faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

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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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Are you hurt?" is the very first thing from Derrica's mouth, pitched softly, just in case.

The damage to the gondola is instructive all on its own, without the near miss and the frantic flight from ambush in the mix as well.

She could take stock of her own injuries: deep scrapes in palms and one knee, rapidly rising bruises at her throat where someone very unlucky had tried to strangle her. But she is not Commander of Forces. Flint takes precedent.

Tomorrow, the Commander of Riftwatch's Forces will be sporting an incredible bruise on one side of his face where the night before he'd caught the hard point of someone's elbow. He'll sit more or less obediently in the care of Madame de Cedoux, a woman who knows both the importance of appearing whole for important negotiations and the art of covering a bruise. But here, in the mostly murky darkness of the moment, even the briefly furious hot red spot which acts as precursor to all of this is more or less invisible. The hurt hardly registers even, the pulse of it muted by the adrenaline thrum that's carried them this far.

It's quiet and it's still. By all appearances, no one has pursued them down the canal.

His answer comes carefully all the same, intonation coaxed low by the same instinct which had ruled Derrica.

"Bumps and scrapes. Little else." The Crow had sensibly gone after the mage first. "You?"

The point of his attention, fixed firmly in the direction they'd come from, makes to flicker briefly in her direction but fails to turn fully.

At the question, her fingers lift to her throat. The skin is painfully tender. She is gradually growing away of pain in her back and shoulders; there will be bruises there too.

"Nothing that won't heal," she murmurs. "You got him off in time."

In time to stave off a crushed windpipe, or worse.

If she hadn't spent so much of herself calling down lightening as they fled, or if she weren't worried that the light would give them away now, she might try to ease the bruising herself now. But even minor healing came with a cool wash of light, and even minor healing is beyond her now.

"I'm sorry," she says, as that expectation weighs on her. The Commander never asks, but her failure to offer feels like a transgression. "I can't do anything for your injuries yet."

"I'll survive a few cuts," comes at the slow, patient pace designed to maintain the secrecy of their hiding place.

They've done enough grappling for the evening, and their escape from the first round with the Crows had been more luck than skill—an entirely happenstantial victory won with clumsy wrestling and the hair raising lash of magic. When first they'd jumped into the gondola, he's thrown his naked sword down into the bottom. He doesn't need to look at it now there in the shaded darkness beside the oar to know he'd failed to draw any blood with it.

The silence he lapses into is unlikely to be any comfort for that scratching sense of guilt, quiet made thicker by the lull of the canal about them and the velvet warmth of the air. Distantly, there is the barking of the dog and the nearer flutter of wings by some nocturnal bird leaving its roost to go larking through the night. The lyrium smell of ozone about them has largely dissipated.

"I know."

The Commander has survived much, she thinks. The exact shape of what might have tried to kill him is a mystery to her, but he came to Kirkwall by way of the account, still holds a ship of pirates in the harbor under his hand. That isn't a small thing. She's sure worse has been inflicted upon him than cuts and bruises.

Derrica had been there too, when Nascere had collapsed in on itself. But that is a different sort of pain.

Her fingers fold into her lap, deliberate, slow motions meant to keep from reaching after the imprint of fingers at her throat. The Commander is composed. So too will she be.

"Did your crew have a healer aboard?" is a question pitched just as softly, so quiet that it might be ignored if he is not inclined to speak. They might sit here in silence, if that is his preference. Derrica has never been in this exact situation before; even the tent in Val Chevin had been focused upon some particular task, but here—

Sitting quietly with Commander Flint is new and strange territory.

The impatience that flares up in answer to the question is as irrational as it is reflexive—the curt urge to tell her to be quiet written in some animal self preservation instinct. But simply put, the Crows have either followed them or they have hidden themselves so delicately and quietly in the surrounding buildings that they two of them are unlikely to spot anything amiss until it's too late.

So what's harm is there?

Slowly, quietly, Flint fishes the sword from out of the gondola's meager bilge. After a cursory wipe with his sleeve, its slipped back into the waiting sheath.

"No mage healer." That he'd known of. "They know their worth up in the Nocen, and it's not risking their necks aboard when they could make more than their fair share on the beach. But I'm familiar with the concept. It's rare for an Imperium ship to go without."

Something to think about, maybe. It's not that Derrica hadn't known this, but it is something to hear it echoed so definitively back to her from Commander, from Captain Flint. If necessary, there is an option there. Perhaps for better money than she had ever made as part of a crew, where healer had been only the half of what she'd been responsible for.

She lets his answer settle. It might be the end of it. For a few moments, she is quiet.

"You are more familiar with mages than your counterparts," she says, direct in this assessment. Counterparts as in: Division Heads. Counterparts as in: Yseult and Byerly. Tony Stark is an outlier, tied up in mage affairs by merit of being a Rifter, and that grants him some leeway in Derrica's estimations.

"But I haven't heard you sharing opinions, the way some of them do."

The way 99.9% of Riftwatch tends to.

The effect of the tide is negligible here, notable only by the high water mark of the canal walls and the point where the dark sludge (green in daylight) ends under the bridge. There is no current to send them drifting out beyond the edge of the bridge's shadow, and so the look Flint gives her from where he's seated near the stern of the gondola—a mottled, mostly darkened shape illuminated primarily by moonlight reflected from the canal water beyond their hiding place—is probably dark by happenstance and not by design.

Yes, he is more familiar with mages than his counterparts.

"Do you consider that cause for concern?"

The expression on her face in return is so very measured. Her hands fold in her lap, spine straightening. Summoning some measure of grace, though it feels incongruent with the events of the evening. It feels impossible to affect dignity when this man has seen her dragged across cobblestone by one ankle.

"Yes," she answers. "And no."

It isn't as straightforward as Derrica wishes it was.

"It's not idle curiosity. Brother Gideon reminded me that it matters who holds positions of power here, before he revealed himself for what he was."

Is that why you took his office, he doesn't ask. He knows it's more complicated than that, the outline of its shape easily recalled by a conversation held in the glow of a stern lamp's light. And it's not her point. Diverting from what is would imply something he would prefer not to (particularly here, at what he hopes is the tail end of what has already been a very long night).

"He's right." Was right. Does it count as past tense if the speaker is dead yet the fact remains? "I imagine then that you of all people might appreciate the predicament I find myself in."

There had been no conversation, though Derrica is content to let this detail pass. Brother Gideon had only illustrated to her more clearly what had been disquieting about Byerly Rutyer.

It mattered that there were no mages among the Division Heads. It matters when those avenues are closed to them, whether out of fear or out of demonstrable apathy or both. Flint had never demonstrated either of those to her, though it cannot be said that they have worked any more closely together than a mission required.

"Which is?" she prompts, though she can guess at it. She is growing familiar with it, had learned it's shape as she'd worked to banish Brother Gideon's specter from the offices that she now occupies.

If there is some latent flicker of irritation for an unsuccessfully baited hook, then it's minor enough not to have the strength to surface past the effects of a hardscrabble fight in a dark Rialto street. Nevermind the fact that were their positions reversed, he might ask these same questions in a similar fashion. That though engenders less affinity than scampering out of an alley and leaping into a gondola to escape an assassination attempt does.

"Choosing whether to paint myself favorably with the company, or to retain some measure of effectiveness around that table."

There are four votes in that room. Given the motivation to, they slip quickly between the fingers.

There is a pause after, though all he has done is spoken this truth which already echoes back to her. It's a recognizable tune.

Except he is not appeasing the Chantry.

And Derrica feels her emotions, all this frustration with the structure of Riftwatch, twist across her face. She looks away from him, hands tightening where she's settled them clasped into her lap. Draws in a deep breath. Wrestles down her aggravation at the reminder of this inextricable function of their organization.

"I understand," she tells him, looking back to him. But still—

"Has it worked?"

It's a fine question. It's the one that comes to him elsewhere: at the end of long sessions in the Forces office where he accomplishes little else but signing his name to scraps of paper, or in terse moments around that very same table he's just mentioned, or late at night on the last ferry back to the Gallows with the jagged teeth of Kirkwall receding behind him and the Gallows growing larger and more domineering before.

This part—the one where the question requires some form of an answer—is not wholly unlike crossing the harbor with the threat of that great chain which runs from the city to the tower island lurking beneath it. Viscounts in the past have used it to intimidate and cajole but rarely have utilized to its full, destructive effects. And isn't it strange? That something so heavy would demand such delicate handling.

(It wouldn't do to disappoint her any more than it would to divulge secrets here.)

"It's been three years since we separated with the Inquisition," he says, his voice a low note in the hanging dark. "In that time, Riftwatch has managed to retain a rare form of autonomy. It's true that it's partially to do with being seen as ineffectual. We are at best a convenient distraction to harry the edges of whatever problem the Inquisition and her allies are pursuing, and at worst an embarrassing nuisance. But it's true also that we've managed to avoid being perfectly beholden to the Divine or her March, or to any allied force abroad. The space between those points allows for a remarkable amount of latitude in which to maneuver before anyone is the wiser.

"My purpose in that room is to see that space preserved so that members of our company—Nikos Averesch, and Rowntree, and yourself—may continue to exercise some reach from within it as they see fit. Riftwatch is an instrument, not a solution."

Riftwatch is an instrument, not a solution.

Is it reassuring to hear this sentiment put into words so definitively?

Derrica sits with it for a long moment, letting the words settle like silt stirred in the shallow pools revealed when the tide draws out. The water is calm beneath them. Voices come to them, echoed and bounced off buildings and the surface of the river. The Commander is only half-lit across from her, bare fractures of reflected light doing very little to illuminate his expression for her. Close study of him is stymied by it; she is relying more on the burr of his voice, the ring of the words he is offering her.

"Thank you."

A small offering, but sincere. Gratitude for his answer, which strikes her as truthful. Gratitude for what he is describing, a task with vexations and difficulties she is growing more and more aware of with each passing day yoked to her new position.

Maybe it means nothing. She offers it anyway.

It shouldn't, really. Mean anything. To an extent, the answer he'd given her had been calculated to appeal. But the hour is late and his blood is up enough that a part of him overly aware of the sluggish progress of the channel and the darkness about them, and another part is exhausted just from sitting in the boat. Gratitude is a strange thing to encounter in the best of circumstances, much less these ones.

The dark shields some, if not all, of the flicker of surprise which manifests somewhere in the slant of his brow or the line of his shoulders—there and gone again like the barking of some distant neighborhood dog quickly shushed in deference to the hour.

"Make good use of that margin," he says in lieu of anything more simple in its unguarded state. "Riftwatch's leadership is more beholden to the company under it than one might be led to believe."

Sound advice.

She sits with it, as the water laps at the sides of the boat and the quiet tempo of the city echoes above them. What she said to Julius still holds true; she doesn't wish to outright undermine anyone. There is a way to do things gently, without raising hackles.

To operate in that margin, as he reminds her.

"When we are finished here," meaning Antiva, assuming the inevitability of completing their tasks successfully and more or less unscathed. "There are some things I mean to do. I was speaking to Enchanter Julius and Bastien about looking into the cult Brother Gideon associated himself with."

Only controversial in that there is the potential for the Chantry to take such scrutiny personally. Or for said scrutiny to unearth Chantry involvement, which certainly would make a lot of people's lives more difficult.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

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