MOD EVENT ↠ Nothing to See Here

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone/Everyone
WHAT: Troubling observations.
WHEN: Mid-Guardian
WHERE: The Crossroads
NOTES: A mini-event! Feel free to use the Crossroads hazards for threads, get lost or trapped, or just ogle the new problem. If you want your character to do more than ogle, feel free to submit an info or plot request!

Traversing the Crossroads, popping from eluvian to eluvian until emerging elsewhere in Thedas, has become a routine part of many Riftwatch agents' work. It's not necessarily a pleasant one; anyone save native elves experiences the journey as disorienting and oppressive, with twisting light and a persistent distracting sound. Still, for reaching those locations and their immediate surroundings, it's faster than going by land or by sea.

But in Guardian, on one such routine journey, someone notices something wrong in the distance: one of the Crossroads' faraway crooked islands turned vaguely black in its center, with tendrils of darkness spreading like veins of mold over the stone, seeming to follow a waterfall (which is falling up, of course, because this is the Crossroads) to infect an island above it as well.

For the following few days, whenever anyone has time to spare, finding a way closer to that island is a top priority. It's not simple work. The Crossroads are a maze of crumbling ruins, and finding a way from point A to point B, even when point B is right there, is often a many-step process with disappearing stairs, puzzlebox locking mechanisms, and mazelike layers of half-destroyed buildings. Some eluvians are shattered or locked, and a necessary platform might ultimately only be reachable by lassoing a distant rock or, for the very daring, taking a leap far enough for a different pocket of gravity to snatch them out of the air and pull them to what now counts as down. And on top of that, several regularly traversed areas are populated by spirits that won't let anyone pass by unbothered.

As agents get closer and closer to the target island, things will only become more difficult. The Crossroads are already falling apart, but their disintegration seems to be progressing more rapidly near the blighted area—as it does become fairly obvious, even at a distance, that the blackness is the same substance that coats the darkspawn-infested portions of the Deep Roads and spreads through the veins of those who become tainted. Stone floors begin to give way beneath people's feet at a much higher frequency, and the rules of gravity and physics, artificially imposed by the Crossroads' shapers and now in disjointed disrepair like everything else, may change unexpectedly from one step to the next. In other places, mages may find the landscape as easy to alter as the raw fade, rock reshaping and elements shifting in response to their thoughts—though not their will, generally, in any deliberate way—with no ritual or spell required.

For obvious reasons, setting foot on the blighted ruin is a task only for Riftwatch's Grey Wardens—who, by the way, will begin to hear the song of the Calling as they come closer, and very loudly. But it's probably fine, and it will cease when they retreat from the area. But even from the safety of an adjacent platform, it will become obvious what everyone is looking at: a rift, pulsating and shifting, but filled with a dense, light-devouring blackness rather than the usual sickly green window into the Fade. The ruined structure surrounding the tear exhibits the usual ancient architecture of the Crossroads, where it hasn't yet been covered in blackness, but where it has, some of the walls seem to have been eaten away, replaced with new walls in new places. Some of them seem to be forming a doorway in the shape of a dragon. Past visitors to the Temple of Dumat may find it familiar.

This is obviously not great. But the least great part is that when they have reached the platforms nearest the blight-oozing rift, keen elven eyes—or anyone who uses a spyglass to help cut through the woozy shifting of the light—will be able to follow the direction that those tendrils of black seem to be flowing through the gravity-defying channels of water and spot among the constellations of further-flung ruins and platforms, in what would be the sky if the Crossroads had one, a second freckle of writhing darkness.

Comments

kristin ortega.

[bcpd]

[ mix of open and closed starters 2 come in replies to this, because i don't want to gamble on being unable to write a good handful in a timely manner. if you want something specific, feel free to give me a shout. ]

closed to jone.

[bcpd]

She knows the Crossroads just well enough to be able to keep her feet under her. That sick feeling doesn't go away, but she lives with it, just like the one she lives with in the real world.

(This place isn't real. This place is bullshit. Incredible, but bullshit.)

She ends up going off with a woman who's probably twice her size, easily the tallest person she's ever seen. And they get far enough to exchange names - Jone, Ortega - and get out of range of everyone else on this jaunt before the spirit appears before them.

"Avast!" It looks like a Tevinter pirate to Kristin, or maybe like an etching of one. And while it startles the shit out of her, it only comes out in the way her eyes widen for a moment.

She reaches down and pulls her sword - or tries. Her shoulder moves, but there's nothing to connect to it. Her blade's not even there anymore; instead of the broadsword she'd slammed into enemies with both hands, she has a short sword on her other hip. And under her breath: "Fuck."

[poleaxed]

Jone would like to be the one who, in her many years (two) of service to Riftwatch, has come out tempered and calm, in the prime of her skill. At the moment, she feels a bit more like an ill-trained mutt on shaky legs. Magic were made to serve man, not bloody terrify him.

She winces, only kept from exclamation outright by how many times she's been on these cursed roads.

"Avast yourself," she says, and tries to shoo the creature away. Studiously, she avoids Ortega's gaze, looking overlong at her injury. There's nothing you can do for that but be glad it isn't you.

Old mercenary superstition, perhaps, or an inability to reckon with loss.

[bcpd]

It's just the span of a breath, but it feels like it takes forever to stop responding by instinct. The hand that isn't there stops grabbing, the nub of her shoulder relaxes, and she reaches with the other one for the blade she's got. It's awkward in her hand, the wrong shape at the wrong angle, but at least it's there.

"Ye shan't pass," crows the ghost, who seems more and more like someone's dream as the moments pass, "until ye've defeated me in combat!"

"So stop fucking around and fight us," Kristin snaps back in Antivan.

[poleaxed]

Jone doesn't know Antivan, but she knows what a challenge sounds like. Not least because the way the spirit squares its shoulders is a pretty clear fucking indicator. Jone generally fancies a fight at the slightest provocation, but she doesn't relish the idea of having to protect this woman whose ready anger reminds her too much of own in years past.

"Couldn't've tried to chat, no," Jone grumbles as she gets in position, her poleaxe ready to counter-strike. "Bad enough we're in the bloody Fade itself."

[bcpd]

"He wants a fight." This, in Trade, as she adjusts her grip on her blade. It feels wrong in her hand, which keeps trying to go back to a two-handed grip when she's no longer thinking about it. "We'll give him one."

"Aye, that's the spirit!" It dives at them. Kristin's blade goes up, but the angle's wrong, and she can feel it.

open.

[bcpd]

[ eluvian. open to 1. ]

First assignment: Go through a magic mirror to another world. She's not ecstatic about the idea, but she's also going to save at least some of her bitching for after she's proven her worth. So she's game, however reluctantly, as she steps through the thing after her partner...

...And stumbles out into a world of lights that make no sense and sounds that press into her head like the world's worst hangover. After a morning spent gritting her teeth through nausea and shakiness, it's a damned lot. She makes it two or three minutes before she ends up sidling to the edge of the path, holding tight to the dead-looking tree there, and retching off the side.

[ truth path. ]

"No," she says, in answer to some question or another.

The ground ahead of her crumbles into nothing just as she's about to step onto it. Her balance is off, fucked by the arm situation. She's pinwheeling the arm she still has, reaching out for anything that'll keep her from stumbling off this new cliff into an endless fall.

[ wisps and impulses ]

It's a little bit of glow, candlelight without a candle, and it seems to be leading the way. Kristin's not entirely unfamiliar, but her understanding of wisps is confined to what uses they might have to Circle mages. She's never seen one in its own space, doing whatever it wants.

"Look," she says, nodding toward it, to her partner. The wisp is bouncing around with a kind of curiosity, coming close and then moving further away. "What do you think?"

Something to be concerned about?

eluvian

[thereneverwas]

"Yeah, er... sorry."

A wince of concern, though Barrow keeps his distance, not wanting to crowd someone so clearly having a bad time, "...it's like that, at first."

Waiting until his companion has finished retching, he then wordlessly approaches to offer out his canteen, in case she wants to rinse her mouth.

[bcpd]

She shakes her head, hand still gripping the stone hard. It's the only thing that feels solid right about now, herself included. But wasting someone else's water when she's got her own won't help.

"When does it stop?"

[thereneverwas]

"After the fiftieth time or so." He smiles sheepishly, withdrawing the canteen when prompted and taking a swig from it himself. All this to say, even he isn't over the nausea.

"But we're in no rush. We'll move on when you're ready." Barrow moves to lean against the nearest broken pillar, glad for there being some solidity in the Fade, even if most things are ghosts. He tries not to think about it.

truth

[favoriteanalyst]

Mobius doesn't even say anything, simply acts, and grabs her first by the back of her shirt with a tug, and then throws an arm around her middle to pull her away from the edge. He barely stays on his feet himself, but at least neither of them are in danger of toppling over the edge.

"I got you! I got you. What even happened?" He was pretty sure there was a pathway just up ahead, but like everything else in this place, nothing is what it seems, and it all sucks even if it's also incredibly fascinating.

[bcpd]

"Fuck--" she shouts as she's hauled back, the shock of nearly falling to her death leaving her just as she's out of danger. They end up talking over each other, Kristin breathing like she just ran half a league. "Andraste's tits! What the fuck was that?"

It's a good thing she hasn't replaced her armor yet. Plate would've sent her over the edge, and he wouldn't've been able to catch her by her wool shirt. Once she's gotten a step or two back, she glances around.

"Fuck." Once again, just for the sake of thoroughness. And, in Antivan, "It's a dead end."

[favoriteanalyst]

Understandable in her state to need to take a breather and curse to the heavens. He keeps an arm out to her in case she needs--something to hold on to maybe, or in case more of the path just up and disappears again. "You're okay, you're okay now."

Antivan he--recognizes as Antivan when he hears it, though he doesn't speak the tongue. Could probably read some, but. "Okay. So." He inches toward the edge and the deep drop down, and then across the way to where they thought they were going. "We get that this place likes to play around. Puzzles and weird rules, right? So there's some kind of trick to this."

impulse wisps

[wythersake]

Isaac's expression settles somewhere just north of sour. As though they've strode into a cloud of mosquitos -

"It wants us to follow," A guess, but not entirely uninformed. They're simple things: Less than a cluster of thought. "Watch your feet."

It would be just like this place to lead them over a cliff. Not that he's terribly attached to the shambles of a templar beside him, but it would look amiss to lose her so soon.

[bcpd]

"Watch my -" And then a derisive sort of noise. "Don't tell me we're following it."

A basic rule of life as a templar: don't do what spirits want. Of course, another rule was mages need your care, not your companionship, and here she is, working with Isaac as an equal. But Isaac, at least, is allied with her here. Spirits ally with no one.

open - embracing his inner child.

[rebellionyell]

[Given that this is his first time here Dante finds the nature of the crossroads jarring at first until his senses adapt, once he's able to block out the assault to his senses he's able to focus on the more important things.

Like an identical set of boys in a game of chase, a one-sided game of chase. One of the boys, an incredibly irritated looking one with hair that was neatly brushed back seemed to be hellbent on escaping the irritating onslaught of his twin. A boisterous boy with wild hair that denoted a distinct difference in their personalities.

This boisterous boy was burdened by a set of large wooden play swords.]

Wait up Vergil! You promised you'd play with me!

No way! I never said that!

Noooo! You definitely promised me yesterday! Why are you trying to deny it?

[Dante knew what was coming next and took a step back, waiting for it.

The boy, Vergil, having had enough of this game of chase did an about face and immediately did a roundhouse to his twin's face. The swords flew out of the boy's hands and he rolled ass over teacups stopping at Dante's feet.

He seemed absolutely unphased.]

Hee-hee, now that was mean! Huh?

[By the time Dante and the energetic child looked up Vergil had disappeared.]

Traitor, you always break your promises! Hey!

[The child immediately turned his fervor on Dante, picking up the swords and immediately holding one out for Dante.]

You'll play with me, won't you?

[Dante knew this was a trick, something about this place tapped into the things inside of him and brought them out with way too much accuracy.]

Sorry kid, I got shit to do, go find your brother.

[Maybe turning his back on the kid was a bad idea because no sooner had he done so then did he find himself getting one of those wooden swords tossed at the back of his head.]

Ow...little fucker!

What's wrong, too old, don't wanna slip a disk old man? Or maybe you're just too scared?

[There's nothing worse than getting trash talked by your own childhood so Dante scoops up the sword and points it at the kid.]

Alright, but don't go cryin' to your mommy when I beat your annoying ass.

Pffffft you're the one who cries every time dad raises his voice

[How the hell do these spirits know so much? Well he doesn't have much time to think about it when the kid strikes first and Dante parries more interested in defense than actually damaging the kid or spirit...or whatever the hell this thing is.]

Fine [Dante gave bearing his sword down had with one hand, not needing more force than that] but you don't breathe a word of this to anyone when I win.

If you win old man!

[Well thank fuck no one's around for this.]

[illithidnapped]

[No one, not a living soul—

Save for Astarion, of course, who sits perched on a nearby rock not at all minding his own business. Legs crossed, forearms resting perfectly across his knee as he leans ever so slightly forward.

Utterly rapt in his attention.]

My bet is on the littler version of you, by the way.

[rebellionyell]

[Dante's head shoots up immediately to find Astarion perched not too far away, pleased as could be.

So much for no witnesses.]

You-

[The momentary distraction was enough time for the kid to charge at him and headbutt him right in the stomach and send Dante stumbling backwards in his own surprise. As he hit the ground something silver and red leapt put of his pocket, and before it could hop right off of the ledge he caught it by the chain and yanked it over his head to tuck into his shirt.

No sooner did he manage that than did he see his child-self leaping on top of him like a wrestler jumping off the top rope to do a flying headbutt.

Dante was able to catch him this time, his leg coming up underneath the child so his booted foot could catch him in the stomach. Extending his leg upward he holds his younger self suspended, like playing airplane with a toddler.]

Hey! Play fair!

[The child is just hanging there, flailing his limbs in vain, his wooden sword unable to reach Dante.]

What? You mean like the thing you did with your head?

Headbutt dummy!

Yeah that, that was pretty good form by the way, but I thought we were using swords.

[The kid just huffed out.]

Not my fault you got distracted by a pretty face, dummy.

[Dante launched the kid who landed on his back and rolled over a few times.]

Just so you know [Dante said to Astarion now] I was never this annoying.

[illithidnapped]

[A pretty face, and oh if that doesn’t cut right through the misery of this place. Shallow joy ever his balm.

He’s more on that spirit’s side by the second.]

I don’t know. [Astarion counters brightly (as brightly as he can, given how much this place rattles his senses), busy working up a narrow grin, watching that small reflection go sprawling.]

Spirits tend to work with what they have, after all.

[And at least these ones seem content to latch onto brighter memories than the last set Dante encountered.]

Consider biting, little one. It takes everyone by surprise.

[rebellionyell]

[The child spirit version of Dante was on him again before he could even stand up and to be fair this spirit had a homefield advantage. This place didn't seem to disorient it's senses in the same way and Dante had to realign his own.

To keep the kid from headbutting him again Dante pushed his face back with the palm of his hand]

Hey Star, whose side are you on here? Don't give him anymore ide- [But it was too late for that, before he could even suggest it the younger version of himself already sank his teeth into Dante's hand.

As if that was a good idea after all.

When Dante tried to whip his hand back the kid was still hanging onto him like a demented fish on a hook. Even shaking him off wasn't enough to dislodge him.] What is...what the hell is happening?

[Dante has seen a lot, but this is almost too chaotic.]

Astarion | OTA

[illithidnapped]

I: HOW DO PEOPLE DO THIS ALL DAY?

[He’s no Thedosian elf.

True, he might look like one (enough to pass without noticeable incident time and time again), he might call himself one as often as he finds the breath to, but Thedas itself knows better, apparently: disorienting noise clattering in sharp ears, light far too nauseating for hawkish eyes, all rolling around in his head like a screaming migraine. Or vertigo. Or both.

Nice, to be reminded of how much you don’t belong.

In other words: it isn’t nice at all.]

Oh, leave me alone.

[A crude groan, let out from behind arched fingers where Astarion’s taken to curling up against a section of misshapen rock, spending at least a handful of minutes trying to blot out what essentially amounts to sensory overload for his tired everything.]

Bad enough this bloody place is stinking with Blight [Thankfully all of it too far away to be his problem to deal with.] but now we have to sit around and wait in this equally nightmarish pit until our meager assortment of Grey Wardens returns.

[A soft groan of a sigh, before:]

If they ever return.

II: WARDEN HOURS

[Hours later, possibly even a full day later since they reached the suspended ledges bracketing tainted space, Astarion's senses haven't acclimated, but they've at least mellowed enough that he seems more his typical self: petty, snappish, whiny, mean— come to think of it, not much has changed at all.

He sits loose-limbed beside a smoldering fire, squinting out at lines of coursing pitch in the far, far distance.

Elven eyes.] If the Blight is here, do you think it’s possible to spread it into something like the Fade as well?

I thought magical spaces would be impervious but—

Aparently not.

III: WILDCARD

[ooc: you know the drill, I'll match format, I'm not picky! All that said, there is a prompt I'm doing with fear spirits in the Crossroads so if you’d like a starter involving fear spirits pls tap me on plurk at coba1t, since Astarion’s past features heavy stuff that I’d prefer posting under a separate (warned for) log just so it isn’t unwittingly stumbled on.
 
Otherwise feel free to mix and match these prompts or make up something else!]

I

[thereneverwas]

[The clinking of light stone on stone answers Astarion's complaint, and should he force his eyes open through the vertigo, he'll be greeted with the sight of a chubby, curly-haired little boy who stands on the edge of the strange broken island. He's throwing pebbles, some of them bouncing and tap-tapping off the ragged stone of the Crossroads' construction, some of them simply disappearing into the open air as if it were a pond.]

I'd carry you, mate, but I'm not faring much better.

[The familiar voice comes from behind and above Astarion, its source leaning queasily against a half-collapsed arch, watching the spirit in front of them.]

Least he's got everything figured out. [Barrow nods to the boy.]

[illithidnapped]

What— [Astarion grumbles blindly, only halfway opening one eye in order to squint out blearily at the figure lurking somewhere out there amongst gravitational flotsam, shifting every so often for the same of throwing....something.]

What is that, some sort of goblin?

[Astarion, you have elven eyes. If you'd just open them instead of flinching....]

[thereneverwas]

[Despite how his own stomach is rebelling, the question elicits a genuine laugh from Barrow. The ghost turns to look at them both, dark inquisitive eyes over the familiar curve of his prominent, slightly-too-large nose.]

Yeah, [Barrow answers cheerfully,] not familiar with this part of the Crossroads, I take it?

[illithidnapped]

Not familiar with any of it, actually.

[He snorts back, finally opening his eyes fully to take in the sight of— ah.]

....is that.... [Another squint. A narrowing of sharp eyes despite the acute pain it causes.] is that supposed to be you?