faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ AND THOSE WHO SLEPT (LOG)

WHO: Nearly everyone
WHAT: A return to Nevarra City, where everything goes great
WHEN: Harvestmere 30 – Firstfall 1
WHERE: Nevarra City
NOTES: OOC and plotting post here! Consolidated crystal post here!

DAY.

They ride hard up the Imperial Highway, rising before dawn the last day and arriving in Nevarra City by mid-morning. There is no time wasted on settling in, barely enough to find their rooms at their assigned inns and change into whatever reasonably-practical costume they have chosen before getting to work. Most are sent out in pairs or trios to walk certain routes or neighborhoods, marking the locations of mummies and (subtly, ideally) observing them for any strange behavior.

Despite the looming threat of war the capital is packed with visitors for the Satinalia celebrations. The streets teem with those rushing about preparing for the evening's festivities, and plenty more spill out the front of every tavern, starting their revelry early. Masks are already a common accessory, and are recommended for those patrolling the streets. It won't be difficult to see why, since many Nevarrans still blame the Inquisition for the disaster at the Grand Necropolis. It's possible to run into groups discussing it, the mummies lining the streets a reminder for many of what was lost in that fire.

The Pentaghast mummies will be found stationed on all major street corners, outside government buildings, and in front of many notable monuments, especially those honoring Pentaghast heroes of the past. Some even guard their own statues, and pains have clearly been taken to make sure their arms and armor match those depicted right down to the mummified horse and the desiccated straw of its mane. But it isn't only the royal dead who've been trotted out for a day in the sun. Inspired by this gesture, families around the city have had their own mummies brought to stand sentry outside their homes, from the phalanx of knights outside the mansion of a noble house to the less-glittering but no less honored ancestors of the poorest communities wielding the tools of their trades.

Many such communities will be hosting parties for the whole neighborhood, and local leaders can be found out in the streets laying out tables or piling up firewood. A quiet word here and there about how they handle safety issues will find most have plans for drunken troublemakers, pickpockets, or gang fights, and a few will have considered how to hurry people home if, for instance, a Van Markham assault on the city were to begin. But on the whole people are preparing for a party, not for trouble, and there's little Riftwatch can do to change that now without risking a panic that could easily turn just as dangerous as a true attack, not to mention have disastrous consequences for Riftwatch's reputation if their suspicions prove wrong. For now they walk the streets and watch and wait for confirmation.

DUSK.

As the sun sets over the hills to the west, Satinalia begins in earnest. Bonfires are lit, musicians tune up, and people gather at tables and in courtyards or in taverns to feast and drink and exchange gifts. The last of the day's light and the first flickers of firelight limn the city in scarlet and gold, and reflect off the vacant eyes of the mummies standing sentry up and down the streets.

A cheer goes up when Satina is first spotted in the sky, the edges of the full moon sharpening as the sky darkens, Luna just a slender crescent above it. Parades begin to wind their way through the streets, growing in size all the while as masked revelers join their ranks, dancing and shouting, scattering flowers and sharing wine, bearing fools on thrones before them. At first it goes nearly unnoticed when the mummies, nearly in unison, turn their faces up toward the moon.

The silhouette of a dragon launching into flight across the face of that moon, on the other hand, draws plenty of eyes. The sight is greeted by as many cheers as screams, many clearly uncertain what's happening, expecting some sort of elaborate holiday prank. Then the creature wheels about, swoops low over the city, and bellows a cloud of toxic dust into a crowd. Its roar is a rattling, rasping cough nearly drowned out by the sounds of confusion, fear, and pain that rise in its wake. Again, the dead move as one, heads turned back toward the streets. For a moment they stare blankly at the crowds. And then they move.

Every mummy in the city lurches into action, raising their swords or pitchforks or knitting needles, their hammers or halberds. But instead of the defense that was promised, they attack whoever is nearest, at first methodical but then with a mounting frenzy. They are enough aware of their surroundings to parry a blow or chase a potential victim but without any regard for pain or fear or even whether they have defeated one opponent before they swing at the next. In the noble quarters, undead knights spur undead mounts forward, charging through panicking, scattering crowds of their own descendants.

As the dead begin to create more of their own kind, even the least magically-attuned will become aware of spirits flooding the air, a torrent of them rushing out of the Fade and clamoring to find new homes in the recently-vacated bodies. The newly dead then rise up to join the old, blood still wet and warm on their skin as they take up whatever weapons are to hand and turn on the living. Above the screams and cries—and in some homes and isolated streets the echoing of music and merriment not yet interrupted—rises a howling laugh.

At first he could be mistaken for Corypheus, the too-tall frame misshapen and crusted with stone and lyrium in similar ways. But Corypheus isn't really the laughing type, and this one can't seem to stop. Cloaked but unhooded, he rides the mummified dragon over the city before alighting on top of the Chantry cathedral, scampering across its roof with unnatural agility. Armed with a crooked staff of twisted wood, bone, and metal, he calls forth the dead—not just those already on display, but the contents of every necropolis and crypt in the city, even those long forgotten and built over. Mummies emerge from cellars and sewers and claw their way up between loose cobblestones, push out from walls and rise from the riverbed and set off around the city on violent parade, acting out some wild ancient celebration of Chaos.

NIGHT.

Night seems to fall with unusual speed. The dead hunt the living through the streets, and every fresh corpse joins them in moments, almost immediately possessed by one of the translucent, undifferentiated mass of spirits teeming about the city, clamoring for vessels of their own. Some shamble after their prey with heavy steps shuffling across the cobblestones, their own lethargy dragging the energy from the living around them, deadening legs and draining even the racing adrenaline of panic until their victims slow enough to be overrun. Others go mad with rage, throttling the life from their victims, or even tearing them limb from limb with slavering intensity. They come in all states of decay, from brittle bones that just about collapse into dust when struck to the well-preserved mummies with their tight, leathery skin, to those who've barely begun to go cold. The newly dead are the most dangerous, sometimes almost indistinguishable from the living until it's too late, holiday masks concealing their dead eyes.

As the mad magister capers about the city, rousting the dead wherever he goes, he leaves a trail of anger and confusion in his wake, the living suddenly driven to attack each other with mindless ferocity, and just as suddenly returning to themselves in time to witness the horror of their actions. Elsewhere, sections of the city are plunged abruptly into utter darkness, every lantern and torch for blocks extinguished simultaneously, leaving only moonlight by which to navigate the night's dangers, even that blocked out by the great bulk of the dragon when it dives to breath death into the crowds.

GRIFFON RIDERS

Ordered to retrieve the griffons at the first sign of trouble—or in some cases to stay behind and mind them—a team of riders makes it out of the city before the gates are closed and is soon in the air overhead, relaying information back to the teams on the ground.

Most of the griffons have never seen combat before. Their reactions vary, some personalities more daring or staid than others, but even the bravest griffon might take a moment to balk at the sight of the dragon they're sharing the skies with, and the most skittish might require coaxing not to ignore instructions and fly in the other direction.

From above, there's some order to the chaos. The black-marble Castrum Draconis lies at the center of the city, statue-lined boulevards sprawling out from it like spokes on a wheel. The city's structures grow shorter and less ornate the further from the palace they are, but even the smallest dwellings in the poorer areas are three stories high. The streets between them are rivers of light. But they're going dim where the living and their torches are pushed out or trampled by growing mobs of corpses. The darkness is pressing toward the eastern side of the city, where the undead seem to be organizing around a pair of dark, enormous forms visible even from above. Meanwhile, a steady glowing stream of spirits is pouring from a single building to the west of the palace, and a large crowd of the still-living, defended at its perimeter by soldiers and guardsmen, has gathered near the city's main gates.

Relaying that information back to the rest of Riftwatch is first priority. Second is the possessed undead dragon terrorizing the city—keeping it away from that growing crowd of civilians, at least, and destroying it if possible. Then, if there's time to spare, there are people trapped in the middle of the undead horde climbing onto roofs to escape them or in need of intervention from above as they're pursued by the streets.

DIPLOMACY

Members of the Diplomacy Division assemble at a small fortress near the city's main gates, typically an outpost for the city guard and tariff collectors. It's unusually empty now: everyone is in the streets. But captains and commanders still burst in and out of doors, exchanging information and orders that any enterprising Riftwatch eavesdroppers can pass along to the rest of the organization by crystal, dispatching members of Forces to assist a neighborhood no guards are near enough to help, or sending a griffon to rescue a family who have fled onto their rooftop and come to regret it, tracking sightings of the ancient magisters on one of the many maps lining the walls.

The crystal network of course allows for much faster gathering and distribution of information around the city, and before long the guard leaders can be won over by the assistance offered by their uninvited guests, and convinced to work with Riftwatch to coordinate strategy and pass messages to guardsmen and soldiers they meet.

Unfortunately, the one thing they won't consider is opening the gates. It's the only clear order they've received from the palace: contain the threat, don't give the undead an escape route into Thedas, don't let this become a disaster Nevarra has inflicted on the rest of the world. It sounds noble. But there's a swelling crowd of living civilians trapped just inside those gates, protected at its edges by the guard and soldiers for as long as they can stay alive.

As the night wears on, word from the griffon riders above indicates that the undead have organized and are on their way through the streets toward the crowd. Someone needs to get the gate open—if not for humanitarian reasons, then for strategic ones. The crowd is large enough to increase the size of the existing undead army by a third.

FORCES

The city isn't defenseless, and at first, the most sensible thing for the Forces Division to do is to coordinate with the larger number of guards and soldiers already present to intervene on behalf of civilians and funneling them toward the city's main gates. They're grateful for any assistance from anyone who knows how to wield a weapon, and healers, magical or not, are in high demand as the injured are dragged to safety behind the line of soldiers—if they die behind the line, they'll quickly become a danger instead.

But they're outnumbered by the dead to begin with, and every time another life is lost, the body is quickly overtaken by one of the disembodied spirits ricocheting through the streets in search of somewhere to settle.

It isn't only a lack of manpower hindering efforts. Most of the soldiers and guard fight the undead with the same hesitance they might exhibit if forced to fight their own ailing grandfathers. When one of the less reverent suggests fire might be called for, she's quickly shut down. The soldiers concoct plans to block streets with toppled carts and close off intermediary gates throughout the city to contain the mummies without needing to destroy them, but the planning and the execution both take time when there isn't much of that to spare.

And the guard and the army receive conflicting orders, both large and small: the guard thinks that the army is handling the market, the army thinks that the guard is. Friction and resentment between the two groups from well before tonight doesn't help matters, and the small contingent of Van Markham loyalists present alongside the Pentaghast's forces make accusations that nearly cause a brawl before an advancing line of undead cuts it short.

In that chaos, word reaches Riftwatch from the griffons above that the dead are organizing around apparent leaders, east of the palace. Tall, corrupted leaders. Waiting for the guard and the military to organize and decide what to do about them may take all night—so go now.

RESEARCH

With eyes in the air, the source of the spirits is apparent: they're emerging from a building just west of the palace, in a steady glowing stream, before scattering wildly through the streets, searching for something to latch onto. A Mortalitasi apprentice named Portia meets Riftwatch at the entrance. She seems trustworthy, for all appearances—genuinely panicked, searching for assistance already before they arrive, trying to be helpful despite relative youth and inexperience, clutching the possessed ceremonial skull that serves as her instructor for dear life—and leads the team inside, down stairs and through a narrow tunnel that avoids the outpouring of spirits while leading to its source.

That source is a cavernous underground chamber. Its underlying architectural elements are ancient Tevene, and the remnants of crumbling inscriptions reference Zazikel. On top of them are generations' worth of Nevarran additions, dating back as far as the Glory Age and as recent as the last decade. One tiled wall is lined with stone etchings of each of Nevarra's rulers, another a map of Nevarra as it existed at the height of its expansion in the Blessed Age. A third is covered in mathematical symbols, and a fourth in flat panels that hum with the magical energy of bound wisps.

At the center is a twisting structure of stone and metal—a conduit, with beams running across the ceiling to each wall—and at its center, a glowing ball of energy from which the spirits are emerging and funneling up through the ceiling. It is essentially a magnet, the apprentice explains: not a hole in the Veil, but a concentration of summoning power, carefully situated at a nexus of the Fade's unseen rivers of magic, strong enough to pull spirits through it. It was built over the ages for the sake of knowledge and potential emergencies. It is a testament to Nevarran history and strength. And it is also a puzzle.

Each wall is a piece of it, designed to limit the device's operation to those with a thorough knowledge of Nevarran history and heroes. The kings must be pressed back flush with the wall in order—not the order they ruled, but numerically by the combined number of dragons slayed and children sired. Tiles on the map signifying the location of major battles in Nevarra's several wars must be pressed in chronological order, but any lost battles must be skipped altogether, or the whole thing will reset. The symbols on the third wall are famous proofs put forward by mathematician-philosophers at the Duchess's Games, each with several subtle errors that must be identified. And the spirits bound to the final wall will budge only for demonstrations of a number of subtle, otherwise-useless Mortalitasi ritual spells.

Their guide is of limited help: she knows King Caspar I killed fewer dragons than King Caspar II, and she's learned one of the rituals, but she's hopeless at math and military history, and the possessed skull she's carting around won't stop shrieking about how offensive it is to have so many foreigners in the room touching his work. But she does at least know the way to the royally-maintained library, which may have some undead shambling among its shelves but may also have some of the answers—and she knows that the device can only be destroyed (and here the skull shrieks its loudest) after it's been fully deactivated, if they don't want a repeat of 7:32, when a half-dozen mages who were concerned about the device's potential for misuse vanished and left behind only their robes and some black marks still visible on the floor.

And after the device has been fully dealt with and the flow of spirits stopped, there is then the matter of escaping the city, still teeming with undead.

SCOUTING

As the Diplomacy team is able to relay, the crown has issued frankly terrible orders: to keep the gates closed, to send the population home. The city guard has been told that the military is handling the darkspawn leading the attack. The military has been told to leave it to the guard. Perhaps King Markus is officially addled beyond competence, or perhaps someone either very stupid or very terrible is speaking on his behalf. It is, altogether, some real nonsense, and people—more people than normal, in a standard attack of frenzied undead—are going to die.

The assembled Scouting team is tasked with infiltrating the palace, to appeal to the king or cut off bad advice at the source—whatever it takes. With nearby noble families and their servants retreating into it for safety, it's a somewhat easier prospect than usual. Split into small groups to attempt multiple entrances and tactics, whether talking their way through the servants' entrances or climbing through upper windows, they'll find the place in disarray. Pentaghast cousins and advisors are engaged in fierce, terrified arguments in half the rooms. In others, some servants have broken down crying, convinced they will die at work without seeing their families again, while others are determined to clean and cook as if nothing is wrong, and a handful roam the halls trying in vain to rouse the rest into organizing and escaping.

The throne room has scattered pockets of people engaged in whispered conversations and one old man wandering with an untouched glass of wine and a haunted stare, apparently overwhelmed. But the throne is empty. King Markus is abed, and the room's main doors blocked by a growing crowd of officials and relatives trying to get in to see him while six guards and three grey-robed mages attempt to explain that he is strategizing with his advisors and cannot be disturbed. Aurelia—self-proclaimed regent and perhaps the only person capable of commanding admission or countermanding the orders—is miles away, encamped on the road to Hunter Fell with the Pentaghast army in anticipation of a Van Markham attack.

Fortunately, there's a secret entrance. Two, actually: one royal escape route with a staircase down to the lower levels, one corridor connecting to a room that was once occupied by some king or another's secret lover and is now stocked with herbs, incense, and various Mortalitasi accoutrements. And once the king has been secured, he'll need to be ferried out of the palace and through the chaos to the fortress where Diplomacy is trying to coordinate information with the guard and military leaders.

DAWN.

By dawn, the gates are open, and Riftwatch and the remaining Nevarran guards and soldiers have retreated from the city with as many refugees as could be saved. Not all have chosen this route, but many have nowhere else to go, and so make their weary way back down the Imperial Highway, battered and blinking in the morning sun. The dragon is defeated, the magical chamber's spell ended, and one ancient magister slain, but the dead have overrun the capital. Research's success has stoppered the flow of new spirits, but those already possessing the dead remain in the bodies they've taken, hungry, angry. The gates are shut again once all that can be rescued have been, trapping the army of the dead inside, a problem for Nevarra to solve another day.

Without tents or supplies, and with mounts and carts in short supply, most are forced to walk, and all to sleep on the ground beneath the stars in just their clothes, and to eat whatever they can buy or the soldiers can commandeer from villages as they pass. Unlike the shocked, traumatized refugees they escort, Riftwatch's members will be expected to help the guards and soldiers keep watch, distribute food, gather firewood, tend injuries, dig latrines, and whatever else might need doing. Perhaps they should take it as a compliment.

On reaching Cumberland, the refugees are escorted into the city, which has been alerted by earlier arrivals and seems to already have gears turning to deal with this stage of the crisis. Riftwatch will get a hot breakfast, some handshakes, even a few words of thanks from the Nevarrans, but otherwise will be expected to fend for themselves from there. Thankfully, Salvio has arranged their passage, and it's a short sail back to Kirkwall.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He thinks he can still see the city from where they’ve stopped, if he squints at the horizon: a dark spot faintly illuminated by the abandoned festival fires or street lamps and windowsill candles still burning down their wicks. But he doesn’t try very hard to confirm it. His eyes are tired—red, probably, too, from being whipped by the wind on griffonback all night—and focusing on anything in the dim, smudgy light of early dawn is hard, and Nevarra City was never home. The Circle, maybe, almost, for four whole years, but the Circle is—

Well.

Cumberland was home, and if Mouse weren’t exhausted he’d be tempted to fly to the front of the stream of refugees and then past them toward the coast. But the griffon’s worn his wings out and earned a rest, so they’re resting, adjacent to the crowd with enough distance to keep any easily-startled animals from knocking people over with their frighteningly wide wingspans.

Mouse has his beak tucked under a wing. Kostos has his hands jammed into his armpits to keep his fingers warm and is trying to convince himself to move to build a fire.

A pack of children veers close, led by a preteen guardian who opens her mouth to ask, inevitably, if they can pet the griffon, but she doesn’t get the words out before Kostos says no—quietly, without properly looking at them, but with such hostile finality that she takes a reflexive step back before herding her smaller charges away.

She looks like shit - and, unfortunately, she's a little too aware of it.

Sidony's pretty golden dress is still in tatters around her, she's stolen some shoes from someone that look awkwardly out of place, carrying the one she has left in her bag, and she's covered in dirt. If she hadn't trekked her way back from 'death' to Kirkwall she might be feeling a little more put out, but she's beginning to realise being a member of Riftwatch means losing the things that are, perhaps, a little less important.

Her mother would have a fit.

A little while into their pausing, Sidony decides she has to check in on the people she does care about. Byerly is accounted for, he is first on the list, but her cousins are next - and spotting Kostos is not difficult. She is beginning to learn the difference between them better, if only because Kostos is easier for her to track down than the other one. Slipping up close to his side, she breathes out.

"Am I allowed to pet him?"

"No," Kostos says, again, without looking.

But then he does look at her. And she looks like shit. And his expression stays stony, but it loses some of its sharper edges, and his head wobbles a little, like a reluctant prelude to an equally reluctant nod.

"You have to be quiet," he says, his own voice just above a whisper, "and slow. He's easily frightened."

And the griffon has had a long day—the same as the rest of them, except he's younger and doesn't understand why any of it is happening—and Kostos does not want to try to chase him on foot if he's startled into taking flight.

There's a moment where her calm turns to petulance and she's more than willing to scold him, but he looks at her and she softens.

This cannot be easy for either of them. Sidony does not know enough of her cousin's relationship to Nevarra to question his state now, but it has been difficult for her. Perhaps he shares some of that burden, even if he might not be willing to talk to her about it. This is enough, she thinks to herself; this has to be enough. At least they have a moment.

"Thank you." Sidony is very quiet, stepping up to move to hover at his side. She has no intention of riling up a poor, tired creature - and she means both man and griffon both.

"What is his name?"

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