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

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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

It's been a while since she's seen anything this impressively bad. Sawbones is balancing two lives in her head, but both still came from the same numb dwarf that had staggered out from the Deep Roads. This isn't the Deep Roads, so at least this duster's got a fighting chance.

The man is a stranger, the man is a friend, the man isn't human. None of these things actually matter at the moment, so she ignores all of it.

"Don't move," she tells him, all brisk authority as she sets the supplies she's gathered by his cot. She doesn't question why the tumbling ruins of Haven seem to have a surplus of clean bandages and elfroot poultice. She's already stripped him of his outer layer, cutting away what wouldn't come off easily and cleaning the initial gore so she can see the damage clearly. "This isn't going to hurt worse than you already are, but the stiller you are now, the sooner I can do something about the pain."

Recognition pins in his eyes in an instant, glassy bright, and he relents, lying back as commanded in spite of the tension clenched raw down his sides. Older scars are evidence of his having survived worse: one particularly deep channel follows a serpentine arc all the way from the back of his shoulder to his waist. The line shifts from pink to black where it’s carved into snake leather.

“I can help,” feels like a sensible thing to say, claggy as the words are in his throat.

He’s already reaching to probe for the damage with his far hand, only to pause at the raised edge of a scale. The whites of his eyes flash sharp with the speed of his look to the dwarf at his side.

She huffs and smacks his hand away before it can poke at the wound she literally just cleaned, "Don't fiddle with it. Even if you got magic, I don't need you draining yourself and passing out in the middle."

She misses the look he gives her, busy threading the needle in one smooth motion and bending over to close the wound with one hand. Her only concern for the scales is whether they'll take the needle, but she's not going to give him the chance to interfere in case he is a squirmer or a mage.

Sawbones goes to work, quick and neat as you please.

Pop.

He has to bite rising argument off short mid-reach for her -- who else has seen this -- when the needle bites in and pulls -- the breath escapes him as tifled bleat of resentment, confusion, suffering, and so on. Quick and neat are surely matters of perspective: he dips in and out of consciousness, spending most of his time struggling for the surface in between.

Eventually, the gaps are knit.

And eventually, he holds steady awake, heavy-lidded, and too sore to entertain for even an instant the idea that he might’ve dreamed the ordeal with the birds, or Sister Sara after it.

He won’t have to worry about any others seeing his scales at least. She is generous with the bandaging. The messier work being done doesn’t mean he’s free of her either.

She presents him with a cup of tea and says “Drink that to start. There’s a pot of soup around here somewhere if whatever’s been acting up hasn’t made off with it.”

The bandages serve the dual purpose of denying him line of sight when he lifts his head to strain a look down. Maybe it was a hallucination.

Or a dream.

Bound up as he is, there isn’t much more he can do than reach for the tea on offer, his right hand withdrawn as a searing pull beneath the bandaging forces him to shift to the left. He’s thirsty enough to drink it down without question, whatever the temperature, or taste.

“I should’ve known I hadn’t seen the last of you.”

His voice rasps quiet in his craw.

Her stern expression softens a little, now that they're as safe as any of them can be and the dueling memories have a chance to rise to the forefront.

"You should have," she says, primly, "Reckon you're forgiven since it seems I've shown up late."

“Magnanimous of you.”

Dry. He offers the cup back out for her to take. All the blue has leached out of his eyes, leaving them a pale, squid-slick gold, nearly grey in their search over her for new scars, missing limbs, other evidence of trauma.

“Where is Wysteria?”

Not in here, obviously. Even in this state, overlooking her would be like overlooking a small wild boar snorting around the ruin of wherever they are.

He'll find nothing out of the ordinary, except that she's dressed in peasant garb rather than her normal habit and wimple. Even then the only sign of disruption is the bloody apron she'd worn to sew him up and that is removed and dropped in a bucket with little fanfare.

"In the camp," she says, "I'll be seeing to her in a moment." She scowls, "And everyone else I can find. Honestly, the state of all of you." She takes his cup, refills it and presses it back into his hands.

She pushes the cup back into his hands and he sips this time with greater reserve -- not out of suspicion, but that he might choke, cough, and black out again from the pain crawling through his bones with every breath. He’s still watching her, also, following her with his eyes from the bucket to the tea, and back to his side.

The lustrous ginger of his beard has faded a little dull at the fringes, dusty grey creeping in at the chops. Even without the blood loss, the crook at the corner of his mouth he manages for her would be tired. Drawn.

Dick Dickerson’s imagination has not been kind to him.

“Where’s the wimple?”

The tea is good for a Fade brewed mix. Bitter perhaps as the Fade seems to lack both bees and an understanding of honey (at least in so far as it's willing to spar one irritable dwarf), but most importantly it's warming in the miserable cold of Haven.

Sawbones returns his half smile, hauling herself up onto a stool beside his cot. "Turns out they make you give it back when they kick you out of the Chantry. Though I've heard that ain't much of a concern where most of you have been."

“Not exactly.” The Chantry as he’s known it dissolved into irrelevance years ago.

Maybe the dwarven Chantry has held out in pockets underground. Who knows. He drinks his tea, a subtle, slow-gathering coil of tension let off in an equally slow breath when she pulls up the stool to stay with him.

“Their loss.”

"Suppose," she says, although the grin she flashes him this time is bright and fierce. "It is nice to to not have hide some of the things I hold onto. Giving back to the stone, keeping the records and all that. I like to think it's driving some Shaper somewhere mad that a Brand's doin' his work on the surface."

She watches him drink his tea in silence for a long moment. Then: "Do you remember when you and I ended up in a dream?"

There is much Silas has to say on the subject of religion -- particularly insofar as gatekeeping is concerned -- but even the idea of pontificating in this state is painful. So he refrains, disapproval writ silent into the furrows around his mouth while he listens. It's a common enough look for him to have on the subject.

Meanwhile, very carefully, with his far hand shielded from her direct line of sight, he’s hooked his thumb up beneath wrapped bandaging to feel at his own side.

“There was a party.”

He remembers very well, not so exhausted that he can’t arch a brow to himself over his cup. He's no longer watching her. Distracted.

“You crashed it.”

All on her own, with no assistance or encouragement from anyone else.

Edited (idk flow DONT JUDGE ME) 2021-01-27 06:55 (UTC)

That does get him a raised brow "Technically, you crashed it since it was my dream to start with. Anyhow, I'm pretty sure we're in another one of those."

She gives his shoulder a poke, "And stop fiddling with your bandage, Richard."

He does. He does stop fiddling with it.

With his thumbnail hooked at the lip of a scale, he pauses at what she’s said, all focus struck off into the middle distance. Equations flash, memories fracture upon replay, gaps yawning between scattered fragments of certainty: people he knows, things he’s done.

“I don’t feel well.”

He has the presence of mind to tell her so without looking at her.

"Right, well, don't pass out. I'm not entierly sure what'll happen if you do. Let me grab a bucket."

She hops off her stool and goes to retrieve a bucket that may or may not have been there previously.

The arrival of the bucket is welcomed by more motion than is probably strictly healthy -- he pushes up into a painful, zombie-slow sit, legs dropped over the cotside for him to lean over the pail. His hands brace at his knees.

For a long moment nothing happens, drool let through his teeth.

Eventually he spits.

When he finally retches, the bile he spatters the bucket with is a noxious, nonsensical black, dappled with a late squirt of glittering venom. It slides oily across the surface until his sides flex, and he hits it with a second wave. Popped stitches blossom red here and there through his bandages.

Nothing urgent.

Just a mess.

Edited 2021-01-30 23:34 (UTC)

She settles her hand on his arm to keep him steady. What he vomits up doesn't drive her away, but it does pull a soft "Huh." from her. She waits til he's done and then picks up the bucket to go dump outside.

"Does your vomit usually come out in that color?" she asks, more intrigued than disgusted, "Last time I saw something like that, it was late stages of the Blight."

He’s prickled cold with sweat by the time she’s returned, one wrist smeared dark where he’s scrubbed it across his mouth. A towel would go a long way to restoring him to some semblance of normalcy, but he is pale in the eyes, exhausted, and bloody. Miserable after the fashion of roadkill, or a heavily rained-upon scarecrow.

“If you’re certain this is a dream, it doesn’t matter.”

Specifically, it doesn’t matter that some remote piece of him recalls a notched blade burying itself in his thigh, black ichor running along rusted steel --

“But no.” For the sake of her scientific curiosity: “It does not usually ‘come out in that color.’”

Edited 2021-01-31 05:30 (UTC)

"I'm fairly certain," she says, moving her hand from his shoulder once she's sure he's finished and also not about to flop over. "If it's not a dream, it's some kind of magic fucking around or I would have been with you lot this whole time."

It's a sore point, even as she firmly pushes away the bleak not-memories that offer themselves. Towels are not as forth coming as buckets and catgut, but she finds a threadbare blanket and a water skin. She sets both within his reach and bends over to inspect his stitches.

"Are you going to tell me what's been happening?"

Silas takes up the waterskin first, tonguing the ink from his teeth between small, clagging swallows. There is little consideration for Sara’s nursing once he’s switched over to the blanket -- he lies down, loose boned, and pulls the tattered cloth over his face, one elbow obstructing her efforts where it rests.

“We’ve been at war. I’ve made choices.”

Lightly muffled.

“If you allow me to bleed to death I might wake up early enough to escape the wrath of everyone I’ve betrayed.”

His angst receives a huff. She moves his elbow and shoves him in the general position of where she wants him.

"All of you are terrible at this," she says irritably, "If you're going to kill someone, do it proper or at least break their knees well enough they can't chase after you. And don't go around betraying people if you're not ready to get pay back for it."

Heavy footsteps arrive from nearby, then halt with a surprisingly delicate clearing of a gravelly throat.

"Well that's," comes Barrow's voice, "...something." The bucket of black bile, the strange creature that produced it, "...sorry Sister, I'd hoped I could snatch some bandages from you."

Edited 2021-01-31 08:36 (UTC)

Dick is quiet, meat and bone rolling in joints with all the despondent give of a field-dressed alligator. The canvas of the cot beneath him is stained with sweat; fresh blood has mottled spotty through whatever bandaging is still bound up around his sides. His trousers are soaked with more of the same -- older, darker.

He stays that way through Sara’s chiding, and through the approach of heavy footsteps, all the way up to Barrow’s greeting.

Sister Sara will feel and Barrow will see the flinch and bite of tension that pins lean muscle to raw bones. This might have passed for an unconscious mystery body, if not for the dislike crackling acrid in his silence and stillness, shivery with adrenaline burnout.

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cw pukies

Gross medical talk all the way down

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