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.

[notathreat]

It'll be the third Satinalia they've done this, and three times makes a tradition, something something. But Ellie grins and reaches out for him, feet easily finding the steps, the two of them following each other to the beat.

"Glad somebody took me up on it," she murmurs at him in an undertone. "I was gonna feel like a moron for trying. These guys are all so down."

[altusimperius]

"Nobody said you weren't a moron," Benedict replies as he falls into step with her, but it's with a wry little smirk to indicate he's taking the piss; if she's a moron, he is too, at least in this moment.

"Who can blame them," he adds, but leaves the thought at that-- everyone here has been through so much, is still going through so much. "Maybe they just need quiet."

[notathreat]

Ellie aims a light kick with the toe of her boot at Benedict's shin, but it's glancing at best, and the both of them know how hard she'd hit if she actually meant to hurt him.

"Maybe," she concedes, "But quiet hasn't worked all day, so."

Time to try other avenues.

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?"

[notathreat]

It's definitely the type of party to forgive being a little smug about things, especially now that some people are actually starting to listen to them. (If only to wrinkle their nose at Byerly, resentful of the fact that he's getting them to tap their feet.)

Ellie doesn't pause to answer, but instead grins in the direction of her instrument and smoothly moves from what they're playing right into Andraste's Mabari- a favorite of hers, in fact.

A couple of the soldiers howl protest at the choice in song because noooo it's too sad! - but immediately take up the lyrics with gusto.

[bouchonne]

Byerly's grin is positively gleeful. He could play this particular tune in his sleep, and so it frees him to be a little creative; he starts dancing as he fiddles, the steps a little less elaborate than they would be if he didn't have to multitask with his hands, but still pretty impressive.

He cocks an eyebrow at her, half in challenge, half in invitation. Her dulcimer might prevent her from dancing the way that someone with a violin can, but perhaps she can figure something out.

[notathreat]

"You're outta your fucking mind," Ellie calls over the music, where its higher register is nearly lost in the notes of the fiddle, though her expression makes it clear.

A wall of cheers rises up in response, though- some of the others are howling along with the lyrics, banging along with a scattered beat as some others get to dancing.

It's not skilled in most cases, but you don't really have to be to get everything going.

Someone produces what sounds like a drum, and the ruckus only grows. They're definitely starting something here.

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.

[notathreat]

They are both thinking of the same faces, the same memories. The people who had nothing at all to go back to but more hell. Ellie can manage to keep those thoughts at bay, usually, but hard nights of no sleep and days filled with traveling in endless fucking desert will grind a person down.

"Crossroads were fucked too," she says, her voice falsely light. She tries to breathe through her nose, like it'll help her measure things.

"When we see things like this I have to wonder if people in my world saw it too. Lots of stories were the same, you know?"

[favoriteanalyst]

Some of the nightmares are more basic. Some of them are almost like old friends by this point, a little easier to try and ignore. The glint of red trying to catch his attention at the corners of his eyes, a Templar standing with red jutting out of places crystals ought not to jut, he can take the way his heart pounds at the glimpses made a little real.

Others are worse. More abstract. Harder to grapple with. Harder to want to sleep, harder to make oneself head north for any reason.

"Lots of stories are the same," he agrees, trying to focus on her and not anything or anyone else. Not let himself wander. "Lots of same terrible things happen to plenty of people." Especially in Ellie's world. "And you get a lot of the same kinds of fears. You know how many people are afraid of spiders? Snakes? Get bad dreams about being chased? I'd like to see how the desert shows that one, like when you're running but your feet aren't taking you anywhere."

Not that making light fun of the idea makes it any easier, but it's better than anything else right now.

[notathreat]

Ellie half-listens; Mobius' talks always sound so much like her own stream of consciousness, it's a little comforting to hear things said out loud.

She flips her knife and back forth, keeping an eye on the gaps, the places in between, the glimpses of horror that nobody else has noticed quite yet.

It's made easier by the fact that everyone's having basically the same shitty experience, but not by much.

"Now you're just giving it ideas." She's only half joking.

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?"

[notathreat]

Ellie is dozing only, and not easily. She sniffs in her sleep, her hands clasped loosely over her face to keep the sand from blowing into her nose and eyes while she pantomimes resting.

If anything, the flickering light and occasional turning of a page, along with the soft breathing, is a comfort. It means that she blinks fully alert immediately when Wysteria scoots over to her.

She curls her fingers, her eyes visible above them in the dimly-lit tent, and nods.

"Against my will," she whispers back. Not Wysteria's fault by any means. She'd have been awake anyway.

[heirring]

"Oh good," is maybe not the most polite thing to say when someone has expressed a general inability to be asleep. But it has a certain air of honesty to it—that it is a relief that someone else is awake with her—, so maybe it works out to be about even.

In fact, that Wysteria doesn't immediately follow with any further statement or question suggests this reassurance may have been her entire motivation for asking in the first place. Not that she goes directly back to the book, either, but for a series of beats this shared not asleepness seems to satisfy her.

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.

[notathreat]

Ellie's aware when Cosima gets close, and gives her a fleeting smile once she starts singing.

She lets her carry it, leaning into the words with half-closed eyes. Lets Cosima give her the gift of something familiar, so far from home. It's the little things.

It reminds her of Tony, too. The guitar he brought, the references to Metallica. It seems like a lifetime ago.

She closes her eyes, plays, and breathes.

[youwonscience]

Cosima relaxes a little as it's clear that Ellie welcomes the collaboration. It's easy to let self-consciousness go, she finds, in a world where maybe five people have ever heard the Clapton original (and fewer are used to a huge variety of recorded professional music). Music feels, somehow, a bit more as if it belongs to everyone in Thedas.

When the song finally ends — she may have forgotten a word or two, but she faked it plausibly where she needed to — she glances over. "What else do you have?" is a little bit a joke, but a little bit not. She's in no hurry to get up and move away, regardless.

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.

[notathreat]

Ellie can't sleep. Again. Staring into the fire isn't the greatest use of her eyes but it's keeping her kind of dozy and at least that's a slight rest.

The person across from her startles, and she startles too, controlling her breathing when she realizes it's not a clicker. Those memories are closer to the surface these days.

It takes a moment for her to recognize him fully, and when she does, she squints in disbelief and raises her hand.

She's learned from experience that "I knew you a parallel you from another reality and we were almost sort of friends" is not the best way to introduce yourself.

[icasm]

He's still not certain it's the Ellie he knew; one gesture is not enough confirmation for a 'friendship' based almost exclusively on the premise of neither breaking nor entering but some secret third thing.

So Loki stands up and quietly makes his way to sit a bit closer. Close enough to be heard even if he keeps his voice down.

"When I got to Kirkwall after being gone however long I seriously did not realize that irregular nightmares were still such a widespread affliction."

Totally normal thing one would say to a friend, right?

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.

[notathreat]

Ellie has known that she'd see her; they see each other often now. But the both of them are still new to the "interacting when they don't have to and it isn't an emergency" thing.

She looks up as Abby approaches, lifting her eyebrows, then leaning back on one foot.

"Yeah. Thanks." Which is sincere, just a little bit awkward. "... you wanna try it?"

[armd]

"Sure."

She takes up a bow, giving the string a twang with her finger and thumb. "What do I have to do?"

Bit of friendly competition never hurt anybody, right? Never mind that she is really no good with a bow and arrow (in comparison to Ellie, that is).