MOD PLOT ↠ The Darkest Realms of Dream, Part II

[faderifting]

WHO: Open
WHAT: A dreamy conclusion.
WHEN: Wintermarch 20, 9:47
WHERE: The Fade, Kirkwall
NOTES: Please use content warnings in your comment subject lines as appropriate.

THE JOURNEY

The pull to Skyhold becomes undeniable. Whatever justification is necessary to get people onto the road the dream makes real, whether that's planting an idea in their head or having a message arrive drawing them to the area or having them wake up and find themselves in an onion cart halfway up the mountain. The dream will do its best to smooth over the gaps between conflicting stories and the strangeness of everyone heading that way at once until they're all well underway.

At first, the journey seems normal (in the context of the dreamworld they're in), with the sort of mundane dangers faced by all travelers: wild animals, bad weather, brigands, and in the future where Corypheus has won, enemy patrols. But as they get nearer to the mountains, the trip grows more dangerous. More wild animals—and perhaps now they're infected with red lyrium or Fade-touched. More bad weather, perhaps almost supernaturally so. More enemy forces hunting them, ambushing them, barring the way up into the Frostbacks.

As they get into the mountains the opposition to their journey will become increasingly improbable. Hordes of beasts, entire enemy brigades that have no reason to be where they are, a necromancer coincidentally located atop an ancient cemetery hidden beneath the ice, a rift spontaneously opening to spew demons in their path, darkspawn clawing up out of the ground, a random Qun attack thousands of miles from their front, a dragon appearing out of nowhere. More and more, it will become obvious that things are not what they seem, and that something—some larger force—is trying to prevent them from reaching Skyhold.

HAVEN

No matter where people came from or when they left, they will all arrive on the road into the mountains at roughly the same time. Not precisely, but near enough that they'll begin to encounter others making the same journey. And whether they are attempting to reach Skyhold from the East or the West, they'll find themselves in the ruins of Haven first, converging with the entire group. In the world where the Inquisitor defeated Corypheus, the village is home to a monument to those who were lost when Corypheus' forces first attacked, with evidence of a steady stream of recent pilgrimages—though presently no pilgrims—to pay their respects. In the world where Corypheus dominates, a lifesize dragon has been constructed from bones, some of them human, to stand triumphant over the ruins.

Once they press past this point, taking much the same route once used to lead Haven's refugees to Skyhold, the dreams will begin to unravel. The two dreamworlds may begin to overlap and merge in confusing ways that fuel awareness that the dreams are dreams. People from one dream may step into the woods to forage and encounter people from the other dream there to do the same thing. A person who has experienced both dreams may find that they begin to bleed together, leaving them certain of one history in one moment and of another the next, and increasingly unsure about which of their conflicting sets of memories—if either—is real.* The gaps in memories will also become increasingly apparent, as will the strange coincidence of all of them heading to Skyhold at once for very different reasons.

As people gain awareness that they are in a dream, they may find that they gain more control over the dreamworld. Non-mages may find themselves capable of impossible feats, like willing a storm into being to push enemies back, or speaking to animals to learn the enemy's movements. Mages may find that the normal boundaries on magic have been stretched, and spells that might once have been beyond their power no longer are. Their newfound capabilities do have limits, though: their enemies grow in strength to match them and cannot simply be wished away, and the major threats that more and more clog their path are still too strong to be beaten by any one person alone.

The last leg of the journey up to Skyhold will be the most difficult yet, as difficult as it has ever been. The paths are even steeper and rockier than anyone remembers, in places appearing as if they've been deliberately heaved about and strewn with boulders in an attempt to narrow the way. Surely so much of the road wasn't treacherous goat paths along the edge of precipitous drops before? And if that wasn't enough, while the enemy forces have receded here there comes in their wake a blizzard of tremendous strength, clouds blotting out the sun, the way lit only by the occasional crack of lightning. Snow lashes the rocks and wind screams through the passes, ice slicking every stone, as if nature itself is trying to throw them from the mountain. While it might normally be wisest to hunker down, they will all somehow know that this is not a storm that can be waited out and the only course is to press onward through it to the top.

OOC | * Characters from one dreamworld won't meet the other version of themselves face to face. There's only one consciousness in the dream per person, in one 'body'. They may switch back and forth between dream versions, or lose one version entirely, or begin to muddle their memories and personalities together, or drop them both when they become fully aware of the fact that they're dreaming, but the two versions will never coexist as separate entities at the same moment.

SKYHOLD

They will know when they've reached their destination because just as suddenly as it began, the storm ceases. The tranquility is as abrupt as walking through a door: one moment they are in the howling heart of the blizzard, and in the next step they are beyond it. The air is cold but still, the sky clouded but calm, the path across the great bridge to the main gate clear of snow.

Skyhold would be a striking sight at any time, perched atop its peak against a backdrop of stark white mountaintops, but in these dreams, it's ethereal. The stones have a faint luminescence, like a smooth pond bathed in moonlight, that makes it stand out clearly against the night sky. No windows or braziers are lit, and the valley around it is still. The walls are unguarded and the portcullis open in an invitation they can't bring themselves to refuse.

As they approach, they'll find themselves able to call on memories from both dreamworlds at once—while the gaps in their memories of the years prior to the last month grow. And memories of the true world, one where it's Wintermarch 9:47, may begin to reemerge and solidify, no longer a future that will never arise nor a past that's been left far behind them. By the time they reach the Great Hall, yesterday may feel like as many as three different days, each memory as clear and vivid as the others.

Once inside the walls, the castle grows still more dreamlike. A great tree grows out of the far corner where the War Room ought to be, its massive trunk somehow coexisting with the walls around it, its canopy broad enough to stretch into the Great Hall. The building's form doesn't seem wholly fixed in time—one moment it will appear to be the Skyhold of the Inquisition, in another, one might instead see a glimpse of the ruin it was before the Inquisition arrived, or a bare mountain peak with only a few foundation stones laid, or even an ancient elven temple built around that great tree. There are remnants too of those who have lived and work here in ages past: a flicker of movement in the corner of an eye might be the ghostly shape of an ancient elf or a dwarf lord or a Fereldan mason, or even someone in Inquisition uniform. Attempts to interact with these apparitions will fail, as they continue on about their routines, incorporeal and unaware, vanishing again as soon as they're out of sight.

The only exception is a spirit in the Great Hall, waiting for them.

AFTERMATH

When they wake in the Gallows, it is Wintermarch 21, 9:47, and nothing in the world—outside their own heads—has fundamentally changed from when they went to sleep.

OOC | It will feel like a month has passed at most, similar to how rifters wake up from their canon updates. They will only remember that month-long span of the dream itself, not the years of history that led up to that point. Essentially, they may wake up from the dream and remember "so back when the Inquisition fell I turned assassin and killed a bunch of people," but they'll only be remembering that in the dream this fact was true; they won't remember a years-long period in which they became an assassin, the assassin skills they supposedly learned, or the act of killing those people.

As is the manner of dreams, memories may be fuzzy or disjointed, and some things may stick in the mind more clearly and vividly than others. Anyone who interacts with the Herald spirit (or witnesses others doing so) will find these memories particularly clear and strong.

Comments

Sawbones | OTA

[okayimin]

1. The Journey; Herald AU

She'd gone to sleep in an exhausted slump, having spent most of the night awake with the most ridiculous birthing she'd ever witnessed. And then she woke up on an onion cart.

Which makes sense, because she's going to Skyhold. Can't reckon on why they'd have any want for an excomunicated Sister turned midwife and medic, but here she is with a letter in her pocket. It didn't have much on it, only telling her to go to Skyhold. She'd stewed on the matter til her curiosity got the better of her.

And that is why she's in the back of an onion cart, which... is apparently the only passage up through the Frostbacks. Something about that doesn't sit quite right, but she doesn't have much time to think on it. The onion cart shudders to an uneasy stop, sending onions tumbling out of their crates and onto Sawbones.

"Stone and shale," she grumbles, shoving produce off and sitting up properly to get her bearings. She looks to the other passenger in the cart (she doesn't exactly know why there's another passenger, the cart's already stuffed full of onions and there's hardly room) and says, "What's happened now?"

2. Haven
a. Herald AU
Well. The monument is impressive at least. She looks about the ruins, hoping to join up with another group, hoping to find any group. Hoping for a familiar face, though she doesn't know how she'd find one here. The Orlesian village she'd come from number barely in the hundreds and if anyone had planned on a trip to Skyhaven, she'd have known.

"Suppose it's some grand tradition to walk up the Frostbacks," she says, mostly to the monument, "If the Herald did it, so can you or some such nonsense." She sighs and fishes a stone out of her pocket to place and the monument. "Stone rest you."

b. A Realization

She is halfway up the mountain in a crowd (or is it just a few? She can't tell anymore and the blasted path is too dangerous to mind who's around) full of increasingly confusing strangers when everything seems to slip sideways. Except that it doesn't. It's just Sawbones, a small dwarven woman with the Casteless brand on her face, dressed in plain traveling clothes. But the people around her aren't strangers... Or they are.

Or they aren't.

Two things couldn't be true at once unless- "It's this nug fucked shit pile again!" she says. Loudly. Hands on her hips and enormously displeased with the world around her. She looks around to see if she might spot the culprit, "I'm a bloody dwarf, for stone's sake!" Her frown deepens, "And I've already done this before!"

3. Skyhold

Sawbones is not pleased.

Her memories are still a bit jumbly and her whole being feels a bit strange, but more importantly there's them here that are her responsibility. And even if she can't keep straight the whos, whys or hows, she's not about to let a little thing like a dream or the Whatever-She-Is seated at the center of the Hall stop her from doing her job.

"Right then," she says, with a great deal of authority for someone so tiny, "Come here. Let me have a look at you before this blasted place sets something else on us."

2b

[thereneverwas]

"Climbed a mountain?"

Barrow is shining and strong in full Templar regalia-- until he isn't, sometimes wearing the scrappy and mouldering leather armor of a footsoldier from the swamp.

He doesn't look terribly amused by whatever episode Sawbones is enduring, his weary gaze rather communicating that he wishes she wouldn't.

[okayimin]

The outfit switching does very little to soften her already bad temper.

"Had a dream," she says, because that's what this is, even if what parts are the dream and what parts are her life are still a bit unclear. She frowns up at the familiar man who in her mind is neither templar nor footsoldier, yet somehow both, "I suppose you haven't noticed yet."

[thereneverwas]

He has the vague recollection of someone telling him they were in the Fade, but it seems like it was at the wrong time for it to be related to this; did it even really happen at all?

"Noticed?"

[okayimin]

"That this is a dream." She says it with confidence, a little surprised the world doesn't rend itself apart at the proclamation.

[thereneverwas]

"Is it?"

That's rather what Colin said, or something like it. Has his whole life been a dream? Barrow rubs wearily at his temple.

"How do you know?"

[okayimin]

"Dwarves don't dream. Normally." She's back to glaring at their general surroundings. "Something like this has happened to me before, I think. I have the feel I'm late to something this time. It's irritating."

She looks back to him, "So? Where are we going?"

[thereneverwas]

After thinking on it for a long moment, Barrow looks back to her with a creased brow.

"Skyhold."

Why? He has no idea.

[okayimin]

"Yes, I know, but why are we." Because someone does have to voice the question outloud. "I have a letter telling me to go there, but I can't think of why I'm meant to. Why are you going?"

[thereneverwas]

Good question, and Barrow has to think on it.

"Because Riftwatch..." he begins, and trails off, trying to gather his thoughts. "--the Templars..."

He holds up one hand and then the other, as if looking at them will explain anything.

"...am I still a Templar?"

The question sounds a bit despondent.

[okayimin]

"Pit knows," says Sawbones. But she pats his knee in a gesture that's clearly meant to be sympathetic. "Least if this is a dream that means we don't gotta worry about the cold fucking up those joints of yours."

[thereneverwas]

"They were hurting before," he muses, "I think?"
How could he not notice a thing like this?

"So..." a long pause, as he considers his question, "how do we... stop?"

[okayimin]

"I have no idea." Which, among the growing list, is deeply annoying. "You've got more experience with this dreaming business. How do you stop a dream?"

skyhold;

[clawings]

Erik had poked his head in and didn't expect to be railroaded into being seen so quickly, but he's not resisting; if anything, it comforted him a little, because while nothing seemed to be off it'd be just his luck to end up with a soft skull or a rattled brain from a dream.

The whole island felt like it was slogging through the emotional hangover of the dream, and Erik was no exception.

"Mostly I just wanna know if I have a concussion."

[okayimin]

Sawbones gestures to a chair. There's a step stool next to it, which is clearly for her. Even sitting, he'll be taller than her.

"If you haven't hit your head recently, safe to say you probably don't," she says, but she's not taking chances either. "You're one of the new Rifters, yes? Were you in the dream?"

[clawings]

He moves to the chair and sits, keeping himself perfectly still for whatever her checking him out with detail.

A swallow and a nod at her question. "This is some shit I never thought I'd say, but I nearly fuckin' died in that dream and I ain't taking a chance." Besides, a healer who is from here could probably tell him if he's being dumb about it.

[okayimin]

"That's very sensible of you," she says, approvingly. She climbs on top of her stool, reaching to check his head for unusual bumps. "Now let me see. I can't give you very much assurance as far as that dream goes, I'm afraid. Dreams come from the Fade and dwarves don't have a connection like the rest of you."

Satisfied, she leans back to check his eyes, "You ought to speak to one of the mages about it. As far as I can tell from the people I've checked so far, the physical damage experienced in the dream hasn't carried over."

[clawings]

No lumps, no bumps, just locs that need retwisting on his head. Pupils are responsive to her coming close. "Yeah?" Erik only knows Derrica, but he's not sure he knows her well enough to bother her about this, specifically. Still, he nods, once and quick. "I'll have to look into that. I didn't know 'bout dwarves and the Fade, ain't been here that long." Most of his research this far has been on history, and elves, until he ran out of material on the latter subject.

[okayimin]

"Don't have many dwarves in Riftwatch, so I can't say I'm surprised." She steps down from her stepstool once she's satisfied he's doesn't have a head injury. "But it's why you don't see any mages who're dwarves. We got a few decent volumes on the Fade in the library. Chantry's got a pretty strict policy on texts about magic, unfortunately."

[clawings]

He nods along, committing it to memory. Dwarves can't be mages; the Chantry has a lockdown on books on magic. "Cool. Did, uh... did you end up dreaming too, tho?" He's curious, now. She seems to know about it, but he doubts he's the first person who came to the infirmary after everything that happened.

[okayimin]

That gets him a fierce scowl, though it's not directed at him. Just like that all of her irritation from the dream is back.

"Oh, I was there all right. Reckon it took a minute to catch me, I don't recall much of anything til getting to Haven. Same blasted thing happened last year too and I ain't fond of this trend."

[clawings]

"Shit." He rubs at his chin, sighing a little. He remembers plenty of shit from before Haven, though, it's just all... well. It doesn't make much sense to him. "That's gotta suck I mean. Not dreaming and then bein' dragged into it anyway. It happened a year ago too? Ws it the same kinda shit then too?"

[okayimin]

She huffs. And busies herself with making tea. The only advantage of being in the Fade had been the tea that seemed to appear on demand and she almost misses it. Almost.

"No, it was very different. Less cohesive, I think than what happened last night. I suppose I'm lucky that I didn't dream half of what the rest of you did. I recall most of you looking a perfect mess." She holds out a cup to him, "Here."

[clawings]

"It was kind of a disaster. Well." He takes the cup from her. "About half of it was. The part in the swamps." An eyebrow shrug, and he takes a sip so as not to burn his mouth too badly. "Corypheus had won, I remember that much."

[okayimin]

The tea is meant to be a soothing blend, but it's up for debate how soothing a Rifter will find the taste of deep mushroom. Sawbones pours a cup for herself and considers that.

"Well, that has always been the risk of it all," she says finally, sitting neatly on her stepstool, "If it wasn't him, it'd be the darkspawn eventually. What happened in the swamps?"