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

[justashotaway]

Laura hears her name, belated and disconnected from anything around her, as though brought on the wind by a helpful spirit. And it's Matthias' voice that calls it, sounding pained and frightened.

She doesn't want to be near Matthias right now. But she doesn't want him to be hurt. And when she glances back over her shoulder, she doesn't see him, only her own footsteps disappearing under the drifting snow. Her chest tightens at the realization he's fallen so far behind. He might have fallen. He might have been stopped by more Venatori. It's only a dream, but it's a dream with no shortage of peril, and she does not want to think of him hurting.

So she finds herself running back through the snow as best she can, following the faint path back, calling, "Matthias!"

[inkindled]

The world is white and gray and the way in front is more of the same. The path has mostly disappeared. There are indents that might be footprints that have snowed over--or they might be something else. Matthias prides himself on being decent at tracking. He's never had to do it during a snowstorm, not alone. But there's only one way to go, and that's up.

His hands are shaking. It should be cold, bitter deep-down cold, but if it is, Matthias isn't really feeling it any longer. He knows that it's there the way that he knows he's still breathing, an awareness that only comes with focus. The shaking feels more like trying to lift something heavy, more from all the magic that he has in him. It's funny to have felt it only vaguely, like the moment your foot leaves the bottom of the lake and you stride into the vastness of its center--something deep, something unknowable.

And there is not yet a sign of Laura. Matthias tries for a burst of speed. His foot slips sharply to the right, toward the edge of the path--he falls, hands and knees. He's too close to the edge when he lifts one hand, and both sides of path rise with a grinding of stone. Two walls, pushing out of the mountain. It stops him from falling. It doesn't stop rising, moving at this slow grinding pace as it goes. From above comes a rumble, danger, the mountain above shifting to make space for this unnatural formation.

Laura appears then, the wind whipping at her hair, the snow swirling around her. She's still so far away. Matthias pushes himself up, back to his feet, and starts to run toward her again. He can hear her voice, thin and distant, chewed by the wind.

[justashotaway]

When she spots him again, he's a dark spot against the snow, a lump of fabric and the suggestion of a person through the wind-whipped snow. And her ribcage feels like it might collapse in on itself. Even as he struggles to his feet, so far below, the mountain having moved around him--she might as well have swallowed a chunk of the ice. It would be as easy to breathe around, melting slowly into her lungs.

Laura skids down to him, running until she can't seem to control her feet on the terrain, and then slowing, and then running again. She's going to be tired when this ends--already, she's on a second burst of terrified energy, and already, she knows it'll ebb away. As long as they're out of the snow by then, it won't matter.

She comes to a stop before him, a few paces away, and doesn't come closer. Somehow, she wants desperately to hug him and never touch him again, all at once. More than anything, she wants to crush herself into some hidden corner and bring out her claws. And then to sleep, dreamlessly.

"We do not have to run anymore." Not if that means he'll fall behind. It's the only thing she can think of to offer.

[inkindled]

The wind thins her words, but not so much to render them unintelligible. She came back. Matthias' breath is shaky and for no reason at all he feels the hot prickle of tears behind his eyes. He blinks; the snow kisses his cheeks, leaves them wet instead.

"We can run," he says. High on the mountainside there's another rumble. The walls of stone grind, slowly, to a halt. The wind is coming from every direction, pulling on their clothes and their hair, whipping up the snow and carving its way down the sides of the walls that Matthias' magic has made. "We can run. Just-- stay with me. Please."

Please. It's a small word. The wind tears it, makes it sound smaller still. His palms, his knees, they sting, distantly. Matthias grabs onto his sleeves again. He used to do that when he was small. He does it unconsciously now.

[justashotaway]

"I will walk with you." Otherwise, the same thing will keep happening, over and over again. She'll run, he'll fall behind, she'll feel like she can't get a full breath in. "We'll go together."

If things were different, she'd reach for one of his hands--and that's how they would go, stumbling up toward the mountain's peak as a team. As it is, she pulls her dragon-wing cloak tighter around her, trying to remember warmth. Cold and not-cold all at once, as cold as things get when they aren't actually real. It isn't warm, either, though; they just are, and the howling wind makes it possible to imagine her fingertips turning bloodless and numb.

[inkindled]

He begins to reach for her out of habit, then remembers--drops his arm, fingers clutching again at his sleeve. Being together, that will be enough.

He thinks of asking her why--but that would be stupid. He knows why, really. Magic is dangerous. And whatever she saw in what he did, no matter how he meant it-- No, she doesn't understand. It isn't her fault, but she doesn't understand. Even in the fear of magic there is something wonderful. There's no other way to describe it, the way it heats in the fingertips and sings in the blood. Being here in the dream is like having some part of that unlocked, a door thrown open, and if he overstepped--

Matthias swallows, bends his head down against the wind that tears hungry down along the path. His hood is blown back and he grabs onto it, pulls it back into place. The cold has no teeth. Everything feels distant. If the rest of his life is to walk up this mountainside, following in the little footprints that Laura leaves, watching the asymmetrical hem of her cloak flutter in the wind, he could let that be enough. Isn't that what he said to her, in the tent? It could just be them. It's only a dream, all of it, but Matthias still meant it. And even with her back to him, it's still them. He wants to touch her. He doesn't.