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

[grindset]

"Captain," he gasps, less startled than he is relieved to see Rowntree there so suddenly: a historic first. Here is not only a capable man, but a man who excels in warlike behaviour, dressed like he's ready to do anything contextually required of him, with his hand raised in nonspecific acquiescence, and that's good enough to draw Viktor right up to him with a hurried thump of his crutch, bright with urgency, much closer than he would usually come.

"Please, if you would— is your griffon ready to fly? They found it—it's a device. Several miles due north, they said, and quickly—the nightmares have become violent. We need to go!"

Whether yes or no, Viktor is primed to move, either with him toward a shared departure in haste, or past him to seek another candidate.

[luaithre]

Getting addressed and approached so directly rather than bustled past snares his focus, and stays mutely attentive as Viktor explains in stops and starts. No leaping joy or hope in him, but also no skepticism or confusion. Questions remain—

But none that concern Marcus, particularly. Urgency is conveyed, and what is required of him laid plain. He nods.

"This way," and moves to lead the way to where he had thankfully not yet gone about the business of settling Monster down, due one more patrolling flight. At least, she had been. She is white feathered and saddled up, only lifting her head from where she's sunk onto the sand on her belly, bright golden eyes locking on Viktor with fierce curiousity.

[grindset]

This way, and he follows as quickly as he can, invigorated by Marcus's seamless recruitment, and pleased by no small measure for the sight of a griffon already dressed for travel. As a few minutes either way could make the difference between success and calamity, any opportunity to shave some off is very welcome.

"Hello," is a crumb of courtesy for the creature herself, breathlessly delivered. Though he's an occasional visitor to the eyrie, he hasn't spent much time directly in the company of this one—he only knows her to be, as he might put it, very expressive of her boundaries, and being bitten or otherwise causing a stir by rushing right up on her would only waste time—so he holds his impatience in check until he's cleared to approach. Marcus will find him familiar with the mounting-up technique, albeit not so graceful in performing it. He does know where to put his hands and feet, where to affix his crutch, and how to hang on, which he does very tightly during takeoff.

But this is at least half a practical grip, not a fearful one: "OK, Captain—let her rip!"

[pathlit]

If the situation surrounding the discovery of the nightmare-contraption wasn't a shitshow during that brief crystal discussion, then it is certainly one by the time Viktor and Marcus arrive. Their journey is nearly as perilous as the initial group's trek, tangible nightmares trying their hardest to throttle and maim -- only sometimes, strikes that ought to hurt instead pass through the men (and griffon) like a particularly unpleasant fog.

So it goes on the battlefield, as Wysteria and Jayce work on carefully disarming the device while the others fight and fight and fight. The air is thick with fire and smoke, magic and fear. Several corpses lie upon the sand, some warm, others false. Ironically, the ghastly presentation of Corypheus ultimately works in Riftwatch's favor, if the Venatori's response to their 'leader's' presence is anything to go by.

Still, the monstrous nightmares persist, albeit irregularly. The scene immediate to the device is one of blood. Like, a lot of blood. Blood on the ground, blood coating the scrawling script, and blood on Jayce and Wysteria -- unrelated to the stray Venatori piercing through the perimeter, making a beeline for them.

Hastily abandoning the device -- and perhaps this causes another mishap in their attempt to disarm -- Jayce intercepts the soldier. It is not a fair fight; the soldier is already wounded. Jayce strikes him down anyway, then glances in Wysteria's direction, reassessing.

slinks shamefacedly back in here

[heirring]

She should be faster at this, is what she has been thinking. It's only a matter of disconnecting all the magic from its tethering points and carefully winding it away like reversing the threads from out of a great spinning loom. In fact, if not for the parts built over top of the central enchantment—the very physical pieces of the artifact not only bound by their own runic magic and complicated interlocking bits of metal—, it would be simple.

Simpler, anyway.

Instesd here there are, however much later, flecked with blood. Jayce ducks away beyond the range of Wysteria's peripheral vision; her objecting squawk comes from the sudden contraction of the arcane energies surrounding the device more so than it does his position or the crunch of the wounded Venatori falling to the sand strewn floor underfoot.

The powers of the device surge. For a moment, the dreamlike conjurations solidify further. A hurlock's tainted sword hacks, a giant scorpion launches at one of the Venatori and pierces then with the vicious barb on its tail.

And then Wysteria wrenches some invisible control back over the shape of the thing, and the sword passes harmlessly through a braced buckler. The Venatori bleeds around an empty puncture, and a half dozen or more of the nightmare conjurations fade to flickering mist.

This is a good sign, actually. The blood and the surge of Fadiation. It means—

"We must nearly have it. It's not half so sensitive as when we started."

They can meddle now, and might not blow up. Improvements!

[luaithre]

In the air, still—

"Hold on," half-shouted, a barked snap past the shoulder to Viktor. Of course, Viktor is holding on, and what Marcus means is to do that even more.

Because a kick in the stirrup and a jerk of the reins brings Monster into a gliding swoop, her craggy grumble barely heard through the whipping wind and the battle below. The onslaught of nightmare and Venatori crash against the perimeter of soldiers, but this mostly scans as opportunity, to his eye.

Their fellows on the ground may be too distracted to notice Monster's white feathers as they careen nearer—but the sudden explosion of lava, smoke, and flame from the enemy's backline makes itself known, painting the area in a sudden rush of orange light and baking heat, surprised yells. A few arrows are knocked upwards and sent flying; they shatter against the arcane barrier hastily summoned at the end of the flame-tinged staff Marcus has in hand as they begin a descent.

A fast descent. Monster is reckless and ready in the way she moves, and tears down in a spiral, landing heavy on all four paws close to the gaggle of scientists, a gust of desert dust displaced beneath her spread wings.

Just as urgently, Marcus is levering himself out of his saddle, and moving to help Viktor down. The faster that's taken care of, the quicker he can join the fray properly.

[grindset]

The result is as quick as Viktor has ever dismounted one of these creatures, short of simply falling out of the saddle (which he has done, but does not do today). He thanks Marcus through his grasp on the man's arm, the certainty with which he leans his weight on him, and these signals of trust far outweigh any word of gratitude he might give. As soon as he's got his stick in hand, Viktor further shows his respect by getting the hell out of the man's way.

Likewise, as he nears the machine, his breathless hello contains zero pleasantries (and zero hello, actually): "This thing is much uglier than I'd imagined." He sounds impressed. "Catch me up—Jayce, where are you?" Ah, there he is, looking like he's either done or is about to do something displeasing—but they're in the middle of something, so it's back to Wysteria: "How much progress have you made?"

[heirring]

She doesn't she the griffin land, or even really register the explosive flare of heat. There is just the machine, and Jayce somewhere nearby, and the filament shapes of magic which cross cutting the air with its pressures and effects felt, maybe, but apparently invisible to most eyes, and—

She doesn't look to follow the sound of Viktor's voice. But its shape in her ear breeds a sharp clench of relief somewhere high in the chest. Good.

"We've stabilized it, I think. And its powers are being checked. I would be very surprised if"—there were nightmares extending much farther than this decrepit temple now; but that is barely relevant, so:

"There seems to be locking mechanisms there at the cardinal points about it. Once those have been undone and their enchantments nullified, I may be able to pick the rest apart."