faderift | player plot: the battle for starkhaven.

Entry tags:

player plot: the battle for starkhaven.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What alternative is there?

If he is in no position for riding, he is certainly in no position for whatever waits on the field tomorrow. He cannot entertain the thought of being deemed unfit for both tasks. John’s fingers come to a rest, settle for a moment over his thigh, before he lifts the hand altogether to reclaim his crutch and lever himself up with a low punch of breath for the exertion.

It is a short distance to the low bed. John doesn’t ask, trusts Flint to realign himself to whatever degree necessary in accordance to his preference for closeness in this moment.

It's a fair bet.

With a sway of the shoulder and a jingle from the pauldron's variety of hardware, Flint shifts over by the span required to make space there on the edge of the bed beside him. The shallow bowl with the smear of oil meant for the leather is shifted down as well, ultimately passed on to the upended traveling case (not his; it must be an item scrounged for the convenience of its shape) acting as the side table.

It leaves the leather across his knee. The cleaning cloth in his hand. An oily sheen on the knuckles and fingers. The illusion of supple skin where the reality of callouses and the parchment texture brought on by dry winter weather.

The crutch is set aside at a slant. John's hand falls back to his thigh, just over the bend of his knee. Soothing and stymying the discomfort prickling there. Spending a moment to indulge the awareness of the brush of elbows, shoulders, the quiet satisfaction at re-established proximity before saying:

"You'll be above ground this time."

Small blessings.

Abby had been nonspecific about what exactly she had led that party down to fight, but John hadn't necessarily need any particular details to understand the danger. Just as he doesn't need to know the exact number of Imperial soldiers or the exact odds stacked up against them to feel the return of that same unease.

And this time, John will be gone from the field entirely. Not simply waiting above ground, but gone. It doesn't sit well.

It takes him a moment to reorient around the point of this statement—the remind himself that the pauldron across his knee and this tent and the collected bodies here in inhabiting the fortress's courtyard at present as in service not of the point that comes after they have finished the day's work, but the day itself. For some days, his thoughts have been on a trajectory that carries himself through those hours with very little thought as to the possibility of their personal consequence. John will be going south; there will be more paperwork and accounting waiting in the battle's aftermath, and all the thing between are things he can only concern himself with as they occur. It's strange to consider them in any detail whatsoever.

Yes, he supposes he will be above ground this time.

"Though would that we could contrive to fall back into the Crossroads directly after. There might be marginally less walking to do were that so."

"Depending on the whims of the place."

Marginally less walking, unless the stairs are crumbled or the walkways switched round. But yes, there is likely to be less walking.

In the moment, he thinks all the way back to Ghislain. Standing the cold. Flint looking at him across the fire with some unspoken intent in his face. Finding him hours later on a sulky horse standing in the mud of the road.

It would not be so this time. John will be miles and miles away.

"There are worse ideas," he concedes. A slanting look sideways, some flat amusement in it. Worse ideas, wonder what those might be.

"When it's over, you'll send word?"

A turn of the hand. A cant of the temple. Yes, he'll send word.

Afterward, that same hand moves to lay on the pauldron as if he intends to remove it from his bent knee. Instead, thumb and fingertips linger. They fuss at the various studs in the leather, dirty fingernails picking at the oil newly built in against the metal edges, leaving behind smudges of fingerprints.

"If there's anything you care to have from out of a Starkhaven estate, make up a list."

Seeing as there are plans to raid a half dozen in order to rob Tevinter of the pleasure.

“I assume it would be unrealistic to suggest you enlist some of your people to strap a feather mattress to the back of a griffon.”

But the prospect of making off with fine Marcher treasure appeals. John is still that man with open palms, grasping after security in all its forms.

Maybe in this moment, security is the offer itself.

John reaches over with his free hand to catch Flint’s up. Run a thumb over oil-warmed knuckles.

It's a small thing to turn the hand from the pauldron's fastenings to expose the rough palm and rougher fingertips to the scuff of John's thumb. Yes, spiriting a mattress out of Starkhaven on top of a slew of citizen refugees is indeed probably a tall order; it's possible, even, that pretending at achieving anything more than the bare minimum (or even that) is too. But it doesn't feel particularly so. Vael and Fiona may find themselves against unforgivable odds tomorrow; but Riftwatch's job in this is—

Attainable. Not unrealistic.

(It might be less irritating if it were; he could justify the offense more readily then.)

"Tell me," he says after a long moment. A shifting in the set of his own thumb, rough work worn edge prickling against the line of John's small finger. "That this still looks like progress to you."

There is only one response.

But still, John takes a moment to turn their present situation over in his mind. Find the edges of it. Frame it against the future, spin possibility from what feels inevitable. (Can Vael and Fiona route the Ventori and the hoard of Imperial soldiers along with them? Is it possible for anyone to see that kind of luck that would require?)

His fingers lace lightly through Flint's.

"It does."

Of course.

"Whatever tomorrow looks like, we will be able to make something more of it than anyone has of months of siege and stalemate."

There is only the one answer. He'd known it then in the division office with Rowntree and Derrica too, however much it has rankled. However much it grates still like tough knuckles wicked dry and gone cracking in southern weather.

"Tell me," he says, the shape of his fingers unresistant. "That if I were to propose to Marcus Rowntree or his friends an alliance—one that might be made between what rebels still have an interest in freedom and men and women who lack his ability but want the same—that he would hesitate to throw it away even if doing so looked to guarantee a kind of security for his mages."

This is what they had wanted, wasn't it?

John recalls speaking the shape of it into the space between them in the cabin aboard the Walrus, behind the closed door of Flint's office with the ash-scorch of an abomination still burning at the back of his throat and blossoming like a bruise across his back. A linking of things, united in service of some greater purpose. John remembers conjuring it, talking towards it.

Here, his thumb rubs the trace remnants of oil into Flint's knuckles and thinks of Marcus Rowntree in particular.

"Should you take care to remind him of shared interests, I believe he would hesitate to toss aside the possibility."

Shared interests, in which those things shared are a leveraging of John himself. This thing they have kept tucked away, used judiciously in service of this very purpose.

"Do you intend to make him an offer when we've finished here?"

I believe he would hesitate, he says, and the look that Flint sets on him is fixed and weighing. It's a kind of attention that is relentless and hungry, and so appallingly patient that it might be mistake for exerting no pressure at all. Is that true, it wants to know—and the question isn't for John so much as it is for the ether that hangs in the room with them. The yard which surrounds it. The fortress's walls and an enemy in the rocky uplands not so far removed from it. And past those too—broken towers in cities and a woman at the head of an Exalted army, and the Qun standing in Par Vollen with their eye turned expectantly in this direction, and—something—an elf and old gods with their fingers pressing encouragingly at the seams that make up the whole world. And if that isn't true, if it isn't achievable?

How long will they need to sit here to work out how to make it so?

"I think that will rely on where we all stand tomorrow."

Whether they all regret this in two days time after all.

A prudent answer.

And it is allowed it’s breathing room. John’s thumb sweeps back and forth across Flint’s knuckles and the brazier spits and gutters as a gust of cold pulls at the flaps of the tent and outside the muted bustle of activity in preparation of battle goes on and on and on.

“If you can,” John says at last, having drawn Flint’s hand from the pauldron to rest over his own thigh. “Put it to him in Julius’ company, but don’t wait for me and Petrana to return.”

If events serve to make space for such a proposal.

Maybe John will be of more use out of sight, invoked as a tool rather than a physical presence within the proceedings.

This, he knows, is a kind of sacrifice. They come in easily recognized dimensions, their general forms so familiar that passing through the Arlathan had been little more than a reacquaintance.

(It's true, he thinks. That it's generally easiest to draw an image of a thing which seems correct when it isn't stood right there in the room for direct comparison.)

His hand turns, fingers untangling so they may instead wrap over John's thigh. It's very clear when Flint absorbs a thing compared to when he elects not to, even when the affirmation comes by way of careful fingers and a firmly pressing thumb—there at a line of taut sinew he also has some practice with finding.

The application of Flint’s thumb draws an exhale from John in turn. Some held breath, a breaking tension. A loosening of his shoulders. Minor movements in which his body reorients to this small touch.

His hand resettles at Flint’s knee.

As necessary as their respective tasks are, the fleeting consideration returns: wait another day to fetch the Chantry mother, who will surely be as their people left her.

But Petrana must go regardless. There is utility in their leaving. Flint has come through battle time and again without difficulty. There are others who will see him healed should he acquire injuries.

And still.

A sigh of breath. John’s thumb running along Flint’s knee. A wrench of sentiment remains held in check behind his teeth.

He is not insensitive to the tension he finds there, or in the turn of his own wrist.

"Lie over," he says after a moment. "Give me your boot."

The hand on John's thigh removes itself to displace the leather pauldron from his knee to the crate masquerading as a side table. A pat to the newly liberated space emphasizes the request—here—, as Flint shakes out the cloth balled in his other fist.

A breath, let out slowly, in the half-beat of time it takes for John to entertain and acquiesce to the request.

There is not much of a headboard to speak of. But there is enough that John might resettle himself, reorient further to give up his leg, calf and boot to Flint.

It requires very little adjustment on his part—a steadying hand, the hitch of his thigh under the stiffer line of calf and ankle. By the time John has fully reoriented himself there, Flint has shaken out the cloth and taken some corresponding charge of the hem of his pant leg. The latter is folded back with the deft kind of working fingers which suggest unabashed familiarity.

Where this to be done properly by some landlocked shoeblack, there would be dark wax polish, a cup of water, a fine little bristle brush. Lacking those, the scrubbing of stuck dirt and dried mud from the sole's upper welt is accomplished with a sailor's sensibility: cloth and spit, the chipping edge of the flat ring on Flint's smallest finger. How methodical the rythmn of the thing—the reversing of the cloth, the scuff that by degrees encourages some gleam back into the travel worn leather.

"The bulk of the division won't be with the vanguard."

“Where do you intend to position them?”

Is half a question.

No, the bulk of their company won’t join Vael and Fiona. John can guess that a number of mages may join their work for a time, but assume there will come a point where they must fall back. He can assume some of their number will take to the air.

But that third, unaccounted for group, John has turned over in his mind. It has the sense of a raiding party to him, if not in function than in make up. Repositioned so, John is free to observe the work of Flint’s hands, to have care with the alignment of what remains of his opposite leg. Mark the movement of expression in Flint’s face.

Where do you intend to be? John is not yet asking.

"They've no business with what the mages will have to see done first to penetrate the city's defenses," is true. Reasonable. There is no point in feeding bodies into the non-existent gap to cross over into the city until that space is created.

"So long as Fiona and Vael can entertain the Imperium's men, the majority of Riftwatch's forces are to be held in reserve until they can see Starkhaven's refugees out of the city to safety. There's a possibility that we see very little in the way of direct resistance tomorrow."

It's entirely possible; indeed, would be entirely conducive to Tevinter's apparent real motivation of taking the city. Why put up a fight to let people abandon the place you're after? But pride is a funny thing, and after months dug in around Starkhaven—

Well. He will not be surprised if they do meet some obstacle.

Taking an end of the cloth in each hand, the toe of John's boot is buffed to a dull gleam.

"We're to be responsible for signaling the retreat and covering their heels. What becomes of the rest falls beyond our powers."

A sound enough strategy.

And even with this deliberate inclusion of the unlikelihood of a skirmish, John senses the looming possibility of it.

Satinalia was quiet. Something must balance that.

"So the chances are very good then, that you'll make it back to Kirkwall with time to spare," is the first response, as John readjusts, straightening against the headboard so he might better study Flint. Observe the work of Flint's hands more so than the effect that work has on his boot, even as he draws his own conclusions about what the day will bring.

"We'll have to dislodge them," John says, what must everyone have been thinking about. Starkhaven is very close to Kirkwall. "If not immediately, then soon."

The sound he makes in reply is low, as meditative as the application of the cloth to digging the dust out of the grey creases spidering from the boot's eyelets. There are measures being seen to that will keep Tevinter's grip on this place loose for a short measure. The wreck the siege has already made of the city's stores will no more benefit the Imperial forces than it has the native population. Then there is the planned sabotage and pillaging of various governing houses. The destruction of ballista cords, and gate houses. Doors removed. Gates unlocked. These things in combination should guarantee that the city remain penetrable for recapture.

For a short while.

"Then let's hope that tomorrow delivers you a story worth motivating either Beatrix or Celene to action. Vael doesn't seem to have managed the right words to do it before."

"Celene can't avoid participation forever," John says, which leaves such a generous, broad space in which participation may take many forms.

Beatrix may hide forever behind the Exhalted March, but Celene has made no such commitments. Rebuilding Orlais cannot go on forever.

Leaning forward, John's hand sets over his own thigh, the other falling to the coverlet. A stop-gap measure for further physical link, for where he might otherwise set his hands were he not set back so.

"Whatever comes, we will make something of it," is a foregone conclusion. What follows though, is more carefully phrased—

"Mind the risks you take tomorrow."

"I can't imagine risking much of anything for the sake of a city we've already decided is indefensible," is a sharp barb of pettiness disguised inside a more unruffled tenor as the oiled cloth wisk-wisks dust from battered leather.

The work tomorrow is a question of what can be salvaged, not what can be won. And while Vael and the Grand Enchanter may be perfectly willing to defend that work with a stack of corpses, Riftwatch is under no such obligation. What happens on the map, Yseult had implied when they'd stood over the great swath of vellum in Riftwatch's central tower war room, is the concern of forces greater than theirs. The assessment wasn't incorrect. Riftwatch's responsibility is simply to mitigate the damage and to survive whatever occurs long enough to

make something of it, indeed.

The done up laces impedes some of the effort to buff a shine back into the upper of John's boot. This could all be accomplished more efficiently were the shoe simply removed.

The rejoinder is allowed to settle into the quiet between them.

It doesn't go unnoticed, the flicker of distemper in that response. But there is little to be done for it, until they've parsed the circumstances that led them here more clearly.

"Help me off with it," John says instead, stretching forward to set fingers at Flint's cuff and staying his work before falling to the laces. As if the question of his staying is foregone conclusion.

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