Keep a gold chain on my neck

[clawings]

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: A ghost falls out of a rift, only he's alive now, so that's... something?
WHEN: Justinian
WHERE: Around Kirkwall, mostly in the Gallows during Rifter quarantine
NOTES: If you knew Erik before? I'm sorry, he doesn't remember you.

1. Rock the boat like a one-eyed pirate :: once the rift has closed (arrival in the nearby mountains)

Erik had held his own fighting with the others against the demons and solitary wraith that followed him through the rift, once he demanded that one of Riftwatch's rescuers go ahead and toss him a sword. Pretty impressive, perhaps, considering what he's wearing, down to the leather sandals, wouldn't be considered all that great of a gear for fighting in.

Now, the monsters are gone and he's been given the spiel, his eyebrows working higher and higher as the state of Thedas, of Riftwatch, and his (hopeful) position therein are explained to him. When he's done asking some fairly general questions -- How long has all this been going on? Years? Fuck. And how long will it take to get to Riftwatch? -- he takes a deep breath and asks a fairly strange one:

"What do the people here think happens to your soul when you die?"

Judging by his expression, he is honestly curious. Or trying to start shit, right out the gate.

It can be hard to tell.

2. Rick James, I get glitter on my eyelids :: quarantine in the Gallows

Here's the thing: Erik can't even be too pissed at the insistence on a quarantine.

First? Because he was dead. For a hot minute. No body remained. His consciousness, or soul, or whatever you want to call it, existed solely in an afterlife that consisted of more or less one (large) room occasionally on fire. Aware of the world of those that were living in a way that could not be easily explained in many ways other than by pointing at him and going ghost.

Ancestor.

And that was no longer true. Erik was now alive, in possession of a body that required food, water, sleep. A body that itched to train. A body that looked and felt as familiar as the body he died in, and so, it was his body. Many scars and all.

Secondly, he was grateful for the time to go ahead and try to figure out just what in the whole fuck was going on here.

He's around at every meal, in the communal eating space. You do not come in possession of his musculature by skipping meals... plus it's been a while since he's had the opportunity to, yanno, eat. He sits alone at first but then picks up his plate and sits down next to someone else.

"So what is it you do here?"

He can also be stumbled upon in the kitchen, opening containers of spices and taking sniffs of the contents before peering at the labels. "Man, what kinda names are these?"

In the library he picks out ten books at random and then cracks them all open on a back table, spread out. He doesn't read them so much as he flips through them, taking note of illustrations and lists and any notes written in the margins.

Is it sunny out? Or at least not actively storming? He's in the training yard for a few hours at least, working up a shirtless sweat with a shortsword and putting his scars on easy display. If he catches anyone staring Erik shoots a grin. "Wanna spar? Won't bite."

Another encounter of note is in the griffon roost, which Erik wanders into, clearly unsure. A thousand percent a kid from the hood in over his head. Horses are one thing, but big fucking bird-cats?

His response is a murmured "Now what in the whole fuck, man?!"


[ Two notes:

1. If you would like to opt out of interacting with Erik, please click here.

2. I will match your format!]

Comments

[favoriteanalyst]

"There's always more. It'd be nice if there was less, for once."

It's a joke but also not at all a joke, damn.

"So let's get into linguistic semantics first, because spirit and soul as words can be used interchangeably in the common parlance, but if you want to be technical as far as Chantry teachings go, a spirit is a denizen of the Fade that has never been and should really never be a physical person in the physical world. They're concentrated elements of...hm, goodness, you could say, but that's a vast oversimplification. They're the Maker's first children, the first real whack at making people, but they didn't have the ability to be creative and make new, and that's about when the Maker made the physical realm, separated from the Fade by the Veil, and made the rest of us knuckleheads."

If some of this starts to sound vaguely familiar, don't worry about it.

"Demons like these ghoulies pouring out of a hole in reality, they come to be when a spirit starts to go wrong. They embody negativity, the 'bad', the 'sin' in a way, if you lean that way. Different theories as to how it happens; sometimes it's touching the mind of a mortal and getting to experience all the stuff we have to offer, sometimes it's by a spirit being forced to do something against its nature... It's said the Old Gods were spirits who got jealous that the Maker loved us, turned pretty wicked, got banished from the Maker's side for being little shits whispering sweet awful nothings in the ears of mortals, and became nigh immortal dragons."

But then that starts getting into different topics entirely, and he waves the rag covered in demon goop around like to make sure thy get back on topic.

"Souls are a little bit of the Fade that the Maker balled up and placed in us. We, here, physically, apart from the Fade, are immutable and unchanging, but with just that bit of spark of the ever-changing to grant us, you know, creativity, new ideas, the ability to make and think and do rather than just be. It's said that when we sleep, our souls go back to the Fade every night, and we don't remember it except for dreams. When we die, the faithful get to go back into the Fade and sit at the Maker's side, or..." He waggles the same ragged hand. "Wander around some way or another even the spirits don't really know until they get to wherever the Maker is now, since the Maker has also technically turned His back on us, and His Golden City got tarnished and is closed off to us forever. One of these things." You know, casually, just a normal thing. "The unrepentant sinners and so on and so forth, they either get stuck in the Fade adrift and wanting, or they get sent to the Void to despair for all eternity. The thing about the Void is...I mean, it's a cute story, and it's generally accepted, but we can prove the Fade exists. It's a real thing you can go to and experience. Nobody's been able to prove the existence of the Void, far as I know. Then you have things like ghosts, or spirits that end up on the wrong side of the Veil, or demons who possess the bodies of the dead, and it all starts getting more muddled."

He shrugs. "Nutshell." (Buddy I don't think that was in a nutshell but okay you do you.)

[clawings]

"Thesis with annotations, more like." There's a huff of amusement from him; either his new conversation partner is (or was) one of the faithful or the biggest religious nerd around. Possibly both.

Erik can work with that, being something of a nerd himself. "I appreciate it, though." He's got questions but there are a few things he can puzzle out first: the Fade being a tangible location in reality makes (some) sense, he supposes, and semantics gonna be semantics through and through; get far enough into any topic and the way everyone else uses a word is gonna be thrown the fuck out of the window.

Admittedly? Immediately curious about the 'tarnished Golden City'. Also: dragons?

"Nigh immortal, what's that mean? Them dragons fuck around often? Who fucked up the Golden City and where is that?"

[favoriteanalyst]

"I should've been a Chantry scholar, could be a brother spending my days in a grand library in Val Royeaux." Sigh! Alas! Alack! Had to go be a Templar, but, details.

Mobius absolutely can't keep a smile off his face, though. This guy might be new, and he might not need all these details yet, and the fact that he asked the initial question about souls in the first place...means something. Without knowing just what yet. But he's hitting all kinds of things Mobius would like to be nerdy about, so if he's willing to listen to annotated theses, well, he can talk 'til they get back to Kirkwall.

"Actual basic answers to those questions, as follows: they need a specific way to kill them when they wake up from their terrible ancient imprisoned slumber, there are regular dragons that fuck around but generally not often enough to be an issue, Tevinter magisters who sought to enter the kingdom of the Maker while still alive with blood magic, and in the Fade."

Actual nutshell, this time. He sheathes his sword and offers up a hand. "I'll get into the next thesis or three in a second, but if you don't mind my being polite: I'm Mobius. I might not be a proper scholar, but I've taken to being a librarian for Riftwatch. Bookworm, what can I say."

[clawings]

"Instead you're rescuing people who are falling out of the sky and don't know shit, armed with a sword and fighting literal demons. Where I'm from? Not a thing as often as it might be here." Just saying. "How you feelin' about those career choices right now?"

The words Kirkwall and Val Royeaux sound nothing alike, so maybe there's distance involved?

Guessing. But. Likely, yeah?

"Are Tevinter magisters still a thing?" Taking the offered hand. Erik's grip is sure. "Erik. Nice ta meetcha, man. Librarians are the best. Wouldn't have survived school without 'em, myself."

Might not have survived, period.

[favoriteanalyst]

"Would that I could meet a few more people like you, Erik." In appreciation for librarians and booklearning, in curiosity about the world and theology around him, in fighting skill all wrapped up in nerdity. "I'm not entirely convinced about how much of my choices were really choices. Or, put another way, yeah we've all got enough free will to find out own ways, but I like to think I was always meant to be on this path, always meant to find my way here."

How much he specifically wants to get into 'the Maker gave me signs, and Andraste gave me a mission' with a stranger, well...maybe leave that for another time.

"Tevinter magisters are still a thing, just in a different form, sort of, since the old days of sullying heavenly places. Not much different, mind. The Magisterium is a house of Tevinter's senate, lotta ruling power." He should probably get into mages and the different flavors of tolerance thereof. At some point. "Filled with, what a shock, mages. Before I get further, I do have to make something clear. The Chantry is split into two. The Orlesian Chantry, or Southern Chantry, is the predominant version of the faith. Tevinter has its own version of the Chantry split off long ago, the Imperial Chantry. When people talk about the Chantry, they mean the southern one, overwhelmingly. There's a lot of history with Tevinter, a lot of negative history, and frankly the war is as much against them and their powers and forces as it is with Corypheus specifically."

A little shrug, a little wave of hand. "The Chantry's got a story that the Magisters Sidereal are the ones that blackened the Golden City with their wicked ways. These guys specifically were a group of magisters that worshiped the Old Gods, high priests for them, used magic and blood magic and the power these Old Gods granted to physically make their way to the Golden City, and the story goes that the moment they touched the gates to open them--that's dramatic effect, I'm sure, and depends on who's telling the story, because sometimes they simply are already in the City, you know how these things go--that their tainted ways turned it black. So now it's the Black City. The Magisters Sidereal, they get their asses expelled from heaven, more or less, land like the most cursed falling stars back reality-side, and are said to be the progenitors of the Blight."

Hoo boy. He maybe needs to explain the Blight, too. Mobius rubs his chin. Historians tend to go off on tangents, too, right? "By progenitors of the Blight, I'm talking about the first darkspawn, and darkspawn are creatures that are tainted, which is an actual literal physical thing and not just metaphor, and can spread that taint to other creatures, and places. Blights are when darkspawn have found an Old God and tainted it into an archdemon which is," with a little hand motion, "the nigh immortal dragon things I was talking about, and they're all compelled to come out from the underground and wage war on the surface."

There. There's that. But more to the point: "Corypheus is a Magister Sidereal, or at least, that's the prevailing theory. What he might have you believe, though he wouldn't be the first potential Sidereal to have been seen in modern times depending on who you believe and what stories you listen to. We have a whole group dedicated to trying to find more information on Corypheus to figure out anything that can get us an upper hand on him, so."

Mobius spreads his hands. "What's my next thesis?"