Expedition to the Far Stones

RP Date: 2026-10-20

Location: The Far Stones

Participants: Lilith, Marw, Spizzzo

Summary

Lilith, Marw and Spizzzo launch an expedition to suss out the mysteries of the potential sacrificial ritual site. After careful scientific experimentation, they determine that 1) It is likely Autumn; 2) There is nothing visible outside of Grimwych (except celestial bodies); 3) Bird Sacrifice doesn't open any portals; 4) The stones are made of stone. Further mysteries abound.

This archive was published after approval by all listed participants.

Roleplay

Lilith approaches from the east. She's got a cloak thrown over her shoulders and a hood over her head against the endless moorland wind and is carrying her usual stuff but also a bag with some living thing wriggling and flailing around inside. She glances back over her shoulder, and then approaches the stones.

Lilith moves closer to the centre stone and studies the markings cut into its surface.

Spizzzo comes armed with a larger stick of charcoal and a few curiously small rolled sheets of vellum. They're definitely made of rat and raccoon hides. This time he won't rely on toilet paper to get rubbings.

Marw arrives late. That is no accident. There is something about walking with people that makes them feel the need to have conversation. How was supper? Look at the weather. Where are you from? She doesn't want that on the best of days, and today is not going to be the best of days. So, if she has to break etiquette and be late, so be it. She spends a brief moment looking at the lake from this viewpoint again, hands firmly in her pockets and, apparently, no investigative accessories with her unlike the other two. Then she turns to face into the circle, leans one shoulder against one of the upright rocks, one leg crossing casually over the other as she lofts a brow. No hello for Dandelion Wine Girl or the lumbering half-elf. "Is this where you start doing your sacrifice dance?" she asks dryly. Only then does she pull a small black notebook from her pocket and flip through a few pages. If one happens to have quick eyes, there are glimpses of notes on the people of the village, a few journal entries, and what appears to be a map. She finds a blank page, a click of the pen. Then she looks back to the pair of them as if to silently say, <i>Go on, then.</i>

Spizzzo sets the vellum and charcoal down on a stone for anyone to access, then smiles brightly when Marw arrives, pleasantly adding, "No sacrifices today, thank you!" He taps his chin quietly as he looks at the stones themselves. "I think if I was building one of these I'd make it astronomically significant. I wonder..." He glances around the stones, their heights, the ground, and the sky, then looks around for a moment, frowning when he sees only scrub grass on the moor. Spizzzo reaches out to his side, his wrist twists along a non-euclidean axis, briefly disappears, and reemerges a moment later holding a long, very straight slender branch. He holds it up to start eyeballing the horizon line, the angle of the stones, the height of the sun from the horizon in stick lengths. "If I make a few guesses..." he mutters and busies himself scratching equations into the ground. At first they use numbers, then incorporate more letters, and by the end are almost exclusively symbols, including one that almost certainly has just been invented and stands for 'a stick's length.' After reaching a conclusion he underlines a particular set of symbols, taps them twice with his stick, looks back up toward the sun again, and turns to face Marw and Lilith seriously. "I believe it may be Autumn. Assuming some of my premises are correct..."

Lilith flashes Marw a grin. "Well, if you're offering, but it wasn't on the schedule." She raises one axe halfway in a joking manner, and then replaces it at her side.  Dark humor appears to be the flavor of the day, or maybe the only flavor in Grimwych at all.  She gives Spizzzo a wide berth and sets a piece of paper across the stones.  Getting out her own charcoal, she starts rubbing the stone to get a look at what is scratched there.   The creature in the bag rolls a bit, but it won't actually go anywhere.

Marw watches both carefully, attention flicking from one to the other. As Spizzzo works through whatever path his mind has decided to take, now and again her pen moves on her page, occasional words he has uttered seeming worthwhile to consider. One in particular earns an underline as can be judged by the firm and decisive motion of her hand. When his conclusion finally arrives, she glances up to the sky as well. "Autumn," she repeats. "You couldn't have guessed that from the days getting shorter?" Her gaze slides toward Lilith as the axe is lifted, then briefly down to her own boots, turning one one way then the other. "Apologies. I wore the wrong shoes, so I can't dance." The pen clicks a couple of times in thoughtful habit as attention moves more fully onto the winged one. "What are you hoping to compare them to?"

Spizzzo nods sagely to Marw, "That was my first clue, days getting shorter means we have some significant axial tilt in our orbit. I think on the equinox, the sun would have risen just over that stone," he points with one end of his stick, then arcs it overhead, "and set behind that one." He looks at the other two women brightly, "Does that open the portal?"

Lilith continues rubbing very carefully along the paper.  Her work is no artistic masterwork, but precisely the right amount of pressure for every marking to come through as it should be. "I've some notes, common languages for ritual spellcraft.  If that was truly what this was used for, there might be some overlap, and if it isn't, it might overlap with something else.  None of these are very cohesive, though, which fits with the rest of this place." 

Marw blinks and simply stares at Spizzzo as he talks. His theory is valid. She, however, is a little more agitated today than usual, so instead of the normally icy Ms Foxx, there is a bit of a sharper bite to her tone. "Bravo, sir. You figured it out. We're all saved." She gives a small shake of her head and mutters beneath her breath, "Bloody arts and crafts." The pen is tucked behind her ear, the notebook snapped shut and held between clasped hands in front of her as she falls silent, allowing them time to do whatever it is they intend to do. Her attention drifts instead to the towering stones, eyes moving from one to the next. They aren't uniform, they look old nor are they set at equal distances from one another. Then her gaze settles on the stone in the centre. "Why is there one in the middle?" she asks, head tilting faintly. "It looks purposeful." Perhaps it is for sacrificing someone on. But she'll see what they come up with.

Lilith says to Spizzzo, "Is there a time of day all their shadows would overlap on the center stone?"

Lilith says to Spizzzo, "Or none of them?"

Spizzzo sighs as he consults his scratches out notes in the dirt, tapping his stick fretfully. Equinoxes, solstices, orbital lengths, approximate planetary diameter. None of this relates to magic portals or human sacrifice. "The central stone is..." The sacrifice platform? The portal site? Hell if I know? "Central. It's definitely in the middle, I can say that with certainty. Do we remember exactly what the journal said about the sacrifice?"

Spizzzo says to Lilith, "All their shadows? No, that would take a series of suns, equidistant along the horizon. None of them? Most of the time, unfortunately. "

Lilith frowns thoughtfully down at her work. "So that eliminates the idea that whatever sacrifice needs to happen would have to be done at a certain time or set of conditions."  She continues rubbing the charcoal stick along the paper, around the part where the two triangles are. "It makes sense here that this is where the sacrifice would take place.  It's in the middle, has the carvings on it..."  she chews on her lip thoughtfully, trailing off. "I couldn't read it; it was all in that other language, so I can't recall." 

Marw mutters. "Just throw it at the bottom of the pile. Don't rule it out yet." She lasts perhaps another few moments before impatience wins out. Through no fault of either of them, admittedly, but today that distinction is doing very little to improve her mood. "I didn't come out here to watch you make pretty art prints for your homes." She pushes away from the stone she has been leaning against and marches toward the centre. One boot comes up onto the central rock, then the other, and she taps the edge of Lilith's rubbing lightly with the toe of her boot in silent warning: <i>move it or you will have boot prints to decipher as well </i>. Then Marw stands directly in the middle of what may be an ancient ritual site and a future murder spot. Her eyes lift. From here, she studies the surrounding stones again, but this time from their centre rather than their edge. Her gaze moves between the gaps, following each opening outward. She turns slowly on one heel to look the opposite way. "Hmm." A few seconds pass then her attention flicks to Spizzzo, to Lilith and back to Spizzzo. She snaps her fingers once and steps down from the stone. "You. Get up there." A small gesture indicates the centre rock. "You're considerably taller than I am. What's the furthest thing you can see from there?" Because from where Marw had been standing, there had been nothing beyond Grimwych's familiar boundaries. No distant mountain range breaking the horizon, no glint of an ocean, no neighbouring town, no sprawling forest disappearing into the distance. Just the same little piece of world they are apparently permitted to have.

Spizzzo watches Marw curiously, wondering why she'd ask a question with such an obvious answer, but nevertheless climbs atop the stone. Once up there he immediately gives the correct answer, "The sun is the furthest thing I can see from here." Then, to humor her, and because he isn't sure how scoring in this game works, he looks around the horizon. Then back to his notes. Then the horizon. "I can see the shrine on Greywither Hill. Which isn't right. I should see miles further given even the most conservative estimate for the curvature of the globe."

Lilith 's jaw tenses briefly but she pulls her paper away and backs up before Marw can trample her work and tucks it away. "There's an easy solution to this part," she remarks.  "Can I stand on your shoulders, Spizzzo?  It's a bit windy for flying, but I can get a further look."

Spizzzo says to Lilith, "My shoulders are your shoulders. "

Lilith says to Spizzzo, "Thanks, buddy."

Lilith buzzes up behind Spizzo.  First she puts her hands on his shoulders, and uses those and her wings to hoist herself up like a child climbing up for a piggyback ride.  Only when her feet are properly placed does she straighten and stand for a better look around, squinting when facing the direction of the sun.

Marw gives a small incline of her head, as though granting Lilith permission to do such a thing to Spizzzo, despite having absolutely no authority to do so. It can, at the very least, be taken as approval of the idea. As the large man climbs onto the stone, however, she briefly entertains the thought that one of Lilith's axes to the back of his head might provide them with a much faster answer and save everyone the trouble of a village vote on methods and mysteries. His first answer nearly makes her say it aloud. Instead, she lowers her gaze and nudges the wriggling bag Lilith brought with her with the toe of her boot. "Good idea."

Spizzzo holds as still as possible while he grapples with this new piece of information. It doesn't make sense. He's done the math. Sure, sometimes you wash up on the shore of an improbably shaped and colored lake with no memory of your previous life in an abandoned town where the postal system still functions and a magic machine produces infinite paper kindling. That's just magic and adventure. But the math should still work out. His jaw tightens and his fists clench, squeezing until the knuckles are white. As still as possible, a perfect platform for his friend Lilith, who is counting on him to be still. So very still. Every muscle in his body tensed as he stares at the horizon, as though the optical concept of a horizon killed his family and left him for dead, but he was adopted by a kindly blacksmith and secretly tutored in the arts of orbital mathematics so he could one day seek his revenge.

Lilith uses one hand to shield her eyes and look around.  The wind is louder in her ears, sounding different here than it does outside the stone circle.  Her green eyes narrow, and she looks around.  The lake is an hourglass.  The shrine is on the hill.  The derelict watchtower is in her line of sight, and the mainmast of the shipwreck. There's nothing beyond the hill.  There's nothing past Grimwych.  There's a campfire and a tent on the moor between here and the village, but beyond?  "It's like there's nothing there.  Like this it is, the whole world.  We're some island of time and space."  She hops down from Spizzzo's shoulders and lands lightly, as gracefully as a cat, and now she looks at Marw. "I've seen a lot of hourglasses, haven't you?  The lake.  The two triangles here.  The mast of the shipwreck.  It's the only symbol that's consistent." 

Marw begins to circle the centre stone while the other two stand upon it, eyes moving over the markings for anything that might suggest they are not only physically blocked here, but visually too. What is she looking for, exactly? An eye, perhaps. Her fingers trail across the carvings as she moves. A broken mountain shape. An arch with a small dot inside it... a doorway, perhaps. A tree. A cage. The hourglass symbol she has already seen elsewhere and?she stops, takes a step back. Her attention returns to the supposed cage. Maybe it isn't one at all, maybe it is just a few lines joined by an arch. That is one of the problems with being trapped in a situation like this. You start linking things that were never connected. Seeing things that are not there. Building enormous theories from tiny grains of rice. She taps the carving once with the tip of her finger before continuing around the stone. "Mhmm," comes in acknowledgement of the hourglass symbol. "I've seen a few." Which is irritating in itself. They came here looking for answers, yet every metaphorical rock they turn over seems only to produce another question beneath it. Her gaze finally drops toward the wriggling bag. She points at it. "Did you bring that just for fun or?.?"

Spizzzo quietly offers, "The tree. It's on tapestries from the watch tower." He watches the horizon, waiting for it to make the first move.

Lilith smiles down at Spizzzo. "I haven't looked at those," she admits.  She also hasn't looked at the shrines, because sorcery was always her second course of action, with axes and violence being her preferred method.  "No, I brought this guy to test something."  She looks between the pair.

Marw tilts her head toward Spizzzo at the mention of the watchtower, studying him for a moment as though slotting a piece into place. "Are you the rat soup man I've heard about?" There is a brief pause before her eyes narrow faintly. "Did you ever fix the stairs to go to the top?" Then Lilith mentions the test. Marw's attention shifts to her, one brow lifting. She leans in just slightly, lowering her voice into an exaggeratedly conspiratorial whisper. "Are you waiting for an invitation, or some suitably dramatic moment?" As though obliging her, Marw provides one herself. "Dum. Dum. Duuuuum." She holds the solemnity of it for perhaps half a second before rolling her eyes. "Or are you going to bloody get on with it?"

Spizzzo watches the developments as he contemplates. Marw gets a curious look as the idea had apparently never occured to him. A brief smile and his quiet, level voice answers, "Oh. No. I don't think I know carpentry. Spizzzo Spizzzoson, I have raccoon and fish in the stew now. And egg, sometimes."

Lilith 's lips twitch at the corners.  There is that temptation to make Marw wait just to annoy her, to pry the illusion of control from the woman's hands.  It was how she often felt about her mother.  She sets the bag on the ground, pulls the string that binds it shut, and pulls a bird out.  It looks like some kind of wild chicken-type creature. "I wanted to use a rooster, but there's little cock to be found around here."  Holding the bird in her right hand, she presses it bodily against the stone.  Its legs have been broken, and its wings flap uselessly until the axe in her left hand severs its neck and hits the stone, spraying blood across the rock, the weapon, and Lilith's left hand.

Marw arches a single brow at Lilith's comment about the apparent shortage Grimwych is suffering from. Her gaze slides briefly toward Spizzzo, then back to the winged creature in Lilith's hand. "Dinner. Try dinner. You might find the problem resolves itself." She takes a small step aside as the axe comes down, though not quite far enough. A couple of warm flecks of blood strike the sleeve of her coat. Marw looks down at them with the expression of someone personally inconvenienced by poultry. Then, belatedly, she glances toward Spizzzo. "Marw Foxx." A pause. "<i>Ms</i> Foxx." The correction comes with rather more force than the introduction deserves. To hell with it. She is not going to let some legal obligation decide who she is or is not. She gets to set those terms. Her attention returns to the stone circle. For a moment, she genuinely expects something. A crack splitting one of the towering stones would be great, light spilling from within, a doorway opening and it would be mystery solved. Alas, all that happens is a bird passes overhead. A single drop of very white liquid splatters into the grass nearby. Marw stares at it, then exhales through her nose. Without a word, she reaches into her pocket and produces a small knife, flicking it open before looking between the other two. "Any volunteers?"

Spizzzo frowns at the bird, then at the blood, then at the lack of reaction, then at the horizon again. Marw's knife gets his attention. "To be sacrificed? I would prefer not. Although I don't know if you can do too much damage with that." He brushes a bit of bird blood off his sleeve, which just smears it. "Dab, with cold water, hot water will set it," he reminds himself.

Lilith 's grip tightens on the chicken as a moment ticks by, and then another moment.  Her only answer is the dribble of something white that spatters across her shoulder.  The young woman's hold on the axe in her hand becomes a deathgrip. "<i>Damn it." </i> She drops the chicken, and rather than abuse the potential food source, kicks the center stone viciously instead.  Her right hand shakes, and she grabs up the second axe to pair with the one already drawn.  An echo of energy is gone, and in its place is cavernous emptiness that only grows deeper and darker the longer it sits.  She kicks the stone a second time and then at Marw with her knife.  "I'll do it if you do it." Is this how blood pacts are made?  "On three." 

Marw looks at Lilith, then at the axes, then back again. A firm shake of her head. A brief interlude in her attention as it shifts instead to Spizzzo and the smear on his sleeve. "If cold water doesn't get it out, try salt." Laundry and sacrifice are conversational topics that go hand in hand after all. Only then does she returns to Lilith. "I think you should sit this one out given your enthusiasm with an axe." There is no count to three. Marw simply turns the knife in her hand and presses the edge against her palm. Her jaw tightens as the point breaks skin, a wince pulling at her expression before she draws the blade across perhaps an inch. Then she holds her hand over the centre stone. Blood wells into her palm and begins to drip?.one drop?two?a handful more. Her eyes settle on the familiar hourglass carving. With a small movement of her wrist, she shifts her hand directly above it, allowing the blood to fall into the grooves. Red gathers in the carved lines, tracing the symbol neatly enough. Nothing happens. Again no light, no movement, no ancient doorway opening with a booming voice saying Exit this way. A low, frustrated sound escapes her. She shakes her hand once, then again, before curling the injured palm into a fist. "How disappointing." She gives the pair of them a small incline of her head. "It's been a pleasure." Then she turns and starts away from the centre stone and starts to make her way back home. A couple of drops of blood slips from between her clenched fingers before she leaves the circle, falling into the grass. It is not significant enough to notice, not by her and realistically not by many people or things. But the droplet moves, not deep down into the soil, but along it. It threads itself between the blades of grass, creeping steadily back toward the centre stone. Up the slight slope until it reaches the base of the centre stone and disappears into a narrow crack between the rocks beneath it. Marw keeps walking, none the wiser. And should either Spizzzo or Lilith notice the tiny movement and attempt the same thing themselves, their blood is likely to do the exact same thing. No portal opening but that curiosity that would prove the stones are not ordinary stones.

Spizzzo nods quietly. Good advice. Unhelpful stones. Lying horizon. "I have an idea..." he says in his even-tempered voice. Then he punches the central stone as hard as he can. There's a lot that goes into punching something as hard as you can. First, the physical. A punch doesn't start in your fist, or your arm, or your shoulder. It starts in your feet. Spizzzo pushes off the ground, leg tensing, propelled by the strength of his thighs, the long muscles in his back getting in on the action, up through his shoulder, bringing all that energy crashing down with his knuckles as the point of contact. Second, the mental. Fingers are vulnerable and important. Hands are delicate. Lots of people think they're going to punch something 'as hard as they can' and pull back, consciously or subconsciously, to avoid hurting themselves. Spizzzo sets in his mind that this stone is weaker than his hand, and swings down on it in an overhand punch, fully committing to the follow-through. His hand stops immediately on contact with the stone, and rapidly becomes an example of physics rather than biology as all that biomechanical energy is released not into the rock, which barely moves, but into the small bones of his hand and wrist. The crunch is not unlike accidentally stepping on a bag of pretzels, and he leaves plenty of his own blood on the rock. He stares at the point of impact quietly, not quite believing it didn't work.

Lilith steps back a couple of steps, nodding numbly to Marw.  She doesn't trust herself to put those axes down yet, and remains standing in observation of whatever Spizzzo is going to do next.    It takes a few heartbeats, but the weapons are eventually put away, just in time for Spizzzo's hand to connect with the rock.  The young woman's eyes widen. "Holy fuck," she breathes. "....Do we have a healer in town?"

Spizzzo shrugs quietly and releases his stick, which disappears back wherever it came from. Cradling his wreck of a hand, he sighs, explaining, "The horizon should be further away. I did the math." He starts walking back to the watch tower.

Lilith sighs and shakes her head, looking down at the rock to see if the heavy blow made any impact.  At first all she sees is something moving like ants, but there weren't any ants before. "Wait. Look." She will take his uninjured arm to hinder his departure and gesture. "Something is happening down there."

Spizzzo nods and watches. It isn't a portal. If anything, this clue makes the sacrifice more likely to work, not less. He looks out to the horizon, then to the watch tower. "I'm going to go. My hand hurts badly," he explains in an even tone.

Lilith nods quietly. "Go on. I'll ask around in town and see if anyone has a medical training send them out if I find them."

Spizzzo walks away quietly, shoulders hunched, hand held awkwardly to his chest.