[OPEN]

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria and YOU
WHAT: Catch-all for post-Starkhaven
WHEN: Now!
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: n/a, will add if applicable

THE (UNSTAFFED) DINING HALL.

One of the Gallows' towers keeps a kitchen, and a fire in its hearth which services the prodigious main hall. At this particular hour in the morning, that one may in fact presently be seeing to the feeding and watering of Riftwatch's various late risers who may yet be avoiding facing the truly atrocious weather of the day.

This one, however, —that hall's twin in the opposite tower—has been turned to a far more critical business. With buckets of late winter and/or early spring rain falling out of doors, the great underutilized space is—

being cleared of its various heavy furniture at Wysteria's shrill, too-cheerful-for-the-hour, direction. If someone had been unlucky enough to have breakfasted in the same early hour as herself, they may have been pressed into this task of lifting and carrying: shifting unused benches and various scattered tables to the walls of the room so as to leave the center of the hall cleared.

"Wait, wait. It's only just occurred to me. Perhaps we should move two of the tables over before the hearth and turn them on their sides to act as a sort of backstop," Wysteria is saying while, about their heels, a small white dog does his level best to put himself underfoot.

Or, later, once the space has been properly rearranged, is acting as a testing ground for various Research Division atrocities. The poor weather will not delay Madame de Foncé's very strict trial schedule. She has very strictly laid out a great array of materials to one side of the hall, including but not limited to: a six by six square of woven metal strips; a light net halfway to being packed inside of a wooden tube, a prodigious amount of sail cloth wrapped in a tangle of ropes, and a straw padded crate of palm-sized jars with wicks sticking ominously out of their tops, and...a rudimentary bicycle.

THE KIRKWALL DOCKS.

A familiar young woman is standing on one of the low stone walls that zigs and zags about, slicing the Kirkwall docks into its various ramps and stairs and overhangs. She has a little spyglass tucked against her eye, and is presently watching the mouth of the harbor—where a fat mercantile ship is currently wallowing against the weather in an attempt to work itself toward its anchorage—with considerable interest.

So much interest, in fact, that she is presently blind to the pair of shifty looking teenaged boys on the landing behind her who are clearly giving some serious consideration to how they might manage slicing the purse strings running from her chatelaine to her skirt pockets, and whether they could fish away the prize of the purse quickly enough to avoid capture if they made a go at shoving her off the wall.

AN AMBUSH. (wildcard with a twist; please describe what your character is up to and I'll riff off it.)

To describe Wysteria de Foncé as a relentless act of nature devised to make all persons about her thankful for the comparative peace afforded by her absence would be rude. It also wouldn't always be entirely unfair given the woman's propensity for appearing at the most inopportune of moments. There is a particularly uncanny way in which she turns her attention upon her desired victim with the ominous focus of a crossbow swiveling to aim a bolt directly down a helm's eye slot, and a marked tenacity with which she will cross any measure of distance and navigate any obstacle to reach the aforementioned target of her interests.

So maybe Wysteria is suddenly adjusting her trajectory to intercept, skirts swishing about her heels; or maybe she is rushing down a Kirkwall stairwell; or calling "You! I've a very important matter to discuss with you! Wait a moment, I'll be right down!" from the upstairs window of an unlikely Lowtown public house; or merely right there on the other side of the door when it's opened.

Regardless, the trap is sprung. Escape is futile.

Comments

testing ground

[portalling]

They are, of course, colleagues.

It doesn’t change the fact that Stephen Strange still finds Wysteria only marginally more baffling than elvhen artifacts, even if he’s still been roped into this endeavour under the guise of departmental collaboration. He’s in Research. She is conducting Research. He should help with the research, probably, in the interests of getting a good end-of-year review from the boss.

After she’s started to lay out a mystifying array of equipment and supplies in the commandeered dining hall, he finds himself scrutinising each one in turn. The bicycle draws particular interest and he examines the rotary cranks and pedals, and spins the wheel with an absentminded touch. He’s not an engineer, but he can admire the work nonetheless.

“They called early versions of these velocipedes. Excellent name,” Strange says, then, “Are you working on twelve different experiments at once? I can’t see the connective tissue between all of these objects.”

[heirring]

"Working on? No, absolutely not. Don't be ridiculous, Doctor."

This, as she is making some effort to gather the rest of that light cord netting and cram it the rest of the way into the mouth of the wooden tube. There are various metal weights attached to the net at intervals and the combination of them are making it difficult to pack the whole thing appropriately with just the one hand. Also not helpful: the little white dog currently prancing all over the net's loose ends.

"We are testing a dozen different experiments at once. I've fallen very behind on it what with the holidays and the whole business at Starkhaven and that nonsense in the Crossroads and, of course, the general sense of despair inflicted by all this weather. Which is why I am so very grateful for your assistance. —Although you must promise not to say velocipede against lest de Foncé hear it. Valentine, I mean," she corrects, only belatedly remembering that would technically also be her. "It sounds like an insect which means he would like it far too much.

"And charming as that might be,"—(she does not sound particularly charmed)—"I would rather we not change the thing's name now. I've already written down 'bimobile' on a great deal of paperwork. —Oh, come now Tabouret!"

This for the little dog, who seems not to mind terribly when she pushes him off the net with the toe of her field boot.

[grindset]

Viktor, on the other hand, hasn't been roped into anything; there's no need. Say the word test and he's in. Moreover, he's now comfortable enough as a member of this company to, if necessary, invite himself to whatever interests him, with or without prior warning. (It was not necessary this time.)

"I like velocipede," he says, not very helpfully, as he taps his way across to the staged area.

In previous engagements, Wysteria's tiny menace has found Viktor's three-legged gait enticing for whatever doggy reason—the cadence and clicking, perhaps, or some misplaced optimism that surely this will be the time he'll throw his stick—so she may shortly be given reprieve.

"Did you bring the jars? —Ah!" There they are. Hello to them and no one else.

[portalling]

“You should lock that thing up when we’re technically in the middle of fieldwork,” Strange says, as Tabouret is ricocheted off the net for the nth time. The doctor grouses, but he doth protest too much, since he’s usually quite fond of animals — they are so very much easier than people — but he does look a little overwhelmed by the sheer unstoppable energy of this one.

The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, reduced to carrying heavy objects and shepherding a tiny dog. How the mighty have fallen.

He takes a nearby yardstick originally meant for measuring distance between the tables, and tosses it towards the archway in the hopes of deterring the creature— this only buys them about fifteen seconds of freedom, however, before Tabouret returns with the yardstick, as inevitable as the heat death of the universe.

“If there’s an explosion of arcane energies and your dog turns into a horror,” he adds, “I’m just saying, I disavow all involvement.”

[heirring]

"My, someone certainly woke up on the wrong side of their bed this morning. Viktor, would you please inform the good doctor that we plan to all have an excellent afternoon, and that no one—four legged or otherwise—is very likely to find themselves exploded. Honestly, if that were such a risk, we would hardly be working indoors to begin with."

This stroppy bit of behavior being somewhat actively undermine as Wysteria, having finally plugged the rest of the net into the tube, has set about feeding a wick free from the back of the canister.

"Now, perhaps if you might be so kind as to pull one of those training yard targets out into our firing lane. Then I will have you shoot this for me."

[grindset]

Once eye contact with said good doctor has been achieved, Viktor informs him of the aforementioned by holding a gesture to Wysteria, and his head at a deferential cant, as she rounds out the content of her message. His open hand then crisply returns to him as a fist. Transmission over.

His contribution, as he turns back to snooping: "We have blast chambers for that."

That same hand forms an elegant shape, pinky and ring fingers raised, as he very carefully draws one of the jars halfway from its nest of straw to peek at its contents.

[portalling]

“Viktor, would you please inform the good woman that one never thinks they’re going to be exploded, and that is precisely when one winds up exploded,” but there’s no heat to the patter, no real anger, simply sarcasm as ambient background noise. Because Strange still crosses the room obediently enough, and he starts to haul the target dummies further into the center of the hall, rearranging them into the line of fire. They’re straw-stuffed things, typically used for sword practice, but evidently stolen for their purposes today.

The physical labour isn’t much up Strange’s alley, but his training had been like this, too, once upon a time. Break down that arrogant ego. Go carry some groceries for the monks.

“Are we trying to shoot the dummies with a net?” he asks. Because overwhelming as Wysteria is, he still perks up whenever the arcane-slash-scientific principles come into play. He might not be an engineer like so many of his colleagues — present company included — but he’s still interested.

[heirring]

Somewhere, possibly behind Strange's back, Wysteria makes pointed eye contact with Viktor and maybe empathically rolls her eyes. Which, being a very dramatic gesture, is generally more cheerful and well meaning than if she'd only done so very slightly. This guy.

(Ha ha, we have fun here.)

"We are trying to shoot dummies with a net," she confirms, pleased that the work is so transparent. That's good; it bears promising results for when they put the net gun into the hands of less thoughtful people.

"I've been thinking of the dracolisks in Starkhaven—oh, Viktor; be careful, some of those have had a measure of dracolisk venom added. Yes, the ones with the Xs marked on the seals. We may want to save those for the outdoors during some break in the rain—, and that it seems much easier to tangle cavalry or a rider up than it does to puncture the animals' hides and take them down that way. And also we might wish to take a few hostages at some point."

[grindset]

In exchange for Wysteria's cheerful exasperation, between jars and with an oblique pleasure of his own, Viktor offers a briefer gesture: and there's her message in return, amenably crossing the stage.

Merrily sniping at one another over the day's work is indeed one of life's finer little joys—

Oh, the ones marked X? Like the one he's holding now? Where someone else might be encouraged to paranoid avoidance by this news, Viktor simply re-draws the previous jar and compares the look of the two, one in each hand.

Hostages inspires a little twist of his mouth, left unspoken.

[portalling]

“That’s a good idea. I can summon magical chains, which worked well enough on the battlefield in a pinch, but a tool that anyone can deploy — and which will last longer — is more universally applicable.”

There’s a comfortable ebb-and-flow to this work; it reminds Strange of the way he’d always bantered with fellow doctors in the surgical theater, conducting a perpetual jovial ongoing patter despite the blood on their hands, the intensive task at hand. He likes to keep talking throughout, and so he does:

“Are dracolisks popular? Are they present anywhere in Kirkwall? If not then I, personally, think it’s deeply unfair that the enemy has nightmare dragon-horses but we can’t have nightmare dragon-horses.”

[heirring]

"I don't know that I've ever seen a dracolisk in Kirkwall, no. Though it is a major port city. Surely some have been traded through here. But I believe they're primarily known in the capacity you may have witnessed at Starkhaven—as Tevene cavalry mounts. I saw one for the first time at the battle at Ghislain, for example. So I imagine their lack of popularity here in the south may be something of an issue of reputation."

And thank the gods Valentine de Foncé isn't present to squabble over this point. No doubt he would take this as license to insist that there was nothing inherently wrong or destructive about the animals, that there was no reason to fear them, and so on and so forth, nevermind that she had said nothing of the sort.

But there is only one insistent interlope ok this conversation, and that is the little white dog who has turned his attention from chasing the dregs of the net in order to pivot his attention to Viktor—rollicking gamely in the direction of the individual who seems most in possession of a toy that might be thrown for him to chase.

Wysteria makes no effort to stop him. She instead takes the heavy shears from her chatelaine and trims the wick sticking out of the gun launcher to a less unreasonable length.

"Which of you would like to do the honors?"

entangled in cobwebs on my way back to this thread

[grindset]

"All yours," says Viktor, without looking their way.

He's turned his attention down to the unruly creature bounding up to his feet, and turned up his toe to waggle enticingly. It might be inconsiderate to encourage Wysteria's excitable dog to greater excitement, especially in a way that seems to condone attacking shoes... but the lunging feints are objectively adorable, so, too bad.

Still not looking up, still holding two jars of explosive fluid, pivoting elusive taps off his heel, "Regardless of their popularity, dracolisks don't fly, so we still have the advantage there."

spins in similar cobwebs

[portalling]

“True. I do enjoy flight. Still need to befriend one of those griffons, though—”

With the honours ceded to him, Strange has sidled up to the launcher, sleeves of his robes rolled up to his elbows and pinned back to keep out of the way. He holds up his scarred hands with a decidedly theatrical flourish, then glances over to the others, ensuring no one’s standing too close — the dog hasn’t gambolled its way into the firing line — at least a mere net isn’t liable to explode in their faces, probably — and he says, “Alright then. Three, two, one…”

And because he’s not just dramatic but melodramatic, rather than use a normal match like a normal person, Doctor Strange goes through a complex series of movements with his fingers with a certain unnecessary flair,

and he summons a small palmful flare of fire, which catches merrily on the wick, and then he takes a long step backwards.