open: something grabs ahold of me tightly

[faderifting]

WHO: Inquisition Forces
WHAT: Inquisition forces cross the mountains into Orlais to deal with Emprise du Lion
WHEN: Wintermarch 25 onward
WHERE: EMPRISE DU LION
NOTES: This is a mingle-style log for the Inquisition camps, local tavern, and general/open Inquisition work, etc.

This time they hike down to the west, but the trip through the mountains is no easier. The snow is heaped up about the road where wagons have pushed it aside, stomped into slippery pack beneath the feet and hooves that have gone before. Of the main track it is ankle deep at best and in places it drifts, waist-deep on a tall man and enough to bury a dwarf who hasn't come prepared with snowshoes. Everywhere the wind howls, biting cold, and the sky hangs low, a pale flat grey that makes it difficult to judge distances. Those who know winter weather call it a snow sky, and near-daily squalls prove them right.

They set up camp in Sahrnia, across the broad expanse of frozen river that has trapped the villagers here upstream. Tents pop up in rows and in the shells of tumbled-down buildings, fires blazing and thawing the ground to mud. When the supply wagons roll in they re-open the local tavern, brightly lit with flaking paint on the walls that might once have been colorful and patterned tiles on the floor that seems to swim like an optical illusion after too many glasses of the cheap red wine that fills the cellars.

Even deadlier reds hold the hills: Red Templar sightings have been frequent and it is said they are operating in several locations in the region in significant force. Some of these men and women have become hulking, crystalline beasts. Many others are in the earlier stages of corruption: red-veined and -eyed, aggressive and superhumanly strong, but still visibly human and coherent if spoken to. Red lyrium is even easier to find, jutting out of the ground or cliffsides, filling caves-- the Tower of Bone, a fortress that has stood for centuries, now threatens to split from the inside out. The area's wildlife was none too friendly before, but now the wolves and bears have begun to be corrupted by the lyrium and many will attack on sight, without provocation. (The snofleurs that bumble harmlessly around the river seem unaffected.)

Everywhere there are ruins: broken bridges, crumbling colosseums, and the great hulking mass of Suledin's Keep tucked between the distant hills. Scouts reported that Red Templars hold it as well.

RIFTER ARRIVAL - SAHRNIA - THE HILLS - TOWER CAMP - A HANDY MAP

Comments

A NEARBY RIFT (WINTERMARCH 25, CLOSED TO NEW RIFTERS)

[faderifting]

You were asleep--deeply or fitfully, for the last time or just resting your eyes for a moment--and then you were not. And wherever you were was not, anymore, replaced by nothing but the sensation of falling, tumbling into endless, bottomless nothing. If this were still a dream, you would wake before you hit the ground. You can't die in a dream, they say. In some worlds.

But there's no waking here, just a flare of green-white light and a jarring impact, a fall into a deep drift of snow. It's bright out, and quiet in the way that winter sometimes is, with the sounds of wind and creaking trees and a single, horrible screech all distinct and loud against the backdrop.

The source of the screech is a hooded figure, hovering and horrible, with loose grey skin and rodent-like incisors. Beside it are two shimmers of human-shaped air. They turn on you as soon as you move, throwing ice and fire in a blind rage.

You are not alone. Around you are others, equally out of place, perhaps slightly underdressed for the occasion, climbing up out of the snow. You are also not as you were: in the palm of your left hand a narrow splinter of light glows the same sickly green as whatever brought you here. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions.

There is no one else here. There is no help coming. But if you can live long enough, there's a road, and not far away, a village.

[maladgogo]

The odd dreams were nothing new to him. They'd plagued him all his life, in the shapes of demons and spirits and dead loved ones. It wasn't a shock that the sensations felt real, or that things had blurred into light and noise and that he could almost process what was happening.

What WAS new, though, was the sudden impact with a lot of very hard, cold ground. Portsmouth, South Carolina was not generally a place with snow, even in the middle of winter, and Boston, while it had recently been snowed all the fuck over, wasn't exactly somewhere that he went outside when he didn't have to. So unless he'd been physically picked up and thrown into the snow, it was highly unlikely that he was there.

Sitting up, Guy was muttering under his breath, a sleep-slurred mix of creole and common, peppered with profanity, up until the ground nearby flared with orange and yellow and warmth. "Motherfucker!" He scrambled to his feet and stared around, shivering slightly as the freezing air hit his bare back. Now that thing, he was pretty sure he'd seen something like it, haunting his lover's best friend's house, but never had it thrown fire at him before. And this wasn't the shrine, not by a longshot. He uttered a quick spell under his breath, then patted around his being, only belatedly realizing that yep, he was still wearing nothing but a pair of slightly sagging pajama pants, his crystal phial, and a pair of socks soaking through with snowmelt. They were frozen solid as soon as he noticed them though, as the rat-faced spirit had turned its sights on him momentarily, and he was forced to scramble back.

Weapon. He needed a weapon, and fast.

[haseki]

Unfortunately, what weaponry Zafire has is not particularly impressive: she has come through the rift with only simple dagger, which she tosses onto the snow near Guy. She can stagger the foul thing approaching Guy (who looks to be in even worse a state, sartorially, than she is, leading her to conclude he is probably not the one responsible for her circumstances). Her spell saps a little more of her precious energy, but buckles the beast temporarily, as its mottled grey skin sloughs from its repellent face. It looks deeply painful, but then she is hoping it will be.

"Hurry," she says, her voice sounding a lot clearer and more authoritative than she really feels, "you must kill it quickly. I will distract its companions."

Can these things even die? Zafire intends to find out.

[maladgogo]

He wasn't even fully awake yet, but he was catching up quick enough to notice the blade he'd been tossed, scrambling through the snow for it and holding it with the blade out from his fist, crouching slow when he managed to roll himself to his feet. He reached out when he noticed her starting to sag, curling strong fingers into whatever loose clothing was closest and pulling her over and behind him. After all, he was larger, and could possibly provide a decent meat shield from behind which she could assess shit a little more easily.

"Hang back there sis," he gasped, before taking advantage of the damage that she'd done to the demon and hopping forward to try and slash whatever that was that it called a face. He barely managed to graze it before it had darted back away, and it shrieked and spat a beam of pure cold at the two of them. "Beat it on down the hill," he called back behind him. If she could get out of range and maybe take a moment to recover some of her energy, they might both have better chance of living to figure out what the absolute fuck was happening here.

[haseki]

Contact is unexpected, but Zafire has no time and better sense than to bristle in the haughty fashion she supposes would be considered ladylike — he is being helpful, actively heroic even, and their lives are at risk — and so she focuses instead on the matter at hand, which is killing what would kill them. While he contends with the rat-faced creature, she hastens further down the hill, drawing the eye of one greenish spectral silhouette. Although she does feel unbalanced, despite not really having taken any injury, adrenaline is enough to keep her going, for now.

It's weaker than the grey one, which she supposes makes sense; it attacks from a distance, whereas the other primarily uses its claws. The wraith follows her in order to cast its spells in her direction, and she uses that new proximity to bewitch its strange manifestation a second time. When it bursts into a flare of violent light and disappears, she is still more disturbed than relieved, thinking there may be more revenants waiting in the snow-laden landscape.

"I don't know what this place is, or how I came to be here," she says, sounding tense and distracted, "but if it gives birth to things like these, I can only imagine what its residents must be like."

This is maybe an unfair statement, since Zafire's homeland is also host to an array of disturbing entities that want to kill everyone, but she is upset.

[maladgogo]

It takes a few solid swings with the blade he'd been handed, but not too long after Zafire finished off her wraith, the rift was flaring again as he sent the rat-faced demon back into it. He wipes the nasty black ooze off the blade and looks up at the last remaining creature, advancing on it with his knife hand thrust forward. It hovered away as he approached, but it didn't get far before he was striking straight through it. His arm feels like it's burning with cold but when the spirit retreats and the rift morphs into an ugly, spiked crystal overhead, he takes his chance to head down the hill in the lady's footsteps.

"Where you at? All clear up here," he called, looking along the trail of tracks in the snow in the hopes of finding her and making sure she hadn't been hurt. He breathes a sigh of relief when he spots her a little further on. He jogs his way down through the knee-deep snow and lays a hand on her arm, not gripping or shoving, more like a touch of reassurance. "You good?"

[haseki]

She is briefly hypnotized by the far-off vision of the crystallized rift, eyes wide, the eerie, sickly green hue reflecting off the snow like starlight would have anywhere else. Guy's return rattles her out of her staring, and Zafire nods, immediately, anxiety rising a second time at the back of her mind. If she came through that thing, someone else might have, too. Anyone from home. Halime. Selim. If she leaves and they are here, will she be abandoning them? Zafire can barely slog through this snow, but Selim, particularly, would struggle.

"As good as can be expected. Did you see anyone else around? Anyone that isn't a monster."

[maladgogo]

"Thought there was another one 'round here somewhere, but ain't seen 'em since. Just you." Shrugging, Guy offers his arm to help her get through the snow a little more easily. He figures he'd be having a lot more trouble with it, if he didn't stand about a head taller than most folks.

"Come on sis, let's try n' get somewhere warm. Maybe find some help, huh?"

[haseki]

Both help and warmth sound incredibly appealing right now, but unfortunately she is as of yet too suspicious for the former and unable to reach the latter. Before she goes anywhere, she needs to have a better look around for whoever this third person was, wherever they've gone. Even if it isn't Halime or Selim (certainly he'd have noted if it were a child he saw, but Halime is nearly fourteen and tall for her age, it'd be easy to get confused...), maybe it's someone she knows.

After a hesitant pause, she rests her hand briefly on Guy's arm, pushing it back to his side and offering some commiseration, in the same gesture.

"I can't go yet." It would be prudent to explain, probably, but she's too jumpy. Another time, perhaps. "If you find a place populated by people instead of revenants, I will find it, too. And I'll see you there, I'm certain. Thank you for all your help."

[haseki]

It had only been a brief sleep. The long chaise in the most sunlit space in the old monastery claimed as her (their) own, her children learning their numbers in the next room, a moment of respite and peace —

And the strangest dream Zafire had ever experienced. Usually her most vivid dreams were brought on by stress, and she had supposed, somewhere in the back of her consciousness, that this one could be too, but the biting cold sting of snow on her skin is enough to tell her this is no dream. More than that, she can feel some injury to her hand. It has the resonant, throbbing quality of an old injury, in fact, but it is clearly new, and it is clearly glowing, which is unacceptable and impossible. The unnatural green makes her freeze in place, half-sat up on the bank of some desolate snowbank.

She has never seen snow like this, either.

A sudden violent gust of sharp ice grazes her hair, uncovered (her shawl is somewhere on the snow, white-on-white), and she jolts back to life, twisting away from the trajectory of the blast. While she is conscious of the existence of monsters, seldom are they so blatantly corporeal, in her experience. Nor do they approach so boldly in daylight. She spends a lot of her time mulling over the enemies she already possesses, so suddenly being confronted with new ones is infuriating, driving her to act, not think; the details of her circumstances will have to wait. She is rapidly filled with the kind of rattled anger that is easier to admit to than being fucking terrified. The more frightened she feels, the greater her accompanying rage.

While Zafire sees the grey-skinned thing, registers the visceral temptation of it being easier to maim, the shimmering thing barely visible is what she wants dead, and she lifts her hand to track its manifestation and apply a temporary crushing force to its insides. The spell won't be enough to save her, though. She needs to find cover, or better yet, a way out of here.