player plot: the battle for starkhaven.

[luaithre]

WHO: All
WHAT: Riftwatch and the rebel mages come to the aid of Starkhaven
WHEN: Last week of Wintermarch
WHERE: Starkhaven and outlying territories
NOTES: Open to all, with instructions/suggestions below for what your character can do, dependent on skillset and division. Violences within.



The news has been the same for seemingly endless months: the Tevinter Imperium stays encamped, entrenched, at the doorstep of Starkhaven. The Free Marches city is long besieged, strangled and dying, and its proud stone walls that keep Corypheus' forces out also entomb its own citizens as supply dwindles fast over the winter.

The Exalted March has not come. The scattered militias and militaries of the surrounding territories have not rushed to its aid. Riftwatch has done all it can with the personnel it has, sabotaging enemy movement, collecting information, supplying villages and redirecting refugees, but it seems as though all it can do for Starkhaven is stand vigil to its collapse.

That is, until some hasty conversations were had.

A trio of Riftwatch agents approached Grand Enchanter Fiona, ad hoc leader of the rebel mage forces currently under the Inquisition's banner, with a question: what would it take, for the rebel mages to lend aid to Prince Sebastian Vael?

23 Wintermarch: Stoneweale Fort

Closed: The Division Heads, Derrica, Fenris, Julius, Marcus Rowntree, Petrana de Cedoux

It rains for the entirety of the ensuing negotiations, ice wet winter striking the impassive walls of Stoneweale Fort and the tents erected within its walls. The fort stands south of Starkhaven at the edges of Tevinter's influence, and contains the entirety of Prince Sebastian's available forces and, newly, Grand Enchanter Fiona, several rain-swept griffons, and a collection of Riftwatch agents.

Not all of them take up space in the war room (for instance, the griffons don't need to be there), but those that do bear witness to a deal being struck:

Prince Sebastian speaks plainly: the situation is beyond dire. They are at the precipice of surrender, and between himself and his commanders, they've been preparing for a last-ditch effort to save as many of his subjects as he can spare. By directing his forces in a (likely suicidal) full-scale attack against the enemy, he has hope that this will distract them for long enough so that a select few of his soldiers can fell the far gate and evacuate as many citizens as they can. He welcomes any assistance the mages could offer.

Fiona, understanding the lethality of what Prince Sebastian and his men are going to attempt, first states that the rebel mages can be mustered to assist in this evacuation by destroying the wall and shepherding Starkhaven's people to safety. She also pledges to personally join the Prince and his men in their attack on the main force.

It's with gratitude that Prince Sebastian accepts her offer.

And there is little time to prepare.

23-29 Wintermarch: The Minanter River

In the coming days, Riftwatch redirects its focus towards the preparation of Starkhaven's last stand. The movement of a small army of mages from the Orlesian frontline to deep into the heart of the Free Marches is the kind of logistical effort that one would hope to have plenty of time to organise, particularly in the interest of evading the Imperium's notice for as long as possible, but time is a luxury, and there are few of those available these days.

To ensure a swift and relatively stealthy travel time, the rebel mages are broken up into still sizeable detachments – they ride on horseback, or travel on merchant vessels that have been acquisitioned for the war effort, quietly coursing down the Minanter. They camp in thatches of forest or huddle within long emptied warehouses in semi-abandoned trading settlements.

Riftwatch agents of any combat capability join them, ride with them, and stay in contact through crystals to ensure coordination.

In the sky, griffon riders are tasked with keeping close monitor of any Tevinter detachments that might push close to the small army of mages moving in from the west. The going is often lonely, long hours, solo flying with reportage over the crystal network, before gathering together in small camps to feed their mounts, themselves, and sleep in hastily erected tents that protect them from the winter-time rain.

When necessary, members of Forces and Scouting will be deployed to run interference and push back and redirect Tevene scouts or soldiers and Venatori. Sometimes, larger groups of Imperial forces threaten to intercede, in which event, Riftwatch agents may find themselves working together with rebel mages to not only prevent the enemy from interfering with their people, but killing them so as to ensure there is no reporting back of a sudden influx of mage activity.

Members of Research may find themselves based at Stoneweale Fort. After some convincing, Prince Sebastian allows his various commanders to coordinate with Riftwatch to identify locations and pressure points within Starkhaven and its defences for the purposes of sabotage in preparation for Tevinter's taking. Now is the time to plan, analyse maps, prepare explosives or enchantments, and try not to look too excited about it.

Meanwhile, those within Diplomacy, if not hovering helpfully around Stoneweale Fort, are sent to make ready for Starkhaven refugees by speaking to villages further south, negotiating for supplies and accommodations, rallying any militia that are willing to assist in their protection. It's all a little thin on the ground, but if there was ever a time to cash in some of Riftwatch's local goodwill, it's now.

30 Wintermarch: Starkhaven

The wall

A horn sounds out, long and mournful. Voices and horse hooves and sword clashing and magic casting beneath the stormy sky is reduced to a dull roar as Prince Sebastian, accompanied by Grand Enchanter Fiona, leads his forces in a frontal assault against the overwhelming Imperial presence at his gates.

As a result, the far gate has been left undefended.

Slaughtering the remaining unit of Tevinter soldiers guarding it is borderline perfunctory, but there is much still to do. The majority of the rebel mages (less those volunteers who have joined Fiona in Sebastian's host), along with any mages of Riftwatch who choose to join them, gather en masse upon the stone bridge and the shallows of the river – a small army of men and women in robes or in armor, but all holding a staff to mark them for what they are. As they begin to draw from the Fade, the air takes on the scent of bitter-storm, energy crackling and prickling across exposed skin, ruffling hair and clothing in unseen winds.

Stone cracks and wood splinters under gouts of raw magic and white-hot bolts of summoned lightning, slamming in unison against walls that have remained previously unbroken all this time. Beneath them, the ground rumbles and shivers, and debris spills where cracks form and open and widen from the base of proud walls to the ramparts.

A small group within the rebel mage forces then move together in coordination, and the stone wall before them all at once comes apart. Giant broken slabs of stone and support lift into the air as if in an explosion slowed in time, drifting away from one another as magic carries it in shimmering green-tinged telekinetic influence.

The ground shakes, again, as pieces of Starkhaven's walls land safely, if heavily, on the mud-thick river on either side, leaving a yawning opening where once were sealed closed gates of oak and iron.

On the other side, where rain beats down the rising dust, gathered citizens of Starkhaven, frightened and war-worn, stare out at an army of mages.

The sky

In the sky, over the chaos, Riftwatch uses the distraction of battle to send swift-flying griffons over the walls and into the city proper to enact acts of sabotage to Starkhaven's infrastructure. Below them, civilians flood the streets, pressing in a constant stream of bodies towards the crumbled wall. Up here, the sounds of a raging battle drift clearer from the front.

Everyone in the sky knows where they are going and what they are doing, under strict orders to avoid any harm coming to civilians. Either as a passenger or on their own, members of Scouting (and some non-Scouting mages) carry with them precise instructions from Research and the means to enact them in the form of alchemical explosives and enchanted grenade-like items that will detonate in bursts of raw Fade magic (or their own magical ability). Common targets include: the defensive weaponry and ballistae posted up on the ramparts, the chains that man the major gates of the city, certain storehouses and administrative buildings indicated on maps. Likewise, there are wealthy estates to pillage and deprive Tevinter of any coin they might find there.

But soon the city will be overrun, and those on griffonback may find themselves under assault of arrows and magic as they make their escape.

The retreat

On the ground, floods of Starkhaven citizens, soon to be refugees, flow through the crumbled wall, staggering across the bridge and through the shallows of the river that surrounds the city, helped along by mages and Riftwatch alike. It is a lengthy and exhausting process as hundreds of ordinary people, wide-eyed and terrified, are herded out of the valley and onto solid ground, streaming south for where villages have been fortified and prepared to receive them.

Then, the sound of cavalry.

Racing across the rocky plain, under Imperial banner, a horde of dracolisk and their riders come galloping at a furious pace towards civilians, mages, Riftwatch alike. Their presence does not speak well for the main battle, but they arrive all the same. Reptilian screeches and hisses pierce the rumble of thunder above, and frightened cries from the refugees begin to sound out as panic grips them, turning to run in panicked stampede at the sight of Imperial soldiers upon their poison-spitting mounts.

It was enough of a likelihood that the Forces members who have been deployed to ensure the security of the evacuation are prepared to move with the rebel mages to meet them. The battle is quick, bloody, magic crackling through the air in time with clashes of shield and flying arrows. Searing poison sprays across skin and armor and flame ripples across scaly hide as a brutal skirmish ensues.

But the battle breaks when the worth of continued harassment weighed against the potential cost. By order of Itaeus Ferra, astride his own beast, the dracolisk cavalry withdraws, tiding back towards Starkhaven, now lost to the forces of Corypheus.

31 Wintermarch: Southwards and Vallomire

Men, women, children march through the cold and into the night, but blessedly, the rain eases itself to an icy misting of constant damp instead of the driving downpour from earlier that day.

It becomes clear that among the refugees, there had been those prepared for this journey. Temporary campsites, guarded by mages and Riftwatch alike, strike up so that all may take a few hours of rest. There is some food passed around, if not very much, and as the sun rises on a new day, the procession resumes, if no less wearily.

Eventually, all arrive at the half-abandoned township of Vallomire, chosen for its largely empty barnhouses and warehouses on the shores of a distributary from the Minanter. It is not large enough or manned enough to permanently house so many of Starkhaven's people, but it will do for the next few days of recovery and rest.

There is food, gathered in from as many corners as was willing to part with it, and warm blankets, and, just as important, a reduced sense of impending doom amongst those that had lived under its shadow for so long.

Spirits are not high, but they are tired. Mournful, but alive. As the day lurches into the evening, as the rain finally withdraws and bonfires are lit, and mages and ordinary citizens of the Free Marches mingle in this moment of necessity, news finally trickles in from Starkhaven.

It is as feared: the city has been claimed by the Tevinter Imperium. Much of Starkhaven's military has been destroyed, giving their lives to buy this opportunity for escape. And, in murmurs that spread from campfire to campfire, two names in particular are spoken in low, reverent tones: Prince Sebastian Vael, and Grand Enchanter Fiona, have fallen.

Stories of prince and mage charging side-by-side into a wave of enemy soldiers, fighting back-to-back against overwhelming odds after all their fellows had fallen, rising again and again from the mud to continue the fight, to hold back the inevitable tide until the city was emptied. Toasts are raised and tears shed for the saviors of Starkhaven—its people, if not its stones.

Smoke rises in the north, a black mark in the sky, as the sun begins to set.

Comments

darras rivain || ota

[staysail]

the river

The thing is, Darras is no coward, he's seen battle--but battles on land are still--still! after all this time!--somewhat foreign to him. Or that's what he's saying, anyways. "It's too close." Ostensibly he's saying it to Hugo. The griffon is very busy eating out of a bag of feed, so noisy he nearly drowns out the rain beating on the frozen mud outside of the tent.

The tent is more of a canvas pavilion, with room enough to house a handful of people. Wasn't built to house a griffon, but where else is a griffon to go, once he's on the ground? It's with this argument that Darras had gained Hugo's entrance, and once a griffon is somewhere it's difficult to tell him to go elsewhere. Here on the ground it's rainy and bloody cold besides--but it is colder in the air, and there isn't a fire up there. There's one in here. Darras has his hands stuck out to warm them, gloves tucked under his armpits for safekeeping and for drying. He and Hugo make a nearly comfortable scene under the canopy of the tent. Both of them smell--wet feathers, wet wool, wet hair. Hugo is steaming gently beside the firepit. Darras is keeping in good spirits despite all of it--weather, danger, battle, death--making pleasant conversation with the griffon.

"Too close, too muddy, too long. You get engaged on open sea, well, it's quick, over and done with. Anything drawn out is just a chase and one more chance to get away clean. You don't know how rough we've got it, boyo."

Hugo snorts into his bag of feed. Darras' grin glints in the firelight as he looks around for human company.

"Any news?" Never mind that he's meant to be carrying news. You first.

the retreat.

The ash falls like soft gray snow. It would have been wiser to keep on his helm, but Darras had disliked the way it narrowed his field of vision to slits, and he had taken it off at some point, thrown it aside. Now there is ash in his hair. Fires are burning all over the field--good fires, set by rebel mages, bad fires, set by the enemy--fire is fire is fire, in the end. The ground is sodden and slippery, equal parts mud and blood.

His sword shears off limbs, cracks heads, breaks shields. The dracolisks are a nasty bit of business and Darras has survived them so far by running. One turns on him now, and there's nowhere to run, hemmed in by the dead and dying and the earth so churned up by the charge and by magic. Its rider is busy with hacking at a mage in a muddy robe, screaming on the ground. Darras tosses his sword to his off hand, then back to his right, fingers flexing on the hilt. The dracolisk lowers its head, its jaws shiny with spit all streaked with poison. Its hiss makes the hairs on Darras' neck stand on end.

When it rushes, he's as ready as he might be. It gets him in the shoulder, teeth scraping at the armor Yseult had convinced him to don. The bloody helm, he ought to be wearing the helm, vision be damned. No time to shout. He hacks with his sword, meat and muscle and gristle and the teeth like needles, thick needles.

Help.

[OR wildcard!!! open to anything, plurk or PM for any specifics.]

retreat (+sorry for how late I am to the party);

[katabasis]

The long gun had been perfectly serviceable in those first dreadful minutes as they'd been forced to watch the Tevinter cavalry come bearing down on them across the rocky flatland and before the dracolisks had actually managed to close range past the length of a bow shot. But here among the chaotic fray of swords and axes, the concussive boom of edges finding plate and bursts of magic, and the shriek of animals and fleeing Starkhaven refugees, the heavy weapon has quickly become more liability than boon. It's heavy over the shoulder. The folding balancing fork screwed into the stock must be pinned into place lest it come unfolded and risk tripping him, and the rate at which it can be reloaded costs precious seconds against a hand crossbow, or a charging mount and rider. Were the weapon less valuable or if he'd a reliable alternative, he might have already thrown the cursed thing away.

Somewhere in the Fade where the spirits console themselves with re-examining reality, there is a version of this moment where Flint, who never sacrificed his ability as a swordsman to the whims of the Arlathan, is armed with the kind of blade with which he has so routinely made his living. From twenty paces off, having no reason to have climbed onto a stone slab to briefly distance himself from the slurry of violence down in the mud, he might not have even seen Darras squaring off with the lizard much less been in any position to do something about it. As it is—

The electrified crack! of the shot is no louder than any other burst of magic. But for all its temperamental setup, the projectile which finds the dracolisk and explodes in a burst of elemental fire does considerably more damage than a crossbow bolt might.

this is a late night party

[staysail]

The dracolisk's neck is thick, muscled, and--as it twists to snap at Darras' arm, he realizes--it is quick, which means he could very well be fucked. He is also quick, and twists away from the first bite. The needle teeth graze his arm on the second bite, slip down the leather gauntlet toward his hand.

Then something explodes.

The dracolisk's screech rends the air. It lurches forward, brutish head forced into a sharp droop. Its armored shoulder shoves into Darras. His boots slide in the slick mud. There's the smell of fire and the smell of burning meat--and the smell of something else, acrid and foreign. The dracolisk twists around, assessing its damage, seeking its assailant--and Darras goes down on one knee in the mud, suddenly deprived of its bulk and on the off foot. The beast's mean little eyes are alight with blind pain and rage--and it is alight, too, burning with elemental fire.

Never question mercy. The dracolisk's armor joins at the chest, with slim seams that show its scales. From the ground, Darras drives his sword into one of those seams. The dracolisk screeches again, rears up, haloed by its own fire.

🪩🕺

[katabasis]

It all looks considerably less spectacular given the vantage of distance. There is no burning flesh stench and the hot flare of elemental fire mingles with peripheral bursts of similar spellwork. The dracolisk's screech is reduced by a more immediate clash of steel. For a moment, he isn't even certain what's been accomplished. The armored shape of Darras goes down to a knee which may as well be a precursor to being trampled by the wounded animal—

In snatches, while wrestling the long gun into being reloaded: the dracolisk thrashing round, its spiked head swinging in an arc. It screams and jerks upwards. Nearer to Flint's position, some hurled chunk of rock impacts with the earth and sends a shower of soil and shale down onto him. When he's finished flinching—

The dracolisk is lurching, its head and neck forming that ugly curve the precedes the widening of jaws and the hack of acrid spit. Only its head snaps in surprise or pain instead, the acrid mixture bubbling hot through some wound rather than spraying Darras.

And then the rifle is reloaded, and leveled. Flint slaps back the firing primer and squeezes the trigger.

[staysail]

Up close, blood and acid mingle. Darras leaves the sword buried where it is, yanks his hand away just as the wound begins to leak, hot and dark. The puncture in the beast's neck is gouting, too, and the mud on the ground sizzles where fluid falls. The sound is an echo of the dracolisk's spitting screech, all rage and pain and fear, the kind of fear that is bone deep, primal. A man would feel it the same as a beast.

The second time time, the crack is clearer, or maybe Darras is only listening for it now. The explosion, again, an impossible arc of fire. The dracolisk--first it goes taut, arrested in its writhing--and then it unwinds, falls. Its needle teeth are shiny with its own frothing spit. The mud is steaming. Darras shoves himself back, scrambling free of where the beast is falling. There isn't a sun to cast its shadow. Everything is smoke and soot and the dracolisk crashes when it falls, but Darras is free of it.

It screeches, again, loud in its. One thick limb fumbles at the ground, trying to heave itself up. The steaming punctures in its neck are more like burrows, fat and muscle glistening in the depths, burnt pink and yellow. Darras looks up and there's Flint on a rise some way away--he doesn't know it for Flint at first, only a figure with a weapon he's never seen. A mage, he first thinks, and the battle is still raging around him, but he lets himself fall back in the mud with a laugh.

[katabasis]

The dracolisk falls. In the tangle of animals and mud plastered armor, and the motion of cavalry spinning like the tandem flocking of birds in his peripheral vision, and the clatter of steel, and the singing ozone scented snarl of the elemental arcane— It is difficult to say, exactly, what has become of Darras Rivain except that it's unlikely the dracolisk has killed him. On the stony rise, Flint simply makes to right the long gun. His bare hand makes incidental contact with a metal component forward of the wooden stock and

his hands seize shut, the white cold shock of discharged residual electricity spurring his teeth to clamp. There and done, brisk as a slap and sufficiently stinging in its wake. This fucking piece of shit—

Is unlikely to be reloaded fast enough to deal with the unmounted Tevinter cavalry officer charging over the mud-slicked footing, jagged armor still miraculously bright. The Tevinter officer has a sword drawn and despite the lack of his animal, he remains surprisingly agile as he cuts blindly up past Darras and makes a beeline for that rocky little outcropping from which a man is throwing magic.

the river.

[hornswoggle]

Sopping wet as they are, the single, carefully rolled joint in the pouch at John's hip is of little use to them. Drawing it out would be risking its integrity, and should they part the flap at one end or the other of their tent to relieve the smoke it would only invite the patter of rain inside to join them.

And so, they are obliged to ride out the storm together without anything more than the contents of the waterskin passed between them while Hugo drips delicately onto them.

"None that you wouldn't have heard as well," John returns, with a minor gesture to his own crystal. "I spent most of the day shuttled southwards to coax anyone willing to join our number. A fair amount of refugees and Marchers were amenable, but—"

A tilt of his hand. It's a drop in the bucket, isn't it? They needed more still.

[staysail]

Darras nods, more resigned than grim. Fair means few, so, well. That's that.

"Makes you think they know something we don't." He turns his hands around to warm the backs. No rings to flash in the firelight. Get one caught on something and you're like to lose a finger. "Though really, we knew that already. We're the late arrivals here. Can't blame 'em for wanting to be clear of it."

Hugo makes a grrrrock, low in his feathery throat, and keeps eating. Clearly he agrees.

[hornswoggle]

"To the extent they can remain clear of it, while the Imperium grinds its boot into Starkhaven."

A point John has been trading on, to middling success.

"Do you expect it'll come to enough?"

All their efforts. All this scrambling, collecting whatever and whoever might bring an advantage.

All for something doomed. They are mitigating a defeat, which is a rather different thing than trying to secure a victory on the field.

[staysail]

"You know, not everyone is pleased with plain and honest talk." Darras flips his hands back again. The fire feels good on frozen fingers. There's an old scar across one palm, a thick pale line. "They prefer subterfuge and secrecy and double speak. Say one thing, mean another, hold half back or more. Even my wife prefers it, though not always. She can be a plain woman when it matters."

He gives Silver a little grin. Yseult would be displeased with him for saying that and he knows it. She is very far away, off on a griffon or breaking Vint necks with her thighs. This permits Darras an extra measure of cheek.

"Yourself, I think you might be amendable to it, so I'll tell you--plainly, honestly--I have no idea if it'll come to enough. We could be smiling at the end here. Do I hope? 'Course. I hope for a lot."

[hornswoggle]

"Do you think we're better or worse off than we were in the swamp?"

In a dream, where so much had gone wrong, where the details of how and when hadn't been entirely clear to them. What has put John in mind of it? Perhaps sitting around the fire with Darras, trading easy conversation in spite of how serious the subject. This quiet, shared humor about Yseult.

Or the sense of foreboding, despite the pre-ordained outcome of the week's events.

for yseult.

[staysail]

[Continued from here.]

Away from the chaos of the battlefield, magic has displaced earth, and unbound the river, surged its waters over the riverbanks and swallowing up dry ground. What was once a peninsula of land--ideal for fishing and picnicking--is now a precariously narrow island, on which the refugees are clustered. What little ground remains is being quickly consumed by the surging water.

There is a grouping of rocks that some of the refugees have climbed onto, gaining what higher ground there is. There is no space to land a griffon so Darras has touched Hugo down across the loosened river, and the griffon is peacefully gnawing at a rock while Darras stands staring across the way at the refugees, who are shouting at him for help. The rushing of the river drowns out their cries.

[hassaran]

Pockets drops abruptly into the sky just above them, a sharply angled descent halted with a flare of wings and a clatter of claws drowned out by the rush of water and the screams from the bank. Yseult doesn't bother to dismount, but immediately tips sideways half out of the saddle to rummage in a pack for the aforementioned rope.

"We may have to fly past and have them jump, until we can make a little space to land," she says, but the glance up at him and lift of brows makes it a question. He's been eyeing the lay of the land here a while now, better equipped to make a plan than she. She finally hauls out a coil of rope, just the one and plainly not long enough to stretch across the flooded width of the river. "Hover above and have them climb on?"

[staysail]

"One at a time?"

It isn't a question, though he says it with that lilt. One at a time will be too slow at the rate the water is rising, with the number of people there are. Darras grabs hold of Hugo's reigns and gives a little tug, pulling the griffon's head up. Hugo clacks his beak, annoyed to be deprived of his rock snack.

"With one rope--it's too slow. We might go find something to make a bridge instead--a raft, something that will get more of them at once."

[hassaran]

"Maybe two," she says, but still, too slow. Unfortunately, "That won't be much faster." Unless he gets very lucky and finds a suitable raft. But then, he is lucky, isn't he?

"You go look," she says, "I'll move as many as I can in the meantime." Since there's only one rope anyway.

[staysail]

How will he carry it? Will Hugo put up with the burden? That's a question for when he finds what he's looking for. He'll know it when he sees it; he'll know what to do with it when he sees it. The rushing of the water is very loud and the voices of the people trapped across the way can barely be heard. Darras nods at Yseult and swings onto Hugo.

"I'll be a moment."

Only a moment. He should have gone before she arrived. He should have thought of this sooner. Hugo pushes off from the ground, a great surge of effort. His wings beat at the sky. They're gone.

There isn't much. The worst of the battle is over or ending, somewhere else. There is stone to spare, chunks of the wall that were flung asunder, boulders ripped up from the earth by magic, or loaded into ballistae. When Hugo returns, he is flying low, carrying his rider and three planks of wood, splintered and broken into three very different sizes.

"It's not enough!" --before she can think it, or say it, Darras shouts it out.

[hassaran]

When he returns, he'll find Yseult's rigged the rope up so it hangs doubled from Pockets' harness, each end with a loop just big enough for a foot tied into the bottom of it. They're swinging two people across now--three, actually, as one terrified young woman has a child clutched tightly to her chest. It's not a long trip across the river even at flood, but it is a heavy burden for the griffon and careful maneuvering after a long day already, and the lowering to dismount's a little clumsy.

"What's the plan?" Yseult calls to Darras she she spots him, and his planks. She doesn't stop her own in the meantime, checking her two passengers are off and turning the griffon back to the island. It's working, but it's clear this isn't enough either. Even two at a time on a constant loop isn't fast enough, and the crowd jockeying with increasing tension for the right to go next knows it.