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.

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?

[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."

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]

"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.

[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?"

[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."

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."

[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.

[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.