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

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."

[bcpd]

He doesn't appear to understand Antivan, and she doesn't really care. Having conducted the majority of her life in the language, she's not about to stop now. It mixes into her Trade mostly as full sentences, and mostly when she's pissed off, even when she's away from her fellow countrymen.

She does, however, care a great deal about getting to the bottom of this - if only so they can get to the fucking sky-island they're supposed to be heading toward. (This fucking place.) So, in her usual accented Trade, "Maybe the path disappears every time you say no."

It doesn't.

[favoriteanalyst]

"Nnnno, I don't think it's that." Is such an arbitrary thing really out of the realm of possibility in this fucked up place? But--is that so far off the mark? "Did anything else happen, anything different than what you were already doing? What--" Hmm, he rubs at his chin. "What was the topic of conversation?"

[bcpd]

That, Kristin actually has to reach back for. Blame the shock of nearly falling into the infinite space below them - the word on her lips is easier to recall than the reason she'd said it. But it only takes a moment before she's answering, "You asked me if I missed Antiva City."

[favoriteanalyst]

"...Okay. Right, yeah." Funny how a moment of potential disaster can wipe out short-term memory like that. She didn't seem to be doing anything different. 'No' seemed to be a trigger of some kind.

He raises his hands in a placating gesture. "So hear me out. How about I ask that again, and this time-" 'you tell me the truth' does not pass his lips, he's not actually sure if that's the case, it still could just be 'no'-related, but it doesn't seem likely "-you say yes instead. Okay? Do you miss Antiva City?"

[bcpd]

Kristin hates the idea before he gets to the word again, and she's no happier with it when he asks the question. But she'll be damned if she makes the truth sound any different from a lie - for the moment, she swallows back her feelings in favor of a kind of curt neutrality.

"Sure. Yes." She's tensed to spring back, but there's nothing to leap away from. The stone beneath her feet is as solid as the flagstones in the Gallows. Kristin stomps on the path with one foot, just to be sure.

So that makes that clear. Tell the truth, or risk a fall that might never end. But she's not going to be the first to say it.

[favoriteanalyst]

It's fine, because Mobius is used to being the one to say the things that might not want to be heard. (Or thinking things no one wants to hear. He's used to that, too, in times when he'd rather keep his head firmly attached to his shoulders.) The path exists again, which means that for the moment, they can progress.

There's an easy solution to this, he's aware, even as he (cautiously, at first) continues on, knowing that this place is strange enough that the rules might change. They could simply not speak. That bends rules just enough that they should be fine.

"So." Not going to happen, though. He wants to be careful about his phrasing. "I'm gonna guess it's less about saying no-" and he hesitates for a split second just in case it is (it is not) "-and more about the answer to questions posed."

He could push it and ask what it is that she misses. It's tempting. But he holds back for now. Maker forbid she say something untrue and the ground go out from under him instead. Still, that's him saying it without saying it.

[bcpd]

"You think it's lying." Kristin has no patience for subtlety, and whatever mood she might've been in before, it plummeted as soon as they figured out why she didn't. There's a new edge in her voice, her hand on her hip. She'd be crossing her arms if she had two. "You think I was lying."

Say yes, Mobius, yes, Ortega, I think you were lying. She has the feeling the ground depends on it.

[favoriteanalyst]

"I think it's not being honest," he says instead. There's a difference, in actively lying and in not being honest (to someone else, to oneself), though he doubts that she has the patience for that kind of difference. "So in a way, yeah."

The path stays put. Maybe the forces controlling all of this don't care about the differences, either, but it is honest.

"Maybe you've been living saying 'no' for so long that it was like second nature to say so. Maybe you want that to be true, to be your reality. That's okay. Everybody lies."

Throw her a soft one, then. "Do you want to talk about it?" Three guesses and the first two don't count.

[bcpd]

"Go fuck yourself." Turns out avoiding the question isn't lying! Maybe because, right about now, she'd really like him to go fuck himself. "Ostwick really needed a templar who'd wanted to talk about it?"

They'd made introductions to start with - traded names, discovered they were both templars, and so on - and now that they've gotten far enough for Kristin to get pissed, she's more than willing to throw everything they'd talked about back in his face. (What a fun gal.) He's not far off in his assessment, particularly the idea that missing nothing and no one would make her life a lot easier right about now; pity that she'd rather eat nails than tell a near-stranger.

[favoriteanalyst]

The sort of thing he would only ever say to another former Templar, someone who doesn't carry it officially anymore, after saying as much to Barrow. There's an implicit understanding that it won't spread around, and he'd prefer to keep that part of his life to himself until it needs to come up. Just like he's not going to talk about Barrow or Ortega. That's up to them.

So having it thrown back at him stings. More than that, he feels a flare of anger in response to it. So he breathes through it. Makes a point of relaxing his shoulders. Everything about this place is already fucked up and weird; they don't need to make it worse.

"Other people needed a person to tell their troubles to." It wasn't that his skills in the interpersonal realm were needed in the Circle. But it really only got to flourish in Starkhaven. On the outside. "Some still do. Doesn't have to be me. And you don't have to talk about anything. It was just a question. There's no obligation."

[bcpd]

Which is the least satisfying response she could possibly ask for. There's a moment, one she later thinks she might have imagined, when it seems like Mobius might give her the kind of argument she's spoiling for, and then it disappears.

"If there were, I still wouldn't." It's not something she means strongly, this answer that prickles with disgust. Not something she'd feel bad about later, either - probably. But everything's converged into one ugly moment, made up of near-death experiences and accusations of needing to talk to people and dizziness from this fucking place and home and loneliness and the itch that lives under her skin and whispers lyrium. "What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?"

[favoriteanalyst]

"Isn't that a little childish?" If she gets to dodge questions, then so does he. Because that's definitely childish. He didn't press the issue even when he wanted to, so her going right for that, even for shits and giggles, is just...

Fine, okay, maybe this is how she's going to deal with the stress. Whatever. If he can't keep control of himself when his skin is crawling and there's the distinct feeling of Wrong, things won't end well. "I would prefer not to answer." Also true. So there. Circumvent some rules by exploiting technicalities. "And we don't have to talk at all." As in, say words, have a conversation. "So long as we don't know where this fun little effect ends."

But. If she's itching for a fight. Hm. He's not sure if he'll oblige.

[bcpd]

"You wanna go through the rest of this in silence?" She doesn't say fine by me, because it isn't: it means there's no distraction from the way her vision wobbles in this fucking place. The Crossroads as a location don't want her here, but that's true of plenty of places in the world. Most of them don't have defenses against human templars coming to poke around, though. One sentence in Antivan, the next in Trade: "Shared misfortune, less felt.. What's your biggest regret?"

She's itching for something, all right. And Mobius' non-answers don't scratch it.

[favoriteanalyst]

"You know, you could ask something a little less pointed. You want me to apologize for asking about home, or do you want me to apologize for implying you were lying about it? Because I'm sorry, on both, but it was an innocent question of curiosity." And on the latter, it was the truth. That her answer was a lie. Doesn't make her a liar.

None of which is an answer. Just, y'know, pointing out that this does not have to be a blackmail-gathering and/or impromptu therapy session. Fellow ex-Templar she may be, but that doesn't mean he has to trust her with his pains. The ground...wobbles. That's the only way he can think to describe the sensation, like it might about to become liquid, and yet it doesn't. He stops and plants his feet. Biggest regret? Where would he even start?

"That I couldn't stop it. Any of it. Not the war with the mages, not the Conclave exploding, not the Herald dying, not this war. That I couldn't keep the peace when that was my job." It's broad, sure. And there wasn't anything he could have done to stop any of it--probably. That doesn't mean the regret isn't there. He could have made different choices. If it made a difference to even one person.

There are other regrets. Plenty of them. More specific, with outcomes directly influenced by his actions. But the world around them seems to think that's an acceptable enough answer from the way the ground settles. He toes at the pathway ahead of him, and, satisfied, continues on. Does it feel like they aren't getting any closer, or is it just him?

[bcpd]

There are all kinds of things she could do right now. Offer commentary on the weather back in Kirkwall. Ask him about something more benign. Apologize.

She pushes her hair back from her face, all the little strands that've fallen out of her ponytail. There's a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead, a physical reminder that she's being unreasonable. Lyrium withdrawal. You're being an asshole for no reason. If it were possible to tell time in these fucked-up ruins, where the sunlight never seems to change in quality, maybe she'd know how close they are to one of her old dosage times.

He ends up answering her question. There's a barbaric sort of satisfaction at that: that she won their little standoff, that the scales are tipped in her favour now. He knows only that she wants her home back; he can't picture her mother's face stiffening in death, hands clawing like she might still ward off her attacker. But she knows what keeps him up at night.

"I regret that, too," she tells him, because on some level, she does. The murder of the Divine - and dozens of their brothers- and sisters-in-arms - had shocked them all. It will never be her greatest loss, but at the time, it came close. The war had made enemies of mages she'd been friendly with. And she still wonders how much of Elías' later troubles had started because of the Circles' dissolution.

She doesn't say anything else for the moment, though. The fucked-up island in the sky is still ahead of them, an impossible distance away. And the ground under them is solid.

[favoriteanalyst]

So many people died. He hunted, killed mages that he knew personally, all at the behest of his commanding officer, while things had been chaos, and what was he supposed to do? Run away? Forget that now there were apostates, every last one who turned their backs on the ways of the Circle? The talks had gone so well to start with; Ostwick had its problems, sure, but it was a far cry from what had transpired at Kirkwall.

Could he have said something, done something, to change a few lives for the better? Convince Ravonna to back down, to change her mind? She turned into someone he couldn't recognize anymore.

"I left the order after the Herald died." She didn't ask, but he supplies it anyway. "I didn't understand the world anymore. How it all could happen, and how someone appointed by Andraste herself could succumb to mortal wounds. A world without Divine Justinia, Maker guide her way, didn't make sense. After all the slaughter on both sides, and then have one wretched false god of an ancient magister wipe out the numbers on both sides..."

He trails off. She might not care, might not want to know. But it's not something he talks about. The troubles he keeps close to his chest. He glances over at her, and the question he initially had on his lips dies away. Really looks at her and frowns.

"I'm told there's a lyrium stockpile set aside. For personal use." He's been there before. How long has it been since she's had a dose? She might normally be prickly to start with, but it might explain why she's being particularly sharp.

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.