open | full circle pt 2

[exequy]

WHO: Many people, mostly mages and rifters and Templars/Seekers
WHAT: Stop that Circle!
WHEN: Late Solace
WHERE: The College of Magi, Cumberland, Nevarra
NOTES: OOC post! Please note we are not doing the points game part yet. But we will later and your tags will still count then.

I. THE JOURNEY

After the meeting, there's time to talk, pack (lightly), and get a full night's sleep. But after an early breakfast the next morning, everyone heads up to the eyrie at the top of the Gallows' central tower to load onto griffons.

They do it with the sanction of the Division Heads, accompanied by some rules, like no violence, and some mandatory company. A few Templars (and a Seeker) are sent along with them, in Riftwatch uniform rather than their more traditional and more inflammatory armor. Mages and rifters and interested others have the choice of donning their uniforms or not.

The trip to Cumberland is short an uneventful. Trained griffon riders and the animals they've bonded with lead the flock, but other griffons follow cooperatively behind, each carrying one or two riders and their effects. The group lands once or twice in the Planascene Forest to stretch their legs, have a meal, etc., while the griffons help themselves to a buffet of wildlife. A few of those without bonded riders might need some extra persuasion to get back in line, when it's time to go, but nothing goes significantly wrong.

II. THE COLLEGE OF MAGI

It's late and dark when they swoop down on the city, but the College of Magi is easy to spot, because it's a palace with a hammered-gold dome roof that shines in the moonlight. The griffons land and consent to being tethered in an enclosed courtyard that, after years of neglect, is no worse off if they trample the greenery a bit. The doors inside are guarded not by Templars, but by Cumberland city guards assigned to keep looters out of the palace in the mages' absences. Once they've taken in the presence of the griffons and uniforms, they put up no resistance to Riftwatch's entrance.

Inside, the halls are quiet and opulent: in addition to the famous collection of sandstone busts of every Grand Enchanter from the last 600 years lining the entrance hall, there are marble pillars, bright frescoes, vases, art, gilded vines crawling the walls. Everything shines and glitters in the light from the braziers on the walls.

The mage who comes scuttling down the hall to give them a bewildered greeting, robes flapping and a basket of bread on his arm, is Senior Enchanter Erfried Neumayer, noted Loyalist, formerly of Hossberg. He is well into his nineties, spry but mostly blind, and very friendly. He explains, eventually and in pieces, that they have not even started the conclave, unaware they might have needed to rush, and the others are currently having a late dinner and an idle chat in the dining hall. Thus the bread.

The rest of the mages are not glad to see them, albeit mostly in a polite and/or passive-aggressive way. They make a fuss about not being prepared to house or feed any additional participants, but in the end do show everyone to one of the bunk bed-filled rooms that used to house apprentices.

The first night and every night afterwards, Riftwatch has overnight watches—not to watch for danger, but to make sure the other mages don't sneak around and convene while they're asleep. (A few of them might be caught trying to organize exactly that.) The beds are musty from years of disuse but otherwise fine. Food is grudgingly provided.

Before, after, and between sessions on the floor, there's time to explore the palace. Said to have been donated by a Duchess to keep her mage child in the comfort she was accustomed to, the College is an arguably over-the-top display of wealth and comfort, dusty from disuse but still overflowing with gilding and cushions, baths and kettles enchanted to heat and cups enchanted to cool and dozens of other magical novelties that make life a little more comfortable, art and a badminton field and a massive library. The Harrowing Chamber looks like a place where someone would be honored to complete a rite of passage; the dungeon exists but is small, clean, and devoid of spooky skeletons. It's exactly the sort of place that could serve as evidence that living in a Circle was great, actually.

III. THE CONCLAVE

The conclave, such as it is, begins the next morning, in a room whose domed mahogany ceiling has had it dubbed the Red Auditorium. It's designed to hold a few hundred attendees at a time, so the fifty or so Loyalists (and Aequitarians and Lucrosians) and dozen-plus Riftwatchers have plenty of elbow room.

At least in a parliamentary sense, Senior Enchanter Erfried is in charge—to Riftwatch's benefit. The Loyalist Contingent leads with an attempt to ignore Riftwatch's presence and ram their proposal through with no further discussion or procedure on numbers alone, but Erfried is a stickler for the rules. The name of the game is delay, distract, divert.

Fortunately, the mages prove delayable, distractible, and divertable. Creating a record of attendees and participants devolves into a series of short debates about who counts as a Circle Enchanter anymore and whether rifters have any right to be there, which easily take up half a day. From there, arguments about whether the Conclave has met all the finicky requirements to actually count as a Conclave swallow a few hours as well. Unfortunately, two witnesses profess a messenger was sent to alert the Grand Enchanter, and there's no evidence she did not reach it, so Erfried allows things to continue. In theory. Having spent so much of the day on procedural matters, there's no time to get into substance before adjourning for the evening.

Breakfast the next morning is interrupted by the arrival of the small team Riftwatch sent to alert the rebel mages at the front—and by Grand Enchanter Fiona herself, riding behind Ellie on Artichoke. She's only one mage, but she's an angry and important one. And others are coming. She makes a show of being concerned about whether it will be enough people to counteract the fifty-odd Loyalists, to avoid inspiring them to work too hard, but within Riftwatch, word gets around that they'll definitely have the numbers. All they have to do is stall.

The Loyalists do make every effort to resume the proceedings and make progress toward voting on their proposal. How unfortunate that circumstances prevent it. (Invent your own circumstances. Filibustering, general chaos, and minor property damage are all fair game.)

IV. THE CALVARY & THE DEBATE

The Grand Enchanter's people arrive only a few hours later than expected. There are easily a hundred of them—enough to doom the proposal, certainly. There's a sense of doom among the Loyalists when the proceedings resume. A few leave early in defeat. But the rest stick around, as they finally, finally proceed into discussing and voting on the substance of the proposal, and make fairly impassioned arguments on its behalf.

They evoke the history of the Circles: a compromise that saved them from being hunted by the early Inquisition and from being confined in Chantries to do nothing with their gifts but keep the fires lit. The hundreds of years of peace (they say) compared to what's come before and what will come after.

They say there was a mage child in the Nahashin Marshes, turned out by his illiterate and reclusive family, who appears to have lived alone for several years before recently reappearing, warped from possession, to slaughter his entire village. A town in Antiva realized a few of its new residents were mages and burned their house down, killing one and leaving the others with nowhere to go. A young fellow who'd wandered away from the Inquisition's camps once he came of age was caught picking pockets in Ferelden's West Hill and, in his attempts to flee, froze all of the tavern's occupants solid. Several didn't survive the thawing. They report—with no actual statistics, but a few anecdotes—that incidents of (child abuse cw) suspicious child drownings are on the rise. They ask, rhetorically, whether rifters think they will be left in peace by their neighbors when Riftwatch is gone.

And they go on for quite some time about their responsibility to Thedas. The risk of mages amassing power and establishing dynasties—a hundred years stand between that and a new Tevinter, optimistically. The risk of kings and emperors seizing control of the mages within their own borders, if mages are beholden to them rather than to the Chantry, and wielding them against their own people or their neighbors.

They have a reason for every item in the proposal. It's all very depressing and very sincere. A sizable number of the rebel mages from the front are moved by the presentation of the problem, if not convinced that their solution is correct.

But in addition to talking (and talking and talking), they also listen. They don't really have a choice, now that they're outnumbered. While only Circle Enchanters are technically permitted to vote in the College, Erfried will give anyone the floor for at least a few minutes. And between impassioned speeches, there are regular recesses when the Red Auditorium dissolves into more private conversations. Some are quiet, some are loud—but most mages have years of training in keeping their composure, so only a couple get worse than half-raised voices.

V. CUMBERLAND

With the mages from the front, the pressure on Riftwatch lets up somewhat. There's no longer a need for every Riftwatcher to be on-site at all hours of the day to prevent the Loyalist contingent from voting, so there's time to slip out into the city, whether for business—posting messages, buying supplies, running Riftwatch errands unrelated to mages and Circles—or just a break.

VI. THE RESOLUTION

In the end, not much happens. The proposal is voted down. It is not replaced by anything. But a date is set, three months in the future, to reconvene in a more orderly and less underhanded way to consider other options for mages' (and rifters') future. The Grand Enchanter also consents, in good spirits, to this future gathering deciding whether she stays in charge.

Riftwatch is invited. They have until then to do whatever maneuvering and advocacy they can.

It counts as a victory.

---

NPC NOTES

• You can do threads with NPC'd mages, or you can thread around their presence: discuss strategy, complain about a conversation with an NPC that happened off screen, take a break from the speeches outside, etc.
  
• Feel extremely free to make up NPC mages of your own! For natives this can include mages they already know or have history with. If you make up an NPC who you'd like kept in mind in the future, you can put them on the wiki page for this plot.
  
• The Loyalist camp consists mainly of Loyalists, but also some Aequitarians and Lucrosians. They're a mix of mages who sat out the war, Loyalists who fought with Madame de Fer against the rebels, and mages who fought with the rebellion but have since come around to wanting some kind of system back.
  
• The rebel mages who arrive on scene are mainly Libertarians, but also have some of every other fraternity—Aequitarians, Resolutionists, Isolationists, Lucrosians, and a few Loyalists along for the ride. They're all mages who fought with the rebellion and then joined the Inquisition.
  
• Grand Enchanter Fiona is present! If you want your character to have a significant conversation with her, either to get info or try to convince her of anything, do an info request—since she's so important and influential on her own, deciding what she would say or do is a mod call.
  
• You can invent friends/future contacts from either camp for your character to keep in touch with on their own. I don't have any info beyond the scope of this plot to hand out right now, either as a player or as a mod, but for the belated Part III in a few months I will try to gather folks whose characters have Done Work in the interim to distribute influence/information accordingly.

Comments

tony stark. ota.

[propulsion]

III. THE CONCLAVE;

The most talking Tony does in one time happens during the name taking and voter accounting, in which he argues with an elderly person about the legitimacy of Rifter Enchanters. "But hear me out," he proposes, hands spread, shard winking innocently in the centre of his palm.

Say a rifter was an expert in the mystic arts, charged with the responsibility of safeguarding dangerous magical items, of protecting the world from wild enchantment, of training up apprentices and filling the ranks of a remote order dedicated to the preservation of magical lore. Yeah, sure, 'Enchanter' is a specific title connected to the Circles themselves, but if we're gonna call a spade a pitchfork—

"Oh, where did I practice magic? No, I was talking about a guy I knew. No, he's not here. But he could be. Probably a matter of time. But I'm, like, his best friend."

The matter is shelved. He does not get a vote. Can't blame a guy for trying.

IV. THE DEBATE;

And no, he doesn't talk during this part.

Tony sticks around for much of it, seated sometimes at a slouch, or tipped forward at the waist. Dressed not as ostentatiously as he could be, but not plainly in a deep wine red shirt and vest of some kind of soft hide, a sight more cleaned up and groomed compared to the aftermath of a frantic griffon ride and forest pit stops two days ago. The pin that marks him as Provost glints golden near his collar.

He makes use of recesses to do the rounds, quick introductions and handshakes and yes, he's the Provost of Riftwatch's Research division, but mainly here to represent himself. Conveying gratitude for the collective 'budging up', sorry for the property damage, can't wait to do this again sometime.

In the auditorium, he is mostly attentive, with the occasional burst of bad kid at back of classroom energy that has him whispering and giggling. Other times—kids drowned in lakes, Abominations tearing through villages, magical mistakes that cost lives—he is deadly serious, silent, absorbing it all with focused measure.

It's towards the end of the last litany of horrific, heartfelt anecdata that he goes to get some air, but returns before long.

X. WILDCARD;

[ ooc ; whatever you want babey ]

The Auditorium

[notathreat]

There comes a point where the bullshit is just so thick you can smell it in the room. Ellie leaves, comes back with couple of tiny oranges, so fine you can peel them by pushing your thumbnail into them and pulling it back.

She opens one as Tony comes back in, pulls it into halves, scoots closer to him to semi-discreetly hand him a section. She leans in to whisper.

"You missed the part where that massive dick in the stupid green hat hinted super heavily that Rifters still might be demons, actually."

[propulsion]

"Oh, that one's a hoot," Tony mutters. She holds out the tiny orange section, and there's a brief split second beat along with a glance before he takes it, but is quick to split it down into its smaller pieces. "The talking point, not the, uh, douchebag, although who knows. This place is like the Bellagio of Circle towers."

An orange slice disappears into his mouth. "Maybe it was fun before we got here."

[notathreat]

Ellie notices the hesitance when he takes it, and without really making the conscious decision to, she starts putting it down on the small area of bench between them, within easy reach of them both.

"Douchebag?" she asks, trying out the word, with the air of someone who will absolutely use it in the future. 'Grats on teaching her the new swears, Tony.

"I can't believe we killed the party," she says with the supreme pleasure of someone who had a direct hand in making this party super unfun for said assembled douchebags.

[propulsion]

Tony glances at her. Maybe it's because she doesn't know the word 'douchebag', or that she unconsciously clocked his occasional latent OCD quirks and accommodated, but it is not (only) either of those things. More curiousity for something, and he lapses into a silence, considering his angle.

A pivot: "Were you at the, uh, VIP basement party?"

Smoking behind the bleachers (lmk if you want any adjustments)

[youwonscience]

When he goes to get some air, he finds Cosima not far, ducked behind a hallway pillar and taking a long draw on what, by smell, is clearly elfroot. When she spots him, she immediately looks embarrassed.

"Shit, I um. I meant to go back in after the last break, I just..." It had been a long list of horrors, and Cosima had been getting quieter and stiller all afternoon. Up close, it's obvious that she's not cowed, but angry, and trying to get a grip on it.

[propulsion]

"Hm. Thought it smelled a little skunky out here."

But Tony wanders nearer, hands clapping together once (quietly) and then out in begging position. Alms for the poor. He will rearrange them if she offers, either sharing her own or the tools involved, and. Be sad if she doesn't, maybe.

There's a joke, here. Something about what it's like in there, but for once, he doesn't go for it. Conscience overruling. He seems, as well, bothered, and tense for it.

[youwonscience]

She hands over the joint, largely to free her hands; it's up to him whether he takes over that one or holds hers while she makes a second one. It's not like she'll criticize either choice.

"I didn't take anything to smoke when I went to the phylactery negotiations the first time, and it was a mistake," she says, quiet but arch.

[propulsion]

He will hold it for her, keeping it hovered between them for the taking, in no rush to smoke or to finish smoking or to go back inside or really to do anything other than just stand right here and try to clear his head.

"Rookie mistake," Tony agrees, in the tone of acknowledging that it is he, the rookie, on this day. "Your girl who was here for a hot minute. Mage, right? What side of the line did she fall on?"

conclave

[favoriteanalyst]

Okay, the whole him trying to argue his way into getting a vote thing by being besties with someone who isn't even here? Is a lot funnier than Mobius thinks it ought to be. Levity where it shouldn't be just makes things have even more levity. He mostly hides his reaction behind his hand, but the shake of his shoulders and unmistakable noise of snickering are kind of a give.

They might disagree on the subject of Loki, but that doesn't mean they can't get along. He's determined about that. So he sidles up to his boss a little later, smirking.

"'My friend who isn't here is practically a Senior Enchanter', huh? I haven't heard that one before."

[propulsion]

He is now off-centre in the conclave, arms folded, listening to nothing in particular save for the ambient noise of a few different conversations happening in the room. Scanning for anything interesting. Finding more of the same.

But it means he's attuned to approach when Mobius sidles, and the corner of his mouth hooks up when the approach proves friendly.

"We're more like colleagues," he says. "But I think he'd have appreciated the play."

At least this alleged mage actually exists.

[favoriteanalyst]

"As far as pedantic delays go, it may not have been long, but it was effective. Veins popping, seeing headaches form in real time." They are going to make about fifty enemies here, but hey, some of them will apparently have fun doing so.

"Probably could've gotten away with just saying it was you. How are they going to prove anything about Rifters?"

[propulsion]

"Yeah, well,"

true, says the tip of Tony's head, keeping his focus aimed out at the room rather than focused solely on the man next to him.

"But what if it worked, you know. Then what? I do my civic duty and vote? That's a lot of responsibility. I'd rather heckle and warm the bench for now."

recess.

[hornswoggle]

"Have you introduced yourself to Enchanter Sheldon?" John questions, when Tony's latest acquaintance has been freed from handshake and drifted back to their bevvy of robed companions. "I've heard he has a fascination with Rifters."

Maybe the same fascination certain parties in Hightown have with northern pirates. Who can say?

[propulsion]

"Oh yeah?"

So much handshaking, so few antibacterial wipes. There are a few character growth aftereffects in becoming a dad, and shedding some of your own germophobic tendencies out of sheer survival is one of them, but gosh. Tony is half-consciously wiping his hands off on each other, uselessly, as he considers John, and John's presence here today.

Probably a Flint thing. Agent on the inside who isn't an excitable 19-year-old. Maybe Yseult and Byerly have one too. "What kind of fascination? Should I show him a little ankle?"

[hornswoggle]

"Depends. Are you blessed with shapely ankles?"

What, exactly, constitutes a shapely ankle?

"How are you finding all of this?" follows after, a departure from the question of ankles and Enchanters with possibly morbid fascination with Rifters.

John can certainly guess at Tony's motivations. But John does wonder what impression all this left on him. What is Tony Stark hoping comes out of this gathering, and whatever follows it?

[propulsion]

His ankles are not shapely. Twice-weekly jogs up and down the stairs of the central tower or round the courtyard at dawn can't be for nothing. But that thread of banter is allowed to cut itself away as John delivers his opener, and the corner of Tony's mouth twitches upwards.

He's been asked that too, by some of the less put-out of the Loyalists. How are you finding this, how do you find Thedas. He's developed a stock of responses, all of them gesturing towards diplomatic.

"Kind of a downer," he says, to Silver, which is less so. "But we're on track to do the thing we came here to do, right?"

the conclave.

[obdurata]

“Nice try,” Joselyn says, halfway between open amusement and commiseration, dropping into the seat by Tony's side and bumping his knee with hers. “They already told me I can't use Miriam's vote on her behalf, and I think that had stronger odds.”

A sigh, lowering her head to his shoulder, finger twisting in blonde— “I could have been Miriam if we hadn't changed our hair.”

[propulsion]

"Rookie mistake," Tony says, which is a joke. If there is anyone who is not a rookie about pulling a Parent Trap style fast one on a bunch of people in robes, it would be the woman beside him. He companionably sways an inch under her lean in before stabilising.

Contemplates the room, then says, "Times like these I could really use being a billionaire again, you know? That's how we did it in the States. Get ourselves a benefactor, stir up some corruption, bada-bing. Instead we got all this sincerity, getting in the way of progress."

He turns his head, nudging her head with his chin. "How you holding up?"

[obdurata]

Joselyn might hold forth on the dubious sincerity of Loyalists, and the certainty of at least some corruption — she might circle back to that, actually, if he's got any ideas about exploiting corruption in the ranks — hell, maybe she has some ideas —

but she says, “I was thinking about the children from our Circle. The eldest are grown and the youngest not far behind them, and war's all they've known of the world outside. And Skyhold's not perfect and my babies are going to fight, I know that, but listening to them speak of the children like making them less than people is better,”

she's so angry, quietly.

“I raised those children. What do you tell a crying child who can't understand what's happening to them? They're not safe.”

[propulsion]

Midway, Tony takes her hand, laces his fingers with hers.

Kids are no joke. Kids is where this all gets real. There was a point at which he stopped imagining a fun future for him to fuck around in, and one he was building for later. For after.

"What if they could be?" he asks, quietly, kind of regretfully, like maybe this isn't the time, but when is it gonna be. "Not the Circles like they're talking about, not everything back to how it was, but—those kids made their way to you, right? Maybe that's what they should be building this around, not just a prison sentence."

His thumb strokes over her thumb.

auditorium

[armd]

Abby, similarly slouched and fucked off with just about every part of these proceedings, appears to be amusing herself: she holds her shard hand aloft, bringing thumb and forefinger together. Spotting the Provost in all his finery, she doesn't mind leaning in to tell him, darkly, "I'm crushing heads."

Which may explain her feelings on the situation perfectly.

[propulsion]

Tony's response is a pause, followed by a quiet snort. Then, his own shard-y hand raising, positioning thumb and forefinger so as to contain his view of Erfield's head in that narrow space, then: squish.

"They're gonna start thinking this is some kind of rifter curse," he mutters back, but continues to go down the line. "Hope you're prepared for that."

[armd]

"Good." She double-crushes Erfield's head right after Tony to be really certain, and then goes back to picking people clustered along the other side at random, frowning all the while. "If they start to notice, we get up and run in opposite directions."

That would be a distraction.

[propulsion]

"You run," Tony says, "I'll powerwalk like a Macy's shoplifter."

That should throw in a little more confusion. He proceeds down the line, until he lines up with the stern face of a stranger in a silly hat giving him a puzzled and stern look through the narrow space between his fingers, and he drops his hand loudly enough that it smacks against his thigh.

"Be cool," he tells Abby, and adds, "On your 2 o'clock. Take her out."