the little one stops to shut the gate :: [OPEN]

[baedalites.livejournal.com]

Who: A whole lot of ants and YOU!
What: Exploring houses overrun by giant ants! Interacting with ants!
Where: Three specific ant hive houses have cropped up in Baedal.
When: The ants become visible late Sukkardi, so any time after Shundi will do.
Notes: To organize expeditions into the ant hives and to see what your characters will find there, please see the OOC post. NPCs, general GMing, and mod guidance are all available upon request.
Warnings: Bugs! Possible horror. Will update as needed.

When the ants come out of the ground it happens very quietly and it happens at night. Baedal wakes up to chitinous sound of insect labour. At first there is some panic - memories of strange creatures emerging from below to attack the city fresh in everyone's mind - but it is soon evident that the ants, while curious, pose no immediate threat to the City. They seem content to work and live inside the houses they have occupied; houses no one has noticed or cared about for years.

Soon, the ant-occupied houses begin to change. The ants are building something on the rooftops, something like towers, stretching towards the heavens. Birds that fly too close to the buildings quickly disappear.

Comments

[ofminastirith.livejournal.com]

Magic and science have an odd place in Arda, entangled and inseparable for now (and later on, because Eru Iluvater's spirit really is at the centre of everything). The general rule is don't use either for evil purposes, and you should be fine. Not that anyone other than elves or Maiar could really use magic without some dreadful trade-off. And even then.

Boromir eyes the mark on the back of the door. "I remember it." He makes a sound that is caught between a loud exhale and a weary sigh, before voicing the obvious. "This doesn't bode well."

[suninhades]

"No." Her voice is wry, and not pleased. She opens the door all the way up again and walks briskly back outside to pick up a handful of dirt. When she comes back into the hidden room, she leaves a coating of dirt in the doorway. It's not the best trick to see if anyone follows them or goes in and out while they're in deeper rooms, but this isn't a James Bond outfit.

"Left or right?" Time to go into the next room.

[ofminastirith.livejournal.com]

Clever. It's not the first time he's admired his employer's thinking, and it probably won't be the last.

"Right," he says, sounding rather decisive about it, too.

[suninhades]

Right it is. Integra goes first, pushing the door open easily and still holding her candle, as much for light as for making sure that this whole place doesn't dissolve around her or leave them trapped in a wall.

There's nothing immediately alarming in the next room - a mirror on the wall, a dresser on the opposite with a number of innocuous items, papers in boxes, abandoned. She begins to look about, seeing what she can read.

[ofminastirith.livejournal.com]

Boromir does likewise, holding his candle as steadily as possible and trying not to squint in the dim light. At the dresser he picks up and dusts off what looks like a pamphlet. One word in particular stands out. "Candlelighters. Hm." He does his best to flick through it one-handedly.