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

[luaithre]

Marcus' focus is unwavering, watching flinch, watching marshal, no big reaction to either save for the acknowledgment of his attention. Matthias adjusts his posture; Marcus does not, standing with his arms folded and his shoulders braced against the chill.

"There's not in question," he says.

That Matthias was fighting. That he was giving all he had, the only way one can survive a battle without simply retreating.

"But if you continue to fight the way you fought, you're going to die early," he continues, a steady march towards his point without particular interest in speeding it along or, indeed, slowing down. "Or you'll get someone else killed, because you weren't seeing what they were doing, or how you could have helped them. You're not fire, Matthias, you're a man."

Catching on fleeing soldiers, the unseeing swerve of a wall of flame just missing where a group of rebels had begun to move to meet conflict, the bluster of smoke from the earth. Marcus had seen enough.

[inkindled]

"I didn't, though," he says, and adds the, "serah," second, too late to be anything but an afterthought. "Get anyone killed, I mean. I didn't. And I," but it would be too stupid to say, that if he hasn't died yet it's likely he won't, like he's some invincible force. No one's invincible. Everyone dies.

Only it feels true, sometimes. Doesn't it? All the battles, all the chances and close calls. And Matthias is still here. Even if he'd at present rather be anywhere else, really, not getting stared down by Enchanter Marcus Rowntree--still, he's not dead.

But he can't say that. He swallows it down and tries to lift his chin.

"I saw you fighting. You're thinking, while you're at it? Always?"

[luaithre]

The breath out at this first part — I didn't, though — hits the frigid air with steam and a scoff. Understated, still, but there.

Matthias lifts his chin, pivots focus. Marcus says, "No," an admission easily made, and then nothing else, as if to see where this point is meant to lead.

[inkindled]

Matthias lets out a breath that likewise clouds--just as briefly, but also smaller. He keeps himself together with shoulders hitched high and chin held up and hands twisted still around his sleeves, holding.

"I could be careful. I know I could. But it's a battle. We've got to win it. That's really what we're fighting for, to win. Isn't that what you're thinking, the whole time? There isn't time for anything else. And it's like--" Not possession, he can't say that-- "You've got to know the feeling. I know you do. Like the magic knows what it ought to do and you're there to, to help it. That's not disrespecting it. It can't be."

[luaithre]

Matthias doesn't need to say the word possession for Marcus to hear its shadow, cast from his words. His expression stays understated, the changes to it subtle, but there's the evidence of outward concern where his brow furrows, the pull of a frown. I know you do, and he doesn't protest.

Still. He is being careful, in his way.

"Magic knows how to burn," he says, still placid-toned in the dawn gloom. "It knows how to freeze and spark and protect that which wields it. That's all. It doesn't know right or wrong. It doesn't know guilt or love. It only knows itself."

A step nearer, an unfolding of his arms, one hand after the other coming to grip Matthias' shoulders as if he could impart intent through the gentle weight of that hold. "Your actions are yours," quietly. "They belong to you only. Magic won't be there to carry your burdens, after it's done its bit. You're more than its conduit. We all are."

Studying, too, at this distance—for what might not be obvious, but comprehension is a safe bet.

[inkindled]

He doesn't quite flinch when Marcus takes hold of his shoulders. What hurt he's seen hasn't much happened at the hands of another mage and he hasn't any reason to think that Marcus would strike him or anything. But the heaviness of the conversation--his feeble attempts at debate, going against his deep-set instinct, to shut up and simply listen to what Enchanter Rowntree is telling him--for that, there's a little twitch of the face, which turns into a frown.

"I know that. About my actions. But--" A quick glance down, gathering courage as much as his thoughts, and then Matthias looks back up at Marcus. Once he knew only his name, a glimpse of him from a distance, or someone everyone said was Marcus Rowntree--but it might have been anyone, everyone was always trying to claim at something important, back then. "Yeah. I understand what you're saying. I'm the one that has to take care with how I'm using the magic. But just how we're more than conduits, magic is more than a tool. Because it's better than knowing how to read or do sums or even fire an arrow to hit a mark. If we know right and wrong and we're letting the magic work with us, then doesn't it know as well, sort of? As long as it's working with us."

[luaithre]

Marcus keeps his hands on him. It does not feel good, to see that near-flinch, but he maintains. There are gentler means of handling this, he knows; means he is perfectly capable of regardless of reputation, and means he might have resorted to if he were feeling any better than he does now.

But here, it all feels too vital to allow time to settle into itself, for edges to be softened through justification, excuses, short memory.

"You and I," he says, "will talk of the voices that magic can speak with. When we get back to Kirkwall, we will have that conversation. I know what magic is, Matthias, and I know it's no excuse at all for your conduct on the battlefield that day. You could have harmed someone. Disfigured them, blinded them, killed them. It is too easy to do, for you and I, and it's our duty to have care."

The brief pressure of his fingers, a subtle tensing of his clasp. "You need to want to do better than that. If magic is telling you otherwise, then you master it, or set it aside. Do you understand?"

Likewise, he understands how Matthias views him. Understands how fragile that regard can actually be. They are standing close, and Marcus is weakened, and telling him things he does not want to hear. No matter. It'll hold or it won't.

[inkindled]

"No, no, I couldn't-- I couldn't give it up--" After everything, it's miserable, being here, pinned down under Marcus' scrutiny, called up on the carpet for something he did wrong--but he didn't, he didn't do anything wrong and he didn't hurt anyone important in any serious way--he might have but didn't, and it's only because it would be shameful to keep whinging at Marcus that Matthias doesn't try to say that again. And besides, it's too damning, seeing a grim serious edge to Marcus' expression, to feel his hands clenched on his shoulders like this. It's childish, to only want to be told that he's good, that he did well. He still wants it, more than nearly anything. "Not ever. I want to do better. I do. But it isn't like that, Enchanter. I'm not--"

He doesn't dare to even brush against it now, like voicing it will cause something to happen. He hasn't got to say it. Possession is always there, a shadow at the edge of your eye. The mage in the Gallows, giving in, twisting and then gone and then dead.

(But if you have to reach for it. It's there. And maybe you could live, at least long enough, if you're strong enough, if you understand magic well enough.)

"I wouldn't let that happen, anything like it. I swear. I'm not like that." No, better said: "I understand."

[luaithre]

Holding firm through the internal twisting around he can sense happening, Marcus waits it out, focused. Imploring, maybe.

Dislikes that somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalls Rutyer saying so frankly—as though it had made perfect sense—how he keeps magebane in his desk, for Matthias in particular. Part of him bristles, and knows that the correct argument in return is not the assurance that against Matthias, or himself personally, Byerly can only dream of having the seconds necessary to reach it.

It's beside the point.

I'm not like that, and something dethaws. I understand, and Marcus nods once. "I know," he says, quietly, means it. It isn't really about what Matthias is like, but there is only so much he can say. So much pressure he can apply, in one sitting.

Removes his hands, edges back a step, to relieve Matthias of some of it.

"With some of our own having left our ranks," he says, brittle-edged brogue now steering more matter-of-fact, "there's those of you who need better than only combat training. Unless the war ends soon, you shouldn't go without an education until it does. You were apprenticed to Leander, is that so?"

[inkindled]

The instant change in pressure is like being released from a vise. Matthias lets out a breath that he was only half aware that he was holding.

"Yes, serrah. Enchanter Leander. He taught me a bit before he left, and then I thought he might come back, but he's not, yet, so." He darts a glance back the way that they came. The blueish smoke of the campfires implies their company, though they've stepped a short distance away. "And Derrica has helped me to learn some healing and things like that--not that that's combat, but she has--and I've learnt a bit here and there from others. Only," and Marcus is no longer looking at him stormy-eyed, which is a bloody relief itself, a little like having survived a lightning storm, and he doesn't want to summon back that look in any way, or give any suggestion that he is anything but trying, and willing, and good, "I did think of learning more. And asking. Only I was thinking I might not need to be an apprentice, like. In name. Because I'm, you know. Old. So."

Older. It would be worse to correct himself. He bites his own tongue to stop himself--but he has got to go on:

"I do want to learn. And do better." In case that was in question.

[luaithre]

Marcus tips his head at 'old', showing trace evidence of amusement — thanks, Matthias — as well as contemplating the thought of raising the point that mages in adulthood might find themselves apprenticed, especially when dragged in through its doors after capture, which is why he says instead—

"Aye, well," he says, reflexively glancing back to the campsite as well. "We needn't do things like the Circle did them."

A thinking pause, before continuing. "But you shouldn't be in sole charge of your own education. No one should, no matter what's become of us. I can help you in that, and would, if you wished it.

"If not me," he adds, "I'd insist you find a teacher worth listening to, and asking them."

[inkindled]

The first time he rode on a griffon, taking off had felt like someone stuck a hook in his chest and yanked up. That's a little how Matthias feels now. Like he might be sick but also he's pleased about it and lighter than the very air. Wherever he'd thought this was all going, it wasn't here, but a path that cuts a weird way might lead you somewhere better than you'd expect. Despite the tear tracts and the dirt and the little battle-won cuts and how just a moment ago he'd been twisting under Marcus' attention, he has now visibly brightened.

"No," quickly, before Marcus can take it back, "I mean, no, serrah, if you-- If you're serious, if you mean it--and if you've the time for it--the time to help me, I mean, more'n you have--I know there's loads to do, you've got important work--" He fights the urge to wipe more of the grime from his face. If this offer were being made based on appearances, it wouldn't have come to Matthias in the first place. "I mean, there's not anyone in Riftwatch better than you. You've got to know that."

The simplicity of that statement is a scant disguise for the fervency of Matthias' feeling. He means it, truly. Is there anyone better than Marcus Rowntree? Not to him. Someone else might be embarrassed to say it so plainly. In another circumstance, Matthias himself might have the sense to be less plain. He feels nearly drunk right now so he hasn't got any sense.

"It'd be an honor, if you'd help me."

[luaithre]

Matthias is good, is not an original thought.

But it strikes him then, and not for the first time, and not for the flattery delivered with such open earnestness so much as the very presence of that openness and earnestness. No mage deserves to have been raised and shaped so by war, no more than mages deserved the Circles. Marcus feels some belated twinge of irritation in in a Byerlywards direction, muddily complicated, and pushed aside.

Something held tense eases in him, too. "I've time," Marcus assures, quietly. It can be made, carved out. "And I'd be honoured as well."

For him, this was the path this conversation was always going to take. The idea of having spoken so harshly only to discard the boy, in some way—well, he'd be no better than the manner in which the Circles treated its worst problems. No, it was that he needed Matthias to take a thing seriously, and to understand what he might be agreeing to, in acceptance Marcus' tutorage.

At least a little. Impressive, the way his regard seems so undiminished, over these past years, an ability to walk with and witness your heroes up close. Or, less impressive than it is humbling.

"Come on," Marcus says. An angling of his body, then, away from this place at the very fringes of the campsite. People rousing, food being arrangement, more fires lit to stave off the chill. "You should eat."

A hand goes up, the heel of his palm finding some spot high up on Matthias' back. This way.