OPEN ↠ FALSE GODS, GREAT DEMONS (PART I)

[faderifting]

WHO: Time Travelers & Future Kirkwall Residents
WHAT: Time travel, captures, escapes, explosions.
WHEN: ALTERNATE FUTURE, Early Cloudreach 9:48
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES:.This is the first plot log for False Gods, Great Demons, specifically for the time travel team and adjacent plot efforts. An open post for general Darkest Timeline adventures will be posted separately! A plotting post specifically for the escape from Kirkwall can be found here.

It's been over a year since the village of Haven was burned, ransacked, and buried beneath snow and ice--a year for the snow to melt and leave behind blackened, rotting wood for a new year's snow to fall over. The stone walls and Chantry stand, but the rest of the village is a jagged scar, and the path up the mountain to the Temple of Sacred Ashes still shows signs of the battle against the Breach: toppled carts, abandoned crates, a broken bridge.

Given the debris, obstacles, and lingering demon-infested tears in the Veil, it takes the better part of a day for even a well-armed team of trained fighters to make the trek from Haven to the Temple. Despite that, there's been a steady stream of pilgrims to Andraste's final resting place--and now the site of the Herald's death. More still wait on the road and outside the entrance to the Temple ruins, guarded now by Inquisition soldiers until the recent deaths within the walls have been investigated.

Save the wind and quiet crunch of bones being gnawed on, the Temple itself is silent. The molten-ash corpses that were once outside the walls, contorted from their final moments of agony, have been removed and given rites--but the icy dust beneath the band's boots is still partly bone and burned flesh, and patches of red lyrium still resist efforts at removal.

The bone-crunching comes from down the main staircase and around a corner. Five corpses are slumped around a campfire, dressed for warmer weather, preserved by the cold somewhat but withered and too decayed to have died within the week, let alone overnight while no one else was looking--and with one arm currently being chewed on by a bear while two others amble nearby.

Stopping them from eating the evidence is a good idea, probably. And perhaps as the effort to chase them away from the carrion gets underway, in the midst of the chaos and roaring, someone will notice one of the bandits splayed out across the icy stone floor. She's as withered as the rest of them, save one outstretched arm that's still fleshy-plump and pink where it falls outside some invisible line.

But if anyone does notice, it's too late. There's a flare of light that shifts quickly from rift-green to a blinding white, a white-noise roar and a gust of windy force that propels everyone forward to--

Exactly where they were, except a few yards to the left, and in the last two seconds the few stubborn scraps of red lyrium on the Temple walls have crawled and expanded to form whole walls of crystal. For a moment it's silent again, save the wind. The one of the bears--the only one carried along with the group--lets out a bewildered, irritable roar. Beyond the walls there's a shout, then another, then too many for it to be only the handful of Inquisition soldiers posted outside the Temple.

Seconds later, they're surrounded.

Comments

[extramural]

"The especially stubborn ones won't listen," the Outsider calls down toward the Doctor, leaning more and more against the bars so that his arms hang out and he can annoyingly flap them, shard glinting in the dim light. "Though yes, that's what I said."

In- less clear words, sure, but it's what he said.

"What we don't know is what happened in those five years, short of us vanishing so that everyone thinks we're dead. Unless there were actual bodies, which would be- a concern."

To put it mildly.

There's another flap of his hands before the one with a shard curls around the bars again. The other one points toward Ellana's cell, because it's the closest one he can point at that demonstrates his point. "Though based on all the red lyrium, I'm going to assume everything went badly. If you would like to explain...?" Instead of just saying they missed things, thanks.

Also someone please tell him Corvo is here so he can be flip his shit a little. In fact-

"Who is banging on things?"

[circleprodigy]

"For the sake of brevity; Tevinter invaded, the Qunari invaded, and an impostor Herald decries us all. The Inquisition cannot turn the tide." Inessa doesn't bother to hide her bitterness. What else truly needs to be said, other than that they lost in the most thorough manner possible? There is no reclaiming Thedas from this, and they all know it. Claiming Denerim and Orzammar is just a matter of time.

[serannas]

"That's the joke, Sam," Ellana replies. Honestly, did people think she was serious? Calm down.

"What else do you need to know? First you say to watch what we say in front of the guards, then whine you want an explanation. Make up your minds." And here she waves her altered left hand back towards the Outsider.

"I'm trying to keep my remaining fingers intact here. The Venatori are going to keep taking them, and I'd prefer not to speed up the process, thank you." Meaning she's not going to launch into an informational lecture on the new Thedas. She's planning her escape, okay? She'll leave getting in trouble with the guards to the dying one with the red eyes.

"She's pretty much covered everything. If this has happened with rifts before now, I haven't heard of it."

[not_the_question]

"None of my tools work, so I can't say if it's happened with rifts before or not. But, I have experienced similar things in my universe before."

He'll just set aside that he was usually in a time and space ship when he does it. The Doctor looked down and across the cell-block and debated the next question, aware of the guards.

"So the five of you have been here, and you presumed we had died. Everything turned against you. How long have the five of you been imprisoned here?"

Because while was certain everyone wanted to get out, it might be better to stay put.

[doneisdone]

Teren can't wrap her mind around this conversation and, frankly, isn't trying to. She is still sacrificing hairpins for the cause of picking her own lock, cursing quietly to herself each time one bends or breaks or falls.

Whatever the hell happened, she's not going to learn all she can while sitting here helpless.

[watchesandlistens]

Once he's got Malcolm's attention, he points to him, then Corvo's own eyes, then sort of...gestures around them. Are you seeing this, bro. Except Malcolm's talking to them, so he probably does see them too. He adds a shrug, helpfully.

Then, he hears the voice again, and he approaches the front of his cell, squinting in the direction it came from. Could it be--

Corvo had known he was alive. He'd known, even when the team was declared KIA. Even when they were mourned. His hand had told him, wherever the Outsider was, it wasn't dead. Not yet. And he had believed, for years and years, through all his torments. And the Outsider never appeared--not until now, in a damned jail cell. After Corvo had already given up, accepted his inevitable death, and could only hope that it was quick.

He stares silently at the Outsider for an uncomfortable period of time, even for Corvo. Then, he frowns, lip curling. A bit late for showing up out of nowhere. He steps back from the door, and instead turns to the Doctor. Sup, new cellmate. After careful consideration, he holds up three fingers. He's not really sure, but it's as good of a guess as any. Then he turns to the other side, where the woman is trying very hard to ruin her hair. He gives a quick rap on the bar to get her attention, then points at the lock, shaking his head.

All of that settled, and having accomplished more interaction with other people than he had attempted in at least a year, Corvo withdraws to his bunk. They can keep chatting, if they want. It doesn't seem like it's going to help him any.

[el_tybs]

"Sounded more like sarcasm," he mumbles in return to Ellana's comment. Or if it was a joke it was a bad one especially with some of them drugged up. It's been a while since he's felt the effects of magebane, it sucks, but never enough to have put him out like it had now.

After some time Sam does get to his feet, using the bars of the cell to help him along to the front - the ones between him and the Outsider, not the bear, especially now that it was sliding a paw into his cell. As he makes his way he listens carefully to what everyone was saying. Five years had gone by? That... explained why 'you're dead' seemed to be a popular thing going around. Not only that but... they lost? At least that is the conclusion he's coming to at hearing the Inquisition couldn't do anything.

It's... a lot to take in, and honestly the only thing stopping him from reacting much to it was the drugs, forcing him to take everything at a slower pace. Still, his lips thing and he tries to peer around the cells. Of course his eyes naturally look to the cell in front of him, which happens to be Ellana's, frowning at the state he sees her in. "And the others?" This lot had been captured, what about the rest of their forces?

wow, gmail, be slower with your notifs why don't you

[serannas]

Sorry, Sam. She hasn't had time to work on her material. Ellana can't see Corvo from her position, but even if he'd answered the Doctor aloud, it wouldn't be the same for her.

"We didn't come in together. It's been a month for me." She draws her fingertips idly across the bars of her cell. "Corvo doesn't really talk, Inessa and Malcolm are going insane from red lyrium, and Alistair is probably going Warden crazy by now and should have died years ago." Like maybe in the place of Felix. That would have been nice.

"Others as in...? Remember the walls have ears."

[circleprodigy]

"It's been...over a year." That's as specific as Inessa can get; it's difficult to keep track of time in a cell, and her memory isn't what it used to be. "Any news I could give of the outside would be rather obsolete, so it would hardly matter."

Alistair and Ellana can be of more help there, she's certain, but Inessa herself hasn't asked many questions in that respect. What's the point, when the news is always terrible?

[byblow]

"I'm not crazy. I'm fine," Alistair says. "And I still have all ten fingers, not to mention all eleven toes."

That's a joke. Though he doesn't actually sound very amused or happy about his own good health. In theory, at least, he would much rather be on a rack than be protected from the harm befalling everyone else, again, by his stupid Theirin blood.

"There's nowhere to go, Teren," he adds, before retreating back into his cell where he doesn't have to look at her. "You'll just bring the guards in."

[tactical_alert]

Malcolm's seen...temporal shenanigans before, a mission into something of a temple in the desert, ancient Tevinters locked in time with demons. They had been so lost and confused when they regained themselves. He and Adelaide had had to threaten as well as talk them down from another fight.

He supposes getting caught up in a rift and then being spat out years in the future isn't too out of the realm of possibility. Maybe they got lost in the Fade.

Oh Teren Teren Teren. "No one gets out of the Gallows," he says, enough to not alarm anyone by going HEY YOU DON'T ESCAPE unlike Alistair's warning, just...a statement of fact. His voice takes on a lilting, ragged, sing-song baritone. "They're going to fiiind you if you try~" It's almost funny in the redder part of his head. Ellana isn't wrong. Feels like he might go under again soon, but he'll fight it every single step of the way if it kills him. (And it will kill him, eventually.)

"Few months, I presume," he eventually answers. "Hard to tell. Long enough." Seekers are always a special case. He'd had to step it up even harder after Aleron got taken, and now the Inquisition doesn't even have that.

[youwonscience]

Cosima has been very quietly sitting in the corner of her cell. Not in shock, exactly, though those who can see her might easily mistake it for that. She's been thinking, working through a lot of information she doesn't have context for.

"Doctor," she says, suddenly, as if they're having a very natural conversation that isn't at all taking place in prison cells full of angry and confused fellow prisoners. "Doctor, when things like this happened to you before ... did you stay in one closed timeline, or was it more a many-worlds deal? Could you change things?"

[extramural]

"Corvo?"

He had been interested before, enough that he'd bothered to keep contributing to the conversation. His interest is held now, though; both hands curl around the bars as he presses himself against them more fully, trying to make out Corvo in the cell down the hall.

That's his mortal, thank you very much.

And then there's Malcolm, clearly gone a bit -- it reminds him of Granny Rags, of others too exposed to the Void for too long, of them feeding themselves into something that is always hungry.

"Have you given up?" he asks after a moment, looking toward Corvo's cell, talking to him more than anyone else. "Are you going to lie down and let your sad state of affairs creep over you like a funeral shroud?"

It's Cosima he speaks to next, though he isn't the Doctor and he hasn't looked away from where he is trying to stare Corvo down. "Time is endless. Past, present, future; all are the result of options picked, choices made by individuals. I have seen the past changed to prevent a negative outcome in the future before. I have helped it happen."

Only now does he pull back from the bars a little, shark grin bright in the low light; say what you want about him, but he keeps up with his dental hygiene. "That is, if no one is too scared to do something."

[doneisdone]

Teren is learning a lot about their rifter friends today. And she's... not into it. She's even less into what Alistair and Malcolm are telling her, and finds herself frantically strategizing, not bothering to answer them just yet.

One thing keeps pressing at her, and despite any assertions to the contrary, she feels a pang of regret; regret for what, she's not certain. Something she hasn't done? Disappearing on her Wardens for five years, even if it wasn't intentional?

"Alistair," she says, a bit more gently, but finds she has no way to follow it. She can't even see him. Her heart seizes in the same way it did when she saw him and Anders lying like ragdolls in the custody of those barmy apostates, but this time she's behind bars herself, and can't immediately fix it.
And Inessa looks like hell, in a way nobody ever should. Pursing her lips in a flat line, Teren stoops to begin picking up the pins that fell, at least the ones she can scrape up, so she can put them back in her hair-- it's all filthy anyway, it's not like one will contaminate the other.

"Inessa," she says quietly, to to the elf across from her, "is it the red lyrium alone, or...?" The taint, is what she doesn't say. Are Inessa and Alistair becoming darkspawn? Is she going to have to kill them once they're all freed?
She'd sooner become one herself.

also @ inessa blowing up ur twitter mentions

[limier]

So much for not being wholly fucked. Since when was a seeker susceptible to lyrium? And why drag them to Kirkwall, with Haven held so completely, and Skyhold’s fortress walls so close?

The second’s too chancy to ask. No one seemed particularly surprised to find them, few questions were asked or eyebrows raised. There must still be some resistance afoot, despite the common pessimism.

She probably waits for a moment when she’s not interrupting a heartbreaking reunion but her player will forget to post this otherwise.

"They’ve kept you all alive." To Inessa, as quietly as she might — she doesn’t wish to interrupt the ongoing conversation. Those better-prepared for spooky magic time headaches can handle that end of things. A year is a long time, long enough to know no new information will come of a prisoner. "To what purpose?"

Purely the lyrium? To draw in others? She sounds as though she's been here longest.

[circleprodigy]

Inessa rubs her temple, wishing it wouldn't throb so much, but it's not as though their jailers would do anything about it or that anything could be done at this point. She tries to focus enough to answer questions, though the song is always there, in the background. "It's only the red lyrium, at least for me. I've not heard the Calling, not since the false one was ended. But it won't matter." She won't live to hear it, after all.

"For some, red lyrium farming. Others, information. If they are malleable enough, they might be converted to Tevinter's cause. It has happened before." But her tone suggests not to count on that as a likelihood.

[watchesandlistens]

Corvo doesn't move from his bunk, letting the chatter of the others pass over and around him. Others are already explaining to the newcomers, and Inessa has summarized Corvo neatly enough. None of this changes anything. So they didn't die. So they get to rot here with the rest of the dregs.

They'll wish they had died.

But the Outsider tries to goad him. Of course he does, that's what the Outsider does best. And to this, Corvo finally responds.

"Yes."

His voice cracks, hoarse from disuse. Yes, he's given up, yes, he's lying down, and yes, the Outsider should just let him rest, just like he's been doing for the last five years. Corvo will not be goaded.

Of course, he did managed to get Corvo to speak for the first time in...a very long time. It's something.

[not_the_question]

The Doctor had started to pace as he listened to the dialogue going on around him. None of the information was particularly useful. But he was trying his best to file it all away. Then Cosima's voice broke through as she called his name. Not as effective as Jamie's voice, but well, he wasn't here, but was that for the best?

He heard The Outsider's reply before he could get a word in. So he first spoke to the man. "Why do people always do that? Are you all simple? Mucking about time when you don't know the first thing about what you're doing."

He huffed and answered tried to answer properly. "Cosima, the future is no more malleable than the past."

He paused a small moment, and adjusted his tone. He spoke to everyone in the block.

"Now that we're here, we're a part of events. If we go back, and that's a pretty big if given the technology here, and we try to change things to prevent this future from happening, we might end up preventing the events that caused us to come here in the first place. That creates a paradox loop. Time, will try to heal the tear that paradox creates, which means all of our timelines will disintegrate."

He considered things for a moment. He had to squash this idea of changing time as quickly as possible.

"But if you all want to end up very dead very quickly, by all means, go ahead and try to change things."

[el_tybs]

The walls have ears.

So pretty much any information not already well known wasn't going to be spoken freely while they were in here. He could... appreciate the need to be tight-lipped on that, but at the same time, what had happened to everyone else?

"The Gallows?" Sam leans against the bars to try and peer out towards who had said that. "Exactly where are we?" The name sounds familiar, but then again five years have passed, 'the gallows' could be anywhere.

Another voice. Someone who kept calling themselves a doctor during their trip? "So you're saying we shouldn't try getting back to when we came from? Just accept that we skipped five years and let these events happen?"

[extramural]

There is something almost, almost like a snarl at Corvo's response. Another one of his favorites, turned into a kicked dog and unwilling to do a damn thing about it. He's about to start arguing when the Doctor speaks up, and then there's a dark laugh.

"I do know what I'm doing, as it turns out. That would be why. Maybe time in your world is a stagnant thing, but it is not that way in my own. The Fade and the Void of my world are similar, and therefore I suspect that the way time was altered where we were and where it occurred in my world are similar also."

He leans on the bars this time, staring down toward the Doctor's cell, though it's a bit hard to see past everyone else and the bear. His voice is deeper now, more urgent; others may be perfectly willing to let this happen, but he is not. He is invested, now, where once he never got involved.

Things change, and he needs people to listen.

"We don't need gears and machines to return. Magic brought us here and it will take us back. The time we came from will continue on as the primary one, and the Void, -- or it would be the Void in my world -- will know the secrets of what happened here, in this possible future, as it knows the secrets of all possible futures. As it shares them with me, in my own world."

His fingers flex again, antsy; he misses the feeling of magic, even misses the Void whispering in his ear, showing him those horrible glimpses as it did back home.

"Besides, didn't something similar involving time magic happen to the Inquisition before all of us started falling out of Rifts?"

[sulena]

"The Gallows is an isolated fortress in Kirkwall's harbor."

Saoirse has been quiet for some time now, simply listening and trying to wrap her head around the words that are being said among the group. The thought of time travel and everything associated with it has, honestly, gone over her head in more than one way. She had only just learned about how the rifts were bringing in people from strange, vastly different world that were in no way connected to there own.

"It was the home of the Templar Order in the city but it was also where the Circle of Magi stood." It is said tight-lipped, edging on something that might be sadness or even humoring anger which might even be strange considering her usual state of being.

"I came here after the Circle in Starkhaven burned down. It doesn't seem to have changed much, honestly. Even the cells are still as I remember them too."

[watchesandlistens]

Corvo still doesn't care, okay. Really!! Look at him not caring. Just laying in his bunk ignoring everyone. However, he does bother to raise his head at stare at the doctor with a sullen expression (though admittedly, that seems to be his default).

"If you call him simple one more time, I'm throwing my shoe at you."

Not that Corvo cares.

He settles back in his bunk, a grumbling rumble in his throat. He despises having to talk so much. Why can't everybody just settled in and wait for death.

[not_the_question]

The Doctor just ignores the Outsider. It wasn't worth getting into the finer details of how time travel works - and that it's not connected to 'magic' - and he assumes the other wouldn't understand anyway. Especially since the Doctor was fairly certain it was science that brought them to this time.

The Doctor does look over at Corvo. "If you can throw it so it passes through the bars, then that skill might be put to better use, don't you think?"

It wasn't a challenge so much as an observation. They all had different talents. Maybe they could use them to get out. Question was, how to coordinate it so that the guards didn't know.

[limier]

Wren shoots a glare over her shoulder towards the tiff. It’d surely be withering if it weren’t utterly lost in the dim. And perhaps if it weren't made by someone who looks like they’ve recently gone waltzing with a bronto.

She raises her voice slightly, pitched just high enough to carry down the hall. The words are tense.

"If you throw something, or begin a shouting match," Raven. "We will surely speak to the guards sooner rather than later."

She trusts she needn’t spell out the consequences, with so many examples in view. Wren turns back to Inessa, tries to disguise the fidgeting way her hand keeps creeping back to her ears.

"The converts." Traitors, she thinks and won’t say. There may yet be affection — however misplaced — for such creatures. "Do any linger?"

Contacts could be valuable. No loyalty is ever absolute.

[youwonscience]

Cosima's expression is pressed thin, at both the responses and the spat. If they're this inclined to argue, she doesn't have high hopes for a coordinated escape attempt. At least one other person seems to appreciate that loudly arguing isn't incredibly helpful.

(Then again, it's hardly the first time in her experience that male egos have created unnecessary problems.)

Instead of engaging, she thinks through the implications. The Outsider and the Doctor could both, theoretically, be right; if the multi-universe theory was true, there was the possibility of both paradox inside a given universe and crossing between them. If they can't get home, of course, it's moot - but if they can, it is worth gathering whatever information possible on the off-chance they can prevent all this.

And she is definitely not thinking about the ever-more-likely possibility that someone was going to reintroduce her to lyrium in an even worse way than her previous encounter. "Fear is the mind-killer," she mutters under her breath, and it's half a joke, half an attempt to distract herself.