faderift | [CLOSED] This is not my beautiful house

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[CLOSED] This is not my beautiful house

WHO: Pariahs, Scoundrels, and Heretics
WHAT: A catch-all log for Riftwatch's satellite office in Kirkwall for the duration of Mother Pleasance's visit.
WHEN: Fantasy!March
WHERE: Hightown, the de Foncé haunted mansion
NOTES: Related to Mother May I; additional IC Assignments/OOC info.

Is the timing of this remote Riftwatch installation in Kirkwall perhaps too conveniently in step with a Chantry Mother's visit to the Gallows? And are the particular individuals assigned to temporarily work out of the gloomy Hightown mansion more or less the exact roster that someone might wish to avoid having engaged in prolonged conversation with the aforementioned woman?

No. And if anyone were to suggest such a conspiracy theory, there would be more than a half dozen perfectly reasonable points with which to counter such a paranoid claim.

As far as anyone need know, this posting is derived entirely out of a sense of prudent caution; with Tevinter's forces comfortably ensconced in the recently captured city of Starkhaven, it is only sensible to make any potential assault on Kirkwall by that same force less straightforward than the Venatori might expect.

The de Foncé Mansion

The mansion crammed into the corner of an otherwise reasonably respectable, albeit small, square of Kirkwall's Hightown has long been considered a nuisance and an eyesore by its neighbors. Long before Wysteria de Foncé started blowing things up in the mansion's basement and her companions began to curate a barnyard in its little garden, the house was held in the possession of a particularly curmudgeonly old man whose sole ambition in the years prior to his death seems to have been to stuff as much hideous old furniture, moldy books, and ominous paintings in the house as possible in addition to harassing his neighbors with threats of baseless litigation.

Suffice to say, this particular square in Hightown is well acquainted with this corner mansion being a source of what might be delicately referred to as 'some bullshit.'

Despite the outfitting done to make the place function as a secondary office for Riftwatch (much to Madame de Foncé's extreme distress; this is an infringement on her third amendment rights! Which she knows about because maybe she read the constitution while visiting New York, 20xx!!) and Wysteria's own efforts to renovate on a Riftwatch stipend, the house remains in a state of extreme dreariness. While a majority of the rooms have been organized and scrubbed down to their battered floorboards and peeling wallpaper, still others have been piled full to bursting with the hoard of ephemera left in the house by its previous owner with their doors shut tight and narrow windows shuttered, but otherwise surrendered to a thick collection of dust. The few rooms that have been fully refurbished have a faint air of desperation to them—gay wallpaper in bright Antivan styles, the best of the house's old furniture made to look slightly less shabby and so on.

It's a shame the weather is so miserable. The side garden—which must be very charming in spring and summer—might offer up a welcome relief from the morose interior. Alas, the grim forecast has managed to flood most of the planting beds and cast even that space in hues of drab grey.

Anyone who finds themselves quartering in the de Foncé house will be fortunate enough to have their very own gloomy bedroom which may either be nearly bare of furniture or so cramped with it that it's difficult to navigate. At least all the bedding has been brought over from the Gallows, so no one is sleeping on some dead guy's old sheets, and the expansive servant's kitchen has been stocked appropriately for cooking in. Just don't go down into Wysteria's cellar; she's growing something nefarious down there. With Wysteria's maid quitting on the spot when faced with the prospect of attending to all these guests, everyone will be fending for themselves when it comes to cooking and cleaning.

In addition to suspect fungal experiments, those living and working in the mansion will find themselves companion to: six chickens, an Avvar goat who lives indoors, a large brown dog who resembles a mop (who takes her job safeguarding the house very seriously), a small white dog resembling a nuisance, and an alarmingly large dog-sized Donark ant who may or may not be poisonous (it's fine! she's never bitten a person!), and a sullen poltergeist who takes exception to visitors. Luckily most of the breakable objects it enjoys flinging at people have previously been flung, so while ducking may be at a bare minimum there's no telling when a door will lock shut or a painting will attempt to fall off the wall onto someone while they pass.

The Work

Two of the least miserable rooms in the mansion have been converted into temporary working space for the duration of Riftwatch's quartering there. The library has been converted into a shared office space, containing a few worktables and chairs, a desk for Flint's use, and so on. What is likely meant to have been some kind of dining room is currently acting as a temporary armory.

For the duration of the time that this secondary Riftwatch office exists, those assigned to it will be expected to quarter within Kirkwall (be it in the mansion or otherwise) and report to these offices rather than traveling to the Gallows. Anyone who doesn't already frequent the mansion is barred from it. While those assigned to report to it may still attend to work in Kirkwall and beyond with their colleagues still living out of the Gallows, they are similarly barred from actually traveling to the fortress.

In the mean time, the work everyone will be turned to typically involves coordinating with the Kirkwall Guard to assist in reviewing, repairing, and bolstering the city's defenses should any attack occur. There are also refugees to herd, Tevinter supply lines in the Marches to disturb, and rifts still in need of closing. More than likely, those working out of the division will personally receive their orders directly from Flint rather than having them dispensed in any other fashion.

Everyone is very busy, and the house is very drab, and there should be little reason to think much at all about the Chantry Mother visiting the Gallows.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A further bout of rain sheets down into the back garden. It turns the paving stones a sullen black, and stripes the high retaining wall. It floods the planter boxes, dark earth spilling out between the seams of stacks stones and fanning out over the garden courtyard. There, on the far side of the little garden, the chicken coop is painted in glum grey colors—more hazy outline than real object. And here, in the familiar kitchen overflowing with the various detritus of Wysteria's un-filed paperwork—

Wysteria bursts up the stairs from her little mad science lab, a look of extreme distress painted on her face. Drawn up, no doubt, by the sound of little Tabouret's incessant barking, it would be expected that she might derive some relief in finding the commotion caused by Ellis and Ruadh there on the threshold. Nevermind that somewhere else in the house, faithful Déranger has begun to bow-whoof-whoof-whoof in protest; this is an perfectly ordinary form of trespassing regardless of what either of the house's dogs may think. And yet:

"Oh! Oh Mister Ellis!" Wysteria cries, despairing. "You must come at once!"

After which she instantly whirls on her heel and clatters back down the stairs into the lamp lit cellar.

Having made his way through the side-gate to quietly gather eggs from the cozily huddled chickens in their coop, Ellis had clearly not expected such an immediate greeting. (Such as it is.)

They make for a absurd tableau, even unacknowledged. In this exact moment, he is dripping rainwater all over the floor. Ruadh, paw raised, may well have intended to bat Tabouret like stuffed toy had he not paused for Wysteria's arrival. Ellis is holding a wicker basket, gussied up with a now-bedraggled bow, filled with eggs. Ruadh has looked up to him expectantly, and Ellis takes the moment to toe Tabouret out of the way (shrill yaps turning aggrieved) and whistle the massive beast on ahead.

So it is Ruadh who pads down the steps directly with a relieved bof of sound heralding his going. Ellis is only a few moments behind, having stowed the eggs out of sight of their many, many visitors.

"It's not a chemical fire?" comes his voice, mid-way down the steps. "I'll have to fetch the bucket if it is."

No he won't, because the bucket is already down here in the cellar with them.

It is not, however, presently engaged in putting out any fires. Instead, Wysteria has desperately shoved it under the vent grate which is currently dumping great quantities of water down into the cellar. Wysteria herself has hurried back to it, snatching at the filling bucket's lip and tipping it sideways so it may dump its contents directly down onto the once-dust covered, now mud-covered paving stones. From the state of the floor with its spreading wet mark, she has been stood here engaged in helping to flood her own basement for some minutes at least.

Which would all be extremely absurd if it weren't abundantly clear that she is acting to preserve the worktable which has been arranged so prudently near to this vent for a number of grudgingly sensible reasons. If the water is pouring out of the bucket and onto the floor, it is at least not pouring out of the bucket and onto her work.

"It is a disaster! And you must hurry! Raise that end of the table and help me shift it free. Oh, it's terrible. If they've gotten wet, they will all mold. And it will be the wrong sort of mold."

(This, referring to the expansive bed of horrifically Fade-mutated fungal growths defouring the studiously kept planter along the back of the table.)

It occurs to Ellis: they will have to see what has gone wrong with the vent that it is creating this minor flood.

But that will come after they rescue Wysteria's mold. Ellis is not interested in discovering what the wrong kind of mold may be, when he is only barely convinced of the concept of the right kind of mold.

"Here," he reassures, grasping his end. "On three."

To prevent the entire contents of the table sliding from an unbalanced table onto the floor, which Ellis knows (perhaps from experience) will cause no end of distress.

But between them, the table lifts. Now it is only a matter of managing a speedy relocation.

It's a tricky thing to see done, her without her arm strapped to her and water happily dumping freely down through the vent first into the bucket and then onto the floor directly as, between them, the heavy work table is shifted by the few vital feet necessary to see it cleared of the downpour.

When they get there—"Just a little farther"—, Wysteria drops her end of the table with an abrupt crunch that nearly threatens to spill some of the table's lighter contents to the floor. She snatches up the bucket instantly and only barely manages to get out a "Well done, Mister Ellis," before she whirls to charge back up the cellar stairs with the bucket.

When she arrives in the kitchen, Tab launches himself joyously off the kitchen table where he had sat, still yapping and yipping. He is not permitted down those stairs, but even in the pouring rain there is no keeping him from the garden. He is very happy to race out the door after Wysteria as she and the bucket go out into it.

Because Ellis has long learned that touching anything Wysteria has been growing without gloves is a good way to be poisoned, Ellis leaves well enough alone. All items are more or less on the table, nothing looks to be near to catching alight or starting a chain reaction.

So he turns his attention to the vent in question. Already damp from traveling through the weather, it is no real hardship to begin attempting to deter the vent from dumping water. It's a brief examination. Ellis soon ascends the stairs as well, out into the rain after Wysteria and her tiny annoyance of a dog.

Blinking in the downpour, he scans the yard for her before simply making his way round to the area where they vent leads. If she is not immediately visible, she'll find him soon enough.

She is, in fact, immediately visible. As if ignorant to the rain sheeting down on her, Wysteria has waded into the planter bed over which the vent routinely expels various smokes and fumes (which may have something to do with why this particular garden bed grows only inedible plants). She has wedged the upended bucket over the vent in an effort to slow the flood that, encouraged by the height of the planter's retaining wall, has finally reached the level where it might otherwise begin to spill joyously down into the cellar below. Now, bent nearly double and seemingly insensate to the sheeting rain, she is using her bare hand to sweep great fistfuls of mud away in an effort to excavate a preferable channel for the water to run in.

The tiny annoyance of a dog is nowhere in sight; presumably he has found his way to the chicken coop and is even now under it, growling and barking up through the bottom at the hens roosting there.

"Mister Ellis! A stone must be levered up there from the wall to open a gap. You must fetch the pry bar!"

Hopefully, one of them remembers that annoyance of a creature before they retreat back into the house.

In the moment, Ellis is not overly concerned about stray creatures in the yard. He had left a pry bar alongside one of the raised garden beds. In the span of time it takes him to cross the yard and dash to the specified place in the wall, he has been soaked through to the skin.

They might have gotten Wysteria a spade. But she's managing, and he's occupied.

The specified stone comes away with a great crumbling of cement and wet thud on impact. Ellis bends after it, lifting it into his arms as he asks her, "Is this—?"

Abortive, expecting immediate judgement and/or further instruction.

A slosh of mud and water and muddy water had poured free of the planter with the stone's first removal, but the loose soil has quickly collapsed in to stopper the flow.

"Toss it aside. Oh, just pull out the next one as well. The whole planter might as well be yanked out at this rate—" Though this latter half of the remark must be a note for a different day when the rain is less of a factor as it hardly seems reasonable to tackle significant planter redesign in the current atmosphere.

As it is, Wysteria has dug a deep enough hole below the vent that the water level immediately surrounding it has reduced to the point that she might turn the bucket to its actual purpose—uncovering the vent and swiftly scooping at the water and mud, all of it done more or less one handed as the management of the prosthetic arm's little switches seems far too fiddly in the moment.

When the rain stops, Ellis will make proper sense of the wreckage they are carving out here.

Maybe some piping. Yes, they will relocate the planter, but beyond that—

"Let me do that," comes on the heels of a second rock tossed aside. "Tell me where, and I'll be quicker with it."

Because if nothing else, Ellis takes orders very well. Wysteria is adept at directing proceedings. He can manage the bucket, even without a very clear picture of what she has in mind to save the vent from becoming a water-logged hazard.

"No, you ought to fetch a spade. A channel should be dug—" She is being ridiculous, it occurs to her with a not invisible flash of frustration. "Oh, all right. Just continue bailing here," is for the hole dug below the vent into which water is pouring.

She surrenders the bucket. And quits the planter entirely, sloughing out of the mud and briefly abandoning Ellis to the effort so she may retrieve a spade. When she returns with the shovel, it's no great thing to once more trade him and to direct Ellis to carve a trench into the garden bed that collects the water and feeds the hole punched into the planter's retaining wall rather than simply flooding up and into the vent.

It is decidedly miserable work in the cold and rain; maybe a half hour later, with the vent rescued but the floor of the cellar still a mess, further work is momentarily eschewed in favor of kicking up a fire in the hearth of the mansion's cluttered kitchen. The both of them resemble rats who either drowned, or who took a mud bath. Or who took a mud bath, and then drowned. The little white dog, dripping on the hearth stone where he sits as Wysteria throws a fresh log onto the fire, is no longer white.

For a young lady who has spent the last several weeks in agony over the state of her house thanks to the inhabitation of strangers with their muddy boots and careless handling of her property or appeasement of the spirit therein, Wysteria seems unruffled by the great slough of mud they've tracked in after them.

"Well," she decrees instead, starting to slick the hair back out of her eyes and only at the last second thinking better of it—thus saving herself from smearing a muddy handprint up the length of her forehead. "Fine timing on your part, Mister Ellis."

The floor of the cellar is on Ellis' mind as he lowers himself down to the floor. Having been so thoroughly drenched, so weighted down with mud spattered up his front and caked round his boots, that the process of peeling away his coat becomes an incremental process. His hands are pale with chill, clumsy over the fastenings.

"I'll see to it properly when the rain lets up," Ellis tells her. "I should have thought of it before the weather turned."

When the weather breaks, it can be done properly. A prettier trench, perhaps laid over with wire and rods to avoid someone stepping in it and twisting an ankle. He has time to think on how to approach the task while they wait for the rain to let up.

"Let me," comes as he beckons her down to the floor. His hands are marginally cleaner, cleansed somewhere between the stowing of the shovel and the last dash to the backdoor, out of the rain. He and the tiny, mud-painted dog had affected a very similar full-body shake just inside the threshold: rainwater shaken free of his curls as the tiny irritant had attempted to shake free a splatter of mud.

"Nonsense. It's no one's fault other than the weather's. Only we might consider making a cover for the vent. Or something like the floo in a chimney that could be open and shut as required."

This, putting a lot of faith into her ability to perceive when she's about to set something on fire or create debilitating fumes. But that's beside the point for the time being, surely. Wysteria shifts the bucket of rainwater closer to the coals before helping herself to a spot on the floor beside him; at the very least, there's been no reason to use the garden's pump to draw up water for washing in. A single bucket won't fill the copper tub in her room upstairs, but so long as it's warm and can be poured over once or twice to wash the mud and the chill away then that will achieve something.

Sitting there within range of Ellis' helpful hands, Wysteria draws her knees up under the tent of her grimy, sodden skirts. Wiping her muddy hand on her marginally less muddy shirt sleeve, she promptly fishes an arm in under the skirt hem. A moment later, a soggy ribbon and a soggier woolen stocking are produced. Both are slapped across the hearth beside the little not white dog with a sound like a wet fish on a chopping block. She goes back in for the second set.

"Good gods, Tab. Look at you."

Whatever complicated thing occurs in reaction to the appearance of ribbons and stockings, it doesn't quite reach Ellis' face. Stalls in his chest, tamped down to nothingness as his eyes move away from the discarded items to the mud-caked dog.

"He's of a size to fit in that bucket," is not a serious suggestion, though it's hard to say whether or not the little dog in question has much in the way of dignity at this point in time.

Carefully, Ellis reaches out to complete Wysteria's aborted attempted to rearrange the locks of hair plastered to her forehead. His fingers are very cold, would be clumsy for any more precise work than this, but here, the work is done in a series of intent, cautious sweeps.

"I'll make a cover," Ellis is telling her as he does this, because experience has certainly demonstrated to Ellis how often spontaneous fires and fumes arise in this household. "The blacksmith will help me manage it once I've taken the measurements."

"Thank you," may be equally for his attendance to her hair as to the vent leading down into the cellar. She only wrinkles her nose slightly at the scuff of his very cold fingers— "You should hold your hands to the fire, Mister Ellis. Your fingertips have gone all blue."

The second stocking is slapped down alongside the first and the tent of her grubby skirts smoothed back down into place so she may shiver more or less in peace. Were the hearthstone a little wider, she might insist on dislodging the little dog from it so they both might simply sit practically inside the wide fireplace. Alas.

(The straps across her body to keep her arm lashed to her have already begun to grow uncomfortable. But that is a problem best addressed behind her dressing screen.)

"What a dreadful month. I tell you, I will be glad when everything returns as it ought to be. There is quite enough going on in this house without the weather and all these extra bodies to add to it."

"The weather will break soon enough," is the most straightforward reassurance Ellis can make.

Who can say how long the house will have to entertain its additional occupants? A week has stretched onwards, and Ellis can no more predict the whims of a Chantry Mother than he can pinpoint the exact day the weather will shift from miserable downpours to marginally more temperate offerings.

But one at least is a certainty, while the other is...unpredictable at best.

"Has the ghost taken to any of them yet?"

The process of peeling off his woolen coat is...laborious. A scattering of mud and pebbles clatter to the floor as Ellis sheds the jacket, sighs with dismay over the state of the quilted gambeson beneath it. The squelch of soaked fabric sends rivulets of water running down to puddle beneath him every time he moves.

"Difficult to say. I think the proliferation of company has it confused enough to diminish some of its more violent activity. Or," she allows. "It already threw the most breakable things at your head some time ago, and has lost interest in chucking about whatever porcelain remains."

If the mantle piece above them presently is conspicuously lacking in its usual collection of cheap dishware, the ghost can't be blamed for it.

"Matthias seems the most concerned with it, so I wouldn't be entirely surprised to hear it that it lingers about his room or something like that. But maybe that's just the unexpected paranoias of a young mage. Here, let me help with the buckles of your gambeson. I know your hand sometimes troubles you, and I've lots of practice with the one."

Wysteria wipes her hand a second time on her skirts, shaking it after to work some feeling back into the fingertips.

There is a beat of hesitation. Some immediate tension in his body as Wysteria shakes the chill from her hand, maybe weighing the possibility of no against Wysteria's unyielding persistence and his own unwillingness to entertain the inevitable why not?

So the tension ebbs. He shifts, turning towards her more fully, an opening and an acquiescence. Invitation. Whole, unmarred hand coming up to pin the water-logged fabric in place against his chest to make her work easier.

"I have thought of breaking it again," he admits. "But it might be too long for that to make any difference, no matter the healer."

To undergo so much work, be unable to use the hand as he should for however long, and receive the same result? Irresponsible.

"It works well enough," sweeps that possibility aside. "But I appreciate the help now."

The flick of her hand must stand for You're quite welcome or some similar bit of polite pretense made more or less irrelevant by their familiarity. Having shaken the ache out of her fingers, she pivots the slight degrees which make accessing his buckles more straightforward. The water logged leather ends are, indeed, somewhat unfriendly to being stuffed back through their keepers but her fingers are strong and agile. Barring that—

"Was it set by a mage healer when you first injured it?"

—there is a little blunt spike on one of the strands of her chatelaine for just this problem, easily fetched up with little more than a rasp from is chain and worked cheerfully into the gap between metal and leather.

Meanwhile, sending the availability of an unoccupied hand and Ruadh far enough removed not to present an imposition, the little muddy dog rolls over on the hearthstone and angles his snout in the correction direction to lick at Ellis' bent fingers. Hello. Is Ellis aware that he's very charming, actually?

Is it possible to actually pet this dog, when Tabouret is so thoroughly coated in mud?

Apparently it is not any sort of deterrent to at least an attempt. Ellis' hand turns, palm up, for inspection before lifting fingers to scratch behind Tabouret's ears. Having grown so accustomed to Noose and Ruadh and Déranger, all of varying but substantial size, the comically small creature under-hand is almost disorienting in its miniature form.

"It was set by a mage who knew a little bit of healing."

Technically a mage healer, yes?

The fastening comes free under the work of the little spike. His throat works around a swallow, soggy fabric of his collar falling apart to either side once released. The rise and fall of his chest remains steady as his fingers shift, realigning towards remaining fastenings.

The sidelong look Wysteria gives him as she moves her spike to the second fastening says No, actually. Definitely not a mage healer, technically or otherwise.

(Tabouret gives him no such judgemental assessment, perfectly pleased with this scrap of attention.)

"Perhaps you might consult Mister Dickerson or Miss Niehaus on the matter. It's entirely possible they might have some excellent Rifter advice for you. Indeed, it seems entirely possible to me that Mister Dickerson or even Derrica might very well have the thing broken and reset and healed in such short order than you'd hardly be inconvenienced at all."

"I didn't know Cosima had medical training."

Though should that be the case, it wouldn't necessarily surprise him. Research contains multitudes, almost as a rule.

"It wasn't a clean break," is a very glossy summation of the event. "But maybe. The next time there is some quiet."

His thumb rubs back and forth under Tabouret's upturned jaw.

"It isn't much of an inconvenience now. Better when I remember to carry a heated stone in my pocket."

(Cosima's the one who knows something about blood sharks. That's medical, isn't it? You know. Allegedly.)

"You might bring that little dog shaped rock back to me if you still have it. I can adjust the enchantment placed on it and see that it goes warm instead of cold. Although only for a day or so, obviously. And if you've lost it, almost any rock will do. Perhaps if there's a pocket sized one among the gravel pile from the cellar excavation, or any of the old split pavers from the garden. But the dog would be better. Partly as I think it's witty."

This, as the second and third fastening are worked free.

"I still have it."

Of course he has it.

It remains among the things secured in his pack, the things that have been carefully accounted for as Ellis traveled northwards and returned south.

"I'll see the cover installed before I go north again."

Has this not yet been mentioned? Surely passing it off in stride will mitigate any undue attention paid to the prospect.

As if any of them scurrying abroad is shocking news, really.

"Somewhere exciting, I hope," she says, prying the last strap up out of its keeper and forcing open the buckle. Ta da! How clever she is, suggests the waggle she gives the little spike before she sets it aside with a rasp of the chain.

for ellis;

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