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

[clawings]

"Yeah," Erik nods, putting the behavior together with the person he'd spoken to on the crystal. He'd been a little too out of it when he'd first woken up and gone to the infirmary, but it makes sense to him now.

He makes a non-commital noise, trying to decide if he does want to talk about it. "Nearly died," he decides upon, "woke up worried I still had a concussion, but I'm fine."

Erik pulls a face, mildly annoyed that he'd had such a strong reaction to a dream in the first place. "It all still feels kinda real, tho'."

[acreage]

"Probably because of the Herald," he says, nodding. Still feels surprisingly fucking real, but that must be because magic. "She clearly had a reason for doing this."

It's less that he doesn't comment about Erik's experience in the dreams out of a lack of concern — nearly died, Jesus — but in the comfort of the real world, one where Corypheus hasn't won, it's easier to accept at face value that Erik is fine. He'll have to live with that memory, but so will they all.

"Which would be for nothing, if we didn't remember."

[clawings]

"Right. She was like, the focus of the whole shit right? She brought it all together." Brought them all together, which was wild considering how spread out and scattered they'd all been before that trek up the mountain.

"What do you remember?" Erik gestures out towards the water. "Like, broadly, I mean. The first dream I had made no sense. Half the folks I know didn't know me, and the rest of us were just... around."

[acreage]

"And caused the whole thing, if I understood her."

At least, that's the impression he got from Evelyn Trevelyan. He's still not much of a fan of spirits, or the Fade, or all associated bullshit.

"I had a dream like that, too. No anchor shard, and no one had ever heard of rifters. At least the war had been won in that one."

[clawings]

"Yeah. Which is wild, right? I don't know about where you come from but ghosts can't quite do shit back home, not on this scale."

He nods along with Holden, listening. "The war with Corypheus was won but the Qunari were advancing, right? And some jackoff wanted to bring the Fade into the waking world permanently."

[acreage]

He decides not to talk mention Miller, or the Investigator, and accidentally turning an otherwise habitable planet into a nightmare. It's a pretty glaring exception to the rule; which is that ghosts don't exist, or do shit like this.

"Really?" His eyebrows go up as he listens to Erik, though not disbelievingly. "You learned a lot more about that world than I did. My dream there was pretty short."

And there he'd actually thought that dream didn't have any major problems to worry about.

"Bringing the Fade into the world would be a fucking nightmare."

[clawings]

"I spent a lot of time in taverns trying to figure out what the fuck, I think." He remembers several of them, at least, and Vanadi and Loxley with him at different points. "And then when I woke up I wrote a buncha shit down like, immediately."

That dream was long, but not as... involved as the one that followed, the one with Athessa, and Vanadi again, and the swamps, and nearly dying.

"Yeah, seriously. But that dream was pretty tame."

[acreage]

"It's a good thing you did. If we're fighting a war against multiple enemies, we need to know who they all are."

Or remember, as it were. He'd been more focused on the concern of Tevinter and Corypheus, since most of his dreams dealt with that, but the Qun and someone fucking with the Fade are things to worry about, too.

"I'm assuming that isn't the dream where you almost died."

[clawings]

"Nah that was the next one, where Corypheus won and everything had gone to shit."

He can't remember the details of how that all went down, either. Just that he'd nearly died and it made things... Strange.

[acreage]

He hums thoughtfully, a little sound of acknowledgement.

"If she was trying to get us motivated about winning the war, that was a hell of a tactic."

Successful one, he'd say, at least for him.

[clawings]

"Seriously."

Whatever else Erik was going to say is cut off by the landing of the ferry on the city-side docks. He gestures towards the dock. Onwards? They can talk and walk.

[acreage]

Onwards, indeed. He nods, makes sure he's still holding anything necessary, and follows Erik out into Kirkwall. They'll get a little ways into the city proper before he says,

"I think it's a left here."

To find the contact in Lowtown. Not someone too close to the docks, so it's still some ways of walking yet.

[clawings]

"Got it," left it is then. Erik's gloved hands are in his pockets and he looks around at all the people who aren't connected with Riftwatch, going on about their business, completely unaware of the dream that had taken hold of the entire island.

"So what about you?" He asks eventually. "What'd you dream about?"

[acreage]

"Same two timelines as you," he says easily, with a sideways look, as if that's a real answer. It's funny how it's cold out, but not as cold as he remembers the mountains being on the way to Skyhold — even though that never happened in the waking world. "Except it sounds like your time was more evenly divided between the two than mind."

[clawings]

"Yeah, maybe?" Erik shrugs a little, wondering why Holden's so hesitant to give more information on his own dream. Maybe something shitty happened, that's going to be Erik's guess. "The last one had more going on with it, though."

[acreage]

Sometimes a person has nightmares about being a tortured prisoner, returning to a morally ambiguous resistance, and dealing with snowstorms in the mountains, and thinks: fuck talking about it. Which is, of course, extremely fine and healthy.

Anyway.

"You'd be right about that. I don't feel like I've slept in weeks."

[clawings]

Erik snorts a soft laugh. "Ain't that the truth. Fuck, man. I'm hoping this shit doesn't happen again for a good, long time." Saying something like 'forever' seems, to him, to be welcoming the inevitability that it will happen again whether or not he likes it. "I don't sleep much as-is."