MOD PLOT ↠ SECRET STEEP'D ROOTS: WHERE THE HELL ARE WE?

[faderifting]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Various
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: A catch-all for trying to figure out how to get the jungleteers back home. If you signed up for a mini jungle adventure or a research assignment and we gave you some info that contained clues to the jungle's location, please share them here! Everyone else is also welcome to participate and try to sort out where they are and what to do about it.

Comments

[sarcophage]

More our dignity than our bodies, really. Nasty stings, though.

[justashotaway]

I am glad they did not kill you.

[sarcophage]

Oh, dear—well, so am I. That's sweet of you to say, thank you.

[justashotaway]

[ As though finishing a thought: ] We would not have a way to return your corpse to Kirkwall.

You are welcome.

[sarcophage]

I know at least one person who would try.

[Who'd even stay behind, Lea likes to think, if it were impossible to bring him home.]

[justashotaway]

Yes, but the weather is hot. You would decompose.

[sarcophage]

Nevarrans have their ways.

[justashotaway]

How?

[sarcophage]

[Ah, right. This one is from Nevarra, but not from Nevarra.]

Corpse work is a revered vocation there. Back in Kirkwall, there's an unusual horse in our stables—have you ever seen him?

[justashotaway]

The dead one.

[sarcophage]

Yes, that's him. That's Nevarran work.

[justashotaway]

Was he made in a jungle?

[sarcophage]

That's a fair point. It would be difficult, certainly, and the results may not be ideal, but it's far from impossible... besides, a spirit will inhabit a single bone if encouraged to do so. Tissue is merely a cosmetic consideration.

[Plus a secret: he doesn't plan on going quietly.]

[justashotaway]

I would not wish to live inside a bone. Would you?

[sarcophage]

Probably not.

[justashotaway]

So we would have to burn you here.

[sarcophage]

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

[justashotaway]

[ After a long pause. ]

Why do Nevarrans keep bodies?

[sarcophage]

Please tell me you're setting up for a punchline. I would love a joke.

[justashotaway]

I want to know.

[sarcophage]

[He sighs. Alas.]

Out of reverence. Out of love. To give homes to spirits displaced from the Fade when the dead cross over.

[justashotaway]

You let spirits live in corpses?

[ Full of a peculiarly Nevarran disgust despite the outsider's question. To quote Cassandra Pentaghast, ugh. ]

[sarcophage]

Wisps, mostly—or similar. Simple spirits, content to experience this side of the Veil. There's one in the horse, too.

[He's never been quick to correct anyone who mistakes him for a Nevarran; it's a fine compliment.]

It isn't always the simple ones that come... but mostly.

[justashotaway]

And it will live in you. And do what it wants.

[sarcophage]

That's the tradition.