MOD PLOT: A Night Without Moon and Stars

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[thereneverwas]

"Fourteen," he confirms, his tone somehow caught between a shout and a sigh as five or so more combatants enter. No longer having to dodge the projectiles, at least, he gives one a proper bash with his shield and runs another through with his sword. It flares white and the corpse drops, and he checks over at Abby again.
"Thirt-- twelve." A second bash, and the other one goes down.

[armd]

Abby shouts wordlessly, a sound of pure frustration. Of course it's fourteen.

It's not that she thinks they're especially in danger. This is more irritating that it is life-threatening, the risk is in being overwhelmed. Thankfully once you've got a rhythm going it's easy to turn and bash each corpse in turn and most only want to take one good hit on the head or chest before they collapse onto the ground, which is all Abby needs from them right now. If they manage to struggle back up, they can have another: she'll be here all day.

"Ten," maybe. Another big hit lands, "Nine."

[thereneverwas]

"Eight," his sword punches through a chest cavity, "seven,"

and two of them clamber onto him, clawing and biting. His mail stands readily between their claws and teeth and his skin, but if they reach his face it'll be a different matter.

"Fuck," he announces, attempting to shake a sixth corpse loose from his sword while fending them off with his other arm.

cw gross dead body description

[armd]

Abby turns and grabs a corpse by the back of its head, unconcerned when slimy hair comes right off in her grasping fist, peeling off the body as she wrenches it away, back, over onto the ground. Her heart is pounding so hard she can barely think. She saw Barrow be bitten. It's not the same thing here and it's been years, but surprise: it still carries a familiar, horrible dread, a sudden heaviness in her limbs as if her body has decided she's fighting a losing battle, that it's all over now.

In the chaos, a corpse launches itself at her back and seals its mouth around her neck and shoulder, biting hard — she screams, not in pain, but in fear.

[thereneverwas]

The teeth knock against mail, and Barrow is spared the worst of the bite, only to then turn around and see Abby take the full brunt of another. With renewed vigor, he sweeps his sword around to bash at the head of his one remaining assailant, then quickly runs Abby's through from the side. Its jaws loosen as it crumples, and Barrow stands between her and the remaining two, dispatching them both in one swing.
"It's all right," he instructs her, turning back to inspect the wound, sensing that the last thing she needs is for him to lose his head about it. "We're all right. Let's go find a healer."

[armd]

Abby, however, having gone rigid, shudders fully as Barrow cuts down the remaining two and reaches a hand up to touch —

"Eugh."

She kicks one of the bodies on the ground hard. She's gone pale, fingers still probing the spot where teeth bit in decently, her skin torn and blood slick — when she looks at Barrow she looks a little shocked, a lot disgusted. "It fucking bit me."

[thereneverwas]

It looks bad; bites from humans or human-adjacent creatures are somehow always worse than those from animals, and Barrow can't help but wince when he gets a closer look at it.

"Aye, certainly did," he confirms, forcing levity into his voice, "come on then." These things can get infected quickly, and the more time she spends dwelling on it, the less time there is to ensure a proper heal.
Placing a hand to Abby's upper back, Barrow tries to herd her out of the chantry, his lips pursed tightly.

[armd]

Abby blinks, slow and long. She pushes her finger around her skin and it slips on the slick and goes in the wound, making her flinch and squirm from the feeling, spasming in place. "Oh fuck."

It hurts! She feels really weird right now, a little shock-y. Uncertain, and grateful to be steered. At least Barrow is calm and careful with her as he takes them both out of the chantry and into the pale green afternoon, tinted by the bubble.

She asks him, "Am I done?"

There's blood on her neck and shoulder, welling from the teeth marks, getting on her leathers. Stinks like iron.

[thereneverwas]

"Done," Barrow repeats, like he can't quite understand what she means, his mind in a million places at once-- but then he looks down, eyebrows arched in surprise.

"--no, no, not done. Not like that." His brow knits sympathetically, and he flashes an uneasy smile at Abby, "it's a bad wound, mate, but you'll make it. Just gotta get it healed."

[armd]

"No," Abby blurts out, though she totally understands how he got there, "I mean done like — I have to go back outside the bubble. I can't stay here."

Done for... for now.

Unless somebody can heal her real quick.

[thereneverwas]

"...oh."

Barrow's relief is palpable, and he can't stop from smiling at his own misunderstanding. "...yes. You're done like that."

He sighs out a breath, some of the tension leaving his body. "Reckon I am too, at least for now."