MOD PLOT: With Strides Immeasurable

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Moving days
WHEN: August 9:50
WHERE: Everywhere, really
NOTES: OOC post. Use appropriate CWs in your subject lines. The image in this post that isn't just straight from the games/promotional images (Qarinus) is by Meggie Rock.

The world is too large and Riftwatch too small to be everywhere, involved in everything. The days of trying to keep their fingers in every pie across Thedas may be past, but the scope of the war still is what it is, rifts can still open on any corner of the continent, the enemy is active all over. So while much attention has naturally been on rebuilding and refortifying Kirkwall and the Gallows since the Venatori attack, they can't remain focused inward for too long. The reorganization of the eluvian network created a protected nexus in the Crossroads, eliminating the need for long journeys through the newly-volatile landscape. Now, Riftwatchers need only pass through the Gallows eluvian (secured in a guarded basement space in the central tower) to find themselves within steps of central Minrathous, Val Royeaux, or Antiva City. Other mirrors in the cluster provide access to new outposts in Qarinus, Nevarra City, and the Rivaini coast, or a long-neglected base in the Hunterhorns.

The priorities of turning outward now are clear: operations in Minrathous and Qarinus must be expanded, the better to marshal forces behind enemy lines. The existing base in Minrathous needs expanding, and a new one in Qarinus established. In Nevarra City, the Mortalitasi have requested assistance with a rift at the Necropolis that is hampering efforts to finally repopulate the city after its long undead occupation. Elsewhere, there are spaces to be dusted off or construction to be overseen, the lay of the land taken for future operations. While not an emergency situation, the work is urgent in the sense that all of their work is urgent. No one who might be unusually unsuited to passing as a local will be sent to Tevinter, where all work is inherently clandestine and therefore dangerous, but it's otherwise more or less all hands on deck, with the ease of travel meaning people can come and go on staggered schedules. Just make sure you've memorized the list of which eluvian is which.


I. MINRATHOUS

Riftwatch's base in Minrathous may be unfamiliar to those outside the Scouting Division, but expanding operations in the city means making space for more visitors. The eluvian is housed in a hidden room in the cellar of the Bear's Tooth tavern, a busy taproom on a middling market street near the center of the city. It's the sort of place that sees a constant stream of diverse customers but few regulars, where a minor nobleman on business might cross paths with a farmer bringing produce to market. The block behind the tavern is more residential, respectable if not quite fashionable, and home to Widow Tavisa's Boarding House, a fading but clean establishment similarly catering to short-term visitors of the mostly-middle classes. The two properties are secretly connected by a tunnel, an ancient winding servant's stair, and their owners' loyalty to Riftwatch.

The upper floor of the boarding house, with its steep eaves, dark velvet wallpaper, and inescapable scent of old flowers, has been kept available for visiting Riftwatch agents for some time now, but there's a secret expansion underway to add the bunk rooms and communal workspaces that will turn this into a proper outpost. Long ago, Widow Tavisa's extended to a second wing next door, but a fire burned most of it to the ground. Left untouched was a hidden basement—a taproom and smoking lounge only ever known to only a select few Tevinter hipsters—that now lies below the walled garden that was built on the ashes of the upper floors. Riftwatch is digging a couple short tunnels through the cellars to secretly connect this space to the other two buildings, and then performing clean-up and some light construction work to make it fit for use.

The place is all dark wood and marble and the over-gilded furnishings typical of Tevinter design trying a little too hard to look more luxurious than it is, now covered in layers of dust and ash. Some fire damaged areas will need to be repaired, and a few ruined walls are better demolished to create a space open enough to house a collection of salvaged tables, chairs, and desks for communal eating and working, centered around a large two-sided fireplace and a lightly singed Tevinter-billiards table. There are bunks to install in the adjoining private rooms, making each fit for at least three agents, and repairs to neglected plumbing in the shared bathroom.

But Minrathous is too large and dangerous a city for just a single safe house, no matter how large, especially now that the Venatori openly control the city, the streets crawling with people in silver-and-blood livery and stalked by fear of their patrolling guards and rumored spies. In addition to pitching in with construction, Riftwatch agents will be tasked with searching out and securing other spots throughout the city for potential future use. This will be good practice for those not yet familiar with moving about the city discreetly, and a chance to feel out the conditions in various neighborhoods.

Someone might be assigned to wander the fashionable cafe district around Tenquillis Square in disguise as an aristocrat's agent looking to secure a pied-à-terre for a mistress, watching the palanquin traffic and listening to the anxious edge to upper-class gossip about the Elder One's inner circle, or to pose as sailors looking to let rooms in the spindly tenements crammed between the canals of Waterside and keep an eye on the new quayside inspection patterns, as artisans in need of a new workshop in the Iron Heights where the surface dwarf community is rumbling about divisions in the Ambassadoria, or mages fallen on hard times looking for lodging in the worker slums near the magic forges of West Shrek where military recruiters haunt the street-corners and the able-bodied but unwary are sometimes snatched from alleys and pressed into service.

The Venatori aren't the only thing setting the city on edge. Pockets of strange magical effects have begun to appear in the city. There are places where gravity abruptly ceases to function as expected, the world flipped on its head for 10 yards and then just as suddenly normal again. In others, it's time that is out of sorts, the walk from one end of a certain block to the other somehow taking an hour longer than it feels, the movement of clouds overhead slowing to a crawl until the next street is crossed. Some places have simply ceased to be—half of a building replaced with a mess of crumbling walls and stairs or jagged crags of rock that Riftwatch will recognize as pieces of the Crossroads or the Fade drawn physically into this world. Even where all appears normal, one may become aware of an uneasy sensation of something passing nearby unseen, of being watched, of sounds just on the edge of hearing, emotions surging suddenly out of nothing as if catching the mood of a non-existent mob.

Street prophets cry that only the Elder One can save the city from crumbling, the decay caused by centuries of worshiping the non-existent Maker and his false chantry, and restore the Imperium to its glory. Among the populace, a fair number believe these claims. Some also blame the southern Chantry for the damage, claiming they've sent their own barbaric mages or their Templars or both to disrupt the magic that's always held Minrathous together. Still others believe that this is the beginning of something wonderful—that the Elder One is restoring a greater magic, and soon Tevinter's nonmagical population will begin to exhibit magic themselves and bring Tevinter into a new era of equality and dominance. Meanwhile, iffy areas have been marked with signage, though that doesn't keep the curious out, and outright dangerous areas are under guard. An area near the docks around the old slave market has been quietly sealed off by soldiers with stories of some sort of dangerous enemy sabotage attempts, but there are whispers in nearby taverns of Wardens seen coming and going.

There are rifts, too. Ten years after the Breach they're not unprecedented, but the frequency with which they're opening in Minrathous right now is unusual, both to Riftwatch and to the locals. The sudden proliferation over the last few weeks will be a topic of nervous conversation (and sometimes fascinated conversation, in certain circles). Whether to help close them or let Minrathous suffer for Corypheus's choices might be a topic of debate within Riftwatch, but it turns out those aren't the only two options. Riftwatchers might come upon a team in Venatori colors arrayed around a rift with anchors outstretched, shutting it themselves as others hold the demons at bay. They might also notice some members of such a team being closely watched and ushered back into wagons for transport when the work is done.


II. QARINUS

In Ancient times when Tevinter ruled the known world, Qarinus was at the heart of the Imperium, its queen married Darinius, uniting their kingdoms to create the empire and make him the first Archon. But as borders shrunk in Ages past, it found itself more and more on the outskirts, nearer Antiva and Rivain than Minrathous and nearer Par Vollen than comfortable. Positioned at the gate to the Nocen Sea, it has been a magnet for both trade and conflict. It was conquered and occupied by the Qun for the better part of a century, was the last major city to be freed by the Exalted Marches of the Storm Age, and recently suffered the ignominy of being officially renamed 'Ventus' in honor of the commander of the fleet that drove off another attempted Qunari invasion in 9:12 (a name locals still defiantly refuse to use). This history, along with its location on the border, the danger of the surrounding seas, and the large population of foreign travelers and emigrants passing through, have given it a reputation as the frontier city of Tevinter, rustic and lawless, the Imperium's version of Llomerryn.

In reality, it's closer to a normal mid-sized Tevinter city than it is an outlaw haven. Its rocky coastline has certainly long been home to plenty of smugglers' dens and pirate hideaways and the crowded port is wound with narrow, ramshackle alleys leading up to dusty central plazas still showing damage from Qunari incursions. It does have a provincial air in places, but its rougher areas are also balanced by its share of lush palm-shaded gardens and lavish cliff-top villas, citrus trees and draconic statues lining the wide stone promenades around the floating Praetor's Palace, and an outpost of Orzammar's Ambassadoria. But its reputation has become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially since Corypheus revealed himself and the Venatori began to imprison its opponents. The current praetor is Magister Havian Sulara, Venatori and a close ally of Calpernia. Even so, the city has less of a conspicuous Venatori presence, and since they've tightened their hold elsewhere the number of magisters coincidentally retreating to summer homes by the Straits has markedly increased. Rumors abound that several prominent opponents escaped to Qarinus and are still hiding out in the city, running a network of smugglers shuttling those targeted by the Venatori to safety in Qarinus and beyond.

This last is true, and certain erstwhile Riftwatch leaders have had a key part in coordinating those escapes through a network of naval contacts operating in the Nocen, assisting not only in discreetly ferrying people out of Minrathous and other port cities, but helping identify those willing and able and direct them to an anti-Venatori organization based in the city called the Lucerni. Run by a woman called "Thanira," actually Magister Maevaris Tilani who has managed to slip the Venatori net, the group is quietly gathering itself in the shadows of Qarinus. The People of the Silent Plains are active here as well, with a cell in the city similarly dedicated to smuggling escaping slaves into Arlathan Forest and beyond (which they'll report used to be pretty easy before all these shem politicians started sneaking about). While the city does not share the pervasive anxiety shivering beneath the surface in Minrathous there is a restless energy to the place and its people, a chippy edge to everyday conflicts and minor disputes. Maybe it's just the sweltering weather and the crackle of daily thunderstorms, but there is an unspoken sense of something brewing.

It's time for Riftwatch to do more to help. The eluvian giving access to Qarinus is set into the wall of a sea cave, which floods with the high tide. While moving it without breaking the glass would be difficult (potentially impossible), the good news is that the cave was once used by smugglers and connects to several others, leading up to the cellar of an old lighthouse set atop the cliffs at one edge of the city. Riftwatch has taken over operation of the light and the ramshackle smuggling base hidden within it. Here most of the conversions have already been done by the prior occupants: there's a room full of bunks and hammocks for at least 12, kitchen and dining areas, and a surprisingly cozy space for off-hours relaxation full of furniture made primarily out of barrels, rope, and grain sacks.

Qarinus isn't large enough or hostile enough to require more than one or two auxiliary safe houses, but in addition to establishing those, there are allies to make contact with and intelligence to be gathered. Agents will be tasked with assisting in moving refugees both into and out of the city; escorting potential political prisoners, escaping slaves, and supply deliveries from smuggler's landings to meets with Lucerni or the People's agents at various places throughout the city; and helping others slip out onto ships bound for still-neutral Rivain, caravans into the mountains or toward Arlathan, or the ships or wagons of smugglers trading illicitly with Antiva.

While their presence is light compared to Minrathous, there are plenty of Venatori still running the city, on watch against both agents of the Qun and any rumored resistance movement. They're doing their best to prevent any enemies of the Elder One from passing through the city in either direction. Riftwatch agents will also be assigned passive surveillance missions, tracking Venatori movements and observing their operations to get the lay of the land will also help get Riftwatch up to speed, keeping a lookout especially for weaknesses that might be exploited in the future.


III. NEVARRA CITY

The crypt is mostly empty of corpses—some destroyed or missing, others relocated to the more prestigious Grand Necropolis now that there's so much empty space—but that doesn't stop the space from being unsettling to people who are unsettled by that kind of thing. The door to the crypt is set into a hill, with ancient windows that allow some tree-dappled sunlight to pass through into the entranceway, but further back there's no daylight, only a mix of fire and veilfire braziers that throw long, flickering shadows. The halls are lined with enclaves that seem like a mix between bedrooms in an inn and big-windowed storefronts: the possessed corpses that reside here do so on perpetual display, unconcerned with privacy. The materials used to construct these little houses echo the eras and preferences of their occupants, and while they're largely empty now—the furniture and belongings that once surrounded each body have been looted, reclaimed by families, or relocated—there's still something arguably disrespectful about settling into what are essentially abandoned graves. Anyone who stays here overnight will be advised to do so in the entrance hall.

But this isn't a place where Riftwatch might routinely need to settle in and hide. They only need a place for an eluvian that's safe from observation. Outside the crypt, Nevarra City and its environs are friendly and happy enough to see them; the inn along the road to the city proper will gladly put them up for its standard fee.

The royal palace and the city center are occupied by the Mortalitasi, who are still overseeing the city's reconstruction and making painstaking attempts to match abandoned corpses to their correct ancestors, but also taking their time with it to try to settle the situation between the Van Markhams and Pentaghasts before having to commit to handing the capital over to one or the other. There's no real danger left. If Riftwatch agents visit to meet with Mortalitasi allies, the narrow streets are quiet, eerily empty. The black marble statues of Nevarran ancestors and heroes dotting the public spaces might be the only new faces anyone comes across on a walk. But around the rim of the city, outside the older walls from when it was a much smaller place, citizens have returned to occupy the sprawl of smaller houses. Most of them are poorer folks who never found anything better in the intervening years, but a number of people employed by Nevarra's wealthy and noble families are living there too, essentially glamping in large tents filled with comfortable furniture, to make sure they can be among the first to reclaim their employers' property and fend off looters or squatters when the rest of the city reopens.

The Grand Necropolis is a hulking, glowing shape on the edge of the city. A long cobbled road flanked by statues of robed skeletons, each holding a lantern lit with green fire, leads to a towering onyx gate. It is a forbidding entryway despite that Riftwatch has been invited, their presence required to close a rift. A pair of Mortalitasi greet them and escort the way into a long hall, this too flanked by skeleton statues, now three stories tall. The shape of their ribs is echoed in the twisting striping of the even taller pillars and the loose arches of the ceiling above, the gaps between leaving the space open to the air. Mausoleums line this road, style and state of repair varying widely. These levels have been cleansed of rogue undead, the Mortalitasi explain, and those that could be returned have been, but restoration of the individual tombs themselves are the responsibility of the families. Their route curves gently, and slopes even more gently, enough that they may not realize they are winding their way underground until they pass through an arched tunnel overgrown with ivy and find themselves in a cavern beside a yawning pit, its squared sides marked out by a perimeter of more green lanterns and by a set of weeping willows, ghostly pale and tinged green only by the lantern-light, branches shifting in a draft from the deep.

Here they meet the Mourn Watch, a group of elite Mortalitasi (their escorts have explained) tasked with the protection and preservation of the Necropolis and its occupants. Johanna Hezenkoss, a 60-something woman with a sturdy build, long steel-gray hair, and minimal patience, and her recently-inducted apprentice, a young elf named Lukas Rutter who looks as if he'd like to smile but is too nervous, explain the rough outline of the problem as they ride the elevator cage down (how far is difficult to gauge). Efforts to fully restore and make safe the city have been long delayed by a continuing plague of rogue undead, new uncontrolled possessions, mostly demonic, continuing at a rate the Mourn Watch has eventually managed to contain to lower levels of the Necropolis but has been unable to stop, and which is straining their resources such that they cannot guarantee the city is safe to repopulate. The source of the problem eluded all manner of investigation and experiment. The Necropolis is vast and difficult to navigate even for experts and grows only more so the deeper you get, Hezenkoss will tersely and defensively explain. But finally, someone happened upon a corridor never before seen or recorded in the order's archives and blocked by a massive rift.

To get to it, Riftwatch and the Mourn Watchers (a larger group awaits them at the end of the lift journey) will have to fight their way through an uncommon volume of demons, some in pure demonic form but most in some sort of body: corpses in various states, collections of bones reconstituted in approximation of a skeleton, scrabbling limbs clawing their way up through the dirt, giant-sized golems formed of loose collections of bone and stone and matter. The rift, when they reach it, is a gaping slash in the center of what looks like elven architecture plucked from the Crossroads and inserted into the Necropolis, like a chunk of shrapnel lodged in a wound. It is a piece of a hallway lined with doors, and while none are passable, a breeze flows outward, and the sickly green light of the rift flickers off something through one arched doorway to create an impression of depth beyond. It will take an uncommon amount of time and effort to force closed the rift, even with the Mourn Watch assisting in keeping the demons occupied. When it is done, Riftwatch will be thanked (genuinely, if grudgingly by Hezenkoss) and escorted back to the surface. Any offer or attempt to scout beyond the now-cleared corridor will be firmly rebuffed, politely at first but less so if pressed. The Necropolis is a sacred place entrusted to the Mourn Watch's keeping. Should they be in need of any assistance in future, they will be in touch.


IV. ELSEWHERE

Val Royeaux is less in Riftwatch's crosshairs these days, having stepped back from attempting to keep up with The Game enough to exert influence on the imperial court's influencers. But Orlais remains a crucial ally in the fight against Corypheus and the Chantry is, well, the Chantry. An eluvian has been located here in the shop of a fashionable and sympathetic modiste, Cecelia Clavet, allowing Riftwatch quick travel into the central shopping districts and access to the wealth of court gossip ladies spill during fittings. The latest has drawn attention: not romantic rivalries or feuding families but a ball (Baroness de Dreux's biannual Mid-Summer Mummery) disrupted by spires of stone suddenly appearing in the ballroom and the dancers finding themselves suddenly on the ceiling. The baroness will be grateful for Riftwatch to investigate (it is, as suspected, an intrusion of the Fade into the physical world), but less grateful to be informed that this is a phenomenon they have encountered before but can do nothing about.

In Antiva City, a boathouse along the Canneti canal has an eluvian installed in its upper-floor apartment. The space is neither large nor luxurious but provides a secure and comfortable spot for Riftwatch to come and go, and for Anselmo Barzini, the owner, to keep an eye on passing traffic for Riftwatch when he isn't poling travelers through the canals on his gondola and eavesdropping on them for Riftwatch. It's an excellent way to gather information, and Barzini is eager to broker a partnership between Riftwatch and I Fratelli della Forcola, a quiet and discreet organization of gondoliers in Antiva City. That's still in its early stages, but Anselmo is certain that bringing a few Riftwatch members to an informal gathering and letting them mingle and participate in a few gondola races (at which they will presumably lose embarrassingly but hopefully with good humor) will win some goodwill.

And near Seere, along the northern coast of Rivain, Riftwatch stashes an eluvian inside a wrecked ship in an isolated cove along the coast. Getting to and from shore requires either a rowboat or a short swim, and Seere itself is half a day's walk away. But much closer is a small village situated on a coastal cliff that overlooks the Northern passage, where Riftwatch has one friend in particular: an elderly Tal-Vashoth woman named Karaas who's as wary of the Qun as they come. She's spending her retirement from life at sea watching the horizon through a spyglass and keeping meticulous notes on any ships from Par Vollen in particular. It's easy enough for her to add Tevinter ships to her particular area of concern and keep an eye on their hidden eluvian for them, and she has a sailboat they can borrow to get to Seere faster if necessary. She'll also alert them to the presence of a young whale caught in yet another area of strange veil effects, trapped in a pocket of water now suspended in the air as if filling an invisible room. It will require some ingenuity, but if they can find a way to climb up, they might be able to use reality-reasserting magic, runes, Templar abilities, or anchors long enough to weaken the effect and help get the whale back down into the actual sea.

V. THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

While most of Riftwatch's eluvians are dedicated to the need to reach the middle of a given city as quickly as possible, two are set aside for getting away from it all.

For the first: Riftwatch has long had access to a sparingly-used hunting lodge in the Blasted Hills, near the Hunterhorn Mountains and Anderfels border. It's a location that will be made infinitely more useful by trading its resident eluvian for one large enough for griffons to pass through—the transport of which requires volunteers to take a road trip with a slow-moving cart and team of draft horses and camping overnight in the Orlesian countryside rather than risk storing the enormous eluvian in a roadside inn's stables. But the ability to pull up the canvas in the cart and drop through the eluvian to trade shifts with those back at the Gallows in a matter of minutes makes it less miserable, maybe, for those who pull the short straw on any given day.

The hunting lodge itself, when reached, is unforgivably heavy on antler-based decor and covered in a year's worth of dust and cobwebs, but otherwise it's in serviceable condition. If anything it's too large; the previous owner frequently hosted guests and their horses and hounds, with spare bedrooms and an expansive stable to accommodate them, and the appointments are rustic in aesthetic only. (The fact that the woody decor and enormous murals of the chase are a bit overdone and, arguably, cringe in the capital this decade might have something to do with Riftwatch's uncontested possession of the property.) It will take some carpentry and heavy lifting to transform the existing stable into an eyrie that can comfortably house a couple of the griffons at a time. Once there's a place for them, griffon riders will need to begin practicing coaxing their griffons through the eluvians and short stretch of the Crossroads—unpleasant but blessedly quick, and something they're generally clever enough to learn to do efficiently—and can begin flying loops into Ander territory to accustom themselves to the landscape. Roving darkspawn are common in the Anderfels even between Blights, and the rule of Corypheus over the last few years has brought with it an increasing problem. A band of rogue Wardens, escaped from Tevinter-ruled Weisshaupt and living in a rough but well-established camp in the mountains, do their best to protect the villages of the area, but some help wouldn't go amiss. They'd also be struck by the sight of the griffons—previously thought to've been lost again as hatchlings during the First Warden's coup eight years ago—and will be eager (even jealous) to get the opportunity to work with them.

And on the opposite end of the continent, beneath in the southeastern reaches of Ferelden, Riftwatch has recently been granted use of an abandoned dwarven outpost. The quickest route for transporting a spare eluvian is to take a ship down the Fereldan coast to Gwaren. The isolated city was, in fact, built to support the shipping needs of the outpost in its heyday as the center of dwarven salt mining operations. After the mines were abandoned, old access points nearer to the port were walled up or collapsed for fear of darkspawn incursions. The remaining accessible entrance is a day's journey through the damp, foggy Brecilian Forest and down into a narrow, easily-overlooked cave that ends in a fortified door. Riftwatch has a key, but getting the heavy doors open also requires repairing a rusted-through chain and cranking some gears. Fortunately, once the eluvian is inside, they won't have to go through the doors every time, or possibly ever again.

Inside, they'll find the remnants of a village that was abandoned centuries ago when it became clear that darkspawn would ultimately make the Deep Roads between Gwaren and Orzammar impassable. The occupants had enough warning to pack up their valuables, and decay has had hundreds of years to do its work, so there's little in the way of personal belongings to find. But the homes were carved into the stone walls directly. Aside from a few that have been eroded by streams or drips of water, they show minimal signs of damage. Much of the furniture is stone as well: bedframes, tables, chairs, and desks all remain, though most will be improved by the addition of some kind of cushion. There's an open expanse that was once a pasture for brontos and nugs that's now been overtaken by the latter and a variety of mushroom species, a smithy just shy of still being operational, a network of mining tunnels that turn eerie and white when the salt deposits are reached, and a quiet mausoleum of stone tombs. Altogether, it's large enough to house all of Riftwatch, if that ever became necessary—it just needs cleaning and stocking, including removing debris from the underground streams and pond that could serve as a long-term water source and dealing with a giant spider and her many large children.

Spider aside, there's no sign of serious danger. The rune-encrusted, fortified entrance to the Deep Roads is still holding strong. There's no sign darkspawn have ever managed to breach the outpost itself, once it was closed up for the last time, and no sign of scavengers ever finding the entrance in the Brecilian Forest. It might be the most secure secret clubhouse ever.

Comments

[brennvin]

It’s a good thing they are in Minrathous; a place where that casual bit of practiced magic won’t be looked at askance. Astrid watches the gesture a little owl-eyed, though, clocking the wand. Not using a rune lighter. Not using a staff. Innnnteresting.

Probably should’ve chosen someone else for this quick little retrieval mission if she wanted muscle, but she was pressed for time: Avigd is here and getting drunker and the risk growing the longer he’s able to marinate on his own. High time someone showed up, put the fear of the Maker back into him.

“Maybe the bodyguard angle won’t work,” she concedes. “But he’s a dwarf, he’ll be smaller than you. Most important thing, I’ve found, is to just act like it; that mean stern look you said. What’s your name, anyway? I’m Astrid.”

[brennvin]

Astrid makes a strangled disgruntled noise in the back of her throat.

“You’re from Rivain, right? I’d fucking die.” Odds are that Riftwatch will need some work done and she’ll go there sooner or later, but in the meantime. Every time she tries to sprawl against the bench and get comfortable with an arm slung over its back, they hit another pothole and the whole thing jostles and it feels like she’s going to get flung out of the cart. It’s different from the muscle ache you get from riding a horse too long. This is worse, she decides.

But what’s the coldest she’s ever been—

“Almost got frostbite once,” she muses, and there’s an incongruously wistful sound to her voice, thinking of it. “Was out hunting too late and got stuck out in a snowstorm. Weren’t any caves or buildings nearby, so I had to build myself a shelter. Dug out the side of a snowbank and used a tarp for part of the wall. Eventually got it in a good place where I could start a fire inside, but it was rough going til then.”

If she thinks about it real hard, she can maybe summon up that memory even in this heat: her numb fingertips, her clenched jaw, her body shuddering in cold spasms. Also bad, but in a way she can deal with. You can push through it and force yourself to keep moving for warmth. Here in the heat, she doesn’t want to move at all.

[brennvin]

It’s a useful skill to have. The ability to blend in wherever you are, to look perfectly unassuming and not stand out.

Gritted teeth over the crystal: “One sec— distract ‘em if you have to—”

Astrid’s still working on the wall. It had been a matter of checking and double-checking her instructions, trying to remember which one she and Desi had hollowed out for this purpose, and then wrestling with the brick to dig it out; it’s wedged in more tightly than they left it, a little warped from the rain and the elements. Too-aware of the ticking clock, she pries her fingers around its edges, tries to tug it loose to get at the prize behind.

Cool. Be cool, Astrid, she reminds herself. Careful is quick.

[reparo]

They're definitely doing this backwards, off on some mission first, introductions after, but whatever. Riftwatch is built different.

Hermione still brightens, even if she doesn't outwardly smile. (Something tells her smiling isn't done much in Minrathous.) "I'm Hermione." She'd add her surname but Astrid did not give her one, so she doesn't.

Immediately after, she peers through the window into the tavern and then turns to face Astrid again. Purses her lips into a flat line, narrows her eyes, tips her chin down and crosses her arms. Looks downright furious, if not necessarily dangerous.

Then her features relax. "How was that, good enough?"

[portalling]

And for all that Stephen has absolutely no respect for the nobility, or inherited titles, or all this social pomp and circumstance, he doe respect the mere concept of Gwenaëlle’s grandfather. Would’ve respected the man even if he was a pig farmer.

(All three of her parents are dead and there’s the nagging horrified self-conscious thought that this is very much the closest he’ll ever get to meeting the father and needing to make a good impression—)

So this is perhaps the most polite and properly-behaved that Thedas has ever seen the doctor: “A pleasure to meet you, your grace,” Stephen says, and executes an attempt at a half-bow.

He’s dressed more austere than she is, leaning towards Orlais’ more conservative current trends; a black raven mask and his outfit mostly in neat black, with the occasional burgundy trim or decorative flair to match Gwenaëlle’s dress. Getting dressed for this party had felt a bit like suiting up for battle, and he’d leaned on any advice she had for the effect he was aiming for: playing along with trends where she flouted them, Stephen not trying to make too many waves. The fact that he’s a rifter and already associated with a few radical academics from the university will do that on its own.

The biggest affectation is the red half-cloak hanging off one shoulder; a nod to his origins.

“I’ve been able to hear Gwenaëlle at the pianoforte on your estate, starting a year back,” he says. “It’s very much appreciated. I don’t know where else I’d have access to such an instrument.”

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Vlast snorts. It's the kind of sound that can convey a lot of information in a barely articulate noise; in this case there's the general sense that if the lodge weren't important to Riftwatch, he'd think it would be put to better use as kindling.

The horn decor really got under his thick hide.

"Before. Many, many times. My home world... there has not been peace in a long while, and the Darkspawn are only new to me in name and whatever the source of their corruption is."

He would suspect Void magics, the root of the worst aspects of dragon corruption in Tyria, but he is not sure if such a thing exists here. And if it does, would it go by the same name? Would it work similarly?

"You don't seem a stranger to conflict either."

Calm, not necessarily comfortable, perhaps, but acclimated to keeping watch.

[thereneverwas]

A grunt of affirmation is all Astrid hears in response, most likely because the patrol is on its way-- he'd rather not be seen talking to himself, if he's noticed at all.

But he is, and their attention is on him as they pass; there's nothing to specifically mark him as a foreigner, but for all he and Astrid know, someone else is usually hanging around here. Or more conspicuously, no one.

He keeps his eyes down, but they stop in front of him, their voices over Barrow's live crystal as clear as day in Astrid's.
"Waiting for someone?"

"Mm?" he hedges, looking up with an oblivious smile. "Sorry?"

hunting lodge (open, one thread please)

[thereneverwas]

"Sure is a lovely--" Barrow leans over to see the text-- "Orlesian Courser you've got there. Think she'll come along with me."

He plucks the aforementioned Courser card from the spread of the player to his right with a smug puff on his cigar, nesting it triumphantly into his own substantial collection of mares.

It's late, too late, at night; the bottle of fine whiskey and box of cigars they found is almost depleted, but the game has only just begun.

midsummer mummery

[doneisdone]

Trailing in directly behind him, Teren emits a sudden, barking laugh that she does nothing to mitigate; the visual is too rich, in more ways than one. It's entirely possible she came on this mission just to bear witness.

"Fuck," she observes cheerfully, "shall we get the rope, like, or see if it reverses again?"

[portalling]

“I live to find loopholes,” Strange says, and it’s a joke but also the truth: he’s continually skirting the rules, ducking them where he can, forging his own path for selfish curiosity.

And you can’t just dangle the temptation of an entire Grand Necropolis in front of them and say don’t roam. Like a bench covered in wet paint. Like a giant red button labeled don’t touch. He doesn’t actually want to cause a diplomatic incident, but now that they’ve been gifted this unintentional detour…

He throws a quick glance at that floating orb above Ness and then extinguishes the flame balanced on his palm; hers is more useful. “Handy,” he says, like he’s pronouncing a verdict on a particularly interesting tool, and then swivels to look around, assessing their surroundings. “More tombs. The Mourn Watch representative mentioned that things get… stranger, the further down you go.”

Pun in present company not intended.

[portalling]

Strange’s expression undergoes an exasperated eyeroll as Isaac thumbs the mask, as if teasing a mischievous child; the sorcerer might be mildly bristling but it’s only a casual sort of annoyance. One both of them are accustomed to, the way he might grumble and grouse around the infirmary about things of little consequence.

“Paint? I know they’re doing some construction through the Anderfels portal, but I don’t expect to do any redecorating—”

Oh, makeup. His consternation deepens. “Ah. No. Why bother with facepaint when you’re already covered in masks most of the time anyhow?”

Out-of-towner struggles with local customs.

[portalling]

“Still, what a pressing issue: a capital city rendered unusable due to too many zombies. You’d think it’d be top-of-priority for resolution.”

There’s a perpetually annoyingly jokey tone to Strange’s voice, a pithiness that hadn’t ingratiated him with the locals even all the way back to his and Vanya’s first mission together to Cledwyn. But perhaps Vanya’s learned this much about the sorcerer since then: Strange is in fact taking this seriously, despite that light tone.

“I suppose…” he muses, as they walk. “When aliens attacked New York and left so much in rubble, reconstruction took ages afterward. Budgetary concerns balanced against all the other running costs of keeping a city going. Entire new departments had to be created to deal with all the debris and alien technology — like unvetted magical artifacts, strewn everywhere — and the construction contracts were a nightmare. So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at the delay. But I had no idea our preceding organisation was responsible,” directly or indirectly? “for the mess, though.”

[portalling]

It’s infuriatingly vulnerable, needing someone’s assistance simply to stand. When you’re the one accustomed to doing the healing, or best case scenario being the one who swoops in all laissez-faire derring-do and fluttering cloak and heroism.

But Strange eventually slings his non-anchored arm onto Cedric’s shoulder, scrabbling to brace against the other man, let the templar carry some of his weight. He feels—

not weak, not wounded, but winded. As if he’s been running a marathon just trying to hold this thing at bay. All of his awareness funnelled down to his palm, his hand, his existence a single scream. Previous, smaller rifts have been a piece of cake compared to this. Baby rifts.

He wishes, not for the first time, that Gwenaëlle were here with her anchor expertise. Can still hear her voice: Mine is almost certainly bigger than yours.

“Have you done one of these before?” he asks. Panting breath, squeezed out in a vise and gritted teeth.

[aberratic]

As a member of Diplomacy, Ness is absolutely, unequivocally opposed to incidents of any kind. The rubble from the collapsed floor did fall in a configuration such that they might, maybe, be able to climb back up, if they were extremely careful and didn't attract the attention of any mummies as they went.

As the cat voted 'most likely to die of curiosity', Ness steps away from the rubble and further into the darkness.

"I wonder how strange," she says, eyes sparkling with the possibilities. "I mean, given the angry undead and the rock monsters and all—the bar is already set so high."

She's not even trying not to sound excited as she looks around them at the tombs, flitting the orb of light around to anything that looks interesting.

"I hope there are less angry undead. We could ask so many questions!"

Vlast | Forces

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Crossroads

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Vlast likes it here, this strange in-between place. Sometimes he comes just to sit and bask in the flow of ambient magic. It's not like outside where the magic flow is little more than a trickle, and it's not like the glimpses he's got of the raw Fade through rifts – roiling rapids waiting to whisk away the unwary.

Here, it is a gentle stream washing over him, cool and calm. He can breathe. He can mend.

(It won't last, he knows. The wound will inevitably reopen, but he's gotten it to a point where it's at least stopped bleeding. Relief is relief, however temporary.)

He spends long hours here, wandering the winding paths, curiously inspecting the broken eluvians or the crumbling remnants of buildings from a time long past. There is so much to learn, so much for him to catch up on.

The books only do so much.

As he climbs up the shell of what once might have been a spire (now little more than a wall) he hums a melody, low and deep;

No more to tame the wind and rain
The skies to swallow whole
She flies no more in glinting beam
And leaves a hollow hole.

Alas her magic strewn in sand
Alas her soul undone...

Nevarra

[allthatgleamsisgold]

The Grand Necropolis certainly lives up to its name. Reliefs in the shapes of skulls and bones decorate any available surface that isn't comprised of actual skulls and bones. The stone is dark, the flames eerie shades of green and blue, and the scent of death hangs in the air amidst incenses and potpourris.

If he didn't know better, he'd think he was back home in Tyria, deep in the Ascalon Catacombs.

His musings over the architecture are interrupted shortly – a human and her elven assistant are speaking, and the situation is dire indeed. Demons, possessed corpses, and a massive rift.

Because of course there's one here. With the world unraveling as it is, why would anyone not suspect the sudden influx of demons to be coming from a place where the Veil was barely present...?

He's learning to keep these as inside thoughts only.

However, when they're safely in the lift down, Vlast can't help himself.

“Necromancers,” he grunts, “no matter the nation, no matter the world, their tastes never change.”

Anderfels

[allthatgleamsisgold]

i. Tavern
The village is abuzz with a nervous excitement that hadn't passed through these parts in years. Almost the entire population has crowded into a pokey little tavern along with the handful of outsiders from Riftwatch and scattered Wardens. It isn't often there's much to talk about in this dingy little cluster of farms between Hossberg and and Weisshaupt.

Two sisters, taken from their farm in broad daylight by a band of darkspawn fifteen strong, dragged off to Maker-knows-where for Maker-knows-why and yet returned mere hours after their disappearance was noticed by their frantic parents. The elder sister is at home with her family, still terribly shaken, but the younger – still too young to know why the older Wardens still look so grim about the whole ordeal - is regaling the crowd with the tale of her rescue from the dreadful spawn

A dragon came out of nowhere, snatched each of them up from their captors, quiet as an owl snatching a mouse from the ground, and then dropped them unceremoniously into sand dunes several dozen yards away before turning right around and roasting the Darkspawn, to a one, with a terrible gout of fire.

Then, by some miracle, the dragon touched down and let the girls onto its back, carrying them back to the outskirts of their farm.

It would be far too outlandish of a tale for anyone to swallow had the Wardens not found the Darkspawn – or what remained of them – standing on a patch of glass, their flesh burnt from their crystalized bones that crackled with electricity, the tracks largely confirming a less embellished tale than the one the youngest sister has been repeating for the better part of the evening.

(The dragon had started out not much bigger than the griffons that Riftwatch has brought through. At this current iteration, it's the size of the village itself and had gobbled up an ogre in one bite.)

Vlast is at the bar, disinterestedly nursing a tankard of bad beer (he's not sure what good beer tastes like yet – and he's not sure he ever will. It all seems to taste the way hyena piss smells) and only half listening to the wild tale. When she gets to the part about the non-existent ogre, a wry smile briefly passes across his face.

He's fairly certain he'd know if he ate one of those.

ii. Darkspawn Hunting
Hunting Darkspawn is becoming an increasingly common pastime for Vlast, even when he isn't bearing down on them from the skies, mouth bubbling with molten magic. On foot, the corruption in them is like a trail of breadcrumbs despite his quarry being clever enough to cover its other tracks.

It dissipates soon enough into the desert heat – the Anderfells are saturated with the corruption and nothing really lingers. For now, though, it's fresh.

Definitely a solitary scout. With luck, it will lead him to the band of spawn it split from.

Vlast presses on with little care for his own rest or any companions he may have left behind. Time is of the essence.

val royeaux (gwenaëlle)

[cozen]

Of the half-dozen apples he buys from the street cart, he offers one to Gwenaëlle and sticks another into his mouth like he's a pig on a dining table. The leaves four—or five, depending on Gwenaëlle's opinion on tart yellow summer apples—nestled on top of the other contents of his haversack as they continue down the street.

It's a good street, in his opinion. One of his favorites, and convenient as any other north-south route for their purposes. It's a border: a few smaller roads to the west is a fine neighborhood with its fair share of masks, and to the east some places no one with a mask would be safe after dark. Here there's some crossover of the lesser extremes of both of those types. Wealthy merchants, ratty buskers. And in the center there's a relatively clean stretch of canal, set low, with its own narrow sidewalks reachable by ladders and the occasional set of cramped stairs. Bastien walks along the edge. Not more interested in the water than in people. There are people down there.

Kids, a lot of them. People washing threadbare clothes. An old man with a whistle and his feet in the shallow water. Shallow now. In the spring or after storms, it fills with water from the river that cuts through the city, to help keep it within its bank.

A muffled sound, eh-ah, before he decides he has to stop sucking juice out of the apple and take a proper bite en route to making himself comprehensible. He chews and swallows first, then tries again, pointing down at the pillars of one of the bridges connecting the two halves of the street.

"Where they pulled the brick out there," he says, "it's to mark when it's deep enough to jump in and not break anything."

Inexpertly. But if or when someone breaks something, they'll probably lift the marker.

[cozen]

The world where Bastien spins around to let the air out of Madame Beaudraste with mathematics—a hundred hours, sure, embroidery takes time and focus and careful fingers, but what Ness is offering wouldn't be paltry if they got their fair share of it passed on to them instead of a small fraction of it—is also a world where they're likely told to leave and Ness doesn't get the cushions.

So he does twist around to survey the situation, but having done so, he pinches out his cigarette and walks over at a leisurely pace. Interested, not alarmed, and it's Ness he speaks to rather than the proprietor.

"Hein. They do not look as complex as the ones Lady Adeliz has to me. Beautiful, but..."

Less detailed. This is true. There is a Lady Adeliz in Val Royeaux, and she does have some of Beaudraste's cushions in her parlor. Unless Ness has had more adventures than he knows, she hasn't seen them herself, and Bastien never asked how much they cost—why would he have? But he's confident enough it was less.

"Maybe she did not buy them here after all. What do you think? We could try Monsieur Jacquard."

[cozen]

Not a code. Merely a test, with respect to be won or lost. Whiskey is clearly the right answer, judging by the warmth of the smile and acknowledging head tip Polli gives Barrow before pouring a glass and sliding it to the chair nearer to her. There's an absence of shrewdness to her gaze, though. Not to say she isn't cunning, not to say her respect can't be incrementally gained or lost here, but she doesn't strike him as someone who will turn from warm to icy on a hairpin.

"Very kind," Bastien agrees, shedding the Marcher accent he's been using around Qarinus for his usual Orlesian. "I would love wine, thank you."

And he was right. She doesn't look at him with the same approval, but not with real disapproval, either, as he takes the further seat.

It's Anonymous who pours his wine, nearer to the bottle, while Polli says, "You must be Bastien," to the correct person, given his accent, before slanting a questioning look at Barrow. "Which makes this..."

"Barrow," Bastien answers for him. No lies here. "A colleague and a friend. This is not his line of work, exactly, but I did not want to be caught alone in the street if something went wrong."

"I see," Polli says, and addresses Barrow more directly. "Putting the body in bodyguard. Did he warn you that we were going to be very boring?"

[biggame]

"Oh," says Xio. Not a surprising answer, exactly, except that she'd not have pried if she'd known it was a personal outing instead of a Riftwatch errand she could offer to help with.

This is a little ruder to invite herself to, but—

"Mind if I tag along?"

She doesn't mind being a little ruder. Not really.

[biggame]

Elbow-deep in her bag, Xio looks back far enough to hit Astrid with at least a sliver of the impressed skepticism on her face.

"Weren't you scared the snow would fall on you?"

Snow. How does it work. Surely putting fire under it would make it melt, and therefore...?

In the meantime she finds what she's looking for: a large silk scarf, a back-up for the one currently protecting her hair from the sun and drying wind. Dumping water from her waterskin onto it would be wasteful if they couldn't hop through the eluvian to get more soon, maybe, but they can, so it isn't.

[wildered]

Siorus hasn't quite had time to smile about that first part before the second quashes the urge.

"Yeah," he says.

His pause isn't long enough for interjection. They're just him working his way through something. Trying to keep from scowling, with mixed results. Trying to keep from insisting on not being grouped in with them, also with mixed results.

"Good thing it never went to their heads." Their, not our. The mixed part. Dry. Angry. "Maybe it'll be different, if the Anderfels gets out from under this. Something'll have to be."

He lifts his canteen from his side in silent offer. It's watered-down wine, nothing flask-worthy, but if Lazar wants his mouth wet more than he wants his nerves numbed, it'll work.

[exequy]

The warning via wisp is enough for Kostos to open his mouth, but parsing what he's seen—what the wisp has seen, with its sketchy understanding of anything except something moving—enough to form a warning is hard to do too quickly. He doesn't say anything. He forms a barrier instead, magic blossoming blue-white over the three of them at the same moment their first ambusher emerges from the shadow.

The wisp over his shoulder follows his gesture toward the perimeter and finds a crossbowman to harass, weaving around her and spitting lightning enough to annoy, sting. Maybe cause a muscle spasm here and there. Not to kill. That'll be them. The three of them. Four of them? Four of them—how nostalgic.

Summoning another wisp, he's mouthing, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. It's a wonder the spirit that arrives isn't fucked up.