Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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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.
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"Was that the only cup?"
Tea does sound nice.
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Barrow's smile is friendly as he fishes around for the cup he dumped out, and holds it up as if to confirm that he should go about the process of refilling it for the stranger.
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His hand slides down the grip of his staff, deliberately casual. His weight shifts. Signs of warming, of settling in place.
"Please."
(A thousand places to hide. Wood and sinew pulled taut, waiting.)
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"There you are."
cw: gore, death
There he is, hardly beginning to reach,
when the hand squeezes the trigger and the bolt pierces his skull in a sudden spray of gore.
He gasps. His eye socket bursts jagged with ice, the bolt affixing itself and freezing tissue black—the torn flesh burned beyond repair in an instant. The discharge forces blood out through his nose. In cadaveric spasm he grips his staff so they fall together, and wood and bone clatter on packed dirt and cobbles with the jerking of his limbs. Vestigial impulses from a brain shredded in its skull.
The body, dying.
Dead.
no subject
The teacup goes flying, the snow melting in odd patches where its steaming droplets land as Barrow himself hits the deck, his face pale and taut with fear. Someone is shooting at them; someone has been shot.
"Get behind something!" he hisses to the people in the vicinity, and grabs for a rough-hewn shield, which he holds up over his own face as he makes for the victim.
And only now does he get a good look at him: shot straight through the eye with vicious precision, beyond dragging out of the line of fire to a medic, beyond saving entirely.
"Fuck, mate," Barrow whispers again, time seeming to stand still as he surveys the gruesome scene.
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Maybe there is some hurrying to look for the assailant, or some effort is applied to rounding up everyone to be certain of a headcount, or a survey of the damage to the corpse is done. Eventually however, Fitcher climbs down from whatever secret little place she had holed up in and comes striding across the yard. It is a testament, maybe, to the changeable quality of reality here that she isn't stopped despite the bright lacquer red crossbow hanging comfortably at her side.
Her face is tinged pink from windburn, but Fitcher is all good cheer as she cuts along toward the slumped form. She's tugging off her leather gloves and shaking the feeling back into her fingers. Blizzard or no, it is cold behind those high stone parapets.
"What a fine distraction you make, Barrow."
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"...what," he exhales, slowly straightening as the shield lowers to his side, Fitcher's eyes. It's not like he's never killed anyone before, it's part of the job; it's not even like he's never fought or worked dirty. But at least, in the past, he had the opportunity to consent to his own involvement in it.
no subject
It is, generally speaking, somewhat inelegant work.