MOD PLOT ↠ WAKING AND SLUMBERING

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone, give or take
WHAT: Nightmares, abominations, Satinalia, and sand.
WHEN: Firstfall 1, throughout the month
WHERE: The Silent Plains
NOTES: OOC post. Use content warnings in your subject lines as needed.

The fall of Starkhaven and death of Sebastian Vael rallied the Exalted March to push into Tevinter territory and, invigorated by vengeance, raze the border city of Trevis. Since then, the March has moved past Caiman Brea (which surrendered) before stalling out at the edge of the Silent Plains to the east of the captured cities. It's been bogged down partly by the usual combination of time, weariness, and politics—mostly some squabbling over Nevarran forces diverting to try to retake Perendale and whether the Orlesian forces will be heading after to try to free it themselves–but also by a plague of nightmares that's decimating morale and causing an alarming number of mages to erupt into demonic violence. (Not that many, but any number is alarming given the devastation an abomination can cause.) In an attempt to move safely out of range of escape attempts while they regroup and address these issues, the March has pushed east and made camp at a small oasis just within the edge of the desert, which shields them from approach but also presents its own challenges.

It's not a particularly pleasant region in which to be stalled. There's water, courtesy of the spindly tributary of the Minanter that Trevis, Caiman Brea, and Nessum all survive upon; there's low, scrubby plant life, stunted olive and palm trees and dry patchy grasses. And that's about it. Even this meager vegetation fades away rapidly into desert—first dark bedrock bared by incessant winds, just a thin layer of dusty sand whipped back and forth across it. The road is little more than a faint line of wear across the stone, but the ruins of a dwarven trade outpost spike up alongside it like dark fingers, and it's here that Riftwatch will meet its guides, a pair of Orlesian siblings from the Western Approach and their pack of camels.

The exchange of mounts may seem like overkill at first given how close the camp is, but the sand grows rapidly deeper as you go east, rising up suddenly into dunes tall enough to hide a dragon (more on that later). The camp isn't more than an hour or so into the desert but there is no road here, the Orlesians, or possibly the camels themselves, navigating by instinct and landmarks alone. One rides at the head of the train and the other at the back, chivvying stragglers and dragging a camel hair broom to assist the wind in wiping away their tracks. The sun is brutal, beating down on heads and backs as they ride east in the afternoon, its glare off the pale golden sands in their eyes, the haze of heat rising off them playing tricks on the mind. They may glimpse the false oasis of a mirage several times before the real thing abruptly appears: they ride over a dune like any other and there at its base is the camp, arrayed around a crescent-shaped pool edged with palms. They arrive at sunset, just in time to enjoy a half hour or so of pleasant breezes and brilliant skies before the sun drops behind the sands and the temperature plummets.

I. CAMP

There's no need for Riftwatch to make its own camp. The Exalted March has a cluster of empty tents waiting for them when they arrive. They're barracks-sized, made to house upwards of a dozen people, outfitted with rows of narrow cots and wooden floors made of planks lashed together with rope. Riftwatch is assigned three of them for sleeping and a fourth for setting up tables and work spaces, arranged like spokes around the hub of a large fire pit. Riftwatch is invited to share in whatever grey-brown slop comes out of the nearest enormous pot each night, but if anyone is enterprising enough to hunt or forage, they might come up with something to roast or stew on their own.

The tents' arrangement affords Riftwatch a very small amount of privacy, but they're otherwise in the middle of the Exalted March's expansive sea of tents, unable to exit in any direction without rubbing elbows with the soldiers. Mostly humans, though there are suface dwarves and city elves among them, the latter largely support staff, though a few have taken to fighting alongside the soldiers they serve over the last few years. All are at least culturally Andrastian, but they're otherwise fairly varied. Around a single fire you might find a zealous Nevarran who hopes to help vanquish Tevinter and bring the Chant to the dark souls of its wayward people, a Tantervalian who barely knows their Apotheosis from their Threnodies but is here for vengeance for their lost city and friends, a barely-adult Orlesian villager who signed on because it sounded more rewarding than mucking out stables, and a spitting mercenary who's only following the Chantry's money.

What they all have most in common, right now, is exhaustion–the kind that comes with frayed nerves, trouble thinking clearly, and an unusually high probability of starting to shout or cry over minor inconveniences. While the Free Marches dealt with nightmares for months without most people becoming so affected, on Riftwatch's first night in the camp, they'll find the nightmares are worse than what they ever experienced in the Gallows: vivid, specific, twisted, and difficult to shake when they wake up panicked in the middle of the night. Anyone who wanders out of the tent into the cold dark will find at least a few soldiers from nearby tents have done the same, stalking around like sleep-deprived undead or sitting and staring into the fires with vacant expressions.

In recent weeks, this steady stream of nightmares has had a predictable side-effect: a small outbreak of abominations among the mage army that had been accompanying the Exalted March, several with death tolls in the teens before they were killed or driven away by the Divine's loyal Templars. As a precaution, the mage army has since sent all mages too young to have been harrowed and any who were identified as vulnerable back to Orlais, with the rest residing instead to the west of the main camp rather than integrated within it. Templars camped along the rim of the main camp to provide a barrier should there be any further incidents.

Riftwatch's mages aren't subject to this division–a condition of their help–but they'll find the camp a less friendly environment than they may have grown used to in recent years, as many of the soldiers either survived a recent mage-borne horror or know at least one person who died in the outbreak and are understandably wary of having more mages in their midst, and strangers at that.

II. SATINALIA

Riftwatch's arrival comes the day before Satinalia. That it's neither the ideal setting nor the ideal mood for a celebration is apparent as soon as they set foot in the camp. But Captain Thevot Gaffey joins Riftwatch at their camp fire early on the first morning looking frayed and cold and glassy-eyed with exhaustion or perhaps just misery, and he drops some heavy hints that he and some of the other brass would be extremely grateful if Riftwatch contributed some of its better-rested energy to helping the soldiers have a nice evening, especially as the expected shipment of less gruel-y food has failed to materialize.

So consider this task number one: assisting the minority of Exalted Marchers who are straining to keep everyone else's spirits up in conjuring a good time out of nearly nothing. Organize games and dances, convince officers to give up bottles from their personal stashes, share whatever Riftwatch brought, or lean into the mood and try to lead a few soldiers into a more relaxing card game or fireside storytelling session. Anything to try to convince a bunch of cranky, overtired, frightened soldiers that things aren't really so bad at least for a few hours.

III. FIELD WORK

Of course the primary reason Riftwatch has been brought to the Silent Plains is to solve the problem of the nightmares. But there's a long list of other problems that the Exalted Marchers could use their help with while they're in the area, especially with their own forces so run-down at the moment.

While they stay in camp they'll be expected to pitch in with the mundane tasks that keep a camp running: helping tend the camels and other mounts, repairing equipment, re-staking tents, hauling water, tending to ill and injured and such, so long as it does not interfere with Riftwatch's primary assignment of resolving the nightmare issue. As soon as they've settled in, they'll all be assigned to assist with hunting parties and patrols, circling the perimeter to keep watch for any suspicious movement or dangerous wildlife. The camp has encountered the usual desert fauna: hyenas and quillbacks that prowl the river's edge, gurns and phoenixes among the sands. Each poses their dangers, but can provide needed supplies as well, and the March isn't in a position to be picky. Supply runs by camel or mule to the few near-ish settlements, either on the outskirts of the desert or other oases, are in much demand, but the journeys have to be discreet and round-about; as new faces, Riftwatch may be asked to help with these as well.

A few weeks ago, a party encountered a group of dragonlings and dispatched them, only to find scouts ambushed by a full-sized dragon the next day, bellowing fire and sprays of sand powerful enough to strip flesh. It has attacked several supply deliveries and hunting parties since, and there have been reports of sightings nearing the camp. Anyone venturing out into the dunes will be warned to be on their guard. Qualified members of Riftwatch may be recruited to travel along to help protect these groups and to help hunt the dragon down. There are plenty of smaller dragonlings with weaker sand-breathing powers prowling the area, and there may be more than one encounter with the dragon before it is killed.

Patrols and hunting parties will also be asked to keep a lookout for signs of elven surveillance, and, if Riftwatch is amenable, to make an effort to find the elves that have been watching the camp and make contact with them to discover their allegiances, which at first were presumed to be neutral until a supply caravan was attacked last week. (Anyone may be tasked with the search for the elves' encampment, but to make contact please sign up.)

While a few of the recent spate of abominations were killed in the camp, a small number escaped into the desert and need to be tracked down before they cause further harm. (If they can be. Abominations roaming the countryside for years without being caught is not an unheard of phenomenon, and the risk that they eventually make it to a village or trade caravan is too high to leave them to the whims of the desert.) Riftwatch is enlisted to join in the hunt, either in groups of their own or as part of larger parties of Exalted Marchers, mages, and Templars trying to follow the abominations' trail through the desert.

It's not an easy task, in a landscape where sand is quickly blown over most evidence of something passing through a given area. Finding them is so much more difficult than fighting them that even people who are not exactly equipped for combat against a powerful magic-wielding demonic being may be enlisted to help anyway if they have skills useful for tracking. With some aerial scouting from griffons, tips from passing travelers, and the discovery of a few small massacres where the abominations have run into merchants or scouting parties or wild animals and left scorched or bloody scenes in their wake, it will be possible to track some of them down in the desert–and then to take them down, as that's the only known cure.

Everyone traveling through the desert will also have to contend with the natural dangers of the environment: navigation is difficult and getting lost easy; water must be carefully rationed away from camp; and sandstorms may spring up with little warning, though most blow through in a matter of minutes. Most, but not all. Midway through their stay a storm rises on the horizon, large and dark enough to give them about an hour's warning before it arrives, just enough to batten down the hatches—if they're near any. The storm whips enough sand into the air to blot out the sun in mid-afternoon, flinging it about with blinding ferocity for the rest of the day and into the night, forcing the camp to take stock and dig out from some new drifts come morning.

IV. A COMPLICATION

Every mission or patrol that takes Riftwatch into the desert comes with an added problem: venture any further north than the main camp, and people begin to find that their nightmares aren't waiting for them to fall asleep anymore. After a mile, images and sounds begin bleeding into the world, at first distant blink-and-you-miss-it brief, just a mirage, maybe, then closer and lingering as parties move further afield. Though they're pulled from your nightmares, they aren't private hallucinations; whole groups see the same visions at once. A hoard of darkspawn crests a dune and rushes a party with weapons that pass through them harmlessly. Enormous spiders click their mandibles in the dark. People you hoped to never see again walk amongst the party for a mile or more at a time, looking solid and sounding real but leaving no footprints behind them.

The visions vanish on their own after a while, or sooner if silenced by a Templar or dispelled by a mage, and none of them can hurt anyone–not here, not yet. But they keep coming, and they keep growing stronger the further north anyone goes in search of rogue abominations or dinner, or, obviously, the source of the nightmares. Those traveling alongside members of the Exalted March, a good number of them superstitious and all of less used to this sort of nonsense, will have the added task of keeping them calm. At least the first time or two before they, too, get used to it.

Comments

Ellie | OTA

[notathreat]

II. SATINALIA

It's a subdued, frustrated and exhausted mood in camp. All of them are rough from a lack of sleep and hard conditions. Not having some proper food for celebrating is a definite kick in the teeth. But Ellie hasn't been in Thedas long enough to forget what it's like to have to make her own holidays special.

Bringing the dulcimer was a calculated move. She doesn't often bring it on field missions, but tonight needs music.

She doesn't always sing; most of the songs are from Thedas but a sharp ear might pick up a modified version of Tears in Heaven. Later, once more of the camp has gotten some booze in them, The Ballad of Nuggins.

If anyone she knows plays and instrument is around, she'll invite them to play along with her. Even if no one does, it's an army, and there's always someone with a hand drum or a flute around. So when she takes a break, it's to hold out a hand to a familiar (or maybe no so familiar) face.

"Dance?" she asks breathlessly.

Alternatively, during the day she'll run a very informal archery (called "projectile") contest. Come by, pick up a bow, a sling, or even a throwing axe, win some bragging rights.


IV. A COMPLICATION

Ellie grounds herself, shivering. Griffon scouting is all well and good but she's scoured this region, and flying alone right now just... wouldn't be good.

Not when she keeps feeling phantom hands. Not when she keeps seeing faces she knows are long gone, with wounds they didn't survive.

"Fuckin' fade shit," she whispers under her breath. She's got both hands up, fiddling with her knife.

"Reminds me of that goddamn haunted house."

II dance

[altusimperius]

"Thought you'd never ask."

Benedict has been keeping himself surprisingly sober for the festivities-- or perhaps not so surprisingly, when one considers they're surrounded by civilians, strangers, and potentially enemies-- but it's with full mental faculties that he takes Ellie's hand and gives a dramatic bow.

It's tradition, at this point.

ii.

[bouchonne]

Byerly is, rather irritatingly, a virtuoso fiddle player. Ellie knows this, of course, them having played together - and perhaps she extends him a bit of grace for it. But there are few things more obnoxious than someone who is both very good at something and very smug about being good at it. And he is smug.

"Ma belle," he cries at her without even a pause in his playing, sawing away at his instrument with vigor. "Have you learned yet to play Andraste's Mabari?"

complication

[favoriteanalyst]

They're all several shades of used to nightmares. But it's the idea that, if one goes too far, they start becoming more manifest that is really fucking things up. It's something they need to shut down as soon as they can, because the Exalted March has come to a grinding halt otherwise. Plus, who knows where it's going to go next if it suddenly dries up? Ellie can scout far and wide, and Mobius would like to be one of the first to know if she or the other riders sees anything. But you're not going to get him on one of those things. If he can help it. Maker but he still thinks the idea of flying is petrifying.

"Haunted house," Mobius muses, handing over his canteen to drink from. Something else to do with the hands. It's water only, with just a little hint of floral sweetness. Have to keep hydrated in a desert, but listen, he has to satisfy a sweet tooth somehow. "That was that thing that happened right before I swung in and threw a party, yeah? I was thinking more the Crossroads." Same difference, really. Fears coming to terrifying life for all to see.

Hopefully Astarion's not suffering too much wherever he's gone back to.

"For as much as we know about the Veil and the Fade, we also don't know jack and shit." Cynical, perhaps. But also sometimes an exciting opportunity. Hard to feel excitement when he has to try very hard to ignore flashes of red in the corners of his vision. When the old dreams come back.

i have a permit for a sand tent wildcard

[heirring]

It's late, and Wysteria is not asleep.

Instead, she is sitting upright in her little camp cot with her legs crossed under her skirts (having very carefully changed out of her actual field work clothes into a second set of clothes; they are in mixed company, and it would be anathema to lay about in her sleeping shift while the likes of Jayce, Benedict, and Edgard are in the same room), a book resting open across her ankles. She is reading by the glow of Riftwatch's standard issue enchanted lighter, having rigged a clever little hook so keep its flame alive and setting a hand mirror to duplicate the power of the meager light into something worth reading by.

The wind blows. Sand hisses unseen through various deficiencies in the canvas, skittering across the makeshift laid floor. Wysteria glances up, her attention briefly drawn to the taut catch of canvas—not startled, so much, as something like wary. She turns the page in her book, and afterward her hand hovers up so she might pick absently at her lower lip.

She gets only a few paragraphs further before another hiss of the weather comes slithering between the tent canvas. And she pauses. And waits. And then glances furtively about the darkened interior of the tent to—

"Psst." Like a hiss of sand herself, shifted between teeth. "Psst. Ellie? Are you awake?"

II -- sharp ear for Clapton

[youwonscience]

It's a bit of a one-two punch: Her first fieldwork since Granitefell and a holiday after a loss. (A couple, really. Even if she and Jude weren't especially close, she can imagine how much he'd be working to make the party more festive.) It's a rough one, though she resists the urge to withdraw. It's hard to be with people, but it's better.

She doesn't know how to play any instruments, but she comes to sit nearby as Ellie plays. The music helps. It's a little tentative at first when Cosima starts to sing along with a song she knows, glancing to the other woman to be sure that the contribution is welcome. But assuming encouragement, her untrained but lyrical voice can fill in some words to a mix of the tunes Ellie knows, from Thedas and Earth alike. That helps too.

wildcard.

[icasm]

It's late, though some would simply consider it early -- predawn can be complicated in that fashion. Either way, the sky is approaching its darkest hour, and here is Loki, sitting around the fire, taking a sharp inhale as he startles, transitioning from a half-dreaming state to complete wakefulness.

Quite the moment to make eye contact with someone over the small fire. However, in the span of another moment, he realizes just who he is looking at and raises a hand in greeting.

archery contest

[armd]

Is Ellie expecting one of the first along to be Abby?

The Satinalia celebrations seems like the best time to speak to her. The sun is up, the collective mood is... slowly getting there. Abby is looking at one of the throwing axes and touching it idly, running her thumb over the edge of the blade until it gently bites into her, not enough to cut, enough to know it's sharp.

"Hey," she says.

Been a couple days. She's thought of saying hello a couple times to her in the evening, when she was up about and sleepless; ultimately, Abby knows much better than to try approaching Ellie while they are suffering from vivid nightmares.

"... This is cool." The thing. The projectile contest thing.

Benedict OTA

[altusimperius]

I. Camp
a. tent drama

An unusually high-pitched squeal of alarm announces that Benedict has discovered his first visitor, and it takes him all of five seconds to gather up his things and launch himself out of the lizard tent. He slaps wildly at himself in the case of an errant lizard, then proceeds to aggressively shake out and comb through both his bedroll and his bag-- and when finished doing this, with all the poise of a cat that just miscalculated a jump, picks his things up again and marches, nose in the air, over to the sand tent.
He can be found over there some while later, sitting outside the tent and smoking with a hangdog expression. It's possible he is on the verge of tears, but maintaining a brave face because the entirely unacceptable alternative is having a meltdown in front of Wysteria.

b. nightmares

The meltdown happens nonetheless, but in the form of wailing out from nightmares, awakening in a cold (sandy) sweat, and the return of his terror of going back to sleep.
He takes to exhaustedly wandering the rows of tents, rapidly diminishing the stores of elfroot he brought along, taking great care to use a Riftwatch runestone for lighting the cigarettes he rolls rather than immediately out himself as a mage by producing flame with his fingers.

II. Satinalia

Showing an uncharacteristic restraint (lately, at least), Benedict is keeping himself busy by attending to the cask of thin wine he picked up on a supply run, bringing it around to the various groups of soldiers to fill their cups and move on.
He doesn't make much conversation, and definitely doesn't tell anyone his name; a Vint mage is bound to run into trouble here if he's careless, which, despite the widespread fatigue including his own, he is quite determined not to be.

IV. A Complication (one thread please)

"I need-- I need your help."
This is spoken in a deathly quiet voice to someone nearby, perhaps not even a friend, the situation is so dire.
"Magebane." The word leaves him breathlessly, with a shudder. "Did we bring any?"

iv

[bribon]

As it happens, Desidério is not a friend. He does, however, have a pouchful of magebane which he produces from an interior coat pocket. And then he pauses, the lacings of the pouch held hostage in his hand.

"What do you need it for?"

There are abominations out and about. Maybe he should hold on to this for himself.

Abomination Hunt

[overharrowed]

(i) On the road (multiple threads encouraged)

Julius' response to being put in charge of the search for Giovenco is brisk and businesslike. For his team, he'll mainly look for mages, Riftwatch agents with anti-magic abilities, and members of Forces (ideally who have faced an abomination before). Anyone else who volunteers he accepts, but he insists on briefing them thoroughly before they head out. He prefers to keep members of the Exalted March to a minimum, but isn't above taking two to round out their numbers and abilities. (He gives them a briefing too, but with slightly different content.)

As they travel, he's grim in a way Julius usually isn't even in high-risk situations, but the tells are subtle. Fewer well-placed jokes to put others at ease; less conversation when they stop to make camp for the night. Still, if anyone seeks him out, he certainly doesn't refuse to engage. Nor does he clamp down on idle chatter on the road. It's going to be a rough few days of following the bodies to their source, and if people need to make a few jokes or engage in some chatter, he's as inclined to let it flourish.

(ii) CSI: Oasis (multiple threads OK; if you'd like me to NPC either of the Exalted March NPCs, give me a shout)

Julius is not prepared for the way finding in ruins immediately puts him back in Granitefell. It only shows in a moment where his face loses all expression, fully blanking, and the next moment he's pushed it away, back in motion.

Initial wariness of Giovenco (or whoever else did this) quickly gives way to the reality that the desolation happened longer ago than they expected. There's no one here at all, not even remains to speak of, though the fact that most of the buildings are burned suggest that's more likely due to scavengers than because there were no casualties. Many of the buildings are charred, in various states of disrepair. Most anything that remains is either junk or damaged beyond usability. Julius is not going to let them linger indefinitely, but he is troubled enough by the scene to give them a reasonable window to pick through and try to determine what happened here.

(iii) Confrontation (one thread please, but any number of participants)

The thing about hiding in (or at least next to) the desert is there are simply only so many places with walkable access to water. As they can tell they're catching up to him, Julius starts having them ask for commmon stops on trade routes, well-known public wells, a variety of other handholds that would let Giovenco keep his head down.

It's actually a slightly less popular well, finally. Julius hadn't expected it to be useful on its own merits; they need water, and it was in the direction they were going. When they see a young man, alone, drawing up a bucket, at a distance there's nothing strange about it. At least for those who don't immediately think about the fact that no one travels alone in the desert if they can help it. But even in the absence of that initial thought, those with sharp eyes will notice that the man's movements are uncanny: a bit too smooth, a little too fast.

They've talked about plans in an abstract way, but here there's no cover to speak of as they approach. The demon piloting Giovenco will notice them any second. There's not much in the way of deception or surprise, and it's unlikely they'll have more than a sentence or two of time to prepare.

( wildcard )

[For anything miscellaneous that doesn't fit above. If you'd like something bespoke on my end, grab me on discord or plurk and we'll chat! For reference, OOC information here.]

iii

[thereneverwas]

"Poor bastard."

Barrow has more or less mirrored Julius' manner throughout the search; just because he can prove useful in such a scenario doesn't mean he likes to, and the resemblance of the village to Granitefell wasn't lost on him either. There's a weary, faraway quality to his gaze that only sharpens once their quarry is sighted.

"We'll want to fan out, I expect," he says in a low voice, to Julius and any other Riftwatch mages present, "so you lot don't get Silenced too."

Elven Outreach

[pathlit]

( the setup )
Following the deliberate disposal of bodies at the edge of camp and subsequent heated discussions of hunting the responsible party down (which is most assuredly the elves noted previously, is a nigh unanimous claim), a modest scouting team from both Riftwatch and the March is composed to Figure It Out. Amongst their group is Jayce, who volunteered on account of his previous experience with A Certain Group of Elves In This Very Desert just a few months prior, a handful of the March's soldiers (of whom one or two may be elven), and a few other members of Riftwatch.

In turn, following a likewise deliberate failure to conceal their tracks on a supply run, the lure proves successful. They are intercepted by the People of the Silent Plains, one of whom Jayce recognizes: Irene.

Luckily, the recognition is mutual and positive. It gets their foot in the door, anyhow, affording the scouting group some measure of wary discourse with the People. As Irene explains: The presence of the March has set her People on edge. She wants assurances that the March holds no intent to interfere in their activities, of which spilling deeper into the desert is considered one such insult.

It is explained that the primary cause of the Exalted March's spillover is thanks to some rather gnarly nightmares, and that resolving the nightmares is why Riftwatch has returned to the area. The People accept this answer with a grain of salt. When asked about the murdered hunting party, Irene insists that the responsibility lies with a group of Dalish elves who have shown unbiased hostility.

Several agreements are made:
1) The Local Dalish Are A Problem.
2) The scouting party will camp with the People for a few days as both parties attempt to track down the Dalish. As a token of cooperation, the scouting party will share their supply run with the People.
3) Avoid conflict between the People and the March. This includes trying not to hurt each other in any confusion or fear conjured by the nightmares, please and thank you.

----

( the people's camp )
The People's camp is about two dozen strong, their nomadic lifestyle obvious in the fashion of their tents and equipment. Jayce and company are met with wary cooperation, largely thanks to Irene's vouching and the shared supplies. They spend but a few days with the camp before departing to rejoin the March.

These days are primarily spent searching for the Dalish, but there are also opportunities to improve relations between Riftwatch, the People and the March through discussion and aid. They have a common enemy, after all.

----

( searching for the dalish )
During their search through the desert, the party is met with the occasional sighting of what is presumably their quarry, particularly as such sightings are often accompanied by several warning shots of arrows flying past their heads.

Among these shots are a few cheeky ones, including but not limited to: an arrow tearing through someone's waterskin (right as they're about to take a drink, perhaps), another piercing the sand where one was just about to step. Although these refined shots suggests proximity, the party ultimately fails to locate the Dalish camp.

(The waking nightmares plaguing them day and night certainly don't help.)

They do, however, come across an abandoned sand-skimming aravel. Left intact, Jayce speculates aloud that it might be a liability, but they could scavenge whatever supplies are stored within, and then dismantle it for firewood and proof of the Dalish's presence. What say ye, comrades?

[ ooc entry with info! ]

aravel!

[biggame]

Comrade Xiomara says, "Liability how?"

She's standing on the aravel. Her right as an elf, or something like that. Fivera would let her if Fivera were here right now, anyway, and Fivera is Dalish, ergo: standing on the aravel, perched on the wall of it with a hand on one of the angled masts for balance. Facing out toward Jayce (and whoever else), she's not trying to get a head start on the scavenging. She climbed because she likes to climb things.

She's wrapped up her hair to protect it from the sand—the only sign, and a very small one, that deserts aren't her favorite place. But to be helpful with the danger and all, she's wrapped it today in a way that leaves her long pointed ears (one of them tattooed along the rim, because she's cool, thank you) poking visibly out instead of hiding them beneath the scarf.

Dragon Hunt

[katabasis]

(ooc info)

I. the lion's lizard's den [ota; one thread only, no tag order; action spam encouraged + feel free to control/murder/do whatever with our pack of npcs]

Two scouts had been sent ahead down through the rocky crevice and into the darkness beyond. Upon their return (nearly an hour later, the slant of the sun beating down on the waiting assembly forcing them into new positions under the stony rock formations to avoid being roasted), this is what they recounted:

They had followed the wide track for twenty minutes through the dark, noting a sparse scattering of various bones and tracks. Eventually, they become aware of a light ahead of them which grew brighter and redder, and that the cool air of the underground passage was growing warmer. Eventually, they slipped from the stony side passage and found themselves at the edge of a great hall characterized by ancient columns and looming stone statues in shadowed alcoves, the length of the passage dimly illuminated by the glow of ancient dwarvenwork fire lights carved deep into various pedestal settings. In summary: the Deep Roads. The tracks of dragonlings had carried on down the length of the passage and into the chambers beyond, but the scouts hadn't pressed on after them. There are worse things than dragons under the ground.

More the better. As described, the chamber makes for as suitable a grounds as an ambush as they are likely to get. The company passes through the crevice as quietly as is possible for a unit of heavily armored make-do dragon hunters to do, and either they are phenomenally lucky or the passages the stretch beyond the chamber are very deep indeed, as nothing comes flying out of the dark to eat them all despite the faint rattling of scale mail and scuffling of boots through ancient dust.

When they arrive at the chamber—its conveyed description more or less matching its reality, albeit with a depressingly high ceiling that may allow for the dragon to gain some altitude over them after all—, the bulk of the Exalted March's mages are sent scurrying up to the shadowed raised walks along the chamber's margins. The handful of willing foot soldiers, composed primarily of bowman, are stationed at various columns along the chamber. As for anyone else, either with Riftwatch or otherwise, not well suited to either posting?

They get the unlucky job of lying in wait in the shadows on either side of the passage leading further into the Deep Roads with the expectation that they'll catch the dragon by the heels, and having rigged their modest supply of alchemical oil pots to one side of the great doorway's mantle in the hopes that, between them and the assistance of a mage, it might be collapsed after the creature's arrival.

Tucked there at one side of the doorway, Flint finishes winding an oil soaked strip of cloth around the head of a crossbow bolt. He can taste the acrid tang of it on his fingers when, after a moment's final consideration, he sets them to his mouth and gives a sharp signaling whistle.

From somewhere in the passage, an Exalted Marcher soldier sets his division horn to his lips. The sound is high and strange as it punches through the still air. It reverberates off stone, and between columns, and for anyone who has been down in the belly of the Deep Roads to face the Darkspawn that so often can be found snarling through it, the horn has the hair raising association of a Darkspawn Hurlock's call. Five long notes are sounded, the last hanging in the air like a mist.

And then, from somewhere down into the dark, comes the faint sound of rushing air: an airborne body moving at speed in this direction.

II. aftermath [use this prompt however you want]
There are straggling drakes and dragonlings to finish downing, wounds (mortal or otherwise) to tend, and a slain dragon to pick over. But let's not linger too long; who knows what might be drawn up by the the noise of fighting.

I. Dragon

[notathreat]

Ellie's never liked being underground. Never liked being in the dark, with the smell of fungal decay and rot painting itself over the back of her tongue. It feels old and alien, and nothing here loves her. She loves it even less.

Ellie is one of the many archers but for this mission, she's been assigned one of Research's projects: a magical gun. Given how heavy the gun and its ammo bag is, it was thought best that she be out of immediate reach. So she's up with the mages, waiting for a good sidelong shot at the thing.

And she'll get it.

Ellie sets the spindle to the paralysis rune, careful of her fingers. The crash-course in operation outside helped, but she'll still need a few rounds to truly get a feel for it, which means she's at a disadvantage for this first shot- and this is the one that really counts.

So she waits, and breathes.

The dragon soars past them in a blur and the others start firing. She holds her shot, following, following-

The KRACKOOOOM of the gun is disgustingly loud inside the cavern, echoing everywhere. It causes the dragon to jolt, startle. It creates just enough of a variable that the huge paralyzing bullet tears into the right wing joint near its body, but doesn't fully paralyze it.

It can still fly, but getting significant height or navigating through the air will be hobbled.

flint ↠ ota

[katabasis]

↠ SATINALIA

(morning; closed to members of forces) For all that Flint maintains a kind of purposeful half step of remove from the general company of Riftwatch, he has never been entirely absent from the Gallows' Satinalia festivities. Depending on the year, he can ordinarily be trusted to at least show up for a few cups of spiced wine and a careening dance with a co-worker or two up and down the Gallows' courtyard, or dining hall, or wherever the festivities have been staged before retiring early for the evening.

He has, strictly, never had much of a hand in the actual planning of the festivities (save to scribble his signature on various expenditure proposals). But here, in the bitter early hours of the still grey-morning, Flint has a list and orders to dole out and a surprising number of them involve details like the hasty clearing out of various consolidating of various supplies, rearranging and re-pitching various tertiary tents to convert them into cobbled together temporary gathering spaces, and scavenging fuel for fires. Forces members, come get your cobbled together party planning tasks.

(evening; ota) It's bitterly cold. Despite whatever involvement he might have had in organizing the modest festivities, Flint's appearance early in the evening around fires or his participation in incidental rounds of cards is brief. Perfunctory. If you happen to catch him conversation tonight, there is a more than usual air of coincidence about it.

(closed to derrica) Less so: the direction he eventually cuts out in, passing along through the encampment to the tents specifically for tending the Exalted March's sick and wounded. His appearance there among the injured is abrupt, and the line he makes in Derrica's direction where she is tending to some injury very straight.

"Meet me outside once you've finished here."

↠ FIELD WORK

(gurn hunt; one thread, multiple characters welcome) The modest herd of heavyset, hard-hided animals is presently loitering in the valley that cuts through this particular chain of sand dunes. From this distance, they're markedly less intimidating than they will be up close: their hard spinal growths and brutal horns minimized to the point that they more closely resemble a particularly knobbly and dumpy looking collection of dark cattle.

They are also, strictly, not presently remotely concerned with the small hunting party that has gathered at one of the dune peaks above them. Flint, armed with a heavy crossbow and with a brutally squared Ander falchion sword in the sheath at his hip, squints down at them with a considering grimace. And then swings his attention round, fixing his attention on the two March soldiers minding the modest string of camels they've brought with them in the optimistic hope there will be meat and materials to haul back with them.

"We may as well use them to cut the herd."

(the dreadnought) It is late in the day during a supply run to one of the scraggly nearby towns, the sky turning a rich purple and the dunes beginning to darken. Or it is an midday, passing out into the desert in pursuit of game or signs of dragonlings that might direct them toward the lair of the dragon plaguing the region. Or it is night, returning from a long day's work, only a mile or so north of the camp bitter cold and lit by little more than a vast banner of stars. Whatever the circumstances, one moment there is the rippling sands of the desert about them and the next a great shape begins to resolve out of the deepening shadows, or the shimmer of red sand, or the darkness.

It crests a dune in the distance, briefly silhouetted against the sky before it plunges into sand trough and out of sight. It reappears only moments later, closer now as it rides up the next wave: the vast shape of the northern sea's most infamous vessel, a Qunari dreadnought with her twenty guns and hacking oars and snarling sharp-toothed bow. She is flanked by a buzzing cloud of her swifter support ships, the number of which is impossible to count as they appear and reappear across the sand waves in hot pursuit of the traveling party.

↠ WILDCARD

[You know the drill; hmu if you want a specific starter. Flint's in the smoke-plagued tent.]

appears, at long last

[tender]

There has been plenty to occupy Derrica within the tent designated for medical troubles. She might have stayed longer, had the Commander not asked for her. Her present charge has been grimacing through the ordeal of knitting the shattered bones of her right leg back together, and turns her sour expression after Flint's departing back before sighing up at Derrica, "We best get on with it, then."

It is not a brisk process, even with Derrica's best efforts, but the bones come together under her hands within the half hour. She emerges from the tent, tired but steady, drawing the folds of her shawl around her securely as the canvas falls closed behind her.

"Commander?" is greeting and question all at once.

No one could be seriously injured, or he wouldn't have left her there tending to another.

Clarisse | OTA

[laruetheday]

i. satinalia

Compared to last year, the only one she has to compare it with, this Satinalia is a major fuckin' bummer. Riftwatch is doing the best it can, but it's hard to keep everyone's spirits up when all there is to do is eat gruel, everyone's boots are full of sand, and the weather goes from way too hot days to way too cold nights.

Still, people are trying. Clarisse isn't the friendliest face around, but even she's struggling through. Right now, she's shuffling a deck of cards, enjoying the soft little slap-slap-slap sound as she does it, but if she sees someone pause nearby she asks, "Wanna play gin rummy?"

Alternatively, especially later on in the night, she can be found drinking from a bottle of cheap whiskey near the fire. Making a face every time she sips, but going back for more anyway. What else is there?

"Never have I ever? Orrr would you rather?"

ii. late night

Everybody's having nightmares. It's been happening since she first got to Thedas, and hasn't really let up aside from the occasional Good Night or, more rarely, the coveted Decent Week.

Still. These nightmares are worse, way worse, than the ones she's been having back at the Gallows. These nightmares have her waking up hoarse and sweating and not sure where she is, and it seems like every night it takes her longer to remember the answer, and longer for her heart to stop racing, and longer to fall back into an uneasy sleep.

Tonight Clarisse is sitting a decent bit away from the tents they've got set up, arms wrapped around her knees as she shakes and tries to get her breathing under control. Feels like she can't, like every inhale has a little less oxygen in it, like it's all been sucked out of the world and she might be the only person left.

iii. a complication

Maybe it's because she hasn't been sleeping, or maybe it's just that this whole area gives her bad vibes, or maybe it's something else entirely, but—

Clarisse just can't shake the feeling. That he's here, in the marching line of soldiers, watching her. And waiting to get her by herself. When he does, there's no telling what will happen. She can only imagine it won't be good.

There's sand in her shoes, again. She can feel it shifting every time she takes a step, like the very earth she walks on is rippling underneath her feet, disorienting, uncomfortable. There's an angry prickling at the back of her neck as she stops to try and dump at least a little of the excess sand out, and then, as she lifts her head again, there—just a flash of a familiar sneer, and those eyes that aren't really eyes at all. There and gone just as quick.

"Do you see—" She's not even sure who she's asking. Her voice is hoarse, twitchy, nervous, and she tries again. "Do you see him?"

ii

[pathlit]

Certainly, Clarisse isn't an unusual sight; so many have been in her position and many more will revisit it until the source of the nightmares is resolved. Nightmares are what send Jayce outside, too, and why he catches sight of her huddled figure as he seeks to place some distance between himself and the others-- specifically, the others whimpering and moaning in their unrestful slumber, or otherwise producing distressing sounds.

When he's a few yards away, he calls out a, "Hey," that sounds more weary than he'd like. It's meant to be a notice more than anything else-- that someone, him, is approaching. He may be holding a warhammer*, but he is not a threat. Please do not beat him up, thank you.

*Because he isn't going anywhere on a mission without a weapon, especially after Granitefell.

Tevinter Outreach | OTA

[cozen]

I. Tarsian Field
Free for all; make your own top-levels/adventures.

Even maps of only Southern Tevinter leave this one out. It's a fleck of water and a surrounding scattering of houses northeast of Caimen Brea, where most of the dozen households are herders and the rest are somehow connected to them. A bit out of the way of the roads between bigger places, Tarsian Field isn't used to visitors, and when Riftwatch first arrives on the dirt road that qualifies as its main thoroughfare—you can tell because there's a general store and two houses—it's with a cover story about losing the road in a sandstorm and seeing buildings in the distance once it settled.

The story is good for access to well water and one night of shelter in a recently abandoned house. (The place isn't big enough for an inn.) In the meantime, they'll be able to get a feel for some of the locals, and on the whole find them remarkably shruggy about the state of the world outside their village. These are people whose only connection to Minrathous is the grandson of a local woman who turned out to be a Laetan, while two of the locals have traveled to Orlais at some point in their lives. Their days have not changed for better or for worse as a result of Corypheus' ambitions. If the subject of the war is broached, their real concern will not be patriotism or the integrity of the Tevinter border or the possibility of answering to a new distant ruler. It will be that the Exalted March might kill them, burn down their homes, and/or steal their livestock. They've heard stories, see. A few people, especially those with kids, have already packed up and moved further south out of fear—thus the recently abandoned houses.

If anyone wants to break their cover to have honest conversations here—to encourage cooperation with the March, to make promises of safety, to ask for names to relay to the commanders there in case they come in search of a formal surrender—they can safely do so.

II. Capena
Free for all; make your own top-levels/adventures.

A larger village on the road between Caimen Brea and Nessum, Capena does not look twice at a group of strangers, as long as their accents are reasonably disguised and their clothing reasonably normal for merchants or pilgrims and their social dynamics, vis a vis elves and Qunari, visibly normal by Tevinter standards.

They will find here a much less hospitable atmosphere. Capena is large enough to have glowlights along its larger streets and a village council, and at its head is a curmudgeonly old man who once served in the lower ranks of the Tevinter military. He still wears his regalia around, watching the goings-on with a sharp expression but cloudy eyes, and he's riled up a sizable portion of the locals with either patriotic zeal or horror stories about what the Exalted March will do to them when it arrives and what the Southern Chantry will do to their children, assuming any survive, should any of them show any ever-hoped-for signs of magic. On the second day of their visit, a Chantry official from Nessum visits with an entourage and has closed-door conversations with the council.

Here it will never be entirely safe for Riftwatch to drop the act. But they can speak with some of the locals anyway, collecting information about the village's defensive capabilities (minimal, currently) and attitudes. And in the privacy of their shared room at the inn, whispering—quietly—about how to present this to the Exalted March is safe enough.

III. On the Road Back
One thread! This is for violence. Can branch if people split up though. Everyone is allowed and encouraged to pilot the NPCs.

This place has no name. It's only an inn by the side of a road so long that there was some money to be made by plonking something down beside it. But not much money. They're the only patrons there when they arrive, and perhaps the only ones all week; Silia and Gallio, the husband and wife team of innkeepers, are delighted to see them.

Before long Gallio has rushed upstairs to make sure the beds are in order. Silia is feeding new pieces of preserved meat into the simmering pot over the fire to turn dinner for three into dinner for several more than three. Their spotty teenaged son Vel has been hauled inside from the stable to serve drinks in the meantime, and he seems more pleased about this than spotty teenaged sons generally should be. He doesn't get many people to talk to aside from his parents, is the thing, so he talks and talks. A dozen questions. A dozen unprompted pieces of information about himself.

He's saying, "If you keep going the way you are, you'll run into the Exalted March, won't you?" when the front door opens and three more people clomp through it in their dusty traveling boots.

Bastien turns to look at them with a normal sort of curiosity, tips his head and greeting, and looks back at Vel unfazed. But anyone who attended his lesson in basic bard sign, some months back, might recognize the careful careful careful in the knuckle he taps against the table in what otherwise looks like absent-minded fidgeting. Or, alternatively, they might recognize any one of the three new faces from the Imperial Chantry retinue that arrived in Nessum soon after they did.

Vel recognizes neither. "Between you and me," he's saying, young and stupid, "I can't wait for them to get here. Maybe they'll give more of a shit about us out here than the Magisters. Right, mamma?"

"What?" Silia asks, midway through the process of putting her cooking aside to go greet the new customers.

III (violence!!!)

[altusimperius]

The good news is, Benedict fits in perfectly with his knowledge of Tevinter culture and politics. The bad news is, he has a difficult time disguising his posh Minrathousian dialect, which means much of their excursion to the different villages has involved his either listening silently or passing himself off as some minor grandson-of-a-Laetan. It does offer him a great capacity for interpreting gossip and acting as a glossary of named names (the wealthy ones, at least) and cultural vernacular, offered only when alone with his companions; and to his credit, being thought something of a tragically beautiful dullard by the locals means they'll say just about anything in front of him.

Being not much one for making friends easily anyway, it's for the best that he's gone relatively unbothered for this long. It also leaves him fully aware of the slight tension at the corners of Bastien's eyes as he raps on the table, and it's in the guise of cracking his neck that Benedict angles his head to catch a glimpse at the newcomers.
There's nothing to prove his resulting wince isn't just from the travel aches.

marcus. ota.

[luaithre]

THE OTHER CAMP; closed to kostos and nell.

The Templars at the perimeter have a task, which is to prevent the possibility of Abominations from harassing the main camp. And so, there are no questions, nor even sideways glances, as someone who does not belong to this camp makes to cross its informal border. At least, no attention paid that Marcus notices, paying no attention in return.

He is not burdened in his own layers of armor but dressed for the simpler labour of the day, layers of muddled grey linen, streaked in desert dust, sleeves rolled, but he carries his staff in its harness, hanging heavy at the shoulder, blade shining. A couple of rings decorating fingers, one of which he idly turns as he wends his way through the tents that make up this neighbourhood, eye sharp for familiar faces.

The two he finds aren't the only ones he is looking for, necessarily, but when he finds them, Marcus shifts to moving with purpose towards them.

SATINALIA; open to all.

When the Forces division are given the order to set up Satinalia, Marcus partakes with grim commitment and no complaint. Even if he finds himself carrying one end of something heavy with someone he doesn't like, the task is done without hesitation, if maybe a slightly sharper word than is necessary. He also does not hesitate to take a smoke break when it suits him, sat off to the side and concentration on rolling dry leaves into brown paper between his fingers, or having one already lit. He might even share, given the festive mood.

For the celebration itself, there is certainly an amount of people watching from the sidelines, nursing a metal cup of something strong or another cigarette (though this time, the smoke has the sweet tinge of elfroot to it). He can also be convinced to dance, or maybe do the convincing himself if someone who can be relatively certain of his affection is found off the side and without a partner.

Last year was very nearly his last Satinalia, after all, and this one could be next. He will, within his own capacity and the dust-dreary surroundings they all find themselves in, make the most of it.

A COMPLICATION; one thread of griffon scouting.

The sun is sinking when they land. They're pushing it right to the edge, how long they can spend out here, before they'll have to fly under cover of night, in cold air, but a sighting of some kind of camp draws focus after hours of nothing, and so—

Fine dust lifts under flaring griffon wings, and then the impact of boots after Marcus swings himself out of the saddle. There'd been no sighting of moving bodies during the spiralling descent, but all the same, his instinct is to regard the perimeter while the person he is with sees what there is to find in a half-collapsed tent, a firepit, sand-submerged shapes.

Maybe it's because he's looking that they come. He doesn't say anything, first, but the especially attentive might hear a sharp drawing in of breath when he starts to.

Because they have company. Maybe fifty feet out, a row of figures are kneeling on the sand, wavering a little as if exhausted. Armor is blasted, blackened, and smoke lifts from their shoulders, escapes between steel plate and chain and cracked leather. Their faces, angled downwards, are burned. Peeling skin, blackened where it clings, eyes whitened and melted, mouths slack and agape. No blood, evaporated, burned to ash.

One tips their head up, sightless eyes somehow seeing. Flame licks across their ruined breastplate, still, ever burning, and with a jerk of movement, it attempts to get its feet under itself. The others, creakily, moving.

Marcus is quiet, eyes fixed on them, his staff brought around to bear.

us.

[exequy]

Kostos needs a moment to notice him, because he is saying—as Marcus moves within earshot of his not particularly loud but certainly intense argument voice—"any ten year old who can muster a spark, and then we can invite the hedge mages and the Dalish keepers—"

This is the point where he sees Marcus among the trickle of foot traffic moving among the tents. He does a double take without turning his head away from Nell at all, mouth still going on with what it'd planned before he was distracted:

"—and the Qunari. They don't need their mouths to—"

And this is the point where Marcus' presence and trajectory sink all the way in. Kostos shuts up. His shoulders shift back, removing an inch from his and Nell's previously steady progress toward getting in each other's faces over the matter. He puts more weight onto his staff, planted in the sandy rocky ground beside him like a walking stick. He tips his chin in the vague direction of over Nell's shoulder to signal Marcus' approach and says, "They're here."

Aside from a tan—on full display because his shirt has gotten lost on its way to his torso, post rinsing off in a basin, and been left hanging from his belt—and verging on needing a haircut, Kostos hasn't changed much since he left. And if he doesn't look pleased to see Marcus, that's just his face. Or mostly his face. Also the exhaustion and the tension and the proximity of that Templar camp and this new thing Nell is being impossible about. It's not personal, is the point.

Dream Machine

[favoriteanalyst]

((ooc information!))

I. Dreaming with My Eyes Open (free for all, before underway and during underway)
It becomes plenty apparent that the problem of nightmares didn't simply stop; it only moved locations. Most of the Riftwatch staff are likely to be familiar with the fitful sleep, even if they aren't happy to suffer the return of it. The Exalted Marchers are less accustomed to this form of weirdness. They're exhausted, they're weary, and they jump at shadows as though every mage is about to become a new abomination or that each nightmare is about to be made real.

So that's a problem, and one Mobius is keen on solving once and for all. It is Lieutenant Edwina DuChamp that initially gets saddled with the task of figuring the whole thing out and leading a ragtag band of Riftwatch members and any Exalted soldiers unlucky enough to be on her shitlist up north. When she catches wind that the Templar--he must be, decked out in armor and shield that have seen better days--librarian type has a keen interest, that he has in fact studied this phenomenon before, he gets saddled with the title of co-leader. No amount of arguing that none of them ever truly figured out what was happening until it simply faded seems to sway her. Ah. Well.

He's perfectly happy to recruit people to the task alongside DuChamp. They'll take anyone who actually wants to dive into the heart of darkness, but griffon riders will be a great help to scouting the desert sands from the skies, anyone who has looked into the spate of nightmares before is welcome to bring any expertise they might have, trackers will never go amiss, and those knowledgeable in magic (be they mages or simply academics). Something of this scale is obviously going to have some kind of magic behind it, likely something physical to amplify the effects as well. Mobius welcomes other Templars heartily, even with the knowledge that silencing and dispelling will only get them so far.

Everyone is given the warning that the further north they go, the worse the dreams get. Reports have come in that after a certain point, you don't need to be asleep for the nightmares to show up. And once they get underway, the ratcheting up in severity becomes apparent. One Exalted soldier, in the middle of the march, gives an aborted scream and drops to the ground as though shoved. When he's dusted off and back to his feet, catching his breath, he says, "Sorry, was 'avin' one o' them fallin' dreams." Only to realize he wasn't dreaming, as he had been wide awake.

So that's fun!

II. Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? (free for all, during underway and into the ruins)
The nightmares begin to become reality much more frequently. And they stop becoming nightmares of any one person and start being everyone's problem.

Are the spiders suddenly skittering past your ankles real, or someone's dreams made illusion for all to see? When there's the call of darkspawn atop the dunes, do you make way to fight, or do you ignore them until they shimmer out of existence like a mirage? Has the person beside you always been there, or are they a dream that someone else is staring wildly at, looking pale like they've seen a ghost, hand reaching for daggers like they're about to start a fight?

When the scouts spy old ruins in the distance, it's as good a lead as any, and they make their way. Except: the nightmares get even more vivid. No, vivid is perhaps not the right word. Intense. No...real. Not unlike in the depths of the Crossroads, the nightmares begin to take tangible form. And they aren't passive. When a snarling, rabid wolf actually pounces on the poor sod dreaming it up, teeth clanging onto armor, the group begins to panic. Worse shows up. Awful creatures stand in the way. Nightmare figures cause some to drop to their knees screaming. And still they must venture on, closer and closer.

And it's fucking disheartening to fight things that can't actually die, only vanish, only melt away as if they simply never were. But you can die to them, it seems. Getting to the ruins with its much more recent tent covering doesn't protect anyone from the dreams made reality, only gives them less room to surround everyone with. Hey, at least it's much cooler under the roof, cooler within the ruins themselves?

III. Runnin' Down a Dream (ffa for action; one thread with no turn order for nerding out)
The massive rune-covered machine has a lot going on with it, and that's even before you get to the blood drip drip dripping into a pit of red lyrium. The nightmare onslaught doesn't stop, but there need to be nerds trying to figure this thing out. Mobius can point out how this seems to have exchanged a lot of hands over a long period of time; he can recognize the old High Chantry Nevarran inscriptions, something he's seen in Chant texts so old one had to mind how they handled the pages, and the ancient Tevene that simply doesn't get spoken as a tongue anymore with only words and phrases surviving to modern use. But some of the metalwork on this thing, anyone can see it's fresh under some of the dust and sand. This thing has seen a lot of work, and it has a lot of moving parts that will need a lot of concentration to figure out: how it works, how to make it stop working without blowing them to kingdom come, and what to do with it afterward.

Which is all easier said than done. DuChamp rallies the troops to hold the line, forming everyone not nerding out in a circle around the device. Just in time for the Venatori nightmares, and then the Venatori themselves, to descend on the ruins. Riftwatch members will especially have to watch their backs; the Venatori know that they're the ones who are trying to figure out how to shut down their hard work and are focused specifically there.

It is likely that there will also be frantic and harried crystal messages to people who might know a few things better about runes and enchantments, the nerds who aren't present getting their brains picked very quickly right now please thank you.

iii

[heirring]

It has not been a particularly pleasant journey to get here. Surely that much goes without saying, even if one has had relatively little to do with fighting off the various fanged, poisonous, or otherwise harrowing nightmare cojurations. Being no skilled combatant, it would be reasonable to feel at least a flicker of real fear and anxiety even while being insulated from the more dangerous slashing claws and snapping teeth by her companions. And yet, despite being an all but unarmed young lady (we will barely count her field knife or the dagger she wears at her belt) traversing through a horror studded landscape, Wysteria has seemed blissfully certain—levelheaded in the face of flickering panic and certain danger in a way that might almost loop back toward foolhardiness were she slightly less mindful about keeping well armed men and women between herself and slashing nightmare sword swipes and various ichor dripping shadows.

So maybe there is something particular ominous about the waxiness of her pallor and the evident nervousness in her bearing here at the heart of the thing. Nevermind the Venatori. Nevermind the nightmares. The machine, it seems, is the thing worth fearing.

She has been standing there a pace removed from it for what feels like an agonizingly long, worryingly inert measure, mutely observing the machine's dimensions and workings while others note the blood, the Ancient Tevene, the old Nevarran, and while the sounds of fighting have grown louder and more chaotic with the Venatori have joined the fray. But here, at last, Wysteria seems to snap free of the machine's gravity and takes a careful step forward. Her right hand (the only one she has left) rises as if to reach out and touch the great device.

She stops short by only a few inches, fingers absently plucking at air as if chasing the strings of some invisible instrument.

"Would someone please see if they can raise Viktor on their crystal?" is very polite. So it must be quite serious indeed.

Gela, OTA

[sprent]

THE CAMP
When darkness falls and the last of the light is from the campfire, it becomes very cold and quiet. Gela, shivering, extracts herself from around it to find a few warmer layers and comes back with a rust-orange woolen shawl and gloves, the former drawn around her neck and shoulders. She is scooping her hair out of it and sitting down when a soldier passing by with an dinner bowl cradled in his hands calls out to her.

"... Gela Baynrac?"

"Yes?" She replies automatically while twisting her head, but doesn't immediately place the man as he comes warily closer. He squints at her. The moment the firelight washes across his face, she recognises him. Oh! He has grown a beard. "Sifas?"

She stands to hug him; he keeps distance between them, rocking weight onto his back leg as if ready to bolt. "Maker. What they're saying down at the front lines must be true. They're talking back, now."

BONUS: THE TENT
See: Gela outside of hers in the early morning, one shoe tipped upside down to get the sand out of it. There is quite an impressive amount pouring out onto the ground. She makes a face when she catches you looking, thumping the sole hard against the heel of her hand, shaking any last bits loose. It's a like being at the beach (without any of the fun that comes with being at the beach).

"Half the site is in here, I think! Other half is in the second boot. Was your tent any better?" Maybe she can switch. She does not like the desert.

SATINALIA
The lack of any special food will be felt quite hard, Gela thinks, so she decides to spend the day seeing if they can make do with anything from their surroundings. The supplies they have already are not very creative. She thinks that if they made flat bread with the flour and oil and salt they could serve it with something sweet (everybody likes warm bread), but it's the sweet part that will be the most difficult. Honestly, this reflects their current situation a little too perfectly.

She says aloud, frustrated, "Does nothing grow out here?"

Not even cacti??

WILDCARD
Go fer it

camp

[pathlit]

Jayce is approaching the campfire when this exchange begins, carrying the necessary components to make barely-consumable coffee to keep warm because: 1) they aren't drowning in supplies or wealth here, and 2) the nightmares are going to keep him awake anyway.

His next step falters, though, when Sifas speaks, his reaction to Gela sparking curiosity through general fatigue. Then, his brows furrow.

"... she's not a specter," Jayce says, dubious in tone and look as peers between the two.

kostos | ota

[exequy]

i. camp

The Templar is younger than Kostos is. Also taller. Unarmed and unarmored, though, so it isn't as stupid as it might have been for Kostos to be standing a little too close to him, chin jutting out and fists clenched.

What the Templar said before they reached this point was, "Are you going to be back before dark?"

The correct and easy response would have been yes. Of course. Obviously.

"Fuck you, Lorin," is what Kostos said instead, without pausing his attempt to pass through the line of Templar tents separating the rebel mages from the rest of the army.

He didn't succeed. A good two minutes has passed since then. By the time someone from Riftwatch arrives at the periphery, Lorin's arms are crossed, and he's saying, "It's only voluntary because you've all been cooperating so far. If you stop—"

"What?" Kostos says. "What? Do it. Make a threat."

Someone, anyone, has about ten seconds to stop him from starting a diplomatic incident.

ii. abomination aftermath + complications

The twisted figure they've tracked through the dunes lies unmoving at the center of the circle they formed around it, a dark shadow on the dusk-grey sand, someone's torch, and the three spirit wisps drifting their way back to Kostos. Quiet enough to hear the slick sound of the Templar pulling her sword back out of the abomination's chest. When she steps back, satisfied it's dead, the tension holding the handful of Exalted Marchers at a distance breaks, and they come forward too to reclaim their arrows and spears.

There's only a fading strip of orange sunlight on the horizon, and temperature is dropping. They would have stopped to camp already if they hadn't been so close and so at risk of losing the trail and the opportunity. Now they'll have to camp here.

One of the bowmen, a young man with overlarge ears, is struggling to free his arrow. Kostos turns away, cupping one of the wisps in his hand—which is burned, already blistering, but the wisp is too weak a spirit to help with that kind of thing.

In the distance, the shadow of a little girl, featureless save eyes that glow the same blue-white as the wisp, is watching them. Watching her back is better than watching the mouse-eared boy nudge Tareisa's demon-twisted face with his foot to be sure she's dead.

iii. wildcard

i. camp

[icasm]

"Ah, yes, Lorin, was it?" Loki is crossing the space as ostentatiously as possible in the hopes of wrenching the Templar's attention from Kostos and refocusing it on himself.

Loki doesn't know that he'd manage to talk Kostos down from whatever is brewing here, all things considered, but he can make a solid attempt to confuse or otherwise talk the younger man out of rising to the bait.


For his part? No mage staff to be found, and his uniform is clearly Riftwatch. He breaks out in a wide smile. "Is there a curfew I wasn't told about? Honestly, a poor fellow feels left out of such information!"

vanya

[wearyallalone]

old friends (i) - desi

Riftwatch agents tend to enter the line for rations in clusters, Vanya's noticed. It makes some sense; the subconscious pull of safety in numbers, even if those numbers are objectively small. Two or three is still more than one. He knows he's not a particular target, unless someone objects to Riftwatch as a whole, so when he's part of such clusters it's usually because he and his fellow agents had been working on something and broke for dinner at the same time. Even so, there's something to be said for a (relatively) friendly face next to him in the queue.

What he doesn't expect is a loud, Nevarran-accented voice from a half a dozen spots behind him calling out: "Is that Vanya Orlov? I heard he crawled under a rock and died." The tone has the warmth to make it a tease rather than a challenge; still, Vanya starts as he turns around.

The templar is a bit taller and notably broader in build than than Vanya, also in his mid-40s or so. He's as fatigued as anyone else in the camp, but over it, he seems affable. Certainly, at present, he is visibly amused.

old friends (ii) - ellis

Later that evening, Vanya is seated at one of the fire pits with the affable Nevarran templar. It likely wouldn't surprise anyone who knows him to observe that Vanya is listening more than he talks, though he responds enough to make it clear that he hasn't been cornered against his will. He takes occasional drinks from a small tankard, and if he's not relaxed, he's not substantially less relaxed than usual.

When he spots Ellis, he raises a hand in greeting more or less automatically. It isn't, initially, with the intention of calling him over, but more or less immediately Vanya's companion pitches his voice to be heard.

"Is that a friend of yours, Orlov? He should join us." The raised hand that accompanies the suggestion is much more clearly waving Ellis over to the fire.

satinalia - open

Vanya is hardly the life of the party at the best of times, so when he runs out of assigned Forces tasks, he considers trying to escape. But it seems against the spirit, if not the letter, of his instructions. Dutifully, he takes a drink and circulates. He's unlikely to dance, but he enjoys music enough to sit and listen. He can also likely be drawn into a game, if someone proposes one, and will be better for something to do (even recreational).

wildcard

[grab me OOCly or just go for it, I'm easy]

i.

[bribon]

If there is one thing that has absolutely, positively, completely without doubt has never been said about Desidério Amanza, it's that he is excellent as minding his own business. But that's for the best, really. As it turns out, being nosy is a remarkably sellable skill. Imagine if his poor (literally and figuratively) mother had been required to keep him in good boots and fine shirts. It simply wouldn't have been sustainable, economically speaking.

Not that it is in this very moment doing his pocket much good. Though, when he is sometimes given over to day dreams, he does allow himself to consider this Riftwatch business as a particularly strange case of having backed extremely long odds. True, there is a possibility he will die horribly. But there's also a possibility that he will help end war in the South, be regaled as a conquering hero, and reap the rewards of pillaging the fine house of Minrathous and Carastes and the adulation of the general populace or what the fuck ever.

(No one has ever called Desidério Amanza an opportunist either, but that's their problem and not his.)

So, the point is: his head swivels around. Vanya is taller than he is—most people are—but he cheats out by the half step necessary to see around him and mark the big Templar easily enough.

"I didn't know you had friends, Orlov."

Ha ha.

open, sending crystal, any time before the dream machine encounter;

[grindset]

Viktor has not yet arrived in the Silent Plains. He's remained behind, in the Gallows, with vaguely expressed intent to join the company later, whatever that might look like. It's not that he isn't interested in their mission—not at all—he's simply more deeply invested in his contributions to the lyrium studies launched by Wysteria and her former partner in transgressive science. Were he to go on tour with the rest, this work would have to be put completely on hold, which, in his not entirely objective opinion, would be a grievous misuse of time.

Sure, the away team might need him eventually, but he'll be of no more use there than he is here until they locate the problem physically, and he would much rather sweat and shiver and ache in the lab, under the effects of his own doings, than out in the unforgiving wilderness.

(That no one's really around to prevent him from modifying the trial to his own preference may also be a factor.)

While he is more or less amenable to chatting over the crystal as he goes about his business, for the most part, single-minded immersion in his work means Viktor rarely calls out unless there's a reason—but at times he does find himself lapped at by the grim echoes of events so recently rewritten, and so feels compelled to send out the occasional ping.

[pathlit]

[ At an ungodly hour when those unafflicted by cursed nightmares are likely slumbering comes a small, whispered, ] Hey, V. You there?

[ But just the once, in case its recipient is asleep. ]

bastien | closed

[cozen]

[ starter storage but feel free to hit me up if you want one. or wildcard me. i love surprises. ]

byerly

[cozen]

"Byerly," Bastien whispers.

In the main camp, in the tent swarming with lizards and colleagues, Bastien and Byerly have to leave enough space between their cots for Andraste. But they're not in the main camp now. They're mid-traipse into the desert to meet with the inhabitants of a tiny oasis village that's been friendly to the March but must now be beset by the same nightmares as everyone else, accompanied by a pair of Exalted Marchers who know the way and are either oblivious to or unbothered by how close together they sleep in their makeshift tent for two.

It's the one real silver lining. The rest is windy, sandy, currently very cold, and occupied by the occasional figment of someone's worst imagination.

Right now Bastien can feel Byerly breathing against his shoulder. But his head is turned the other way, to free his mouth and nose from the suffocating warmth of the cocoon, and what he can see is a second Byerly lying on his other side, pale and silver in the moonlight, eyes blank and throat torn open to show a bloodless black void.

It's not real. It can't hurt anyone. If Bastien closed his eyes and went back to sleep, it would be like it wasn't even here.

"By," Bastien whispers again, and nudges his shoulder under the weight of the real one. "Don't look. Let's go outside for a minute."

Outside may very well have other nightmares. Maybe the same one. Maybe worse ones. But he won't be lying here in silence alongside one, so that would still be better.

astrid runasdotten | scouting | ota

[brennvin]

field work.

Astrid is, perhaps, regretting her choices.

As a brand-new Riftwatch recruit, the Avvar scout had been hauled along — newcomers likely shouldn’t be left mostly-unattended in the Gallows, with a mere skeleton crew — and she’d been raring to go, eager to prove herself to her new comrades.

But she’s used to heavy furs and wintry cold and cutting wind. Not this blistering desert heat, and not this landscape: she loses her balance, slipsliding over dunes which look like snowdrifts but aren’t. She’s usually good at keeping her bearings, but finds herself distressingly disoriented without proper trees and mountains to look to. The sky feels too empty.

It’s all just blank featureless desert, and she is abjectly miserable in the heat.

“I,” she declares to her partner on the hike, “am sweating like a fucking nug. D’you have any water?”

Or at one point on the march, she loses her footing and goes sliding all the way to the bottom of a dune, then lies there disgraced with a piteous groan. Maybe help her back up to her feet.

She manages to redeem herself later by joining the hunting parties with anyone else handy with a bow, quietly tracking beasts for food; the woman can still follow animal tracks well enough, and those arrows are still fiendishly well-placed, buried in some phoenix or quillback’s throat.

camp.

The Avvar perks up at night, when the desert cold descends. She takes deep breaths of that crisp air, looking a little annoyingly cheerful about it even if others around her might be shivering.

One can typically find her by the fire, grilling chunks of meat skewered onto sticks: the fruits of her hunting labour, which have endeared her a little to the Exalted March soldiers. Right after your first bite, she says, not very reassuringly and maybe to be a little bit of a shit: “I don’t think it’s poisonous.”

She also instantly gravitates to the camels, and contributes to camp chores by tending to them, feeding them and brushing them down after the day’s travel and dodging their occasional horrific cud-chewed spit. Maybe that means you inadvertently get a lob in your face instead.

And if you’re also in the third tent filled with small lizards, here’s a woman handy with a dagger who’s only too happy to kill one for you, whether her help is asked for or not.

nightmares.

Astrid hasn’t been in the Free Marches long enough to have experienced these. Rumours carry, yes, but her hold in the Frostbacks had been more interested in disrupted trade routes — not nebulous sleep disruptions which Riftwatch itself has had to put specific efforts into polling and surveying. Which means these nightmares are new to her, and she’s unaccustomed to them.

In the middle of the night, she wakes with a gasp, a jolt, staring at the ceiling of the tent.

Astrid lies there for a while, vibrating with restlessness like a plucked tendon, before giving up on sleep. An innate sense of timing tells her that dawn must be soon. So then she’s getting back to her feet, rustling through the tent — tripping over someone else’s backpack or an outflung leg, muttering a curse, then a sheepish “Sorry sorry sorry” for that rude awakening as the other person stirs in their bedroll.

Afterwards, find her outside, poking the campfire to rouse it back to some semblance of life, staring moodily into its embers.

wildcard.

( feel free to wing anything at me, astrid’s brand-spanking new and needs CR! or hmu @ quadrille on plurk/discord if you wanna brainstorm. )

nightmares

[pathlit]

"Think fast,"

precedes a casual underhanded toss of an oval object in Astrid's direction.

It's a date from one of the palms he and Clarisse felled. No, it isn't ripe enough for what one expects of the fruits sold in the market; it is still light-colored, crunchy and faintly sweet.

A moment later, better sense strikes Jayce's sleep-deprived mind: it was not intelligent to toss an object to a stranger when their collective psyches are just a few strikes from shattering beneath the strain of the nightmares. If Astrid looks in his direction, he responds with an apologetic grimace and wave of his hand. Whoops.

[ closed thread container for Loki ]

[icasm]

[☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆]

for Abby Strongkarms

[icasm]

The party that left camp, including Loki and Abby, started significantly larger: a supply run and a perimeter patrol combined for practicality's sake, and to ensure the way is more or less safe, until the two groups split from roughly a half-dozen to two groups of three to four. This leaves Loki and Abby in a quartet with a pair of seasoned, exhausted, and sleep-deprived soldiers from the Exalted March, who give Loki and Abby both not even a moment's glance over their shoulders when the two of them hang back.

Too weary to give a damn what the hell a pair of weirdos from Kirkwall or possibly beyond the Veil are up to.

Besides, Loki is looking forward to the possibility of catching up. Kind of.

It's not like he told anyone he was back here. He just went through quarantine at the Gallows and then hauled his happy ass to a desert where there are more nightmares than one could shake a sage stick at.

Possibly not the wisest course of action. But whatever Abby might feel about Loki just suddenly popping up, it's clear that he's honestly glad to see her. Based on how he bumps into her arm with one of his own the moment he gets a chance. "Long time no see."

Is it bad that he's happy she's still here?