faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ The Darkest Realms of Dream, Part II

Entry tags:

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.

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.

Threaded | Flat

The only true occupant of the fortress will be found in the Great Hall. On the Inquisitor's throne sits Evelyn Trevelyan as she looked in life: a young woman of average height and build, pretty but unremarkable. Few will have had a chance to see her before her death at Haven in 9:41—in life, she never even made it to this room—but some may recognize her from their dreamed lives with the Inquisition, and more will recognize the Herald of Andraste from her portraits. New is the shimmering glow that marks her out as a spirit.

As they enter the Great Hall she rises from her throne, and smiles. "Welcome," she says, her voice warm and carrying without need to shout, "I am relieved so many of you have made the journey. I am sure you must have many questions. Our time is brief, but I will share with you all I can."

OOC | Each character can ask one question (or make one statement to prompt a response, it doesn't have to literally be a question). Later, characters can remember this as a more linear conversation where they all asked things as a group, but we don't want to try to organize everyone into a linear thread, so please start a new reply to this comment for each character. Other characters are welcome to respond or react in the mini-threads afterwards.

These threads will be brief; we'll do at most two tags in response to each person, with a priority on getting everyone their first tag before circling back to consider providing a second round of tags to respond to anyone's follow-up questions or smart-ass comebacks.

1. The Journey; Herald AU

She'd gone to sleep in an exhausted slump, having spent most of the night awake with the most ridiculous birthing she'd ever witnessed. And then she woke up on an onion cart.

Which makes sense, because she's going to Skyhold. Can't reckon on why they'd have any want for an excomunicated Sister turned midwife and medic, but here she is with a letter in her pocket. It didn't have much on it, only telling her to go to Skyhold. She'd stewed on the matter til her curiosity got the better of her.

And that is why she's in the back of an onion cart, which... is apparently the only passage up through the Frostbacks. Something about that doesn't sit quite right, but she doesn't have much time to think on it. The onion cart shudders to an uneasy stop, sending onions tumbling out of their crates and onto Sawbones.

"Stone and shale," she grumbles, shoving produce off and sitting up properly to get her bearings. She looks to the other passenger in the cart (she doesn't exactly know why there's another passenger, the cart's already stuffed full of onions and there's hardly room) and says, "What's happened now?"

2. Haven
a. Herald AU
Well. The monument is impressive at least. She looks about the ruins, hoping to join up with another group, hoping to find any group. Hoping for a familiar face, though she doesn't know how she'd find one here. The Orlesian village she'd come from number barely in the hundreds and if anyone had planned on a trip to Skyhaven, she'd have known.

"Suppose it's some grand tradition to walk up the Frostbacks," she says, mostly to the monument, "If the Herald did it, so can you or some such nonsense." She sighs and fishes a stone out of her pocket to place and the monument. "Stone rest you."

b. A Realization

She is halfway up the mountain in a crowd (or is it just a few? She can't tell anymore and the blasted path is too dangerous to mind who's around) full of increasingly confusing strangers when everything seems to slip sideways. Except that it doesn't. It's just Sawbones, a small dwarven woman with the Casteless brand on her face, dressed in plain traveling clothes. But the people around her aren't strangers... Or they are.

Or they aren't.

Two things couldn't be true at once unless- "It's this nug fucked shit pile again!" she says. Loudly. Hands on her hips and enormously displeased with the world around her. She looks around to see if she might spot the culprit, "I'm a bloody dwarf, for stone's sake!" Her frown deepens, "And I've already done this before!"

3. Skyhold

Sawbones is not pleased.

Her memories are still a bit jumbly and her whole being feels a bit strange, but more importantly there's them here that are her responsibility. And even if she can't keep straight the whos, whys or hows, she's not about to let a little thing like a dream or the Whatever-She-Is seated at the center of the Hall stop her from doing her job.

"Right then," she says, with a great deal of authority for someone so tiny, "Come here. Let me have a look at you before this blasted place sets something else on us."

I. The Journey

-Future AU-

All he knows is that they couldn't stay where they were. Despite knowing what he knows, he doesn't make the connection between that and this. The gaps in his memory seem just as benign as before. He travels the road from the marshes with everyone else, assuming when he saw everyone packing up to go that the enemy was finally coming for their base. It's not until they're nearly at Haven before it occurs to him to think of whether or not this is unusual. He looks at whoever is closest to him.

"What are we doing, exactly?"

-Herald AU-

Was it a hurricane? Either way, Colin is aboard a sloop, uncomfortably reminded of his days as a purser for a merchantman. Apparently they're headed for Jader, then hiking up to Skyhold, so it probably has something to do with the Inquisitor. He spends as much time up on deck as possible to avoid feeling trapped, but when even that starts not to work, he looks at the person by him and smiles.

"Want to see something? Come with me."

Then he's off to the mainmast, climbing the shrouds, clearly expecting you to follow.

II. Haven

"I knew it," Colin says with an odd elation as they walk the road to Skyhold. "I knew this was the Fade. Did you--"

He turns to the person next to him and suddenly looks very confused.

"Who are you?"

III. Skyhold

One of him remembers this place. He wanders it in wonder, looking for his old room, the inn, the garden. The other two of him are somewhat mystified, but all of them are him, so this is a very peculiar feeling. Those who knew him in the false future can note is face is no longer scarred, his nose no longer crooked, his limp completely gone. With all three of him in one, including the memories locked away from him in the waking world, he feels oddly complete. At peace.

He hopes he remembers this feeling when he wakes.

He winds up in the garden, kneeling and weeding as the scenery shifts around him. There are many different Skyholds, but the garden is always there.

IV. Aftermath

He works as normal the next day--the apothecary in the morning, the infirmary in the afternoon. He looks tired, but pensive. If you are working with him, or browsing nearby, or eating close to him in the mess, he offers a tired smile.

"How are you holding up?"

V. Wildcard

[If you'd prefer me to write a starter, let me know.]

[ prompts below! ]

I. Out From Haven

One moment he was somewhere else-- in a tower, in a marsh, who can tell?-- and now Amador is on the side of a mountain with a small cluster of people, a dark winged shape bearing down on them from over the distant peaks.
A scream here, a shout there, and the details of the High Dragon come into greater focus. Releasing his grip on the steep climb, Mado takes a twisting leap, nothing in his head except that he can help, he can do something.

There was no plan for what that Something was, but as his human form quickly merges into one of a similarly shaped dragon, its talons extended forward and grasping for the enemy's wings with a reptile shriek, that's answered quickly enough.
They roll about in the sky, snapping and clawing and beating their great wings. The other travelers, at least, now have some time on their side.

II. Skyhold

With the blending of his memories and awareness of their strange predicament, fear has settled into the heart of Mado, who all at once is rather difficult to find.
His greatest secret being his magic, and having been displaying it unabashedly to any and all for what feels like years but isn't truly, he has all but absconded from the party of Riftwatch pilgrims milling about Skyhold.
A careful eye might spot a little brown fieldmouse curled on a beam and shivering in the cold, watching the proceedings.

III. Awakening

In a similar vein, when the next day starts up in the waking world, Mado is nowhere to be found-- but a little rust-and-white dog digging through some refuse in Lowtown might be familiar to some.

[[Prose or brackets aokay. Feel free to gently modify/wildcard anything as it suits you.]]

HAVEN

On its own, the interior of the Haven chantry hall--thoroughly shattered in whatever conflict had taken place there and left as a ruin in testament to the might of Corypheus--makes for poor shelter from the blanket of steadily falling snow. But there are tent canvases stretched in defiance of the snow and fires to do battle with the cold, and enough in the way of half surviving fortifications that there are, candidly speaking, far worse places in the world to make camp. Certainly at this point she is learned enough with respect to sleeping in ditches or under trees to be something of an expert on the subject. In fact, were someone to question her on the subject, Wysteria Poppell - rifter and triumphant escaped captive of the Venatori - might suggest that the temporary encampment in Haven possesses something of a dreamlike and elemental perfection. This is exactly what the winter windfall of a struggling rebel force should resemble. This is exactly as battered and bruised and threatened as they all should be.

There are people she must speak to - members of leadership who would like to know where they have been and how they escaped and what considerable uses the Venatori have found for them since their capture - but she is so very tired, and after it's finished Wysteria finds she can recall almost no details of the conversations whatsoever. Instead, they blends together with other necessities such as finding the more hard-worn of her traveling companions warm (enough) accommodation and acquiring something to eat. For a time, the world is fractured and indistinct.

Until it isn't. Until she becomes aware of its finite parts again. Her hands are cold, is the first thing Wysteria thinks. The sky is very pale. The hem of her skirts is black with mud. It's the last one which makes her laugh.

So: there is a young blonde woman wrapped in a heavy traveling cloak who has paused on the footpath. She is heavily laden, a borrowed bear fur clutched in her arms. Her laugh is such a bright, pleasant thing - clear and true like a bell in winter.

AFTERMATH

A clatter of footsteps in the stairwell is the only warning which precedes Wysteria as she twists her way rapidly down the central stairwell of the Gallows' mage tower. She is bound for the Research division's work rooms, three books under one arm and a series of papers clutched in her other hand. 'Harried' might be a fair description; 'positively indecent' might be another, given that she has failed to pin up the great waves of her long hair and is wearing little more than a robe cinched closed over her ruffled sleeping shift. By contract, the heavy field boots in which she is clomping along are comically out of place.

It is, conveniently, the sort of scenario custom made for collisions around blind corners.

WILDCARD
[[throw whatever at me; if you want a bespoke starter, ping me on plurk or disco and I can make it happen.]]

Edited 2021-01-21 05:40 (UTC)

[ starters below! ping me on discord or plurk for something handcrafted just for you ]

Edited 2021-01-24 01:21 (UTC)

Edgard has never had too much reason to explore the ramparts, but now that he's up here he can see the appeal. You can see for miles and it is quiet away from the other people. These past week he's been oscillating between uncomfortable conversations and spending lots of time on his own. He sighs and rounds a corner when Athessa comes into view, staring off and smoking. She doesn't see him. Perhaps, he owes her a conversation too. He rolls his eyes at himself and takes a deep breath.

He speaks hesitantly, "Athessa?" and then an immediate, "Forget it." and turns to go. It was a stupid idea.

[ closed & open stuff, feel free to hit me up ooc if you want to plan something or just drop wildcards in my lap like presents. ]

[ brackets or prose, roll w/what you're comfy with ]

There's a circle of fire with two men inside, one gripping a staff and the other aiming an arrow at the other, clearly in the middle of an altercation.

"No!" one shouts, his voice moving up a pitch or two, "what you intended doesn't matter! What matters is what you did!"

He punctuates the word 'did' by slamming the butt of his staff onto the ground, which has the dual effect of creating a burst of energy strong enough to knock the other off his feet, and also blowing the fire wall away...

...to reveal that they're not where they thought they were. People are trudging wearily past up the side of a mountain, ankle-deep in snow.
Benedict looks around in bewilderment, completely forgetting about Edgard for the moment.

His ruse had gone off perfectly, which meant he was able to experience her for a second time. Despite the new face, everything had gone very well. He had wondered how much time he might have- truly, his suspicion had begun to grow, was the Magrallen acting up again- before the reality of this place grew too great to deny. If it was a distraction, it was a good one, but when the missive came to call them to Skyhold, Thranduil knew it was over.

Thankfully, they did not travel by carriage, but on horseback, Guilfoyle trailing behind on his own mount. Above them, the mountain loomed, and Haven lay only a little further on, and Thranduil wondered when Gwenaëlle’s memory would begin to return to her. If it would. He did want for her to call him by his name.

“Lady,” he said, still all proper deferment. “It will be cold on the mountain.”

He never was able to stop himself from meeting her eyes.

[[ooc: Miriam's mostly fr future, but feel free to cross the streams.]]

I. THE JOURNEY - doooo you want to raise some corpses - group thread, pile on in

They'd been crossing at the very fringe of some abandoned village, the snowed in ruins of old stone houses and the shells of unused out-buildings turned quiet shadows in the dusky twilight--a small band of resistance scouts, tasked with marking the way for the main body following after them. And then, all at once, six Venatori agents had come spilling from the treeline, across what must be a snowed over meadow and into the crossing.

The first few have been dispensed with; the sixth, spellwork crackling off his barriers and sensing a change in the wind, is turning to run now. Should he reach the treeline--

"He'll betray our position! Don't let him slip away!"

Miriam Smythe (who has definitely been here the whole time, doing exactly this sort of work for the resistance based out of the Korcari Wilds), strikes the butt end of her hammer topped staff into the banked snow. The sweet shock tang of mana pulses; the world bends; the snow under the fleeing mage's feet snaps into a rigid sheet of ice. He skates, falls, and slides off the edge of the slab, striking feet first against some hard edge previously hidden by the snow.

Its a stone, muted lettering edges into face of the thing.

The Venatori mage drives his hand down through the snow and in moments, the frozen ground is buckling beside him as a corpse begins to pry itself free of its weather-shallowed grave. A moment later, a half dozen other spots on the field begin to rise as well.

II. CLOSE QUARTERS

Regardless of the state of the world outside, one thing at least is true: it's bitter cold, snow and ice sleeting down in great impenetrable sheets. Luckily, they're not out in it.

The cave shelter has been cut straight out of a lump of snow. There's no fire lit inside it, but the quarters are close enough and it's been formed in such a way that the raised ledges for working and sleeping trap a surprising amount of warmth and the colder air is sucked down and away. Beyond the tunnel mouth of the shelter, a wind is whistling.

Miriam, wearing her heavy coat on her lap as a blanket in deference to the surprisingly comfortable temperature of the constructed cave, is shifting through her kit in hopes of unearthing... something.

"You haven't a needle or thread on you by any chance?"

Edited 2021-01-29 00:08 (UTC)

on the way to Skyhold.
It is only a dream, and in the dream, Matthias can tear apart the world.

Scummy with dirt, sweaty, he moves from one disaster to the next, from foe to foe--tearing, cracking--ice that encases a demon's leg so that he can whack its head from its shoulders with a spar of pure rock--an inferno of flames that besets a great rotting Fade-touched bear, and the smell off of it is cooked rotting meat, and Matthias laughs--their opposition is endless, but his store of magic is endless, too, a well without a bottom.

Here: a small clutch from the Qun, who knows how they got here. Matthias is backed onto a rock, blasting them from above. He's bleeding, a great thick crossbow bolt that's punched straight through his shoulder. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't feel like anything. For once, nothing hurts. An idea sparks in him, and in the next moment, stone crackles around the wound, spreading out.

Encased in stone armor, he leaps down from the rock and shouts out to whoever is near: "Watch this!" --And his spirit blade is bigger than it should be, massive, glowing like a beacon, and he throws it without any effort at all. The blade shoots straight as an arrow, and with a whistle it passes clean through the Qunari solider, in one end and out the other.

Here, again: a dragonling, black and twisted, something from someone's nightmare. Matthias leaps in front of it, rushes to it, making fists of his hands. He rends the air, and a wave of force leaves him--and under its onslaught, the dragonling splits apart with a screech, torn straight in half. Its blood sprinkles the ground with a hiss, scorching. The meat of it falls heavy.

"Come on," Matthias says, every time, breathless and sooty-faced and grinning, clasping your arm and leaving behind a bloody handprint, "not much farther, eh?"

on the way to Skyhold--a little later.
The path is treacherous and the path is long and Matthias still ahs so much power.

The boulder bouncing down the side of the mountain--a crack in its middle one moment, a crunch, and it rips in half, scattering chunks and smaller boulders and pebbles like rain. Matthias, stood behind it with his hands aloft, laughs wildly. He drops his hands; a hot wind leaves him and tears up the ground, fissures that swallow up the rocks.

The rain has washed his face clean. The wounds he's suffered should have slowed him. He should have healed them. But this is a dream, and why bother? He's ragged and cut in a thousand places, and that crossbow bolt has been snapped off, leaving behind a jagged spar of wood, and he doesn't care at all. Onwards and upwards and onwards.

wildcard
[like whatever man]

[ page me if you want a starter. ]

The child is gone.

That's good, actually. It, she, whatever, was just a spirit, just some stupid magic thing tricking him. He doesn't feel slighted by it. It's good, actually. Now he doesn't have to worry over finding a safe place for it, to make sure it's well fed and not used instead of cared for.

His shoulders relax, slightly.

In Skyhold, a place he's never been but yearned to go, he finds a sky far more alien than Earth's, or Ilus', or even outside the windows of the Roci. He can't put his finger on it, it's just wrong.

Better though than looking at the shining presence, wrapped in gold.

To Jos-- she, he thinks, is real-- "I draw the line at talking to dead people." But that's him. Does she need something from this undead prophet?

Threaded | Flat

THE HERALD

Sawbones | OTA

Colin | OTA