MOD PLOT ↠ A THOUSAND WRONGS

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Assisting with the aftermath of occupation
WHEN: August through Kingsway
WHERE: Field of Ghislain
NOTES: OOC post. Please use appropriate content warnings in your comment subject lines as needed.

The Fields of Ghislain are, as the name suggests, broad open plains, more flat than not, more grass than trees. There are famous orchards around Arlesans at the southern end, but they fade into grassland and farm land, wide fields of wheat and corn separating quiet farming villages and the occasional bustling market town, the even more occasional country estate.

High summer here has always meant long hot days, dusty roads, and preparations for the harvest. Now it also means recovery from the sudden end to the area's year-and-a-half of occupation by the forces of Corypheus. On first glance, the area appears to have escaped relatively unscathed. There are a few burnt villages here and there, a few new rifts, and the scarred valley where the Battle of Ghislain took place, but there are also crops growing strong in the fields and markets open for business, people going about their lives.

On closer inspection, there's more work to be done. The immediate threats are obvious: an unusual number of rifts and the general thinning of the Veil they signal, small bands of enemies—including bands of darkspawn with red lyrium growths—still marauding through the region, isolated patches of red lyrium to be destroyed and Blight to be contained.

Most places have at least one building that's been destroyed by fire or force, some practically essential—a grain store, an infirmary, a watch tower—some invaluable in other ways—a chantry, a mayor's office, a monument to heroic ancestors. Some places showed more resistance than others, and there whole neighborhoods or even entire villages have been gutted by fire and the ruins shoved over like block towers. Some survivors fled and now return to pick through the debris, while others remained, living in shanties in the ashes waiting for a chance to rebuild. Despite the crops ripening in the fields there are signs of malnutrition in many places as well, stories of crops confiscated to feed the invading troops and only meager rations returned, worse off even than those affected by shortages elsewhere in Orlais.

And it's not just the material that the enemy has taken or destroyed. Every decent-sized village has its missing, people who were arrested and taken away in wagons or simply vanished one day out of the blue. Where there was resistance there were executions to discourage it, and while the inhabitants have already taken down and buried the displayed bodies, there are a few places where there is no one left to do so, or where magic placed remains out of reach but always in sight.

There are opportunities too: the enemy lived and worked here for 18 months. They did their best to cover their tracks when they left, but it was a hasty and unexpected withdrawal, and there is a wealth of information to collect and work through. There are houses they occupied that haven't been entirely cleaned out, papers only half-burned in an abandoned office, a storeroom in an outpost basement they forgot to empty. And there are the people who have been forced to live and work alongside them all this time to be spoken with, the names they've learned and the conversations they've overheard, the training exercises held on their village greens, all to be teased out and taken down.

One abandoned operation commands particular attention: the site that Riftwatch—then the Inquisition—observed on the eve of the Battle might be a shrine to the Old God Dumat. At the time this was a newly-discovered ruin and little could be discerned for certain, but during their occupation the Venatori have undertaken massive excavations. They've uncovered not just a shrine but a significant temple complex, much of it underground. Exploration of the lowest levels will be handled by a particular team, but there is more to see and do besides. The warren of ruins and the remains of the camp outside them must be searched for clues as to the Venatori's purpose here, and a preliminary study made of the site's contents. There are also the slaves who did the back-breaking labor of digging out the complex and now need assistance. Many are locals, who simply need a ride back to their homes. Others the Venatori brought with them from Tevinter, and they will need to be interviewed and local communities persuaded to take them in.

It is an unimaginable amount of work, but Riftwatch isn't doing it alone. The Inquisition still has a large number of noncombatants, many of whom have been sent to help with outreach and rebuilding in particular. The Exalted March, too, has plenty of volunteers that aren't exactly fit for the front lines. There is enough ground to cover for everyone, but there will be times when Riftwatch agents will be working with—or at least alongside—those from the Inquisition and the Exalted March, and orders are clear that they are to maintain good working relations and not start any trouble.

In between all of this there will be long rides by horse or cart from this village to that one over dirt tracks with cicadas buzzing in the sun, sweltering afternoons broken up by sudden, drenching thunderstorms, warm evenings playing pétanque on the green with the locals over a pint of cider. There will be as many wary as grateful, but hopefully by the end of the summer Riftwatch can tip that balance a little bit.

Comments

CHAMPROVENT.

[faderifting]

[ Details. ]

[heorte]

log here.

MARAUDERS.

[faderifting]

[ Details. ]

cw: violence, mentions of death

[katabasis]

[The trail of destruction they've followed in the past days might be conservatively characterized as erratic, as both waste and want in combination. There have been burned black fields and ruined houses, animals butchered for their meat set beside other more useless slaughter—

(A corpse in a ditch alongside an overturned and rifled through wagon, and in an adjacent field lie a woman and young man who when dead seems barely old enough to constitute the word, their bodies cast at diverging angles like carelessly flung children's toys; a storehouse raided for its supplies shares a yard with a well poisoned by an animal's bloated carcass.)

—and in time, the trail leads to an old ruin and a network of caves sprawling enough to demand splitting up in the name of both subtlety and the hope that they might cover enough ground to matter.

A nail biting hour or two later, the five of them regroup here in a wash just south of the ruin. It's near enough to hand that the likelihood of the marauders cutting back out from the main entrance without being observed is unlikely. Unfortunately, it's also slightly too convenient to accommodate the luxury of voices raised very high.

So, proceeding at a reasonable volume:]

Let us begin with what we know.

PÉROUGES.

[faderifting]

[ Details. ]

[hornswoggle]

log here.

TEMPLE RUINS.

[faderifting]

[ Details. ]

[heirring]

[Even in hindsight, it will be difficult to judge exactly where it began. It isn't as if they walk through a doorway from one room to the next and suddenly the down is up and up is down. It is a slow subtle and unwinding thing which underlies an already deepening sense of unease, and in a place so suffused with a sense of power it is difficult to pick out any particular impression against the noise of—

Near the back of their party, Wysteria pauses. Between the shadow of the shield at her back and the constricted torchlight, she seems very pale. Her expression slants toward a frown.

Something in the air is wrong. More wrong? Different. As if they have passed at some point into the current of an intersecting stream.]

Does it seem at all somehow darker down here?

[—Might be a good question, were the sound not swallowed entirely the moment it leaves her.]

closed to maud.

[heorte]

( snacks )

The baker and his helpers are very kind, and very interested in the pair of them. They're all very free with their baked goods, but the trade off seems to be that while they eat they are subject to an endless flow of questions.

Theoretically, Ellis shouldn't be too unequipped to handle it. He does spend most of his free time with Wysteria Poppell, after all. But still.

It's been a long day. Ellis is still damp from the bath, and while the thought of simply stretching out to sleep is tempting, he should eat something. After a long moment of consideration, he knocks three times on Maud's door, only opens after he hears her call back to him.

"I missed dinner," Ellis says. "And I need someone to back me up if I'm going into the kitchen."

It's dangerous to go alone, Maud.

( trampling )

Maud brings her maid along for this trip. Ellis hadn't thought very much of it until the moment when the baker proudly shows them up the narrow stairs to two bedrooms, and Ellis realizes just how little room they actually have.

He gives up his bed. It's the right thing to do, and Maud's maid is kind enough to let him store his pack in the corner, and let him use the spare blanket as a pillow when he stretches out in the hallway to sleep. He rises before either of them. The arrangement will suit them all well enough for a few weeks.

Or it does, up until he's woken up by a foot planting directly into his stomach at some ungodly hour of the morning. It's still dark, and the baker has not yet risen to clatter around in the kitchen, and Maud didn't fall down the stairs, so the only casualty is Ellis' stomach.

"What are you doing?" is the first thing he says, as if Maud's the one who should be explaining.

first things first

[radicans]

There was the faint sound of voices hissed low just before Maud called out, but she is nearly in reach of opening the door herself by the time it opens, stepping through the narrow space between bed and dressing table. Behind her, Gerda the maid is just snapping shut a case, her expression set in what seems to be a perpetual scowl.

Maud slides quickly past Ellis and into the hall. "Too right," she says, shutting the door behind her, "Madame Fournier nearly cornered you over that clafoutis yesterday. And I was too rushed to stop this morning, so she may be especially hungry."

closed to ket.

[tender]

The first thing they did was pull down the sheet between their rooms. At night they can still hear the other patrons, but between the two of them it seemed like a waste more than anything else. Discarded in the corner, it's mostly been used as extra cushioning or make-shift picnic blanket when they tote their dinner up from the tavern.

"Are you busy tomorrow?" Derrica asks, feet propped up on the wall, shoulders back against her mattress. There are two mugs of ale on the tiny end table between them. Eventually they'll have to go downstairs for some proper food, but for the moment, Derrica's comfortable. She's taken her boots off and her shoulders ache. The vibe: can't I just lay here forever?

She turns her head to find Ket, craning her neck slightly to catch sight of her before continuing, "On my way back I heard some rumors about darkspawn moving along the river, but I don't want to go look into it on my own."

[sohighandwild]

"No plans that can't be rescheduled," she says, looking up from the deck of cards she's been idly laying out in less a game of solitaire than an elaborate fidget toy of her own devising.

"Though I don't know how much help I'll be beyond a second pair of eyes. I know how to fight, but most of my training depends on opponents that can, I don't know. Be bargained with. Be escaped. At least be distracted." She glances over at Derrica. "You're sure I won't be a hindrance?"

closed to Tony and people o Bearhold

[deceivingly]

Riftwatch agents Yevdokiya and Tony are a half week into their stay at the Menton estate when, over breakfast, Doki turns to Tony and says, "My brother will be visiting."

They don't share breakfasts exactly. There are a lot of places in the estate where you could be eating breakfast, but only one big dining table, and so sometimes they have found themselves with coinciding mealtimes, taking their food at the same big long table, sitting on opposite ends like a feuding couple in a story--maybe like Lord and Lady Menton themselves?--and then conversation happens.

They found the antler and chair leg sculptures on the first day. The burned and hollow library. The left-behind treasures, the unbroken glass in the windows, the larders still somewhat stocked and the wine cellar only half raided. The trophy room stripped, the games table scarred but still, you could play cards on it, ignoring where the carving was done. The big wardrobe in the dressing room, stuffed full of gowns. Doki is wearing one of the gowns this morning, which she carefully laced up on her own. It is slightly too large in places, and too small in others. A fetching blue, to bring out her tattoos nicely. She licks runny egg off her fork, rubs the fork on the dress, and looks at it. Silver.

"You will like him," she promises Tony. "He is very helpful and very nice."

[propulsion]

Dress up for Tony comes from a place of pragmatism as well as a hefty amount of when in Ghislain. Acquiring for himself a nice light jacket is practical; that it is made of stiff red silk with gleaming silver embroidery, Orlesian sleeve action, and pearl buttons, is a bonus. It hangs open over his rougher clothes, a bright spot in all the dreariness of the ransacked manor.

The strange glyph-like sculptures cast shadows from the light streaming in from open windows. He'd advised they should get someone mage-like to look at them, and they make for strange company as they take their breakfast.

Tony looks up from where he'd been sawing silverware through leathery bacon. "There's another one?" he asks, no trepidation, just, you know. Fact checking.

athessa.

[sulahnan]

( where the druffalo roam - closed to poesia )

Being a mage would come in real handy right about now, but barring that, Athessa's just glad to be working alongside someone with a rift shard. How else would they actually fix the problem they're facing?

"We're gonna have to kill the ones that're on fire!" Athessa is shouting over the din of stampeding druffalo and the crackle and heat of burning crops in their wake. "But the rift needs to be closed first!"

( the great-gran of amontillado - closed to julius )

"How likely do ya think it is—" Athessa is saying, peering around a dark corner in the guest wing, "—that the Comte's great-granny is still alive and just taking the piss on everyone?"

The noises have been sporadic, but consistently there since they arrived at the estate, and one particular instance of mistaken identity led the Comte to regale Athessa (his niece, he insisted) about the haunting. Thus: an investigation alongside the Comte's much younger brother, Julius.

( rifts - ota )

[ Another rift in another field on another hot day, with the distant sounds of demons making whatever noises they make echoing through the tall grassy crops. Most of the fields have been trampled, but this one seems untouched, at least from the outside looking in. Someone taller than Athessa will likely be able to see beyond the grain stalks to where the rift is spitting out enemies. Anyone at Athessa's level, though, likely sees what's stopped her in her tracks:

A spirit echo of a villager on their knees and weeping. ]

( rebuilding - ota )

Can I get a hand here?

[ Athessa has been helping with the rebuilding efforts where she can, and is at present remaking a thatched roof that had been torched, but the supplies are out of reach and the ladder inconveniently placed. She's stretched over the edge of the roof towards the next bit of thatching that needs to be placed. ]

( wildcard )

[ hit me with ur best shot ]

[bloodandsand]

"Of course, dear!" And this is very exciting! The rift is a tiny thing, barely larger than the green light that snaps against Poesia's own palm. How regrettable there didn't seem to be any demons!

But the eternally burning druffalo did seem a treat, at least. Marking that as her future reward for closing the rift, Poesia lept and climbed to the top of one of the abandoned (and smoldering) barns. Her shard cracks and pops and guides her up to the rift, the green light hissing as it shoots from her palm to the little tear. Hopefully Athessa won't be trampled in the meantime, that would be rather awkward.

Meanwhile at the Laundry, Closed to Colin and Darras

[muckspout]

pt. 1

The stench of cleanliness wafts through the sticky air of the attic above the laundry. Edgard hates it. Besides the obvious, it is too small for him, much less himself, Sunbeam’s owner, and Darras. He is sweaty and tired from the day’s events and sprawls his arms and legs out knocking into his roommates. The floor feels damp. He cringes up and takes his shirt off, throwing it, not caring where it lands.

“This place is wet and the smell is unbearable!” He wails.

pt. 2

The time is 4 am. Edgard is started awake by giggles and a loud rendition of a children’s tune that he can’t quite place. He doesn’t remember all the words, but he does remember that the point of the song is to count something to pass the time. It will loop continuously. Oh no. As the chorus rings round and around for the fifth, sixth, seventh time, Edgard throws a pillow at the roommate nearest.

“Réveille-toi! Wake up! Do you hear this? It won’t stop. We must stop them.” He says the final phrase at a deadly whisper.

pt 1

[staysail]

There is a single small window in this room. Darras was just about to stand up and push it open when Edgard's arm and leg flails into him. When he does get up to go to the window, the sweaty shirt hits him in the back, then hits the floor with a damp flump.

He spares it a glance over his shoulder, then kicks the wet shirt back the way it came. It scuds against the floor, and does not get very far.

"Surely you've smelled worse."

The room is small enough that he reaches the window in just two steps. When he shoves on it, it doesn't move. He tries again.

Darras Rivain

[staysail]

closed to Madi

[staysail]

But is it red red?

[Standing on the other side of the sun-baked plaza, Darras squints at the gilded cage hanging in the window of the shop. They have already worked their way through the first four items--silver cup, jade statuette, etched plate, red carpet. It's taken the better part of the day to get this far, asking questions, offering bribes and mild threats, and enduring the heat of the day.

This one is the strangest so far. Darras cranes his neck, trying to see into the cage. It is hanging a little too high for him to get a good view.]

What color is this bird?

marcoulf.

[esquive]

REBUILDING + INFO GATHERING + ETC (ota, wildcards welcome)

[There is a such an endless supply of odd jobs and bits of unskilled labor in need of doing that is seems impossible to imagine any portion of it will be finished regardless of how many armies' worth of people might be committed to the effort.

On some morning, before the full heat of the afternoon has made itself known, there is a line of pasture fencing in need of repair. It requires some further partial deconstruction so they can begin relaying the zigzagging old rails, and the splitting of new rails from replacement lumber brought up from elsewhere, and is in general unpleasantly hot work which might go faster if it weren't for fact that they've just the one axe between them.

Or later, while clearing out some local stone tavern so it might be scrubbed, whitewashed, and returned to some semblance of what it was prior to the occupation force which had been using it as a field office burned and fled the place, Marcoulf pauses in the gutted remnants of the kitchen.

For a few seconds, he simply regards the floor under a fallen beam. Turns his head this way and that and then finally soliciting a second opinion—]

Suppose that is a trap door there?

[Or, or, or—]

COMTE CONSULTATION (closed to John Silver)

[The dry heat of the day and the dustiness of the road discourages moving in any direction at a faster rate than sedate plod, lest they show up on the Comte's doorstep veneered in their own sweat and a thin layer of grime. As it is, Marcoulf has stripped fully out of his doublet down to his shirtsleeves, having carefully rolled the dark padded jacket over itself and secured it behind the saddle so that he might throw it back on the moment they turn off the road up to the estate and arrive with no sign of the preceding day in any article of clothing save for whatever dustiness of boots and trousers are unavoidable.

Besides, the meandering pace of the horses makes discussing their current circumstances simpler. And if the last twenty minutes of circuitous pestering has been any indication, there is apparently much to review.]

—They will try to have us around to the servant's entrance, but I will refuse them and have you seen in properly. Do you have a mind of what you will say to the Comte once presented?

[Evidently Silver is going to be doing the bulk of the talking.]

LE AMBUSH (closed to Betrys and Kostos)

[The alchemical bomv that explodes is small but loud, popping with a splitting CRACK! and burst of fire fit to do little more than spook the cart horse off the road. The horse makes it across the shallow ditch. The cart behind it with its load of supplies and its three Riftwatch agents do not. A wheel jams, and the whole arrangement—all save for the horse, which evidently has the Black Fox's own luck as one of the wagon shafts splits far enough to allow its harness lines to slip halfway free—capsizes in a blessedly slow motion landslide of sack flour, dry corn, crates of root vegetables, and passengers.

Three Anders soldiers pour up onto the road to follow, their kit all varying states of piecemeal. In the shadow of the upended slant of the wagon, Marcoulf is already scrambling to his feet in the midst of scattered potatoes. He is in fact so quick to be upright, sword drawn, that when the first Anderfels infantryman rounds the corner of the cart it seems for a split second hilariously certain that the enemy soldier will simply be instantly gutted by the waiting rapier.

And then a sturdy crack of the Ander short sword knocks the silvered rapier straight away out of Marcoulf's grip as if choreographed for comedy. Both of them seem shocked enough by it to pause.]

my fuckin lol

[hornswoggle]

[ When they'd set out, John hadn't foreseen being so strongly reminded of the trip to Ostwick he'd undertaken with Alexandrie and Frédérique. At Marcoulf's urging he's stripped off his coat, laid aside one potentially offensive ring, and said the Comte's name aloud repeatedly to make certain of the pronunciation. Apparently, there's even more to the business of addressing a wayward Comte than John had initially thought. ]

Oh, I don't know. I thought I'd start by breaking one of his fingers and seeing where that got us.

[ Delivered with the utmost seriousness, eyes cutting over to watch Marcoulf's face.

The impatience is probably unwarranted. But can John be faulted for seeking some humor? ]

nell

[galvanising]

i. closed to isaac: sleepover

Well, [ says Nell, voice raised over the sounds of sawing and hammering coming from the adjacent hall ] It's certainly the nicest room I've ever slept in, even if it's barely got a house still around it. And that bed's big enough for six. I'm not loving the placement of the boar heads, though.

ii. open: rebuilding

[ The locals hereabouts are, understandably, somewhat skittish of mages. It was magic that took down this part of Deauville, after all, the blackened scars plain on doorways and the furrows in the land carved by chunks of wall tossed like boules. So it has taken some debate and some persuasion to get them to allow magic to help rebuild.

For the first few days the locals hauling stone and timber elbow Nell out of the way and play deaf and dumb to any offers to assist. So instead she can be found with a hammer instead of her staff, or propping the end of a board on a shoulder to help carry it across the site, even mixing a trough full of mortar--though she sneakily leaves that to magic at least for a moment, shovel continuing to circle in the pit even after she's let go to wipe sweat off her brow.

A few days later, when the cart carrying the massive granite blocks meant to replace the crushed remains of the town's monument to Exalted Marches past gets stuck in the mud, a thoroughly sunburned Nell is there to provide the rescue, floating them carefully (so, so carefully) through town to stack them up in their new home. It hardly wins everyone over, but it's a step, and after that she may be found most days on the building sites, sometimes at their edges loading and unloading wagons that would take hours by more conventional means, other times perched atop the rising skeletons of new buildings, holding aloft some stone or timber while the builders fix it in place. ]

iii. open: relaxing

[ After long days in the beating sun, Deauville's construction crews like to frequent La chèvre et le lévrier, a tavern with a wide green lawn perfect for pétanque. Nell's not precisely been welcomed as part of the gang, but they no longer stare daggers at her either if she posts up at one of the tables outside with a pint, as she is now, to kick back and watch the evening's matches as the sun goes down. ]

iv. open: wildcard

{ hit me }

sleepover;

[wythersake]

[ isaac glances up from a tenuous half-perch upon the bureau, puppetting a tusked jaw: ]

Why Madame Voss, [ is that a wheezy pig voice? yes. ] I thought you said the bed was big enough.

Val de Foncé

[degenere]

closed to Lazar

[degenere]

Tonight, [Val says, from the top bunk,] let us try a new game.

[He likes this windmill. He has said it a few times: its gears and mechanisms, its inner workings. Already he has made a few sketches, which are unlikely to be of any real use to him in his work, but one never knows. An underappreciated structure, the windmill. What might a real mind make of it?

Their room is very small and very narrow, and alive with the rhythms of the windmill. There are two windows, barely more than notches, one for the top bunk and one for the bottom bunk, and the regular whoosh of the great blades going by are a kind of comfort. And if you are on the bottom bunk, you can hear the creaking and grinding of the bevel wheel, going around and around and around below the floor--and if you are on the top bunk, you can hear the turning of the shaft, which is turning the bevel wheel, everything interconnected and symbiotic.

Val puts his head over the side of the bunkbed so he is looking down at Lazar.]

We throw rocks at the blades.

[He is a great Riftwatch agent.]

yseult - closeds

[hassaran]

closed to darras

[ There's more for Yseult to do in Kirkwall and elsewhere than here in Orlais, but a few interviews around a few key enemy sites justify at least a brief visit. And once those are finished for the morning, there is no reason not to detour to the outskirts of Pessac, where a row of newly-repaired homes are getting rethatched, with the aid of at least one mostly-dedicated Riftwatch volunteer.

She finds her way to the base of a ladder, one foot planted on a low rung as she cranes her neck up, eyes shaded from the afternoon sun by a hand as she whistles through her teeth at the shirtless man on the roof. ]

I come bearing lunch, [ she says, hefting a basket looped over one arm ] Come on.

closed to bastien

[ The days are long now, especially here where the horizons are slung wide and low so that even after it's out of sight some of the sun's rays still manage to spill out over the edge. Dusk lingers for hours, easing slow and gentle into night. They're still on the early end of it tonight, sky still streaked with pink and orange as Yseult sets her tankard on the table and her spine back against the wide trunk of the oak that shelters their table. ]

I have a confession, [ she says, a carefully enunciated pronouncement ] I may have been smoking with Darras this afternoon and it may not have entirely worn off. Would you like some?

[staysail]

[Darras looks up at the whistle, but he already knows who it is, even if he wasn't expecting her. He's already grinning, then, when he sees the silhouette of Yseult down there at the bottom of the ladder.]

You're not s'pposed to be here, [he calls down to her, as he wipes his arm across his forehead, clearing away some of the sweat from his brow.] Are you sure it's just lunch, and you haven't come all the way out here only to watch me work?

tony stark.

[propulsion]

children of the corn. closed to edgard and flint.

[propulsion]

The skies are dense with cloud, a roiling grey ocean that will give way to torrents of rain at any moment. The field is a blanket of tall cornstalks, waving in fitful winds. It is a bleak summer's day, humid and grey.

They can see from where they're positioned in the path of packed earth there a rift churns high up above the rows of corn crop, a twist of queasy green light. Thus far, they have seen nothing to stop their approach. Although the aisles of dirt that let them walk freely do not run directly to the rift, pushing past the densely growing stalks of green all around them is not difficult, even with respect to the farmer's wishes they not destroy his crop.

The main obstacle is probably Tony, a Rifter man, maybe you have seen him around, dressed in pragmatic leathers, with his shard-bearing hand wrapped in a sort of glove made of leather and metal writing, and a crystal set against his palm. He stops again, that same hand up to bap the back of it into Edgard's chest beside him to stop him moving too. In his other hand is a strange looking device of brass and silver metal, made of dials and gears, with some sort of skinny coppery wand-type appendage that Tony uses as a means of pointing, which he does, holding it up a little. Dials turn, reading off numbers.

"We should do a perimeter," he says, out loud, probably to the two people he is with, but also strangely a little like if they weren't there, he'd be saying this anyway. "Figure out area of influence before we close it. Something hinky going."

Nearby, there is the sound of a demonic screech, concealed through the walls of corn stalks, dense green leaves.

closed to madi.

[hornswoggle]

There is a small village a days ride away there and back that warrants at least some cursory attention from their company. All that's required of them is to go and assess, ask the right questions, and determine how much support the villagers require and whether or not they know anything noteworthy about Tevinter forces. Madi and John are given two horses, and sent on their way.

It is a long ride, but that suits him. He has been out of Madi's company for so long that the marvel of her presence has yet to fade.

"How are you finding all this?" he asks her. They are alone on this stretch of road, and there are miles to go before their destination. And truth be told, John feels no urgency. The easy pace they've set will get them there in due time, and he wants to hear her opinions, wants to know what Madi thinks of Riftwatch.

He has been among them for so long, it is hard to step back and see the organization without noting the moving parts, the minor clashes of personality and endless arguing that make it up.

[filotimo]

The hint of a smile plays on her features as she considers the question, keeping John in her periphery as they ride. Though they've been apart for so long, and though she would love to sit and memorize his features as they are now, there's something comforting about his presence, him simply being beside her.

This is what she'll memorize, so she can imagine he's there whenever he is not.

"It is not so different from home," she says mildly, purposefully addressing the Orlesian countryside rather than Riftwatch. "Fewer trees, but just as affected by war."

wysteria

[heirring]

d'OLLIES OUT (closed to Hugo);

[heirring]

[The first hour of dinner around the Vicomtesse's table was pleasant enough in that sense that no one had yet gotten up the nerve to pose any questions to the definitely-not-a-demon at the table. But this second hour has been nothing short of torturous, and Wysteria's smile has gotten progressively more and more fixed with each subsequent theological inquiry and side swipe.

But it's perfectly all right. Dinner will eventually be over and then she may shut herself up in the lovely room appointed for her. She has resolved already to leave very, very early in the morning on important Riftwatch business.

At the head of the table, the Victomesse puts aside her spoon and stands. They all stand in sympathy to her. 'Let us retire to the parlor to continue conversation,' the lady of the estate suggests to great enthusiasm (if the word might be applied to people who by and large seem like they might subsist on a diet of plain paper) from the miscellaenous Chantry officials and Exalted Marchers gathered there.

Wysteria slowly swivels her attention from the lady of the house to Monsieur Mercier across from her. With her smile still firmly pasted in place, she attempts to communicate something to him through the power of either her eyebrows or by blinking in code, the meaning of which is utterly a mystery until they move to leave the dining room and—]

Oh, how strange. I suddenly feel very...

[—she swoons dramatically in his direction.]

marcus rowntree.

[luaithre]

dorian pavus.

[liberalum]

it's basically the hilton. closed to matthias.

[liberalum]

Somewhere, atop the Frostbacks, in the luxury of her esteemed quarters, Dorian imagines Vivienne feeling a small curdle of warmth in that joyless lump of ice she calls a heart, and not even know why.

But this is why! This right here, this slouching little fisherman's hut that has half of itself propped up on posts over the water itself so that to access the front door is to step up onto a creaking pier that L-shapes its way out into the Voire.

They are on their second day of shared lodgings. In spite of how unlucky they got with the accommodations, Dorian has thus far been a good conversationalist, prone to asking Matthias friendly sorts of questions -- about Riftwatch, about the war before it, and how is he enjoying Kirkwall, et cetera -- in the automatic way one does when one is used to bringing people on side. He speaks with knowledge of the rebel mages of the South, his experience with Grand Enchanter Fiona in her negotiations before that all went to pot, and Matthias may feel at times an audience member, but enough times a participant.

They find themselves on a ferry ride back to their lodgings, stepping up off the rowboat and directly onto the pier, and as soon as Dorian unlocks and opens the door--

--the fish smell is not particularly fresh, and it certainly is pungent, wafting out to greet them before they even step inside. Dorian immediately claps hand over nose and mouth, standing stock still at the entrance in genuine horror, before saying in slightly muffled aside, "You know, in Rivain, someone leaving fish in your personal quarters is a sure sign you're to be assassinated in a week."

isaac;

[wythersake]

CLOSED | Lucien - CW gross stuff probably

[wythersake]

Isaac & Lucien need to assist the citizens of Deauville with the recovery of the bodies of some of their missing dead, including a local-boy Chevalier who valiantly returned to assist them during the occupation. His body, as well as a few others, have been hung to rot outside the city, surrounded by a swirling ring of apparently permanent blood-magicked fire and ice magic that's prevented anyone from being able to reach them so far. (Others might be found elsewhere in more mundane circumstances.)

"Fuck," Is the first word from his mouth. The second: "Fucking."

Pale legs dangle in the breeze, flesh threatening to slip from shinbone; a row of absurd windchimes. Soon the tendons will give. Meat will drip its way to earth.

And still, the flames coil and flare. Between each gust, spines of ice bristle with an impossible, impenetrable cold.

You’d think it would just melt.

"It's still powered," By the bodies, at a guess -- it wouldn’t surprise him were the unlucky Ser Chaupin alive when first suspended. Some thoughts you keep to yourself. "The spell. Held in place by a glyph, maybe."

Good luck getting near enough to check.

vance;

[pittance]

CLOSED | Val

[pittance]

The destruction of a watchtower outside Vézelay has revealed an undiscovered entrance to the Deep Roads beneath it. The door is holding, but only just. Vance & Val will need to help the locals shore it up properly, while fending off the objections of a local scholar who is insisting (incorrectly) that the door is not to the Deep Roads but to the location of the lost treasure room of the third Vicomte d'Oullins and they are preventing him from undertaking important study by blocking it, and a small party of darkspawn attempting to break through. Not necessarily in that order.

"Look," Back shoved up against the ancient door. It's pretty shit reinforcement; hammers ring out on distant rocks. Something's growing closer. "Does he want the money, or what?"

Their belligerent local scholar. There's the lure of treasure (pay him off), but then there's getting written up in some periodical -- and only one of them speaks academic.

Sawbones

[okayimin]

Chantry Reunion, Closed to Barrow

[okayimin]

[ The building process is going relatively well. Except for the part where apparently every other Chantry adjacent figure present are one Sawbones has met in the past, now aware of her as Riftwatch's Chantry representative and full of questions that range from curious to accusatory. So she does show up next to Barrow at some point with a tight smile, clearly aggressively avoiding Sister Lillian. ]

They need more nails, can you show me where they are. [ No, she does not specify which they. Frankly, the longer they can draw out this conversation the better. ]

Matthias

[inkindled]

HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION - closed to Daisy, Richard; tw brief mention of animal violence

[inkindled]

The dry grass is grown around the crown of the hill in a ragged tonsure, razoring up from the thin and rocky soil. Crouching here to observe the house below, Matthias has thought that maybe this is part of the trap. Plant terrible weaponized grass and let your enemies get cut to pieces.

There is no smoke coming from the chimney of the house. It's too hot for a fire indoors. There's a storm at the horizon, still far-off, and the burgeoning pressure of it is thicking the air, so every movement feels like pushing through wet wool. And there is no wind at all.

They killed the dog first, before anyone got here. The flies are thick on the wounds, glittering like eyes on its underbelly. The blood has already dried. There was no reason to kill the dog except to make a point, and maybe that was reason enough. There's a stake it the ground where they used to tie the dog, and a man is tied there now, hugging the stake backwards, his arms wrenched cruelly behind him. He has been praying, on and off, his voice high and thin. All Orlesian, but anyone would recognize the patter.

"We don't give them the treasure," Matthias says. He's pressed low to the crown of the hill, his chin in the dirt and his eyes hard. His staff is on the ground beside him, ready for what comes next. The man in the armor, strutting back and forth at the gate, like he's walking on a stage. He's got to be boiling in the steel. It would be nice, to boil him a little more. Turn the heat up and cook him. "Even if we had enough of it, we don't give it to them. Right?"

He looks around at the other two. Both Rifters. It can't matter. Their way is clear.

Yevdokiya an Waslyna O Bearhold

[deceivingly]

Grissel's rift - closed to Hugo and Ket

[deceivingly]

"We are travelers," Doki suggests, "because we are, and we walk in and go to the inn and have a drink and we find the place to open it."

It: the rift. They fit the part she is describing. Dusty, sweaty, tired. And Doki has eaten all her snacks, so she is also getting hungry. Getting to Grissel's inn--its only inn, there is nothing in the village, but its little stone wall has a little stone gate armed by little Orlesians who do not like Riftwatch--but getting to the inn will be good for her stomach, too. Two birds, one shot.

Doki kicks the basket of clothes collected from burned-out houses and the ruined village to the south. She kicks the basket again, this time to nudge it forward. Its contents are a mixture of men's and women's fashions of rural Orlais. Lots of rough-spun cotton and simple linens, aprons and blouses and tunics that still have the stupid high Orlesian collars. She has already tied her hair back, and donned a kerchief besides, worn low over her forehead to hide at least that section of her tattoos.

"It is a good plan?"

closed to benny / cw: executions, bodies

[heorte]

"We'll need to get him down before we do much else," Ellis says.

What kind of magic suspends a corpse so high? It looks to be almost set into the rock face, with the drop too sheer to climb up. There's the possibility of trekking all the way around, climbing up some milder slope and rappelling down but then that's the better part of a day gone.

His eyes flick from the gleam of Benevenuta's stave before he takes a step back with a sigh.

"If you know a way to do it while keeping him intact, it'll be easier than our alternatives."

[ungovernable]

Her tongue clicks against her teeth and she regards the suspended corpse, sighing. The prospect of trekking around and rappelling down is not one that she is warming to, but she isn't entirely certain that Ellis is going to embrace what she has to offer in alternative.

“We have two options,” she says, “and you are going to like neither of them.”

On the whole, this is not something people typically want to hear from a necromancer.