Test Drive!

[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 9:49, 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.) an organization, dubbed Riftwatch, that split off from the Inquisition several years ago. Riftwatch consists 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.

NOTE: This is a static test drive! We post them once per year or so and continue to use them for a long time, so you're never late. Current players are encouraged to track new top-level comments.

I. THE FREE MARCHES: Hasmal, Tantervale, and most recently Starkhaven have all fallen to the Tevinter incursion, leaving Kirkwall the largest city-state in the Free Marches to remain unoccupied. For Riftwatch, that means the war is closer to home than ever, and traveling anywhere north of the mountains runs the risk of running into enemy scouting parties. Perhaps you've been sent out to find these scouts before they find the unwary, or perhaps you're just trying to pass through unnoticed to Antiva or Rivain when you run into trouble. Or maybe you're more in the thick of it: joining the Free Marches armies in harassing the occupying army as best they can from outside the city, or slipping your way into one of them to gather intelligence or meet with an ally.

II. THE WAKING SEA: When Riftwatch isn't traveling by griffon or magic mirror, it frequently travels by sea, courtesy of a small assortment 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 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

wanda maximoff | mcu

[explosion]

[ cw: vague references to ptsd and war. ]

i. LIBRARY.

Look, she's a nerd.

Of course, Wanda spends time in the library. While it's nothing in comparison to the great Bodleian Library she and Vision had visited so long ago, it's helpful. It contains tomes featuring words and concepts she isn't familiar with, so she opts to spend a lot of her time hiding away in the shadows, seated against the wall with a book in hand.

No one ever got hurt reading a book before.

If she's looking for one in particular, Wanda doesn't say so. She lets her fingers trail over the spines and pluck an assortment of books from the shelves. Sometimes she can be seen levitating a few beside her as she walks the aisles before claiming a seat on the floor. Wanda never takes a table.

She telekinetically removes a book from the shelf. Did you want that book? Too bad. It's floating toward the woman seated cross-legged on the floor on the opposite side of the aisle a little ways up. She's not even looking. Is she smirking a little?

ii. MINRATHOUS.
[ Hi, stealing from this plot! Thanks, Libby! ]

It feels good to be put to work. When she's not manhandling items, she's using her telekinesis to help as much as possible, moving small items and helping elevate the weight of a particularly heavy piece of material. How else can she learn the lay of the land and its people if she doesn't throw herself in with them? Self-isolation won't work well here, not if she wants to use Riftwatch's resources to further her end goal.

But… With a glance over her shoulder, she intentionally shakes herself. No, it's silly. No one is watching her! Who could get the one-up on Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch? But she can't help but feel the increased length of what should've been a two-minute walk stretch into an hour, and beady little eyes boring into the back of her head…

The voices in Thedas are a low hum; she doesn't feel any pinpricks of a migraine brewing against her temples. Except—

Wanda.

She jumps and bumps into someone with a sharp twist of her elbow. "I'm sorry," she gasps in perfect American, planting her hand against her chest. She smiles big and bright to hide her fright and fear. She'd heard dead Vision. Even now, when she feels the pounding of her vulnerability grip her heart, Wanda hides behind her mask.

iii. NEVARRA CITY.
[ Still stealing from the plot!]

a) Isn't it strange she feels most at home within the crypt?

The dead still deserve respect. While she may not know their names—she hardly recognises anything here, truth be told, despite her scouring the Multiverse for her family—Wanda doesn't turn her back on the Mortalitasi's efforts to match abandoned corpse to ancestor. She wishes to help.

"It's not an ugly place," she says. The crypt could be worse. It could be rubble, the broken bones of a city, where nothing green ever grows and the people left behind are left to pick up the ruined pieces. At least here, death seems kinder to those who are still living, and that gives the living more time to be kinder to the dead.

She can be kind, just watch.

b) Can anyone blame Wanda for walking so slowly along the long cobbled road? She peers up at the statues of robed skeletons, her hands pressed against her chest as she eyes the glowing green fire.

"We can't let the rift take them," she says. The statues are a part of this city; they deserve to remain standing, regardless of whether the green fire doesn't represent life but the approach of death. Wanda understands better than most what it's like to have a city fall to its knees with her in its grasp.

She quickens her pace and waves her hand. "Come on," she says, running. They have a rift to close.

iv. WILDCARD.

[ Hi again. Wanda's from post-Multiverse of Madness. Feel free to action spam me instead of prose and throw a different location/scenario at me—I am new and lost. Apologies, but I will get something wrong (be embarrassed for me)!!! ]

iiia.

[dirthsal]

It could be uglier, [ is as close as talin will come to agreement, probably. ] I've seen nicer crypts.

[ in the dirth, the graves of his ancestors, beacons for spirits and demons but still beautiful, in their ways. ]

They've done well, here. Spirits and people, existing side by side, peacefully—that's how things should be. Perhaps not with the dead as intermediaries, [ dryly. there was that whole thing where they overran the whole of the capital, after all, ] but the principal is good.

[explosion]

[ Is it strange the concept brings her peace? To think of Pietro, existing side by side with her… Isn't that where he always is? The danger of being near the dead is that Wanda starts thinking about those who are gone. Nothing good ever comes from that. Perhaps it's why the universe has ensured she has company this time. Nothing bad can happen when she's not left by herself.

She smiles small. ]

You speak like you know something very interesting. [ Yes, let's stop thinking about Pietro by talking more about the dead! ] The dead were intermediaries?

[dirthsal]

[ oh, right. rifters. talin shifts a little, reassessing this conversation, and how he wants to go about it. ]

Nevarran belief holds that when someone dies, their soul crosses into the Beyond. When they do, they push a spirit out. In order to keep that spirit from turning to a demon, Nevarran mages... [ here talin falters a little, not sure of the proper phrasing. ] The spirits are put in the bodies of the dead, to keep them peaceful. It is a mostly harmonious relationship, from what I understand.

Aside from when they took over the whole of Nevarra City, but I think that was our adversaries' fault, not the spirits.

[explosion]

[ That's… Wanda's uncertain how she feels about that. A spirit being pushed out and slotted into a body that isn't theirs… Hw would she feel it that were Pietro?

She furrows her brows, quiet for a moment, contemplative as she considers what that must mean. How would she feel if she were the spirit? How would she feel if she were the spirit's living family member?

Why not ask? ]

What do you think about that? Do you think it's sad to die and be pushed out from where you have every right to rest?

[dirthsal]

[ it's not a question that talin's ever considered before—dalish beliefs around death are very different from nevarran, and he's had no cause to wonder about what if he were nevarran, though. his eyebrows go up, he blinks, pulls a considering face. ]

I'm not my body, [ is where he ends up. ] If my spirit ends up in the Beyond, and by getting there it shoves a spirit out—it deserves a home here too, doesn't it? Better it goes somewhere it will be safe, for its sake and those around it. It's not possession, or stealing.

Does the idea bother you? [ it probably does, if she asked. ] There are different beliefs. Not everyone binds spirits to their dead. My people bury ours, and plant a tree over their graves, so we may nourish it as we rot. Fereldans burn their dead.

i

[paramus]

[ ooc: please forgive the lack of icons, i couldn't resist saying hello! ]

Rude, [ steve pipes up from where he's stood with his arm stretched out toward the racks, exactly where wanda got that book from. look, he's not 6'2" anymore, if you're going to be using your telekinesis you could at least help him get the books on the top shelf. he smiles, though, and walks over to her—he was always fond of wanda, and it's good to see her having fun. ]

Read anything interesting?

omg hi!!

[explosion]

Too many things!

[ She smiles, her voice containing laughter. He's small. She remembers seeing photographs of him online and at the museum, but she remembers most how Steve used to speak about his shape and size. It was never with derision. Even when he benefitted from enhancement, Steve never forgot his roots. She always liked that about him. It was always easy to see the good when he was around to remind her how to look.

Peering at him, she pats the floor beside her. ]

Sit. You're too tall, and I will crane my neck and hurt it.

[ Ha! ]

sticks leggy way out!!!

[paramus]

Is this what having a sister is like, [ asked with a quirk brow as he lowers himself to sit next to her, ] because suddenly I'm glad I was an only child.

[ he wasn't, really. not in practice, at least; bucky's family was just as much steve's, which meant he'd had four siblings, in effect. it seems like a comment that might make wanda laugh, though, and that's what he's really aiming for. ]

I've been going through the history books, trying to make sure I don't make a fool of myself here. You?

[explosion]

[ Her laugh is light, and she smiles. If it weren't Steve, her smile would be smaller. Pietro would be able to inform him of what it's like to have a sister in great detail, undoubtedly focusing on how annoying little sisters are. She wishes he were here to tell Steve. Wanda doesn't trust herself to recount it properly. ]

I'm going through them to make myself a fool.

[ She hands him one of the books—a book about magic, which shouldn't be surprising, given that this place seems to be filled with it - ]

I haven't found any books on not to look like a fool. I have a feeling no one knows the secrets to that but you. You will tell me, yes?

[paramus]

I don't know if there are any books with that specific title, [ he allows, looking at the book he just accepted from her—magic, of course, because what else would wanda be reading about— ] but I find it's easier not to look like a fool if you know the history of a place. At least it's somewhere to start. I can give you a history lesson, if you want.

[ he would never let wanda look like a fool if he could help it—steve feels responsible for her, in a lot of ways, besides just being generally fond of her. of course, his being responsible for her is less fun than she might want, but look, it's steve, are we surprised? should have been team iron man if she wanted an irresponsible mentor figure. ]

What've you learned? About the magic here, or anything else.

library

[favoriteanalyst]

Library means librarian means: Mobius takes interest in someone poking at his books with a form of magic that lends to moving without touching. It's unusual. It's strange. And while decades of training taught him to see strange and unusual magic as a threat, he also sees wonder.

Because it probably means she's either not from around here (Circles, southern Thedas, civilization) or...not from around here (this plane of existence). So. Curiosity will always get the better of him when it comes down to it.

"There's this great new invention," he starts, casually, hands in his pockets, "called chairs. Good for sitting on."

[explosion]

She doesn't startle when he appears. Looking up at him, Wanda smiles and looks around, intentionally furrowing her brows in search of these said chairs. She has no inclination to fetch herself a chair now that he's brought it to her attention. (Perhaps someone else would quickly rise from the ground and hunt for one. Not Wanda.)

Is he offended? Is this against the rules? She did her best to scour the library for what was unacceptable on this Earth… Despite her rather jokey nature, Wanda does hope this isn't illegal.

Tilting her head, she looks at him with amused curiousity, "Are they free?"

[favoriteanalyst]

"Very free to use. Tables, too." Some might think him stuffy, the way he's acted before, with his meticulous little reminders about how to treat what's offered in the library. But so long as she isn't damaging the books in any way--and what apparently curious, avid reader would intentionally do so?--then a little floor time won't hurt them. Really, if anything, it might hurt her.

Ah, to be that young and spry again.

"Might be more cozy if you're gonna spend a good bit of time here trying to familiarize yourself with everything here, anyway. Even got candles you can burn into the night for reading, though I'll thank you not to burn them out completely by being a night owl." Maker knows he had to chase Stephen out more than a few times, reminders to eat and sleep and the normal things normal bodies do and not spirit selves doing the reading for him. "Some of the nooks have windows, too, for good daylight reading."

What he's really building up to is: are you okay down there? You good? Is that comfy? Are you afraid? But he always tends to go the longer way about these things. Some people need blunt, and some wouldn't know blunt if they got hit with a hammer.

[explosion]

What a worrywart.

He reminds her of so many people. Steve, Natasha, Sam. He reminds her of her older neighbours in Sokovia, always wishing to check up on her and Pietro when the lights went out, or they came home later than usual when running errands. It prompts a little ache, although not an uncomfortable one. It's nice to bother someone so effortlessly and innocently and to be cared about, even by a stranger. How long has it been? An illusory orchard with sheep bleating in the background comes to mind.

But she has no interest in immediately unfolding her legs and sitting at a table. Where would the fun in that be?

"Have you tried sitting on the floor?" Wanda looks around with a smile. "In this aisle? It's quite an experience. The shelf is sturdy and comfortable; perfect for resting gently against."

[favoriteanalyst]

He looks around between the shelves as though he'd never seen them before. "In this aisle? Right here? Hmmm, sounds like I gotta test this hypothesis myself."

Which is to say, make way, old man coming through. His body really isn't that out of shape for the training he still keeps up after all these years, solid instead of svelte, but he's keenly aware that his knees and his back are not what they used to be. He makes only a mild sound of complaint lowering himself cross-legged to the floor.

It is always nice to be in the aisles, really. Surrounded by entertainment and information at the fingertips. The rest of the library more muted. The smell of parchment and paper and old ink.

"There may be some merit to the idea."

library;

[portalling]

Doctor Stephen Strange is Riftwatch’s Head Healer. And with that comes certain responsibilities with the new rifters: patiently explaining the necessity of quarantine to them, finding out if they have any health issues which need to be addressed, doing his part to integrate them into the organisation. And he’s never, ever blanched from this duty before,

except this time the Seneschal hands him the name Wanda Maximoff, the latest cast-off to wash up on Thedas’ shores through a rift, and Stephen goes still and quiet and stares at the name for far, far too long. A memory. A ghost. Can’t just be a coincidence; he doesn’t really believe in those anymore.

Normally he’d go right to the new arrival for their appointed introduction. But this time, he drags his heels. He paces. He delays. He over-thinks. Briefly contemplates what if he just resigned on the spot so he doesn’t have to have this awkward conversation.

But c’mon, Stephen. Just rip off the goddamned band-aid.

So he takes a deep breath. Walks into the library with a stack of papers under one arm, his footsteps quick and brisk. He’d heard the new rifter was camped out here doing research (a rite of passage for so many of them), but he can’t see her at any of the tables. So he circles back and forth for a little while until he catches the taste of the Fade in the back of his throat — magic, being actively practiced — and he follows it to the levitating books. He finally looks down. Sees her sitting there, reading, alive, and it’s such a complicated twist of emotion in his chest that he doesn’t really know what to do with it —

(fear? relief? bitterness? homesickness? all the above?)

“So. Hi,” he says, after clearing his throat.

i agree, he should resign

[explosion]

She knows he's there before he speaks. Pietro used to stare at her in the hopes she'd break the silence, but she was always so stubborn, knowing he'd break first. She took pleasure in it then; she takes pleasure in it now, although Stephen Strange is nothing like her brother.

For one, her brother is dead.

Ignoring the hammering of her heart, Wanda lifts her head and smiles at him. It's an easy script to follow: lift her head, smile prettily, ensure the camera gets her best angle. Perhaps Reddit would consider this the moment that Wanda Maximoff starts her redemption arc… or someone may claim she's acting out of character.

"Hi." In one word, she hides behind her American accent. She could play dumb—does she know him? Does she recognise him? But her hair is bright red and not as dark as it was when she was in Scotland. Wanda knows he knows the colours of her hair; Stephen's nothing if not meticulous in his research.

"I'm not surprised you're here." With a glance around, she lifts her hand (fingers plain, no black in sight, although she hides it with soft tendrils of thin red vines snaking around her fingers in an attempt to mask any magic he may sense) to gesture at the library, and speaks in an attempt to maintain control. "You are a nerd."

She doesn't close the book in her lap, keeping it as her shield if she so much as needs a slip of armour to hide behind. She's naked in this strange world; he's here, he fits in the space like it has gotten used to his presence, and he's here.

Is she glad he didn't end up freezing to death outside Wundagore?

[portalling]

The man does look at home here. Mage robes aren’t so far off from the sorcerer robes she’s used to seeing on him, and there’s a comfortable, broken-in look to his Thedosian outfit; it’s been adjusted and tailored to fit by steadier hands than his. As Wanda gestures, his blue-green gaze predictably drops to her hands and lodges on her fingertips, and he stares a little too openly, searching for that tell-tale charcoal-black smudge. It’s not there, but that might not be a guarantee. Rifting is an inexact science.

There’s always the chance, too, that their experiences don’t dovetail. Perhaps she’s another Wanda from another timeline, a universe where they never crossed paths to begin with. (Would she better or worse off if that were the case? He truly can’t tell.) His expression is guarded, body language tight and closed-off, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop: searching for that recognition in her face, looking for what that recognition means when it does land. If she came from earlier on their road, maybe it’s not—

There’s no use speculating. He might as well just ask.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Stephen asks. It is, perhaps, blunt and indelicate; but he doesn’t like to waste time when there’s an unknown variable to unravel. The last time they took the indulgent time to amble and meander companionably along, she’d trapped him in an illusion.

So this time he’ll be direct.

[explosion]

This is why he'll never win an Emmy for his script-writing. His dialogue choices do nothing to add flavour to the scene. Straight to the heart of it, like a surgeon with a scalpel. He would've been written off Grey's Anatomy within two episodes.

Of course, she knows why he's asking.

"My orchard," she says. It's honest; it's not her fault he doesn't ask specifics. When she had finally dreamed a dream that didn't include her boys roughhousing in the front yard, she dreams of her orchard in Sokovia with the sheep bleating in the distance and the warm breeze.

It is the last thing she remembers. Before that, she remembers nothing but darkness and dust, and a red glow before— Well, before she perhaps escaped from Wundagore. Sometimes, Wanda's unsure of whether that happened at all. The building's collapse had been so hurried…

Without needing to read his mind, she knows what he last remembers. He holds himself stiffly. He's not the warmest man, but he's proud and enjoys bleeding that arrogance. Now that there's no need to chase after him, she can see the differences in his posture compared to how he approached her in her orchard. All that stress, all that worry… Does he truly think she'd hurt him in a library? She has respect for books.

Tilting her head to the side, she keeps her expression open, her smile pleasant. It doesn't matter that she came to her senses at the last minute—let him be the unpleasant one. Wanda hates it when they treat her like she's the villain.

"What about you, Stephen?"

[portalling]

He hadn’t been careful enough with his phrasing, not monitoring his choice of words with fey specificity. So the corner of his mouth twitches, rueful, pressing: “Had I come to see you in the orchard yet?”

He doesn’t exactly expect them to start slinging spells at each other in the middle of a public space, but he’s hopelessly paranoid even under normal circumstances, and so he’s on his guard. Wanda’s winsome mile is convincing. (He’s always been convinced by her. He’d bought it, whole-sale. Perhaps that’s part of what stings.)

If they’re from divergent worlds, like two trains running along on separate but parallel tracks, he realises his behaviour must be baffling. But Stephen can’t shake the feeling that she’s a cat playing with its food and he’s the mouse. She’s more powerful than him back home and he knows it; there was a reason all he could do was run.

“I was asleep in my room at the Sanctum Sanctorum. I’d recently come back from Kamar-Taj, which they’re still repairing after you attacked it.”

He doesn’t exactly intend to sound so prickly — he wishes he weren’t — he wishes it wasn’t like this, and he’ll likely regret his guardedness later — but he’s been caught wrongfooted today, surprised, offguard, not expecting this ghost with all his attendant baggage about it and her.

(He had, after all, failed her.)

iiib.

[elegiaque]

Without fail, the rifters that Gwenaëlle warms to the fastest are those that are getting with the program.

It isn't that she lacks sympathy — any more — for their plight. For the sense of what's been lost, even as she's the first to point out it probably sort of hasn't, in a manner of speaking, speed-running strangers through an existential crisis through sheer bluntness when the subject arises. Whatever the particulars, the result is a stranger in a strange place, thrown headlong into conflict, adrift from everything familiar and required to adapt. She doesn't not understand that that's fucked,

but as she had said it to Hermione: tomorrow doesn't give a shit what any of us have lost getting here. They're all here, regardless. The thing that matters most to her is what they do with that, and all of which is to say: her blurry first impression of Wanda Maximoff, aside from a peculiar deja vu that she doesn't immediately place (it will come to her later, and she will dismiss it instantly), is someone who is not afraid to roll her sleeves up and muck in. Someone throwing herself into it, instead, and if the effort is made then Gwenaëlle is always willing to meet it, albeit sometimes messily, sharply, albeit with all the bedside manner of a stumbling nuggalope.

That initial approval is underlined by Wanda's sureness now, and as she breaks into a run alongside her — keeping Wanda on her blind side, the bladed tails of her deep green coat streaming behind, slight and fast — it's a moment she'll remember, later. That she didn't hesitate.

None of which stops her from saying, “Fuck me,” Orlais by way of the High Quarter, looking like someone's pirate fantasy and sounding like a potty-mouthed princess, “but it's never just a little, normal one with these people—”

Nevarrans. They're so damned dramatic.

(The gauntlet she's wearing on her left hand, she turns palm up as they run, adjusting the crystal focuses over the anchor-shard one-handed, efficient, familiar. It gleams with sickly-bright power.)

[explosion]

Is Wanda leading? God help us all if she is. She has never been one to know where to go, often following Natasha's husky voice in her ear or Steve's unwavering commands to go right, left, back around, up in the air, and now somersault all the way down to the ground. She's most comfortable when given instructions to follow.

But there are no instructions, so Wanda heeds her gut instead. It's never led her astray, even if it's encouraged her to stumble into messes.

Is this a mess? It might be a mess. But Wanda knows she can't ignore the fact that a rift needs to be closed and she has the means to help.

Understanding immediately that this woman's gifted her trust by keeping her on her blind side, Wanda ensures that she smacks thick, dangerous stones from the ground in front of them if it leads to tripping. The statues loom overhead; the green fires flicker, but none of them spills out into a raging booby trap like they would for Indiana. She ensures that she remains loud so she knows where she is.

She pants. "Is that all I need to know?" Natasha would never have run into this without knowing everything first. Steve would. What would Wanda do? Read the minds of those around her. But how can she lay low if she does that?

Running isn't flying; her feet hit the pavement with loud thuds, and she's certain she'll pull a muscle in a matter of minutes.

[elegiaque]

The rift itself is like an explosion, light to mirror (and link with) the muddy gleam in their hands, enormous and twisting, stretching tendrils of the Fade out to launch demon after demon—

by the grace of whatever's left to give a fuck about them, they aren't alone. Mourn Watch (which she thinks of in her head as Mournwatch, like Riftwatch, a thing they would probably hate) tangles with the demons, and she's fought alongside necromancers often enough before not to balk at their magic. She recognises the faces of other Riftwatch agents in the space they're approaching but focuses on Wanda: new enough to Thedas that something like the buddy system isn't a bad idea.

A despair demon shrieks. Gwenaëlle speaks urgently under the sound,

and there's so much sound, the reverberation of the rift spitting out monstrosities, familiar now but not somehow less fucked for that,

“They'll come in waves,” she says, a quick refresh of what someone has likely told Wanda but that she knows from brutal experience is hard to remember in great detail the first time you're swept in it, “it won't close permanently the first few tries. If the Nevarrans' take out the demons between times we'll have breathing room while it regroups each time, but we can't count on that, and when it's open we're targets.”

The demons allowed through are not, understandably, thrilled about the prospect of having the thing closed.

Gwenaëlle slows as they approach, gaming out strategic placement, where they can reach the rift and be the most difficult to knock off their target,

“We can use the architecture for cover, there—”

[explosion]

Where Wanda prefers wide open spaces, she heeds Gwenaëlle and follows to take cover. (When has she ever needed cover when there were empty, unused cars to throw at men in suits? When there was Wakandan earth to dig up with the brute force of her mind and throw at spinning wheels?)

Who knew hiding behind a statue would be efficient? She's seen them topple and crush the pavement below, killing Sokovian flowerbeds and becoming home to weeds. She doesn't like grasping the base of a stone statue as she peers around the bend to take note of Gwenaëlle's correct information, but she trusts the skeletons to keep her safe. The dead always do.

The demons rush out like the dead once did in Wundagore, but none of them slithers her way, sensing her and her dark magic corrupting the universe around them. For now, she's safe between a stone wall and a stone statue. It won't last.

Think, think, think, Wanda. Think.

Her palms glow red. "What is it that you can do?"

It's better to complement someone rather than go in independently.