MOD PLOT ↠ ALL SOULS WHO TAKE UP THE SWORD

[faderifting]

WHO: Nearly everyone
WHAT: Retaking Val Chevin
WHEN: Late Firstfall into early/mid-Haring, 9:47
WHERE: Val Chevin, Orlais
NOTES: Generated injuries here! CWs for violence, slavery mentions. Use content warnings in your comment subject lines as needed.

THE BATTLE

The battle begins just after dawn, once the distraction at the harbor has drawn as much of the enemy force to that end of the city as possible. Bombardment (magical or otherwise) is fruitless while the elvhen shield artifact continues to magically reinforce the walls and gates, but a Riftwatch team is on its way and will soon have disabled it. In the meantime, while the enemy's attention is focused on the harbor the assault begins. The first waves of soldiers are sent up ladders to try to fight their way over. Some make it, and fight their way along the battlements to try to reach the gate below, in hopes of unbarring it from within even before the shield is broken. The attacking force very nearly manages a lightning-quick victory, numbers pouring over a section of the wall left unmanned by the harbor distraction. They might have managed it when, suddenly, a rush of magic descends down onto the walls, physically, enough to blow their hair back and everything, and a glowing dome spreads over the city—essentially an enormous magical barrier.

Those at the tops of ladders suddenly find their blows absorbed by the magic rather than landing on the overwhelmed guards along the wall, while the defenders' blades still pierce through from within. The tide quickly begins to turn in favor of the Tevinter defenders. Some of the attackers are caught already within the walls when the barrier drops, and without more following behind them are quickly outnumbered, either killed or forced to flee deeper into the city to try to avoid capture. There is traffic jam at the top of the wall as forward progress abruptly halts, and at least one ladder accidentally falls in the resulting confusion, taking a dozen or so attackers with it. Attacks from the walls above now rain down with impunity as the attackers attempt to force their way through the barrier, reasoning that all barriers break eventually and it's just a matter of applying enough force. For a short period that feels longer, the battle stagnates, all the damage being taken by the allied forces, the Tevinters on the wall able to regroup and reinforce their ranks.

It takes longer than anyone had planned but finally the Riftwatch team inside the city is successful and the barrier dome dissipates as abruptly as it had appeared. A cheer goes up, flagging morale restored, and the assault takes on renewed intensity. Without their magical protection the gate is no longer unbreachable. Rams are aimed at it and magical force as well, protected by archers and more mages, with assistance from some griffon riders above. The enemy throws down scalding stones, oil, even Antivan fire, but their force is stretched thinner and thinner, and more and more attackers make it over the walls to harry them back. Finally the gate splinters, and the armies of Orlais and the Divine stream into Val Chevin.

The Tevinter and Ander forces don't give in that easily. They make a stand in the central square of the city, fighting on the steps of the Chantry and the lip of the great fountain itself with its four leaping seahorses. They retreat through the streets, broken up into smaller groups, some barricading themselves inside a building, others seeking to hide in a home, more running, or looking for chokepoints they can defend, mages tearing stones out of walls to block pursuit. Some of the people of Val Chevin, sensing an end to the occupation at last, join the fight, driving soldiers out of their homes and shops with pitchforks and butcher's knives, raining trash and debris down on them from windows, calling out warnings and directions to friendly forces, offering water or aid where they can.

By mid-afternoon, it's over. Some of the occupying force have managed to flee into the countryside or into one of the few ships remaining intact in the harbor. Many more are dead. The remainder, perhaps as many as a thousand, are gradually cornered at various places around the city and give themselves up. Not all surrenders are honored--some, particularly Orlesians and locals caught up in the fighting, are eager to dispatch the enemy occupiers once and for all and unless someone intervenes may ignore the laying down of arms. Stragglers still attempting to hide or escape are rounded up throughout the day (some even later), tracked down by searchers or turned in by locals.

THE "SAFE AND SECURE" SHIP

Anchored at what is believed to be a safe distance just up the coast to the northeast of the city, Riftwatch's shipboard base of operations provides a landing and launch area for griffons, triage for wounded, and on large tables and boards a collection of detailed maps of the area and of the city and its various districts on which action is tracked as crystal reports come in. Some are assigned to shifts manning the crystals: taking in reports, asking questions, soliciting aid, sending griffon riders where they're most needed. Others analyze the information provided, plot it on the maps, or coordinate with allied movements. Supplies are doled out from the ship as well, from spare weapons and armor to food and water, grenades, lyrium potions, healing poultices. Though the breeze only intermittently carries the sounds of battle out here, the ship is still a buzz with activity throughout the day.

Disaster doesn't strike until the afternoon, when a group of Tevinters fleeing the city manage to commandeer one of the remaining mostly-intact ships and somehow make it out of the harbor despite not entirely knowing how to sail. They straggle out into the bay, catch the wrong current, and are suddenly on top of the Riftwatch ship. Though smaller and already beginning to sink, the Tevinter vessel manages to tangle itself with Riftwatch's anchor cable, and the couple of mages on board make a doomed attempt to trade up for the bigger, more seaworthy model. They fail, but not before managing to do some serious damage to Riftwatch's ship, sufficient to sink it as well.

A hasty evacuation follows by griffon and longboat. The ship sinks rapidly, leaving just barely enough time to get all the wounded ferried to shore and still come back for the healthy before they go down with the ship.

THE AFTERMATH

IMMEDIATE NEEDS

First things first: the wounded from the battle need to be attended to, including not only those from Riftwatch's ranks, but also members of the Orlesian military, local civilians, and Tevinter and Ander prisoners—though opinions vary about whether or not to provide them with any assistance. The Orlesian military has supplies and surgeons, and Riftwatch will be welcome to either seek care or help provide it in medical tents that are set up on the outskirts of the city even before the fighting has fully concluded. During this first evening, this area is not a peaceful place to be, filled with shouts and moans and blood-spattered people darting between emergencies. Even with Riftwatch's help (and magic), resources are stretched thin enough by severe injuries that those who look like they're going to survive without help might be turned away to deal with their pain and cosmetic concerns the old fashioned ways: finding elfroot sprouting up between the cobblestones to chew on, or gritting their teeth and getting over it.

Throughout the night, paranoia persists about the possibility that belated reinforcements—or, worse, a dragon—might arrive to prolong the battle. Soldiers keep watch along the walls and at some forward locations, and Riftwatch's griffon riders are sent to observe the portions of the occupying force that fled north and ensure there's nothing amiss. Nothing seems to be, but continuing to lightly harass the Tevinter and Ander forces to hurry them on their way and keep them from pausing to ransack anything won't hurt.

In the morning, back in Val Chevin, those who look strong and uninjured are enlisted to help with clearing debris from the places where the fighting was heavy and magical enough to collapse walls and roofs or topple statues, or else loading bodies onto carts bound for the pyres outside the city. By mid-morning plumes of smoke streak the sky. The bulk of the damage and death is concentrated on the docks, where the dreadnought crashed and where the initial smash-and-burn fighting took place. Meanwhile, throughout the harbor, griffons will prove useful in examining the water for concentrations of floating bodies—which need to be fished out to avoid a walking dead problem in the future—or debris that's potentially either useful or dangerous. Given what the dreadnought assault team reports, there's also a careful search for any red lyrium-infested sea creatures in the harbor, but while other pens like the one that contained the very large red lyrium octopus they encountered, all have been destroyed in the chaos and no other beasts are spotted.

TAKING STOCK

Over the course of the week, supplies arrive by land and by sea from across Orlais—some from the government, some from charitable patriots who put together donation drives as soon as they heard the news. About eighty percent are practical and useful: winter shoes and clothing, flour and preserves and other long-lasting foods, bolts of fabric, apothecary supplies, a few dairy animals and chickens. The usefulness of the rest varies, including a crate of used toys (labeled FOR THE SWEET PEASANT CHILDREN), an assortment of expensive hats that were in season last winter, and collections of plain masks and face paints in case Tevinter was cruelly forcing anyone to go barefaced. Riftwatch is given leave to distribute these to people as they find needs to meet.

The surviving Orlesian civilians who have been trapped in the occupied city for the last two and a half years haven't been as starved or brutalized as popular imagination may have assumed, but the experience has been plenty miserable. Outside of a few public executions, agitators and those who fomented rebellion against the occupiers have by and large disappeared more quietly. Due to its collective general experience with the Tevinter language and magic, Riftwatch is given the fairly depressing task of sorting through the cells and torture chambers in Val Chevin's central keep, where records and other evidence of executions remain. It's enough to determine who died and how. Some had quick deaths; others were tortured or used for blood magic rituals. A handful appear to have been removed from the city and sent north to be held in Tevinter instead. Relaying the specifics to family members will generally be the responsibility of Orlesian officials, but family members eager for information may corner Riftwatchers coming or going from the fortress to press them for details.

Over the next couple weeks Riftwatch is also called to assist with handling other remnants of the Tevinter occupation, such as translating documents, evaluating evidence of blood magic, and sorting through relics and enchanted objects accumulated by the Venatori. Among the things left behind is a trove of elven artifacts seemingly extracted from nearby temples. None are as powerful as the shield; most seem to be completely unmagical cultural relics.

Elsewhere, many locals were evicted from their homes to make room for Tevinter occupiers. While Orlesian officials sort through claims to those homes, including several contentious competing claims, Riftwatch is sent into them to sort through what the enemy left behind and make sure they're safe for their occupants to return to. In many they find the ashy remains of hastily burned private documents and a variety of fairly mundane magical objects: spoons that stir themselves, hats that are always cool on the inside, candles that light and extinguish in response to clapping.Each is the work of a bound spirit that can be released or destroyed—or left to continue its eternal work, if someone wants to pocket an object rather than restore it to its original inanimate state. Throughout the city, there may also be opportunities to reunite grateful civilians with appropriated belongings ranging from fine art to beloved old horses.

Orlesians aren't the only ones in the city in need of assistance. A small number of Tevinter slaves—exclusively those performing menial tasks, as far as anyone can tell—remain in the city now that their masters have been killed or captured. With the Orlesian populace and military inclined, on average, to consider them threats and collaborators, Riftwatch's intervention on their behalf is necessary. Interviewing them and checking their stories against witness accounts and Tevinter records, to ensure none of them are Venatori mages or gleeful torturers in disguise, will allow Riftwatch to vouch for them confidently. They may also be able to find sympathetic locals willing to shelter and hire those who would like to remain in the city, though there aren't that many who do want to stay.

Throughout their time in the city, Riftwatch representatives are asked to report what they find regarding the treatment of the locals and any practice of blood magic. While Orlesian officers ask for Riftwatch members to give this information to them directly, it's quickly clear that it's likely to influence Orlais' decisions about how to deal with the thousand-odd Tevinter prisoners. Individuals identified as responsible for atrocities are being tortured or executed, especially if they're unlikely to have or provide information, and there is nothing ensuring the entire group won't be ultimately executed after the dust settles. With that in mind, Riftwatch receives instructions from the Division Heads to instead bring the information to them so it can be compiled, double-checked, screened for any individuals Riftwatch may need to question themselves, and delivered with a diplomatic touch.

GOING HOME (OR NOT)

Approximately a week after the battle, as the majority of Riftwatch is preparing to leave, Empress Celene and members of her retinue arrive in Val Chevin. They're greeted by a restrained military parade and less restrained enthusiasm from the civilians, who will line the streets to catch a glimpse and celebrate the symbolic return of the city to full Orlesian control. Riftwatch's attendance is not mandatory. Most of the organization leaves that day to return to Kirkwall and their other work. However, a small number remain behind for a few more days, overseen by the heads of Diplomacy and Forces, to provide administrative support while the Ambassador and Commander liaise with the Empress' people about their plans for the Tevinter prisoners. As thanks, they might be invited to endure a few stifling fancy dinners.

Comments

[apocalypsegrown]

It's certainly easily said when one is asking, and not the one telling. Sylvie's eyebrows furrow, the lines around her mouth going tight as she considers it. Considers where to start exactly, how to put it, if she wants to actually share it at all. Then, licking her lips, she drapes her arms over her knee and makes a face a bit like it hurts to say it. "Where I'm from doesn't exist anymore."

She glances back up at him a second, then the ground, her heel tapping a moment in between words. "You know Loki, I dunno how well. But my world was similar to his, Asgard, just a different universe. I...lived there when I was a child, and then...a power hungry maniac behind the guise of an all powerful time and space organization stole me from my home and... fed my entire universe to a giant cloud monster at the end of time."

She checks if he's tracking or not, just a flick in his direction again as she twists her fingertips between each other. "'s a bit complicated."

[illithidnapped]

“The Time...Police, yes?”

Hard to remember, but not lost to a mind as sharp as Astarion’s: clever as a crow and half as inclined to tug when the opportunity presents itself. Still, he has manners despite his own nature. Sometimes.

More than that when it comes to subjects like this, his expression softening noticeably— though he keeps his attention on her peripheral, now. Sidelong.

A way to spare them both a bit of gravity.

“I’d only heard them mentioned once before, and not in extensive detail— only that they kept watch over some supposedly sacred timeline.”

And that they might have attempted to erase Loki himself. Alongside so much more it seems, if what she says is true.

[apocalypsegrown]

"Correct." She points upwards with one finger half a second; it seems that he does know Loki relatively well, to get any kind of story out of him. "And my existence... was a crime." Or was it? Was it all a ploy just to get her to the end of time and in that impossible position? She really...doesn't know. How much had been carved out for her life to travel and how much had been her actual choice? "So when I escaped, they kept chasing me across time and space, until I figured out where to hide."

Her eyes flick up to him again, and she gestures towards...all of this. "Apocalypses. If everyone and everything dies they couldn't find me. So this is what've lived in the last thousand years, but much worse. No one I've ever known since I was a child has lived to tell the tale. At least here, I think, some of us will get to move forward."

And with that she sucks in a breath, hunching her shoulders and then rolling them, as if trying to shrug off the mood. "Enough about me. Clearly you've had a time yourself, unless that--" And she gestures towards his neck in a poking motion. "--actually is from a terrible accident with a barbeque fork."

[illithidnapped]

“A snake, actually.” Astarion corrects coyly, though whatever smile he tries to affect never quite reaches his eyes.

She’s been through much, given her story. Trying to imagine the shape of it is— lonely, in a sense, though perhaps no less than being forced to heel for an age. The fleeting memory of kindness, compassion, affection, all of it having been damning. Pointless.

He killed every soul that ever thought to look his way.

Wretched proxy.

“...and you don’t think they’ll try to find you here again?” He asks, both for interest (selfish and objective alike) and for the sake of holding the whole of her focus elsewhere for a few moments longer.

[apocalypsegrown]

“Pretty big snake.” There’s a lilt at the end, eyebrows raising as she returns that almost smile, recognizing the weight behind the lie. “I hope you got a picture.”

It’s strange though, saying any of this, and she can’t help but look down, fighting a hard frown. It’s not as though this is the first time she’s shared, idly and without real sincerity when asked on occasion by someone doomed to die in front of her over and over again, when she was feeling low enough to need to just let it out into the void. But this is different, here it sticks doesn’t it? It makes her want to take it back, a strange kind of anxiety tightening her chest, and she focuses on the ground in front of her a moment as she tucks some hair out of her face.

“Well… I’ve killed the man behind the curtain, and more TVA operatives than I can count, so if they come, which I doubt; I suppose I’ll just kill some more, take their tempad and do it all again.” There’s a shrug punctuating the rushed last bit, and she sits up a bit straighter, tilting her head slightly towards him. “I’m pretty good at killing.”

[illithidnapped]

“So I’ve noticed, darling.” Said not without a distinctive note of pride, his commentary. “But on the off chance it does happen again, do me a favor: don’t go leaping into the fray alone.”

He cranes his neck to one side, crimson stare finally fitted to her own. He’s stopped fiddling with his scuffs and scrapes, stopped minding the overburdening weight of his exhaustion— even if what follows still sounds so uniquely conversational by way of his lilting tone.

“Oh, and before you start imagining this is all coming from a place of sweetness and overwhelming concern— don’t. If I myself, this world, and everything in it somehow teeters on the verge of absolute erasure, I expect to have a hand in making that very much not the case.”

A beat, before, cheerfully:

“Not that I don’t trust you, of course.”

[apocalypsegrown]

"I'd trust you less if you tried to convince me it was." There is a little more seriousness in that, and she holds his eyes a moment, blue against red, as if trying to look past all that flippancy to what was at the core. At what trust even meant for him, deep down in that clearly carefully guarded heart. Not that she could make any promises anyway; the first time she did bother to worry about another person while fighting this fight it had all gone to shit hadn't it? It's a stark reminder on why she shouldn't let herself get attached.

Sylvie licks her lips and looks away, sighing into a more casual tone again. "I wouldn't worry too much, if the TVA or He-Who-Remains were actually back in control of the timelines, this whole place would be crawling with agents with or without my presence. All of us being here is just one massive nexus event; the fact that there was a Thedas to fall into tells me that the whole ant hill is still on fire."

[illithidnapped]

“Just...be smart, mm?”

It’s not condescension dwelling low in his voice the moment that she looks away. In fact, it might well and truly be concern— or some strangely-shaped relative of it, made different by Astarion’s twisted need for self-protection.

Pride, amongst the prideless.

“In my experience, moments of reprieve are always preludes to the hammer’s fall. The snap of a shut trap.”

[apocalypsegrown]

"In your experience." She repeats, a little more lilted at the end, a question that doesn't have to be. He really is a puzzle, one that she can't figure out the trick to, or really the idea behind. Usually she's pretty good at determining a person's intentions and motivations within a few minutes but rarely has much reason to do so. Instead she finds herself....curious.

"Don't worry; I don't think relaxing my guard is in my nature." She moves to stand again, pressing the heel of her good hand into the plaster wall and making an unpleasant face as she hauls herself vertical. Everything hurts, but she's not about to mention it when he's pumping poison through his veins. "And if it means keeping that bastard out of power, I'll take all the help I can get."

[illithidnapped]

"Good girl." Astarion puffs, tiredness muting the fond mixture of approval she's earned with her assertions. Always better to bite back. To be fanged and sharp and hateful against every urging hand. "As for the rest, consider it a story for another time. Because much as I'd like to continue on basking in a reprieve from all this despairing chaos, I don't think either of us can presently afford it."

He sees that discomfort in her, despite the fact that she masks it well. The mark of someone practiced, like him.

The fire's died down, though the streets outside still burn, but fresh air cuts a horizontal path through the heart of it if Astarion's bloodhound nose is good for anything; if she's careful in her movements, she ought to make it out just fine.

One hand's pressed tight against his side, readjusting pressure and pain in equal amounts. His own expression stays level, though his tone is...

"Do me a favor, darling."

[apocalypsegrown]

As curious as she is, he’s right of course. Any more story telling can wait until they’re both out of this mess, the city has shrugged free off it’s captors, and there’s no more black in his veins. There’s only so much time one can take to catch their breath.

It’s not as though she can’t hear the exhaustion in his voice either, so when he speaks again she turns to him, eyebrows a bit furrowed as she places a hand over his on his side, not adding pressure but just supporting it. Feeling the rise and fall of his breathing as her own confirmation of it. There’s no point in patronizing him with constant questions on his physical well being, clearly he’s less than all right but more than dead. They can work with that. She’ll throw him over a shoulder if she has to. While broad in shoulder, Astarion is not THAT much taller than her, and far more manageable than Loki would be.

“Depends on what it is.” There’s a little playful inflection, lips pulling up once as she tilts her head in waiting.

[illithidnapped]

Her hand meets his side, and in response the edge of his eye twitches just slightly in response, the whole of his body accommodating that unexpected increase in pressure. He’d seen it coming enough to know, of course, but there’s always a difference in being touched, and touching oneself.

Hah.

The stupid grin that thought prompts fades perhaps a breath too quickly.

“Scout ahead.” He manages, swallowing against the set of his own words. His throat dry and tasting more of ash than anything else. “You’ll move faster. Be able to better plot our next move without getting weighed down in all those potentially damning details— such as a stray encounter or two. Or yet another toppling building.”

Something he’s not presently fit to deal with, if he’s opting not to lie to himself.

[apocalypsegrown]

It would make logical sense to scout ahead of course. Without having to worry about defending him as well as her self, she could make very short work of these incompetent soldiers, prevent herself from leading Astarion across another leap of faith, and all the while be safer for it herself. And yet-- Her eyes narrow ever so slightly as she studies his face, as if trying to read his mind and intentions. Finally she licks her lips, eyebrows furrowing.

"Alright," It's said with a slight sigh, but followed with more insistence. "But if I do you'll have do to me a favor as well. No slinking off like a dog to die when my back is turned. I swear if you don't make it out of this battle I will come back, find your corpse, and do something with it that will be so mortifying that it'll be the only thing this world talks about for years when they hear your name."

Her hand moves from his to prod him in the chest once instead, honestly with less force than she would like to, and and then takes a deep breath. "With that in mind, lets go."