faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ The Darkest Realms of Dream, Part II

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I will keep you only as long as is necessary for you to recite what you remember," she announces, accepting back the mislaid pieces of paper and folding them back into her own half of the collection without fuss. "Now come along. If we're running against a deadline, we may as well be quick about it."

And with a turn on her sensible boot heel and a flutter of ruffled robes, she is setting off again - resuming her determined charge down the stairs with the clear expectation that he hurry to follow.

"You may begin at the beginning. What is it that you remember first?"

"Erm--"

He hurries after her, becoming all the more aware that she is small and fast and he is large and slow, and that he is also very tired.

"Well-- the swamp, I suppose? The camp."

"The swamp? I knew no such thing. Describe it to me as you recall it. Broadly, if you please Mister Barrow. Unless a particular detail seems especially important for some reason. Dreams are sometimes like that - and I trust this one to have been better than usual at highlighting things here and there."

She is indeed rather small and very fast, all but skating down the remaining stairs with her books, and papers, and her great curtain of yellow hair - the latter of which spills in every conceivable direction.

"Oh, a survey will have to be done. Gods damn me."

"Well," Barrow fumbles, trying to hold onto the mental image as best he can, even as it slips away piece by piece in the way of dreams, "there was a sort of... treehouse village in the marshes. South, I think. Ferelden, sort of... Korcari region."

He ambles behind her, occasionally stepping a little more quickly to keep up.

"Many 'f us were there, but a good chunk had gone. Either off on missions or traitors."

"The Korcari Wilds. That is hope to Thedosian hedgewitches, is it not? I wonder if that has any great importance... More so than our fortress, I would suspect. But it's possible that too warrants some investigation. There were a fair few of us in residence, in one sense or another. Traitors and captives and all that. My, how creative we all are."

This, she says very nearly all in one great breath as she trots along until finally they are spat out onto the correct landing and she takes a hard left turn into the adjacent corridor.

"What else?"

Pausing to grip the corner of the hall, Barrow has to catch his breath; he's not desperately out of shape, but has never been much one for running about like a deranged little hare.

"What else?" he repeats hoarsely, and persists after Wysteria, trying not to lose sight of her, "we all went to--" He has to think a moment, between breaths.

"--Haven. And Skyhold."

He pauses, wrinkling his brow.

"I've never been to either before."

"I can't say that I've had the pleasure either. I wonder if someone ought to write to Skyhold to make inquiries. Or if it would be worth traveling to Haven to investigate the state of the Veil there personally."

Her mouth sets for a moment - a very incremental pause, pace otherwise unabated as they continue along in this new direction. Barrow's huffing and puffing is either being ignored or simply has no hope of cracking into the upper echelons of Wysteria's priority list so long as he remains at her heels.

"The Herald's spirit implied that the shared elements of the dream were the ones which mattered most. If you and I have never been to Haven or Skyhold, I trust there are others for whom it's the same. So perhaps if we were to take all the details and examine them for similarities, that might assist in our search for the--well, there are evidently quite a few threads in need of chasing. If we are to take a spirit of the Fade at its word at all. I wonder whether Averesch might have any opinion on that particular facet of the subject. Oh, but you were a Templar! You must know a thing or two about the nature of demons. What is your estimation of our advisor from beyond the Veil?"

That was a lot of words for Barrow's newly-awakened ears, and he finds Wysteria's prattle mostly slipping in one and out the other. He tunes back in around the word 'Templar', giving a little start that she would remember that detail when she has so many other thoughts of which to keep track.

"Erm," he opines, trying to jumpstart his brain before she can ask him anything else.

Shockingly enough, Wysteria pauses here - in every sense of the word. She draws up in the corridor and the whole of her attention, silent and expectant, turns on him.

She waits.

He opens his mouth and closes it again, unprepared for such undivided attention.

"Well," Barrow murmurs, and strokes at the stubble on his jaw, "she didn't seem like a demon. Granted, it's not often anyone but a mage goes in to see a spirit on their own territory."

He shrugs one shoulder helplessly-- he's giving it his best guess.

"In my limited experience with demons, they tend to want something more than the success and happiness of the dreamer. Or the mage, or... you know." He waves his hand vaguely.

"So you believe the spirit which communicated with us through the dream was legitimate. That is was indeed the Herald?"

There is something very bright about her focus. It is like having a light shone in one's eyes, or being subject to the direct glare of the sun. It is not sharp in the cutting sense, but it does have every interest in being revealing. When she cares to, Wysteria Poppell listens very carefully indeed.

The profundity of Wysteria's attention now all too evident, Barrow can't help but quail slightly. He's made a career of never being the authority on anything, least of all things that actually matter; but unlike in the dream, he knows exactly how he got here, and curses himself for it.

"I believe it... was a good spirit," he admits, hesitant to plant his flag on any perspective that might condemn his judgment later.
"It might've been the Herald, if people can return after death, or it might've just been a benevolent spirit who knew the Herald was someone we once needed.
I heard a spirit appeared similarly to her, in the beginning of the Inquisition. It took the form of Divine Justinia, who had just been killed."

He rubs the back of his neck with a self-effacing smile.

"They never did land on whether or not it was truly the Divine. I s'pose it doesn't completely matter, does it?"

For a moment, she doesn't answer and instead considers the shape and texture of that question. Doesn't it?

"No," she decides. "I suppose not. Particularly if there is some precedent of 'good spirits,' regardless of their true identities, acting as aids in the fight against Corypheus. I suppose there is little to fear, and besides I can attest to at least part of the so-called Herald's claims. I have been to that place, you see. That terrible black gate in that dark ruin under Ghislain."

Satisfied, she turns on her heel and continues on down the corridor. There is the clear expectation that he follow.

With his mouth open to ask further, Barrow doesn't get the chance-- he's after her again, placing all his concentration on keeping up.

MOD PLOT ↠ The Darkest Realms of Dream, Part II

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