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

[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.

[poleaxed]

"Well, now he do- fuck." Jone moves out of the way, narrowly dodging a sword slashing down on her. The fucking problem with spirits, that is; they're all taller than her. "Just lemme handle this'n, luv."

[bcpd]

"No -" but fuck, she's going to have to. All the strength in the world is useless if she can't wield it, and right here, she can't. If she could box the spirit into submission, she'd be some use, but she hasn't picked up enough of swordplay yet. She needs a kind of control she doesn't have.

It's too humiliating to back down entirely. Instead, she keeps her short sword at the ready and just keeps out of Jone's way. That much isn't hard - she's still quick on her feet.

[poleaxed]

"Hope you're a better fighter than your powers of debate, luv," Jone manages between two hasty sidesteps, dodging the spirit's blows. She hisses through her teeth when the third connects, biting her lip in the process. Blood dribbles down her chin, but she seems to be smiling.

"Took you long enough." She charges forward with seemingly renewed strength.

[bcpd]

"You really think debating was gonna change his mind?" What she says next is neither repeatable nor in trade - partly because she thinks it's a stupid fucking idea, partly because the spirit comes at her.

The fact that her sword connects in a successful block is more satisfying than it has any right to be. She jabs forward, the work of someone who clearly knows what she's trying to do, even if it's coming out messy.

[poleaxed]

"No! Might've given me time to- ugh- get in close for a surprise-"

Okay, you know what, fuck talking. Jone takes another solid hit, and comes up bruised for it, half her face a red smear. Her smile cuts through it, sharp and sure.

Her next strike connects, and the strength it requires, to heave through what would normally be solid bulk, is not quite human. It's less impressive when used against something a little less (or more?) than corporeal, maybe, but Jone can't spell 'corporeal', so it isn't much her concern.

[bcpd]

The spirit makes a horrible noise, like a man choking on something wet, and it disappears.

For now, at least. Kristin doesn't trust that it's actually gone - she doesn't trust much of anything about the Crossroads, at this point. And that's why she's still gripping her blade, glancing around their surroundings. Stone for ground and stone for walls, and only one real path ahead of them. "We didn't need a surprise."

[poleaxed]

Jone wipes some of the blood off her face. "I didn't need a surprise, more like. Bloody thing were strong, the bastard."

[bcpd]

"You don't like it, take a different path." Even as she's saying it, Kristin realizes she'll be fucked if Jone actually takes her up on it. But veiled commentary on her off-hand skills makes her bristle.

[poleaxed]

"And leave you alone to die?" Now she's just being a jackass, but it feels good, so she doesn't question it. "Couldn't live with myself."

[bcpd]

"Shove that pike up your ass," she snaps in Antivan. Having had enough of humiliation, she stomps onwards, through the only path available. In Trade: "I've got this."

If for no other reason than because sheer spite will keep her alive.

[poleaxed]

"Lead the bloody way, buttercup." But Jone stays close behind, intending to make sure the little bint doesn't buy the farm on her watch.

[bcpd]

Kristin rolls her eyes, but she walks on. "Are you always this fun to be around?"

[poleaxed]

"Depends on who I'm with," she retorts, "if they're a twat, I return the favor."

[bcpd]

"Mirrors must be hard for you," Kristin says, putting her sword back in its scabbard. It's a move she'll probably regret, but she talks enough with her hands to know she'll end up waving a blade around.

[poleaxed]

"Surprised you know what mirrors are, luv," she says, not really paying attention to her words. A game of insults is old hat. "Seeing how they crack when you smile in 'em."

[bcpd]

"Said the comal to the olla." It's not as familiar territory for her - a few sharp lines from her usually gets silence in return - but she's not about to back down from an argument.

[poleaxed]

"Hit yourself worse than I reckoned," she murmurs. "Talking nonsense now."

[bcpd]

"They always said Fereldans had terrible cooking." An easy blow. "But I thought you had pots and pans."