faderift | WAR TABLE MISSION: Mushroom for Interpretation

WHO: Edgard, Jone, Ellis, Richard & Isaac
WHAT: Riftwatch has been tasked with investigating strange phenomena in an Orlesian marsh currently scaring nearby residents off from their livelihoods.
WHEN: Firstfall
WHERE: Orlais, the Nahashin Marshes
NOTES: OOC Information; warnings: spooOOooky content. The plan is two have three headers with successive reveals as characters progress farther into the marsh.

It's possible that the cluster of villages which border the northern edge of the Nahashin Marshes would seem less grim and drab during some other season. But here, in the desaturated depths of autumn and populated by extraordinarily common people who have seen a great deal of their industry (and strapping local lads) sucked away in order to support Orlais' many war efforts, there is really no other apt description.

A few days spent collecting information from the locals regarding the strange happenings in the marshes will yield a number of accounts which vary in detail but are consistent in tone. Theories abound - there is a great rift at the marsh's center, someone argues (Has anyone actually seen this rift? No; not since the one in the hills to the north was closed a few years back). There is a horrible Fade-touched beast which roams in the dark. Witches of the Korcari Wilds have grown tired of eating Fereldan children and have come here to try their teeth on more delicate meat. Cateline's sister's husband's youngest brother, Fernand (who had always been such a brave, bright boy, and who might have been troubled since his brother died in the war but who would never be one to be lost or drown), had disappeared into the marsh and all that the search parties had found before they were driven back again was one of the boy's empty shoes.

And so on. While the accounts may not be crystal clear, what is abundantly evident is that without access to the marsh's resources it will be difficult for the villages to make enough of a living to support themselves through the approaching winter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Some feet away, Dick looks up from his notebook mid-sketch at the rustle of bullrush, and requires a solid beat to make sense of what he’s seeing before he can say, “I wouldn’t -- “

She’s kissed it.

He watches her as if he expects she might at any second grow horns, burst into flames, etc, stock still in his furry hat and the rain-heavy bristle of his even shaggier cloak.

She watches him, watching her, and when you've an audience, well. She is getting paid for this. (There's a desire to lower expectations as much as possible, always, she's the wretch, the Monster-)

Eyes still on him, expression unchanged, she sticks her tongue out, inching it closer to the doll.

Richard is so reserved it can be hard to read him on a good day. The complicated rage of emotions that buzzes through him as he sees the tongue come out and cocks his head is -- as a unit -- wholly inscrutable. He is confused, he is worried, he is interested, he is scandalized.

The furrow of his brow takes on a decisively dare-shaped intrigue, in the end, with the tip of his pen poised just off the paper.

Growing up the youngest of four, one of Jone's first lessons in life was about the importance of dares, and always taking them. Even if you failed, at least you tried. Her eyes don't leave Richard's face as her tongue slowly inches toward, and eventually touches, the doll.

To complete the emotional transaction, she doesn't wipe her tongue off before putting it back in her mouth, and making a show of thoughtfully reacting to the taste.

"Bit bland," she says, looking down at the doll. "Like most Ferelden cooking."

The slightest of tilts at Richard’s head matches time with the tip of Jone’s tongue, until there is contact. He’s poised for a long beat after, just as he was before, but nothing happens. The taste, she says, is a bit bland.

“I’ll make a note,” he says, and does, scritch scritch scritch scritch.

“I’m sure I needn't explain to you that licking haunted effigies is an excellent way to find yourself poisoned,” he steps closer to peer down into the bone bedding the remaining dolls rest upon, “or cursed.”

"Immune to curses, me," she says with the confidence of a poker player. She looks over his companion, "but I'm dead grateful for the concern, like. What you writing, there?"

She begins to lean forward, trying to see into the book.

“What I see.”

He doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t turn the cover away either, busy sketching out the rudimentary arrangement of bullrush and ribcage, with an intimidatingly shadowy simulacrum of Jone for scale.

He has to draw quickly, to outpace the rain running down through the tree cover. Upon clocking Jone’s lean, he leans closer to her in turn, using her as an extra buffer for him to scratch out a few more shorthand notations.

“Do you recognize the bones?”

"Not really, no. City folk, me, but I hope it's some kinda dragon."

She carefully places the bramble dolly in her pack, hoping it doesn't get crushed, but not really caring if it does. Life's life. It's a dear little thing, still. Also a bit creepy, she will admit, but she's not backing down now.

"Oh, you're a drawer. A sketchy diary, very artsy." She sees immediately what Richard is doing, angling his book under her bulk, and moves to help keep the rain out. "Right lovely, that."

“Why is that?”

Why does she hope it’s some kind of dragon, he means, as he applies a few final strokes.

Which --

Is it lovely? He furrows his brow down at the pages before he closes them away -- the forms are sparse, spare, practical applications of observation onto paper. Just enough to communicate nature and arrangement, amidst the notes and glyphs he’s already documented.

"'Cos there might be more about," Jone says. Obviously, you want to run into dragons. They're fun as fuck to kill.

When he puts the little book away, she pats his back and gives him space. Looks like he needs it, odd little thing that he is.

"Don't think I've seen you 'round before," she murmurs. (It's because she's terrible with faces. And names.)

Typical muscle. Richard bites back whatever default objection to the idea of going up against a dragon with the motley crew they have assembled, preferring to lean into the remote hope of hyperbole.

“This is my first time into this particular cursed wood,” is what he does say, re: recognition, as he tucks the sketchbook into his satchel. Having seen her success with haunted doll #1, he reaches through splayed ribs and picks up #2 to give it a hearty sniff with his beak of a nose.

There’s been no protest for the pat, but the bone and muscle beneath his cloak is wound as tightly as she might expect.

"Cheeky, ain't you," she says, wiggling one finger on the hand that isn't grasping a poleaxe. "Jone, I am. Bit new, on account of the green shite in my arm."

She holds out a hand for a shake, though it and the arm being hidden behind a thick glove and metal plate hides any greenish glow as well.

“Richard.”

Let this one figure out what his last name is in her own time. Dick Dickerson passes the doll from his right hand into the splinted claw of his left, and matches her shake with the deft not-quite-formality of a man better suited to wielding a clipboard in a dry office than a cursed poppet in a rain-matted fur.

He knows it too, half a smile crooked at her as he tips the doll back into his bony bed.

“Welcome to Riftwatch.”

"Thank you kindly, luv."

She looks around the wood, then at them within it. It doesn't fit. Something in this picture doesn't fit. But mysteries don't scratch at her; they're part of life. You can't know everything.

"You ever seen anything the like?" Gesturing to... everything... but settling for the dolls on the bones. "That's a shite sense of humor, it is."

WAR TABLE MISSION: Mushroom for Interpretation

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