CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.

[poleaxed]

WHO: Erik Stephens, Gabranth, Diana, Benedict, Edgard, Tiffany, Dick & Jone.
WHAT: The Gang Fights A Dragon.
WHEN: Cloudreach.
WHERE: The Thenuviet estate on the Exalted Planes.
NOTES: if something looks wonky or is misspelled, please know I’m typing this on mobile & have mercy.

GETTING THERE isn’t a short journey, and they’re hardly traveling in comfort. Most of the horses are carrying equipment, armor, weaponry, and anything else those volunteered for this expedition thought to include. And there’s camping equiptment. Anyone who said the travel overland involved staying at inns was lying. Inns are notoriously stuffed with murderers, anyway.

Every night, there’s a campfire and food. Sometimes it’s fresh caught, but if it is, Jone certainly didn’t catch it. Just as likely that it’s rations, salt pork and jerky and whatever dried fruits and nuts Riftwatch can spare.

There’s a STOP AT A BATHHOUSE in the town near the Thenuviet estate, however. It’s stupid, they’re just going to dirty themselves up later, but presentation is important to these people.

Surely all of you brought fancy dress and masks, because IT’S TIME TO SCHMOOZE. There’s a small party of Orlesians dressed to their finest, having a cozy little soirée on the edge of a cliff. Literally on the edge. Don’t indulge too much in the fine wines and cheeses, because there’s a dragon waiting, but for now? It’s never a bad idea to look good in front of rich people of influence. At least, not these days.

Eventually, it’s time to move forward, which means PREPARING FOR BATTLE. Climbing down the cliff is easy stuff, if you’re good with rope or have basic upper body strength. But now is probably the time to set up any traps, get in good positions... because it’s not long before the party on the cliff above begins to cheer.

...Because a few dead swine are unceremoniously kicked off the cliff to fall into the ravine now filled with you and yours.

The cheers from the cliff face only increase as loud thrashing, howling sounds start and become increasingly closer. How long have they been feeding the dragon like this?

But then it’s DRAGON KILLING TIME. You probably know how that goes. Stormriders are huge, dark scaled, and shoot thunder instead of fire. This one is angry you’ve interrupted lunch time.

AFTERWARD, it’s time to heal, take a breath, poke around the dragon bits for fancy heirlooms, and climb back up that cliff.

Comments

[archademode]

Proof enough of that simple truth lies in Gabranth’s own tendency to remain in his armor. In the mask he wore in life, rather than letting old habits— old comforts— stay put to rest.

“It is always a strange thing, being misplaced amongst worlds,” his words are slow, cadence thoughtful, if only for a single beat. “You will likely never lack for new discoveries.”

“Perhaps time will even grant you fewer reasons to rely on old proclivities.”

[clawings]

"Have you done it before?" Been misplaced between worlds. The way he says it makes Erik think that he has some frame of reference for it, which Erik didn't before he got here but.

A server with drinks breezes by and Erik snags one of those, shrugging. "In the meantime I'll try to put 'em to good use for Riftwatch." An incline of his head and his drink at that statement. Cheers.

[archademode]

There’s a low hum given in place of an answer, affirmative only for the fact that it’s accompanied by a faint nod that mirrors Erik’s own.

“Death grants little respite for those who bear greater sins.” A pretty lie, that, for he’d seen too many with kinder hearts than he forced into that same chaos, only to shatter beneath the strain. The gods were cruel. Their punishments unjust.

But that is too heavy a subject for a place like this, and even Gabranth knows it.

“In the heart of all worlds was I thus banished and set to wander endlessly, until this one tore me from it without warning.”

[clawings]

Erik's eyebrows go up and he almost lets out a whistle, but he knows that doing so would bring undue attention over to their corner, so he just shakes his head instead.

"I thought dyin' was enough." His eyes scan the room, taking in the tittering nobles and the dancing people and the members of their party, scattered throughout. "Then again, I dunno how long I was dead for, exactly, before I got here."

[archademode]

A pause lingers there of his own, as if the surprise fixed firmly in this moment is entirely, unmistakably mutual.

"...you've no recollection of what happened after your death?"

[clawings]

"I have a very vague sense of..." He sighs, shakes his head. "I had an experience, before I died. Where I saw and spoke with the spirit of my deceased father. I have an idea that I went back there, but I don't really remember it."

[archademode]

"Perhaps your memories were taken from you." It's a quiet supposition, all loose posture and slower speech. "I bore witness in the void to others who had also lost almost all recollection in their transition between life and death, or from one world to the next."

He thinks he ought to rein himself in, in that moment: this is a matter of mission-born diplomacy. There is work that his companion clearly would be better off doing, rather than kept here, speaking of hypotheticals and dreams and everything in between.

But he finds himself incapable of biting his own tongue. Something like this— someone familiar with their own finite end— it is rare.

"If this is so, I wonder if it would not also be possible to recover them."

[clawings]

"...huh. I hadn't considered that."

He's not sure what to make of the idea, honestly, though it's interesting to him that Gabranth is considering that angle. Interesting, but not surprising, if what he says is true — he would have some firsthand knowledge of the workings around death.

Still. Erik doesn't say anything for a while before he sniffs and shakes his head.

"A lot of things are possible. We don't have magic like this, where I come from. We ain't got dragons and shit. No demons that I know of. Most people pretend they don't believe those things are even..." He shrugs, frowning. "We had a shared dream, a few months ago? I almost died in that. Saw a different spirit when I did. So who the fuck knows what's in there?" He taps on his temple.

[archademode]

“...shared dream?” This is the first he's heard of it, despite how recent it must have been if so few months have passed.

Perhaps a matter of privacy more than anything else: Gabranth would rather bite his own tongue to bleeding than openly divest what consumes his dreams— why would anyone else feel differently?

That said, if this occurs frequently...

he's going to invest in like 50 bottles of Thedosian Nyquil to prevent dreaming entirely

[clawings]

"Yeah. It's a long, weird fuckin' story. Remind me, when we're back in Kirkwall, to tell you more about it." He's the ideal person to do so, considering he and Wysteria tasked themselves with collecting all the data on the shared dreams they'd had.

He should probably bother her about submitting some kind of collective report on the matter, huh? "The Fade, you know? It's where people go when they dream, and now it exists in the physical part of this world and spits people like us out of it."

[archademode]

There is so much to be considered there. Too much, perhaps, for someone like him, a man more at ease with the simplicity of all things cut and dry and laid out before him in deeply recognizable patterns. Even death, in fact, had eventually untangled itself into a predictable, tangible path before him.

But he's only consumed by one thought presently, and he spits it out without any amount of pretense; clearly he's struggling to wait for that 'back in Kirkwall' offer...

"Do you think it possible—" no, not possible, "probable that such an event might occur once more?"

[clawings]

He looks at Gabranth seriously for several moments before looking away and shaking his head a little, glancing at the sky and its unfamiliar stars. "Sure, eventually," is what Erik settles on. "It happened once before then, apparently. Do I think it's gonna happen anytime soon? Not really.

Look, I'm not an expert in this shit. I could be totally wrong."

[archademode]

“Then I shall take you up on that offer, to speak of it once we’ve returned safely to Kirkwall. With luck, the inevitable may be averted.”

Then again, perhaps not.

It’s only then that Gabranth spots— just there, at the limits of his peripheral vision before it fades against the edges of his helmet— the sight of a pair of obviously curious (or perhaps more accurately: infatuated) Orlesians lurking about the edges of the fete, their shared stares clearly trained on Erik even in the shadow of those brightly decorated masks.

It pulls a dry, thin, near-chuckle of a noise from Gabranth, his helmet inclining ever so slightly towards Erik’s shoulder.

“I believe you are sought after once more.”

[clawings]

"We'll see. I don't think we got a lot of control over what's in the Fade, or the decisions that are made there."

He doesn't want to get Gabranth's hopes up too high about avoiding another collective dreaming session. Some things are out of the control of the living.

At Gabrath's indication, Erik slowly turns his head until he spots the two Orlesians at the fringes of the party. One of them waves, slowly, and Erik raises his eyebrows.

"Duty calls, I guess." He pats the arm of Gabranth's armor and turns to walk away.

[archademode]

"As it must." He agrees, watching that silhouette fade smoothly from view.

A conversation to be continued when the world does not watch them, though he cannot help but think moments like those are few and far between.