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.
no subject
The first time he arranged for Loxley to die, he means. And he would.
Remember.
What an assurance to offer -- but he does, turning back to seek Loxley out with his eyes after that laugh. Invisible claws in the hem of his done pants, not quite pleading. Maybe only some of it was real. Or more rational.
“Our recollections alone aren’t enough to draw conclusions from.”
no subject
Loxley ducks his head into his shirt, navigating horns in unhurried and reflexive gestures. None of this is hurried, save that he is more accustomed to lounging around this early in the morning rather than greet the day. Even when they were camping out under Tassian stars, even when he was on the last watch, party members would be stowing their packs and he might be crouched by the near river, finishing trimming around his beard.
He glances Richard's way. "You seemed to hit on something quite important with the lady on the throne, there, speaking of important pieces. Careful, or everyone'll work out you're as clever as you look."
no subject
He has this cup, he has a snake twisting slowly up through scar tissue at his side on her way to his shoulder.
“I remember trying to explain.”
Getting defensive now is not a strategic approach, but there’s a resentful heat under his collar, and something tells him he might not have the chance to make this case, later.
“What happens to us here doesn’t matter. We have our own worlds to return to. This one was dying.”
no subject
Not very hard, just a sort of short and sharp expression of something that sends it skittering back, teetering off balance, coming to rest against the wall. Some winding up of tension that snaps much sooner than he expects it to. His shirt is loose around the neck, still untucked. His heart feels like it's going very fast. It is, just for a moment.
He turns back to Richard. He already looks a little ashamed of himself, but anger pushes to the fore as he says, "Yes it fucking does matter."
no subject
The snake at his side drops out from beneath the hem of his tunic and belly flops at his feet, smack. She is briefly stunned, laid out agape by the force of impact in a spatter of sloshed rotgut.
Impulse lashes tight through his grip, ruffled feathers galvanized into a bristle that threatens to answer with a matching flounce. It feeds into a huffed scoff instead; he's coiled in on himself, seething blue in his eyes, red in his ears.
“This is why I wouldn’t have consulted you."
no subject
It is not his most persuasive suggestion.
But there's a dash of upset to anger, bleeding brighter from an accurate parry. "You sound like the wizard now," is thrown back as he spins around to grab his coat. He also needs to put on his boots and collect his weapons and his money, which is a lot of things to do while trying to have an argument, but Loxley stubbornly engages in both. "Acting like you know everything and anyone else can go fuck themselves because they're not as logical and reasonable as you are.
"You know what we're doing in Tassia?" he asks, once coat is on, pivoting back to the bigger of the two snakes in the room. "Saving the world together, not slitting each others throats for it."
no subject
There’s an adrenaline rush to it, with anger packed in hot behind his breastbone, squeezing at his heart.
“Rah-Shak and Naj are dead. Your wizard was captured by the Sultana’s artificer and we haven’t retrieved him.”
The heat leaves him as soon as he’s said it, cinders winking out across damp tinder, leaving a veil of acrid steam in its wake. He does know what they’re doing in Tassia. A tickle at his heel coaxes a glance out of him, and he breaks off his glare to pluck Ribbon out of spilled drink, depositing her on his shoulder. She slides out of sight under the loose lacing at his collar; he trades his empty cup for the bottle at the table.
“Throat-slitting is hardly necessary when your friends fling themselves upon the blade.”
He takes a pointed step back, ceding Loxley the time he needs to collect whatever scant belongings.
“I’ll be in the baths.”
no subject
Thump-ump, both boots dropped back down.
There is a minor flinch when Richard announces his leave, brows pinching together and mouth closing, and Loxley sits back down at the edge of his bed, momentum of anger, argument, exit gone.
no subject
And out through it.
A slam might bring witnesses. He closes it quietly after him, barefoot in his pajamas with a bottle in hand to trek away for the nearest privy.
no subject