[OOC] The Sky is Falling!

[eolasemah]

Recently a rift opened in Skyhold itself. Although nobody saw it happen, it was rumored to have been opened by a mage native to Thedas and not one of the rifters.

There are damages to the courtyard from where buildings and vegetation have been singed and frozen and dented from the resulting demon battle. It looks a mess. This is a mess.

The purpose of this post is for general opinion gathering, rumormongering, and plotting for the fallout from this fiasco. If people can just open rifts wherever they want, what does this mean for the Inquisition? Can rifters do it, can regular mages do it? Why would someone within Skyhold and ostensibly part of the Inquisition do this in the first place? Why weren't snacks provided?

If you feel so inclined, reply with your character's reaction to the news (or the sight, or the battle) and what action they might want to take, if any. Plot, make CR, do the thing!

Comments

[stabsbooks]

Cassandra's with Vivienne. This is absolutely unacceptable, and she will be heavily interrogating everyone involved to figure out exactly what happened and how to ensure that it never happens again. Once she finds out that it's not a rifter whose hand had acted up, but a mage attempting magic while in possession of a shard, she's going to swing heavily in favor of increased mage supervision (or at least Sina supervision). This has the potential to be A Big Deal and Cassandra can certainly make it into such.

[judgemewhole]

You have Norrington's full suppor, Seeker. He'll back your play.

[wontforgetyou]

Jamie's answers aren't going to be at all helpful because he was asleep when the whole thing started, but he'll tell her exactly that and that when the shard woke him up he ran out to see what was going on and then proceeded to work with the others to fix it.

There may be a few faces pulled here and there, but he's not lying or even trying to skirt around the truth - he really has no idea how it happened.

[stabsbooks]

Once it becomes clear that he's actually telling her everything she knows, she'll ease up on him, but she will be interested in the shard 'waking him up,' as well as want a full report on who was involved and how they managed to close the rift.

[nadasharillen]

Nari is wary, but will answer any factual questions she can. She will, however, become very bristly and defensive at any attempt or implied attempt to question the still recovering Sina, and will demand that such things wait until the mage in question has recovered, and that she be allowed to be present for any such questionings.

[stabsbooks]

Cassandra won't be at all happy about any delays to questioning Sina, but will begrudgingly accept that the elf needs to at least be conscious and at least partially recovered in order for her to give any useful information.

She'll also question exactly who Nari is and why she needs to be present. Is she a healer? Is she responsible for Sina's care?

[serannas]

Ellana was the one who was giving Sina one-on-one training, but now she's sure she isn't the right person for the job. She will agree that Sina should probably be supervised, but will vote for it to be a mage, and preferably one who has been studying shards. She'll be against Templar supervision, just because she thinks Sina will be against it, but if Ellana gets overruled, she's overruled.

[stabsbooks]

Cassandra respects Ellana's own abilities as a mage, but she'll still be pretty blunt in asking after her qualifications as a teacher, Sina's own level of control over her magic, and whether Sina was acting under her orders/with her knowledge. If she wants to step down from training Sina, Cassandra won't argue, but she'll insist that someone be responsible for supervising her, and probably insist that her training stop until there's some guarantee that this won't happen again. She would argue for Templar supervision, but if she can be convinced that a) this was an accident and b) Sina absolutely will not try anything like what she was doing again, she'll begrudgingly back down.

If/when Sina's training does start again, Cassandra will vote for her teacher to be a Circle-trained mage - she's thinking someone like Vivienne, if she'll agree to it. If Ellana has the names of mages who have been studying the shards in detail, Cassandra wants to hear them.

[apostasia]

Martel will be cooperative and straightforward in recounting what he remembers; he didn't see the rift opened but like Jamie, felt the shard react. Went out to deal with it, saw two other rifters, led them through the first attempt to close the thing, was joined by several others (he doesn't know any of their names, offhand, as Martel has negative eighty interest in other rifters) who worked in tandem. He remembers up to the barrier he cast around Jamie and Church being broken by a demon, and after that he'll be frank that he'd overextended himself and his head was on fire with spell backlash, his memories are a pain-fog until the following day when he woke up in his bed.

[stabsbooks]

As a rifter AND a mage, Martel is going to get a lot of Cassandra's attention (and not the good kind). She'll ask him a lot of sharp, unpleasant questions about his shard, his magical abilities, what magic he's been doing since he got to Thedas, and if he's ever experienced any signs or indication that he might be able to open a rift himself (accidentally or otherwise). She will be disinclined to let him out of her sight without Templar supervision.

:) hooray new cr

[laurenande]

Galadriel will be, as usual, infuriatingly cryptic. She has learned exactly enough about Thedas to be distrustful of Templars and Wardens on principle alone (nobody's mentioned seekers yet so sorry, Cassandra, you get to count as a Templar); the more heavy-handed Cassandra gets with her interrogation the less helpful Galadriel will become. Her accounts will be truthful but probably somewhat lacking.

If you need somebody to express a somewhat alarming (burgeoning) knowledge of how one might attempt to open a rift, I can cheerfully have Galadriel drop that sort of information on Cassandra. Also if anyone else who was present would like their characters' lives made slightly harder, I can have Galadriel insinuate that she suspects she's not the only one who could figure it out.

[stabsbooks]

SURPRISE she's EVEN WORSE THAN A TEMPLAR it's your lucky day galadriel.

Cassandra will get more and more frustrated and yelly and basically this will snowball quickly into horribleness unless there's someone there to pull her back. Does Galadriel have a book? There may be book stabbing.

If Galadriel shares any knowledge of the sort though shit's gonna get real super fast. As in, if Galadriel both indicates that she can open a rift and that she has no qualms about trying (let alone actually plans to do so), Cassandra will do everything in her power to stop her, up to and including having her locked up [or attempting to do so].

so what i am asking i suppose is how much earth do we wanna scorch here

[motherfucking_ghost]

excuse YOU he is not here to be interrogated lady, he's just some dude who fell out of the sky and happened to have something weird from your universe in his hand fucking shit up.

...Church is basically going to be ruffled and snarky and angry with the way Cassandra goes about finding information so that's...that's gonna be fun.

[stabsbooks]

church you're worse than varric SHUT UP

his interrogation will be very short because he is giving cassandra a migraine

[fleurdesel]

Adelaide would like to counter that she supervise Sina personally as she is A) studying the shards to find a way to safely remove them if possible and what they do and B) skilled in dispelling and containing magic. This will not happen again.

Mal was just minding his own business and killed a demon why is he gett'n yelled at?

[stabsbooks]

As a trained mage who has undergone her harrowing, Adelaide is an acceptable candidate to supervise Sina. Just don't tell Cassandra about Compassion. She might have templars check up on them occasionally at first just to make sure things are actually under control.

Mal you're almost as bad as Church, go away.

[madame_de_fer]

Vivienne is in full support of more Sina supervision, not even for a lack of trust, but because she's seen just how badly she's been hurt in this mess and she doesn't want to see the poor dear die through no fault of her own. They do need to know more. And while while she personally would like to see more supervision of the mages as a whole for their own safety and protection, she doesn't want to see her efforts to nudge everyone to that sensible direction shot to hell because Cass doesn't understand the meaning of tact. ;)

[stabsbooks]

don't bother her with vocabulary lessons vivienne she has Important Things To Do

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Bethany was there and she'll happily sit there and smile at Cassandra and tell her everything that she wants to know about the Rift, what happened with the demons, and the aftermath.

She will then proceed NOT TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS about her sister.

[stabsbooks]

Not gonna be a lot of questions about Hawke because she's kind of got bigger issues right now. But her cooperation is appreciated.

[fightingale]

Cassandra we are not scrutinising the mages B|!!!!! they are also victims of the danger everyone was exposed to

at the same time, however, it would be remiss not to scrutinise, interrogate and research this from every possible angle

[stabsbooks]

so...scrutiny it is then

she's not interrogating and/or imprisoning all of the mages

just the ones that pose a threat

[stabsbooks]

or might possibly pose a threat someday

[arlathvhen]

Beleth may not actually say anything directly to Cassandra, but she will scowl a lot, mumble under her breath, and look smug when Galadriel argues with her.

And noticeably tense up whenever Cassandra comes within a dozen feet of Sina. She measures the distance. She's watching you.

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin's in agreement with ensuring that there isn't a repeat of what happened, but she'll firmly point out that this isn't an issue about mages in general. The majority of them don't have a shard and thus can't do anything about rifts, either opening or closing them. They can find answers without scapegoating.