Inbox - Fade Rift

[nonvenomous]

Book/crystal/correspondence/action/whatever you desire.

Comments

crystal.

[charmoffensive]

Well that was fun.

Is fun. There are stragglers with opinions, it seems.

[nonvenomous]

Do you really care what these people organize or is it all purely hypothetical?

Enchanted book or a note passed back and forth, you decide!

[sulahnan]

[ In very bad handwriting, with terrible spelling. ]

Ser Richard: Please tell me what food/drinks you like!
- Exhausting Athessa

definitely book

[nonvenomous]

[ In very tidy, compact handwriting, and with impeccable spelling: ]

Hello Athessa,

Why would you want or need to know this?

It reads like stage one of an attempted poisoning.

- Ser Richard

action.

[charmoffensive]

[ Normally, Loxley makes a point of dining in public spaces; it's an easy medium in which to make some fast friends and find company, innately social, and certainly beats ferreting away supplies up winding stairs.

But there's a fucking plague or something, and even without a working knowledge of germ theory, the echoing sound of a hacking cough here and there makes for less than pleasurable ambiance. So Loxley swans into the room and he's holding a few rudimentary supplies for the evening, including bread and cured meat and a bottle he's had filled with ale.

These things are set down on a table with more force than strictly necessary. ]

[nonvenomous]

[ In this room there is a desk; seated at the desk is a blanket babushka. It’s upright at an odd, leaning angle, lax through the shoulders, with a pen or a quill or whatever people use in this universe bleeding ink out into an otherwise clean scrap of parchment.

The babushka jolts at the thud of Loxley’s supplies, the pen clatters from his fingers, Richard Dickerson’s mug craned bleary and wild-eyed into a look over his shoulder. ]

HHhfh, [ he breathes forcefully out through his teeth, exasperation quick to overtake fight or flight. Rather than chide, he looks to Loxley and his dinner, with a weary glance for the burned out stump of the candle on the desk. What year is it? ]

What's wrong?

laughs irl about this inbox gif

[sulahnan]

[ Not long after the conversation via book, a bottle of wine turns up neatly tucked into Richard's bed, with its neck on the pillow as if the bottle is having a nice little nap. According to the label, it is Le Chat Pinot Noir. There's no note, but how many people have been offering Richard wine lately? ]

book.

[charmoffensive]

Richard I have a Favour to ask of you
of great import

[ Handwriting oddly shakey. ]

book.

[nonvenomous]

[ seen at xx:xx hours ]

action;

[unshut]

[The very last ferry back to the Gallows is always crowded for space. The one immediately before it however—]

You're familiar with the qunari Rifter, are you not? Loxley, I believe.

[It's just the two of them and the ferryman, rain pissing off the points of the woman's waxed cloak's hood. She is faintly green around the gills and pale everywhere else. The ferry plows down from the crest of one hacking harbor wave and into another, bouncing unpleasantly. She winces.]

Apologies. I find talking keeps the mind from the stomach.

[nonvenomous]

[ Physically, Dick is here, jaw set grim against the wet and the cold and the harbor chop, bones stood out sharp beneath the backing of his gloves where he’s death gripped onto his bench. He’s in a hat under his hood, heavy with the rain.

Mentally -- he looks to her out of the middle distance as if he’s only just realized she’s there. Or that he is here, in the present, and available to be spoken to. Every ounce of sober concentration he can gather turns over into an effort to put a name to her face, or an intent behind the question. His struggle is real.

This is a man that does not like boats, or the cold, or the slam of the bottom of the boat at the butt of his spine at the end of every trough. ]

We’re from the same world, [ he answers, coherently, reasonably, helpfully, and after just a little bit too long of a delay. ]

Richard. [ He gives his name like an apology: the less dashing D&D. ]

book!

[sulahnan]

[ Handwriting much improved, if still a little slowly written. ]

Richard,

Was the wine to your liking? I also would like to know why it's only since arriving here that you've become interested in it, if it's also a thing where you come from.

- Athessa

book!

[nonvenomous]

Hello Athessa,

I see you’ve been working on your handwriting. I have enjoyed the wine, thank you.

I previously enjoyed an innate immunity to poison, which unfortunately included the alcohol in wine.

-Richard

crystal;

[wythersake]

For lack of sand, I've taken to burying my head in routine, but it has occurred to me that at some point a formal introduction might be due. This is Mssr. Dickerson, yes? From the Infirmary?

[nonvenomous]

Yes, this is Mssr. Dick Dickerson, occasionally of the infirmary. I see you also have a vested interest in dressing young Matthias for success.

action

[sulahnan]

[ Here they are again. Where here is doesn't matter so much as the fact that they're getting stoned together and Athessa is flat on her back staring up at nothing and holding a lock of her own hair between upper lip and nose as if it's a mustache. ]

Why is Dick the short form of Richard?

[nonvenomous]

[ ‘Here’ is atop a seldom-patrolled wall or a stubby tower over the courtyard at night, with enough of a breeze to draw whiffs of the stink through battlements down to the open yard below. Richard is seated with his back to the stone, stifling a smoky cough past the joint pinched in his fingers.

He stretches to offer it back out to her, hair mustache and all, without cracking so much as a smile in the dark. ]

No, no. The joke goes like this: [ he coaches, mildly, before furling out the smoke he’d held in and gathering himself. ] How do you get ‘Dick’ from ‘Richard?’

action;

[heirring]

A corner is turned. Should one prefer to evade harrassment or the kind of conversation which may in some circles constitute as battery, it might be described as an inauspicious one.

"Oh, Mr. Dickerson!" Wysteria has to check her momentum to keep from plowing directly into him as she comes hustling around from the other direction. She huffs. She puffs. She takes him by the elbow and laughs. "What a fortuitous meeting this is! I had just been thinking to myself that we ought to arrange to speak again in private. Mr. Fitz is exceedingly sharp, of course, but I believe the pair of us to be something like kindred spirits on a different level entirely. You agree, don't you?"

[nonvenomous]

It all happens so quickly.

Like a snail plucked up from a leaf by fingers faster than anything it can fathom, Richard is disrupted into delay. The signal from his brain to put up resistance misfires; he’s already taken a few steps before he hoods his brow and tenses in her grasp -- a kind of musculoskeletal sucking in of the feelers that mark mollusks as curious, happy and free.

"Miss Poppell, I --"

He looks back to the corner she’s already pulled him well away from. Where was he even going? What is his excuse?

"I’m not sure I follow."

[wythersake]

I do need the name of your tailor.

[nonvenomous]

Frankly if you're looking for best dressed you'd be better served by checking in with Commander Flint.

crystal.

[heorte]

Have you ever built a chicken coop?

[nonvenomous]

[ ... ]

Literally or figuratively?

crystal;

[unshut]

I believe you have something of mine.

https://media1.tenor.com/images/31687bd8c9f1bb56f3e7f6c72c68150f/tenor.gif?itemid=9617741

[nonvenomous]

I'm not sure what you mean.

crystal. sometime after ghislain, before satinalia.

[charmoffensive]

Boat's gone.

[ --it is late, so that can only mean one thing, that being another missed ferry, lest Richard get very confused at the terrible mystery of Loxley not returning to their shared quarters.

But this isn't just an FYI, as he continues; ]

We're coming up on a year, you know.

[nonvenomous]

I was beside myself with worry.

[ Richard is tucked in bed with a book. He turns the page and reaches for a glass of wine on the desk next to him, rather than reach for the crystal directly next to it. ]

What would you like to do for our anniversary?

[heirring]

[At some point while crossing a courtyard, a flouncing shape separates itself from the background surrounding it in the corner of his eye and diverts to close distance. It is the beeline progress of a predator.]

Mr. Dickerson, there you are.

[nonvenomous]

[ Oh, no.

There is a catch in Richard’s step at the movement, even before he’s heard his name — a casual changing of direction that is too little, too late. He has to stop and turn at the sound of his name, the breath he’d taken in to brace himself with let out in a passably polite, ] Hello, Miss Poppell.

[ He is drawn; there are circles around his
eyes, and his collar is flared, the tunic under his vest pulled on from yesterday’s laundry for the sole purpose of this one errand he’s gotten dressed to attend to. ]

What a coincidence.

crystal.

[acreage]

[ not immediately after their return from murderhaus, but not too far later, either. ]

How's that hand doing?

[ a safer question than something like how are you doing ]

[nonvenomous]

It's still attached.

[ Can't complain. ]

You sound to be in less pain.

crystal, post-murderhaus

[sulahnan]

[ At some unimportant time of the day when there's not much going on. ]

Richard, are you busy?

[ Athessa doesn't sound upset, agitated, sad, or anxious. At most she sounds tired, but mostly she sounds bored. She's not yet at the end of her mandated week of not using her shoulder. ]

[nonvenomous]

[ Richard jolts, tipping lit incense into leaf litter that he has to stump out with his satchel before he can reply, evenly: ]

I’m in town.

[ This isn’t strictly true, but the poo-tee-tweet of songbirds in the tree cover overhead isn’t likely to carry over. ]

Is everything alright?

crystal, not long after the punchening.

[poleaxed]

I'll not as any why's or wherefore's; I haven't the time to bother even if it were any of me business.

But what would you like to be called, mate?

[nonvenomous]

[ The answer is delayed. ]

My name is Zseiless. [ It sounds close enough to 'Silas' to be indistinguishable for the purposes of this conversation. ] Most here know me as Richard. I'll answer to either.

post dream; crystal

[sulahnan]

[ Without preamble: ]

Nobody's gonna kill you.

[ ...maybe she should've eased into it. Ah, well. ]

This isn't the first time this has happened.

[nonvenomous]

[ His reply is some time in coming. ]

Why would anyone want to kill me?

a note;

[heirring]

Slipped under his door either very late in the day indeed or perhaps in the very early hours of morning, is a crisp off white envelope. It is unsealed. The note contained therein is neatly trimmed and features ominously lovely handwriting. It reads—

Salutations Mr Dickerson,

Kindly meet with me in the Project Felandaris office this afternoon just prior to the lunch hour so we may discuss how we mean to move forward.

Cordially,
W.A. Poppell
Research Division
Assistant to the Seneschal
Project Felandaris (consulting)

[nonvenomous]

Richard Dickerson has been on the receiving end of such messages before.

Finding it toggles something in him, upon his return. He spends some time at the table with it, considering the wood grain, the foot of his lamp.

He arrives on time, insofar as it’s possible to be precise within the provided parameters. There was no time for him to shave, but he is clean, and neatly dressed in a vest and a coat, and his hair is combed. Mostly. Hair of the dog crawls sharp on his breath, powerful even at a distance.

But he is here, paused at the threshold, where it has only just now occurred to him that he should have stopped and listened for the sound of more than one voice on the other side of it.

[heorte]

A note, written on a piece of neatly torn parchment and dropped into Richard's mailbox—

Richard,

I'm traveling to Ferelden on an errand. It may take some time to accomplish.

I intend to return, in case you wondered.

— Ellis

crystal;

[kantikoy]

Hello. My name is Adrasteia and I am hoping to reach Richard Dickerson.

[nonvenomous]

[ Groggy, late to answer: ] What do you need him for?

crystal / after thot's grand entrance

[heorte]

Can you spare some time today?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaCqvZ1WsAEhyxR.jpg

[nonvenomous]

Of course. Where would you like to meet?

a package and a note;

[kantikoy]

[ Routed through whatever Riftwatch authority knows how to reach Richard where he lives (if that's not in the Gallows any longer; Adrasteia doesn't know and did not ask) is a small package that has been sealed with wax.

Inside the package is a small metal case, a small metal ball with a bell inside (for Thot), and a note. The note reads: ]

Thank you for the dance and the opportunity to settle my nerves.

-Adrasteia

[ Inside the case are three handrolled elfroot joints. ]

[nonvenomous]

[ A slip of a note is left folded over in Adrasteia’s mailbox within the Gallows some days later, in tidy hand: ]

Warden Adrasteia,

Thank you for thinking of me.

-Richard

crystal

[bouchonne]

Hello.

[nonvenomous]

[ So seldom does Silas use his crystal for anything but eavesdropping that there is a distinct pause before he realizes he is being addressed personally by Byerly’s voice from his pocket. ]

Hello, Ambassador.