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

[okayimin]

"Stone's sake," she says, stomping right over whatever tension is trying to fill the little shack, "What's happened now?" She hops off the cot and retrieves her doctor's bag. In the process of her rummaging, she pulls out a blanket and tosses it over the rest of Richard that isn't already covered.

"And cover your stomach at least," she scolds, "The last thing I need is someone catching frostbite on top of blood loss." She snaps around to Barrow, "Where is your scarf?"

[thereneverwas]

Eyes narrowing at the sight of the fellow on the floor, Barrow is caught fully off-guard when Sawbones rounds on him.

"I'm-- fine!" he stammers, holding his hands up, "got more natural insulation than most these poor sods combined, don't worry about me." He offers a placating smile, but can't quite avoid glancing over at that bucket again.

"What, ah... what's that?"

[nonvenomous]

It would be very easy for Silas to spend the rest of his dream life wallowing with his face under a moth-eaten blanket, light dull through the thin patches. But wallowing is unbecoming of even the lowest of snakes, and with Sister Sara putting him to shame with professionalism besides.

Carefully, without lifting his arm above the elbow, he pulls the cloth down off his face.

To flick it fully away would be to invite the needle-fanged pull of dozens of stitches. He can live with it bunched under his jaw like a scarf until Sawbones sees fit to layer it over him. The longer he lies here, the more everything hurts.

With any luck, Barrow will be so distracted by the stained bucket he won’t see the pale-eyed son of a bitch glowering at him from the cot behind Sawbones.

[okayimin]

"It's vomit," Sawbones says, digging through her doctor's bag again. Her tone suggests this is both an obvious and very normal thing. "After the discussion we had about the brewer's penis, I feel confident in saying it's not possessed if that's your concern. Here we go."

She produces a scarf from the doctor's bag. She wouldn't normally carry around that sort of thing, but really, if the Fade was going to inconvenience her so much by dragging her into a dream, it was the least it could do. "Put this on. Now why do you need the bandages?"

[thereneverwas]

It takes Barrow a moment to even realize what Sawbones is referring to, and it results in a light scoff as he accepts the scarf from her.
"That was so long ago," he remarks bewilderedly, wrapping it about his neck, though he pauses before he can answer her second question, because the figure on the floor has revealed himself.

"Hello, Richard," Barrow greets with cold politeness, "you're looking well."

He looks like shit, and they all know it.

[nonvenomous]

Snake in a blanket, pain etched in fine lines around his eyes that are still bright with venom in spite of everything, Richard Dickerson replies:

“I have a boyfriend.”

[thereneverwas]

"Hence your rosy cheeks and happy smiling demeanor."

[okayimin]

Being small, it's natural for people to talk over her head even in the best of times. This, however, is particularly annoying. She looks at Richard, brows raised, "Did you fuck him?"

She indicates Barrow with a tip of her head.

[nonvenomous]

Silas scoffs.

His regret is immediate and visceral, the jump of air under his ribs enough to strip the worst of the smug off him. He’s left damp, prickled and deeply unhappy; it’s not difficult for him to switch his focus down onto Sawbones between them.

“I've never had to.”

[thereneverwas]

Scoffing simultaneously, Barrow rolls his eyes-- that's bait, what Dick just said, and he's not going to take it.

"You should be so lucky," he mutters instead, and promptly shifts his attention to Sawbones: "field dressing, for people just coming in with minor injuries. Sounds like a group of them got hit by a bold pack of wolves further down the pass."

[okayimin]

Sawbones huffs at the whole lot of it. She points at Richard, "Stop popping your stitches."

And then she turns back to her doctor's bag and Barrow, pointing at him, "And you, don't bring this weird shit into my field clinic." She retrieves the needed supplies and hands them to him, "Try not to use more than you need and if anybody's got a spare shirt, tear it up. We ain't gonna find an apothecary on this mountain."

[nonvenomous]

Silas is pointed at. He simmers, but cedes into lower energy silence after that, all the fight bled out of him. Literally, perhaps.

[thereneverwas]

"I didn't bring anything," Barrow replies, perhaps more harshly than he intends; any 'weird shit' Sawbones is finding between them is of her own devising, unless she's referring to the completely reasonable dislike.

"Thank you."

He takes the supplies and his leave, in that order, seeing no reason to linger.

[okayimin]

That is exactly what she's referring to, still she sends him off with, "There's should be some soup still by the fire, make sure to get some."

And she'll wait til he's well and gone before she turns back to Richard.

"All right, talk."

[nonvenomous]

Tired and sick, sick and tired, Silas watches Sawbones watching Barrow. The longer it goes on, the more time malaise has to slow his pulse, to permeate his bones. He rolls his eyes closed after Barrow’s eventual exit, and that’s how she’ll find him when she turns around: cold, clammy meat on a canvas slab.

“About what.”

[okayimin]

"Don't give me that." And she will rather unceremoniously dump several more blankets over the top of him, their origin unclear and irrelevant. "Clearly something's been going on, aside from this magic nonsense, and I've no intention of wandering around stone blind."

[nonvenomous]

The added insulation is welcome -- he’s too tapped to stifle the late tremble of a shiver riding up his spine as the warmth settles over him. Inexplicable mass and volume aside, the added cover feels safe.

Now all he needs is for Sister Sara to invent opium.

“He believes I defected to the Venatori.”

[okayimin]

He's sadly out of luck on that front.

"I'd hope you have the good sense not to run off and join the Darkspawn fuckers," she says, her tone exasperated even as she tucks him in, "Did you give him a reason to think that?"

[nonvenomous]

No answer.

He’s not so slick with sweat that a breakaway line of moisture that slides hot down his cheek is invisible to Sister Sara’s trained eye. It blends away into the prickle at his temple, and he sniffs sharp and damp against self-pity.

“It doesn’t matter.”

The process of pulling himself together by now bears the hallmarks of ritual organization -- he doesn’t fall apart entirely, invisible grip choked up to keep its hold at the back of his jaw, the furrow of his brow. The squaring of his breath is methodical -- in through the nose, out through the mouth -- his eyes screwed shut to afford him false privacy in the beat before he turns his face away from her.

“None if it made any difference.” Steady in, steady out. “I’m glad you’re here.”

[okayimin]

She sighs and takes a seat next to the cot. Fishing a clean handkerchief out of her skirt pocket, she wipes his face with what little gentleness someone like Sawbones can possess.

"It's like that sometimes," Sawbones says. And there are things she could say, stories she could tell about Dust Town and the Deep Roads. The endless grind of fear and blood and warriors snatched off death's doorstep that died from some stupid accident the next day. That the end of things wasn't so much a single crashing event as it was the soft erosion of water dripping down stone, not something that could ever truly be stopped so much as diverted.

What she says instead is, "Clearly I should've got here earlier. You lot are a mess, who's been taking care of you while I wasn't around? I got words for them."

[nonvenomous]

A deeper breath, another escaped tear sent streaking after her handkerchief, and he seems settled into a basin of baseline, manageable misery. Sporadic leaks probably have more to do with exhaustion than any specific emotional assault while he lies there, but he’s too reticent to make for an easy study.

Typical.

If anyone can read between invisible lines to a please don’t tell anyone about this, it’s Sawbones.

[okayimin]

It doesn't need to be said, because it's a given. Sawbones has sat vigil over both the injured and the dying. The things said in those dark little places, the tears shed are not spoken of, even if she grimly marks each in her own mind.

"We'll make sure it doesn't come to this," she says into the quiet misery, "We don't do something for nothing. We don't lose if we're still alive." A Duster's philosophy, since the surface's didn't seem to be doing them any good. Either way, she'll sit with him for a while. Even if this isn't a dream, they can afford this much.