Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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faderift2025-05-18 07:08 pm
faderifting) wrote in faderift2025-05-18 07:08 pm
MOD PLOT: A Night Without Moon and Stars
WHO: Anyone/Everyone
WHAT: Riftwatch investigates a strange occurrence in Western Orlais.
WHEN: Bloomingtide 9:51.
WHERE: Yvoire, on the edge of the Tirashan Forest.
NOTES: OOC post with reward claims. Body horror CW for the main post.
WHAT: Riftwatch investigates a strange occurrence in Western Orlais.
WHEN: Bloomingtide 9:51.
WHERE: Yvoire, on the edge of the Tirashan Forest.
NOTES: OOC post with reward claims. Body horror CW for the main post.
I. YVOIRE
It should have been a straightforward mission. Not a simple one—attempting to help mediate some sort of disagreement between the people of Yvoire and some local elves isn't simple—but straightforward. The sort of thing Riftwatch's diplomacy division has done plenty of times before. From the Hunterhorns base they ride southeast, through the late spring mud to a town on the edge of the Tirashan. Instead of a bit tense, edging toward violence, maybe a little strange in the way remote villages can be, they find the entire town encased in a nearly-translucent, impermeable magical dome. This calls for reinforcements.
II. THE BUBBLE
By the time Riftwatch has arrived en masse, it's been determined that anchors (it will take at least two, working together) can open and close a passage through the barrier the same way they might a rift, allowing teams to enter and explore the area. Inside, they find themselves in the Fade—the sky an unnatural green with no sign of sun or moon, jagged black rocks jutting up from the ground, the air teeming with spirits and demons—but also not. Among the boulders are houses, shops, torn apart by the Fade stone. A barn roof is pierced by a spire of dark stone, a bakery all but flattened. The residents haven't been spared. Some have been crushed by the arriving landscape, others encased within it. Arms reach out from more than one block of dark stone, the crown of a head just visible in an edge, a corpse frozen mid-stride as if charging out of the rock, but caught just too slow to outrun their fate.
The merging landscapes have rearranged some parts of town even more strangely. More than one building has been sliced in pieces, one remaining in place, the others and its contents relocated or vanished. Every book in a library has been severed from its contents, covers slumped in a bookshelf in a bisected library, pages now suspended in a cloud above a pigsty. A pocket of pond water fills an intersection, two drowned bodies floating trapped within it along with the contents of a wheelbarrow and a couple of now-well-fed fish. A copse of trees, uprooted, grow down from a patch of earth that hovers beside the town's small chantry.
As they investigate the fate of Yvoire, Riftwatch will encounter:
- Demons, primarily of the less-powerful varieties but in unusual numbers. They don't manifest in the way demons often do and don't appear to be tied to any particular object or location. They're just here, similar to areas where a rift has been open for a time and demons are already roaming free.
- Possessed corpses of the townspeople, some aggressive and violent, others just curiously wandering about the town going through the motions of life.
- Spirits, of many different types and degrees of curiosity, communication, and helpfulness
- Evidence of explosive magical violence, like a body burned by a flame that seems to originate where they stood, or a person crushed under a bookshelf toppled by the tell-tale blast of Stonefist.
- A handful of survivors who have survived by hiding in cellars or other out-of-the-way spots who will report that whatever happened happened the morning before Riftwatch's initial arrival, when suddenly there was a strange sense of pressure and static in the air, as if a storm was arriving, and then everything suddenly flew apart or was crushed and a cloud of spirits and demons appeared everywhere.
- At least one survivor will report that some of the elves who have been "stalking" (their word) the village lately were seen sneaking into town before first light, lurking around the chapel as usual.
- Some survivors will report family members or neighbors who they had never suspected to be mages suddenly doing magic, often with deadly consequences for themselves and those around them.
- And among them, a few people possessed by demons who will present themselves as survivors and do their best to get Riftwatch to help them exit the bubble and be free.
- One elf who has been trapped half-inside a tree, his entire right side from ear to toes encased in the thick trunk of a flowering oak that wasn't in this spot yesterday. He is alive, for now.
Fully exploring the area takes time, not only because of the demons but because Riftwatch will find that staying in the bubble indefinitely is unpleasant. Humans and Qunari are affected first, then dwarves, then rifters who have amputated their anchors, and finally elves, but over time anyone may begin to experience headaches, nausea, blurring vision, and feelings of either strange pressure or the equally strange absence of pressure. The exception is anyone with an anchor — they and those in their immediate vicinity will feel fine, and once that becomes apparent, Riftwatch can begin organizing so exploration teams never need to stray very far from someone with an anchor. Even the presence of an anchor, though, won't stop some people from exhibiting the strangest effect of all: the spontaneous development of Fade-touched magic that, unlike the headaches, does not go away when they leave the area.
III. THE ARTIFACT
Yvoire's Chantry is small, the sort of village chapel typically staffed by a single Sister, or maybe a Mother if she's a local. It was a Sister, here—she'll be found dead in a closet along with a number of her parishioners, the apparent victims of a hunger demon. Despite the limited presence of people, the Chantry is a hive of spirit and demon activity, which Riftwatch will have to make its way through in order to investigate.
Once they do, in addition to the deceased inside, Riftwatch will discover another closet that instead of remains contains a patch of stone floor that looks older than the rest, and yet also as if its mortar has been recently loosened. Levering up the large stone tile will reveal a passage into an old basement crypt, shelves of vestments and liturgical supplies covered in cobwebs, niches containing grace goods and dedicatory plaques to prominent members of the chantry past. A path has been tracked through the heavy dust, leading to the far wall, which has been demolished to reveal a different stone wall, this one elven in design. This has been opened like a door, though neither seam nor lock nor hinge is visible, one portion of the wall simply rotated on a non-existent axis to create a passageway.
Inside is a chamber not so very different in design from the chantry crypt: the walls lined with shelves and niches, all of them bare. A strange absence of dust in the room makes it difficult to tell how many were previously full, but several contain stands or racks seemingly designed for display, many in unusual shapes. In the center of the room is a plinth of black marble, the stand in its center still gleaming. There's no ambiguity about the shape it's meant to hold, the spidering fingers plainly designed to contain a sphere.
Set into the wall opposite the door is a frame in the familiar shape of an eluvian mirror, its glass dark and impassable.
my gasp
In close-fitting black and red leather, alert at once and already beginning to move in the direction Wanda’s looking— she’s never, herself, met Natasha Romanoff, but the comparison has been drawn more than once, by more than one party sharing Wanda’s origins. So maybe she’s on the right track, then, as far as WWND,
“Could you tell if they were injured?”
The satchel at her hip is coming, either way; she can put her hands on at least two infirmary staff nearby fairly swiftly if it should be more urgent than what they could manage between them. At least there’s a hope in hell of being braced for what they might find under the rubble.
She carries herself as if she’s a good idea of what to expect, which by this point is probably true.
the frog blush emoji, you know the one
"They are," she says. She glances around as though this section of the village may be quietly calling out for them to stay, but Wanda knows better. Sometimes it's best to take a tunnel vision approach. It's what she and Pietro did, once.
"Not too badly, but—" She wrings her hands together. "Their family is there. If they see me struggle… I would prefer they have some faith in the people who are doing the rescuing."
It's all about optics.
And a preference for them not to see Wanda struggle or do something that shouldn't be achievable for a woman of her size, like lift a very big roof sheet like she's Captain America. Sometimes, the best tactic is to hide behind others.
no subject
well, maybe it’s not so unlikely. What had that new man said about what people think of Riftwatch, all the way in Antiva? It’s a coin toss if the sound of them heralds relief or more wreckage to the average Thedosian, and she can’t hardly blame them. We’re just doing our fucking best, she wants to say, you could be doing it, too, we’d get further,
but she’s tried that before, and come to naught but disappointment. That thought she shoves aside, mouth set in a line as they go. Whether a woman who looks like a pirate is so much more reassuring, well: she at least seems prepared to figure it out. Figure something out. Maybe just convince them to go and fetch a healer, so she and Wanda can find out how bad it is without the audience.
no subject
But how can she be seen as a destructive force if she hides behind her teammates yet again? A successful strategy is one that deserves to be rehashed. Tropes work.
Although she has no desire to try to make small talk, she knows that this is an ample opportunity to learn what she won't find in books.
"Have you been here before?
no subject
It sucked then, too. Zero out of ten, she would not recommend.
“I’d make some funny point about how everyone thinks all Orlais and Orlesians are interchangeable,” and since Yvoire is Orlais and she is Orlesian, she could arguably claim to have been to Orlais, you know, “but this isn’t what foreigners are picturing when they talk that way.”
No— people talk about Orlais as if every person in it is a player in the Game, as if there’s no difference between elven serfs and the boot of the empire. As the daughter of an elven house servant and granddaughter of a man who put the boot to Fereldan necks in living memory,
she is familiar with the nuances of her birthplace.
no subject
Glasses that are half-empty mean that there's a chance that she'll be surprised it's half-full. Wanda Logic™ isn't for everyone.
But she suspects that there's more to Gwen's comment, although now doesn't feel like the most appropriate time to dig further. (How would she? Wanda's relied so heavily on telepathy—)
She glances at the villagers who are upright, with some of them burdened by drying blood and cracked bones, and others who seem to have gotten away from wearing any damage whatsoever. This visual is one she's seen before in Lagos and New York. Different universes, same end notes. Perhaps she should be comforted by such familiarity.
no subject
Even of those standing here, bloodied and bruised—
they’re standing. Given everything, she’d had no real expectation of survivors, certainly not this many, certainly not with any among them only carrying their scars behind their eyes.
She tips her head towards them, and says, quiet and more frank: “They are a fucking miracle.”
They haven’t such a surfeit of those she’d take this one for granted; if this doesn’t matter, what’s the point of any of it? But practicalities leave little room for dwelling on it, as she raises her voice, brisker:
“It’s not safe to remain here,” in a tone that expects to be obeyed, a little more lady of the manor than captain of the guard, weaponising the familiarity of upper-class Orlesian entitlement to get feet moving, “you need to immediately remove to the edge of the bubble where Riftwatch agents are assembling refugees. We need this area cleared to safely proceed with rescue.”
Or they can delay her and risk their trapped neighbour falling into worse trouble—
so maybe she’s not the ideal choice for a gentle hand with the locals, but sometimes a raised eyebrow and an attitude of authority can get you far in life. Optics are for diplomats; forces gets to tell the audience to fuck off and let her work.
no subject
Everyone has a different idea of what a miracle is. But she supposes that surviving can be considered as one.
Wanda stands, a little too self-aware of how she occupies the space. When Steve used to slip into the role of leader, Natasha would stand off to his side with her arms crossed. So, Wanda crosses her arms as the people mull over the Captain of the Guard's words, glancing at each other before reluctantly taking a step back before actually moving out of the way. A few of them glance at Wanda. She hopes that she looks as Natasha did—strong, yet accessible, and totally reliable.
"Just a little further back," Wanda says. To her ears, she doesn't sound like Natasha, confident. But the people react, anyway, taking a few steps back, some walking backwards while others turn their backs on her. Wanda hasn't seen the back of anyone's head in a long time.
She steps towards Gwen and lowers her voice, "I don't know if chipping away is going to do much."
no subject
Her gauntlet (it does look like something Stark would build, if he had a real steampunk phase) gets a wiggle, as she adjusts the lenses over her anchor-shard, “If it’s the only option, I can try blasting the rubble strategically. Dislodge it in the right direction. The risk with that is it’s just as likely to kill them as save them.”
Even at a glance, the two of them aren’t going to physically manoeuvre the wreckage; Gwenaëlle’s athleticism means she’s stronger than she looks, but there’s a limit to that even if she was readily willing to come and see what could be done. It’s not immediately obvious to her if Wanda meant she wasn’t able or that she wasn’t comfortable — slim possibility that maybe she’s about to find out the ‘scarlet’ in Scarlet Witch is blood magic, which would be fucking inconvenient but not necessarily a dealbreaker.
For one thing, she’s demonstrably cautious about what she lets the populace witness.
“I know which mages we should ask if we need to pull another. But. Tell me what you had in mind.”