closed.

[cozen]

WHO: Bastien, Byerly, Darras, Edgard, Ellie, Gwenaëlle, Julius, Loxley, Yseult, & Special NPC Guest Stars
WHAT: THE FATE OF THE FOX
WHEN: Shortly post-mod plot
WHERE: Arlathan Forest
NOTES: OOC post! Use TWs in your subject lines as required.

It's a long shot. Bastien returns to the campsite they've all been sharing with only a silver, black-corroded medallion held carefully in his palm. With the dirt washed off, there's no question that the angular, geometric face stamped onto the front of it is a fox's.

"It's dwarven," he explains, more than once. "It's, look, 8:84, that is Ansgar Aeducan's reign. That is around when the Black Fox met Bolek. He came to the surface with them to help with—well, there four or five different things they are supposed to have been helping with. Most commonly it is bringing back the king's wayward daughter without letting anyone find out she had been exposed to the sky. This was over near one of those tower—cliff—cave-things, that way. There might be more."

Again, it's a long shot. But it's not nothing. Even if the medallion is all there is, it's not nothing.

And—for those who notice and care about the subtle differences between his sometimes-artificial chipperness and his stiller, quieter happiness—this is the best mood Bastien has been in since the sacrifices, the longest he's gone without tapping or tugging at his newly deafened ear. By the end of his brief, earnest-eyed it's not far, we could go look while there's still daylight and be back in plenty of time campaign, with no real protest from anyone, he's practically glowing.

The tower-cliff-cave-thing in question is one of the elven structures half-swallowed by earth, accessible through what was once a balcony door, now framed by vines and tree roots climbing in and out of the opening. They have to climb a root-threaded mound of dirt and rock to reach it, but they're rewarded almost instantly by the remnants of a 50-year-old campsite, a pair of leather boots that have only mostly rotten away to nothing in the humidity, and a change in the air (veil? vibe?) as they descend the uneven stone steps (or drop more impatiently through a nearby hole) to reach the next floor.

It's not good, the air-change. It's also not the energy-sapping miasma of shades or the tension of some nearby malevolence. It's the kind of not-good that makes one want to look. When they do, they see the skeletons first—five of them, half-jumbled, partially dressed in what metal and leather has survived the decades—and only for a second, before the thing waiting behind them in the dark reaches out to make them see something else.

OOC | Reply with your character's heroic dream as a new top-level! We're tagging them all at once. No tag orders. Don't boomerang so quickly that people get left completely behind because they're busy/asleep for a day but also skip people as needed—all nine of us don't need to tag every single round. Aim for brief threads!

NPC CAST: DESIRE: Charlie / REMI: Cass / KAROLIS: Brooklyn / SERVANA: Libby / BOLEK: MJ / CLEMENTIS: Ammmy

Comments

Ellie's Dream

[notathreat]

It is very much somewhere else.

The hush of the hallway pushes down on them, decades of rot and the tang of green in the air. It's impossible to see out of the closed windows, because ivy has crawled over them, making a curtain of soft jade light. The hallways stretches out before them, the surgical suites of a hospital.

It's quiet, but the lights are on, and down the hallway there is the stirring murmur of indistinct voices. The smell of chemicals.

There are x-rays illuminated in a light box on the wall. The skull of a young teenager, growths all over the brain. Circled, notated. Papers with test results, and pictures and diagrams of a bitten arm, covered with spores. The words that jump out are mutation and removal of specimen and vaccine and cure.

Ellie is suddenly barefoot, looking pale and small in a faded green hospital gown -- younger, much younger, much less scarred.

Her arm. Her x-rays. The ring of teeth marks is right there on her otherwise unscarred, un-tattooed forearm, surround by a halo of spores and growths.

"It's your choice," says a soft voice at Ellie's side, thick with emotion and an edge of Texas twang. It's low, older, a bearded man with salt and pepper hair and a gruff bearing. Fatherly. He reaches both hands out to take her by the shoulders, look her in the eyes. "But you don't have to do this. You know that, right? We can tell them to find someone else."

"There is no one else," Ellie answers him, her voice quiet, but firm. It breaks only at the edges. "It has to be me."

The edges of the man's mouth tighten, devastation in his eyes -- there is no doubt about what this means. Whatever this is, Ellie is not coming out the other side of it.

"It's my choice," she says again. Her voice is brittle. "You can't take that from me, Joel."

Her hands close on the front of his shirt, and the look in her eyes is not a little girl's. Her eyes are her own, the Ellie of Riftwatch, of Thedas, the Ellie who has lost. Who carries unfathomable anger and grief, and keeps going anyway.

"Not again."

The edges of the room flicker, and fracture and reform. Ellie pulls away from him, wraps her hand around his and holds tight.

Joel's eyes change -- something softer, and suddenly far more sinister.

"It's your choice, babygirl," he says, as Ellie turns to lead them down the hallway. He keeps his hand wrapped around hers. The words seem to reverberate around them, a whisper of unreality.

"It's your choice."

loxley's dream.

[charmoffensive]

Opulence, brightness, and a smell of brimstone in the air.

The team finds themselves stepping into a massive palatial chamber, marble floors, stone walls, a hanging chandelier heavy in lit candles, tall windows of stained glass, intricately carved pillars, unfurled banners of foreign symbols, and raised dais carpeted in velvet on which rests two empty thrones. This is a place of royalty, and it is not empty.

A scream fills the air, directing focus to the centre of the throne room. The creature there is nearing nine feet in height—a woman, you might think first, until all the rest is taken in. Deep red skin, shining like polished garnet, and massive devil wings with hooked claws, stretching far wider than her height. Curling black horns erupt from her forehead, and as she looks over, her eyes glow and gleam, and she grins with a mouth full of fangs. She is not terribly different from some of the demonic entities that emerge from rifts, but in some way, she is plainly so much more than that, power radiating off of her as she flaps her wings, pushes through the air.

And a tail, she has one of those. Long, red, muscled, spaded at the end, it wraps around the limb of a figure who is dragged along the marble, blood smearing. A human woman, who seems so much smaller in comparison, gives another scream: furious, threatening. A tiara has fallen from her head, her gown of green smattered in crimson.

"Kally," is a very informal kind of way to reference such a person, but it's what Loxley says when he finally takes in all they are seeing.

He moves forward, scarcely noticing the fact he has changed. Silver-grey qunari skin is now a deep, rich gold, and the practical leathers he'd worn for the trip have been replaced by blue and gold brocade fashioned into a piratical coat, a sash of more gold than blue, and a cloak of deep red. His eyes are also changed (and he has, here, both of them), where the whites are black, pupils and irises both flashing discs of gold.

Everyone else may find themselves altered a little: their clothes and armor are surely of more elaborate and fine craft, magical in nature, strangely unscuffed. New weapons, perhaps, or pieces of jewellery with runic inscriptions and symbols. Heroes, all.

"Do we—" It isn't real, yes? This, Loxley tells himself, even as his eyes stay locked on the devil-shaped woman who descends to land on the marble floor. "Do we just run?"

One of the strangers among them speaks up, then, a handsome man with a crossbow slung across his shoulders, saying, "Would you? Run."

Silence, first, and then the sound of steel and leather as Loxley draws his rapier from his belt. (It, too, is rather beautifully made, but familiar—he has it in real life as well, but seems to fit in better, in this place.) The archdevil before him twitches her tail, sending the princess tumbling aside as she turns to meet him as Loxley breaks from the group, running for her, cloak flaring.

Karolis looks to the group, and tips his head. There is one more thing for consideration: out from the shadows of a nearby corner emerge the shapes of large, wolf-like creatures, eyes aglow in hellfire that seems to burn from within, sparking between their fangs as they snarl, muscles beneath black matted fur rippling as they duck low in preparation to launch after the group.

"This way," says Karolis, and makes a break for a door at the far side of the throne room as the helldogs take up chase.

gwenaëlle's dream. cw: the slaughter of halamshiral, associated tws.

[elegiaque]

Halamshiral is burning.

They rush into — a square? A street? The roads are so wide here, it's hard to say in the confusion of screaming and smoke and the thick, awful scent of burning bodies. The thudding sounds of arrows hitting flesh and wood and stone indiscriminate as if they are the same thing—

Across the way, an elven woman is struggling with a door. She is slight and dark-haired, her build and complexion akin to Gwenaëlle's, covering her mouth and nose with a wet cloth that looks torn from her own dress and doing her best to manage both this and the door, which simply will not give. A chevalier raises his bow,

Gwenaëlle raises hers, unthinking, from the middle of the group. Her arrow is still whipping toward his temple — where it lands, dropping him and his weapon clattering to the pavers — when she bolts from them, elbowing her way beside Alix and, “No, here, do it this way,” and hands her a knife, their similar heads bent together over the new task of lifting out the hinges, even in a dream certain of her companions covering their unprotected backs as Celene's chevaliers move deeper into the burning city.

When the door falls, a third— nearly identical to Alix, except for being thinner and paler and dressed only in her nightgown, falling into their arms.

“Naëlle,” she says, urgently, tugging at Gwenaëlle's arm, pointing past Bastien and the others to—

was Celene here, like this? Gwenaëlle doesn't know; she wasn't. The chevaliers who flank her have familiar faces within their ranks, dredged into this scenario as spirits by the memories she holds of them elsewhere— Lucien du Lyon, who had been at Riftwatch. Michel de Chevin, who had served a time at Skyhold when she first arrived. Alexandrie's own twin sister, flame red hair spilling from her helm. And the empress, cold and dispassionate as she gazes upon what she has done.

Gwenaëlle raises her bow a second time, tilting her head, sighting with her remaining eye.

julius's dream

[overharrowed]

Those who have been to the Cumberland Circle before won't have any problems recognizing the College of Magi's traditional gathering place. For those who haven't been there in waking life, the lavish surroundings are striking on their own merits, even before the observer can register just how many Southern Mages are gathered in one place. Nearly everyone present is in robes and carrying a staff. While there's no particular indication of time period in the setting — the golden opulence looked much the same on the recent trip some of their number made to Nevarra — the number of mages present suggests they're occupying a moment before the war(s) that decimated the former members of the assembly. (In reality, there would have been Templars present, surely; there's no sign of them in the dream.)

One mage, a man of about Julius's age, approaches him, ignoring the others for the present. "Senior enchanter," he says in a low, Marcher-accented voice. "The College is ready for you to speak." Julius seems momentarily shaken, though whether by the unfamiliar title or the news he's about to be given the floor is not immediately apparent. The man, seeming to sense his hesitation, lowers his voice and says, "A lot of us are behind you. We just need someone to put it clearly. We won't desert you." He gives Julius a small, inscrutable smile.

He can, evidently, see the others, finally turning his attention their way. He glances back and says, "You should take your seats. The College is about to reconvene." Whatever he sees of them doesn't seem to give him pause, but it's also clear he's about to pull Julius off, away from the group.

Byerly's ego-trip

[bouchonne]

The room is gilt and glittering, ormolu candlesticks and polished mirrors and fine parquet floor. In a velvet armchair sits a smiling villain with beautiful eyes. He speaks in a voice that drips with disdain -

"Dearest cousin, you have no proof."

Across from him, standing tall, is Byerly. Dressed not as he normally is, in the finery of the Kirkwall social set, but in his version of Fereldan garb - belted, booted, kidskin gloves picked through with embroidery. Sword at his hip. Fur peeking through at his hems. And on his finger, a ring that bears the insignia of office for a blackhaller, appointed personally by the queen to see to her justice.

"Dearest cousin," Byerly returns, his voice arch but resolute, "I have all the proof I need."

And he turns to look at the assembled crew standing behind him. There's a slight narrowing of his eyes, a moment of confusion - and then that confusion clears as he's drawn once again into the illusion, his addled brain believing in this moment of great triumph.

"Speak," he says to them, "on what you know of the wickedness of Richars Rutyer."

(It's not hard to guess what might be plausible stories about Richars Rutyer, even for those who've never heard Byerly speak about the man. The arrogance in his face, the cruelty in his smile speak hint at a sort of sadism. The opulence in the room hints at the way he's living on the fat of his estates while his people, perhaps, must endure the lean. The creep of his hand towards his dagger speak to a violent temperament. If the others decide they must play along with this fantasy, they can make many guesses that sound quite plausible.)

Bastien's!

[cozen]

Here, a candlelit and furnace-warmed room, low-ceilinged and windowless and cool. And crowded. Not meant for nearly twenty people—the dreamers and ghosts now dressed, for the most part, the way Bastien and his ilk frequently dress, in muted colors and working-class simplifications of Orlesian fashions.

"This is it," says Antoinette, in Orlesian. In this dream world, she's an odd-looking woman. She's dressed like the Lady Antoinette Maurel, a woman in her forties who has long since turned her sharp mind away from dreamy politics and toward protecting the comfort and modest fortunes of her two twenty-year-old daughters. At moments, in shadows, her face matches the matronly figure; it's a face Bastien's only seen from a distance. But in the flickers of the candlelight that require it to be clearer, it's instead the face of Toinon—sixteen, sharp and wild-eyed, hair falling out of its elaborate crown of braids, a pen behind her ear despite the ink spots it left on her apple cheek. The sort of girl who'd try to teach a gamin to read using pamphlets about the travesty of his condition.

Bastien had loved her with his entire twelve-year-old heart.

That is not why he's blushing. He's blushing because he knows this cellar, and he knows where this is going, and he knows it's a dream, and it's quite a thing to have one's childish dreams laid out for examination by nine people and five ghosts. Especially the ghosts. He would love very much to impress the ghosts.

Anyway: "This is it," Antoinette is saying, nodding while she reads the document in her hands. "We are on the edge. This will push us over. Things will change. This is very good work—"

Her tongue is curling for the L that begins his given name, maybe beginning to make an identifiable sound out of it, but he's quick. "Thank you," he says in Trade, cutting her off, and takes the paper from her hands. He squints down at it, with the foolish hope there might indeed be something profound written there, but of course there isn't. A swirl of revolutionary-sounding half-thoughts. The kind of thing one might sit bolt upright in the middle of the night to write down, convinced it's world-changing, only to be greeted in the morning by CHEVALIERS = ALLIGATORS with three urgent underlines and no further explanation.

Fortunately, he is spared the humiliation of discuss this any further by a pounding knock on the door, gruff and muffled voices outside it explained promptly by Maximilien—another familiar face, from more recent history, refined beard gone grey—saying, "Shit. That will be the guard. We have to—"

(Sheet. Zat will be ze garrd. We 'ave to—, technically.)

He hands the nearest person an armful of papers and points toward the furnace. Burn the evidence. Antoinette takes the document back from Bastien to fold it, with reverence entirely undeserved, and tuck it into his jerkin.

"This is the part where we have to escape," Bastien explains to everyone else, sounding a bit weary and gesturing toward the steps that lead to the back door out into the alleyway, "and run for our lives to get this masterwork to—"

"To Gauthier," Antoinette fills in. "He's not expecting you yet, but—go. Hurry. Get it to him."

She is ushering them, all fourteen of them, toward the door. It was silent outside before, but now that anyone's attention might be aimed out of the cellar, the sound of shouts and crashes is growing slowly louder. The edge Antoinette was discussing earlier, via this nonsensical dream logic, already tipped over with or without a final push from CHEVALIERS = ALLIGATORS. There's an uprising out there.

"This is very embarrassing," Bastien says. He knows the drill by now—there's a door somewhere out there, the right one—but he's not yet moving.

Edgard's Dream

[muckspout]

Lightning cuts a crack in the sky and for a brief moment, it's lit up like day. Edgard throws a hand through his wet hair and blinks through the rain up at an impossibly large house upon a hill.

"His name's DuPont." A thin faced man with greasy hair who identified himself by the name Sunshine (Is that his actual name? Can't be) yells and points to the house in question.

"Rich fuck who has these feasts for other rich fucks while good people like you and me go hungry so little children won't starve. We think we can do something about him and this."

At the word we, Sunshine gestures behind himself. Edgard looks behind himself. There are a great many people behind him who cheer with fists raised.

Lightning flashes again. The storm is here.

Chat & Confrontation

[cozen]

One last door (or window, or waterfall, or cave entrance) brings them to a place where all disguises fall away. The landscape is a twisted, misty island of the raw Fade, the Black City hanging in the distant sky. No spirits appear to pull them into games and delusions. The island is the domain of the spirit who trapped them here, and it is apparently tired of putting on airs to try to please them.

"I never had dreams when I was alive," says the dwarf who has accompanied them through the maze, "and now I've dreamt for a lifetime. Or—we are dead, aren't we?"

Bastien nods. He's only slowly relaxing, and only relaxing so far. They aren't done. They're pausing.

Bolek takes a breath. "Well, I'd like to be returned to the Stone, once we get you out of here, if the Stone will have me. I'm—"

"Bolek. I know. Everyone knows," is overstatement, but not much of one, in his opinion. "Everyone knows all of you."