MOD PLOT ↠ HOME FOR RIFTMAS

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone (more or less)
WHAT: Rifter Show & Tell & Steal.
WHEN: Early Wintermarch 9:49 (forward-dated!)
WHERE: The Crossroads and BEYOND.
NOTES: OOC post. Please use appropriate content warnings in your subject lines.

Since Corypheus began opening the Gates, Riftwatch has been noticing pockets of instability in the Crossroads—crumbling platforms, paths newly blocked by rubble or broken bridges, sections where gravity has been shifted and altered in ways unusual even for the Crossroads, with new intrusions of green-tinged rock outcroppings or corners of temple walls. The barriers between the Crossroads, the Fade, and the world are thinning. It's a problem.

But more recently, Riftwatch has been made aware of an ancient artifact known (now; one hopes this isn't its original title) as the Sealing Stone, now in pieces scattered throughout the Crossroads, and the approximate locations of those pieces. If brought together and activated, the Stone may stabilize the barrier between the Crossroads and the other realms and may provide a model Riftwatch could use to reinforce the Veil elsewhere.

So Riftwatch ventures into the Crossroads to retrieve the pieces of the Stone. It's an intensive effort undertaken by large teams, due to the many now-familiar hazards of the Crossroads, the potential for encountering the Venatori that also use the eluvian network, and the need to cover ground as quickly as possible in hopes of finding the artifacts before the Venatori notice the increased Crossroads activity and come join the hunt.

It's not as simple as merely locating the pieces, however. Whenever a group of Riftwatchers get near enough to one of the artifacts, they're alerted first by the triggering of a sort of protection mechanism. In some cases—specifically, on teams without any rifters—spirits suddenly swarm from the metaphorical woodwork in numbers so great and with such hostility that retreat is the only viable option. The spirits chase the teams only as far as necessary to push them away from the artifact's location, then mass into a circling shoal, guarding the spot until they're left alone long enough to decide the risk has passed.

But for groups containing at least one rifter, something with the mechanism goes wrong. Or right, arguably. Rather than being overwhelmed by spirits, they instead find themselves abruptly engulfed by what appears to be a rift, opening suddenly and rapidly large enough to swallow entire masses of people before contracting again to lie in wait like a carnivorous plant for anyone else who comes too close. Those caught in its radius tumble out into what appears to be a new and unfamiliar world–for most. For one or more of the rifters in each group, it will be perfectly familiar.

The first group to encounter this effect will be one including Tony Stark and Stephen Strange, and will drop them and their compatriots straight into midtown traffic. Any groups attempting to travel to the same spot in the Crossroads to investigate the apparent vanishing—whether they have rifters with them or not—will find themselves drawn through the same "rift" almost as soon as they get within sight of the place, before anything can be discerned about their lost fellows. They will likewise emerge into Stark & Strange's United States.

Subsequent groups including other rifters will be seemingly drawn into their companions' worlds by the same effect. In each, Riftwatch will have to navigate local hazards and retrieve a distinctive lyrium-etched artifact, at which point the world will dissolve around them like a dream and they will find themselves back in the Crossroads where they began, in possession of a carved chunk of stone glowing with lyrium runes.

1 ↠ MCU Earth-199999

Alternate-universe Earth, New York and Los Angeles, 2012-2025, Tony Stark & Stephen Strange.

Earth-199999 is very much like contemporary Earth as we know it, featuring the same historic events, same nations, same conventions. For the average person, there is no difference, except that they know magic and aliens and gods and superpowers are all real and have been causing problems for a while now, with NYC as the hub for most of the shenanigans. MCU Earth has also made leaps and bounds in all science fields as compared to real Earth, although these leaps and bounds are not widely accessible, primarily exclusive to private organisations like Stark Industries, mad scientists, and the likes of SHIELD, but can range from interactive three-dimensional holograms through to biotechnology that turns people into supersoldiers.

It's commonplace to see or hear about criminals causing havoc in the streets with superpowers or gadgets, and crime-fighting vigilantes trying to stop them. The Avengers, as the world's first superheroes, became widely-known commercialised celebrities in-universe with merchandise, documentaries, book deals, and memorial murals to the deceased Iron Man.

Special Abilities: Everyone is nerfed to regular human, unless you want a sudden onset of mutant powers. 1 individual themed ability per character; like pyrokinesis, superspeed, superstrength, etc.

Arrival: One main rift opens in the middle of New York City, ejecting our rifters into midtown traffic… except thanks to Strange’s own multiversal mishaps, people in this world will seem astonishingly accustomed to this sight! Bystanders will be startled, but then the rifters will likely be dogged by strangers snapping photos and videos and tweeting about their arrival.

The Fade-constructed timeline will be a little off: the old Avengers tower and its penthouse is still standing and still accessible to Tony, and Strange will also offer up the Sanctum as a sanctuary, and these will be the main mission hubs while the team gets their bearings and tries to locate the artifact. In the meantime: relax, take in the sights, maybe check out a Broadway show, wrangle your new superpowers.

A secondary rift also opens up on Hollywood Boulevard, in case people want to do some helplessly stranded on Earth RP. Tony can very easily find out this has happened and go collect them, with various degrees of efficiency according to what people want out of that OOCly. As this universe will be available to explore for a few IC weeks, people can assume some degree of Stark-provided financial freedom for basics (i.e. clothes and food, burner phones, etc), and they can stay in the Avengers tower and/or the Sanctum.

2 ↠ Shifterverse

Original alternate-universe Earth, Midwest US, 2022, Jude Adjei.

Real-world 2022, but what if Shifters?

Special Abilities: All superpowers are unfortunately nerfed. However, everyone's a Shifter now. Your choice of animal. Enjoy.

Arrival: Everyone will arrive in Yellowstone National Park, which is wholly staffed and operated by Jude's pack, but... not in an area where tourists are routinely and happily welcomed. Welcome to the deep woods and canyons and plains, where Jude's pack has built their den for some several hundred people. Characters will immediately be found by scouts in fur and feathers, who will be guarded and curious, but not hostile. The wolves and ravens will greet the interlopers as equals, and if they aren't offered any violence, they'll be treated as guests. Hundreds of pack members live in a mixture of hand-built cabin homes and meeting places, portable tiny houses and various shared spaces. There is wifi, a greenhouse, lots of tasty food and warm clothing to wear. If they stay several days and prove themselves trustworthy, they might even start to see children out and about, and there's nothing cuter than a toddler who can become a wolf pup at will. (Mind the raven toddlers and the bear cubs. They're less cute.)

3 ↠ Tassia

D&D Original World, Loxley & Richard Dickerson

Tassia is an original Dungeons&Dragons inspired world, a single continent divided into four nations that is otherwise completely isolated from any other possible world beyond it. These nations are Lloryndell, Sylvica, Ifrin, and Promias, and at its centre lies the Cruxal, a university-city of diverse cultural influence.

While Tassia resembles Thedas in its day-to-day technology levels, including its anachronisms, it is more heavily laden with fantastical elements. Along with humans, elves, and dwarves, there are goblins, dragonborn, tritons, tieflings, sentient robots, bird people, centaurs, and more (https://www.dndbeyond.com/races) (but no qunari). There are many different kinds of magic users who wield their powers openly. There are shops full of magic items, potions, and spell scrolls. There are monsters of countless kinds that lurk just about everywhere. Most cultures in the material plane are polytheistic and worship themed gods from the default D&D (Faerun) Pantheon. Some smaller cults and individuals worship ancient fey, fiendish, and eldritch beings who dwell on the outskirts of their respective planes and may provide power to the exceptionally loyal -- for a price.

Special Abilities: You can choose to be a normal depowered person, but you are equally encouraged to take on magical abilities, whether you're a mage or not. In brief, you can be a wizard, whose magic comes from spellbooks and knowledge, a sorcerer, who have innate magical abilities, a bard, who draws their magic from music, words, and performance, a warlock, who has made a pact with a powerful entity in exchange of magical ability, a druid, who draws their magic from nature, and a cleric, whose divine abilities are gifted to them by a deity. (Other classes have magic too, but it might be easier to pick one of these major ones if you are unfamiliar!)

Rather than overthinking it, we recommend you pick whatever sounds fun to flavour your magic with, and then browse magical spells using classes as a filter. (Eighth and ninth level are off limits, and it may be easier to limit yourself further due to how many spells there are.) Given the temporariness of these powers, don't worry too much about how many spells you get or how frequently you can do them, but know that higher level spells (anything above fifth) can only be cast one or twice a day.

Your character may be Tassia-ised, in terms of their race, but in a limited capacity. All humans will stay human, but elves may adopt D&D traits like seeing in the dark.

Arrival: Rifts will open in the streets of the Cruxal. People will be startled by the sudden appearance of rifters and stand offish, but otherwise: they've seen it all before! No one will be calling the guard on you, unless you decide to start something, so please don't. Or enjoy jail.

The Cruxal is a labyrinthian melting pot built up in concentric rings around a massive central university and library. Goblins scarper among humans, elves, and dwarves in the street. There are tusked half orcs and horned, scale-clad dragonborn mixed in among more familiar silhouettes. This is a university town, but while a large portion of the population are students, academics, and staff, it is also self-sustaining, with taverns, shops, temples, brothels, residences, and marketways.

The university itself is guarded and degrees of entry closely regulated due to the school’s extensive collection of dangerous artifacts -- one of which just so happens to have gone missing last night. News of the theft has been suppressed, but every temple, tavern, and brothel on the outskirts of town is abuzz with the rumor. The entire corridor, they say, was scorched black.

Loxley and Richard won't be too concerned about herding everyone but can provide some coin as needed for inn rooms and food. They appear to have a near bottomless stash, at least as far as living costs go.

4 ↠ Sulleciel

Original fantasy world, Petrana de Cedoux.

What if magic was real and holy emperors still kissed the ring in Rome, until someone beheaded the fucking pope? Welcome to Sulleciel, and specifically to Lamor City, capitol of Lamorre and the seat of the Lamorran empire, ruled over by Empereur Marius IX and his consort, Empress Petrana Solene. A nation and empire in the throes, still, of great upheaval — think Versailles or Orlais, but lurching ungainly out of its dark ages into a theoretically more enlightened time, control of which is being actively fought in the halls of power and at grassroots levels of social influence. Power vacuums abound, thanks to the fall of the church and the rise of a conqueror who is less interested in ruling than he was conquering; women are still the often-illiterate property of their fathers and husbands, but now there are more alternatives to family and marital homes, and dedicated studies of witchcraft are being encouraged, with pilot programs across the empire primarily in those early sanctuary cities, figuring out how this is all going to work. Known for her efforts to lean on the scales in the people's favour Petrana herself is, in this era, rumored to be imprisoned; graffiti of her crowned likeness can be found in some places in the city, with the epithet ""la reine du malheur"".

Special Abilities: In Sulleciel, magic is a skill that may be pursued like any other — and there are those of more or less talent, as if someone were to attempt the violin, or swordplay. It is practised primarily through incantations and foci, with more elaborate spellwork for more ambitious results sometimes requiring particular items or a full coven to achieve. As magic is limited in Sulleciel only by the will, imagination and stamina of those practising it, no one coming here will be subject to any nerfs; all mages and otherwise magical or powered individuals will be able to use their powers as they're used to using them. In addition to this, anyone who is as magical as a chair-leg ordinarily can feel free to have a go at Sulleciel's magic — it's up to you if they have a knack for it or not. Simple spells like casting a light or telekinesis of small objects can be mastered by toddlers; a powerful enough witch or coven might be able to summon a thunderstorm and alter weather patterns, but ""can"" and ""should"" are different and it's generally advised that you try not to do a climate change.
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Arrival: The rift will open into a spacious, luxuriously-appointed tower on the grounds of the imperial palace but not visibly connected to it above-ground. It was at one point the sole domain of the previous arciduc's personal astronomers, but is now the primary residence and working space of the Queen's Coven. The Queen's Coven is a particular group of women, so named for having been among the first witches to come beneath the new regime's protection in the first city-state to bend the knee where Petrana was first installed as Queen Regent; they are private, secretive, and increasingly cut off from the power-struggles of the imperial court, having been actively distanced from the Empress herself by a variety of other players in the game. Both relatively prepared for sudden magical happenings and inclined to keep shit in the tower on lock, they will be prepared to pass you all off as "foreign witches, seeking our enlightenment" and see both you and the sudden access to Petrana as potentially useful in their maneuverings. Which will make moving around easier, but will probably be an active hindrance to getting where and what you need. An underground tunnel connects the tower directly to the palace, though there are also pleasant, covered pathways to walk across the palace grounds; guards at the main, above-ground entrance to the tower will inquire about movements to and from, and will be skeptical but limit their interference initially ... as long as they don't see Petrana.

5 ↠ Kalvad

Original fantasy world, Wysteria Poppell.

Kalvad—specifically the city of Somerset, the magic capitol of the civilized world—is a mashup of Regency Era and Industrial-Revolution-But-Magic! Nebulously England (with the serial numbers aggressively filed off). When in doubt, default to Jane Austen vibes. But if it seems fun to do some weird magic-powered technological advancements, then go nuts.

Kalvad is an imperial island nation ostensibly ruled by three kings, though they're largely figureheads overseeing an upper and lower parliament. The country has made itself rich and powerful by doing a whole lot of war and colonization. As historically one of the most magically powerful regions in the world, magicians have long been a vital tool in the empire's efforts to do both those things.

Unfortunately for Kalvad, the strength of magic in the world has waned considerably in the last 40 years. Where once Talent was rare but reasonably powerful, magic users are both becoming more commonplace and considerably weaker. Even older magicians and hedge-witches who once might have manufactured considerable arcane feats have seen some diminishing of their powers. A popular, but unproven, theory in academic circles is that those with Talent all draw from the same "well" of magic. As more people are born with the ability to tap into that resource, the less there is to go around. Resentment for those with weaker Talents among older generations of magic users is A Thing.

That said, increased availability of minor magics has kick-started a 'minor magic' powered industrial revolution. Parlor witches who perform small arcane conveniences are growing in number; minor charms and enchantments have become more readily available to lower classes. Meanwhile, the non-magical population is slowly being shunted out of their respective cottage industry jobs and into factories powered by great enchanted machines. The empire as the world knows it is clearly teetering on the brink of major social and political upheaval, both at home and abroad. The consequences of all this change just haven't quite played themselves out yet, though you can bet there are people rushing around in an attempt to cover their asses before they do.

Special Abilities Characters will be nerfed of any abilities they had in Thedas, but can be Talented in Kalvad terms or not. Any Talented character under 40 is likely to be able to produce only minor magics (think lighting fires in fireplaces, being able to heal minor injuries, and temporarily being able to enchant objects to do one specific thing). Anyone over forty can be a little flashier (think appearance altering glamors, temporary invisibility, transfiguration and significant healing). General magic flavor is: Brothers Grimm fairy tales and Arthurian legends, except that someone somewhere made all that weirdly pliable magic adhere to a strict ruleset. Easy, thoughtless channeling of magic is a secret lost long before the arcane powers in the world began to diminish. Now, all magic must be carefully and deliberately designed and constructed. The magicians most accomplished by Kalvadan standards are methodical and patient. Think clockmakers and mathematicians, not wizards on the side of a van.

Arrival: Members of Riftwatch will arrive through a rift and find themselves on the wooded outskirts of a sprawling city. Luckily, no one will witness their initial arrival. Even more convenient: once they've gotten their bearings and made their way into the city, they'll discover they aren't the only weird strangers in town (although they may want to strongly consider indulging in petty theft to make themselves stick out less—particularly as it comes time to infiltrate places). It seems that a sprawling months-long academic conference turned party turned cover for political intrigue and cold warfare has descended upon Somerset.

In the aftermath of what everyone is claiming to be a major military victory somewhere, delegations from a number of implicated countries have converged on the city at the invitation of the Kalvadan Crowns in order to share and demonstrate their various technical and arcane achievements. The World's Fair-like atmosphere has drawn a number of non-Talented tourists, scheming politicians, and cutthroat spies along with the legitimately academically and/or magically inclined.

While Somerset is something of a city of wonders by the world's estimation, it's still first and foremost a dirty and crowded industrial hub in a world that has yet to bother with paving all its major roads. The conference has quadrupled that effect, transforming it into a riot of sights, sound, and (often to its detriment) smells. At this point, finding a room and board in the city has become less a question of where you want to stay and more one of how many other people you're willing to timeshare a bed with.

Luckily, it doesn't seem like Riftwatch will be sticking around long. Some snooping around the of pamphleting/gossip will reveal that the artifact they're after is likely to be found in the grand exhibition hall, and that there will be an opportunity to get their hands on it that evening.

6 ↠ Abeir-Toril

D&D Forgotten Realms, Astarion

The D&D continent of Faerûn is loosely based on Eurasia—if it ran entirely on magic, was roughly stuck somewhere in the 14th century forever, and was filled to the brim with elves, dragons, gnolls, faeries, gods, demi-gods, and just about any myth (or mythological creature) you’ve ever encountered in your life. For the purpose of simplicity, everyone from Riftwatch is going to get plunked down in the titular Baldur’s Gate: the city is massive, it’s known as the jewel of Faerûn, and its cultures, districts, trades and pastimes reflect that remarkable splendor. Still, think of it like Kirkwall in that there are some pretty damn rigid socioeconomic divides separating the city via districts. QUICK GUIDE.

The Upper City is the fancy part of town where nobles (known as Patriar) and their servants live, and it also houses the city’s government and key recreational buildings. There are no bars, pubs, taverns or drinking halls. Anything rowdy happens behind closed doors, and if you don't have an invitation, you'd better look for fun somewhere else. Magical enchantments and lanterns make it beyond stunning at night to stroll through. Lower City is more varied: you’ll find taverns, shops, tons of entertainment and ample trade, as well as pirates by the docks (and their ships), and the harbor waters are absolutely gorgeous for sailing on calm days. Doors are shut and locked during nighttime hours aside from taverns, inns or gambling parlors. Visibility is also lower at night when harbor fog rolls in, particularly where poorer residents can't afford oil, tallow or magic every night. The Undercity stretches deep (and hidden) beneath both the Upper and Lower Cities: it begins at its most shallow within the city as sewers and along seawall cliffs as open-mouthed caves. The deeper you go, the worse it gets: undead catacombs, cultists, temples, blood sport and bloody magic prevail alongside monsters too dangerous to clear out. Outer City sucks. There's almost next to no law or order, and is inherently dangerous to explore. Treat it like Lowtown for the most part, and you'll be pretty smack on (slavers and actual kind impoverished poor included).

CULTURE: Baldur’s Gate is primarily run by humans, and to a lesser extent, elves. Other races aren’t really considered a foothold here, but they’re more than welcome in the city and treated exceptionally well with a few exceptions here and there (ogres, trolls, more ferally inclined goblins, etc). This is not at all like Thedas: someone more familiar with discrimination against non-humans, certain pairings and particularly mages wouldn't find it here. Most of the time if you dress nicely and carry yourself well, you’ll be well respected. Or robbed. Or both!

Special Abilities: Characters will be adjusted to fit D&D, and powers are optional for all. For D&D’s magic/power/race everything, please take a look at some basic classes.

Arrival: Characters will arrive via rifts torn into the Outer City, just along its riverfront sprawl. They won’t be too far from the city gates, but witnesses to the scene will be inclined to gossip and gawk, assuming everything from a freak magical incident to believing the new arrivals are wealthy travelers from somewhere far and exotic, who simply missed their mark in teleporting to the Upper City for sightseeing. Anyone wearing Thedosian clothes will be fine to go without changing— wearing something more modern or say, nothing at all for some reason, will definitely require staging some kind of Terminator II style clothing (theft) acquisition in order to fit in.

Ideally, the team will at least want to make their way into Lowtown in order to begin snooping around, but it’s a big damn city to say the least, and information is expensive. Astarion will help within reason, but being a vampire means that he can only afford to fund so much on his own.

Might be a good idea to do some fetch quests or live your best Adventuring Party life, because you’re all going to likely be here for a (time distorted) relative while.

7 ↠ Orphan Black

Alternate-Universe Earth, 2014; Toronto, Canada; Cosima Neihaus.

Real-world mid-2010s, but secret unethical biology/biotech experiments including viable human cloning in the mid 1980s. Carrying out such technologically advanced work is a combination of international organizations including a private research company, at least one paramilitary organization and a shadowy organization that oversees both. (Orphan Black also features minor differences from our world typical of its genre, such as plot-convenient hacking and variably competent law enforcement, but the cloning project and related scientific offshoots are the most salient differences.) Relevant to this plot in particular, the Dyad Institute is a private organization, considered ""fringe"" by the mainstream scientific community, devoted to research related to human evolution and biotechnology. Some of its many employees had connections to the ""neolutionism"" community, the members of which believed human evolution should be actively shaped by scientific and technological intervention. The organization was responsible for the project that created Cosima and her sisters roughly 30 years before in-world present day. Also at the moment they're jumping to, Cosima works there, it's complicated. (If anyone is familiar with the canon, we're jumping in circa season two.)
A tiny pinboard.

Special Abilities: None, you're all just unpowered humans. Sorry/you're welcome.

Arrival: The group arrives at what turns out to be a nondenominational winter party for a local school; there are some mild shenanigans as Cosima clocks that it's a school attended by children she knows, and more pressingly, partially overseen by their mother, who has Cosima's face. Cosima press gangs one or more other people into helping her hide her own face while negotiating with Alison to borrow her minivan. She shuttles the group to Alison's large suburban Toronto home, which becomes the FR group's base of operation. (It is perhaps telling that while Alison finds this frustrating, she and her husband Donnie do sort of roll with it also.) If desired/depending on how big the group is, Cosima could also stow some Riftwatchers with Felix, the foster brother of one of her other clones, who has a big artsy loft downtown. She is not against taking anyone to her place, but she's a grad student; it's not huge. Everyone who knows how to use a phone or can be trusted to figure it out with a tutorial gets a burner phone for convenience. (Perhaps additionally telling how quickly Alison gets everyone a burner phone. She also decorates the protective cases for them. No, it's not optional.)

8 ↠ The Last of Us

Post-Apocalyptic Earth, Spring 2038, Seattle, Abby Lasterson & Ellie Williams.

This world was ours until 2013, when a worldwide pandemic broke out overnight. A fungus (cordyceps) that had originally infected mainly insects adapted to infect human beings. Anyone bitten by an infected person or who has breathed in a significant or concentrated amount of fungal spores becomes infected themselves. Over a maximum of two days, they utterly lose their humanity and deteriorate into violent monsters, eventually sprouting spores and fungal plates. There is no known cure, and the only human being ever known to be immune is Ellie Williams. 25 or so years later, humanity has crumbled into various factions in a struggle to survive. First came the Federal (FEDRA) response, resulting in Quarantine Zones and martial law. Life in the zones is highly regulated, with work assignments and rations that often aren't enough to go around. Many citizens are forced to turn to crime just to make ends meet. Orphaned children become wards of the state and are trained to become FEDRA soldiers by the time they're sixteen.

Various civilian groups rose up to rebel against FEDRA, forming factions such as the Fireflies (rebels who recruited scientists in an effort to find a cure), and the Washington Liberation Front (a militia-minded organization who overthrew FEDRA in Seattle). There are other smaller groups such as the religious zealots called the Seraphites, or the violent slavers known as the Rattlers.

Few and far between are independent human settlements like Jackson of Wyoming, where small communities have managed to gain self-sufficiency and safety with tireless group effort and highly vigilant defenders. They bolster their numbers by welcoming peaceful outsiders and engaging in trade with travelers.

Living outside of these groups, people are largely on their own, vulnerable to packs of hunters, bandits and even cannibals that prey on anyone brave enough to risk travel.

The infected are an ever-present threat everywhere, and the world is a ruin quickly being reclaimed by nature. (cw: body horror in the link) See board for world aesthetic and depictions of the Infected.

Special Abilities: Everyone is a normal human here. No supernatural powers, no magic, no non-humans.

Arrival: Welcome one of Ellie and Abby's least favorite places: Seattle. The Space Needle is visible in the distance, so despite the advanced state of decay, it's actually recognizable. Except it's been bombed, and rotting, and nature's reclaimed it for the last quarter-century. This adventure won't be for the faint of heart; there are no home bases and no safe space to be had. All clothing, supplies, weaponry and food are things you'll need to find yourself. Everyone can assume they'll get a quick lesson in gun safety and a rundown on various types of infected. Multiple rifts will open, so feel free to appear anywhere in the city (even apart from others) but expect to find no native allies. The city of Seattle is embroiled in civil war between the Seraphites (a religious cult who rejects anything "old world" and scars their faces, called "Scars") and the Washington Liberation Front (a ruthless mercenary coalition, called "Wolves") and both sides will assume you're with the other group and attack on sight. Better pick up a brick.

Comments

[favoriteanalyst]

Mobius nods along. The skill had been useful in helping break himself and Astarion out of a horrifying illusion. Maybe if he manages it here, they'll land on their asses back where they should be.

On the other hand, the magic might flow right back in and sweep them back into the illusion all over again. Hard to say.

There is a moment when Strange asks if he can do it at all that Mobius hesitates. Not because he's not comfortable doing it, but because Strange has either heard the persistent (true) rumor about him or because he took the explanation of what can be done as an admittance that he can do it. Which is also true. But there's no condemnation in Strange's voice, no hesitation on his part. Is it compartmentalization, the idea that he sees it, acknowledges it, sets aside any potential emotions because it's useful? Or is it that Strange is new enough and distanced from it enough not to have any strong opinions on the matter?

Every mage has a strong fucking opinion on the matter, even the ones without context. Because someone that can shut down magic is automatically a danger to them. Hm.

Question it later.

"I'll try and keep from getting you caught up in it." Like shaking off the dust from an old blanket. He takes a breath, relaxes his shoulders. Queues up a few potent stanzas from the Chant, in case.

"For the record, I hope this isn't a magical bullshit illusion and that we're really where it seems like we are."

For all their sakes.

[portalling]

Strange hadn’t really stopped to consider it, but yep, that’ll definitely be a question for later.

But he’s standing ready on that landing now, his hand splayed against the door. “For the record: same,” he says, and then shoves that door open.

And inside is… yes, just a comfortable living room. There are curtains drawn over the windows, a long studded-button leather sofa, an older model of flatscreen TV, and Wong sprawled comfortably in his robes. Sometimes there’s a woman named Madisynn joining for the watch parties, but she’s not here tonight; there is, however, a novice in the background doing some dull re-shelving.

“Wong— did we catch you at a bad time? Can you pause? The fate of a world depends on it.”

“You always say the fate of the world depends on it,” Wong grouses, popping more buttered popcorn in his mouth, then straightening from his ungainly sprawl. It would look very undignified, the Sorcerer Supreme dozing off on the sofa.

“Yes, well. That’s because it’s usually the case. This is Mobius, by the way, I think you’ve met in passing.”

Wong does pause the stream. And he’s looking up at the both of them now: mild, unfussed, unbothered and with no urgency in his expression at all.

(He has always looked strangely unfussed about the Theodosians’ multiversal predicament. Maybe that’s the problem.)

“We have a globe, a crystal, a string, and a gem,” Strange continues. “I’d like your assistance, pooling our magical abilities together to scry for the Sealing Stone. It’s been weeks and—”

It’s like a shutter slams down, Wong’s expression turning even stiffer than before. “No, I don’t think I can,” he says, crisply, frostily, and Strange exchanges a Look™ with Mobius.

“Maybe try,” Strange says, and there’s a building irritation buzzing in his voice — and wariness.

[favoriteanalyst]

Mobius is happy to let Strange do the talking. His (supposed) friend, his world, his understand of how magic is supposed to work. Happy to just stand to the side, give a small wave, and watch the work go down.

And go down it starts doing. Rapidly down, the moment Strange mentions the stone, the way the Sorcerer Supreme (what a pretentious fucking title, by the way) seems to simply shut down and close off from any form of friendliness.

"Have you stopped to consider why I have not been helping you in this quest?" Wong asks, and never has someone setting aside a bowl of popcorn and covered in buttery crumbs to stand look so oddly menacing.

"Think it's crossed his mind and everyone else's at least once." So sue him, Mobius can't stand to let a bit of sarcasm slide if there's such an inviting opening.

"Because it's foolish. No such object you describe exists. I was hoping with enough time you would see that for yourself."

"It does exist. Somewhere, here, it has to. We know it does. With all this...multiverse nonsense, maybe it's got some kind of magical plane- frequency- that's just different enough from yours to mask it." Mobius hefts the globe under and arm and makes a beseeching motion with the other. "At the very least, you could make some kind of effort to get us home."

Wong-not-Wong's attention goes to Mobius and stays there for once. "Why are you so keen on leaving?"

And for a baffled, befuddled moment, Mobius doesn't have an immediate answer.

Back to Strange: "Why are you determined to go back to a place you don't belong? We need you here. The safety of this reality is your sworn duty."

Which might also be right about the time it's clear the novice's full attention is on what's happening, standing very still. Rather than scurrying out of the room or quietly keeping their head down and to their own duties. At attention. Mobius is pretty sure that's not a good sign.

[portalling]

It really doesn’t bode well. Normally the novices are meek little mice, scuttling around underfoot, outright terrified whenever they’re addressed directly by one of the full-fledged sorcerers. Even moreso when it’s Stephen Strange; Wong, at least, has spent more time here and is well-liked around the Sanctum, and they don’t mind dealing with him. Whereas Doctor Strange is acerbic and he’d been missing for five years. They naturally prefer the other one.

But now there’s an indefinable tension in the air, the sensation of an indrawn breath.

Strange is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mobius, and doesn’t that feel unusual, too— normally he and Wong are the united front, the team, the partners—

Wong’s questions are good ones, though. If this universe is real.

“I’ve asked you a few times about the temporal anomaly,” Strange says, a non-sequitur, his tone deceptively light, “and you’ve never given me a satisfactory answer. You’re usually so eager to explain things to me. And yet, no working theories or curiosity into how or why Midtown’s split between two different decades? Normally that’s something the Masters of the Mystic Arts would be very interested in. So I have a hypothesis.”

Wong’s mouth thins even further. “You’re losing your mind, Strange, if you’re doubting your own reality. You merely crossed universes, and then came back. You’ve done it before.”

The novice has put down the book she was shelving. Wong is on his feet. Not good.

Strange adds, “And to answer your question, Wong: you’re Sorcerer Supreme here. Your duty is to this reality, if this is reality. Me, I like to think my scope has broadened. I have a responsibility to other worlds too. And,” oh, there’s the rub, “shouldn’t you be worried about an incursion if they stay?”

[favoriteanalyst]

There's more going on here that Mobius doesn't have an understanding of or context for. Because it's the comment about an incursion that seems to really tip the scale.

It's nothing, at first. An absence. And in a place full of magic tingling the air in a way that feels so much like home in the Circle, it's an alarming sensation. It isn't that the magic itself has stopped, but it's also like taking a deep breath, the crack of tension before a fight, the water receding back only for a much larger wave to gather. Neither Wong nor the novice move, and Mobius idly wonders if they perhaps aren't even breathing.

In more modern terms, it's almost like buffering. Whatever spirits these are, if they are, then they simply don't have an adequate answer for the posed question, and they're just getting pissed now.

And then, too, he feels it before he sees it, and he grabs Strange's strangely mobile and sentient-ish(?) cloak and pulls back with a quick "sorry" to the fabric.

Because the floor under their feet starts to open up like a great gaping maw, edges of the boards like teeth. The novice's hands move in a kind of flurry that a mere novice shouldn't be able to yet, and she crosses the gap with easy on magical platforms that appear when needed and vanish when her foot leaves it again.

On an impulse, Mobius chucks the globe. The novice deflects it with ease, and not-Wong catches it in one hand. It starts to disintegrate into sparks.

"Okay, I think we've got an answer!" Not real. Definitely not real! Not their version of real, at any rate.

[portalling]

“Not exactly the answer I wanted!” Strange yelps back, catching his balance. Despite all the trepidation, the suspicions, Tony’s warnings to not get too close to the potential spirits just in case, it still feels like the rug’s been yanked out from under him. The bottom dropping out, upon receiving that sheer objective confirmation. This is not Wong.

They are not home. This is not the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Because the Sanctum has always protected Stephen Strange, has been a literal safe haven, has folded him into its rooms when he needed a safe landing spot, and he’d been its lone defender when Kaecilius attacked,

but now the floorboards buck beneath them, like a disgruntled beast trying to heave them off its back. Mobius yanks him by the cloak and Strange skitter-steps backward before he can fall right through to the floor below.

He drops all his scrying accessories, because fuck it, they have bigger problems now, and he flings a shield between them and the other sorcerers. That golden mandala shimmers into existence and the novice’s flame whip crashes harmlessly against the shield, those fiery tendrils reaching out for them, hungry. They’re the intruders now. He and Mobius have been classified as intruders. Christ. Strange moves further back, backpedalling them out of the lounge, but —

They pass through the door, and the hallway tips sideways.

[favoriteanalyst]

This sucks.

Which is an understatement, yes, but not only are the spirits inhabiting this place going on the offensive, the entire structure has turned against them. This place that has served as home away from home for weeks. Mages have never been able to do that before.

What he needs is a weapon. He doesn't have any magic in return (not for occasional lack of trying, you know, just in case), which means he needs a weapon or a shield or literally anything in his shit hands to protect himself. He could...he could try to summon up the ability to cut off magic from this place. Already running some verses from Trials through his head, a perpetual prayer to set his nerves to steel, to try and gather the power of the Maker's will inside of him. But he has no idea if he can. Has no idea what might happen if he does.

They back in a haste into the hall and everything twists, and his feet can't keep hold of the floor anymore, because it isn't the floor anymore. His shoulder hits the wall at an odd angle, and he rolls and straightens until his feet are straddling the line between wall and floor, and then the hallway slides further until he's running along the wall itself. And none of the objects are moving; they stay put as though gravity has no say here.

It probably doesn't.

Well, if the building and its residents are against them, and this place is a construct of the mind and magic, then he has no reason to care about any priceless artifacts, now, does he? There's a vase that looks worth at least a thousand gold on a little table, and he hefts it up, chucks it. It shatters into a hundred pieces by the magical whip of the novice. "Yeah," he puffs, "okay, I'm gonna need something a little more weapon-y."

In the meantime, he hops over paintings, a mirror he rips from the floor-wall as a makeshift shield, and--

--a hand reaches out of a portrait to grab him by the ankle. The damn green-robed bushy-browed son of a bitch in all his oily texture. Mobius kicks, trying to shake himself free. "I really kind of hate your place, Strange!"

[portalling]

“It used to be better!”

And it is, still, fantastical and magical and beautiful — it’s just also trying to kill them now. Strange is running alongside Mobius, only to notice after a moment that there’s a conspicuous empty space beside him and the other man is suddenly missing. He skids to a halt, the Cloak billowing like a drag chute to curtail his movement, and then the Cloak itself spins around and chivvies him back down the hallway towards the fallen templar. There’s a gnarled hand coming out of the painting, and Strange grabs an antique Tiffany-styled lamp (with a little wince) and shatters that priceless glass mosaic over its wrist. The fingers clutch, retreat.

Strange catches Mobius’ hand instead. Hauls him back up to his feet, where they can keep running along— oh, the ceiling, they’re on the ceiling now, as the world continues to twist around them as if some cosmic being is taking the corridor and wringing it out like a towel. It’s uniquely dizzying, disorienting, almost nausea-inducing, but Strange seems unfazed by it. He’s accustomed to the mirror dimension. He knows how to navigate reality as it bends.

“There are weapons in the attic upstairs, and we can get through the Rotunda of Gateways to Stark Tower.”

If they don’t make it through that doorway, though, they’ll have to detour back down to the ground floor and exiting through the front door. He’s considering.

He hates the idea of being ejected from his former home like some hairball, but clearly they can’t stay here: the nearest door on the wall is starting to vibrate, thrumming with arcane energy, and it opens and oh, jesus, is that a tentacle reaching for them?? Stranger rebuffs it with another shield, another yelp.

[favoriteanalyst]

The hallway just keeps twisting, and, unless he's gone crazy, he's also pretty sure it's getting longer? It definitely seems longer than it was just a minute ago.

"And how do you propose we get upstairs?" Given that the stairs keep changing where they're oriented, and given that if they pick the wrong time, they'll fall either up (down?!) the stairwell or back down (up?!) to the ceiling. "Better," with a puff, "to get out as soon as--Andraste's sake!"

Sure! Sure, tentacles as if from some massive sea beast! Yeah, okay! That's happening, and he drops to a slide that turns into a tumble under another thick and slimy appendage. It leaves a trail of mucous on the floor/wall/ceiling/wherever it hits. The apprentice doesn't give a shit about the ever-twisting hallway, given she's still bouncing around in the air on her little orange disks, lashes out with another long-range attack. Mobius holds up the mirror, and he's frankly shocked to find the attack sparks off the reflective surface rather than breaking his impromptu shield like a sheet of parchment.

Down the impossible hallway, the shockingly imposing figure of Wong steps into view, hands moving, walking along the floor and ignoring the pull of gravity. And each step forward is steady and purposeful. It's got real Terminator vibes. Which, no, Mobius hasn't watched it, but the vibes.

Okay. Maybe do this the hard way. "Get me somewhere I can plant my feet for two seconds."

[portalling]

Normally, the mirror dimension is a friend to him, a weapon to be used. Strange is accustomed to breaking reality, shattering it, splintering it into multiple pieces and pulling them back together, shunting enemies into mirrored prisons, but now that whole realm is turned against them. They need solid ground.

“Coming right up,” Strange says, and he digs around in his pockets — please god don’t drop the sling ring while they’re running — but he finds it, slips it onto a finger, and with the spin of a hand, he rips a hole in reality.

The area directly in front of them, rather than still being that endless hallway, is now somewhere else: a grand staircase, leading upstairs. He’d tried to open it directly to the outside world, but the building’s wards are humming like an overworked engine, jaws snapped shut, keeping them inside. But they leap through the glowing portal, landing on solid ground, where they can start running up that staircase so long as it doesn’t start coiling like a snake and trying to buck them off.

Behind them, Wong is still advancing.

“I’ve seen worse,” Strange mutters under his breath. He seals up the portal behind them, but it won’t last forever. “There are swords and shields in the cabinets,” he says, starting to scale the stairs. “Ordinarily I’d give you a whole schpiel about being careful about what you touch, blah blah blah, but this time, I think all bets are off— just grab whatever weaponry appeals to you.”

[favoriteanalyst]

Mobius is very glad he's in shape and has stayed in shape. He might be getting older, but good clean living and swords and shields keep him from needing a second to double over and catch his breath.

He keeps the mirror in hand as a makeshift shield, though he'll likely ditch it when he finds something he can hold better and strap to his arm. "How about one of those--what are they...shotguns, you got any shotguns?" Even if his hands are a bit shit, he could probably hold a shotgun pretty well. "Looks like those have some really good stopping power. A magic one would be better."

Just because he knows he's asking too much does not mean he's not going to ask for it. His feet hit the stairs, hot on Strange's tail, when they suddenly slide out from under him.

Because the stairs have folded in to become a slide.

"If we ever," Mobius puffs, shoes squeaking to get traction on the incline, "end up on your actual world, in your actual Sanctum," skidding a few times but finally managing to get momentum, "I'm just gonna stay somewhere else just in case."

The banisters curl up after them as though they've become sentient tendrils. They crash into the marble not-stairs behind him when he reaches, finally, flat floor and starts for the nearest cabinet. The doors of which start swinging open and closed madly, threatening any wandering fingers that come near. Just wood, but that can still do damage aplenty if he isn't careful. There are some spears decorating the walls, and some heftier gear on display behind glass.

Fuck it, it isn't like he's going to have to pay for the damages. He braces an arm and smashes a glass case, and a halberd is not anywhere near his weapon of choice, but it appeals to him a little more than some of the other readily available options.

Another sizzling portal opens, and the Wonginator marches through in the same place they had appeared. The slide snaps back into place as stairs, and Mobius gives a huff, spinning the halberd a few times. Plant his feet for two seconds it is.

"This is going to be unpleasant." It's the only verbal warning he gives Strange, because a loss of magic has got to feel weird, or so he imagines.

He faces the stairs and focuses. It feels...different, this time. Familiar energy gathering inside of him, but somehow to the left. It doesn't simply feel like calling on a divine power that then fills him; it feels like he's drawing it from himself, and it fills him with a tingling surge from his feet and moving up. And it feels like it builds, such that it's difficult to hold within him. The same power, but filtered through a different lens?

"Though all before me is shadow," from his lips, solid and certain, steady, "yet shall the Maker be my guide." Planting the halberd firmly, dropping to a knee, his voice rising, that building energy rising to a fever, "I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond." His body trembles. It's not usually like this. Not even in the Crossroads. And yet, with conviction: "For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light! And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost!"

All at once, flowing out from him, a wave.

The energy itself is sight unseen, but it pushes back against--everything. The halberd in his hand vanishes as though it simply had never been. The floor around him dissipates, moves outward; the display cases cease to be; the cabinets stop flailing when they begin to be undone; the ceiling quivers where it seems a dome touches it, and a hole forms into familiar turbulent sky.

It washes over Strange, with all magic being shut out by will alone.

It washes over the form of Wong, fury on his face, glowing weapon held high in his hands--and he, too, vanishes with a thought.

It doesn't encompass the entirety of the room, but a good portion of it has stopped being. There is ground beneath their feet that also strikes familiar. It is quiet. It looks like the room might collapse in on itself, and yet whatever is left remains standing, but paused, hanging, suspended in this moment.

Mobius braces himself on hands and knees. "It won't last," he says heavily. This, he remembers. Any moment now, it will come flooding back.

But now they know. This is all illusion.

[portalling]

Funny thing is, he’s pretty sure there is a magic shotgun on display somewhere—

But before he has a chance to chime in, Mobius is squaring off in the middle of the room, staring down those stairs and wielding a halberd. Reciting what is, even to Stephen Strange’s decidedly unreligious ear, clearly the Chant. The halberd hits the floorboards, his knee drops, his voice rises with the firm conviction of absolute reality — and that wave roils out in a blast radius from the templar, peeling back the layers of this world.

The sight would be surreal enough, like Mobius has stripped away a layer of paint from reality (or torn aside a veil), as everything around them simply vanishes. Wong & co turning on them was already an indicator, but now they know. They’re now standing in a blank circle in the middle of the Crossroads, so similar to the floating islands that Strange bounced around when going for the Book of Vishanti,

but his world is gone, the Sanctum is gone, and he feels decidedly unwell.

It’s— the strangest sensation— his fingertips buzzing with bees, oddly numb, all of his body prickling as if it’s fallen asleep and the nerves are only haltingly flaring back to life. Strange’s sense of his magic was already askew after coming to Thedas, his own grasp on sorcery approached a little sideways. It’s been a little muffled, being in another universe and his own existence possibly spun out of fadestuff (not a thing he ever wants to think about too closely)…

But now his magic is entirely out-of-reach. Silent, like someone’s slammed shut a door between him and his abilities. Mobius has slammed that door on him. Reinforcing reality. Stating what is and is not. There’s a terrifying moment where Stephen panics and wonders if this nullification is going to dissolve his own body, his self unraveling into nothingness because he is also not real,

but instead, thankfully, he’s still standing. Even if his magic is gone. He looks a little shaky, a little wan, trembling. “That was… worse than I was expecting,” he says. Mobius had warned him, and still in Strange’s arrogance he had thought, Oh, I can handle it.

He forces himself to keep thinking, to keep talking through that numbness.

“Christ. Alright. I don’t know how this works, but if we run here, maybe we’ll pop back in a corresponding place further along in the,” ugh, “illusion?”

[favoriteanalyst]

It always takes a little out of him, tired from the effort, but here in the Crossroads it's a special kind of effort. Of taking a space that is constructed out of magic and trying to enforce a sense of order and reality. It's a place that's more finicky than the Fade, a place that somehow manages to make less sense, that blurs lines. And while the illusion had made the power feel like a whirlwind force to knock him off his feet, here in this bubble where he feels like himself again (and the edges of his clothes are also starting to dissolve, and he's starting to realize that oh, right, okay, that stuff isn't real either, obviously, but he left the clothes he came in elsewhere--), he's wobbly but whole and sure and certain and filled with Andraste's grace and the Maker's will. A calmness, center of a hurricane.

"You can run," he suggests with a breath, making to stand. "I don't know what'll happen. Any moment now, this is going to collapse and remake itself."

It's taking a little longer than before, but after a few more long moments, not much time to get much of anywhere, he can feel it. The crack in the armor. This disillusion buckling back to illusion. As before, it seems as if water pouring back in. The bubble centered around Mobius begins to recede, reality making way for unreality once more. The magic flows around again, takes the empty space and begins reconstructing.

He breathes in and stands still in the center of it. "The Crossroads reacts in a funny way. I can disrupt it, briefly, and push it back, but the whole place runs on a particular magic. Its very existence is predicated on something that doesn't like being denied. It's chaotic. I don't know what'll happen now."

But in the chaos, apparently there is still order. Where before, the entire area had changed its arrangement and appearance, here it seems that the Sanctum starts to become itself again. Floorboards settle back into place. Wall fixtures, ceiling lights, slotting back in. It all comes back into being again.

Not Wong. He remains gone. Mobius wonders if perhaps it disrupted the angry spirit entirely, or if they're going to find him reformed back in his room covered in popcorn as though nothing happened. The halberd is back in its case, glass left unsmashed. And also three feet to the left of where it had been sitting before. Items in the room in slightly different places, not entirely the same. A close enough approximation. Everything has stopped flapping their doors and opening yawning maws, and the stairs seem to be ordinary stairs. The Sanctum seems, for the moment, as calm as it had been before pushing at the buttons of an immaterial world.

And the sensation of being able to reach magic again flows back to Strange.

There's a set to Mobius's shoulders. He nods to himself, once.

"Okay. Let's leave this place and get to Stark's. Just in case someone or something remembers we were being unfriendly."

thaaaat’s a wrap

[portalling]

It’s like one of those ‘spot the five differences’ pictures. Two snapshots of the Sanctum Sanctorum set side-by-side, lined up to each other with minor errata. And for a man with photographic memory, the awareness of it stands out: Strange stares at their surroundings, annoyingly aware of those little shifts from just a few minutes ago. That tapestry on the wall is the one his predecessor had chosen for the foyer, not the one he’d replaced it with after. One of the chairs is now missing. The cabinet which used to have wooden doors is now fronted with glass.

Strange shakes off the disorientation like water, and then he’s shoving open the massive front doors, and they’re emerging blinking into that crisp daylight and an entirely, suspiciously normal NYC day. He can feel the unease curdling down his spine.

“That was not,” the sorcerer says, pinpoint-precise, “enjoyable. Any of it. The sooner we can get that artifact and get the hell out of here, the better.”

A little sharp, his tone more acerbic than usual. He had been enjoying himself here in this world. He had grown too complacent, too content to swallow the Kool-Aid. That knowledge rankles.

(And even if he had known better, had rationally known to be suspicious and mistrustful of a thing too good to be true— some part of him had still hoped he was home.)

So, north they go, back towards Stark Tower—

“And hopefully Jarvis won’t try to kill us with a laserbeam or anything,” he mutters, but his shoulder bumps companionably against Mobius’ while they walk.

At least they still have allies; at least they aren’t alone.