MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[notathreat]

[Ellie follows this explanation with wide eyes, taking it in as well as anything else. Every time she thinks she's numb to getting thrown another metaphysical curveball, shit like this shows up and reminds her that she knows nothing.]

So you have... lyrium ghost hands. Cool. Okay.

[She nods at her own description, and even as she's processing, she reaches up, undoing the clasp holding her cloak on her shoulder, pulling it off. She got minimally splattered with blood, but Fenris looks like he just got done wading in it. She holds it out, reaching up to re-seat her bag and bow on her back, and pushes her hair out of her face. There's a smear of blood on her cheek from where she touched his armor.]

Uhh...

[Fuck, how to explain? Ellie pulls a face. It sounds bonkers every time she says it.]

I've got a shard of a dead god in me. Two. Blue's dead, and Gold's- still alive? I've got Gold's shard because he liked me, or because he brought me back to life, or-

[She waves a hand like that's not crazy.]

It makes more sense in context. Let's get out of here, I'll tell you when we don't have more of these assholes tailing us.

[doggish]

[A lyrium ghost body, really, but he can show her that another time. For now: he blinks for a moment, unsure of why she holds out her cloak, before realizing . . . ah, yes, he is rather covered, isn't he? With a little grimace he jerks his head in a nod of thanks and sort of . . . awkwardly dabs at himself. It's fine. He'll be fine.

And then she says that, and he isn't thinking about cleaning at all.]

I— all right.

[She's right, this isn't a good conversation to have in public, but also, what the fuck. Does she mean a god as in the Maker (or something like Him) or a god as Corypheus thinks himself, mortal and yet so powerful that he can almost pass if you don't look too closely? More the latter than the former, surely, and yet still—

Later. Later, later, and he scrubs at himself briskly, wiping away at most of the blood, ignoring what bits he can't instantly get out. People might stare, but people stare at him anyway, and blood isn't such an unknown fluid even in Rialto. By the end he looks . . . well, at least passable enough to get to somewhere quiet, anyway, although he'll assuredly need a proper wash before the stench of copper stops hanging around him.

Odd then, perhaps, how gentle he is as he reaches for her. Licking one (mercifully clean) thumb, he wipes at her cheek, cleaning the blood off her face.]

Come on.

[They take back alleys and quiet side-streets, Fenris keeping his gaze deliberately low as they do. Fortunately, they aren't too far from the palazzo where Riftwatch is keeping them all; it's easy enough to duck past the walls and skip up stairs, avoiding questions until they're safely back in his rooms. Ataashi, mercifully, is out; so are the other two occupants. He ducks into a bathroom and strips off his bloody armor and clothes, and emerges a few minutes later, his skin damp from scrubbing and his gaze fixed on her.]

A dead god.

[Go on. Explain.]

[notathreat]

[Ellie shouldn't be surprised at how gently he touches her. Or that he touches her at all. Or that she lets him.

She's not sure when she got over the impulse to flinch away, to stay at arm's length, but something about this makes her glad that she didn't. He did just save her life.

Sticking close, she follows him back to the palazzo, and once they're behind closed and guarded doors she strips off the belt, careful of the dark, oily sheen where the blade bit in but didn't make it to her side. Yseult will want a good look at it, it's clearly poison, and now they have a sample of it.

Ellie wipes the sweat off her face, sets her bow down, and sits in one of the overstuffed chairs. When Fenris comes, she's no more ready than she was. But- from the beginning.]

So, I told you that this place wasn't the first alternate reality I'd been in. That place was like... my world, but if the apocalypse had never happened, and humanity had gone so far into science they'd managed to create artificial intelligence, in machines. Everything was run off of machines, even the doors wouldn't open without the right electronic signature.

I didn't come into the world through a Rift. Or if I did, I didn't see it. Instead, I came to in the back of a... like a closed carriage, here. But mechanical. Me and a handful of other people. All of us shaved bald, all of us with...

[She winces, and reaches up through her hair to touch. It's all grown back now, and she tries to forget how violating it felt.]

Scars, in the backs of our skulls, where they put microchips in. So we'd blend in like everyone else on the planet. We were drugged, so we couldn't fight the people who were bringing us, couldn't even really ask any questions. They just dropped us off in an alleyway behind a bar, and told us to look for the people who glow.

There was a girl, one of the group. She was scared, and pissed, and I guess I looked like a good target. I didn't have any weapons on me and she was much bigger, so instead of trying to fight back, I tried to run and hide. Same as I would back home, if I ran into something I couldn't handle in a stand-up fight.

And when I was hiding, I held my breath, and-

[Ellie takes a deep breath, and something bright blue flares to life over her heart, underneath her shirt, shining even through her clothes. It glimmers in her eyes, and then just like that, she disappears. She's still sitting there, the depression of her body still showing on the overstuffed chair. But she is invisible. A moment later she lets her breath out, and shimmers at the edges as she blinks back into view.]

Found out that I glowed. And when I did, I turned invisible.

[doggish]

[It's a fantastical story. He believes it, of course, both because it would be a stupid thing to lie about and Ellie isn't that sort anyway, but still. Snatches of phrases flit by his ear and he barely comprehends them (a world made of machines, and he doesn't fully understand, but maybe he doesn't need to). The rest of it, anyway, rings more familiarly, even if it's still strange. Casual violation and mutilation, and he has to fight not to finger the back of his own head as she speaks.

I tried to run and hide, and when I was hiding, I held my breath, and—

And. And there's a flare of light, a blue that puts his own faint glow to shame. For a moment Fenris stares, and then just like that, she disappears. Not as he does, a wraith whose form can still be observed if you know where to look, but truly vanishes, her only giveaway a faint indent in the cusuhions. It's startling, and all the more so because he has never once watched someone disappear before. It's far different when it's your own self vanishing, after all.]

. . . how, exactly?

[For he still doesn't understand. A girl who wanted to fight her leading into strange new powers, and it isn't that it's such a bizarre story, but he doesn't understand how one led to the other.]

You said it was a dead god. Or, no. That there were two: one dead, and one still living. Was that her? Echoes of a god on their last legs?

[But no. He's asking the wrong questions, he realizes. Those are well and good, and he would like the answer to that, but . . . he waves a hand, dismissing them, shaking his head as he does.]

No. I apologize. I should not . . .

[He shouldn't start there, not when he knows better. He pauses, searching himself, before saying simply:]

I'm sorry. To wake up and know that you have been altered is . . .

It is a violation. And I am sorry you have had to go through it, no matter if the result was beneficial or not.

[notathreat]

Thanks.

[It's quiet, and there's a lot wrapped up in it. In the look on her face, in her eyes. It's the look of someone who's been through a lot, and has coped by characterizing it as simply things that happened rather than fully facing how fucked up it was that she had to go through it in the first place.

Things happen, and we move on.

It's been a long time since Ellie's fully realized just how much she internalized Joel's words. Maybe it's because Fenris gets it in ways that others never have, and never will.]

Yeah. I think that's why I didn't mind Riftwatch. Coming through a Rift and having somebody help you, no questions asked, was different.

[Ellie folds her hands in her lap, gathering her thoughts again.]

At the time, we didn't know anything. Not why we were there, or how we got there, nothing. There was a different organization who sheltered us and tried to help us integrate. But they wouldn't let us have weapons. They kept us hidden in a bunker, with all the doors locked, for weeks. They said that that's how long it would take to forge fake identities for us, but I never really believed it- any time you questioned any part of it, they'd get pissed off. The first chance I got, I used my powers to sneak out. Lance and Nathan-

[A quiet break in her voice, which she quickly glosses over.]

Some of the others who'd gotten there before, who'd been through it, they helped. After that, I'd sneak in and out of the bunker. There were people who were just as freaked out as I was, who never slept because they didn't have doors that closed. I made shivs, and I shared them.

[Ellie pauses here- it's a lot, but all of it feels important. Not all of it was hostile, and the Displaced helped each other. But everyone was in the dark, violated and afraid and without answers, and the people who were "helping" them didn't seem to entirely be on their side. Even Ellie is not a wholly reliable narrator though, and this is what she understands happened.]

Lance had been there a while. Where he was from, he used to help solve violent crimes. Nate was a treasure hunter, and he knew all about history and culture. Lance had a whole compendium of clues, trying to figure out how we got there, who drugged and cut us, and why we glowed.

It's complicated, but we ended up putting it together. There were gods in that world, once. Or things powerful enough that people called them gods. But they were... bound, or dormant. And about a hundred years ago, a guy named Jim Henries decided to be stupid enough to drill down into a trench that was supposed to be the final resting place of one of them. Blue.

That's where things get really weird. Because he did something, we're not sure what, but it was pretty clear that he wanted Blue's power. But whatever he did, he killed it instead. And that much power doesn't just disappear. Instead it exploded, and it tore a bunch of holes in between realities, like the Rifts did, and people started falling through.

And every person who fell through one of those holes ended up with a shard of Blue's power. Blue marked us, a lot like how the Rifters are marked with an anchor. And every single person Blue marked was different. Lance could take any sound he remembered and let you hear it. Nate was lucky. Like, really lucky. Some people had wings, there was one girl who could turn into a dragon.

... and those powers started being really useful when we realized that when Blue died, it woke something else up, and that something was pissed.

[doggish]

[How stunned had he been that first night with Marian? It's hard to remember, for it's been over a decade, but he can still recall if he tries. That initial wary shock, like a beaten dog finally offered a kind hand— and then, later, came the suspicion. The terror that she would be like everyone else Fenris had ever met, there only to serve herself and exploit him all at once. How long had it taken him to realize she truly meant it?

Years. Years. Maybe not fully, not until Danarius had showed up; maybe he had always half-feared that she might sell him, and only laid those fears to rest when she proved she wouldn't.

Would he have done the same if it was Riftwatch instead of her? If he had fallen through into some new, strange world, and those who found him said here, we will feed you, we will give you shelter, we will tell you how the world works, we will care for you— and all we ask in exchange is your service.

Yes. He probably would have, Fenris thinks faintly.

Lance and Nathan, and he does not immediately ask after those names for the same reason he never says Isabela or Varric, not anymore. They were friends, and now they're gone, and sometimes it's too hard to remember the dead. He focuses instead on the story: the overfamiliar tale of captivity and infantilization, an organization that insisted they knew better and wanted only the best for their prisoners.

(A basement, lightless and too hot, Varaina's hand gripping his own as they stared dully up at one of their master's servants, telling them all about how kind it was that Danarius was letting them have the night off, for he was so busy with attending a party he didn't need all his slaves on hand.)

But the story goes on. It becomes more and more fantastical— understand, he fully believes her, for why wouldn't he? It sounds like magic, and magic is always unpredictable at best and dangerous at worst. Power being unable to dissipate sounds reasonable enough, if not quietly horrifying; he can't imagine—

Well, he can, actually. That's the problem.]

They tasked you with fighting it, I imagine.

[It's how it would go in Tevinter, after all. But oh . . . she goes on about her friends, and something in his chest twinges.]

You miss them. Nathan— Nate— and Lance.

[notathreat]

[A few years ago, Ellie might've glossed over it, or quickly moved on from the pain of it. Now, she takes a moment, takes a breath. She hasn't talked about them, not to anybody. And yeah. She does miss them.]
Yeah. And we did. And I miss them. Every day.

Lance was... the guy who would always try to do the right thing. Even if it ran him into the ground. When I told him he was going to let me out through the doors, I expecting to have to hold him up or something. Instead, he let me sleep on his couch.

The more hopeless things were, the more jokes Nate would crack. When shit got tough he'd throw me a backpack full of supplies and we'd go down through the sewers and sneak out past the city walls. He taught me to climb almost anything. He'd light up like a little fucking kid when he figured something out.

[Ellie takes a deep breath, pushes on with the story.]

So... blue was dead and we had it's powers. And gold was pissed. It started doing weird shit to alter reality, bringing in monsters and stuff. And then... we woke up one day. And everything was different.

But it we thought it had been like that all along.

[This is somehow more bonkers than the rest of it.]

I wasn't me. I was... some other Ellie, from some other reality. The world had been destroyed so we all lived in a giant glass dome called the Aerie, and because the population was too high, they'd cull any troublemakers. No matter how small your crime. And if you were a kid, and you didn't have any parents to take the fall for you, you'd get a trip to the Quarry, too.

They were like battle royales that ran every month. They treated it like some kinda game or pageant. All the lawbreakers enter, only one gets to walk out. They broadcast the whole thing and people just- cheer it on. Especially the cardinals. The rich elite. I won when it was fourteen. It meant people actually paid attention when I sang and played guitar, so I did that, and people booked me for their fancy parties, because I was a recognizable face. I don't think anybody ever actually listened.

[She gets quiet here, but shrugs it off, moving the story along.]

I started helping some rebels, people who wanted to put a stop to the Quarry and everything wrong with it. But the plan was to break the Quarry from the inside, I was going to help Lance, it wasn't... it wasn't supposed to be a bomb.

I don't know how it ended. I wasn't around to see it.

[She died. What she means is that she died in the blast.]

But when I woke up back in the city, I remembered everything, both my real self and my Aerie self. It still all seems just as real, but it was Gold, the whole time. It was some kind of test, to see what we'd do. And I guess it kept score.

[Ellie picks at her fingers, slowly.]

So now, when I try to hit something? If it's an arrow, or I'm throwing a brick, or anything, it doesn't matter- I always, always hit it. I'm faster, stronger, and I'm harder to hurt. And I... y'know. Came here. Before I could figure it all out.

[Shrugging, she looks down at her hands. What she's said doesn't stack up to what she hasn't, but he has the gist of it now.]

I don't know if Blue and Gold are still out there, or if they chose me, or if I just caught the pieces of them by chance. I don't even know if they're really gods. But I'm still here, so I figure I'll keep going.