faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

Entry tags:

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

Well, what else is new, says a tip of Loxley's head. Being a professional devil man back home has its inoculating effects.

He relaxes there, leaning, holding her, meeting her searching gaze and stifling the impulse to look away from it. He has trusted her, and does trust her, and so continues to do so as much as there is an impulse not give her answers she might not like.

"That one did," he agrees. "And this one, today, that came about accidentally as well. We were speaking to a woman whose friend had gone missing, but she didn't trust us to be of use. I was attempting to convince her to do so, and then she simply did. Trust. At least, for a minute or so. Then she was having none of it, quite rightly."

A small shrug. "They all sort of make themselves known to me in the moment."

Other things she doesn't know, isn't certain of how to ask after. Did anyone try to hurt him because of what he was? She remembers vaguely the way he had described himself, how he looked different, beautiful, but—

Well, Derrica knows very well that there are thousands upon thousands more likely to find danger rather than beauty when looking upon something unfamiliar to them.

"Some spells are like that," Derrica says softly. "I've had things come to me when I needed them too."

Her fingers trace along his chest.

"You can reach for them when you need them, after that happens?"

The light touch of her fingers is a meditative thing in itself, and it feels a little like they've cosied up somewhere, a room at the palazzo, or her quarters in the Gallows, or his apartment in Lowtown, and not the storage room of a stranger he enchanted into helping them. In kind, there is the lazy tracing of his fingers over her mid back.

"Yes," Loxley confirms. "I know them better, once they happen. I began to learn a little more, some simple things, but my rift didn't see fit to bring my books with me. I don't think I know very much more than what I've shown you, now—"

He glances deeper into the little storage room, and then reaches out a hand. There, originating in the darkness, the sound of whispers, and then fluttering raven wings, a distant caw that implies far more space than is present.

"Tricks," he qualifies, looking back at her.

Tricks.

Derrica turns this over in her mind too, weighing up to settle on the sum of all these bits of magic he is revealing to her.

"What does it feel like?" she murmurs. "When you use that kind of magic?"

Tricks. (Dirty tricks.)

The lanterns beneath them are extinguished, and the slanting beam of light from the cracked door is subsequently doused. No sign of heavy footfalls or frenetic pursuit, but Derrica doesn't move from where Loxley has drawn her into him.

Magic won't be the only tactic of his he'd describe as underhanded, mostly by design. A knife from behind is a more effective angle than any other, when brute strength is not in your favour. There's always some sideways solution to anything.

He has to think about that question, on how to put it into words that communicate anything useful. Eventually, he says, "Like reaching into the dark, but, you know, not in a scary way. It's being certain that what you need is there, despite not seeing it. And then it is."

No effort, beyond that.

She is patient. Loxley is thinking, and she knows this, even without being able to fully see his face any longer. (He can see her, she knows, and she doesn't begrudge him this.) Without any light to study him by, she leans fully in against his chest. Her head hurts where it hit the ground, and any other number of bruises are making themselves known.

And she is thinking about Loxley's magic.

"Does it feel different, when you use it to influence someone's mind? Or is it the same? Reaching into the dark for something?"

His arms settle around her, enjoying the warm weight of her lean into him. Bows his head, the end of his nose nudged against her hair, a gesture that only withdraws when the conversation continues its gentle, inch-by-inch inquisition. It is nice, to be perfectly honest with someone, and not fear (too much) how they may respond.

"The same," he says. "I think it's an aspect of how magic comes to me. In our world, many receive it from the gods, and others learn it out of books." They've spoken on this before, but he has no where to be, and it costs him nothing to repeat in this new context he's created. "And then people like myself, to whom it comes naturally. Born into it."

A subtle shrugging feeling, felt through where she leans. "But I still must get it from somewhere, I think. Alas and alack, I didn't get very far in my research, nor had I gotten to meet anyone else with the same.

"But yes," more to the point. "Turning someone's mind feels the same as the rest. And easy."

Edited 2022-06-16 00:33 (UTC)

Flattened in against his body, Derrica can hear the rumble of the words as Loxley unearths them. It never occurs to her that he might be anything other than entirely truthful. Her fingers shift in the fabric of his tunic.

"Does it bother you?"

At last, a question that carries some real weight.

A yes feels easy, but Loxley pauses before he says it, as if to make absolutely certain that it isn't a lie, given in reflex. Something about trying to manipulate the conversation to his favour feels wrong, even nonmagically, given givens. But still—

"Yes," quietly. "I remember the look on that woman's face after it worn away. My friend's wariness, in its wake. I don't wish to be that way. But I suppose it seemed necessary, the times I did it. I've done a fair amount of necessary shit things."

Derrica doesn't say good out loud. It would be so painfully unfair, like driving her fingers into a bruise.

But to hear this answer is a relief. Some minor tension loosens in her, as Loxley goes on. Gives her something heartfelt, when he could have dodged away from the conversation altogether.

"So have I," Derrica promises. Meant to ease some of the disquiet she senses there, something that she stirred up in him. "I'm sorry. I know tonight you were keeping us safe."

Sorry for pressing him this way, when maybe she could have left it alone.

"It's alright," Loxley says, a simple sort of of course it's alright tone, light and easy. "Really. I ought to've known better."

But he doesn't wish to start them into some sort of loop, of apology and reassurance, not when they'd been having such a lovely day. He bends at the knees a little, arms looped and tightening lower around her. "And besides," and lifts her an inch or two off the ground, reversing, until she's perched on a crate, still pressed tightly together, "I reckon I was very impressive up until that point."

A novelty: being lifted so easily and having it be a pleasant thing, after a thorough demonstration of how unpleasant it might be.

But as with so many things with Loxley, it is easy and simple and good. She hooks her knees around his hips, crosses her ankles at the back of his thighs though he stays obligingly close. Lifts her hands to his shoulders as a small smile steals across her face.

"Very heroic," she tells him, sincere over the words. "Were you hurt, while you were saving me?"

They might still be hurt. Eventually they will have to leave this storeroom and make another run at traveling through the street.

"Hmm,"

because it's a good question, well used to simply ignoring minor wounding. But there's a bothersome twinge from a strike snaked up beneath his coat, although it had done his attacker more harm than good. The thought that Loxley stumble, mentally, for a moment, that perhaps that is blood magic, his rebuking magic he'd grown up with, but he smothers it down. Something to talk to Richard about, perhaps.

He takes one of Derrica's hands and guides it to where his shirt is a little damp with blood, high up on his side. His smile is crooked in the dark. "Hardly," Loxley says. "But I like your hands on me, if you're feeling inclined."

They need to go, but not yet. Perhaps not until they make contact with a griffon rider, at least.

More seriously; "What about you?"

A smile breaks across her face as Derrica flattens her palm lightly over the damp fabric. The soft glow of her magic follows after; yes, she is so inclined. Loxley's coat blots the brightness of it, sends stray beams slanting up oddly across chin and jaw.

"I'm not hurt," Derrica tells him. There is a dull ache across the side of her face that might be an ugly bruise in the morning, with a matching set splotched along her thigh and hip. "It could have been so much worse."

How easy would it have been to cut her throat rather than try to haul her away?

Her palm is tacky with his blood when she lifts it, only just enough to slip her arms in beneath his coat.

"I didn't even see him coming," is accompanied by a frown, but not any kind of blame. Just...assessing. Knowing a danger is present and experiencing the full force of it are two different things entirely.

The cool-warm prickly feeling of magic closing up his wound is sighed into, arms in a relaxed loop around her as she likewise settles. The soft glow of it fading. Nice magic. Good magic, of a fundamental kind. He's thinking about it as he sort of nudges a nuzzle against her hair.

"They were good," Loxley admits. "I wonder if they were trying to lure me as well, with moving you. They were ready for a fight."

But he was quicker. At least on that, he can be assured.

"Did you know," he says, then, "that healing magic in my world is holy?"

He leans back a little so as to look at her. "If you fell through a rift and wound up in Tassia, you might be asked what sort of god you worship. Which temple you operate out of. You'd be paid fistfuls of gold to tend to the sick and injured, unless you did it out of charity. I imagine you would. But that'd be honoured too."

Edited 2022-07-23 11:35 (UTC)

As the tell-tale signs of her magic dissipate, the glow of his palm is what's left. And it tugs at her consciousness, raising a quiet little worry. Maybe Loxley was who they wanted. Loxley and his shard.

She puts the thought aside. Not gone forever, but just aside, leaving room for the reality that they are safe and Loxley moved fast enough to prevent any of the many terrible possibilities from becoming reality.

And to leave room for this new possibility Loxley describes, which feels—

Almost absurd for all it's idyllic quality.

"I can't picture it," she tells him, a slight smile creasing her face. "I think I've been in Kirkwall too long."

Rivain was something like that. Could still be, though she hadn't gone back to check for years.

"What if I didn't worship a god? If I didn't want to heal in a temple?"

"Then I think you'd at least be favoured by one," Loxley says, with a one shouldered shrug. "And you needn't heal in a temple. You could travel the world, healing instead. Adventuring, even."

He doesn't miss home the way he should. Kirkwall is awfully reminiscent of so many places he's been. Being mistaken as a qunari is not half as bad as being an obvious tiefling. His attachment to magic is so new and so small that it was really only this conversation that's sharpened the edge of how different things can be for him, here.

But there's a pang, anyway. For how easy things were, comparatively. No war, for instance, like a distant storm. No assassins in the streets.

"Which means you become a hero," he continues, pang or no pang. "If you do a good enough job of it, anyway. But everyone finds magic to be very impressive. Good, even."

Adventuring. Maybe that looks something like what they're doing tonight. Or any of the missions Riftwatch has sent them out to do, a little group trying to accomplish something without the entire attempt going sideways.

"I don't know about being a hero, but I like the idea of traveling with you, and helping people we find."

It's why she came here, isn't it? What brought her to Kirkwall, what kept her here. It wouldn't be so different, as Loxley describes.

"All kinds of magic?" is a quieter questions, more grounded in practicality. (She will never go through a rift, never see the place he is talking about, but she likes to hear him speaking of it.)

"That's how it starts," Loxley says. "For some. I guess it starts with money for most."

And for himself, a bit of both, but he'd like to imagine he isn't half as motivated by gold as he might behave. Maybe he'd still be aboard a ship, slitting throats, if that was so. Still climbing through the windows of his betters, in the dark.

As for magic—

"Most kinds," he'll allow. "I know those that tamper with the dead are often unappreciated for their efforts, but, all the rest. There's this university for magic users—different to your Circles, a place that's actually quite difficult to get into rather than out of, I think. But they do all sorts of magic. And people who wield it... I don't know, it's just different. If you have magic, you must have worked hard to get it, or train in it. It's respected."

And he pauses, there, and gives a light, quiet laugh. "Sorry, I'm—that's not very sensitive to you, to speak of all this. I was just thinking how well you'd like it."

"I do like it."

Even if there is some slight flicker of apprehension for the glancing description of tampering with the dead. Would a Seer be considered in such a light?

But the rest of it—

Derrica leans her head onto his chest, rather than look up into his face. Listening to his heart beat under her cheek. The faint scent of blood, sweat, soap, it's all a comfort.

"I like that a place exists somewhere like that. It makes me feel like all the things I hope for are possible."

"I like to think so," Loxley says. "Especially given Riftwatch. Plenty of heroics to be done there. Plenty of things for everyone to be grateful for, when it's all over."

An optimistic perspective, maybe, given the broadness of the war, the smallness of the scope of a company of some fifty people, but then again, bands of heroes regularly number no more than five. He runs his hand down her back, head tipping at the sound of a floorboard creak somewhere overhead.

"We should fetch a griffon," he suggests, voicing pitching quieter. "Perhaps it's quieted down, outside."

Above their heads is a shopkeep likely preparing for bed, without any concerns over the two Riftwatch agents inhabiting her storeroom.

(A prickle of unease at that thought, swept away before it gathers purchase. They are not going to speak on that again.)

"Yes," Derrica agrees. It comes with a slight straightening of her body, putting space between them by increments. Her hands come to his hips. "I think it's time to go."

Not home, but at least back to safety.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

bow on this ALSO ?