TEST DRIVE MEME!

[faderifting]

TEST DRIVE MEME

While in some alternate, tidier timeline, the War against the Elder One ended years ago, you're not in that timeline. It's 9:47, and the war continues. An enemy force partially occupies Orlais and has decimated several Marcher Cities, while the Chantry, aided by the Inquisition, has marshaled Orlais and the faithful of Southern Thedas into a new Exalted March against the army of demon-bound Wardens, Red Templars, Venatori loyalists, and darkspawn Corypheus has amassed. Rifts are still scattered across the continent, periodically spitting out strangers from strange worlds with green-glowing anchors embedded in their hands. There's no Herald of Andraste to save Thedas. Someone else is going to have to do it.

You're part of (or allied with, recently hired by, imprisoned by, etc.) a newer organization that's an offshoot of the Inquisition, dubbed Riftwatch, that consists mainly of these otherworldly new arrivals, rebels and Wardens, and other people who want to prevent the apocalypse without necessarily marching under the Chantry's banner to do it. Their headquarters is an island fortress called the Gallows—formerly a Circle of Magi, more formerly a prison for slaves, but its new occupants have done a good job removing the more grotesque reminders of that past and making the place livable. Their goal is to do what the Chantry can't or won't do, to go more directly after Corypheus and the dark magic he employs, and to keep the Veil from coming apart entirely.

Maybe you're here because you want to help. Maybe you need the money (though there isn't much of it). Maybe you acquired an anchor and sticking around is the only way to prevent your hand from killing you. Maybe you've been sent by the Chantry or some other entity to keep an eye on everyone—they're rumored to be a lot of weirdos and troublemakers. Or maybe you're a new rifter and just going where the nice people with swords tell you that you need to go.

I. THE SIEGE OF STARKHAVEN: North of Kirkwall, Corypheus' forces have occupied Hasmal, laid waste to Tantervale, and has now besieging the city of Starkhaven. An army of Marchers led by Sebastian Vael has returned from the Exalted March to press against the Tevinter force, but Riftwatch's aid is still needed. With the assistance of Riftwatch's griffons, you might be doing aerial surveillance of the enemy force or swooping into the city to provide supplies and news to the people holding the walls, then bringing news and valuables back out to deliver to the Marcher force outside. Or you could be engaging directly by harassing enemy camps from the air or dealing with mages the Marchers are less equipped to face.

II. THE WAKING SEA: When Riftwatch isn't traveling by air (or magic mirror), it frequently travels by sea, courtesy of allied pirate ships. So welcome aboard. The sea is choppy and frequently violent—violent storms, violent enemy ships, or both at once—and the crew may not have much patience for incompetence, so either make yourself useful above or try not to get sick below.

III. KIRKWALL: Even when enormous evil darkspawn are trying to take over the known world and you and your colleagues might be the only ones who can truly stop him, you can't work all the time. And when you aren't working, Kirkwall is there for you with its dingy Lowtown taverns, its flashy Hightown establishments, its market stalls and street musicians and cellars hosting gamblers. (Or maybe you can work all the time, and you're in the city to do some official shopping, try to spy on a suspicious character, or show a potential financial backer a good time.)

IV. SEND A MESSAGE: Each member of Riftwatch (or rifter, or ally) is assigned a blue crystal, small enough to wear around the neck, that can transmit voice messages, as well as an enchanted book tied to that crystal that can be used to exchange written messages. They're secure enough to discuss the war, if you'd like to get down to business, but loosely controlled enough to ask a question or play a game with only a few rolled eyes from people who hate fun.

V. WILDCARD: From the Gallows' library to the pirate islands off the coast, from Hightown's high-priced market stalls to the bloody frontlines of the war, Thedas is yours to explore.

Comments

doctor stephen strange | mcu | rifter

[portalling]

arrival (a variety of prompts).

It begins as an anxiety dream.

He’s experienced no end of nightmares about no end of trauma, but this time the stakes are banal: Doctor Strange is dressed sharply in a formal suit with a scarlet pocket square, giving a speech at a medical conference, standing at a podium staring at the hundreds of faces staring back at him, and finding that his iron-trap memory has suddenly failed and he’s forgotten his entire damned speech. It’s almost a relief when the enormous tentacled eyeball monster barges into the conference center, sending people screaming and scattering, and just as the Cloak of Levitation reappears around his shoulders, Strange finds himself —

somewhere else —

What ensues is a disorienting battle on the outskirts of Orlais, with a rifter appearing in anachronistic formalwear and a red cloak gone inanimate, with a conference lanyard hanging around his neck and a little adhesive nametag (‘DR. STEPHEN STRANGE, MD, PHD, NEW YORK METRO-GENERAL HOSPITAL’ now rendered in Thedan script). And in the fight, Strange realises that almost none of his magic behaves as he expects it to. It’s not the first time he’s found himself unexpectedly dumped in another universe, but this is the first time his own capabilities have failed him. Even after the battle ends, wraiths banished and his dream-monster killed, he keeps trying to light a spark of fire between his hands and finding it more difficult than it ought to be. On the carriage ride back to Kirkwall, with both him and the Riftwatch agents covered in horrid black ichor and gore from the eyeball monster’s innards, at least Strange has the decency to look a little sheepish while the other agents scrutinise him.

“Done this sort of reception a lot?” he asks, lightly, while he keeps unconsciously kneading at his left palm. His hand aches. This is normal. What isn’t normal is the green shard embedded in it like some kind of ethereal splinter, and it makes the usual pain in his scarred hands even worse.

Afterwards, during his quarantine, he can be found in the library at all hours, surrounded by stacks of books, devouring them even late into the night – he’s an avaricious student, and wants to learn everything about his new circumstances. He breaks the polite silence when a glob of hot wax from a candle lands on his wrist, and he curses with a sudden sharp “Oh, what the fuck.”

Strange goes for long walks around the Gallows. You might literally run into him where he’s crouched in a hallway in the lower levels, examining the cleansing runes embedded in the floor which prevent the growth of red lyrium, puzzling over the clearly-magical symbols, feeling that faint hum of magic in the back of his teeth. “Do you happen to know what these do?”

the waking sea.

He grew up in landlocked Nebraska; his family wasn’t rich; he never actually learned how to sail.

So Strange is down belowdecks in the ship and feeling useless, losing his balance and tipping into the walls whenever he tries to walk, miserable and sea-sick and queasy.

“I’ve heard there are griffons. I’m going to need to learn how to ride a griffon,” he declares, gripping the edge of the galley table as the deck pitches. “Did you know, I had a Cloak of Levitation and used to fly everywhere? I think I miss it even more than my own bed.”

crystal.

[ Thank god for the crystals, because Doctor Strange’s handwriting is atrocious and unreadable. But his voice comes through the recording, crisp and clear and precise: ]

I only just got back to my own universe, and now I’ve been dropped into this one. I need a stiff drink.

So. I’m taking recommendations on the best places to grab a drink in Kirkwall once my quarantine is up — and, ideally, to not be pickpocketed while I’m at it.

wildcard.

feel free to toss me anything and i’ll roll with it, or hmu @ quadrille to confab! i’ll match prose or brackets. also help i’m fresh meat, pls be gentle as i try to remember everything i’ve forgotten about dragon age

crystal.

[elegiaque]

( the accent sounds french, although it isn't; orlesian by way of it's aristocracy, a high quarter princess who's wandered very far from that storybook indeed— )

If you don't want to be pickpocketed, the best recommendations are "not alone" and "not looking like an obvious rifter".

[portalling]

( A huff of a laugh. ) How do I not look like what I so obviously am? Start wearing big gloves for the glowing green hand?

[elegiaque]

Not every anchor-shard is attached to a rifter.

( it could be drier, but if he's still in quarantine then it might well still be new information; she provides it as such. )

Mine is almost certainly bigger than yours.

library.

[propulsion]

A report crosses his desk. Newly closed rift, new rifter. He has been here for years, has been doing this gig in particular for long enough that Tony should not anymore feel some stab of apprehension as his eyes track to whatever name has been recorded by whatever agent did the intake. But he does anyway, never really knowing what he's hoping for, or—hoping not for.

In his spacious office, he barks out a laugh.

And it's later that he goes seeking him out. Nerds are predictable, so Tony tries the library, content to just kind of roam around the expansive fortress until he gets lucky, but turns out he does not have to, turning his head in the direction of a curse breaking studious silence.

"Kiss your mother with that mouth?" is as automatic as breathing, Tony coming to a stop just in sight. He is—to Strange—a younger version of himself, at least by a significant handful of years. Dressed in renfaire chic, rolled sleeves and jerkin and trousers all in earthy tones, scuffed boots of a more Robin Hood sensibility than, say, dress shoes or custom trainers.

The corner of his mouth pulls rueful. "Sup."

[portalling]

Riftwatch has been kind enough to outfit the sorcerer with a generic set of clothes, so he doesn’t stand out quite so egregiously anymore (the tailored Armani suit carefully folded and stashed away in his quarters, somewhat regretfully), but he still looks uncomfortable and fidgety in the new attire. He’s kept his trademark red cloak, but it doesn’t move anymore, just hangs lifeless on his shoulders, and he hasn’t quite made up his mind whether it feels like wearing the pelt of a dead friend and if he ought to leave it behind.

Still. At the sound of that voice, Strange looks up from the towering piles of books he’s surrounded himself with, and he blanches.

There’s the innate instinct to be just as blasé and nonchalant back, match the attitude tit-for-tat, except—

(except that the last time Stephen Strange’s life intersected with Tony Stark’s, he was at his funeral, the death that Stephen himself had tidily lined up for him, maneuvering the other man toward that sacrifice like a convenient rook on the chessboard—)

So Strange goes still, instead. Looks at him for a little too long, as if he’s seeing a ghost. When he marshals himself back together, he’s steadied out his voice, aims for that nonchalance and very nearly hits it. “This isn’t some kind of fever dream, right? Knocked on the head a bit too hard, fell under a hallucinatory spell, started imagining a medieval Tony Stark?” A beat. “This is you, right?”

[propulsion]

"Prithee," begins the bullshit, a hand raising lax on his wrist, "howst wouldeth thou know if thou struck thine melon 'pon a rock or a hard place, when it is so extremely coiffed?"

The hand drops.

"Yeah it's me," Tony supplies, easy, flat affect as he wanders on closer, a slight realigning mid-step towards the stack of books at the edge of the table. He'd caught that long look, and he can do the arithmetic on it, and so becomes more interested in diverting his focus towards picking up the top most book with handsy familiarity, scanning the title, flipping it open.

So begins his vague inspection as to what Stephen Strange is reading voraciously and generally, plus he needs a prop. "Missed the welcome wagon, sorry about that. Coulda thrown a party."

Carriage Ride

[notathreat]

"I mean it was business as usual up until the eyeball monster."

Ellie was one of the Riftwatch agents in the area of the V.A.N.E. that sounded the alarm, so she's who Stephen got.

Ellie's "about" twenty-three years old and looks all of sixteen, with freckled skin and more scars than most seasoned mercenaries, and two missing fingers on her left hand. She carries a bow and arrow and probably a half-dozen blades. She might've been easy to discount if she hadn't been there almost immediately, fighting alongside Stephen.

Each of her arrows carry a terrifying accuracy, and at one point she threw a molotov at the fucking thing. May have also called it a cunt.

... and she'd also gone invisible. More than once.

She has a good firm handshake. And a shard that matches his.

She's cleaning off one of her knives as Stephen talks, pulling a face at the sticky residue and trying to polish it on her cloak. It's not going so hot.

"Was that something from your nightmare, or do you fight those things on the regular where you're from?"

[portalling]

“This exact creature? Just the once. Creatures like it? Pretty much on the regular.”

Strange’s own cloak is muddied and stained with horrors; he keeps expecting it to animate and wring itself out, but there’s no sign of life from the piece of clothing any longer. He keeps frowning down at it, running an absentminded touch over its edges, before he finally just unclasps the thing and starts to fold it reverently in his lap. Laundry. He’ll have to find laundry when they get to wherever they’re going.

“You seem like you know what you’re doing in a fight, though.” He’s met enough capable kids by now that it doesn’t startle him as much as it should — Kamar-Taj was full of scrappy orphans learning magic — although she seems even more hard-bitten than America. His gaze had initially snagged and caught on those missing fingers, before he tactfully looked away. “Did you say your name was Ellie?”

[notathreat]

"Hm. Gross."

She says it with a half-smile. She clocked his glance at her fingers, but everyone does that a few times when they first meet, and she's gotten used to it. Instead she watches the special care that Stephen takes with his asymmetrical cloak, which admittedly is pretty cool-looking. Hopefully the stains aren't permanent.

"So do you," she says -- even if his magic isn't working quite right, it's easy to see that he's a mage of some kind, and by the look in his eyes when he struggled to create sparks between his hands, he's used to being a lot better at this.

"If you fight stuff like that a lot."

Ellie nods, adjusting her bow -- the light flashes along the side of it, where fade-crystal is embedded near-seamlessly in the wood.

"Yeah. Just Ellie. And you're-" she pulls a face, trying to make sure she heard it right.

"Strange? That sounds like a superhero name."

library

[favoriteanalyst]

So. New person. New Rifter, hot off the presses. What Mobius has gathered so far: naturally magically inclined, socially uninclined, not his first foray into other worlds or is at least is chill enough with the concept that it just doesn't seem to bother him too much.

And a desire to learn everything possible.

He absolutely respects that last point, and he's always inclined to be kinder to and more fascinated by Rifters. The tall (Maker, why are they always! so! tall!) newcomer seems to be fine gathering his own books, but Mobius has given a few pointers on where certain topics are, tomes to recommend. Otherwise, he's stayed out of the way, watching out of the corner of his eye.

Later, he'll learn that this is the man Stark had talked about during the Conclave, and a lot of things will fall neatly into place.

When it's late, and the candle's starting to drip enough to be a danger to the newcomer, he slides into the chair opposite, nudging a pile of books to one side. "They aren't gonna sprout legs and walk away if you leave them until morning."

[portalling]

Maybe Strange is always destined to befriend-slash-annoy the local librarian manning the nearest reservoir of arcane knowledge; at least this one seems more friendly and talkative than Wong, all vaguely-gesturing hands rather than a taciturn glower. (But there is still, always, that little flicker of homesickness whenever he thinks of his friend or of his old studies at Kamar-Taj. There are so many similarities. He’s been tearing through the Gallows’ library like he once did back home, reading like a man possessed.)

When Mobius takes a seat at his table, Strange glances up. The corner of his mouth tugs into a faint smile; only mildly self-conscious.

“Morning always seems too far away, don’t you think?” He does obligingly set the current tome aside and sink backwards in his chair, though, scarred fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose. His eyes ache more than he’s used to; it turns out that squinting at parchment paper by candlelight is more difficult than a brightly-lit lamp or tablet screen. Even the ancient Nepalese monastery had had wi-fi.

“I used to astral project during my sleep so I could keep studying even while my body was unconscious. I’ve tried and it doesn’t work here, so… I suppose I’m making up for lost time.”

Obsessive tendencies, check.

[favoriteanalyst]

He will never be one to ask about scars; he gets that those unprompted get annoying. It's curious, because they're so even, on each finger, very deliberate. But let's let that go for now. It's the everything else that catches his attention.

Because the fuck is astral projecting, must be some Rifter shit!!! And if there's one thing that Mobius has a particular interest in, it's Rifter shit.

"I can just stash these away until you actually do that whole sleeping thing you can't astral project yourself out of." His eyes squint, like he's working at a very interesting puzzle. He can take two plus two and get somewhere approximately around four. "Morning'll come soon enough. But, you wouldn't be the only one burning the midnight oil. Astral projecting, is that basically letting your spirit wander around while you're out? And then you bring it back in and retain everything that it saw and learned?"

rune examination

[overharrowed]

"Oh, yes, actually." The man he's accosted has an accent that sounds something like England, but not quite; he's not wearing robes today, but the big staff on his back probably suggests "mage" even to a new arrival. Julius comes to look, though he doesn't immediately crouch. "They're a neat bit of work, those. There was a nasty red lyrium infection before the Inquisition started using this place as a base of operations, pre-Riftwatch. We had to clear it all out, which took some doing. The runes prevent any red lyrium from getting a foothold; initially, in case we'd missed something, these days should measures to contain the samples we're experimenting on fail."

He then seems to realize some or all of that might need more explanation, given that the man is a new face. "...do you know about red lyrium, or should I elaborate?"

[portalling]

Peering up from his spot on the floor, the rifter sorcerer realises he truly seems to have lucked out, because he listens to that amiable explanation from the mage and feels it wash over him like a soothing tide; exactly the sort of contextualisation he appreciates, and the sort of speech Doctor Strange might’ve given on the nature of magic back home, too. It’s been a curious experience, finding himself on the back foot and needing to start again from near-scratch.

“Lyrium,” Strange repeats, his brow crinkling in thought as he combs his memory for that reference. He’s an excellent student, but there has been quite a lot of information to absorb during this introductory period.

“Magical steroids, right?” Are Thedans familiar with the concept of steroids? He adjusts, recites what he remembers: “Processed and used to enchant items, and mages can ingest them to enhance their own abilities? I don’t know yet what’s special about the red kind, though.”

(He also puts a mental pin in the phrase the samples we’re experimenting on, which seems ominous.)

[overharrowed]

(It should.)

He's saved from asking about steroids, at least for now, by the elaboration. Instead, he nods. "It's not only enhancement, though it does do that too. Mages can use lyrium to enter the Fade while fully conscious, instead of only in dreams. But other than that, you're all correct. Red lyrium is ... well, I should probably connect you with Ser Niehaus, she's done more work on the details of this and some of it is over my head. But on some very basic level, lyrium seems to be alive. Red lyrium is lyrium that's been infected with a condition called the Blight."

He smiles, briefly. "I don't know if you wanted an entire basic Thedosian history lesson, but I suppose it gives more context to what the runes are for. I can go on if you like." Julius, does, at least have enough self-awareness to actually check that before just plowing through.

runes

[laruetheday]

Clarisse almost trips over the guy, crouched down in the hallway as he is. She has to dodge him, which she manages pretty nicely, she thinks. She's about to lay into him about watching where he parks his rude ass, but he's already asking her a question, as if the near-collision never happened.

She looks at him, then at the runes. She's wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a hoodie that's seen better days; actually, her entire outfit looks pretty nasty by this point. Anyway, she's not native, is the point. That'd be obvious even if it weren't for the anchor shard in her palm.

"I think they keep the floor clean." She's... half-right?

whew sry for the late reply, derailed by illness

[portalling]

“What, like an ethereal Roomba? That’d be a sight.” Strange cracks the joke gamely, amiably, still squinting at the glowing inscriptions — before he realises a moment later, crestfallen, that the bystander might not know what a Roomba is. So many of his references have been falling on deaf ears and blank unimpressed stares from all the locals. He has no idea how Stark’s survived it, pop culture evaporating into a vacuum.

But as his attention shifts back to who spoke, he glances up at the girl — and her clothing screams rifter. He never thought he’d be so glad to see a hoodie. His expression brightens, and he climbs back up to his feet with a little grunt, dusting off his knees. His back aches; getting older is no joke.

“You look like you took a wrong turn after gym class.”

no worries!

[laruetheday]

"Maybe less like a Roomba and more like... a sponge?" That's how Clarisse is picturing it, anyway. The dirt getting sucked down into the floor somehow. Never mind that it definitely isn't happening like that in reality.

"Yeah, kind of." She's looking him over more closely now. She feels like she can clock other rifters pretty well, not just by their clothes but by their attitudes. The fact that this guy namedropped the Roomba helps, too. "I play basketball at the University of Arizona." A pause. "Played," she corrects, sounding resigned to it now.

crystal;

[grindset]

You can drink here. You're quarantined, not grounded.

[—is nearly toneless, in a way that implies occupation rather than lack of interest (though for a stranger it may be hard to tell), and accented somewhere on the spectrum of Slavic.]

No need to wait.

[portalling]

[ It’s been curious, encountering all these accents from Thedas and other worlds which still have that touch of something familiar to it. France by way of Orlais. Something sounding Eastern European, or not. ]

Ah, but there’s drinking in the Gallows dining hall, and then there’s soaking in the full sights once I’m allowed outside the fortress. [ Dryly: ] I’m looking forward to start writing Kirkwall restaurant reviews.

[grindset]

Then I look forward to reading them.

[conversational humidity level: 0%]

The Hanged Man is the exemplar for alehouses, I believe. You may find more or less memorable venues. Just, eh... stay within Lowtown to start.

— wildcard.

[control]

It started as all dreams started, drifting subconsciously ( or, in her case, consciously ) through the entanglement of universes waiting for the dreams to arrive and Wanda desperately seeking out her boys. She was so close to finding them she could hear their faint laughter in the distance, but she was pulled in a different direction —

"No," she screamed, voice hoarse and raw, filled with the anguish that threatened to consume her if left unchecked.

Instead of being with her boys for however long sleep manages to take her, Wanda found herself aimlessly wandering through the S.W.O.R.D. Headquarters — that same feeling of despair swelling up within her as she rounded corners, desperate to escape, but around each corner was another set of hallways. At least that was until she rounded this corner, where she found herself face to face with a Despair demon and some number of wraiths that made her feel outnumbered in some forest in the middle of Ferelden — that was until she realized there were others around her and the familiar face of someone she didn't think she'd see for a long time, if ever again.

Once the battle concluded and as they began making their way back to Kirkwall, Wanda did her best to ignore and avoid him, talking with the Riftwatch agents, and once she was under quarantine, it was easy to lose him in the Gallows.

After what feels like weeks, she's tired of avoiding him — or rather, she's running out of places to hide and excuses, so she decides to seek him out to get this awkwardness over and get things on the table. There are only so many places a man like Stephen Strange can be, and thankfully he's in the first place she decides to look, buried behind several large stacks of books.

Standing a distance away, dressed in some robes she managed to find, she watches him wondering if this was how he looked at the Sanctum or when he was studying at Kamar-Taj — this leads her to wonder how different things would have been if she had been taken in by him instead of left to fend for herself, to deal with the heartache and fraying mental state alone. Maybe, somewhere out there, there's a version of her that was taken in by him after Tony's death — but now's not the time to think of such things.

"I shouldn't be surprised that some version of you was here," she eventually speaks up, stepping closer but giving him a wide enough birth for caution's sake.

rubs hands together!! ds2 spoilers all over this thread

[portalling]

Stephen jolts. Almost knocks over his stack of books, and his chair scrapes against the stone floor as he moves a couple inches away. It’s uncomfortably skittish, like a deer about to bolt in the woods at the sight of her — but after what they’ve been through, can you blame him?

He’s been sitting on that knowledge for weeks now, mouth pressed into a thin line, biting down on that hideous recent twist to their personal history. Like walking around a bomb and hoping it won’t go off again. There’s quite a few reasons why he hasn’t told Tony yet — one of them being, the Scarlet Witch isn’t as indescribably powerful here as she would’ve been back home — but that ugly fear is still there, humming beneath his skin.

But they had gotten through to her by the end, Stephen thinks. He hopes.

His blue-green eyes drift down to Wanda’s sleeves, the turn of her wrist, her hands, instinctively looking for those burnt-black fingertips. The grip of the Darkhold is gone, of course it’s gone, it hadn’t even been there when she’d been jettisoned out of that rift, but looking for it is still like a tic.

“Of course. It’s just like home,” he says, lightly, an attempt at a joke. But there’s still a tightness to his jaw and a rigid set to his spine, watching her like he’s keeping an eye on a predator, looking for quick movements. He wishes he didn’t have to.

And then, because he’s not exactly above being curt and blunt when he needs to be, ripping off the band-aid:

“Are we finally done pretending the other person doesn’t exist?”

[control]

Though the physical taint of the Darkhold's grip on her is gone, there is some lasting damage left on her emotional and mental state — watching him jolt, looking at her like a skittish deer ready to jolt, makes something dark buried deep within her want to bark out a laugh. It twists at the corners of her mouth, but she pushes it down and buries it with everything else.

As he watches her, she watches him, her head cocking to the side, which makes the rogue copper strands that came loose from her braid fall haphazardly into her face and over her shoulder. Wanda doesn't blame him for watching her, keeping a keen eye on the hands clasped daintily in front of her, showing that she isn't a threat at the moment.

She's watching him for the same reason, positioning herself so she can see his hands beneath the table for sudden movements.

They've lost trust and faith in one another, but that's to be expected with everything they've gone through — with all she has done.

"I wasn't expecting any of this," she says as she finally unclasps her hands and motions around them, "least of all, seeing you there as soon as I stumbled out. Didn't think we'd see each other for a long time."

How long has it been since she brought Mount Wundagore down on herself and his decaying alternate self? It didn't feel like that long ago, and she expected to have more time to deal with her — issues ( or at least some of them ) before facing him again. Yet here they are, thrust together and expected to play nice to help protect this world.