MOD PLOT ↠ The Soldiers of the Demon Charged

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Striking closer to home.
WHEN: Justinian through Solace
WHERE: The Western/Central Free Marches
NOTES: OOC post. Please use appropriate content warnings in your comment subject lines.

WEEK ONE: THE COLLAPSE OF HASMAL

Recently in Hasmal, growing outrage from native Hasmalis over the swelling number of Tevinter refugees within and outside the city has led to a series of smaller violent incidents that went largely unanswered by local authorities, leading to additional targeting of more established Tevinter communities within the city and the makeshift fortification and arming of the camps outside. In the last week or so, after a period of simmering tensions, the situation in Hasmal has boiled over into violent riots. Reports out of the city conflict about what finally caused the rapid escalation, how bad things got, and whose fault they were. But they agree that it very quickly became a dangerous situation that the city authorities utterly failed to bring under control. Fires burned in some quarters of the city and deadly clashes between factions forced uninvolved citizens to barricade themselves in their homes. Some city leaders urged calm and peace while others encouraged supporters to seize the moment and fight for the upper hand. The Grand Vizier was nowhere to be seen. Somehow, amidst the chaos, the gates were opened and in marched the Tevinter army.

The violence, and then even more Tevinter's arrival—supposedly to help restore peace to the city, though it's unclear whether that has actually happened—has caused many to flee the city, particularly the refugee community who had fled from Tevinter once already. With nothing but the Tevinter desert of the Silent Plains to the north, most either jumped ship down the Minanter or came south across the river into Tantervale territory and Wildervale, with some now arriving in Kirkwall with their tales of chaos in the western-most March.

Also, Commander Flint and Scoutmaster Yseult are missing, having gone to meet a contact coming across the Minanter from Tevinter some days ago. They ought to be returning, but neither has been in contact since. In their absence, Ambassador Rutyer and Provost Stark will be running Riftwatch, and can direct Scouting and Forces as they see fit and delegate authority for those operations as necessary.

UNKNOWNS

This is a fast-moving situation, with events clearly already running well ahead of news. With limited resources at hand, intelligence networks in the previously quiet Free Marches have been somewhat neglected by the Inquisition and Riftwatch both. Much remains unclear, subject of wild rumor and conflicting reports from the few sources in the area:

There are stories that the Grand Vizier Rekam Antoninus, ruler of Hasmal, is either complicit in the Tevinter takeover or in league with refugees to try to bring down the city's nobility. There are rumors he has fled the city, or even that he's dead by a half-dozen different hands.

There are similarly conflicting reports about other Hasmal city leaders, with some said to have been encouraging the various factions involved in the riots, trying without success to calm the situation, or using the situation to advance their own interests in one way or another. It's likely that at least a few were cooperating to some extent with Tevinter, though exact numbers and identities can't be known right now.

The size of the Tevinter force in Hasmal isn't yet clear, as the numbers reported by those who fled the city at their arrival range from "most of the Tevinter army" to "five times the size of the entire Tevinter army."

All reports at this point are coming from people who have fled Hasmal, so there's essentially no reliable information about what the situation is like inside the city since Tevinter moved in.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

As soon as word begins trickling in, Riftwatch will begin sending parties north to investigate the situation. Anyone with a relevant skill or two might be assigned to venture out to:

• AERIAL SURVEILLANCE: Use griffons for aerial surveillance of the region between Kirkwall and Hasmal, to watch for any further movement of the Tevinter army. Using sending crystals, they'll also be able to send back reports of the routes any large groups of refugees seem to be taking. And they'll be charged with assessing the roads and terrain between Kirkwall and Hasmal, identifying the routes an army could take to reach further South and what chokepoints—bridges, narrow passages, castles and fortresses with defenses that might hold—could be exploited to slow them down. (The distance from Kirkwall to Hasmal is too great for the griffons to be flying back and forth every day; aerial teams will be gone for several days at a time, and in the meantime staying on the property of a druffalo farmer in Wildervale or in wilderness camps of their own making.)


• ASSIST TRAVELLERS: Intercept people fleeing Hasmal—to assist them, when necessary, but also to get as much information from them as possible to try to separate rumors from first-hand accounts or find consistencies between stories that might point toward truths. Many of these people will be refugees twice over, already having fled from Tevinter in the wake of Corypheus' takeover, so some may have relevant information about Tevinter as well. And there is always the possibility that some loyal to Tevinter and the Venatori are disguised among the refugees, so they'll need to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.


• ASSIST TOWNSFOLK: Meet with the Countess of Wildervale and local leaders of smaller towns and villages. Those south of Wildervale may need to be alerted about the waves of travelers they're about to see, while those north of Wildervale will have been reached by refugees before Riftwatch and may be overwhelmed by the sudden swell of visitors and potential long-term residents. Some of those fleeing Hasmal may be settling into these villages for the long haul due to exhaustion or a lack of resources, while many others are terrified of Tevinter at their heels and want to go further south to put at least one major city between them and Hasmal. It's a valid fear, so in addition to discussing the refugee situation and how many more people the villages can viably feed and house, Riftwatch teams will need to help assess their defenses and escape routes if the invasion pushes further south, ideally without causing a panic.

Meanwhile, in Kirkwall, those who aren't suited to fieldwork or who are between trips out of the city will:

• ATTEND MEETINGS: The Viscount, Kirkwall's nobility, and City Guard representatives in Viscount's Keep will be meeting for long hours to discuss whether or not Kirkwall will be able to accept refugees (and to what extent) and the city's defenses and fortifications. Riftwatch won't have any formal say in these decisions, but its representatives may be able to provide information as it becomes available and maybe sneak some opinions in there as well.


• READY LOOKOUT TOWERS: Assist the city with transporting supplies to and chasing bandits out of rarely-used guard towers in the Vinmarks.


• ORGANIZE RIFTWATCH'S EFFORTS: Amass, organize, and disseminate the information being relayed back from the teams in the field—for example, making sure the Riftwatch teams advising refugees on which villages and cities will be able to take them in aren't directing them all to the same place and causing it to become overwhelmed.

There are also a few specific missions that will be assigned to those with suitable skills at the end of the week. Based on the available information, teams will be sent to Hasmal and to Tantervale to accomplish the following:

• HASMAL AERIAL SURVEILLANCE: The Hasmal team will travel by griffon to conduct fly-over surveillance of the city and the territory to the north and west, to try to gather information about the Tevinter forces. From griffonback, the team may occasionally spot Tevinter scouting parties or small clusters of soldiers that can be picked off or harassed, whether from the air or by landing to confront them.


• HASMAL GROUND SURVEILLANCE: The griffon team will also be carrying passengers, a small team who they will have to stealthily drop into Hasmal so that they can spend two days gathering information about the situation in the city itself before they're picked up by the griffons once again.


• TANTERVALE OUTREACH: The Tantervale team will try to meet with Tantervale's leadership to coordinate defense and relief efforts. They'll travel by horseback (griffons would only remind folks how weird Riftwatch is) and work through diplomatic channels and court backchannels to try to gain an audience with the Lady Chancellor and/or her ministers and persuade them of the benefits of working together.

These missions will be interrupted by the red lyrium dragon, which will first arrive over Hasmal just as the griffon riders are collecting their spy passengers for departure. The dragon will chase the griffons off before continuing on to Tantervale, where the team in the city will be forced to flee its attack and escape from the city.



WEEKS TWO & THREE: THE RUIN OF TANTERVALE

After the news of Tevinter's takeover of Hasmal, its closest neighbor, Tantervale, is calling a muster of whatever fighting-age men are left in its territory. Most of Tantervale's soldiers have previously joined the Exalted March, leaving the city-state only lightly defended. Whoever remains is ordered to arm themselves and meet outside the city within the week to protect against the threat of Tevinter incursion, or possibly even to threaten to join any supposed 'peacekeeping' force in Hasmal. The exact plan is unknown, but the citizens of Tantervale—known across Thedas for their religious zeal—appear eager to answer the call to defend their home and any fellow devotees of the Chantry from the dangerous northern heretics.

But in the end, how many they manage to attract to this makeshift defensive force hardly matters. The gathered host is powerless to stop the sudden, devastating attack of the corrupted high dragon. The huge, red-lyrium-infected beast—known to be under the command of Corypheus for some years now, but rarely seen since it perched triumphant atop the Archon's palace in Minrathous 3 years ago—emerges above Hasmal before flying the short distance east to Tantervale and laying waste to that city.

Simultaneously, confused reports are reaching Riftwatch from both Orlais and Ferelden, indicating an array of calamities: scattered across both countries, several small villages and their fields were recently set aflame, an important bridge over the Drakon River destroyed in Ferelden, a noble family and their entire staff found hanging evenly spaced from rafters in their estate not far from Halamshiral.

UNKNOWNS

Riftwatch agents present at Hasmal and Tantervale during the early stages of the dragon attack witness its beginning, but as they have to run for their lives, little is immediately known about its outcome. Given the destruction they did see, it's believed that Tantervale was a massacre, resulting in many, many deaths and much of the city destroyed by fire and corruption. A wave of people have now joined the stragglers from Hasmal fleeing south, but how many of them actually managed to escape the city of Tantervale itself as opposed to its surrounding countryside is unknown, and among those who survived, many begin to show signs of darkspawn corruption on the road.

Per the reports coming from the South, the leaders in both Ferelden and Orlais initially respond as if being invaded before realizing that the incidents were not the beginning of a larger military push. It will take some time for it to become clear that all of these events happened on the same day as the assault on Tantervale, mostly by individual actors.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

Most of the work Riftwatch was doing in Week 1 will continue in Weeks 2 and 3, while pivoting or expanding to include dealing with the situation in Tantervale as well:

• ASSIST TRAVELERS & TOWNSFOLK: The attack on Tantervale will essentially double the number of new refugees fleeing south, testing the work Riftwatch did in Week 1 and greatly increasing the strain on communities in Wildervale. Some they may be able to persuade to make do and accommodate more fellow Marchers, while others will reach the end of either their supplies or their patience or both, and Riftwatch agents will need to help calm tensions and find alternatives.


• SHORE UP DEFENSES: Efforts to shore up defenses in the region will ratchet up, and Riftwatch agents will be called on to do things like help train emergency village militias, build makeshift defenses, and provide advice on what to do in case of dragon attack.

For those in Kirkwall:

• ASSIST ARRIVING REFUGEES: Pressure on Kirkwall itself will increase as the first refugees arrive at the city and an even greater number look likely to do so in the near future. Kirkwall has a fairly fraught recent history with refugees from a crisis—the influx of Blight refugees from Ferelden caused a nativist backlash that went on for years. In this case, the locals will be somewhat more friendly because the refugees are their fellow Marchers, as well as slightly more frightened because this crisis isn't happening across a sea. But there will still be a fairly tepidly charitable response to the needs of incoming people, and those escaping Hasmal who are clearly of Tevinter origin will have an especially difficult time. Riftwatch's help will be needed in connecting the new arrivals with those who are willing to help them and aiding in the construction of some temporary structures and camps for those without other means of housing themselves.


• PREPARE FOR THE WORST: Riftwatch will be called upon by the Viscount's office to work with the City Guard to review Kirkwall's defenses, work on emergency upgrades, help man observation posts further afield to provide early warning of any imminent attack. For the time being, a regular rotation of Riftwatch members will be sent to keep watch at some of the further towers, since their sending crystals will allow them to pass along more information more quickly than the warning fires. There will also be a lot of discussion about how to handle a dragon attack--with the expectation that Riftwatch will take a lead role in defending against any such attack.

Elsewhere, Riftwatch will send teams to:

• STARKHAVEN: Believed to be the most likely next target for assault other than Kirkwall. Riftwatch will send a team to meet with current leadership to offer to provide mage support against a potential dragon attack, coordination of defensive efforts, and to learn how Starkhaven plans to handle Tantervale refugees.


• OSTWICK, MARKHAM, HERCINIA, ANSBURG, & WYCOME: Too far to have been directly affected yet. Riftwatch will send representatives to court to try to meet with leaders to discuss coordinating efforts across the region for mutual defense against Tevinter, encouraging them to raise soldiers, shore up defenses, and take in refugees.


• FERELDEN & ORLAIS: By the end of Week 3 it will be clear that what happened in Orlais and Ferelden is likely a diversionary tactic, meant to compel them to keep their attention at home rather than throwing too much of their weight behind assisting the Free Marches, but a few people will be sent to investigate the sites of some attacks for any evidence of how they were coordinated and to be sure further attacks aren't impending.

(OOC Note: For attacks in Ferelden and Orlais and for small villages around Hasmal and Tantervale, you're welcome to invent the names of these places and invent details of what exactly happened without checking in with us. If your character is from one of these areas, you're also welcome to say their hometowns or places they're familiar with were affected, as long as: (1) it isn't a place big enough to be on the canon map of Thedas and (2) if someone else's character is coincidentally from the same place, you check with them first.)



WEEKS FOUR & FIVE: THE MARCH ON STARKHAVEN

The situation in the Free Marches continues to deteriorate rapidly. With Tantervale now more rubble than city, nothing substantial stands between the Tevinter force in Hasmal and either Kirkwall, home of Riftwatch, or Starkhaven, the cultural and financial heart of the Marches. An advance on one or both of those cities is believed to be the next logical step, but nobody knows for sure which it's going to be or whether it's going to come in the form of an attack by dragon or just ("just") an army.

Reports from the Riftwatch teams in and over Hasmal at the end of Week 1 spotted signs of that army readying to move, and further griffon reconnaissance during Weeks 2 and 3 confirmed that with Tantervale out of the way the army is now moving quickly. Their path is clearly pointed east toward Starkhaven. Like Tantervale, Starkhaven is lightly-defended, much of its forces—along with its ruler, Prince Sebastian Vael—in Orlais with the Exalted March.

Help from elsewhere is unlikely to arrive in time. Those Marches who might have been best positioned to support Starkhaven in its time of need find themselves with problems of their own, as coastal communities in Ostwick and Hercinia suffer a rash of brutal and unusually well-organized pirate attacks. The port towns of Torbay and Ogwell near Ostwick and Noli near Hercinia take the brunt of it, sacked and burned by marauders. There are several attacks on shipping reported as well, with prizes taken from normally safe waters where the Waking Sea meets the Amaranthine. Both city-states have increased naval patrols and are now on alert, but they're looking outwards, not inland.

UNKNOWNS

How quickly reinforcements will arrive. Agents and Inquisition contacts in Orlais report that the Exalted March is now aware, and that there are urgent debates among the commanders about how to react. Prince Sebastian Vael is thought to be planning to return imminently, but precisely how long that will take—and how many men he will bring with him—remains unknown.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

• SLOWING THE ADVANCE: Riftwatch will do its best to slow the enemy advance and buy Starkhaven time to prepare. Without the numbers to engage the host directly, teams will instead be tasked with making the journey as difficult as possible by creating obstacles along the way: think rockslides, blown bridges, washed out roads, felled trees clogging the river, sabotaged boats and wagons, and so forth. Traps or small guerrilla-style attacks may be laid at some of these points, but with strict orders not to risk it unless conditions allow Riftwatch the advantage to attack swiftly and then escape again. The goal is to harass and pick off low-hanging fruit, not get caught up in an unwinnable battle.


• PREPARING STARKHAVEN: Preventing an attack on Starkhaven seems impossible, but Riftwatch can at least help the city prepare for it. At this point a siege is the best option, but it will mean being (or at least looking) strong enough to withstand an initial assault. Top priorities are:
  
  • Reinforcing city defenses. These efforts were already underway by Week 2, but will become far more urgent, and leaders will be much more eager to hear from Riftwatch anything they know about the enemy forces.
  
  
  • Stocking the city. This includes bringing in supplies to prepare for the siege they now hope comes, whether by wagon or boat or griffon, and Riftwatch may even be asked to help negotiate with merchants and farmers to get deals done and goods delivered faster if possible.
  
  
  • Bolstering numbers. They need all the fighting manpower they can get, so Riftwatch will be helping recruit by explaining the situation, the context of the war, and encouraging anyone able to fight to help, and then transporting them from the countryside to the city walls as fast as possible. Bringing in fighting men means more mouths to feed, so Riftwatch will also be asked to help ferry vulnerable people out of the city to safety in other Marches. At first this effort will focus on the young and old with political importance, but it will be expanded (if Riftwatch pushes and also if they work fast enough to make it feasible) to include young and old of all classes.
  
  
  • Helping keep the peace and avoid a panic. Between the news of the on-coming army, the rash of high-profile assassinations (see below) and the horrific fate of Tantervale, the people of Starkhaven are understandably on edge. The mood in the city is one of barely suppressed terror, and city officials are anxious to avoid any incidents that might light a spark and distract from necessary preparations. Riftwatch will be asked to assist the guard in patrolling public areas where people tend to gather and help defuse situations, from breaking up brawls and preventing theft and hoarding of supplies to chasing off an obnoxious crier who won't stop stirring up fears with his vivid tales of how he received his scar at the hands of the vicious, unstoppable Tevinters.


• PROTECTING THE COUNTRYSIDE: The enemy journey through the Marches isn't as orderly as it was in Orlais. Parties of enemy soldiers and mages are veering south (occasionally north, into the strip of Marches before the Antivan border, but mostly south) across the river to attack travelers, sack villages, burn farms, and generally cause chaos. This will also involve periodic dragon attacks in the regions between Hasmal, Wildervale, and Starkhaven. These attacks are sudden and brief, hitting random locations, causing death and damage, and leaving as quickly as they arrived. Riftwatch agents traveling through the region for any purpose will need to be on guard, and teams will also be tasked to help patrol the countryside and major roads to protect against enemy attacks. Some teams may be stationed in towns and villages for days at a time, ready to respond to any reports of enemy attacks nearby and coordinate via crystal.

And in the midst of this work, there will be some additional specific missions:

• STARKHAVEN ASSASSIN: An assassin is stalking the streets of Starkhaven. Four prominent citizens have been murdered in the past two weeks, including two high-ranking guard captains, a celebrated knight who won the Grand Tourney not long ago, and Lord Kennech, a frontrunner to replace Lord Greer as regent. The murders have been brazen and bloody, not identical but each marked with the sigil of a prominent family drawn in blood, the first (over Lord Kennech) being the symbol of House Harimann, now most famous for having arranged the murders of Prince Sebastian Vael's family in a coup attempt in 9:31. The other houses referenced similarly have prominent betrayals and power-grabs in their history. No one is quite sure what any of it means, but it has certainly set the city even further on edge and has suspicions between members of the ruling class nearing a high. As a neutral party, Riftwatch will be asked to help provide security for potential targets.


• DRAGON TRACKING: Corypheus' dragon has rarely been sighted very far from him, and its presence in the Free Marches raises the possibility that he's somewhere nearby. A few different small teams on griffon- and horseback will attempt to track it to where it's resting between its excursions to terrorize the countryside, with the hope that Corypheus is there and this may present an opportunity to confront him directly with fewer fortifications.


• FIREBOMBING THE ARMY: As the army nears Starkhaven, another griffon-based team will make one last push to slow them down. The evening before they inevitably reach the city, the team will fly over their camp with mages, Antivan Fire grenades and breakable flasks of oil, and anything else they can come up with to rain literal fire on the Tevinter camps.

WEEK SIX: FALLING ACTION

The Tevinter force finally arrives at Starkhaven. After all the work to delay the enemy and speed preparations, the city is ready to hold fast against them at least until Prince Sebastian can return from Orlais with the army and (they hope) the Exalted March in tow. The Tevinter force, clearly still hoping to take the city before those reinforcements arrive, sets up camp as if for a siege but then launches a pre-dawn attack in hope of breaching the gates. This is repelled, but periodic assault (mostly magical) on the city walls continues—thus far with little effect.

Now that the enemy has arrived at Starkhaven, there isn't much more Riftwatch can do to help directly. The force is still too large for them to take on, and while they can get away with some limited griffon stealth missions in and out of the city, the large-scale operations of previous weeks are no longer possible. Prince Sebastian and the fastest part of his forces will arrive by the end of the week, and he will then take the lead in determining how to defend Starkhaven. He'll be happy to talk to Riftwatch about what they've seen and done in the interim and will be grateful for their efforts on behalf of his city. But there's a lot for him to figure out at present, and coordinating the type of smaller-scale work Riftwatch is best suited for isn't top of his agenda at the moment. Essentially, he'll be in touch.

RIFTWATCH'S WORK

All agents in and around Starkhaven are pulled back just ahead of the Tevinter force's arrival, along with any last group of vulnerable citizens they're able to get out. Riftwatch will continue to put more focus than it previously had on the Free Marches, with increased patrols and surveillance, and will keep an eye on the refugee situation as things develop. The enemy presence in the Marches will continue to cause trouble, with occasional parties of soldiers and mages marauding, posing new hazards closer to home than before that will periodically require Riftwatch's attention. And the situation in Starkhaven will continue to develop and may require more assistance in the future. But otherwise, it's more or less back to business as usual for now, just with a new set of issues added to the pile.

Comments

[heorte]

Though Ellis has thought better of saying so, he is charmed by the scattering of freckles. It is his assumption it will be received much the same as the compliment he once paid her scar, so his opinion on recent changes is kept aside for the moment.

He has also thought better of pointing out that she has forgone their usual habit, which is to offload heavy parcels into Ellis' keeping. But he has observed with amusement how attentive Wysteria is to her cargo, how carefully she has handled it within their preparations to depart and throughout their departure into the hills.

For his part, Ellis is vastly improved, has avoided further injury. The bruises have faded, exist as just shadow in places or have vanished entirely in others. All outward evidence of the incident at Tantervale has dissipated, which is fortunate, because it would have served no one to have slowed Wysteria down on their quest to find a suitable place with plenty to blow apart with her creation.

"What does it look like when it strikes a target?" Ellis asks, surely a fair question to pose considering the invocation of archery and the reminder of Wysteria's aim with a bow. He's fallen into step beside her, one hand kept free and loose at his side to reach out and steady her should the weight affect her balance.

[heirring]

"That would depend entirely on the state of the attack. You will see what I mean once we begin exercising it. But at its most basic—the ball which is thrown burrows either into or through the target. Here—"

Still clambering along, evidently quite content to and rather sure footed about toting along the great meter and a half long beast across her shoulder, Wysteria rummages around in her skirt pockets. She produces a metal ball from it, heavy in the center of the palm of her hand. She offers it to Ellis, dropping it into his hand once he is prepared to catch it.

"That takes the place of the arrow, as it were. Ah ha! I believe I see some a promising clearing up ahead."

[heorte]

The question of aim remains, though Ellis leaves it be for the moment to make study of the ammunition in question. As they break into the clearing, Ellis is still rolling the metal ball back and forth across his palm. His hands close into a fist around it, quickly scanning for any signs of movement in the far trees.

"I see," Ellis tells her, with the assumption that she's simplified the concept to a great degree for his benefit. "Does it do all the rest you'd hoped to involve? The runes?"

Without having yet been allowed a glimpse of the weapon itself, as Wysteria has toted it from camp lovingly swathed in cloth, all Ellis has to go on is what he recalls from the schematics she'd unfurled across the table all those months ago in the midst of the poker game and what he'd been privy to in the course of her presentation to Aldrich. But he remembers the meticulously noted runes, her idea to mingle that magic with all the rest.

"Here?" he questions, treading a few steps ahead of her, then half-turning back to hear her assessment.

[heirring]

"Have you never been treated to a surprise in your entire life, Mister Ellis? What are all these questions. —Yes, there precisely. Do you see those three trees on the far on the far side of the clearing? I believe I have a bit of—yes, here we are. A bit of chalk. Go and mark them with X's. Not, not those. The farther set."

The farther set are a solid hundred paces down the length of the seam shaped clearing. At some point there must have been deadfall which had burned here, or perhaps a slab of stone has made it unwelcome to the deep roots of trees. While he is occupied with marking out the trees in question, Wysteria carefully lowers the parcel to the ground and begins to undo the oil cloth's various lacings. When he returns, she is still crouched down beside it among the pale, thready grass, and is clearly waiting for his full attention before throwing back the last fold of the oil cloth from the parcel's contents.

Unsurprisingly, it is a very long piece of equipment. Were it to be held upright and set on the ground, the other end might almost touch her chin. In the late afternoon sun, the oiled pale oak of the stock gleams gold. The heavy barrel and reinforcing bars and the rune etched dial which is built into the expansive and very square lock plate glint benignly.

It is elegant in the way that prototypes which may benefit for the sole attention of their creators often are. But the heaviness of the design has no particular grace, and lying in the grass is looks rather more like an overwrought and highly inefficient club that it does a bow or crossbow or anything at all that might be expected to launch a projectile.

"Isn't it the lovely?"

Wysteria eagerly tips her face up to him, her smile spreading very broad indeed.

[heorte]

Here is the thing: the gun could be hideous, and Ellis would never be able to say so and dim the smile glowing across Wysteria's face. He so loves to see a smile like that on her face, unchecked and open, would never have been able to bring himself to mar it.

But the gun isn't ugly. Strange, yes. But sturdy, formidable. The weight strikes him as cumbersome, potentially, but the oiled stock is handsome, and the inset runes are so delicately carved that he can deem them nothing but beautiful. They aren't decoration, but they draw the eye regardless. And Ellis is a man who has spent almost half his life with a weapon in his hand, learning to recognize at a glance what might be of use to him. He knows craftsmanship, admires it even without a full understanding of what the weapon in question is capable of.

And he knows what Wysteria is capable of, atop every other thing, so it is not such a stretch to assume the weapon is going to be something to marvel at.

Ellis has crouched opposite her, the gun laid between them, while he makes his inspection. His hands come together between spread knees, balancing on the balls of his feet. He doesn't touch, doesn't intend to without invitation. And after a few moments, he nods to her.

"It's been finely assembled," he tells her, very sincerely. "You've done very well, if the look of it is any indication. I've never seen the equal of it."

[heirring]

"I should hope not. It is meant to be something entirely different."

The rise of her eyebrows might almost be described as a waggle, her broad grin slanting toward a certain air of delinquency. As sly as she is however, it's clear that his approval hasn't fallen on deaf ears. Has she ever seemed quite so pleased to discuss semantics?:

"Here, I will guide you through its operation. Stand the thing upright if you please," she instructs, fetching the gun's accompanying balancing fork and using it to lever herself briskly back to her full height. "Do you see that little rod there along the underside of the stock? You will need chase the ball with it and tamp it firmly into place. It must be locked into the etching plate at the very back of the barrel.

[heorte]

Even at invitation, Ellis hesitates over the prospect before reaching down as instructed and drawing the great weapon up in the same motion as he rises. As unlikely as it seems, he has a real concern that something might break in his hands. When he detaches the rod in question, it's with great delicacy.

And that delicacy stretches along as he taps the ball until it can't be moved any further. Still, one last downward press with the rod, before he draws it from the barrel and returns it to the it's place with a soft click. His fingers slide admiringly over all that gleaming trim, the material of it warming beneath his touch.

And then, silently, he tips the thing towards Wysteria, in the assumption that she'll take possession of her creation.

[heirring]

She does not. Instead—

"Good. Now you must raise it in both hands like so," she explains, uses the balancing fork as a prop to demonstrate leveling the weapon and how it ought to be lain into the shoulder.

"I will place the fork for you. It is much easier with an assistant, though I think with a little practice it might be done by a single person perfectly easily. Do you see the marks here and at the edge of the barrel? Those are to assist with aim. You must align them with your target. Handsomely now, Mister Ellis," she chatters in encouragement, wedging the fork into place once the gun has been raised.

"Now, you see this dial here? They are all the runes at our disposable. Let us use the incendiary. I think it will make it most obvious where your shot strikes."

Click, click, goes the wheel.

[heorte]

Ellis' eyebrows raise.

But he gathers her intent. It stalls him briefly, considering what she's put into his hands. All her work, months and month of planning and laboring and arranging, all to make this contraption which she's put into his hands. The weight of that settles as he follows her instruction, hefting the gun, tucking it in tight to his shoulder as Wysteria manages the fork.

"And then?" Ellis prompts, looking away from the sights to Wysteria. His hands are carefully arranged, supporting the weight. "Am I allowed to ask what makes it shoot?"

Maybe he could make some guesses, but he's wary of causing damage with his own assumptions.

[heirring]

Her laugh is a bright thing, all cheerful good humor as if he has made some lighthearted crack.

"Yes, I suppose you may ask that. It is this bit here," she says, shuffling close to lay her hand on the firing lock. There is a stone clamped in its teeth, half of a lightning rune etched there.

"See. The other part is here beneath the corresponding guard plate. All you must do is lever this bit back like so"—ka-click—"and flip forward the guard and then you are ready to aim and fire."

She withdraws her hands, and herself by a pace—which she immediately closes again to adjust where his hands are arranged on the stock.

"Mind to avoid touching the metal parts forward of the spindle. They might shock you."

There. Satisfied (immensely so), she gives him that pace of room back again and folds her hands studiously behind her.

"Oh! And do not brace too hard against it. The gun will jump some in the hand when fired and I shouldn't like to put your shoulder out of sorts. You're not still very bruised, are you?"

[heorte]

Having been rearranged to her satisfaction, Ellis' hands flex, moving over the mechanisms, settling in where Wysteria has indicated.

"I'm alright," he reassures. All his bruises have faded to shadows, provoke only slight discomfort when prodded. He shifts the gleaming butt of the gun where it's tucked into his shoulder, but without any real sense of how to fit it in such a way as to avoid what Wysteria is cautioning against.

Ellis keeps returning to the weight of it. Not too much to be held, just unusual; all his instincts want to heft it up like an unwieldy crossbow.

Over his shoulder, he glances back to her. She is beaming so brightly that he can't help but smile back at her before asking, "Pick the mark you want me to hit?"

[heirring]

She seems reasonably satisfied with the simplicity of his answer. Or at the very least is enthused enough with the prospect of his firing the gun not to interrogate it too thoroughly.

"You may as well aim for the middle target," is her cheery recommendation. "That way if you miss, you may still hang a chance of striking the others."

Ha ha ha. She's so very witty.

[heorte]

"Clever," Ellis answers, studiously squinting down the barrel. "I'll have to make sure I remind you of that the next time I have you in the training yard."

Is this a joke? Hard to say for sure.

Regardless, there's still a pause in the wake of Wysteria's advice. Ellis' fingers tense over the firing lock, then release, the way he might have once toed up to the very edge of a chasm then stepped back, assessing the potential of the drop.

But Wysteria would never have put anything into his hands that had a chance of blowing up in his face. He is very certain of this. So Ellis narrows his eyes down the sight, draws in a deep breath, and squeezes the trigger.

[heirring]

CRACK!

Perhaps behind the sights of the gun, it is difficult to say exactly in what order each thing occurs. But what does is: the trigger springs, the rune stone is snapped into the pan with a bright electrical flash. Somewhere in the workings of the great gun, there is a burst of arcane energy from the lyrium crystal. A runic enchantment is scoured into place and the ball—that great iron ball he had treated with such delicacy, and slung in accordance with the magnetic passage of the lighting which surges through the crystal and up into the barrel with a twin flash from the muzzle that comes so quickly after that first instant spark that they might as well be the same light.

In the distance, a gout of fire explodes spectacularly against one of the tree trunks. Or in the brush behind it. Or along the ground or wherever it was he managed to aim. It doesn't really make much of a difference to the fact that beside him, Wysteria makes a sharp bright sound of delight and only just manages not to give his arm or shoulder an excitable congratulatory clobbering.

[heorte]

The shot hits higher than Ellis had intended, likely because the force of all mechanisms sparking and feeding into each other caught him by surprise in spite of all her instruction. But the flames burst high, startling a bevy of birds out of the greenery and send them screeching into the sky.

A split second of stunned silence before Ellis laughs, loud and unchecked. Wysteria's good humor is catching, and there is straightforward, easy pleasure in feeling a weapon do it's work, with an explosion in the mix on top of it all. He turns all of that around to her, hands still reverently supporting the gun as he looks to her.

"This," he tells her, laughter mellowing, warming his voice. "Is an amazing thing you've done."

[heirring]

Something in it—his laugh, or perhaps the simple good humor found there in that face which is so often flecked somewhere with some severe wrinkle—makes her laugh in return, loud and unfettered as her chin thrusts forward and up like a preening bird.

"Yes, thank you. I think so too. How does it feel to be a mage, Mister Ellis?"

She is all laughing high spirits, eyes bright with satisfaction in the last low hanging dregs of the day. She doesn't expect him to answer that question—it is a bit of wit like so much of the best. Because yes. It is amazing, isn't it?

"But come!" She cries, cantering forward a pace with a childish hopping stride. "You can hardly see the effect from here. You must see what it has done to the tree. It is fantastically gruesome."

[heorte]

Briefly, Ellis seems at a loss as to what to do with the weapon in his hands. It keeps him in place rather than moving immediately to follow her, before he considers and lifts it from the branching support of the fork to turn and reverently return it to the canvas. For all the sturdiness of the weapon, Ellis still handles it with extreme care. A fold of fabric is even drawn down over it for good measure, before he straightens and turns to follow after her.

"Show me," he agrees, hand catching briefly at her elbow and squeezing tightly. The incandescent glow of her joy is so good. He has no choice but to mirror it back to her, light bouncing back in instinctive response. It is easy to be happy for her, knowing how long she has labored to bring this weapon into creation. There has never been doubt she would accomplish such a thing, but it has been a long time in coming.

That she thought to share any part of it with him wedges some sliver of warmth through his chest, the kind that will stick and stay, carried along with him as he goes forward.

[heirring]

And so traipsing across the length of the clearing they go, Wysteria leading by an excitable half stride with a swish swish of her skirts and her hard soled (and thoroughly beaten in) field boots rasping through the grass.

"The main predicament we have found is a certain finicky quality of the spindle and engraving plate. The alignment has a tendency to become misaligned. And the current which charges the metal, of course. The exterior pieces will have to be insulated or covered to avoid accidentally shocking anyone who doesn't have time to mind their hands. And of course there is the—"

And so on and so forth, an endless stream of semantic chatter which she clearly doesn't expect him to have an opinion on but that she cannot help but rattle off.

When at last they come to a halt beneath the aggrieved tree, it is immediately clear that gruesome was not a word Wysteria had chosen at random. There is the black scorch mark, and the grey ashen center where the fire had burned briefly white hot. And there is the heavy ball, morphed by the impact, lodged at the very center of the fired section of trunk.

"Trees are very robust targets," Wysteria informs him cheerfully, her hands at her hips at they squint up through the foliage. "But you must imagine the effect otherwise."

[heorte]

The flow of information is more or less beyond his capability to answer. There are snatches and stretches where he can almost grasp her meaning enough to offer opinion, but Wysteria has moved on already, recounting the next aspect of her creation or further development she intends to consider and so on, and so on.

He has grown so very fond of hearing all of it, over months of sitting alongside her and Tony as they debate and bicker their way through experiments and all other manner of things. After so much time spent apart, it's familiar and welcome, sustains the smile on his face as they walk.

It's only upon surveying the damage that Ellis considers they were lucky not to set some kind of fire. Still, after a moment's scrutiny, he goes up on his toes to touch a hand to the ash, the inset blotch of the ball, with the tips of his fingers.

"Aye, I've been thinking of it," he tells her, withdrawing a few steps back to her side. The utility of the weapon is so clear. They could make much of it, on the field and beyond that, in the Deep Roads alone, this weapon could—

Well. It's not for him to decide.

And if he's feeling some real relief in the idea of Wysteria having created a weapon for herself that keeps her at range that she actually enjoys using, well.

"Have you told Tony yet?"

[heirring]

"I have written him a note," she confirms cheerfully, sounding more and more pleased with herself in each passing moment. "And have said that I believe the thing is ready to show to Mister Rutyer, though I doubt very much that the Ambassador will be at all pleased with its development. Surely with Tevinter at our doorstep, he can hardly refuse to acknowledge the thing's use."

Here, a very small pause. The thought doesn't concern her too badly, though it would be so preferable to have one or two other Division Heads present. —For any number of reasons, of course, but certainly also because it would be ideal to have the possibility of swaying the support of some kind of majority.

But beggars cannot be choosers, which in this instance applies to Byerly at least as much as it does for her.

"I should like to make a second one, I think. And not only because Mister Dickerson has gifted me with a considerably sized dragon bone from which to craft the stock. No, there are modifications already which I could wish to implement. But I suppose that may come in time."

[heorte]

"It'll go faster for you, now that you've accomplished it once already," Ellis surmises. It's a very easy vote of confidence to make. And then, turning in towards her by degrees, he offers, "Let me write down a few things for you. Some potential strategies, in case the Ambassador drags his feet."

Here is the thing: there is very little Ellis can give her in the way of advice on modifications or mechanics. That is not his arena. But he knows instinctively how he would make use of this weapon, were a Warden in his outfit carrying one. He can put that to paper for her. The Ambassador is a fool, but surely not enough of a fool to throw away an advantage when they are in dire need of whatever they can draw together.

[heirring]

Her hands spring away from her hips as if repelled from them, grasping briefly in his direction as if she might seize him by the elbows—and then she corrects her own trajectory, planting her hands firmly back on hips again as if there is no rational state for them between those two points.

"You—You would do that, Mister Ellis? You would endorse the project?" She has begun to turn very red, flushing with that kind of delight which is equal parts flustered and pleased and stricken.

"Surely he would respect the opinion of a Warden."

[heorte]

That she seems caught off guard by the offer is something of a surprise. To Ellis' reasoning, it was a foregone conclusion. Of course he supports her work, in whatever minor avenues are open to him with which to do so. There is no other option.

"He might," is Ellis' more tepid assessment of potential receptions. Maybe, maybe not. But putting one more advantage into Wysteria's hands could only help her. Tipping his head, slight smile widening, he presses on, "Did you not know you've always had my endorsement?"

Whatever it was worth. Whatever use it could be.

[heirring]

"That is not—No, not precisely," she blusters back. "I mean, yes I knew it. But it is a very different thing, Mister Ellis. To support the idea of a thing behind a closed door or among friends is all well and good, but it is quite another to—to write it down to argue the point to someone else entirely. Particularly when it is someone such as the Ambassador, who you will forgive me for saying can be very cruel when he cares to be."

The flush has carried all the way up from her neck and into her face, tingeing her ears and touching into her slightly grubby hairline. Puffed up, she cuts her gaze from him and returns it to the iron ball lodged into the scorched tree trunk.

And then adds, as if compelled, "It is a very serious thing in Kalvad, you know."

[heorte]

Good sense says Stop looking at her. Wysteria has returned to the study of the splotch of iron in a ring of ash, and so should Ellis, but he cannot persuade himself to cease his own study of Wysteria's flushed face and her mussed hair, the set of her mouth.

At her addition, he thinks, Good.

It doesn't change anything. It's a relief, in a sense. A way to say a variation of a true thing and have it be safely contained within the boundaries of her work. Of course he would support her. That has always been true.

"That's just as well. I'm very serious about how I feel about you and your work," he tells her, voice steady. He has finally looked away from her face, followed her example to further examine the scorchmark. "I would offer the same in Kalvad as I would here."

He's sat alongside her and watched her work for such a long time, has the benefit of being so familiar with her capabilities. What risk is there, in putting his voice alongside hers? His faith in her has been such a steady, unshakeable thing for years now.