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

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.

There is no pause in the shape of his hands at the boot's ankle and tongue. No hesitation which articulates the question—Isn't there a bed, or at the very least a bedroll, somewhere in Stoneweale made up for your use?—without him actually saying it. Instead, Flint drapes the cloth over his other knee as the knot in the laces is unpicked. Once enough slack has been fed through the eyelets, a hand laid to heel and toe works the article easily free.

Who will notice if that bed is never slept in? And what difference does it make if they do?

"You should give some thought to having this sole reshod," he says, turning the boot in hand. It's knocked once against the frame of the bed between Flint's calves, scattering flakes of dried mud.

"Remind me," John replies, with his heel against Flint's thigh. "Since Irén moved his family south I've been meaning to find another reasonable cobbler in the city."

Reasonable enough to be persuaded to halve the price, rather than expect John to pay what he would for a pair rather than a single boot.

And regardless, there's nNothing to be done about it until they return to Kirkwall. The last remaining hours will likely be filled with more pressing tasks than seeing to John's boot, even if a cobbler were among the people gathered within Stoneweale.

John is not inclined to leave this tent to try and attend to it now.

"Will it last me the journey?"

Pushing his hand down the boot's throat and probing at the sole's interior with his fingers— "And some miles after," is his estimation, though he's hardly a professional. Still, John and Petrana won't be traveling on foot. It seems unlikely the boot will break down from the back of a horse or riding in a cart.

Supporting the boot from the inside does make working the dirt from its various seams easier, the leather turned pliant without the obstacle of a foot in it. Had he boot black, he might pull free the braided lace entirely and actually get at the eyelet tracks and down the tongue's gullet. But this is at best a job to be done adequately while John keeps his heel elevated in a direction that the muscle in his leg is less likely to flinch in.

"How long do you and her expect to be occupied?"

A hum of assent. So not a pressing need, only one that might be considered when their journey has concluded and John is more or less at rest. (Where rest simply means unlikely to leave Kirkwall for any extended period of time.)

"Should we find the Chantry Mother to be biddable, perhaps a week and a half. Give or take a few days, depending on how quickly we can travel there and back."

Weather, John is thinking of. The chances of another snowstorm blowing in. Of any number of minor, benign delays that could arise between now and then.

Relieved of the boot, John's hand has returned to his own thigh. Presses a thumb against overworked muscle as he continues, "I expect we'll need to find her accommodations in the city as well. It might mean asking a favor of Emlyn."

"I wasn't aware Emlyn's fortunes had risen so far as to oversee the stay of a Chantry Mother." A sidelong look as Flint sets the boot between the clamp of his knees. "You and the men may be giving her too much of your coin."

The hour isn't so late as to have withered all his sense of humor.

An answering grin, John's heel shifting back and forth over Flint's thigh as his boot is so stowed.

"There are worse places we might invest it."

Ha, ha.

"I'm wary of entrusting her to the local Chantry. I'd considered Gwenaëlle's grandfather, as an alternative. If she gives the impression of preferring gentry."

"Call me presumptuous," he says, lacing cloth about the boot's exposed upper. "But you may have some difficulty keeping her and the Chantry permanently separated. I've heard Chantry Mothers have some affinity for all the masonry."

There is no wax to melt into the leather under the buffing of the cloth. But with the boot set between his knees and under the brisk back and forth pull of the fabric, the leather can be induced to weakly imitate the effect with only the well conditioned shine. Between the dim glow and the mostly clean welt and sole wall, the boot has nearly been rendered back to a state of respectability—the shoe of a man engaged in habits outside of traipsing around the Maker forsaken earth in search of pliable Chantry Mothers, and halfway decent gossip, and once-pirates who may be shirking their duties as pretend merchant mariners. Tomorrow will see the thing coated in a fine layer of dust again, but for the present: not that. Not just yet.

"I don't want anyone undoing our good work," John says, a mild rejoinder encompassing a real concern. "I don't imagine it will take much to talk her round, but we needn't take any risks once we've convinced her to share her concerns."

It is a valuable piece, John knows, the idea that templars are suffering under the yoke of the Chantry. Whether or not John's concerns run beyond the value of that information—

That is not important.

"Are you satisfied?" is for the state of the boot, for the care administered to it. The observation of those ministrations and Flint's attention to the outcome have an oddly lancing quality to them; John feels the hook of them in his own chest.

Is he?

Removing the boot from between his knees, Flint gives it a considering once over. What the eventual tilt of temple and brow suggests is—

"It'll do."

There is only so much that can be done in these present circumstances. At this stage, additional time dedicated to the thing seems unlikely to glean some heretofore undiscovered value.

"Thank you."

Voice softening around the words, over this small expression of appreciation.

"Will you come to bed?"

The heavy canvas bag meant to carry the ammunition he'll be toting around the field tomorrow need unpacking and repacking. That there is nothing wrong with its present arrangement makes no difference—he needs to memorize it and there seems no better way to effect that. There is a loose stitch on his sword belt which needs to be ripped out and replaced. Nevermind that he will have more than a fraying stitch to worry about if he if gets so close as to require the blade he intends to bring with him tomorrow. The contents of the brazier's bowl must be raked higher to survive the night. And, if he were to choose tonight to pack away his his field desk himself, then it would be a considerable kindness to Matthias who in the morning must otherwise concern himself both with traipsing out to face Starkhaven's wall and coordinating the packing and relocation of what constitutes the division's field office.

"Soon," he says, bending to place the oil-buffed boot near to where John's crutch has already been propped so that both will be ready when the time comes. The extensive reed mats layered underfoot inside the tent are just slightly soggy.

"Make yourself comfortable without me. I've only a little left to do."

"Halve it with me," John tells him, as Flint straightens.

There is no hesitation in it; the offer comes easily. Even with only a half-guess at the sorts of things that might require Flint's attention, John has little doubt he will be suited to managing some part of them. To managing whatever might be shared between them, so that they might end the day together.

The look he gives him is steady. It is not a measurement or a question. It is observation for the sake of looking, undisturbed by a more chronic instinct to memorize; to tether to a time and place like a knot in a line that might later be used as a guide for testing progress and direction.

The hand the falls to John's ankle doesn't yet make to dislodge the prop of his heel.

"So long as you mend better than you cook."

"Consider whether that's the standard you're concerned with clearing."

It is not difficult to improve upon his cooking.

But rather than a straightforward reassurance, John offers this sidelong, glancing joke harkening back to that disastrous attempt at roasting a spitted pig. Flint's hand is warm where it lies, and the incremental flex of his heel is equal parts encouragement and welcome.

Too quick, says his low scoff of humor and some press of fingers.

It isn't difficult to extricate himself from under John's ankle, or to supply him with the sword belt along with the thick waxed lacing and heavy needle required to make the necessary impromptu repairs. The desk hasn't become stacked so high that it isn't impossible to separate into what should be kept loose and what requires consolidating and packing away, and the matter of turning the coals in the brazier may be accomplished more or less as an afterthought.

The ammunition bag, though. That he brings back into bed with him, spilling its contents between them so that after he has squeezed in next to John (his own boots still on, one foot planted on the reed mat and the other hooked across his knee, legs more out of the bed than in) they may do this part—examining each heavy shot to be certain it hasn't been knocked out of shape, verifying that it still fits through the metal ring used for testing dimensions, repacking the shot that is reliable and separating out that which must be recast—in tandem.

There is a meditative quality to the work, all the more potent for their proximity.

The sword belt is repaired. Serviceable stitching, if nothing else. (Some consideration of whether John could lay some sort of magic into the belt itself, though until the sword sees more regular use again there are likely better places to put that energy.) It is ready to be set aside once Flint returns to bed, where they pass the metal testing ring back and forth between them as they work through the spill of shot piled across the coverlet.

By and by, they winnow down the potential shot to a small pile of discards that might be set aside for the Research division's reworkings.

And John is free to catch up his hand, now unoccupied, in a loose hold. Preserve the quiet they've worked in as he tips his head: Dispense with that for the ammunition bag telegraphed by the lift of his jaw.

The bag is heavy.

Tomorrow, late in the day when is riding in the direction of Vallomire, Flint will find that both his shoulders have gone stiff from the effort of either managing the ammunition or from the weight of the long gun itself braced across the scratched leather pauldron. By the time they reach the encampment hastily thrown together in the township, he will regret, maybe, choosing to ride the length of the line instead of simply tethering his horse to the back of some wagon or cart and letting it be dragged along in whatever direction didn't require him to steer or to suffer the sullen horse jerking on the reins.

But tonight, despite working with the disadvantage of just the one hand, the heavy canvas bag is displaced from the bed without much trouble. So too goes the rejected shot, further disqualified from the quilted blanket to the crate make-do side table.

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