Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
faderifting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2021-01-19 10:45 pm
faderifting) wrote in faderift2021-01-19 10:45 pm
Entry tags:
- ! mod plot,
- bastien,
- benedict quintus artemaeus,
- byerly rutyer,
- derrica,
- edgard,
- ellis,
- isaac,
- james flint,
- john silver,
- julius,
- marcus rowntree,
- obeisance barrow,
- petrana de cedoux,
- val de foncé,
- wysteria de foncé,
- { colin },
- { dorian pavus },
- { erik stevens },
- { james holden },
- { joselyn smythe },
- { laura kint },
- { mado },
- { richard dickerson },
- { sister sara sawbones },
- { thranduil },
- { tony stark },
- { vance digiorno }
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.
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.
no subject
Athessa nods. "Thanks."
And because this is a two way street, she adds: "Sorry for being an arsehole."
no subject
He leans forward against the wall and looks at Athessa, interested, "So, did you use to be a thief?" He frowns a little. "Suppose you still could be, just a really good one."
no subject
"Yeah, used to be. I was pretty lousy at it, honestly, but I made an okay pickpocket. It's just more trouble than it's worth most of the time."
The last thing she stole without being explicitly ordered to steal was that mess with Benedict's cigarette case, not that Edgard would know anything about that. He has that going for him.
"I wasn't nearly as notorious as I was in that dream, though. And never in Orlais," She blows out a lungful of smoke and offers the joint back to him, nodding as if to say your turn. "Were you ever a farmer?"
eyeball emoji at forbidden information
"To think I took you for a goody two shoes. Very interesting."
He starts to bring the joint back up to his mouth, but then catches himself and hands it back to Athessa.
"My family had a farm. A very small one." He holds up his forefinger and thumb to indicate. "Was a different person then."
lol the most forbidden
She really hates Kirkwall.
"What happened to him?"
no subject
He pushes himself back up to standing straight.
"That person found out how life really worked." He shrugs. "There's no more farm anyway." And no more family. "I do still like cows though. Any animals really. Easier than people."
He grins at Athessa. He doesn't say that Athessa is much more difficult than a cow, but he thinks about it.
no subject
"And how does life really work?" His grin is met with that question and the bare hint of a smile. It's more of a softening of her expression, the suggestion that she might smile, but that it'd cost too much energy to see it through. "I mean I definitely don't have that figured out myself."
no subject
Edgard puffs out a breath of air and nods. "And that everything ends."
no subject
She peers dubiously at him, suspecting that there's far more that he's not saying, as usual. He seems like the sort of person who talks non-stop about unimportant things, and never enough about things that matter. Someday, maybe, she'll get an comprehensible conversation out of him.
"You gave up farming 'cos of that?"
no subject
"Didn't really give it up. left because I was told to leave and then there was no more farm."
He looks at Athessa. "Used to do that a lot. Just listen to people and do exactly as they said. Even if it went to shit. Like I said, I was a different person."
He looks at the ground. "Sorry you learned young. Took me longer."
no subject
"Why were you told to leave?"
no subject
Edgard winces. It embarrasses him who he was and feels wholly separate from who he is now.
no subject
no subject
"Yes. I was young and stupid." He laughs lightly.
no subject
"What uh...why would being a soldier make you stupid? Like—" A searching hand gesture, some kind of loop-dee-loop wave. "—Young is just a matter of time passing but I don't see the connection between stupidity and soldiering. We're basically solders now."
no subject
"Now," He says. "I care." He waits a beat and then rushes back in. "Not that I didn't before, but it wasn't--I did what I was told because I thought doing what I was told was what was right. Let other people think for me."
He waves his arms out in front of him. "That is what was stupid."
no subject
If she weren't trying to be nicer right now, she'd point out that he doesn't seem to do much of his own thinking nowadays, either.
But she is trying to be nicer, and instead of speaking her criticism aloud she takes another drag on the joint, taps off the excess ash, and passes it back to him.
no subject
He takes a deep inhale and speaks while laughing, "You were going to say I am still stupid, weren't you?"
He passes it back, smiling. "That's fine. It's pretty funny, actually."
no subject
It feels like as good a time as any for confession, even if some defiant portion of herself rebels against the idea of having to explain herself to anyone, much less to Edgard.
"I didn't think about anyone but myself before I came here. I would just do whatever the fuck I wanted and if there were consequences, I would leave. Treat it like a joke so I wouldn't have to feel bad about it. Or tell myself that it was my only option, even if it wasn't.
"There's been a few times since joining up that I still thought, maybe I should just leave, and I woulda said it was because of the orders or the things I've seen, but...really the thing that scares me most is how important the people here are to me, ya know? And if I'd ever left...it woulda been 'cos I didn't wanna lose another family."
One more short drag, another plume of smoke, and Athessa hands the joint back, uncomfortable vulnerability coloring her expression.
"You remind me of me, back then, sometimes."
no subject
And then, "You don't strike me as someone who doesn't give a fuck. But losing family is tough. Here's the only place I've ever been where I didn't have a family of some kind."
What the hell, he'll try the two puff thing. He pinches the joint between his fingers, it's getting small and takes another deep inhale.
"I can be stupid sometimes. Get caught up in things or the wrong thing. My-someone I used to know said I miss the details."
He chews the inside of his lip, keeping himself focused on the present. He turns to face Athessa as he carefully hands the joint back.
"But, I give a fuck. All I want, all I've wanted for a very long time is less people to suffer."
no subject
Maybe it's the elfroot, the heavy blanket of smoke settling over her, but it takes her a long set of moments to respond. She nods, slowly, and flicks the roach off into the empty air just beyond the ramparts.
"Yeah. Well. Maybe we can make that happen. It's kinda like, why we're here, right?"
no subject
"Hope so. I wonder sometimes, but I hope so."
He turns and gives her a light smile. She's not so bad.
ties this up nice with a ribbon
"Right," she announces after a few more long moments, "Help me down, will ya? I probably don't need it but I'm paranoid about falling off the wall all of a sudden."