faderift | open | full circle pt 2

Entry tags:

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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

ENTRANCE.

Enchanter Fiona strides right into breakfast, and immediately begins to argue. And Matthias is there with her--a few steps behind, struggling to keep up despite himself--but keeping up. He has to see this. The drama of the moment will feed him for weeks, maybe even months--the faces of the mages. He's dirty and tired and there's a griffon feather in his wind-tousled hair and he's still smiling, ear-to-ear.

Eventually, the conversation fractures, splits off into smaller conversations, smaller commotions, mages maneuvering one another around. Matthias sinks down onto a bench and helps himself to a bite to eat off of a nearby plate. Doesn't matter whose it is.

Any friendly face he sees among the crowd, he gives a wave to. Pride is shining off of him in waves.

DEBATE.

Later, after arriving in triumph with Fiona -- washed, wearing clean clothes that are very deliberately not mage's robes -- Matthias joins the other mages and the Rifters in the debate hall. He sits at first, largely so that he can sit on his hands. This does very little to keep his anger quelled. He’s isn’t an Enchanter -- he’s not even an apprentice, properly -- and he’s not meant to be talking. As the stories of rogue mages are spun, he gets more and more agitated. First he’s fidgeting, scraping his heels against the floor, moving off of his hands so he can twist them in his shirtsleeves. Then he’s fidgeting and scowling, twisting his features. Then he’s fidgeting and scowling and muttering -- “No,” or “Come off it,” or furious swearwords under his breath. People begin to look around at him. If anyone of Riftwatch meets his eye, he jerks his head, a silent, Are you hearing this shit? -- or, if they’re a senior mage, Are you hearing this shit? Say something!

When any Enchanter with Riftwatch makes a point, or when any of the rebel mages say something inciting, Matthias is loud in giving applause. He’s equally quick to boo those that say anything particularly stupid. Against all expectations, he more or less manages to hold himself together – sometimes just because he leaves the room, banging the door behind him as he goes, and stands out in the hallway and kicks at a wall before gathering himself back up to go inside.

At dinner, he deliberately avoids the company of anyone with Riftwatch. Not rudely – he waves at people he knows before stepping away to join the table of the youngest mages, Loyalists and rebels alike. In fact he seeks out the Loyalists more often than not, and does his best to carry on civil conversation with a forced smile and gritted teeth. These conversations never last terribly long – eventually someone says something too infuriating, and Matthias snaps back with an insult, and then they leave him sitting alone, stabbing at his food. One of these interactions comes to blows – a low hubbub of argument that breaks into shouting. The table is jostled as Matthias and a Loyalist mage called Horst both jump to their feet. By the time they’re pulled apart, Matthias is red-faced and breathing hard, while Horst has a bloody nose. He spits at Matthias and shoves off, and Matthias glares after him, before he throws himself back down into his seat.

Back in the chamber, when Erfried opens the floor for anyone to speak, Matthias waits somewhat impatiently for a good moment. It isn’t long before he gets to his feet and takes the floor – red-eared already, self-conscious, but motivated.

“I’m Matthias. I’m not an Enchanter. You should still listen to me. I was in the Circle at Tantervale. Nothing good ever happened to me. My parents were poor and they got rid of me first chance they got, and I went to the Circle scared – but I was excited as well. ‘Cos I knew this was a chance to get out and do something. I love magic. I don’t mind saying it. I think it’s brilliant. I wouldn’t be myself without it. I like to learn about it and I like doing it and I like helping people with it. But that’s not what they wanted out of me at Tantervale. They wanted to shut me up. Maybe it was really lovely and peaceful here, in Cumberland, where you shit in gold privies and people respect you. It weren’t in Tantervale. It were never peaceful there. It weren't elsewhere, either--it were worse. They hurt us and kept us locked up and said we deserved it, when we didn’t. It'll be that again, no matter what you think. Like -- I would’ve been one of those kids that you’re talking about, the ones that go off and turn into Abominations ‘cos no one wants to help them until it’s too late. It was the mages what broke us out of Tantervale that treated me well. They taught me how to control myself – really how to control myself, properly. And they didn’t do it by chaining me up and making me afraid of myself. That's what we need. And I'm not bothering saying any of their names, 'cos I'll bet you don’t know any of them. They weren’t anybody special but to me -- and they’re all dead now besides, and so are all the apprentices we escaped with – 'cos they fought for us, for all of you as well – 'cos they weren’t scared to stand up for that, for helping one another when everything is against you. All of what you’re saying – it’s only a risk if we let it be a risk. We can already do these amazing things – we can heal and set fires and call lighting down onto trees and, and make shields to defend ourselves. It’s a gift. We are too. If we can do all of that impossible stuff, how come we think we can’t do this as well? That’s – That’s all I’ve got to say,” and he turns abruptly and goes back to his seat, studiously avoiding everyone's eye.

He only lasts a minute there. Soon enough he’s back out in the hallway, once more kicking that wall and scowling.

EXPLORING.

The first day, and even the second, Matthias doesn't go out. He’s got to be nearby at least, in case anyone tries anything—last-minute meetings, calls to vote when everyone is asleep, that sort of thing. Even during, the day when the conversation is the most active, he’s in the room -- or, if he’s gotten too angry, stood just outside, ready to duck back in.

But the first night he's in Cumberland, a burst of mania (and maybe some wine) has Matthias down in the entrance hall, drawing moustaches on one the sandstone busts. Anyone that catches him at it, he shushes before he runs off into the dark. The next morning, there's a minor delay to the day's proceedings, as a brief investigation is conducted -- a minor chaos that breeds a minor delay the Loyalist's vote. Score one for Riftwatch.

Being behind the walls of a Circle makes him feel like he’s crawling out of his skin. But eventually--toward the end of the second day that he's there--Matthias gathers his courage and strikes out to have a look around. The ornateness of the place leaves him dizzy. A bloody palace. He's easily stumbled upon: sat right down on a staircase, staring up at a mural detailed with gold leaf, standing on his toes to chip his thumbnail against a gilded vine encircling a marble pillar. The longer he wanders, the bolder he gets. He opens doors, walks into rooms, rifles through books and drawers and cupboards.

When he opens the door and finds the harrowing chamber, glimmering like a jewel, Matthias hesitates--then goes in and sits on the floor. He stays there for some time, still and quiet, with his heart beating very loudly in his ears.

By the third night, his mood has grown more sullen. That night, any peaceful rest found in the apprentice’s bunk is disturbed by Matthias climbing very suddenly and loudly out of bed and running for the hall. The door is thoughtlessly banged open and slams shut behind him. He doesn't hear it. He runs. He finds a door, breaks out into the open air of the night, and even then, he runs a few lengths further until he smacks into a dead end. There, he puts his back against the wall and sags to the ground, breathing hard, sweat standing on his brow. His hands are shaky when he pushes them into his hair and grips, hard.

That night, and the rest of the nights until Riftwatch's departure, Matthias is absent from his bunk. Anyone on watch might stumble upon him in a garden or an out-of-the-way courtyard, tucked somewhere where guards or enchanters aren’t likely to find him. He doesn't cause trouble. Sleeps, some of the night. Other parts of the night are spent making little cuts into his fingertips with his dagger, which he then heals before the blood can do more than bead. Over, and over, and over again, back pressed to a wall in the cool of the night.

WILDCARD.

[Like, whatever man.]

Gwenaëlle is neither a guard nor an enchanter. She's no one special to Matthias, either, she doesn't think— but she knows him a little, likes all that she knows, and notices his deterioration. The first night or two of it, she only notes it; has her own concerns, her own need to get some sleep, and it's not as if there's a shortage of people here who likely know him better.

Still—

She doesn't sleep much. It's been months since she can remember having a half-decent night's sleep, and she's always been prone to keeping late hours, prone to curiosity about everything around her. She isn't looking for Matthias when she finds him so much as she's looking to see what's so fucking great about Cumberland that all these Loyalists want to be locked up here again,

but she telegraphs her presence with a flare of light from a firestarter, only ordinary cigarette smoke this time that curls up into the night air, and she doesn't wait to be invited or told to fuck off before she sits down next to him by the wall, not too close.

“I don't usually smoke tobacco,” she says, by way of a greeting, calm as you like and offering no immediate questions for him to tense up to, “only the smell of it's been inescapable, I think half of your mages are getting through the debates with it. Gave me a craving, I suppose.”

Sound gets through to him first. The firestarter, the sizzle of the light catching. Matthias knows fire very well. The sound of someone sitting nearby, then a voice, which he doesn't place or hear at first--or, rather, he hears just fine, but the words are only sounds, like listening to someone speak another language down a drainpipe.

The smell comes second, that deep under-a-fallen-log fragrance of tobacco. It throws off the panic a little, makes Matthias twitch up his nose, even as he's sucking in great lungfuls of breath.

He dares a glance, over his knees, and places the voice right before he recognizes her: Gwenaëlle. Oh, fuck. Wounded pride and embarrassment twists hot in his gut, but it's got a lot of other insistent emotions to contend with in the moment. Matthias drops his head again, puts his forehead against his knees, and squeezes his eyes shut. Moments pass, too many. Stop already, stop.

When he thinks he can trust his voice: "D'you have-- another?"

It comes out thick and underwater sounding, muffled by how curled up he still is. He tries to swallow the hitch in the middle.

"Haven't tried it yet."

It would be difficult not to have noticed his unsteadiness, his distress,

but nothing changes. She nudges her shoulder against his — bony, she's all angles — and bites the end of her cigarette between her teeth so she's got both hands to deal with the pouch and roll out another. “Mmm, here we go.”

Though she must then re-roll it, because you don't roll cigarette and joints exactly the same way, and she's got much more practise with one than the other.

(She remembers sitting on a balcony with Marcellin, laughing when he coughed, clapping her hand on his back. She wonders if he thinks of it, ever, still.)

“You'll have to straighten out some,” she says, “or you'll burn yourself or choke, and we're bound to rouse someone that way. And don't breathe in too fast, you'll make yourself sick and cough.”

He stays stiff and frozen when her shoulder bumps his. After a moment of listening to new sounds, he peeks over at her again despite himself, watching her work, the practiced ritual, pinching slender fingers and the soft shape of the paper.

And he does straighten his posture at her direction. Enough time has passed that his limbs feel less leaden. It takes willpower to keep his hand steady when he reaches for the cigarette.

"I won't cough." Which probably (rightly) sounds like a particularly empty promise from the fellow that was barely able to breathe his own breath moments ago. He doesn't need a light. The little sparks of fire that flickers, quick, over his fingertips is somehow even more soothing. The paper catches, sizzles--satisfying--and Matthias sneaks one last look over at Gwenaëlle to see how she is doing this before he puts the cigarette to his lips.

In the end, he does cough. Only a little. He holds his mouth closed tight, keeps the sound trapped as a stupid inside-the-throat cough.

The way the fire dances over his fingers draws her eye and makes her smile, involuntary,

magic is sort of neat, sometimes, actually.

“Out through the nose,” she says, amusement curling through the words, and— here she's tricked him, see, because she takes his free hand and presses it to the back of her shoulder blade, snakes hers behind him, probably correctly guessing he's going to have a completely different meltdown if she tries this at the sternum. “Here, breathe exactly like me, alright?”

The cigarette is a focus; a troublemaker's bad influence, something for him to prove to himself he's big and bad and ready for. The feel of her heartbeat at rest, the steady way she breathes the way that she learned how to walk back from the ledge—

it's slow. In, and out. In, and out. Slow.

matthias || ota

exploring, courtyard.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

third night

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Entrance Hall; Aftermath

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

post-speak wall-kicking

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

harrowing chamber.

no subject

no subject

no subject