this on yourself.