closed | the casque of antiva

[portalling]

WHO: Strange & Wysteria
WHAT: Investigating spooky basement activity
WHEN: Sometime in Harvestmere
WHERE: An Antivan vineyard along the Viverna River
NOTES: OOC notes

Strange has never slept well, but this really takes the cake.

Nightmares and fraying tempers on all sides; people around Kirkwall town being pushed to the edge, and even moreso around a rifter and a magic-user like him; he’s started to wear gloves again, to his distaste, to disguise that tell-tale shard in his palm.

All things told, he jumps at a chance to get out into the field and travel for a while. Even if, in the mornings, he has to go for a walk and narrate his dreams into a sending crystal like he’s taking dictation notes, his voice a low murmur. He can’t bring himself to ask his traveling companion to write them down for him.

So— crotchety and sleep-deprived as he is, Doctor Strange is more bleak and sarcastic next to Madame de Foncé’s indefatigable conversation. But once they eventually arrive at their destination, he finally brightens. They’re welcomed through the front doors as agents of Riftwatch, and people even seem relieved to see them. Standing in the sprawling stone foyer, they listen to the winemaker explain the trouble they’d encountered in the castello’s basement expansion, the renovations unearthing something terrible; and even while the man is talking, there’s the sound of a particularly loud crash down below, as if a chair just hit a wall.

The Antivan winemaker tosses Wysteria the key to the basement and then, with a rushed, “I’llbeinthekitchenifyouneedme,” he’s gone, vanishing down a corridor and scurrying away to the other side of the castello.

“So. Not rats, I take it,” Strange says dryly, looking at the door leading downstairs.

Comments

mea culpa for my lateness

[heirring]

The key is quite heavy—one of those find old iron things possessing as patina surely as rich as the great casks no doubt waiting for them in the cellar it unlocks. It more or less suits the gleaming chatelaine Wysteria wears at her waist, at home there amidst the various ladies tools (her own keys, her purse, a prim pair of scissors in an embroidered sheath and a shockingly robust field knife in a far more economical one—) once she's managed to secure it onto one of the free loops.

"Yhey could be Fade-touched rats."

Ha ha ha; the grin she flashes him is not at all self-conscious or seemingly even self-aware of the very dire side effects of her apparent good humor. Indeed, Wysteria has managed to be quite chipper for the whole length of the journey north. Strapping the prosthetic arm onto her left side this morning, an affair that had been carried out with grumbled cursing from behind the curtain dividing their let room, is the foulest her mood has been and even that had seemed to melt away the moment they actually set out along the last little stretch of road between them and the castello. So long as one isn't unduly irritated by relentless conversation or especially resentful of the sort of person who seems to rise early without either complaint or difficulty, she makes for a fine traveling companion.

And if one is unduly irritated by such things—

Well, surely they're about to avail themselves of considerably worse company.

"Are you very familiar with the battling of spirits, Doctor?" she asks, turning on the heel of her well-worn field boots with a swirl of blue skirts. With the key in her possession and (it must be said) seniority so definitively in her favor, she will happily lead the them along in the required direction without second thought. "As I'm afraid that without my anchor, you will be required to act as our first line of defense while we do our survey. And the second line as well, I suppose."

np!

[portalling]

He shoots her a startled ‘are you fucking serious’ look at the mention of Fade-touched rats (look, he’s new, it’s still easy to fall for it), but that cheeky grin smooths out his expression again.

“The battling of spirits? Very,” Strange says, and that faint smile on his face is the first proper one she’s seen all trip. Funny, that the mention of malevolent ghosts is somehow such a comfort. At least it’s familiar territory. “My magical capabilities are diminished here, but it was pretty much my job back home. Any given Tuesday might be conducting exorcisms or getting rid of imps or, on a very bad day, demons.”

The sorcerer reaches out with his rift-touched senses, probing for that perpetual awareness of the Fade, mentally steeling his dulled abilities for whatever’s waiting for them down below. In the meantime, he trails obediently after her in a swirl of red cloak; waits while the woman opens one of those heavy and forbidding doors with her flesh-and-blood hand.

He had paid attention to the conversation on the crystals, listening in, gathering information. So the fact that he hasn’t asked about Wysteria’s prosthesis yet is, frankly, a minor miracle, but the mention of her anchor opens that metaphorical door — and they’re not being actively beset by spirits yet, so he steals the moment to ask, bluntly:

“Why did you remove your anchor? Had it grown beyond containment?”

....*they. welcome to my phone tag typos.

[heirring]

"Well it certainly wasn't out of boredom." This too is a joke, albeit one born of some little seed of secret bitterness buried so deep that it's unlikely to surface here as she cranks open the heavy lock on this first of presumably a series of doors which lead down into the cellar.

"No, I'd had it for a great number of years and then for some reason it seemed to have abruptly grown—yes, I believe you might say that—beyond my capacity. Last autumn I became quite ill with fever and infection and all manner of miseries, and when nothing else could be done we all agreed that the best course of action would be to attempt removing it. There was some concern that I might become somehow untethered and simply disappear from Thedas when it was done—I believe I'm the only Rifter to be separated from their anchor—, but here am I and all is well."

Plus or minus the majority of a limb.

She says it all quite brightly and highly factually as she lets them through the door and then closes it firmly behind them before leading the way down the torch-lit switchback stairwell which lies on the other side of it. If not for the fact that it is quite obviously her arm they're discussing, it might be easy to mistake the whole exchange as a matter which concerned someone else's health entirely.

"I for one hope this isn't a demon," is a similarly smooth leap between conversational tracks. "They make such a mess of things."

[portalling]

He has Questions — medical ones, rifter ones, all centered around that infection and amputation — but Wysteria steering the direction of the conversation is a bit like a train barreling cheerfully down those tracks, and so Strange, out of his depth with this particular type of personality, has no choice but to be dragged along. He considers trying to scrabble his way inelegantly back to the previous topic, but then simply gives in.

“Have you personally encountered Theodosian demons before, then? I’ve heard a little bit about people’s experiences with them and it seems— ugly, as an understatement. My arrival came with wraiths and a creature from my own world, so I haven’t met anything like a rage demon or pride demon.” Yet, is the implication.

As they descend deeper towards the cellars (it grows colder, damper), he lifts one of the torches from the wall. Misses being able to light his way magically without batting an eye, but a torch will have to do.

[heirring]

"Oh yes! Yes, of course. Provost Stark—oh, I keep forgetting that you two are familiar—and Mister Ellis—Warden Ellis, rather—and myself have conducted extensive studies on the rifts and the flow of their arcane energies. Demons are part and parcel with that business." Wow, isn't she just so knowledgeable and worldly. "But not to worry, Doctor! I'm certain you'll meet your first corrupted spirit in due time."

As if to emphasize the possibility that this opportunity may very well arise sooner rather than later, a further cacophony of bangs and crashes rises to meet them from the gloom ahead.

"After all, even if you have no interest in studying the rifts at all, we are occassionally expected to go about closing them."

This too seems to her an excellent joke—ha ha ha, imagine! Being required to participate in what is ostensibly the guiding work of Riftwatch—, and Wysteria laughs merrily at her own cleverness. By the time echo of its bright peal has faded entirely, they've reached the heavier door at the bottom of the dark stairwell. Judging by the bar and padlock, they've descended to the correct depths.

The key is very heavy in the lock. It takes a great deal of effort to convince the bolt to pop free.

[portalling]

Per the message sent to Riftwatch, there’s been poltergeist activity all throughout the entire castello — a source of aggravation for the vintner, who had been trying to hold a tasting for his esteemed guests only to have wine bottles explode all over them — but this basement is, apparently, the epicenter of the trouble.

Wysteria’s heaving at the door and just as she manages to haul it open, they both catch a fleeting glimpse of what awaits them inside. A basement with rows and rows of casks of wine, set down here to age; and then a cleared-out space on the other end, the stone wall crumbled and knocked down for expansion, rocks spilling loose to reveal an unexpected side antechamber. They catch sight of a dusty workshop table, dusty shelves of books, ancient complicated glassware, more books, broken jars, evidence of potions having leaked out into the crumbling stone.

But it’s a quick glance, because as soon as they step through the door, Doctor Strange is beaned in the face with a flying book.

“Oof—“

He stumbles back into the wall, flailing to catch his balance. This really isn’t the first impression he wanted to make with his colleague.

no worries if this is too crusty x2

[heirring]

Wysteria de Foncé evidently isn't the sort of person prone to ducking flying objects. Or perhaps instead she is the sort of person who has somehow acquired a great deal of practice with subject, and so has developed a sort of uncanny sixth sense for when a projectile is threatening her person rather than winging across her shoulder to abuse an unlucky companion. Who can say.

She does, however, pull the heavy door shut again with a dismayed "Oh!", hurrying to narrow the opening through which additional objects might be hurled.

"Doctor, are you all right? I did say that you would have to be prepared to defend yourself, didn't I? Oh, happy luck! It's only a book and not something sharp." She kicks the book aside with the toe of her field boot. "I'm entirely certain your face was like that before."

Reassuring. Much like the successive thump, thump of additional book-sounding objects colliding with the far side of the door.

heart emoji

[portalling]

He’s clutching his face, his stinging nose, that blossoming pain in his reddening cheek. The nose doesn’t feel broken, thank god, but the skin along his cheekbone feels raw and bruised from that solid impact. That might be a black eye come morning.

“That was a hardcover,” Strange mutters, sounding more aggrieved and irritated than frightened. “Books shouldn’t be weapons—”

And then, a moment later remembering the shelves upon shelves of dangerous arcane texts at Kamar-Taj and a certain cursed book which had almost unraveled the multiverse, he amends, “Well, I mean, they’re often weapons. But not like this. Blunt force trauma is so passé.”

Thump, thump, thump goes the door. He pinches his nose, and looks over at Wysteria. “If I were back home, I would conduct a routine exorcism, but I doubt I have the capability any longer. Are exorcisms a thing here, do you think?”

[heirring]

"Certainly not," she says with every appearance of confidence. At the very least, she has never heard of something so ridiculous as all that and she has been in Thedas and dealing with all manner of spirits and demons for quite some time, thank you very much.

"Although I believe that spirits can sometimes be bargained with. And if it cannot and is inhabiting an object of some kind, we likely need only destroy the object to be rid of it. De Foncé and I have in the past had some difficulties with that sort of thing. Would you care to sit there at the bottom step for a moment and consider our options? I don't mind waiting if you feel at all dizzy."

She says all this cheerfully enough despite the recent assault on his person and the intermittent percussive thumping from beyond the door which suggests that there may be other items being strewn sulkily about by whatever spirit is waiting for them. Her hand too has remained firmly on the door's handle so she might wield the whole door a little like a shield. This unconscious defense mechanism is entirely rational right up until the moment that the door is dredged forcefully open and Wysteria is yanked into the cellar with it with a startled squawk.

[portalling]

The man bristles at that inadvertent sleight, his metaphorical feathers puffing up. Excuse you: “Ma’am, I’m fine to continue. I’m not sure if you registered when I said that this really is any regular Tuesday for me. I’m perfectly capable of—”

And then the door finally slams open and Wysteria vanishes, and he’s left blinking owlishly at the blank space which had been occupied, a moment earlier, by his Riftwatch colleague. Then, swearing, Strange hauls on that door until it lets him slip through and then barrel straight into the basement, red cape fluttering decoratively behind him.

And seeing the room again in full view, it really is a mess. He shakes out his hand and the hum of his own magic joins that acrid smell of it in the damp air, a taste in the back of the throat. He summons a glowing shield, and uses it to bat another flying piece of scholarship aside (fleeting glimpse of the title: Beyond the Veil, oh, he’d read that, it was a good one).

“De Foncé!” he shouts. “Or— spirit! I’ve come to bargain!”

This is a reference that is lost on both Wysteria and the spirit, if it’s listening. Instead, that invisible energy scales up and heaves a chair at him.

It doesn’t seem very interested in bargaining.