Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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faderift2022-04-24 03:06 pm
faderifting) wrote in faderift2022-04-24 03:06 pm
Entry tags:
- ! mod plot,
- abby,
- bastien,
- benedict quintus artemaeus,
- byerly rutyer,
- cosima niehaus,
- derrica,
- ellie,
- ellis,
- gwenaëlle strange,
- james flint,
- john silver,
- julius,
- kostos averesch,
- loki,
- mobius,
- obeisance barrow,
- tsenka abendroth,
- vanya orlov,
- wysteria de foncé,
- { aleksei ar waslyna o bearhold },
- { astarion },
- { dante sparda },
- { fenris },
- { fitcher },
- { glimmer },
- { mado },
- { river tam }
MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death
WHO: Everyone (more or less)
WHAT: A trip to Rialto, in pursuit of convincing Antiva to give up its famed neutrality, just this once, pleaaaase.
WHEN: Cloudreach/Bloomingtide 9:48
WHERE: Rialto, Antiva
NOTES: OOC post here. Remember to use warnings in your subject lines for gore, sexual content, or anything else people might not expect to find while casually reading this log on a work computer.
WHAT: A trip to Rialto, in pursuit of convincing Antiva to give up its famed neutrality, just this once, pleaaaase.
WHEN: Cloudreach/Bloomingtide 9:48
WHERE: Rialto, Antiva
NOTES: OOC post here. Remember to use warnings in your subject lines for gore, sexual content, or anything else people might not expect to find while casually reading this log on a work computer.
YOUR DESTINATION
Rialto is Antiva's second city in importance and in population, but in many ways it is first in sheer Antivanness. When foreigners imagine Antiva, they often conjure images of graceful bridges arching over turquoise canals, lovers on a romantic gondola ride serenaded by a soprano's aria, fiery young men in vibrant leathers dueling for the honor of their houses in the piazza while down at the docks pirates share tales over bowls of seafood pasta. All of this is to be found in Rialto. While Antiva City is a teeming, bustling center of world commerce, with all the clamor and diversity that creates, Rialto is popular more with the city's uppermost classes than its vast mercantile middle, particularly the old aristocracy who prefer Rialto for its relative peace and its proximity to King Fulgeno's favorite residence. This is not to suggest that Rialto is a Hightown without any Low—like all major cities, for every palazzo-lined canal where the wealthy rest are ten more waterways packed with delivery boats and shops and taverns of every degree and description, from the broad spans edged with rows of fashionable tailors and jewelers to narrow, winding alleys of water overhung by leaning buildings of smoke-stained stucco. The docks, though neither as large nor as busy as the capital's or Kirkwall's, are still large and busy by any other measure, packed with merchants and sailors and fishermen, along with some who—uniquely common in Antiva, a kingdom founded by pirates—skirt the line between honest seamen and buccaneers.
Antivans will argue it's always a good time to visit their country, but everyone else agrees that spring is the ideal. The weather is consistently mild and pleasant, warmer than Kirkwall but without yet edging into the heat of summer the way it is in Tevinter to the north. In the city's parks and piazzas, flowers and shrubby add a few splashes of greenery and warm breezes send occasional showers of petals down from the cherry and citrus trees just finishing their blooms. Climbing flowers and arbors of grapevines are common adornments.
For the king's birthday celebration the city's elegant pale stone buildings are all decorated, with public buildings and bridges hung with bunting in the crown's favored purple and banners depicting the arms of Antiva and the royal house Campagna: a golden ship, sails unfurled, beneath a crown, the shield supported by a seahorse on one side and a stallion on the other. Along the grand canals every palazzo is bedecked in some combination of the occupant's colors and the kingdom's purple, and the theme continues throughout the city, every district finding some means to demonstrate its festive mood. The effect is only slightly diminished by the few areas where graffiti conflicts with the decorations, and Riftwatch, at least, will be pleased to see it mostly takes the form of anti-Tevinter sentiment, ranging from a scrawled FUCK THE VINTS to a few choice quotes from certain popular pamphlets and puppet plays, to a large and surprisingly skillful mural of a dragon and a caricatured merchant prince sitting together on a heap of gold playing with toy ships and dolls while behind them a fire rages.
The king's birthday is always an extravagant occasion, even more so when he hits any age ending in a 0 or a 5, as he is this year. A full week of revelry has been decreed, with each day marked by pageants and parades and games of all sorts, and every night new and fabulous parties in his honor hosted by various houses, guilds, and societies. Knowing the king's love of masquerades, many of these balls are masked, with themes ranging from House Campagna's most celebrated ancestors, to sea creatures, to all gold everything. (While fancy dress is of course always encouraged, many will simply attend in their best finery, with the intention of visiting multiple parties in the same night.) The city is lit with lanterns, torches, and even the occasional bonfire, as the bacchanal spills into the canals and piazzas each evening and continues long into the night.
YOUR MISSION
Riftwatch arrives on this scene by ship, which garners a few approval points from the merchants and pirate-descendants populating the city. The ship remains anchored in the harbor for the duration of their stay, reachable by tender and doubling as a temporary home for the selection of griffons who have accompanied them north.
Griffon riders will make the trip back and forth from the ship most often, as they'll be assigned to shifts that keep one or two of them in the air at all times, day or night. The outward justification for this is to entertain the Antivans below them; they're encouraged to fill some of the time with acrobatics over busy squares or particular parties, at times with banners and streamers to trail behind their mounts. Those with griffons who don't startle easily might be entrusted with a few fireworks to set off from the air. But the real purpose is surveillance, of course, and to serve as emergency back-up or ambulance for anyone who finds themselves caught in a tight spot and calls for help. Riders will be equipped with vials of antidotes to some common poisons, and particularly at night, anyone with healing magic or medical skills might be asked to ride along.
Meanwhile, down on the ground, a steady stream of influential merchants and socialites will want an interesting Riftwatcher or three at their dinners and private parties, each presenting an opportunity to impress upon influential people the importance of the war. These gatherings will range from stiff, formal affairs to wild bacchanals, depending on the host. Of note: a moonlit evening with a chamber quartet on Antonio Luppi's pleasure yacht, famously large enough to have a croquet pitch on the upper deck, a days-long Wicked Grace tournament with rising stakes where Marco "il Calabrone" Molinari defies anyone to beat him, and a race through the canals on gondalas owned by Antiva's who's-who. There are no rules, so finding ways–even magical or new-technological ways–to improve the odds of the more invested racers may win some favor, and a number of competitors are eager to see if Riftwatch has some arcane way to give them an edge.
Outside the city gates, on a grassy cliffside that overlooks the Amaranthine Ocean, there's a faire for the workers and peasantry. There's dancing, a series of field games (tug of war, footraces, horseshoes, wrestling, hammer throwing, blindfolded stick-dueling, mob football, and whatever the heck wallop is), a bonfire each evening, and young people goading one another into cliff diving and climbing back up, sopping wet, using stairs and handholds carved into the cliffside. While no single one of the participants is as influential as the better-heeled set hosting gathering elsewhere, it's still good politics to put in an appearance, play some games, and dispel any lingering perception of Riftwatch as a weird heretical sect or pack of wild demons.
They'll find similar opportunities scattered throughout the streets of Rialto: full tables at taverns who might listen raptly to their accounts of the war further south, minstrels and players who might be persuaded to change their tunes to whip up sympathy or anger for Corypheus' targets, and lower-level independent tradesman who might be persuaded to stop doing business with Tevinter or push for such an agreement within their guilds.
Riftwatchers who are especially active in outreach in these working-class quarters may find themselves approached quietly by representatives of I Figli Della Brace, an underground network of agitators that sprung up in the wake of Riftwatch's prior propaganda efforts and has been wreaking minor havoc by destroying Tevinter goods, carrying on the tradition of vandalism, and hassling those who do the most business with Tevinter and the Anderfels. They're loosely helmed by Vieri Fontana, who already trusts a few members of Riftwatch, and in exchange for Riftwatch's assistance with a few sneaky favors and quick but rowdy demonstrations of disobedience, they'll promise a strong showing of angry common folk outside the palace when it's most needed.
And through all of this, Riftwatch members will need to be looking over their shoulders, watching their drinks, avoiding dark alleys, keeping an eye out for snipers on rooftops, and staying wary of alluring strangers, because an untold number of Antivan Crows are out for their lives and/or anchors.
The purpose of all of this hobnobbing and sneaking around and dodging of murder attempts awaits at the end of Riftwatch's stay: King Fulgeno the Merry and all of the Merchant Princes have agreed to give a contingent of Riftwatch diplomats a moment, the day after the king's largest birthday feast, to plead their case against continuing to trade with Tevinter and the Anderfels. Winning them over would strike a significant blow to the enemy, already cut off from trade with much of the rest of Thedas, and bring Antiva that much closer to actively assisting with the war effort.
Should this meeting involve the support of a few more Merchant Princes, the dramatic unmasking of a traitor among the Princes and a conspiracy among the Crows, and shouts of support from people in the street echoing in through the windows, there's a good chance they'll pull it off.
YOUR ACCOMMODATIONS
The canal-side palazzo where Riftwatch is residing during its visit is the summer property of Merchant Prince Amancio Vivas. Unlike some questionable accommodations provided to Riftwatch in the past, Palazzo Vivas is roomy and lavish, brimming with expensive decor and labelled artifacts and comfortable seating. Anyone needing space to work or plan will find multiple nooks and tables in the library, and Riftwatch has collectively commandeered a secondary dining room (there are several) for meetings.
For those needing a break from work, actually, Palazzo Vivas is well-stocked with books and all of the necessary equipment for parlor games, plus an echoing ballroom equipped with a pianoforte. There's a cabinet of decent wine and spirits available, or a locked cellar full of the very good stuff for the particularly enterprising. The palazzo encircles a central courtyard garden with enough tall hedges and trees that someone might disappear into it. Currently it's in full bloom, including some rare night-bloomers, and at all hours bustling with some combination of insects, birds, and bats. Also featured: two small fountains and a canal-fed wading pool.
The beds, unlike most of the Gallows', involve feathers rather than straw. The sheets are soft. Everything smells like lavender. Everyone can have a bed if they're willing to share with at least one other person; those who are unwilling will find themselves on the floor or a settee.
Everyone will be asked to take on some additional tasks in the palazzo. Most important is guard duty, including some overnight patrols to make sure there are no intruders or disturbances. But as only a skeleton staff is present in the palace, idle Riftwatchers might be sent out to Rialto's bustling markets for food and supplies and/or pressed into making vats of porridge, pasta, or seafood stew to keep everyone else fed while the single cook is attending festivities elsewhere.
YOUR LEISURE
Between assignments, Riftwatch members may find moments–or even several consecutive hours!--to enjoy Rialto. Cautiously, on account of the assassins. But still. In addition to partaking in the merriment, entertainment, and games purely for fun, there are street performances to watch, gondolas to hire for leisurely floats, markets and shops stuffed with goods from throughout Thedas, bath houses, and, only a short hike or shorter griffon ride away from the city, a pristine white sand beach on a calm cove, littered with sea shells, without a single decomposing shipwreck in sight. It's not something they're going to find in Kirkwall, so no one can be blamed for wanting a peek.
Dante
Beds, baths, and beyond
While he’s not paranoid, they are situated in what he’s been told is assassin central, the paradise for assassin birds and sharing a room means he’d rather be alert and protecting the sanctity of the space rather than sleeping anyway.
He'd much rather entertain his roommate or guests and people watch from the window.
--
Unless of course he’s indulging in the bathhouse, in which case ha can be found passed out and in a corner with a towel over his face, seemingly unaware of the rest of the world. Dead? No surely not, but he’s also not moving a single muscle.
Fortunately, he is sleeping, it seems to be the only time he can find between missions and menial tasks to close his eyes without thinking about windows and doors. Whether or not he's chosen the most ideal place for a nap has yet to occur to him, but it's comfortable enough.
--
When stuck between jobs Dante can be found cobbling together some kind of instrument, it looks like a lute with a hollowed out drum, more strings, a fret boards...something coming close to resembling a guitar.
It’s a work in progress.]
guitar-building
You know.
[ Cautiously. He is not trying to be rude. Were he trying to be rude he would look less curious, and more like he'd discovered an adult making a guitar with a shoebox and rubber bands. (If Thedas had shoeboxes and rubber bands.) ]
I know some good luthiers.
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It only looks bad, right? He's determined to get an authentic sound out of it.]
Oh yeah? For about the price of my soul?
[He sounds cheeky, he is cheeky, but he's also very good natured about it]
Or do they owe you a favor?
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[ Bastien's grimance, too, is good-natured. ]
I owe them favors. But they continue to let me owe them more favors, so that is a good sign, non?
[ Dante may very well be doing a great job at what he is attempting to do. But Bastien has been a lute player since he was 10, a professional cellist since he was 16, and a fuck-around-wither for any odd stringed instrument—mandolins, dulcimers, and the smaller, differently-tuned instruments they would know as guitars here—for most of that time. He would not trust any significant repairs or alterations to his instruments in the hands of anyone who hadn't first spent years learning the trade.
So, to him, it looks a little bit like a murder scene. ]
Was it—broken? Before?
[ A note of hope in his voice. That would be better, if it was already broken. ]
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[Being in massive debt himself means he's a bit of a skeptic about such exchanges, not begrudging, but rarely does he have much left over after Lady and Enzo take their cut.]
I guess it lets you continue to do the things you enjoy doing, right?
[Dante's own gift for music has been intuitively acquired, more self-taught than anything else, as with moth things. He never had a formal education, well not since he was a child, but that never stopped him from having curiosity, passion, and the energy to go in and get his hands dirty.]
Broken? It's a work in progress.
[Does that help.]
A guitar is a relative of the lute, but they're different. Guitars have six strings, and they don't have courses so it's not going to give me the right sound.
[So Dante is going to torment this instrument until he can pull the notes from it that he wants.]
You need the right sound to serenade, you know?
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There's a stronger prickle when Dante says a guitar is a relative of the lute. Strong enough that one of Bastien's eyebrows raises, just a little bit. He is preparing to say, mildly and pleasantly, that he knows what a guitar is.
But he does not know a guitar as a thing with six strings and no courses. So a rifter thing, he decides, and his eyebrow returns to its natural position. He takes a breath—the lute is dead, there's no saving it now anyway—and as he lets it out he smiles a little wider. Still tired, but more genuine. ]
You sing?
[ The pitcher in his hand is on its way back to his and Byerly's room, where there are also cups, but since he's here and cupless, he takes a sip from the rim of the pitcher itself, delicately, as if it were a giant teacup. ]
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heyyyy roomie
So what? Am I too dirty for you too now?
[He folds his arms and pouts like a child.]
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I like entry and exit sight-lines from the door to the window, but if you're going to give me the face.
[Well Dante is just going to strong arm him into the settee.]
Guess you'll just have to sleep with me. Nice and cozy!
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[Edgard gets up and steps toward the settee looking first through the window and the door.]
Can't you just--lock it? Are you not going to sleep at all?
[A horrifying fate.]
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[Leaving the bed by itself, of course, but as Edgard's eyes shift between the door and the window so do Dante's.]
I don't think assassins are too concerned about locks. I mean I wouldn't be.
[Dante's more of a crash through the window and shoot you in the face type, honestly.]
And don't worry, I'm a night owl.
Where there’s a will, there’s a wave
Where a man can strip down to the essentials and no one cares...of course he’s come dressed in appropriate (?) swimwear, or what comes close to qualifying as swim wear, he doesn’t want to piss off the whole village after all.
The beach.
Where the sand gets in the cheeks, the glare off the water threatens to blind you, and sunburn is inevitable in a world without a healthy slathering of SPF 50 and, in Dante’s case, 3A Level Chest Protection.
Not that any amount of sun was going to stop him, not when he came strapped up with a scrap-wood surfboard and a dream.
The beach.
Where you can hang five, hang ten, hang loose, wipe out and still have a good time.
At least until your head comes bobbing up out of a wave, you realize the northern continents are feeling extra free, and your short shorts are sailing away like a scabby sea bass, all mutiny and disrespect.
Short shorts that come to rest at the water's edge, mocking him at a distance having floated successfully out of reach.
As if Dante could ever be body shy, he still has the board after all and he has no problem slogging his way back to shore to grab them while remaining strategically decent.
Unless someone is sadistic enough to grab them before he does and should they, they should also expect to be thrown bodily into the water with him.
If not, Dante will snatch his short shorts up and wave them like a victory banner. If victory is his he will continue playing in the water and building sandcastles on the beach like a harmless child.]
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Did someone toss all your clothes in the water?
( seems rude. she shows every sign of intending to put his wet shorts with her own belongings, overseen by the dog she'd opted to bring out to antiva (he's got his own leather-armored harness, nowadays, just in case), and it's extremely helpful of her, actually.
probably the fact gwenaëlle does not seem au fait with the concept of "swimwear" doesn't necessarily mean much to whether or not antiva, generally, expects to see naked people on their beaches. mostly, it probably speaks to the fact she spent the better part of her life in a position where very few people were able to tell her no, that's inappropriate, and tending to swim in relatively isolated locales anyway.
he's welcome to toss her in the water, though, that seems to be exactly where she intends to go. )
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Of course, he notices the scars though, they're kind of impressive, and he's itching to ask where she got them, but boundaries. Dante has them sometimes.]
Gwen!
[Are they on Gwen terms now? It probably doesn't matter, because Dante is cursed with giving people nicknames regardless, the fewer the syllables the easier it is for him to hold onto.
Permission aside he strolls up to her one arm curled around the surfboard the other outstretched in greeting, reading the room (so to speak) insomuch that if she didn't have a problem with nudity on the beach then he wasn't going to be overly fixated on it either. Besides it was kind of adorable that she scooped up his shorts and tucked them away with her own belongings to keep them protected? He assumed anyway.]
Heh that would be very disrespectful, but no for both our sakes, those were my swim shorts they...uh...[well, how to put it]...got away from me?
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she is comfortable, naked, because she doesn't. what isn't comfortable is hearing that most-hated form of her name, the way the w is pushed into it where it isn't ordinarily audible (guh-nayl), the way it sounds less like her mama's name (guh-nev-rah), and when he calls out for her that way she looks, briefly, like he's backhanded her in the face.
she recovers swiftly, but in case there was any doubt what she reacted to: )
Under absolutely no circumstances ever refer to me like that.
( it's flat and emphatic and completely, for a moment, ignoring everything else he's said. it's important. she softens it when she says, less tersely and with a certain amount of grace in extending what is clearly a courtesy, an intimacy, ) It's Gigi, if we're on I-can't-be-bothered-saying-your-whole-name terms.
( and now that that's out of the way, she takes a moment to mentally cycle back through the fact that he definitely said things after the part she didn't like, so—
she glances toward where, yes, his swimming shorts are with hardie, long-sufferingly tending the belongings. )
I know people do wear things to swim in sometimes, I've just never thought much of it unless you're practising for swimming when you won't be able to take them off.
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[If nothing else, Dante takes things in stride as he can't be expected to know triggers, but he can certainly respect it when someone has one or is offended by something. As for not being bothered, Dante refers to his brother as Asshole and nephew as Kid, so it's more of a feature than a bug.
As for scars, Dante doesn't really think too much about them, of course he won't comment on them or on anything else for that matter when it comes to bodies. He's not too stymied about nudity, but this place seems to have plenty of social mores he isn't well versed in.
Dante is also suspiciously unscarred for someone who engages in battle the way he does so they tend to be more fascinating than anything else.
Once they've rounded back to the conversation at hand.]
I do my level best not to scare the denizens, I'm not always successful at it, but I mitigate where I can.
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so it's probably not about him that she looks, briefly, surprised. she's about as subtle as a flaming bottle thrown through a window, so it's equally clear when she relaxes; that she had been ready to decide she had to turn right back around and leave, and then hadn't, and it's nice.
it's a stupid thing to care so much about, she thinks. thinking so, from time to time, has never made her care about it less. but alright, he can be on gigi terms with her, that's fine, and— )
Oh, come on, it's not that big,
( well, when you're making cracks about somebody else's junk in public, you probably want to be on friendly first name terms with them. or this is going to be the absolute fastest she's ever stopped being on friendly first name terms with somebody, but she's about ninety percent sure he'll find it funny, too.
did she actually get a glimpse? probably not, he was very strategic. there's enough of a plausible chance she could have that it's still funny. )
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Crystal: Talk to your boy!
Dante has been watching the comings and goings of people like a good guard dog.
A superior Cerberus, with one attractive head instead of three.
Obviously he's cracked out of his skull with boredom, but he knows the job and he'll suffer through it begrudgingly.
In the background you can hear the sounds of a stringed instrument being strummed just beneath the sound of his voice, he's achieved success in boredom.]
So...dragons...[Yeah Dante, what about them]...I found a book on dragons...[more soft strumming]...apparently there are types and the High Dragons are the ones living their best life.
[Terroizing the good people, eating everything in sight, the whole nine yards.]
What are the odds they'd take you for a joy ride without killing you?
[This probably isn't the first time Dante has thought about riding a dragon and now he has more than enough free brain time to think about it out loud.]
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Chuckling under her breath when she places Dante's rumbly voice, she finally reaches out to say something.)
Are you a High Dragon too, big guy? (Feels fair to ask.)
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[Came the interjection after a brief pause and then more strumming, he's definitely trying to fine tune this thing, but it's sounding good. Especially if people are tuning in and not out.]
But then I'd have to ride myself and I am, unfortunately, in short supply.
[Don't be a weirdo, Dante.]
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(She is changing the subject back to the original question.) You could probably get away with riding one if you climbed up it in secret. They're so big they wouldn't register. Right?
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Are they that big? I haven't actually seen one and I'm guessing the books don't do them any justice. [Of course the books aren't to scale either.] I could probably manage it though, wait until the dragon's asleep, sneak onto it's back, and wait until it realizes it has a stowaway. Easy enough.
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Private
Give me a few months and I may be able to make that work.
Re: Private
[Of course he assumes this is about dragons.]
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