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

[reparo]

And to be clear: Hermione has no intention on discovering an exciting new hallucinogen at all. Once in a lifetime was enough, especially given how she came down from that high in a tree. (Better put, up a tree.)

One of these days, she will have a moment where she'll realise she's seen quite a lot, done quite a lot, experienced quite a fucking lot for your average young woman. (A quick mental calculation will tell her that maybe she's shy of twenty-two now? Gods above.)

"As you say," she agrees with Gwen, in principle, because it has been decided that Gwen Knows What She's Doing.

"What's first? Aim me at something, I suppose." Let her be useful.

(Somewhere in the outpost, a couple of giant spiders skitter around - practically begging to become barbecue meat.)

[elegiaque]

First,

the clearing out. It's gruelling in the dullest way: gruelling precisely because it is so dull, Gwenaëlle ill-suited to embrace menial tasks as meditative but willing to keep at it all the same. (She imagines what Alix might have thought of her doing it, imagines if anyone had told them ten years past that this is where she would be— pictures Pietro's face, even, or Sabine, who leads inevitably to Alistair. What they would make of her now.)

It's obvious that Gwenaëlle Knowing What She's Doing doesn't actually extend to having done a great deal of this precise sort of labour; even still, she approaches it methodically, briskly, and giving no instructions she doesn't clearly also follow herself. Unpleasant work shared is literally halved, so there's that,

piles of debris, of cleared out plant material. A neat list of rooms and what remains within them. The work of preparation, in essence: those rooms can be more thoroughly cleaned and stocked once empty of all these years of disuse. And as they work their way through,

“I think we're nearing fresh water,” Gwenaëlle notes. “Listen.”

An underground stream— that, too, she supposes will need clearing out.

[reparo]

It isn't worse than rebuilding Hogwarts, she thinks at one point when left alone with her thoughts. Lifting rubble, setting it aside. Sweeping floors, clearing dust. She can't help but wonder, if it is as Gwenaëlle says and there is a Hermione safely back in her world and moving on with her life, what would that 'moving on' look like? She did just survive the monstruous battle of Hogwarts, did just see her bed friend die and resurrect, did just witness professors and friends alike perish in the hallowed halls.

Would that Hermione - who she can't for the life of her think of as Original Hermione, because who says that she is fake? - stay behind for the repairs? Would she find it meditative to be clearing out the ruins of classrooms she'd much loved, or loathed?

She's not a stranger to manual labour, not at all. Sure, she can't cook (well) worth shit, but she's no stranger to survival so this is all - not easy, but familiar.

At some point, she has untied the kerchief tied around her neck, holding her shirt collar closed up, and wrapped it around her hair to shield from the dust. Her jackets is also discarded in a corner, though the wand remains in the holster on her left arm, easily reachable.

It ends up being a Good Thing, because even as they listen for the stream, she hears something else. A skittering.

"That's not water, is it?" she has time to ask, before from the corner of her eyes she spots it. One massive arachnid leg, coming out of the cracked wall between one room and another they've yet to clear, follwed by another, followed by a body. A hideous, large body.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," she freaks out, but in her freaking out still remembers all she's been through before and takes her wand out, stepping in front of Gwen to defend her (??) because - "Giant spiders?!" Yes, plural. There are three now. And, oh Lord, they comin'.

[elegiaque]

Despite the numerous weapons in which she has studied over the past few years, despite the anchor-shard that has ramped up in power since she gained it in the first place, and despite the battlefields she has been on—

Gwenaëlle is not unaware that she is also 5'3", weighs nothing soaking wet, and is constantly surrounded by people who think they are the biggest dog. The instinct doesn't offend her, it's just interesting that Hermione Granger is one of them, a thing she makes a mental note of even as that gauntleted left hand comes up and a shimmering barrier emerges from it like a drumbeat, surrounding both of them.

“Alright,” she says, very calmly, “we're still on clean up duty.”

They're not abandoning the place and burning it down just because it's full of spiders; the spiders are going to have to go. Gwenaëlle strains to see if there are any other shapes, moving in the dark, but focuses on the three that they can be sure of,

“I seem to remember,” as she draws her blades, thin twins with mirrored runic enchantments that have been strapped to her thighs in what looks suspiciously like a holstered garter-belt, “you saying something about fire.”

[reparo]

If not for the giant spiders climbing out of that crack and coming at them, she would be outraged at the insinuation that she'd abandon post and mission. Obviously they're still on cleaning duties!

And so, the wand comes out, and here it is. The most frequently used spell on Hermione Granger's list over the past three years has not been reparo, or even accio.

Gwenaëlle asks for action and reaction, and Hermione does just that.

"Incendio!" The mote of fire bursts from the tip of her wand and hits one big spider between the many eyes, prompting a screech and a skittering in her direction.

"Protego! Expelliarmus!" The burst of magic energy is not enough to fling the spider backwards so Hermione gets a nice sharp cut on her shin for her troubles.

It is said that magic listens to intention. Injured, in pain, Hermione aims another firey attack at the spider that fries it to an unmoving crisp, then moves to the next.

[elegiaque]

Right away, Hermione is the more dramatic target — captivating, the sound and fury of casting, the bursts of fire. Magic is attention-grabbing, which means that while Hermione is focused on burning the absolute tar out of the spiders coming toward her, they are just as focused on coming towards her.

The anchor-shard has other uses than the shimmering shield, blunting what might have been a worse injury, but that's also on the attention-grabbing side. Strategic, instead, Gwenaëlle slides her blades from their sheathes, twinned and mirrored, cleansing and corrupting; the latter in her right hand, leading forward. She is fast when she moves, sinking blade into thorax and whirling, the sharp edges of her coattails snagging violently in a second skittering thing before she turns to take it on directly.

The element of surprise is of limited benefit, so best to make the most of it while she can. If there are spiders this big, then there is probably at least one much fucking bigger and not that far.

[reparo]

Magic is all she has. She should've agreed to let Wrathion show her how to use a sword, or someone - anyone - show her a way around a set of daggers. Instead all she has are her spells and the ability to escape.

It doesn't work as well as it did home, but Hermione has no choice. One spider lunges at her, and in defense she Apparates - reappearing some thirty feet away, and sending another angry incendio at the last tiny one.

Last tiny one, because there's a telling, threatening rumble from beyond the crack, a screech like something bigger lies beyond.

She turns to watch Gwen dispatch the last one on her side in a gorey way, and finds herself panting in exhaustion. Not quite depletion, but that was a lot of magic at once, after no magic for a while.

So there's a bit of panting, a note to ask for a quick breath before heading down to deal with the big screech, and then also:

"We're still here on cleaning duty?" She has to ask, amused - was that a one-liner? Are they on that level now?

[elegiaque]

With all the dignity of a cat who definitely meant to land there on their arse—

“And there,” she says, irrefutably reasonable, “we've cleared out some spiders.”

Which they will now also have to clean up, but probably better to figure out how many more there might be before they start worrying about actually cleaning up the bodies and what disgusting, viscous things emerged from them. (And how much more there'll probably be, when they have to head deeper to be sure.)

She stretches a leg out in front of her where she's on the ground; gestures, after a moment, with the blade she's wiping off. “I have a medicine bag. Let's go have a look what that thing did to you before we get ambitious, shall we?”

Infection is no joke.

[reparo]

"Ron was right, spiders are the worst," Hermione mutters under her breath, looking at one of the charred bodies of the ground.

She notices Gwen moving to clean the blades, and wants to point out to the blades and ask where did she get those. It shouldn't surprise her that someone in Forces, named Captain to boot, would be a competent fighter. But Gwenaëlle Baudin is clearly meeting the trope of 'though she be small, she is fierce'. So she does not question the competence, she just respects it.

"Ah, sure. What thing?"

And that is when Hermione realises she's got a cut on her leg and she is bleeding into her boot. "Oh, f - uhh..." (Hermione Granger saying swear words is a whole journey, you have to earn it.) "Alright, now that stings." She pulls a face and walk-wobbles over to Gwenaëlle.

[elegiaque]

The slide away from swearing nets a sidelong, amused look from Gwenaëlle but doesn't merit a comment — not everybody is quite so casual with cunt as Captain Baudin — as she braces to a knee, stands, presses Hermione's shoulder lightly,

“Sit. Stay.”

She slings her long coat off, folds it over her arm, and sets it behind Hermione before she moves away to find that bag; it isn't far enough she's worried about how much time she'd lose running back if a spider were to emerge and screaming to ensue, just not something she'd carried all the way with her, set aside earlier in their work. Less than minutes before she's returning, a large, well-made bag that had been unobtrusive amongst the rest of what they'd brought with them for the work slung over her shoulder.

Kneeling down, she squints. “I can try rolling the leg, but this is probably going to be easier if I just cut the fabric. It's fine,” when did she draw a knife again, “I can replace the trousers.”

If you need seems unnecessary to add; she knows what Hermione's getting paid.

[reparo]

Don't go around accusing Hermione Granger of not listening to commands when uttered by a hypercompetent and (slightly) older woman. She sits. She also stays!

Without the adrenaline of the fight - was that a fight or an attack? an ambush? - the gash on her leg actually hurts now. She misses her shitty supply of reinvented Essence of Dittany, and thinks to herself that it's not fair that the bag came with her but not all the useful books, mementoes, and potions she'd collected along the road in Akhuras.

She has a full minute, in Gwen's absence, to lean back against her jacket and bite her lower lip and fight back tears. There it is, the shock after a battle, the thing she rarely had the time to experience back when - honestly, at any point. She isn't going to go into a panic, but it's undeniable at this point - when Captain Baudin returns - that Hermione is Having A Day.

She glances down to her leg, the fabric of her trousers slashed and the bottom half of one leg dark from the bleeding, and let out a grunt. "Just cut it," she mutters, under her breath and tight. "I'll repair them if I need to."

If they survive the wash, that is.

[elegiaque]

New trousers, she decides. Definitely.
'
“Here we go,” she says, carefully slicing away the inconvenient sections of fabric before she sits back on her heels and rubs her hands clean with what is identifiable by its particular and strong scent as hand sanitizer. (Stephen had been thrilled by that, she remembers, that day at Starkhaven. At least Hermione's not nicked a fucking artery.) “I'm going to assume you already know this is going to sting,”

is all the warning our lady of bedside manner provides before flushing the wound, her field medicine skills as obviously well-learned as they are briskly applied.

(It's the anticipation she never likes, when it's her. Just get it over with.)

“I don't think I'm going to need to suture it,” she says, “but we'll get a second opinion when we get back to the Gallows, just in case.”

[reparo]

(Hermione hasn't nicked a fucking artery, thank you. Hermione is a good girl. As was the big spider, apparently, since that didn't nick a major artery.)

She pulls a grimace at the bottle of whatever that is - Thedosian medicine is very similar to her world, which is kind of encouraging. It would be a little more terrifying if Gwen were to brandish weird vials full of concoctions that Hermione would have no idea to verify if they would work, but as the scent of hand sanitiser hits her nostrils she is somehow more set at ease.

It helps that the head healer is a Rifter doctor, certainly.

Anyway, the bedside manner is all fun and games, but Hermione doesn't want to brace for it, so she quickly says: "Yes, yes, just get it over wi-iiiihhh." And then proceeds to react to the sting, via squeaky high sound. Here she is, digging her nails into the dirt to not move further.

Finally, the swear word is earned: "Shit - ow. I hated that." She lets out a tinny laugh. "Agreed, though. It doesn't feel deep, and if there was any venom in there it's flushed out now..."

[elegiaque]

Bad news: there's definitely weird vials and unfamiliar concoctions in that bag.

Even still, a body is a body and there are only so many ways to un-skin a cat. Put a cat's skin back where it belongs. Heal the cat. (You get where we're going with this.) Cleaning and patting dry the area around the wound, the first pungent and unfamiliar concoction in question is a paste, so at least it's a tin and not a vial, cold when it hits Hermione's skin (carefully, applied via thumb). The numbing effect is almost instantaneous,

“A truly loving Maker would have given us a world where I could have done that first,” she notes, dryly. “This is going to help the pain and encourage the skin to knit back together, and I'm going to dress it— it should last at least until we're done here for the day. If you want to call it and have something stronger and head back now, that's an option.”

But anything stronger she might offer is probably going to mean continuing to work (stabbing or otherwise) is ill-advised; she seems ready to take Hermione's gauge of her own capacity, patient and not expectant.

(It's not that there's nothing in that bag that she could give her for a boost, it's just if they don't urgently need to use a hammer where a lockpick is more appropriate then better not to give Hermione the potion equivalent of gingering her asshole with adrenaline just to get done faster something that can, technically, wait.)

[reparo]

You really can't win them all. The paste goes on, numbing the lingering pain left behind by that flushing out of whatever toxins the spiders could've left behind, and Hermione's shoulders sag in relief.

But, also: what is that? "What is that made of?" Is the important part here. It reminds her of Murtlap, which she made for Harry's scarred hand after that horrible detention with that horrible woman, which reminds her of Harry and how it's been three years and will be longer now, because she can never go back, because Hermione Granger is also continuing to exist in her life, in her world, in her safe little -

Anyway.

She refocuses on the wound, and shakes her head. "I can keep going, it's not deep. I've had worse." Not a great defence, probably. "We have cleaning up to do."

The skittering below returns, and Hermione glances warily at the hole in the foundational walls. "That'll be a big one, won't it? We should go in there with some plan."

[elegiaque]

The tug at the corner of Gwenaëlle's mouth suggests that classing all this spider-killing as cleaning up hasn't become less funny for the repetition. It is, in fact, still hilarious.

“This, I'll show you the recipe for when we go to the infirmary,” she says, of the paste that she's putting away so she can dress the injury in question. “I make most of my supplies myself.” Not all; she will periodically restock by rifling through the infirmary cupboards, though she is (—now) conscientious about noting what she's taken and ensuring nothing's at risk of running out.

Dressing a wound is the kind of familiar that suggests she could probably do it with her eyes closed if really pressed. Not something that takes the whole of her focus, enough that she can easily think about,

“As for the spiders... yes. And a nest, likely, which we'll want to be rid of properly.” A little twist of her mouth, concentrating, “The big one might've noticed the ruckus already, so element of surprise, probably not at a premium.”

[reparo]

If the tiny smile at the corner of Hermione's lips is anything to go by, then repetition also makes her more endeared to the initial joke in the first place.

But more importantly, the paste is offered as a lesson, and there is immediately a faster pulse happening. Nerdy excitement. "Please do," she practically breathes out, with a nod. Teach her how to make medical supplies. This can be a mutually beneficial thing, if Hermione learns to brew healing potions here with elfroot. She can make enough for the Forces' soldiers - at least the ones she's out with.

"I'll save up my biggest fire for that one, then," she jokes, a little grim smile. "I've - ow - I've never seen them this big. The beasts here truly are something..."

[elegiaque]

A hunger for knowledge is almost invariably the swiftest way to Gwenaëlle's good graces— a familiar thing, a thing she understands. The standard to which she holds everyone else is no less than the standard to which she holds herself, less out of some idea of fairness and more because that's the standard, and why shouldn't she expect from others what she expects of herself?

(And why should she treat them any gentler than she'd treat herself? Some bitches will do anything but therapy.)

In any event: it is an easy thing to promise, the kind of maths she's doing in her head about it almost instantaneous. Useful for Hermione to learn more about the world she's in; useful for them to have another educated pair of hands that can tend to the alchemical supplies, can knowledgeably be delegated to if the infirmary needs something. It's a win-win. That process takes seconds.

On the topic of enormous beasts, however: “I've never liked giant spiders, but I'll take them over an actual giant any day of the week.” Nevermind anything else, those things are huge, don't know about pants, and smell horrendous.

“I can probably pull together something a bit explosive to help your fire along,” she adds, fastening the dressings into place.

[reparo]

She is going to keep her big girl pants on and not cry about a little stinging, as the paste works its alchemy on her skin, because she's had it worse. It's not torture, it's not even comparable to the carving of that foul word on her forearm by Bellatrix. It's just - you know - one of her first encounters with the beasts of this world, outside of the demons that poured from her Rift, and coming face to face with the limitations of her spellcraft here.

Big girl pants. No crying. No flinching.

Just, "Actual giants." Deadpan, in her defense, in the tone of someone who wants to say sure, what else? She sighs. "I hope you haven't just jinxed us."

Giant spiders, she can handle. Giant giants? Actual giants? What else is there in Thedas that she knows from home? She might have to start keeping an eye out for Thestrals, now that she would actually see them.

Get it together, Hermione.

"Well. I won't say no to something a big more explosive if you can make it now, but if time is of the essence then let's simply assume that I've been forewarned and forearmed." She gesticulates towards the crack in the walls.

However, on that note, "Not to say that I am not vehemently interested in an alchemy lesson, Captain Baudin. For the paste, the potions, whatever else I can help with."

[elegiaque]

The sting passes swift enough, replaced by a cool numbing effect, one which Gwenaëlle judges should last at least long enough for them to deal to the spiders. Or at least long enough to work out that it's a bigger job than that, and fall back, but a touch of occasional optimism never did a girl any harm.

(Probably. She's sure Alexandrie would quibble.)

“The reward for hard work is more work,” she says, dry, but the joke seems an invitation: a thing they both know, funny only because it doesn't matter. It's not as if they're going to learn anything from it, either of them. “You'll get plenty of it.”

Off her desk and others, probably. When she's satisfied with the dressing she sits back, just to rifle through the bag and see what's in there that they might be able to weaponise.

[reparo]

"Honestly, that sounds like a good time," she says right back, batting the joke right back at Gwenaëlle with a knowing crinkle in the corners of her eyes - someone holding back a smile, under these circumstances.

The truth is, now that the sting has passed and her wound is numbed and sterile, allowing it to heal, Hermione finally remembers she is a witch. It's when Gwenaëlle finishes dressing the wound that she pulls the sliced sides of her trousers together and aims her wand at them: "Reparo," she whispers, and the tear - precisely done - mends itself. She does it a few more times, and it's as if her trousers were never torn to begin with.

And once that is done, she'll be ready and able to face the next fight.