( closed ) PLAYER PLOT: STILL WATERS

[dashing]

WHO: Alistair, Herian, Myr, Nell, Prompto, Saoirse, Wren.
WHAT: ( Plot post ) Shady rumours concerning the Tranquil lead to a remote Circle in the Northern Anderfels. Its relative isolation from the rest of Thedas has prevented news from reaching the Inquisition sooner. Our crack team investigates.
WHEN: forward dated, around 21st-ish Cloudreach
WHERE: Salzklippe, the Anderfels.
NOTES: Content Warning for violence, murder, and other grim Dragon Age things. The grief demon threads in particular include themes of death, suicide, and gore. Please add additional warnings to subject lines where necessary.

— Making the approach (group thread) — Into the catacombs (individual starters) — Discovering the lake (group thread) — Into the tower (individual starters) — Bossfight (multiple group-ish) — Later Stuff (individual starters) FOR GROUP THREADS: in order to keep threads moving, I will be aiming to do a GM tag once every 24 hours. Don't worry about a strict tagging order, but please don't tag more than three times every 24 hours, just to make sure no one gets left behind.

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THE BOSSFIGHT.

[dashing]

In the chamber sits a woman. Her skin seems ivory pale, though it is hard to tell when her face is all but obscured by sheer silk that tumbles past her shoulders and she holds wrapped about herself. Even so, her smile is easy enough to make out, as she looks towards the arriving party.

She has been preceded by her fellows; Fear, Rage, Despair, Desire. There is a hunger that exists within each of them, and some spirits feed off one another, heightening their own need. She, by comparison, almost seems like a light in the oppressive darkness of the chamber, that seems to envelope them as they walk in.

"I'm so happy to meet you all," she says, bowing her head respectfully. Her voice is strange, the tumbling of leaves in an autumn breeze, the rustle of reeds at the side of a lake. "My name is Lupeó. It is a great relief to have company after all this time."


( ooc: I'm doing individual starters for each character in this, so that everyone can make progress in their character being bargained with and all the other characters can observe, without us getting stuck anywhere. As with all threads, order doesn't matter but please don't tag more than two times between each tag done by the character who the thread revolves around. If it's your character's focus thread, tag as often as you like.

Please note: these threads aren't meant to narratively flow on from one another, but have more of a sense of "Fade time-fuckery." Basically they are sort of going on simultaneously, and yet all the characters are aware and able to interact with each others threads in a hazy, confusing dream timeline sort of way. It's mostly just a device so we don't need to worry about continuity or why they don't all rush into battle sooner, so just have fun with it. )

SAOIRSE

[dashing]

The darkness is oppressive, and then it begins to bleed, as ink falling into water. First it expands and contorts, and then it is— gone. Diluted.

They stand in the Gallows. Not the Gallows of current days, but the Gallows of years past, and the sunlight breaking through the windows above dapples the floors and desk of the classroom. Lupeo looks the part of a gentle old woman, and yet entirely herself, wearing the face of a kindly Senior Enchanter.

Before them, at the desk, sit some of Saoirse's pupils. Some may have been amongst those who survived the Gallows, but most are not. She looks to Saoirse, as though curious. The scene is not a horror— yet. Not yet, not yet, oh but it could become so.

"You must have been an excellent teacher, Enchanter. The students are very fond of you."

[sulena]

She knows this scene before the faces of her pupils catch her eye. In the nearby window she spies one of the pieces she brought with her from Starkhaven, a small wind chime made from river glass, that sends splashes of color around the dull-colored room. Saoirse cannot even help the way she glances back to look beyond the group as if she expects a Templar to be standing guard near her classroom's door.

And the children... oh, Maker, her heart aches to see their faces. Faces she never expected to see again... faces she would never see again and she can't help the stiffness that falls over her form. She won't let this demon get the better of her, she won't it use her own memories to break and bury her in bad memories.

"I gave them all that I could despite our arrangements in the Gallows," she says tiredly. Yet the look she gives the faces is still warm but so very tired, carefully her fingers skim over the surface of a desk and her gaze flickers toward Lupeo. "But you will not win me over by showing me these reflections and twisting them in your favor."

[dashing]

"Twisting? Oh, no." You could almost imagine her setting a hand over her heart. "No, Saoirse. I don't want to twist them. I want to give you an opportunity."

On one of the children, a brand flickers into place across his forehead.

"Do you not mourn what happened to them?"

[sulena]

An opportunity it says. Of course, all demons have something they wish to offer in exchange for something more and for some piece of their world. Her gaze never falters, remaining still on Lupeo and unable to help but think-- at least she has not been shown some twisted image of her father.

"They will always remain close to my heart." She says, a hand clutching the locket around her next and calling on strength. "But... I cannot change what happened after the Circles fell nor can you."

MYR

[dashing]

It is the Fade. "Wondrous, isn't it, what can be done?"

This moment, all the other moments, are a colourful landscapes, complex if not always vibrant. Myr can see the texture of them, just as all the others can. She knows his grief and the guilt that runs through it as surely as blood flows through veins.

As of this moment, they stand on a mountaintop, overlooking a glorious sunrise over rolling fields of golden wheat, and others with waves of white cottage yarrow blooms that sway in the breeze and catch the yellow and pinks and oranges of the rising sun.

She smiles to Myr, very kindly. "When was the last time you beheld something like this? When you could see the glorious creations of the Maker?"

[faithlikeaseed]

It is the Fade, and in the Fade he can see—

Though stepping into it through a waking door instead of the quiet advent of sleep, he’s caught in flickering superposition between the bright-eyed aspirant and the blind man he became, a ghost laid over flesh. He catches his breath at the question, at the vista spread out before them, and thinks to say, when last I dreamed—rejecting her implicit offer out of hand, as one must always with demons. It would be an easy answer, a safe answer, an answer to end this here and free him to find his companions.

It would also be a lie. The aching clarity of each stalk and burgeoning head of grain, kissed with brilliant color in the rising light that kindles a spark in every drifting dust mote—he has not seen its like, he knows now, in dreams or Veilfire. Those run together at the edges in storybook pastel, details softened until even a beloved face was only recognizable because he knew who it should be.

Whatever in his mind still knew how to see was forgetting, and sooner or late his dreams would be dark. (Even Thranduil’s glamour could not rescue it; sharp and lovely as those glimpses were they weren’t enough.) A last insult after everything else that one panicked moment had ruined; a fitting recompense for all the good he might have done if he‘d not maimed himself.

(Sina wouldn’t have encountered the cough that killed her, had Myr not needed help from the sighted to unravel the warehouse’s hideous mystery; Kit may not have died if he’d another friend watching his back in Darktown.

The bodies rotting in the tower; Philomela’s other brood called out into the world to save mage lives; five men dead of blood magic in Nevarra, self-made victims of an ambush he should have seen coming.

Vandelin, guilt-wracked and bleeding for a horror that wasn’t his fault.)

“Years.” The Maker abhors a liar. “Since before—our Circle fell.”

Reluctantly, he pulls his gaze from the vista of farm and field, regards his questioner. “And you’d offer it back?”

[dashing]

"I could," she says, very softly. "Bring back your eyes, your sight. You could behold those you hold dearest in your heart. You could better look to the people in your life; read their hearts when their bodies betray them and their tongues do not."

Her hands are gentle as she picks a flower. Its petals are bright and vibrant, the petals pink and darkening to a rich purple. A stripe of that same dark purple edges the outermost part of the petal.

A soft exhale. "But I think for now we can just enjoy the view. You have had much heartache, these past years. A reprieve is not undeserved."

NELL

[dashing]

The town they are walking through - because they are walking, now - is beautiful. Houses stand each side of the cobblestone walkway, the exterior walls rendered in a range of colours from delicate cream to a summery yellow, to warm, vibrant reds, and every tone and variation between. There is a fountain in town, a vast one, with three tiers and stone horses standing to mark north, south, east and west. Children clamber over the stone, two of them doing their utmost to get onto one of the horse's backs. Another sits reading at the edge with her feet in the water. The fourth and fifth stand in the water, one of them guiding the water into icy shapes with her hands, tongue poked between her lips in concentration, as the other watches in a sort of enthralled silence, trying to follow suit and only managing to make little misshapen blobs of ice that fall into the water with little dignity or ceremony.

The town moves about them, as though it is no concern. A baker's assistant looks harried as he scurries past with trays of bread for delivery, and a woman with knitting in her lap looks at the children fondly, before calling out to one of them in Ander to make sure he doesn't tear his shirt, because it would be the second one this week.

Lupeó picks up an apple from a merchant's cart and bites into it, so the sweet scent of it carries on the air. "What comes next, Nell?"

[galvanising]

It is a beautiful town, a picture-book vision of village life. Seductive, certainly, but there's no escaping the incongruities. Nell trails her fingers along the corner of the cart, searching for a splinter in the wood, waiting for her skin to catch on an imperfection, pressing down in search of that pricking pain. It doesn't come.

She picks up an apple and tosses it from hand to hand, the fruit making a hollowish thwock as it's thumped into her palm with force. "Probably a sandstorm," she replies, shrugging, "How the fuck should I know?"

[dashing]

Lupeó chuckles a little. The more perceptive ones are more difficult, and yet so often so much more rewarding. Their sharpness, that caution, can be rooted in terribly injuries.

"This is the future you're fighting for. A future where... magic can exist in the streets without mages suffering, and without others living in fear."

With a little shrug, Lupeó snatches up the apple, and takes a bite from it. "Your presence here does not mean a storm has to follow. You can simply... be."

ALISTAIR

[dashing]

A battle rages, one that they are both in the midst of, and watching from a distance. The strange disconnect that comes with dreams, where the combatants can step right through them, and they can make no difference. They might as well be watching from far off, as Loghain had at Ostagar.

It is not a recent battle, perhaps not one even recognisable as something particular and distinct. The Wardens stand gloriously, fighting side by side, holding a line against the onslaught of darkspawn.

Even as the ground smokes, the Wardens rise again, as the caverns about them sing.

"How do you think the Wardens will be remembered, Alistair?"

[byblow]

It's not the first time today that Alistair hasn't had a quip ready. There are only so many ways to make light of the dead before you're both kinds of bastard. But in this case, he really wishes he did, because he knows better. He really does. He's had training, he's dealt with demons, and he shouldn't be buying in, shouldn't be staring at the scene with rapt attention and something like hunger pangs.

But this is something he doesn't remember himself. He's never seen anything like it. No one alive has, and likely no one alive ever will. They'll only see the schemers, the murderers and blood mages. Tyrants and thralls. Whole generations will pass before there's a reason for a fight like this, and by then—who knows what will be left.

He inhales a breath that he fully intends to use to mouth off, but what he says with the exhale is, "Not like this."

[dashing]

"Why do you suppose that is?"

Her voice is very gentle, from slightly behind Alistair, as her hand finds his shoulder.

Before them, three ogres begin to run towards the Wardens, pushing up from a lower cave, the last of them armoured and bigger than the other two. Six wardens start to run to them, fearless and without hesitation. One carries a bow, and he hangs back only slightly, for a few moments, to send three arrows flying at once. Another, an elven woman, leaps into the fray seemingly with no weapon, only to carve through the leg of the ogres with a spirit blade that comes into being.

"What changed?"

WREN

[dashing]

A boat, in the middle of the sea, or perhaps simply in a great like. It is hard to see, though the weather is not hazy. It is simply shifting and uncertain, in the way dreams so often are. Wood creaks beneath their feet, as water sloshes against the side of the boat. There is a strange sense of weightlessness, as if they were floating in the water itself, rather than standing in the boat. (Are they standing? Surely they must be.)

"It must be a relief to get away, for a while." She sits on the edges of the boat, looking across the horizon, her fingers trailing in the water, before looking back to Wren. "More room to breathe."

[limier]

Her dreams are always cold.

The sharp teeth of winter, the stillness of a frozen pool — and this isn't cold, now. She can't be dreaming. A palm cups to the surface (ill-defined as air) withdraws full of a stolen luminescence. Wren looks aside, and it trickles free again to dissolve again, inattentive.

Her dreams are cold, but this doesn't feel like anything at all.

"To get away," She echoes. To get away from what? Not a dream; not waking, either. Will and logic fumble to reassert themselves. From the corner of her eye she watches Lupeo, catches the echo of something she ought to remember better than this. "Where are we going?"

[dashing]

"We can go wherever we might." There is a faint smile at the corners of her mouth. Her appearance seems to— drift, for a moment. It is the reflection that alters first, and then the voice. It is Ser Averie that sits in the boat, now, bow at his back, ginger hair drawn back in a ponytail.

"Somewhere without our troubles chasing us," Averie says drolly, idly working off one of his gloves. "Do ever feel tired?"

PROMPTO

[dashing]

Now, this is interesting. They stand in the darkness, still, but a light seems to shine from above them. If more of them knew about the technology, the effect might remind them of an overhead projector, the sort endlessly popular with relatives wanting to show off hundreds upon hundreds of holiday photos that weren't very interesting and never seemed to end. Here is us with a chicken, here is us with another chicken, and so on.

It would seem familiar, because that is almost exactly what is happening. They stand in the dark, and beyond a screen, beyond some barrier, there lies a city at night. It is like no city any of the others will have seen before. The buildings are sprawling, the road smooth and hard, with lines of white paint on it. There is bright, unnatural light breaking up the darkness, and strange metal and glass vaults line the road.

Lupeo clicks the device in her hand, an the angle shifts slightly, and then slightly more, until the fourth frame has a collection of people that may only be recognisable to Prompto.

"Insomnia. What an interesting name for home." Another click. The pictures are strange, seem to reach out, as though one could just step into them. "What do you call it, when you all take a photograph together, but one of you is holding the camera?"

[crowncitizen]

Disturbing hardly covers what's going on here, and yet, the familiarity of it leaves Prompto reeling. Pictures, actual pictures. Well, maybe. They're the illusion of actual pictures, but close enough. And they're all packed with hauntingly familiar places and people. The city he calls home, likely out of reach for years more, and even if they do take it back, it'll never be the same. But here, in front of him, it's just like before the empire rolled in.

Then his friends look back at him from the screen, and his heart leaps into his throat. Noctis... Gladio... Iggy, before he lost his eyesight. Before the awful events of Altissia and everything that followed. He swallows thickly, finally glancing at Lupeo when she asks her question.

"It's... it's called a selfie." But wait- "How do you know what a photo is? Or that that city's Insomnia? How do you know any of this?"

[dashing]

The spirit smiles, lips curved behind her veil. She speaks with a softness to her voice that could be kindness.

"I know because you know. I feel because you feel. I grieve with your grief."

She approaches the frame, though her body does not seem to move the same way that others do. "Even those who are with you are not the same as you wish them to be. Is that correct?"

HERIAN CW: GORE. (this will eventually lead into the fight part)

[dashing]

It is not the first time she has looked upon this scene. For years it has tormented her in variations, warped with each of her failings. Woods and stone wound together, a forest with statues and columns amongst the trees. Not all the columns stand straight and tall, but are as gnarled and doubled over as one might expect to find in the most ancient, secret regions of the forest.

She does not need to look to know. A bloody loop of rope settles around her neck, a pair of elven ears hanging from it. The shirt she wears is threadbare, skin grubby with dirt and blood, her legs are wrapped in leather leggings, nails and metal drove in, some twisted and rusty. Blood runs down her legs, but it is an old hurt, now. One she can bear up under, the way one must always keep moving. We survive our injuries.

“Perhaps that is the greatest betrayal we can allow,” Lupeó says, echoing through the maze of leaves and marble. “To survive when we fail so many.”

The spirit shifts as she moves, until she stands before them, an elven man. Kind, with blonde hair that is messily wavy in much the same way as Herian’s own, bound back. His skin is the kind of pale that has been overwhelmed by work in the sun, heavily-freckled. The spatter of freckles is interrupted by the smear and clotting of blood.

“Oh, a bhobain. What have you gone and done, my mischief girl?”

The gash in his throat bubbles when he speaks.

[limier]

It's startling, when the grotesque still manages to startle.

Something of the abruptness in it, the hazy steps between moments, it disorients. Sends an unpleasant spike of instinct shaking up her spine. Perhaps that's only someone else's pain, bleeding through,

Bleeding. All of them; she recognizes the wound before any other recognition. Fatal. It's fatal.

(It's in the blood.)

Mischief girl, she tries to say; can't make herself heard. If a tree falls in the forest —

[dashing]

For a few moments, Herian’s own mouth moves in an ineffective bid to pry words from her throat. No sound comes. It feels more real than it has in the past, more terrible. She is still clasping the staff, flames curling about the head of it. The fire does not crackle at it otherwise might, but burns silently. Her fingers grip hard, knuckles close to white.

The image of her father is a monstrosity.

“I’m— I am sorry.”

Hefin Amsel, or the mockery of him, steps forward and sets his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. “Oh, now. None of that.” His smile is kind. “You’re all grown up. There’s no changing the past, now, is there? Not with apologies or regrets.” The grip on her shoulders tightens. “You should know by now that sorrow means nothing to the dead.”

The raw wounds where his ears were cut away ooze, and he taps at the ears hanging about her neck. “I hope you at least got those burned, with the rest of me left behind. Not a very Andrastian end, was it? You even burned those templars at the Spire, but not your old da.”

FINAL THROWDOWN - CW BODY HORROR

[dashing]

Not all push back, but enough try.

Lupeó smiles. It’s wide, visible even beneath the veil. It pulls the cloth taut against her lips, mouth falling open in empty laughter.

With the wet snap of bone, her skull begins to split in two. The seam splinters down her chin, her neck, her breast. Ribs crack past viscera, tearing the gauze that drapes her.

Not ribs at all. They snare upwards into the jagged points of a stag. Her body twists, unfurls into massive jaws lined with teeth. At each side sway five long, human arms, thin and distorted. There’s one joint too many, palms raw.

Lupeo stretches herself, rattling sickle-talons, a long, arched tail.

Her breath carries the sweet scent of rot:

“You do not yet know the meaning of grief.”

She casts affliction hex on Nell, and begins to scale the wall.

LEEEEROOOOOOY

[faithlikeaseed]

With three knight-enchanters among them, it'll be a race to see who's first into the fray (or Wren might get there before they do)--

Myr is certainly game for it, slow-growing anger stoked to fury by the demon's depredations (by glimpses of past injustices, past griefs dredged up for a monster's delectation); he's his staff down off his back already, spiraling hand over hand in a casting form meant to send a bolt of ice right between the demon's jaws. Frost crackles, condenses--

Sublimates into thin air as Myr checks like he's hit a wall, eyes blown wide at the feel of a hex in the Fade. At least it isn't sleep, at least it isn't horror, but even if the spell-shape's not quite the same to trigger instinctive terror it still oozes and drips like putrid flesh and sends him recoiling. He stumbles a step forward, stops, fingers white-knuckled on his staff and breath sucked in through clenched teeth.

Someone else, then, might get the first blow while he struggles to collect himself.