Tornir wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:40 pm
The riftwall isn't deactivated, that would show the wood panelling of the wall, it's
dark. I think what we're looking at from this side is some sort of magical one-way glass, and yes, the wolves are watching. Adira mentions
shapes and whispering in it, so I guess it's not perfectly isolating?
Bellhead wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 1:22 am
That said, it's equally possible that they simply used some kind of visual magic to just darken it. I mean, if you look close enough in
this page, you can see Amelia's portrait through it, so it's not completely blocked. We also haven't heard anything explicitly mentioning anyone trying to head west using this rift, so we never actually got confirmation that it's not working or can't be used. It's entirely possible that the people who
would use it, simply don't; due to it "going dark". Unlikely, I know, but there's a chance.
Well yeah, it is not broken or anything. I've been referring to "going dark" (Adira's words) as "deactivation", more or less from the POV of Adira and anyone else not in the know about what exactly is going on with the Riftwall: to Trace and Flora on the page the portal was introduced, for example, the portal was "dark" or "deactivated" or however you want to refer to it. Really ought to go back to my post and replace "deactivated" with "gone dark".
In more familiar terms it could be compared to a laptop, which can operate normally (like the portal did once upon a time), shut down (like if the portal was fully removed, as everyone else seems to mean by "deactivated"), or be put to sleep (what Adira seems to think the portal is currently, given how she treats the portal as still there but nonfunctional). Or this laptop could continue to operate but with the brightness all the way down, so that to the inattentive eye it appears to be "dark", which is more or less what the portal's state actually is and fits the reports of Adira seeing things moving inside and hearing whispering and whatnot.
We can see Amelia's portrait; we don't know if anyone in-universe can, since you'd think she wouldn't have dismissed the portal's functionality so quickly if part of the hallway on the other side was visible, but since
we can see it that is also consistent with the laptop analogy. Essentially Adira and everyone else not in the know have been kept in the dark (heh) about what the portal is really doing.
Tornir wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:40 pm
The Edinmere attack was time constrained; it needed to catch the tiger delegation in the town, so it's possible Adira's necessary pursuit of Maeve was a convenient plot device to get her out of the way and stop her being removed from the storyline by the incoming wolves. Her arrest may be another one, if that
last panel is indeed showing another opening...
Who would want/need to come/go through though? I'd assumed the internees were safely away yesterday, and they'd already taken
Sam the Cow back through the rift.
Clovis is still in the dungeon fighting Reni (last we saw), so either something new is happening, or the opportunistic guild members are just coming in to nick the tavern's ale?
Plot devices could easily have an in-universe explanation too, to be fair. Quite a bit of time elapsed between Adira leaving the tavern and the attack itself if the wolves needed a buffer.
The portal's most recent activation
was at minimum to get Sam through; it activated before Clovis broke into the manor after all. Whether it's still open after Sam and the boys pass through, whether Clovis was planning to use it himself… well, does that matter? The portal can stay open as long as it needs to now that Adira is out of the picture.
Though now that the point has been raised, was there enough of a window to get the interned wolves through Riftwall before Adira and Maeve got back? It's not immediately clear how well
Warden Tallon's report of the Wolfpens breach lines up with what Brahn said to Clovis later on, timing-wise, plus getting that number of wolves through a smallish portal in a short period of time can't be easy.