faderift | MOD PLOT: A Night Without Moon and Stars

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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.

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.

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( Closed starter(s) below; happy to do others for folks on request! )

They’ve done a fairly good job of quietly coexisting. Wanda’s retreated to the Gwaren outpost, and work keeps them busy; they can sometimes cross paths in the library or sit at the same long dining table for dinner; they can get along, cautiously, without both levitating into the Gallows courtyard and throwing down for a magical duel. They both know there’s more important things at stake. They’ve been taking wary steps towards trusting each other once more, like carefully introducing two cats to each other, letting their territories overlap.

It’s a slow process, trying to remember how to be teammates. And sometimes a rage demon in Rivain comes along and gets you pissed off at each other all over again, so it’s one step forward, two steps back.

But Yvoire needs all the shard-bearers they can get, and here are two, healthy and hale and available to pry open the magical bubble as needed, ferry people back and forth, and safeguard against those odd looming migraines.

Stephen’s not immature enough to request a different patrol partner. So he’s walking the perimeter beside Wanda Maximoff, keeping an eye out for any other spirits or animated corpses or demons trying their luck to attack the town. Along the way, he’s picked up one of the severed books from the gutted library: an empty book-cover, all its pages floating above the pigsty down the road. He frowns down at the bare spine, the straight cut.

“It’s weird,” he says, musing. “Buildings being randomly cut in half, sure, fine. Like a giant arcane chainsaw. But how does the magic know to separate the covers from the contents? Does the Fade have a special relationship to books? Makes you wonder.”

Can she ditch him?

Wanda's wondered that many times since finding herself on patrol with Strange. Can she leave? Can she simply stop walking and then go left while he continues straight on? She doubts Strange would care. Yes, he'd notice—although he sometimes strikes her as the type not to notice things that aren't right underneath his nose—but she knows he wouldn't turn around like Steve or Sam or Clint would and call for her to hurry up and meet his stride.

Can she leave him now? She glances off to the side, imagining it. It could be her own Ocean's 11, except Maximoff's 1 is simply ditching the person she's meant to be patrolling with and… proving to the Riftwatch she can't work alongside Strange. Think about the optics.

She wishes he hadn't brought her attention to the book in his hands. It's not his. Wanda's taken things from the ruins of Sokovia with Pietro in tow, cleaning dilapidated apartments of their decent jackets and shoes, bedding and sheets. It's all a matter of survival. Does he need that book to survive?

Sucking on her teeth, Wanda looks down at the book in his hands and tries her best to not appear as uncomfortable as she feels.

"Maybe the books contain a magic that's been reawakened," she says. It sounds stupid to her ears, especially when said to someone like him. Wanda dislikes the eggshells she can hear cracking beneath her shoes, even though they walk on stone and dirt. "Or the power needed somewhere to go, and the books couldn't hold it, since not everything exists in a vacuum."

Any chance she had to ditch him is gone now.

This, in and of itself, is a defense mechanism. Stephen Strange could discuss arcane theory and magical mysteries any day, and it was safer ground than the awkward, stilted silences which would often sprout between them otherwise as they walked.

(And it’s easier than the other, bigger questions and thoughts buzzing on the tip of his tongue whenever he’s around her: I’m sorry none of us were there for you, or will you ever forgive me, or have I forgiven you, or I’m glad you’re here. It’s perhaps a good thing he’s had practice bricking up any errant thoughts around Ness’ telepathy. He’s been conscientiously keeping that door locked, and Wanda has been polite enough — for now — to only walk in when invited.)

“It was a town library, not a mage’s tower, so I don’t expect the books to have had much magic of their own. Perhaps some, but surely not the majority. This one was…” He turns it around again, to check the title etched into the front and side. “Our Orlesian Heart, by (formerly) Sister Laudine. Romantic poetry by a scandalous former nun, I believe.”

They are technically in Orlais, after all— or at least, Yvoire had been in Orlais before the Fade swallowed it.

As much as Wanda wishes to twist her hands together, she doesn't. She'll maintain a cool, calm, collected persona while he fiddles with his scandalous book of poetry, written by a former nun who broke free from the confinement of her previous duty. It's merely a reminder she has so much to catch up on (doesn't she always? Wanda is always the one left behind).

She exhales softly through her nose, looking around the ruins of a village she wishes she had gotten to know before all this darkness shattered it. Ruins can be beautiful. She'll be able to find the beauty soon enough.

She looks up at him, cocking her brow. Her smile is small, and Wanda refuses to think much about it. "You sound familiar with it. Are you a fan of the scandalous nun's work?"

“Familiar enough,” Stephen admits, rueful.

And there’s a noticeable pause, one where it seems like he’s ready to let the conversation die on the vine right there. He’s not sure if he should add more context. Are they the type of colleagues who can talk about their personal lives anymore?

There’s the creeping worry with Wanda specifically: that any mention of what he has will be a bitter pill, a reminder of what she’s missing, the root unfairness continually tilting the ground between them. But if he never lets conversation drift into anything personal, if he always stubbornly keeps it to professional matters and magic and work favours only, then —

Then they’ll never really leave the ruins of Mount Wundagore, will they.

So he glances at her, and eventually fills in that pause. “My, er, partner is Orlesian and likes poetry,” he says. “So I’ve gone through some of the poets. Skimmed through a few. Laudine isn’t the favourite, although she’s alright.”

There are times when Wanda wishes Strange wouldn't try to humanise himself. It's easier to dislike him because of the caricature he embodies: he is arrogant, abrasive, and thinks he is funny with this stupid (and funny) quips.

But Wanda, who can be as petty and more petty than the most pettiest person on the planet, knows when the appropriate time is to act in such a way. Now is not it.

Her inhale is quiet. She doesn't really want to try with Strange. It's more comfortable keeping a distance between them.

"Vision liked poems," she says. She doesn't look at him. Wanda tells herself she shares this because she wants to remember it. It has nothing to do with trying to meet Strange halfway. "Sometimes he never understood them—he liked things literal, or that's what he liked me to believe—and then I would have to explain why roses were red and violets were blue and how someone could be as sweet as sugar." She glances at Strange with a straight face. "I would not expect you to be familiar with such complex poems."

Making slight digs is Wanda trying.

Stephen knows the difference by now. Has heard from Wanda often enough in its different permutations, to realise that a slight dig means playfulness, teasing. The other, deeper digs are the ones with hooks and claws, the ones which hurt them both.

(You break the rules and become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair.)

So there’s a noise in the back of his throat, halfway to a laugh. “Naturally. My own appreciation probably caps out at nursery rhymes. Girls go to college to get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider.”

Maybe it’s worse if he handles her with kid gloves, and never touches on her family at all. Other people burying it all and trying to avoid any discussion of what happened is probably what left her alone in the broken unfinished foundation of a suburban plot in New Jersey.

“Did Vision have a favourite poet?”

Pietro liked a poem like that, although boys weren't the ones going to Jupiter.

The thought makes Wanda frown slightly, but she recovers quickly, not allowing Pietro to be cast in such a negative, sad light. Her brother wouldn't want to be remembered in such a way, either. He'd want her to laugh and smile, and declare that she would go to Jupiter to try not to be so stupid, but come back even stupider than before because she went without him. Such stories didn't belong with Strange, or anyone anymore.

She inhales through her nose as she considers—truly, genuinely considers—his question.

"Elizabeth Barrett Browning," she says, not looking at him. Even without meaning to, she smiles small and pleased. "He liked her because she was my favourite."

She smacks her lips and considers keeping what's on the tip of her tongue to herself, but hasn't she spent so long keeping those things to herself? The bees and rabbits near her cabin had grown tired of hearing the same stories told over and over again. With the dead around her, she feels compelled to share what would otherwise be forgotten. Who will remember these people and the secrets they took to an untimely grave because they didn't take the chance to share them?

"Vision wasn't fond of poetry before I read him a book."

It’s perhaps a small victory, parceling out these minuscule parts of themselves to each other, but it still feels like a victory: trading stories on a dark, strange evening in a haunted corner of the Fade as they wander along together. Stephen can feel some instinctive tactless curiosity on the tip of his tongue — was Vision even capable of having preferences? did he only ever pattern himself on what you liked? — but he thankfully bites it back just in time, preventing himself from lobbing a grenade at his own feet.

“I’ve heard more from Robert Browning,” typical, “but I think I’ve seen some from her. Enough: we’re tired, my heart and I.”

He’s not a poet, but a man with photographic memory, the same kind of steel-trap recollection which continually filed away information. Some of it lodges and sticks like a burr in a coat, even if he didn’t intend to remember. So, probably he shouldn’t judge Vision. Enough people have called Doctor Strange too-cold and too-logical, anyway —

So, then, an olive branch: “I know you’ve been in the Riftwatch library, but the University of Orlais has a wide selection as well and we’re friendly with the dean. If, y’know, you find yourself in need of more reading material.”

Wanda doesn't need to read Strange's mind to know what he thinks. After all, he's like Stark—blunt and horribly so, sometimes cruel and mean and getting off on it—but, most of all, she's wondered it herself.

Did Vision base his preferences off her likes? Thanks to Thanos, she'll never truly know if he'd prefer Robert Browning (so typical of Strange) or if he'd prefer anything but poetry.

Best not to think about it. That little stone in her chest that has always been there since the Mind Stone was plucked from his forehead grows a bit heavier.

She glances at him from the corner of her eye. This is what Pietro would call an olive branch. Take it, Wanda. And he'd hold it high above her head, out of reach, egging her to use her powers to try to steal it from him.

Strange isn't holding it high above her head now. He's not the type to. Unlike Pietro, he'd hold it out for her, letting that be the obstacle presented in her path.

"Is 'we' Riftwatch? Or is this a 'we' that means you?"

She understands what she's asking, although she'd much prefer to remain oblivious.

Stephen lingers over the answer a little too long. This peace between them still feels fragile, walking on metaphorical wobbly legs. He’s trying.

“Is it a cop-out to say ‘both’? A couple years back, Tony organised something called the Riftwatch Cultural Exposition, hosted at the university itself. Their academics were interested in Research’s projects in particular, to no surprise. So our organisation does have a professional relationship with the university, but I’ve also been trying to maintain those connections ever since.”

He doesn’t wince quite as much anymore whenever needing to mention Tony’s name around her. It’s a too-common occurrence either way: she’ll have seen the name Stark all over the Riftwatch archives, no getting around it, the ghost of the man having walked these halls long before either of them.

“So, if you do mention me around the professors, it wouldn’t go awry.” His smile’s faint, knowing, understanding his more irascible reputation in the past: “For once.”

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MOD PLOT: A Night Without Moon and Stars

stephen strange.

wanda.

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