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

for stephen @portalling

[aberratic]

"This isn't what I'd imagined when you told me we were going to a 'university soirée'", Ness says to Stephen, trying to look haughty and judgmental like a proper player of The Grand Game. It's easier than it might be if she had to worry about managing her expression, with the black-and-purple mask she's wearing covering half of her face. Taken together with the pale lavender gown she got from Gwenaëlle, the fashionably messy chignon her hair is done up in, the sea glass necklace prominent against her clavicle—it's hard to tell that this is her first time at an event like this.

The discomfort is there, though, much as she's doing her best to hide it. This is nothing like the serious, hallowed halls of Candlekeep, where Ness can't imagine anyone wandering around in a ball gown eating canapés under their elaborate mask—she has no room to talk, of course, with the tentacles of her very own elaborate mask flowing around her face. It feels silly, still, entirely unconnected to any academic purpose, and even sillier to believe she could ever belong in a place like this—but this is her job now, and she won't get good at it by thinking that she can't.

A passing server offers them sparkling wine from a tray stacked with elegant crystal flutes, which Ness accepts with a distracted smile. Rather than drink from her glass, she circles the rim with the tip of her finger, the very picture of a bored socialite.

In his head, she thinks So, same strategy we already discussed?

[portalling]

It’s still a small surprise whenever Ness’ voice sidles into his head. He’s gotten good at masking his reaction, however, just a slow blink and his cool gaze sliding over the crowd while he tries not to smile. The squid and the raven have been haunting the edges of the party for a while now, assessing their targets, trying to figure out who would be good to approach for their purposes.

The whole thing is such a careful line to tread. Masks to emulate the higher-class society, implying that Riftwatch is worthy of notice and should be taken seriously; but simpler masks, not too overwrought, to show they’re not wielding ideas above their station.

He’d gotten Bonheur to provide them with an expected guest list for the evening and he’d studied it with the intensity of someone cramming for an exam: the who’s-who of academic Lydes, the bursar with the lazy eye, the comfortable older professor who liked innovation, the junior professor with radical ideas. It feels oddly familiar for a moment: he’s definitely schmoozed rich people for grants before, seeking funding for experimental treatment, a new paper he was working on.

Same strategy, Strange echoes back as he takes one of those glasses; he tilts his mask up to try to take a drink without spilling it all over his chin, taking a sip, gears turning. The more influential names will have more resources and pull to commit, but that also means they’re protective of it; they likely won’t want to risk rocking the boat.

[aberratic]

Anyone desperate enough to throw in with us will have less to lose, and everything to prove, she agrees, and she has to hide her smile behind a sip of champagne. It's very gratifying to be on the same page as someone whose intelligence she respects so much, and it's commensurately difficult not to let herself get distracted by how pleased she is about it. I may have a lead to that effect.

She angles herself so that when Stephen looks at her, over her shoulder he will see an elf, alone in a corner, wearing a very showy mask. He wants very badly to be taken seriously, the mask says, but simply observing the wide berth he's been afforded by the other guests tells how effective that's been. He's not quite seething in his corner, but he does look quite unhappy about the situation.

Luc-Mercier Volante, a new adjunct in the biology department. Professeur Volante has not been able to get first name on any papers of note, and there are whispers he may lose his position before the end of the year.

If she sounds proud of her sleuthing ability, it's because she's very proud of her sleuthing ability.

[portalling]

A lead? he thinks, and then pivots gracefully to look where Ness is indicating. At six feet tall, it’s easy for the doctor to peer over her; mostly he has to tilt his head a little so the tentacles from her mask aren’t blocking the view.

Riftwatch might be scrappy underdogs as a whole, but tonight they also feel like sharks circling a small pool, looking for someone promising to sink their teeth into.

And despite the unfamiliar setting, the ostentatious masks and Orlesian accents and gilded golden decorations everywhere, dear god, it’s also so familiar to academia back home that he can’t help but laugh in the back of her mind.

Christ, that takes me back. I argued with my co-writers constantly about name order on papers and when coining procedures. One gets the impression he was a little more successful at it than poor Professor Volante, though.

In their training he’s gotten used to wringing all the available time out of their connection that they can, a quick back-and-forth to take advantage before the bridge severs. So he takes another sip of his drink and then, not wasting any time: Good catch. How did you find this out, anyway? Have you been breaking into faculty lounges when I haven’t been looking?

[aberratic]

She's not preening, because preening would be unseemly... but the praise is going in her personal notebook. Good catch, and she didn't even have to press for it!!

Hardly, she's a librarian, not a spy, I've just been listening since we arrived. I'm good at being nondescript, and people here gossip like they want to be overheard. Which, likely, they do—part of the purpose of these functions is disseminating gossip through wider society. That's obvious just in reading political intrigue novels, let alone actually securing an invitation to such an event.

The link Ness can forge between minds gets stronger and longer-lasting the more they practice, but it still never feels quite long enough. It severs before Stephen can respond, and Ness takes a deep breath, shaking out the unconscious tension that always creeps into her shoulders while she maintains the connection. It's easy enough to re-establish, but too many links with no break in between and she can end up with a splitting headache.

"I wonder if the poor man might like some company," out loud, somehow both sardonic and utterly sympathetic at once.

[portalling]

“Right.” He swaps his empty glass for a fresh one and then steals one last canapé — it’s elegant finger-food, such a far cry from the mess of Kirkwall, Orlais high-society awash in delicacies as if there isn’t a war on, of course he’ll nab as many of these as he can — and then settles his mask back on. Game time.

He’d watched Pride & Prejudice, once upon a time, and so vaguely remembers something about a turn about the room. Strange extends the crook of an elbow and Ness takes it; it helps in making their meandering over to that mostly-empty corner of the room look nonchalant, casual, and less like two birds of prey swooping down on the elf.

“Care for a drink, professor Volante?” Strange asks, light, holding out that fresh glass with his free hand.

He very pointedly isn’t wearing gloves tonight either; that faint glint of green at his palm marks him as a rifter. But even masked, even without the shard, there’s something vaguely alien about Stephen Strange for the Thedosians: he’s tall and human, but his accent sounds dwarvish.

[aberratic]

It helps that Ness is, frankly, fairly tiny—birds of prey do come in small packages, but usually not ones that have to wear heels just to come up to the chins of their hunting partners. She's small, and nondescript, and utterly unthreatening when she sweeps into place at the professeur's side, smiling at him over the rim of her champagne flute.

Volante looks between them, eyes sharp and wary underneath his gray fox's mask. He's used to being mocked, says the hesitation, and can pick out an air of ridicule at a hundred paces. Whatever he reads in their expressions must put him at ease, or else the intrigue of their twin anchors is enough to keep him, because he takes the glass from Stephen after a moment.

"Thank you," he says, "Monsieur...?"

"Docteur," Ness corrects, "Strange, Head Healer of Riftwatch, and I am Ennaris Tavane, Quartermaster." She gives a shallow curtsy, enough to show respect without being over the top. A man like this, so ready to be made the fool, will see a sneer even in deference if it comes too heavy-handed. They have a tightrope to walk, to get him to believe they are sincere in their interest. "Are you enjoying the soirée, Professeur? I have enjoyed the champagne, myself."

[portalling]

Ennaris’ Orlesian accent is much better than Strange’s, even with his extended time in this world, which is exactly why it’s good that she’s here: she is diplomatic. The skill that he so exaggeratedly lacks.

“Quite,” Volante says, which isn’t an answer at all. But he takes a swig, his expression darkening a little as he looks past them at the rest of the room. He hadn’t taken a glass for himself all night. The servants carrying the trays of drinks all look like him. “The company could be somewhat improved, however.”

It could be a snipe at them; it isn’t. Strange follows the glance to a huddle of other academics: laughing, raucous, they’ve drunk a little too much, clearly an insular boys’ club. (They are all, as a one, human.)

“The natural sciences department seems a little far up their own asses,” he says, thoughtfully, and Volante almost chokes on his drink.

Just naming it for what it is. A rifter, outside of the Game, has that luxury.

[aberratic]

Ness hides a laugh behind her palm while Volante recovers, careful to appear to be sharing the joke instead of laughing at Volante himself.

"The doctor is refreshingly frank, don't you find? It's one of his best qualities, in my opinion," she remarks, purposeful—controlling the perception, planting the idea that Stephen is honest, with no tolerance for unnecessary frills. It's true, of course (to a point, shout out to l'Duc), but it's important to establish Stephen in Volante's mind positively. Stephen is frank, not rude, and it's refreshing, not offensive.

"Wherever they are," up their own asses or otherwise, "it's hard to see them as serious researchers."

Volante's eyes light up, and Ness has to suppress a smile—bait taken. She makes eye contact with Stephen, and decides to be bold, and press their advantage.

"Research, science, is about taking risks, I think. Asking serious questions, and pursuing the answers with determination and without ego," this last punctuated with a pointed look around the room, clearly indicting the rest of the attendants—but not Volante, of course.

[portalling]

“Yes,” Volante says, his disaffected slouch straightening, “yes, exactement. They are too—”

He cuts himself off. An elven professor at a historic university only so relatively recently admitting elves at all, well, he doesn’t have that luxury of a free tongue. But his interest has been sharpened to a spike. “You are precisely right. What sort of serious questions are you then interested in, Docteur, Quartermaster?”

Strange takes a breath. Here it is. The pitch. Don’t fuck it up.

“Combating infections,” he says plainly. “How many died at the Battle of Ghislain not due to their injuries, but poor recovery after? Pneumonia, lung infections, injuries gone necrotic.”

This particular mention is a targeted scalpel-cut. Six years ago, but recent enough that some of the country still carries the scars from it, that resounding loss, the deaths. He’d heard enough over time to gather the shape of it, to have the suspicion he could lean on an Orlesian in particular about this.

“Imagine if we could prescribe medicine to treat the infection itself. It’s a piece of rifter science. We call it antibiotics.”

[aberratic]

Well, speaking of refreshing frankness... Ness's expression is hidden behind her mask save for the tightening of her lips, her eyes giving nothing away as she looks from Stephen back to Volante, who...

Volante has frozen, staring at Stephen, emotion unreadable behind his elaborate fox mask. Unreadable to some, that is—having spent years of her life reading body language and trying her best to navigate the whims and emotions of those around her, Ness doesn't need to see a man's expression to know his feelings. They're writ in the tension of his shoulders as much as the furrow of his brow, the quickness of his breath as much as the tightness of his eyes. She can see it now, plain as day:

Volante is furious.

"Professeur," she begins, cautious, but Volante speaks over her.

"You mock me," he grits, focused on Stephen. Ness's mind races, trying to think of how to defuse this. "You mock me! Mon p'tit frère a été tué dans cette bataille, ma chère sœur est morte des infections d'ces salauds d'chevaliers, et vous vous moquez d'moi comme ça—"

The professor's voice raises as he speaks until he's almost shouting. Ness understands only so much Orlesian, given a crash course in it prior to this outing and having listened for bits and pieces of conversation as she passed through the ball, but this—this is rapid, furious, and harder to parse because of it. She passes her champagne flute into Stephen's hand, thinking fast as she attempts to pull what meaning she can from the tirade, and gently but firmly takes Volante's elbow to trade positions with him, so his back is to the ball and she faces the rest of the academics in the room.

"Professeur, we are not mocking you. On my life, Monsieur, we are not mocking you."

"Such things are not possible," he spits, his head turning toward Stephen again, but Ness shakes her head sharply to recapture his attention.

"They are fact, professeur, independently confirmed by dozens of rifters who have come to this world. These antibiotics have saved millions of lives in worlds you and I have never even dreamed of."

Volante, stymied but not convinced, glares at her, and Ness's expression softens.

"I am truly sorry, Monsieur, for your siblings," an educated inference, based on what she could glean from the rapid-fire Orlesian, "we did not know of them. This was not targeted, save for that we saw a man of science and wished to bring some of the good of our worlds to yours. That is the truth, Professeur Volante, the entire truth."

[portalling]

As they weather that tidal wave of near-incomprehensible Orlesian, for a moment, he thinks he’s completely fucking botched it.

Stephen Strange tended to be inflammatory even on Earth; it’s even worse in Thedas, where any arrogant social misstep can’t be backed up by his money and position and earned respect and, when all else fails, magic. He can’t mouth off any longer, and he has to jump through these hoops without simply hexing anyone who gets on his nerve. Can’t just say trust me, I’m the Sorcerer Supreme, I know what the hell I’m talking about.

But Ness expertly swoops in and starts to defuse the situation: the managing of tempers, the smoothing-down of ruffled feathers. Strange mulls over the fact that it was in fact targeted, but best not mention it —

“I’ve been searching for an appropriate research collaborator for over a year,” he says, and that part is in fact true. “I presented on germ theory at the Riftwatch Cultural Exposition at the university, if you recall, if you heard of it at the time. This concept is similar. The creation of healing potions, say, that can target those tiny entities that cause infection. It took my world a very long time to stumble across this particular medical development,” sure, he’ll swallow some pride to try to make his point, let’s see if that helps, “and all I wish is to speed up the same inevitable development here.”

Volante considers it, looking between the two, his eyes glinting wetly behind the mask. He downs the rest of his drink in a single angry swig.

Have they botched it?

But city elves — a city elf in academia, no less — have become experts at biting down their tempers, swallowing their fury, gritting teeth through their pain, navigating society and its pressures. “Why do you need me,” Volante demands, sounding bitter, “if you are so very educated and already familiar with these antibiotiques?”

do i regret committing to french spelling for this? a little.

[aberratic]

"Docteur Strange is only one man, Professeur, and Riftwatch's Head Healer as well," is the factual answer, delivered by Ness with no frills—Volante would hate frills, she thinks. "There is not enough time in a day for him to take on this work, in addition to the myriad other duties that fall to him. Which is not to say that he's more important than you," she immediately forestalls whatever angry comment Volante had opened his mouth to make, "but this work is too important to be left for whenever we have time. People are dying, Professeur, every day, of causes we know are treatable. I cannot stand to know that. The Docteur cannot stand it. Can you?"

She looks up at Volante, daring him to say yes. For a long moment, they're locked in a staring contest, neither looking away, until Volante lets out his breath in a puff, and his shoulders deflate. He doesn't answer, but it's enough for Ness, who pulls her own energy back down to match.

"The reason it is you we have approached, Professeur, and not any of the other people in this room, is that none of these people," with a nod over his shoulder where the rest of the soirée is watching them and whispering behind their hands, "will waste their reputations on Rifter drivel, even if it could save lives. Their egos cannot abide even the minutest possibility of failure. To have their records tarnished and their names mocked by their peers is anathema. They wouldn't even consider it.

But you," Ness locks eyes with Volante again, challenging. This is where she gambles, where they see how well she's truly read this man. "You have no record to tarnish, no name to mock. You are the first elven professor in the history of the University of Orlais, and they're about to fire you because now that they've established that they're welcoming to elves, you serve no more use."

Volante takes a step back, teetering on the edge of offense, but Ness doesn't stop to let him trip into it again. She steps forward, matching him again, and presses on. Where she'd been no-nonsense, no frills just a moment before, here she lets her sincerity shine through, her idealism.

"Luc, you deserve better than this. To get here you must be brilliant, diligent, driven—and the University would waste all of that because of the shape of your ears. Riftwatch would put you in a position to make the breakthrough of the Age, and show all these people how wrong they were to underestimate you—to show children in alienages all over Thedas that elves can be brilliant, they can be successful, they can be learned. That is why it's you, Luc. You could change the world."

[portalling]

It is a remarkable thing, watching Ennaris Tavane work.

Strange has never been particularly good with the heroic speeches thing — arguably he made it very much worse the one time he tried to talk a witch off the precipice — so it’s nice, seeing someone else handle it admirably and not put their foot in it. Pressing the right buttons, pulling the right strings.

Their egos cannot abide even the minutest possibility of failure, she says, all of her persuasive energy directed fully at Luc-Mercier Volante, but some of it inadvertently pricks at Stephen’s self-awareness instead; collateral damage needling in his side. He wishes he had another drink of his own, but has to settle a certain stiffness in the shoulders, a raised self-conscious tilt to his chin.

That had been him, in a bygone age. He’s glad of the masks, for once.

He waits it out.

“Change the world,” Volante repeats. He still sounds a little bitter, but there’s a longing in it now; the sound of someone hearing exactly what he wants dangling in front of him. “This would truly make such a difference? They could bury it even if it succeeds, you know. Publish my findings in a journal and then never speak of it again, let it be a forgotten footnote in history.”

“No. The results would speak for themselves,” Strange says, firm. “They might want to bury it, but enough lives would be saved that they can’t help but take notice. We’re still at war with Tevinter, and things certainly aren’t getting better. It doesn’t even have to be a grand dramatic battle, either: the applications here are everyday. A dental infection, a child falling over in the water and getting an ear infection, those times it feels like you’re pissing fire. Infections. Everyone gets them. Everyone. It’s the inventions people can use every single day that will remain of permanent use and be forever remembered, professor.”

The pause goes on a little too long.

“Fine. D’accord.” The elf exhales. “What do you need from me?”

[aberratic]

It's a fairly straightforward conversation, after that. Ness leads them out onto the veranda to discuss the particulars away from prying ears or eyes, and Stephen explains the science while she handles the logistics. They haggle a little over salary, but not as much as Volante seemed to have expected—he's not accustomed to being paid even a respectable fraction of what he's worth.

The only wrinkle comes when he balks at leaving his parents in Halamshiral, but even this Ness fields without a pause: his parents can't stay in the Gallows, but she will secure them an apartment in Kirkwall's alienage, which Volante will have three months to arrange payment for.

When the dust settles, and Volante has left the soirée to begin preparing to move his entire life to Kirkwall, Stephen and Ness stand utterly victorious.

"Well," Ness says, lifting her now entirely lukewarm flute of champagne to her lips. There might have been something that was supposed to follow that, but after a moment she gives up and takes a modest sip instead—still too many eyes on them to throw the whole drink back the way she wants.

[portalling]

It’s a rare feeling, this victory. Such a small thing compared to pioneering experimental new surgical techniques, or repelling an alien invasion, or tidying up an entire timeline to prevent the unraveling of a universe, but—

It feels good.

“You handled that well,” Strange says. He’d also picked up a refill on his drink and he’s nursing it, the pair of them standing by open balcony doors; the fresh air is chilly but brisk, refreshing, head-clearing.

“Far better than I could’ve alone. I’m starting to realise why you chose Diplomacy instead of Research, although we’d have been glad to have you.”

🎀

[aberratic]

The praise hits Ness almost like a physical thing, like Stephen just took a very lovely pillow and cheerfully hit her in the face with it. She freezes as an unfamiliar rush of warmth sweeps through her, her limbs locked while she parses everything she's feeling, teases out each nuance of sensation and attaches it to an emotion.

Pleased, that she did well and he remarked on it. Embarrassed, to be so pleased. Embarrassed to be proud of herself, instead of blasé. Embarrassed that all three are probably entirely obvious—or would be, without the mask. For the first time all evening, Ness is blindingly grateful to be hidden.

She ducks her head, finally, and murmurs a very heartfelt "Thank you."

Later, she will admit that she didn't choose Diplomacy knowing that she'd be good at it. She went where there was most need; it's a complete coincidence that she has skills to match. She'll reveal that she had no permission to offer to relocate Volante's parents, and plans to pay for their apartment out of her own wages. She'll confess that she has no idea what she's doing, and that she's terrified to fail now that she's earned even a modicum of respect.

But for now, she's just grateful, and shy.