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

Self-satisfaction makes a return, Marcus turning empty cup around in hand.

"I suppose the test is if you'll repeat it to another," he says. There will be some moment between conversational patter—possibly the nervous energy before a battle soon, maybe, or the quiet hours in its mournful wake—when he will probably tell Julius the dragon one.

"Even more," By says, "if I repeat it to someone else without giving you credit."

Byerly grins, and lifts the flask in a little toast. And then, abruptly, like it's the continuation of this very same conversation, he says, "Next time, do tell me about this sort of thing in advance, won't you? It does make my life harder, having to scramble."

Marcus nods at that first part. Of course.

Then a beat of delay, refocusing, feeling the shift of conversation like a lurch on a ship. Loose enough from the marrow out not to respond defensively, looking across at Byerly with open uncertainty before catching up. "You mean, this?" he says, a tip of his head meant to signify—

Well, this. Their being here.

He hums in confirmation. "A good idea is a good idea. Did you think I'd stand in the way if I'd known about it?"

There are different answers to this question, the one being asked directly and the other. Marcus is considering them both in his even look across the table at Byerly. Perhaps in their order of priority.

First, "There wasn't advance to give," is quiet, serious, seemingly truthful. "We were turning the notion around between us, all of it just—" A breath out, resetting. "It didn't mean anything without Fiona's word. So we went to get that first. Shaped it, on our way back."

Byerly nods in mock-thoughtfulness. "A tricky problem indeed," he replies. "Certainly, a cadre dedicated to being convincing couldn't have helped you with that step."

A breath out through his nose, subtle and unsmiling amusement. But he lets that sink in, considers it.

"They're my people," eventually, a flickered glance up after settling his focus somewhere in the middle distance between them. "And I didn't want to convince her into something. To draw her and them all into machinations. Obligation, and leveraging, and."

He shakes his head, dismissive of that possibility. "Either they would or would not. It would have to be their decision for it to matter, but I had faith they'd make the correct one."

And there's a moment, there, where he appears to remember who he is talking to, and stops.

Byerly meets his gaze, smiles ironically. He can see those gears turning, hear Rowntree grow silent upon shifting his attention to Byerly. Well: fair enough. By would certainly pause before trusting Rowntree with anything sincere, as well.

He doesn't press further on this topic. Instead he asks, "And what else?" For it had been clear from the man's tone before that there was still more to say. Some other reason to not bring Diplomacy in.

It would be tactically sound to defer. There is room to. But a sense of conversational tactics is the foremost reason that it was Enchanter Julius delivering this news to Byerly Rutyer, not very long ago at all now, and not Marcus.

Gaze met in return, a certain degree of locking down. That he is inebriated doesn't dampen too badly a natural inclination towards stillness, assessment, the fidget gone from his hand.

"Perhaps you would have stood in its way," he says. "Good idea or no."

Byerly's sole response is an arched eyebrow above an amused little smile. Go on.

That amused little smile. Either Marcus is not sober enough to dampen the feeling of contempt that suddenly catches him, as if he had not been making silly jokes with this man and accepting his whiskey but a moment ago, or drunk enough to let it. Or neither state matters.

"You could make yourself trustworthy to us," he says, a little like his back teeth are still together. "If you wished it."

Byerly's response to that is a short, dry laugh. "No," he says, "I couldn't." He lifts his hand, and gestures; nothing is produced. "I'm missing something that would make it possible."

This is more expected, maybe, the hostility that is beginning to ember away in his regard of the other man, even though Byerly and Marcus rarely share a room for it to be familiar. A brief glance to that hand, its lack of flame or light, back to his face.

"This," and his hand lifts up from the cup, but his gesture is likely less elegant. Quick, a dry snapping of his fingers, near-noiseless, and a short ribbon of flame flickers out through his knuckles. Gone, leaving behind a trace of smoke, the slight scent of singed hair.

Marcus, distracting himself off his point as he watches for flinch, adds, "Is not what we ask of you. Compassion, kindness. Time of day. Respect. That is all."

His answer is an ironic smile. "And yet," Byerly says, "I have given compassion, kindness, time of day, and respect, and it has not been enough to win trust."

He shakes his head very slightly. "Find me a time I have not given it. Truly. When push came to shove and I did not do right by you and your people. Or when I did not do far more than right by you."

"What does that mean," Marcus says, discontent as tension in the slouch of his posture, "far more than right?"

Byerly's lips thin. He truly does detest the thought of speaking on this. But he detests the idea of losing this argument, as well, and so he speaks - clipped, stiff, but he speaks.

"Do you think it cost me nothing to ensure that young Colin saw justice?" When the Templar who had abused the boy so terribly in the Circle was accused before a Blackhaller and found guilty. It had not been an accident that the Blackhaller who'd heard the case had had the courage to convict the man in question, nor that the Queen had permitted the case to be heard on Fereldan soil to begin with. He'd spent many of his accumulated facors that day, and had indeed gone into debt.

(Maker, though, he doesn't regret it, nor begrudge it. Perhaps that is why he feels so discomfited speaking of it - to talk of debts in that matter seems absurd.)

Irritation immediately winds tension through Marcus. It is a petty emotion to have at the reminder of a kind thing done to correct something so wrong, but he feels it anyway. Less for an argument won or lost—who gives a fuck, really—and more for some other thing that is difficult to put to words, even whilst sober.

Which doesn't prevent him from speaking, or anything.

"I think it cost you and that you keep a careful tally," he says, a slight show of teeth between syllables.

And with that, he laughs. A quiet scoff.

"Of course," he says, a mocking note in his voice. "So to clarify once more: all I need do is show you compassion and respect. And then all will be well between us. Eh? Nothing more needed.

"I could be an ally to you and yours," Byerly adds, and there's a note of weariness in his voice, "but for the fact that you won't allow it."

Laughter, mockery, these things inspire a subtle sort of withdraw, reminders of why he does not like to engage in conversation with Byerly Rutyer to begin with. No dipping of eye contact, keeping that even, but a tempering of anger. A reset grip on a weapon, more than a stowing of it.

"Is that true?" Marcus asks, after a few seconds spent on absorbing, assessing. "You would make yourself an ally to us. Our cause, our desire to exist among your kind, freely. For those things the Chantry doesn't want, you would be our advocate."

There's no sarcasm in his tone, or mockery, or an obvious show of doubt. An earnest outlining of the thing he is talking about, put across the table for the taking.

"I said I could be an ally," he replies, "not a mouthpiece." Which is an answer that surprises him a bit: he could easily give sweet little lies to Rowntree - wouldn't even feel bad about it. But, well. He's tired. He's old. This war has gone on so long.

"My intention is to advocate for what is right. For Thedas and for its people. There is no reason that the joy of you and yours could not be a part of that." He shrugs. "But for the fact that you'd sooner cut out your tongue than work with me to accomplish that."

There's no balking at this first qualifier, his intent on an honest answer clear and bright from the murkiness of his own state. It's at this last part that he lets out a breath, contemptuous, some self-directed frustration. How he keeps trapping himself into these conversations, even if it's been a while since the last.

"Fuck you," is a very lazy swipe of a thing to say, the barest curl of a scowl, the table shuddering slightly as he puts his hand down against the surface of it to lever himself to stand.

He doesn't straighten from his lean immediately. "Either you do the right thing or you don't do the right thing," he says, while caught getting his balance back. "And we are aligned or we aren't. And that's all."

Byerly spreads his hands easily at that fuck you, his expression utterly unoffended. As for the latter - he begins shaking his head before Marcus is even finished.

"You say that like your cause is easy. Yes or no. Freedom or captivity. Like you yourselves aren't split into half a dozen factions. And you say that like it's possible to get everything you want in the world."

Which - Perhaps that's part of what lodges so deep under his skin. That attitude that you needn't give - that all you need do is take. That thought that you can have everything. And so there's an edge of frustration that creeps into his voice when he says, "Do you think that all I do in my job is ask? Dearest Chantry, would you ease up on the mages? Oh, yes, Ambassador, of course. Of course I keep tallies, Rowntree. I must. Because all of Diplomacy is a matter of ledgers and balances. To advocate for one thing may well mean abandoning another - don't speak to me of doing the right thing or not."

Maybe Byerly is right. Maybe Marcus views the road to victory as a straight line, golden and burning, and certainly, he's heard the things being said to him now before. Heard it from people he respects. The familiarity of it, repeated here, is enough to ease him off some of that intensity, his hand lifting from table surface to instead balance on the back of his chair.

Bristling, still. "I don't know what you do at your job," sounds more snide than pure admission of ignorance. "But you're talking of a people who have been starved of outside friendship for centuries. What sort of diplomat are you if you can't convince us of yours, if you really care as you claim? That your good turns come from somewhere true.

"I," fingers splaying, as if to signal against being interrupting, "don't care that you don't have magic. I care whether or not you see the wrong of it all, or don't."

His joke is definitely funnier now.

"Listen to yourself, Rowntree," Byerly replies. He leans forward as Marcus shifts his weight back. There's some of that focused intensity in his face again - that sharp, cynical intelligence he works so hard to conceal. (When he's like this, Byerly's gaze can sometimes be hard to meet: the man has been blessed with a pair of heartbreakingly beautiful eyes, long-lashed and dark and rich as deep earth. When the full weight of that look is on you, it can be stiflingly heavy.)

"Listen to all the reasons you come up with to mistrust me. If not this, then that. If not here, then there. At a certain point - " He places his hand, palm-down, on the table, and leans forward further still - "you need to begin to acknowledge that all of this, this hostility, isn't because you dislike anything I've done. It's because you dislike me."

Edited 2023-02-19 14:05 (UTC)

There is a slight recoil, a response to either posturing pressure or something else aggravating, either or like a newspaper swat to the nose.

And, more so than anger, and what lowered inhibitions means is read clearer than it would be, he feels foolish. Stupid, even, for being in this position, and how he must have let himself drink more than Byerly (as far as he is aware), and for being the one who feels passionately for a thing while someone speaks of reason, and how little they have invested into the topic in question, when it is so much of his being.

His hand lifts off the back of the chair, comes back down, a sort of resetting. "I will not be told," he says, "that I alone am standing in your way. That I am the one who is prejudiced."

The chair creaks, a relinquishing of weight as Marcus goes to move, but a sort of and another thing energy hooks his focus back around to Byerly—

"You know," brow furrowed, a hand up, "there are those in this world who would agree that Colin of Kinloch Hold deserved justice, and those same people would also see my people confined to towers forever. That it was an aberration, what happened, and not some natural extension of what the Circles represent. What is it you believe, then, Rutyer? Tell me plain."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject