faderift | 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

She winces slightly as her next breath in is met with a stab from some rib or another, and expels the same breath as a soft laugh.

"Something to get rid of that edge would be nice. I can find someone else to heal it before I go getting in any more fights with livestock," If she's lucky, she won't have to get up close and personal with any more horned beasts. (Just horned men, ha-ha.)

“As your healer my professional recommendation would be for you to avoid further confrontations with livestock altogether.”

She already knows this. He still reinforces the logic of it with eye contact. Pointed, in this shabby little makeshift infirmary.

Then he offers out his hand with the shard in it for her to take.

"And if professional recommendations were horses..."

Hopefully he's familiar with the expression. It's already a stretch to use it the way she has, but if it's a completely foreign idiom it'll just sound nonsensical.

After only a moment looking at his hand and not making the mental leap that he means for Athessa to take it, she covers his palm with hers.

"Did they put you up anywhere interesting?"

“...You would have one very reasonable horse helping to keep you alive,” Richard finishes for her, helpfully. His hand is blocky and scuffed and callused thickest where his pen would rest, decidedly very human, and warm, at odds with the cool, disapproving blue of his eyes. Athessa pls.

“Sister Sara and I have been boarded at a monastery,” is his last answer, once he’s folded his hand around hers. “It’s quiet.”

She can imagine what a luxury this represents for him, lately.

He closes his eyes, and mutters an unfamiliar language in a familiar cadence. It sounds like prayer, with strangely rapid results: heat buzzes around cracked bone, soothing fresh, stabbing pain into the ache of an older blow.

Athessa's hand in turn is callused wherever the grips of her daggers press in a fight, her fingers long and slender but marked with pale old scars and fresh knicks and cuts from today's excitement. They are no less human than Richard's, which is a funny thought when neither of them actually are.

She remains quiet while he prays, though at the onset of heat around her ribs she instinctively grips his hand tighter.

"Sounds nice," she says when she can take a deep breath without it feeling like her own bones are impaling her lungs. "Peaceful, I hope."

“It is.” So far.

A pat at the back of her hand serves as a polite prompt for her to release him, punctuated by a glance, once the spell has anchored in

“Where have they put you?”

And release him she does, though with her immediately prodding her own side to test the spell, maybe she shouldn't have.

"Me n' Julius have rooms in the haunted guest wing of a senile old man's estate. He's mistaken me for a servant or some distant relative more times than he's recognized us as being the Riftwatch agents he agreed to board."

“Oh.” Dick opens his mouth. Closes it. What?

He furrows his brow, dumbfounded to distraction.

“That sounds -- please don’t do that -- “ he’s back, weary reproach at a look before he stands and leaves his stool behind. “If you’re going to make use of elfroot I’d find a way to ingest it that won’t result in you splintering the bone again by coughing.”

Athessa looks up at him with surprised innocence, as if she couldn't have known better than to fiddle with freshly mended bones. Chastened, she instead moves to stand as well.

"If I do that, do you want me to share?" She might not be able to make pot brownies but she can try to make something edible.

MOD PLOT ↠ A THOUSAND WRONGS

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