faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ A THOUSAND WRONGS

MOD PLOT ↠ A THOUSAND WRONGS

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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.]

Edited 2020-08-26 14:32 (UTC)

[ Hugo, dulled nearly into a stupor by the company and conversation (which receive those names on technicalities only) but too well-trained by years in courtly circles not to go through the motions by polite rote, barely catches Wysteria's significant look and most certainly does not understand it until the moment she falls toward him.

Luckily, his reflexes exceed his powers of comprehension, and he catches her just shy of true danger and finally catches on, as well. ]

Dear me, [ he says, a bit louder and more dramatically than he normally speaks, ] she must have become overexcited. Please, give us space! Poor Miss Poppell can't have had much experience of such company, after all, it must all be too stimulating. [ He gets an arm beneath her legs and lifts her with seeming ease ] Yes, she has quite a fragile constitution, I'm afraid. All of her sort do. Of course, I shall take her to the small parlor where it's quiet, please have them deliver the smelling salts there.

[She somehow manages not to snort over 'too stimulating' only by merit of being too surprised by being plucked off her feet to keep track of it. She'd been anticipating a dramatically feeble wobble in the direction of the nearest fainting couch, not having to mime the light headed set of her temple against his shoulder while listening to some Exalted Marcher express some anxiety about the possibility of her turning into a Shade during her collapse—

Et cetera et cetera.

Whether it is out of concern for her well being or their own, the pair of them are hustled promptly away.

Wysteria chances just the smallest of peeks around Hugo's arm as they go, then mouths 'Thank you,' emphatically up at him.]

[ Hugo checks around for anyone still watching, and then winks.

The parlor in question is not far, and he makes it the few steps farther within to set her down, finally, on the fainting couch. And then promptly collapses onto the other side of it, this being a very fashionable double fainting couch, designed so that two might faint from opposite directions and then perhaps converse after they have revived. ]

An excellent idea, Miss Poppell, if a bit precipitous. Perhaps if we are very lucky, they will forget we are here altogether for at least an hour or two.

I think you would have found, sir, [she says, perfectly content to remain collapsed as set, save for some rearrangement of her prodigious volume of skirts] that I was perfectly prepared to collapse fully to the ground were you less quick on the uptake. Better to knock myself insensible honestly than to spend another moment submitting to Brother Dupont's interview.

[She shoots him a sideways look, mouth quirking toward a grin that is terribly self satisfied.]

That said, I must congratulate you on your quick thinking. It was all very well done.

[It's not really a game designed for four people, so they've drawn up a basic bracket which involves two players on the green at the time while the other two hold down the table (a wood top nailed to an empty barrel, accompanied by two wobbly stools—the finest in country patio dining) in the shadow of a nearby tree.

Balanced on an aforementioned wobbly stool while a dozen paces away someone's heel is drawing the circle from which to bowl from, Wysteria jams a bottle of white wine between her knees. Her bootknife (thank you, Mr. Ellis) is employed in the serious task of removing the cork.

Pop!

She squawks in dismay as the bottle slips, and with a great juggling of sharp points catches it at the last moment before it can topple free of her skirted knees.]

[ The last time he was adjacent to such a game, he's been a much younger man and had a great deal of family heckling the competitors. Ellis is not thinking of this as he drags his heel in the dirt, marking off the circle.

Looking up at Wysteria's yelp means one edge features a lopsided squiggle. Surely that won't become a point of contention later on. ]

No injuries?

[In reply Wysteria wordlessly holds up both the bottle and the knife, waving the latter around in a way which must be intended to be reassuring and not a threat.]

Nostrovia--

[ --is lazily delivered, if in a decent semblance of Russian, but lazy nonetheless. Tony is sitting at a sprawl next to Wysteria, head tipped right back and watching the sky through his sunglasses. He has bandaging covered in the loose tent of his shirt where a wall stabbed him. He is on a decent amount of edible elfroot.

Life could be worse.

But it could also be improved, which is why he just reaches out a hand with the expectation Wysteria will put the bottle into it. ]

Edited 2020-09-25 12:15 (UTC)

[She does not. He instead receives a discouraging bat across the knuckles (which is acceptable, as Tony's hand wasn't the part of him that sacrificed any part of itself to an old god) as she reaches for one of the cups lent to them by the little tavern across the green. That, once dosed with a rather generous measure from the bottle, she does afford him before pouring herself a cup.]

[ Tony makes a sound that is best likened to a quack as he is swatted, hand withdrawing, and then lazily easing back into its prior position until a satisfyingly full cup is placed in his grasp.

He mutters a thanks and drinks from it, and says, in what is probably not quite quiet enough aside, ]

Should we tell him about the weird taint rift.

A report will be on file regardless. Besides, [she takes a sniff of the wine in her cup, then a tasting sip - lets it sit there for a moment on her tongue before she shrugs and swallows down a more healthy swig of the stuff. It's rather pleasant, really.] It may be relevant to the interests of the Order.

[Wysteria casts a glance then toward the field, to the circle being drawn, and whatever incidental debates over the rules are occurring between the competitors there.]

[ It's not so much that Ellis caught every word being said, but he caught the gist of the discussion. The flow of the exchange is just similar enough to what usually precedes minor chemical fires that Ellis looks up at the same time Wysteria looks over.

His eyebrows raise, silently inviting whatever topic is about to be introduced.

Tony came back from their outing injured, and Wysteria uncharacteristically unsettled, so something occurred. Ellis hasn't asked, but he'd been able to guess something had gone wrong. ]

Were it not for the general battery of being occupied by soldiers with no care for its contents for months on end, the house of some minor hamlet's elected official might be quite lovely. Alas, someone has burned a campfire in middle of the foyer and all the furniture has been gutted, feathers and padding strewn like so much upholstery guts in every room, and in general no bit of wood, or elegant little framed oil painting, or indeed even the pages of what must have once been a reasonable little country library seems to have survived meeting the Ander troops which had been billeted here.

Standing in the center of the parlor with her hands on her hips, Wysteria turns in a slow circle to regard the destruction. Great sheets of the wallpaper - a pretty pale blue pattern with little yellow floral sprigs - had been pulled down, and all the valuables and personal mementos have been stripped from the room.

It doesn't bode well for the collection of jewelry and papers they've been dispatched to reclaim on the owner's behalf.

"Well," she announced to the room at large. "It must be said that I hardly see the point in ruining a place so thoroughly. The soldiers can't have been here longer than a year or two. You would think they might enjoy life in a well put together place more than they would enjoy tearing their own quarters down. Unless we think they managed to do all this right before fleeing into the countryside."

Edgard laughs darkly and responds, "Have you met many soldiers, mademoiselle?"

He hasn't spent much time with this young woman, but has made some assessments on who she is: never been hungry a day in her life, seen very little real hardship, and likely sees herself as above him. She is precisely the sort of person Edgard has spent a lifetime avoiding and hating. Despite himself, he's enjoyed her incessant chatter on the walk to this house and can't bring himself to completely detest her.

"In my experience, soldiers destroy as much as possible. I doubt anything of value is left here. We should see if there's any loose floorboards. If they missed something, it's because it was well hidden." He walks around and stomps in various locations around the room to check.

"I was under the impression that we were all soldiers of a kind in Riftwatch," she calls after him, a sort of biting good cheer in the temper of it. She knows she's arguing semantics, but no— she can't say that she has spent much time in such martial company. Even in the Gallows, she prefers to avoid the training yard unless forced there.

(Mr. Ellis is quite determined to see her master the bow, yet here she is in the middle of war torn Orlais without it.)

She watches him stomp around the floorboards for a few moments, then raises her attention to the ceiling above them as if contemplating the likelihood of the many floorboards above them as well.

"Do you have much experience with them? Soldiers, I mean."

He certainly looks the part.

"Yes," He responds curtly. "a long time ago." He notices her eyes lifting upward, nods, and heads up the stairs. After stomping on a few of the stairs, he responds to her other observation.

"I haven't been with Riftwatch long, but it seems less inclined to punish thinking for yourself. Which is very different from military. And when you can't think for yourself, it bottles up and--" He sweeps his arms wide at the general destruction of the house.

A thought occurs to him and he knocks on a wall which causes a crumbling dent in it. He makes a face. "Or maybe this house is just built like shit."

She trails after him, far more interesting in the conversation than the prospect of prying up loose floorboards. As compelling as finding hidden jewels and the correspondence of local government officials might be...

The plaster crumbles away under Edgard's knuckles. Well, yes. There's that.

"Riftwatch is certainly rather more... free than the military service I am most familiar with, even from the outside. But I suppose you might really consider it rather more like a mercenary company, could you not? And I can't say that I have much notion of what one of those is like. Were you a soldier yourself, Monsieur?"

Edgard continues his way up the stairs, stopping periodically and stomping, cocking his head to listen for something.

"I was when I was younger." And an entirely different man. He shrugs. "It didn't suit me. It's been a long time. I'm more accustomed to different sorts of company."

He reaches the top staircase and turns to the woman, eager to get the subject off himself, "What about you? What brings someone like you to these ranks?" Edgard is very careful to keep his tone impassive, he's made enough enemies of late.

In reply, she simply strips the pale leather glove from her left hand and holds it up, palm on display. The nauseating green glow of the rift anchor lodged there is grimly brought, casting dancing shadows as she wiggles her fingers for emphasis.

"I'm a Rifter. So I think you'll find I had very little choice in the matter."

If there is meant to be any trace of bitterness for this fact - being ripped from her home and thrust into another world, or being a demon of the Fade and forced to masquerade as a human -, no trace of it shows in her person. In fact, Miss Poppell is all good cheer as she tugs her glove back on.

"That said, I have found the work suits me fantastically. And even if it hadn't, I would by now be such an old hand at the thing as to be suited by practice. I believe only Madame de Cedoux and the Provost himself have a longer tenure than myself when it comes to traveling beyond the Fade."

Edgard leans in to looks at her hand with a wary interest. His hand twitches to reach toward it, but then he thinks better of it.

“Hrm. It’s very green. Well, I‘m glad the work suits you, but I don’t think it does a person good to be not given a choice.”

He crosses his arms over his chest.

“But perhaps it’s easier when your problems aren’t your own fault. I wouldn’t know.”

He steps into an empty room.

"Well. Some might say that they are my problems for as long as I am in Thedas," she insists while trailing into the empty room after him.

This room is in as many shambles as any other. It features similarly peeling wallpaper, a broken window, a shredded duvet torn from its abandoned bed.

"Did you fight in the war, Monsieur? I have been led to believe that there has been quite a history of fighting in Orlais even prior to Corypheus' rise."

Edgard shrugs. “I didn’t say they weren’t your problems, just that you were less at fault for them. I’m fairly certain problems continue no matter how far you go.”

He picks up the duvet and shakes it. Dust and fluff fill the air.

“I fought. I hardly remember what Orlais was like before it was a battleground for us—-or others. Orlais’ a bit like this house actually although, like this house, it was never built well to start.”

"You had best not say so too loudly," she says from her place in the doorway, the amusement in her voice quite clear. "The other Orlesians may hear you; I gather they are all rather proud of this place - even Monsieur Bastien, who is by far the most sensible of the whole retinue."

From how she has posted herself there without treading too far into the room, it seems Wysteria is perfectly content to allow Edgard to do the hard work of rifling and tossing the interior of the house in search of their prize. Or possibly that she has simply forgotten what she is here for, and has instead been thoroughly distracted by the subject of conversation.

"I must say, I'm rather surprised you found your way to Riftwatch rather than the Exalted March. I would have supposed a soldier to have simply continued soldiering more or less as he was, given the opportunity. Is there really much difference between our work and the Divine's, do you think?"

wysteria

d'OLLIES OUT (closed to Hugo);

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GROUP THERAPY (closed to Tony, Fitz, & Ellis);

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closed to edgard;

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