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open | full circle pt 2
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.
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.
tiffany hart || ota
CONCLAVE AND DEBATE.
ELSEWHERE.
WILDCARD.
a recess.
Apparently, when Tiffany slips out into a hallway for a moment of peace, she isn't alone. They've never spoken, and why would they have cause to, besides sharing a division? But Loxley is so markedly of Riftwatch that it would be hard to mistake him, dressed in bright colours, a gilded sash, his Riftwatch pin affixed near his collar, and that he is a qunari, lean and long limbed in the way qunari are generally not. A rifter, through and through.
It's the next day, from 'the prayer bit', but it's what he thinks to say from his lean against a marble pillar, and then offers her a smile. "Would the Maker have found it funny, do you think?"
no subject
"Of course He would have. The Maker has a wonderful sense of humor. Ever seen a platypus?"
She has seen him before, now that she thinks of it. The Gallows aren't so large. There aren't so many qunari. It was surprising but the moment has passed and now they can simply have a conversation, here in the elaborate hallway of the College of Magi. Just another day for members of Riftwatch.
no subject
Well, he most likely doesn't, seamless as she is in her handling, save that maybe he just anticipates that. Giving people pause. It's what comes after that matters, which is, a kind smile and a joke about platypuses. Loxley laughs, quiet, but these halls are cavernous enough to tinge it with an echo.
"I've never contemplated the theological implications of a platypus," he admits, a hand pressing to his chest. "But I'm not very well studied in either areas. You know, embarrassing as it is, I don't even know what a Seeker does. Only that you are one."
no subject
It's a nice laugh. And this is more comfortable, in a way. Even if you aren't asked to make an address, a hall full of people is terribly intimidating, no matter how good an face you present or how much training and preparation you might have done. Especially if your training and preparation has been done remotely.
"The Seekers of Truth serve the Chantry as its investigators. We protect the Chantry from threats--internal, and external--by rooting out corruption. We watch over the Templar Order. Seeking truth, no matter what it is." She gives a little self-deprecating smile. "My sister has always said it was a natural calling for me. But she also calls me a tattle-tale to this day."
no subject
"Ah, you see, I was taught all sorts of things about what happens to snitches," is utterly breezy, nonhostile. Glossy. He isn't here, anyway, to make a point—not with Lady Seeker Tiffany, and her chosen career of seeking truth. "So you're a braver person than I."
no subject
"Thumbscrews? Hooks through the ears? I'm sure there's far more terrible, but I haven't got an imagination for such things, or a stomach to think very much of them. So maybe I'm not so much braver."
The door to the chamber opens, and a pair of Enchanters come out with their heads together, deep in conversation. Tiffany watches them pass by, waiting, politely, for them to pass before she speaks again.
"Truthfully, I'm not feeling brave today at all. The Conclave feels very-- heavy. That's the only word I can think for it. Though I suppose it's right that it feels that way, when I think of everything that might hinge upon it."
no subject
A touch of seriousness restores itself when he looks back at Tiffany, and she speaks of heaviness. "That's very empathetic of you to say," he says, certainly sincerely. "Would you have come along, then, if the Division Heads hadn't asked you and your colleagues to do so?"
no subject
no subject
A glance to those doors, back to her. "It won't surprise you that approximately zero of us, even in our little secret meeting, found the proposal tolerable. Has anyone asked you, yet?"
no subject
She spares her own look toward the doors. They're closed, which means the conversation is likely ongoing. And sitting in there are those Rifters and mages she mentioned--and other mages, who can only be framed as the opposition.
"Do you believe in fate?"
no subject
"I don't think that I do, I'm afraid," Loxley says. "Why?"
chapel.
So he bristles less. There's still stiffness in his shoulders when he sits, too far away from her to be confused for friendly. His silent prayers do nothing to lessen it.
She outlasts him, of course. He's shifting, preparing to leave again, when he asks, "Do you feel it?" A question he recognizes as too vague as soon as he's asked it, but the most he manages to clarify is, "Your faith."
no subject
Tiffany gives him the smallest smile, trying to temper the earnestness of her answer. It was simple, easily given.
She's aware of Kostos Averesch, even if she's never spoken to him. They've passed in hallways and she's seen his name written down and she's heard him on the sending crystals, on occasion. He's objectively good-looking. In some circles (no pun intended), he would be considered dangerous. Tiffany isn't worried.
They're both wearing Riftwatch uniforms. They're both sitting in the chapel. She elaborates:
"Not always in places like this. Mostly outdoors. I used to think every chapel was like the one in the Ruswold, where we went when I was small--there was a big window, without any glass in it, and in the summer, you could smell the grass along with the manure. This one does have a certain beauty, and I don't miss the smell of cowshit--but I miss that sense of being surrounded by all the parts of the world."
apprentice's quarters
"What is it?" She may feel the need to break some of the heavy silence, but her voice is murmur-soft all the same.
no subject
"Initials," she says, in that same quiet tone. It feels wrong to speak too loudly. It's late, everyone is tired, and this place has a heaviness to it that can't be denied. Maybe it's how the Gallows used to feel--still feels, to some--before Riftwatch moved into it and made it something else. "Of some apprentice that used to sleep here, I imagine. I was wondering what happened to them."
no subject
"Hope they're okay," feels like empty words, but there you go. She glances up. "Can't believe they actually put us in here."
Gotta be an intimidation tactic, but even so...
no subject
Which is a heartlessness in of itself. She keeps that part to herself, at least for now.
"But I do hope the same for R-A-L. Then again, they might very well be one of the Enchanters we're going to speak with while we're here. Imagine that."
no subject
Abby rubs the little mark again, thinking.
"Was there anything good, about Circles?" The question is... half rhetorical. If there was any point to them other than terrorising kids who didn't know any better she'd love to hear about it.
no subject
"Ostensibly they were meant as a good thing. The first Circles were in the Tevinter Imperium, before the Chantry--before Andraste, even. They were places of great learning and power. Then there was the Transfiguration, and the First Blight--and the Second--and the Nevarran Accord--and fear of blood magic, and from there, the regulation and training of all magic in Thedas. Which in of itself isn't a bad thing. Magic is powerful. It should be something trained, and taught, and controlled. And the Circles protected mages from people who didn't understand them. Fear, unfounded, and unchecked, leads to hatred and harm. But good only lasts if it's encouraged and given space to breathe and live and fit itself into real life. And unfortunately, corruption exists."
no subject
"I've only been here a year," she prefaces, "I'm not gonna pretend I could ever come up with an answer to all of this. But the mage-templar war wasn't that long ago. What do they think is going to happen if they do this all over again? That we're not going to rise up and fight back? I don't get it."
The not-knowing- it's the most frustrating part of all.
no subject
Tiffany looks up at the initials scratched into the wood again. This time she doesn't reach for them, only looks at them. There's a person connected to that name somewhere. Even if they're here, made it to Enchanter--or if they left when the Circles broke, or if they died before it all even started--there's a person somewhere.
"And I think that's part of our challenge. To understand the way that they think, so we can understand how to convince them to do better. It's a luxury for some of us," and she touches her chest, lightly, me, she means it's a luxury for herself, "because some of us aren't as close to it. It affects us from a distance. But it does affect us. And there's no good in pretending or even in believing that it doesn't."
no subject
"Do you think we can stop them from being scared of us?"
She can't see a way there, personally. She doubts the Loyalists would even listen to them if they tried.
no subject
Tiffany sits down on the edge of the bottom bunk with a little sigh.
"I think it will take time. I think it will take patience. I don't expect everyone to be fully willing to give either of those things--and I don't blame them. Mages have been putting up with this, Age after Age. But I truly think that people are afraid of what they don't know. The more they're exposed to mages and to Rifters, the better. I think that's important to remember when we, as Riftwatch, go into the field."
no subject
Years. Years, and years. Decades. Working against Corypheus will undoubtedly help them along the way but some folks will be so set in their ways that it will never matter to them. Some minds will never be changed. She sighs, and looks at the find again, rubs the initials with her thumb. She wonders if this person ever sat on this mattress and had the same useless thoughts that she is having right now.
Maybe.
“You’re right, “ she says, sighing long sufferingly. “You’re right, I just hate this.” A gesture, to indicate that she means all of this. Not just the shitty old bunks. “And I wish I could do more.”