[OPEN] FRIGHTENING FESTIVITIES

[heirring]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Celebrating a totally 100% legit wedding.
WHEN: Summerday
WHERE: Edlingham Hall, the Vinmark Foothills
NOTES: cw: Spectral Violence and Ghostly Gore; if you don't want to deal with the spooky ghost adventure half of the evening, feel free to say your character went back to Kirkwall early rather than staying the night.

PARTY;

A few hours' journey from Kirkwall, the great old shape of the house known as Edlingham Hall rises up from out of the Vinmark foothills. In the decades (ages?) since it's abandonment, what must have once been a very imposing stone structure built in the mountain's shadow has given way to age and the elements. What remains is unequivocally a ruin, albeit a stunningly elaborate one. It's a place of columns and alcoves, gutted passages and weather worn stairs leading to the skeletal remains of old towers and chambers, with everything turned to varying shades of brown and green and as it's been grown over or into by the surrounding landscape. There's hardly a roof remaining to be found in the whole of the place.

Luckily, this particular party doesn't require one. In what might have once been the titular hall, a series of tables and benches (borrowed from the Gallows, thank you very much) have been set up around a stretch of cracked tiles which has been more or less cleared for dancing and everything has been lit amply by a collection of merrily burning braziers.

Party-goers will be treated to a host of entertainment, included but not limited to: at least one speech (thank you, Provost Stark), a half dozen toasts, a rather impressive spread of Orlesian-styled cuisine (no doubt prepared by someone devastated to be expected to do so under such rugged conditions), quite a bit of rather good wine, music, dancing, and a few more avant garde Rifter-influenced party games including a vaguely wyvern-shaped pinata and some heinous game called Snap-Dragon.

And if none of that sounds like a good time, then there are ruins to explore, discreet alcoves to investigate, and a campground pitched in the ruin's shadow where one might retire early from the party with only a stock level of scorn.

AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT;

An eerie mist begins to stream from the cracked tiles of the dance floor. Riftwatch does not count a fog mage among their midst. Was one perhaps hired? Is this a trick of some science? A peculiar feature of the weather in this region? Such murmurs begin to circulate as the mist continues to thicken, and rise, and sour to a sickly pale yellow. It clashes with the decorations. Its touch seems to wither the impossibly sumptuous meal, curdling cream fillings and souring fine meats.

And then the screaming starts.

In the stone frame of an upper window, see her: a woman, in a long pale gown, with a horrible wound around her neck. Her slippers peep over the sill. Blood begins to drip down her front as her mouth opens, and opens, and opens, until her jaw rests upon her bloody chest.

Guests seated at the table will feel some creature bumping against their legs--something big, and solid, and hot, and hairy. When they pull away in horror, they will find nothing at all beneath the table. But the growling will not stop, nor will the crunching of teeth on bone.

The twisted figure of a man rises from a pile of tumble-down stone. His limbs hang at loose and unnerving angles. One arm has been crushed and droops down too low, brushing at his warped knee. His face is a mask of pain, and his left eye bulges as if ready to burst. Pressure has thrust his circlet of gold low on his brow, cinching his balding head. He shuffles toward the party, reaching with his ruined hands for human flesh. Or perhaps a cup of wine.

A headless body comes running out from the rotting main keep. It is wearing armor but is otherwise without identity. From its stump of a neck sprays a great geyser of blood, spatting party-goers and the ground and the food and whatever else is in its way. Its graying hands are reaching, but without a head, its path is random and monstrous, trampling over anything and anyone without regard. Or it would, if it weren’t spectral.

The ghosts must be stopped. Find the source of the haunting or this marriage will be ruined.

Those not interested in tracking down the source of the haunting will soon discover that the fog which has wreathed Edlingham Hall has become quite impenetrable. Attempting to escape the grounds will result in being impossibly turned around and eventually spit any would-be escapee back into the ruin. Solving the mystery may be optional, but experiencing the haunting by the aforementioned ghosts (and any other thematically appropriately specters your heart might desire for the convenience of creeping out your characters) apparently isn't.

Comments

Val de Foncé, groom || ota

[degenere]

i - party.

Even when one is disinherited, one may remain socially in favor among certain sets--as a novelty, as a bold choice in guest, as a true friend who simply must be in attendance to certain gatherings--and so Val de Foncé is a veteran of weddings. This is, of course, his first as a participant of an elevated nature. He takes well to the role. His clothes are very new, and very fine--a tailcoat in a lighter blue than he normally favors (robin's egg, it might be said) with silver stitching, cut in the elegant and very modern fashion of Orlais to show off the fitted and high-buttoned and deeply patterned waistcoat. The cascade of the cravat is like a waterfall, the silk draping very finely. He is maskless, and where this might be scandalous in other circles, here it seems quite natural. Would not a groom want to meet his bride bare of face, taken as he is?

Like Wysteria, he does not remain in his place at the head table for very long at all. He takes time to eat the meal, accepts whatever congratulations are offered to him, joins in the toasts--and before the night has grown very old, even makes a toast of his own.

"Madames, monsieurs, and everyone in between, please! Raise your glasses--they must be full glasses, in Orlais it is bad luck to toast without a drop of wine--so fill them, if they are empty, and raise them high to this," a grand gesture toward Wysteria, as he spins on his heel, "ma cœur, ma puce, ma crevette en sucre--my wife! There is none finer among Riftwatch--my apologies to all others, but there is no competition. She is most clever, most beautiful, most argumentative, goldest of hair and sharpest of wit--truly, a specimen among specimens. To think that it took a Rift to bring us together! That such things would be possible. It is fate, to find such a love, and upon this day, I am the luckiest. Drink, to my wife, and to love!"

Soon after, he's off among the guests. And he must be enjoying himself, because there is a mania to him. Here he is, dancing, and pressing anyone reluctant to join in with the dancing with great cajoling. "It is bad luck to refuse to dance with the groom! It is tradition, in Orlais, to accept his invitation. You must."

Then he is conversing, laughing at jests, clapping people on the back when they make particularly witty or astute observances. And, of course, arguing. "But no! If one really wishes to understand the historical understanding of the mating ritual of the dragon, then Pretre must be read first. Of course we now, these days, have preeminent firsthand accounts. But the scholarship conducted by Prete cannot be argued with as a valuable resource. She was so right, about so much!"

Yet even his arguments do not last long. He tires of them quickly--much more quickly than usual--and cuts them off by physically turning away and seeking out a better conversation, ignoring any attempts to engage him again, as is a groom's right.

ii - ghost adventure.

Val is pouring yet another glass of wine when the crushed man rises from the rubble. The fall of rock is positioned right behind the drink table--and even if it were not, the specter lunges for the bottles with a drunkard's keen eye, mangled hands reaching.

Val sets down the wine bottle. He picks up his glass, drains half of it in one go, then turns to whoever is stood beside him.

"I am not, perhaps, dreaming? This--" The ghost, whose progress is impeded by his twisted legs. "This is really happening? At my wedding? A spirit?"

iii - wildcard!

party - conversing

[youwonscience]

Cosima hasn't had a chance to see Val in more than passing since she returned, but she has plenty of leftover goodwill from their scientific endeavors during her previous trip to Thedas. It's with real enthusiasm then, that she congratulates him when the flow of the party draws them together.

It's probably inevitable, though, that they end up talking about dragons.

"OK, but like ... no one has actually ever explained to me, right. Are drakes just immature dragons? Or are they a totally separate thing, the way ponies aren't just young horses? Because it's been bothering me, and I feel like some people will tell Rifters anything, 'cause it's funny." She's got a glass in hand, but the intensity is mostly just temperament and only a little bit alcohol.

[degenere]

Cheerful greeting, acceptance of congratulations, cheek kisses, and now the real matter at hand: dragons.

"No, no, no no no--a dragonling is an immature dragon," Val says, with passion, "the word is for both sexes. When they reach maturity, the drake, then, is the male dragon--flightless, small, he finds immediately the lair of a dragon--the female--and aligns himself with her, in the hope of reproduction. This and the defense of her lair is his raison d'etre."

The hand gesturing contrasting and highlighting each point threatens to slop his wine over the edge of his glass. A true Orlesian, he does no such thing. His wine stays safe.

"But who would do such a thing to a Rifter?"

Val, for one. Still. He can act mildly scandalized, as in this particular instance is not his fault.

[youwonscience]

"I won't name names." Yet, maybe a few more glasses of wine in. "But I think there's a healthy amount of hazing, which like, I get but I'm a scientist and it makes it challenging to understand the morphology if people won't give me accurate information. Like, we've got drake-sized reptiles where I'm from, but not dragon-sized ones. Well, not anymore, there were but they went extinct way before humans evolved, so all we've got are fossils."

It's a rip, says this past dinosaur kid.

"I know I'm not going to become a draconologist or anything, but I don't want to go around being ignorant of the world's megafauna, you know?"

[degenere]

"One does not need to have plans to become a draconologist to be entitled to accurate information. You are deserving of that much at a minimum. Really," he scoffs, as he takes another sip of wine, "it is sad, and far too reminiscent of those that would restrict or gate off knowledges for their own petty and selfish purposes. And to what end? The largest victim then becomes scholars. Whatever knowledge a Rifter might have to offer will never be heard. It is very sad."

He takes another great sip of wine, to wash down the bitter thoughts. More conversationally, then-- "But tell me of these large reptiles! What happened to them, that they all perished? Is this known?"

[youwonscience]

Cosima brightens a bit. "We've got a pretty good theory, yeah! Do you guys know about asteroids in Thedas? I can backtrack if not but basically... this gigantic rock slammed into our planet, we think, about uh... 60 million years ago? God, I don't remember exactly, that sounds about right. But! We found a crater that seems like a likely candidate for where. And around that time, something like three-fourths of the plants and animals on earth died. The theory is that, besides the deaths caused by the impact itself, there ended up being a huge dense cloud of dust and debris," her illustrative gesture comes close to sloshing her wine on the person to her left, but disaster is averted, "in the air for up to a year. No sun for the plants, no plants for the animals when they started to die off. Some scientists think there might have been firestorms too, or acidic rain. Whatever happened, we can tell from fossils that there was a huge die off, and it took most of the big reptiles with it."

[degenere]

Not the wine! Val might indeed speak to its near loss but for the fact that it is not lost and wasted, and (more importantly) the conversation is far more interesting than anything else. He is listening attentively, on the verge of getting out a book to make notes in.

"Most of? How did those left survive? They had no need of food?"

[youwonscience]

"This is all just theory, and it's not my field," but her enthusiasm is carrying her along anyway. "But the stuff that survived was hearty. Things could live on detritus obviously had plenty of dead material to feed on from everything else dying off. Things that live deep enough in the sea that they were below the level that felt the immediate effects. And the effects probably weren't the same severity everywhere, right, since the impact was one particular place. Conditions probably got better some places sooner than others."

wildcard;

[archademode]

Between whatever it is Val hopes to reach next (a dance, a drink, perhaps even fond companionship with an abundance of warm congratulations to deliver) and the man himself, one lone gauntleted hand intercedes: palm parallel to architecture rather than flooring, fingertips splayed in a clear sign of demanded halt.

Hello, the fun police has arrived, sent by way of one very narrow gentleman with sharp eyes and an even sharper disposition. Thank him at your leisure.

“A word.”

( ͡⚆ ͜ʖ ͡⚆)

[degenere]

Val looks down at the hand. A slight furrow comes to his brow. Without looking up, he moves his hand around the interceding hand to take up the glass that he was reaching for, before he was so rudely interrupted. And at his own wedding, too.

"Is the word 'congratulations'? This is the most common word at this event. And yet I do not tire of hearing it."

He looks up and smiles blithely at his new friend. No flinching. Just blissful happiness, and a sip of wine. He gestures with the glass.

"You may say it, please!"

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[archademode]

If at first one does not succeed— place your hand over their drinking glass, and keep it held fast.

“I have already offered my due approbation to your wife. To you, however, I have been instructed to speak far more plainly.” And it seems simplicity is key, if Val’s jovial response to his own harrowing visage accounts for anything. “For a man has obligations that must be met in matrimony: within the bonds of its agreement his life is, after all, no longer his own.”

“Yet I believe you will make for a fine husband, on all counts. I believe you will find adequate coin and dignity to keep the Lady Wysteria wanting for nothing throughout the span of her life, so that her work might endure in this world and benefit us all. I believe these things, Lord Val de Foncé, because if I am told that they are not true...”

He leans forward, then, the pitch-dark hollows of his helm a void that remains fixed in eyeless challenge, his voice lowered until it bears more metal-borne reverberation than humanity, as grave as the weight of a blade pressed fast against vulnerable skin:

“You shall know me better. And trust in the promise that a Judge Magister is unremittingly merciless to those who dwell in the shadow of familiarity.”

And, after the air thins itself of malice in the wake of such a narrow, palpable beat— his hold on that glass abates, posture receding into the dark framing of his cloak, as though he were nothing more than one of the many nearby statues, rather than an attending guest.

“Thus said, I do indeed bid congratulations on your untroubled union. Know how deeply I look forward to witnessing it flourish under your fastidious care.”

[degenere]

Val tries, at first, to lift the glass anyways. When he finds that he cannot, he gives a puzzled frown--and, thusly stymied, and with nothing else to occupy his time, begins to listen. He had not, of course, been listening closely to the beginning of the lecture. Or speech? Which is it intended to be?

No, it is absolutely the former. Possibly a threat. The lean forward does give Val a moment of pause. He is not immune to such things. Exposed largely to the occasional and entirely typical risk of life and limb in wildernesses, yes--and then, too in secret forbidden cities where, while recovering an artifact, one might be met with such a lean, and perhaps even worse--but this is different. And it is at a wedding, besides. His wedding.

All of which is to say Val is well-equipped to rebound from the threat, thanks to a lifetime of being entirely immune to their consequences. One cannot suffer such a thing. He scoffs, loudly and indigently.

"Your pardon, monsieur. What of my work?"

[archademode]

“What of it?”

Gabranth echoes, dismissal trapped across his tongue as though being asked to speak of a mucked rodent in its lair.

[degenere]

"Her work must endure and benefit us all? Yes. I would not argue. Her work is Yet what of my work? Is it irrelevant? Did you have this same order for her? And," before any interruption can be made, Val forges on, "what is this notion, that one's life becomes not one's own? You were not present for the exchange of the vows but I assure you, that was no part of them. Who would agree to be married if that were the case? And," no, there is still more, and he is speaking more loudly as he goes, indignation growing with each counterpoint and question, "who instructed you to speak with me 'more plainly'? And what is a 'judge magister'? This means nothing to me. It is, I assume, a title, but to me it carries no weight whatsoever. And! When will I be allowed to drink this glass of wine? This is, as you have noted, my wedding. Surely I am permitted to drink wine at my own wedding."

He pulls at the glass again, trying to free it. This would be an excellent time to answer at least one of those questions.

[archademode]

He has always lacked for patience, the way that some lack height or present bearing from the moment of their birth. Here, now, in the face of Val’s own proud defiance, it makes itself known in the transfer of his grip from fine-wrought glass to the— perhaps finer— bones of Valentine's wrist: that immediate pressure stern, quickly edging in on point of pain—

Until he sees, just at the edge of Val’s ear, set off in the distance, the image of Wysteria blithely enjoying her evening. That vision of pearls and rose-cream cloth, warm cast in candlelight. It is for her sake he intercedes, and it is for her sake he knows he now need abstain.

Somewhere beneath the helm, his lip curls, a low growl boiling along the back of his throat like bile.

“Cast aside your vaunted pride. Treat her as she rightfully deserves or you will know misfortune as no other.” His hold fully withdrawing at the tail end of those words, leaving Val to his drink, his vigor, his fete.

“And seek out Richard Dickerson if you've a thirst for retribution, for it is he who set my sight upon you.”

Beyond that, he does not linger; with one last withering glance he turns on his heel, weaving himself into nearby carousers until even the high sheen of his armor disappears from view.

[degenere]

Ow, what, ow, in Orlesian, translates fairly well, even if one does not speak Orlesian. Just because Val has, in his past, sustained injury, does not mean that he likes to be injured, especially if that injury comes as a surprise. The grip on his wrist does not become true injury. It is gone as suddenly as it came.

Its release does cause Val to slosh some of his wine from his glass, which is nearly as distressing as being threatened at one's own wedding.

"You are a rude guest!" he calls at the stranger's retreating form. "You are a black mark upon the reputation of a wedding guest, innocently invited to celebrate the joining of two people in the sight of the Maker and their friends, of which you are not--you may not count yourself among that number, you overdressed villain!"

It's too late. He can still complain. Val quaffs the rest of his wine, dumps his glass upon a nearby surface, and, yes, goes to seek out Richard Dickerson to see if he has any idea of what any of this is about.