faderift | OPEN: Bloomingtide Rifter Arrival

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OPEN: Bloomingtide Rifter Arrival

WHO: New rifters & helpful Inquisition volunteers
WHAT: Welcome to Thedas!
WHEN: Bloomingtide 7
WHERE: The Imperial Highway near Sulcher's Pass
NOTES: This log is slightly backdated, so it's safe to assume safe arrival at Skyhold and begin RPing there as soon as you're ready OOC. It is open to any characters who would have volunteered to go welcome the rifters, whose arrival sites can now be predicted, thank you Solas.

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 onto cold dirt and long grass. When your breath returns and the light's after-image fades from your eyes you will find yourself lying flat on stone, squinting up into sunlight and a shifting, blinding green tear in reality.

You are also not as you were: in the palm of your left hand there glows a narrow splinter of light the same sickly green as whatever brought you here. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. Like the fact that you're being attacked. Surrounding you and the rift through which you arrived are five massive beings made of fire and molten, veiny flesh, rearing back to throw flames at anything that breathes. But mind your step, getting out of their way: the stone beneath you is the ruin of the Imperial Highway, elevated high enough that dropping off either side or the crumbled gap ahead will not be much more survivable than the fire.

Luckily, you are not on your own. Around you others are rising from the ground, equally confused, with the same green lights flaring from their hands. And help is already here—prepared, this time, unsurprised by your appearance, with armor and a few extra weapons to hand off if you've come empty-handed.

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Crossbows, too, are familiar. This man, though, he didn't fall from the sky with him -- but he bears the mark of someone who has, in the past. The Outsider blinks, somewhat surprised when he just leans in and starts talking, but it's- refreshing. He is feared in his own world, more even than this man seems to think he will be feared here, and people do not often have conversations with him.

Probably because he doesn't usually let them speak, but it's typically not much worth saying. This is unexpected, and that makes it interesting.

"My own world is similar," he says after a moment. "Practitioners of magic are hunted and killed, and I am rather specifically hated." Comes with being part of the Void. "But- I am not often looked out for, thought of as someone who might need it, in that world. Thank you."

And isn't that an odd phrase to say, when he can't remember the last time he said it?

"What would be considered something stupid?"

"Only some people want to hunt down mages here. They're called mages here. I don't even have magic back home. I mean, advanced enough technology being indistinguishable..." He trails off, momentarily lost in a thought before shaking his head.

"It's insanely complicated here, from what I've learned. You've got the double-whammy of being magically-inclined outside of what they know and being a Rifter from another world. Sucks to be you, buddy." Sucks to be anyone with a shard, really, but at least the other shardbearers are from this world.

As for what constitutes as stupid? "Uhhhh. I mean, try not to antagonize every single person where we're going? And maybe don't be blatantly defiant. Or open more of these holes in the sky. Or summon demons. Maybe keep the floating to a minimum." Church watches him for a moment longer, peering at him, really. "So I have got to ask. The eyes." He makes a motion to his, as if his almost unnaturally green ones aren't at all noticeable. "Is that...normal? Or like...an indicator of why people really at your in particular back home?"

'Try not to antagonize'. Church might as well have just told him to do the hula for everyone; the Outsider has next to no practice in not being at least a bit irritating. He has no patience for those who think they are the only ones with power, the only ones to be respected. He sews discord; he has seen his Marked bring down people who thought they were untouchable.

Still. He can remember that they are- if not beneath him, then at least boring.

"Not for most in my world, no. I was chosen by the Void as its current deity, over four thousand years ago. My eyes changed then, as did I." Which reminds him- "I am not only a mage. I am the source of magic in my world, through the power of the Void."

Church stares at Void-god-kid for a few long moments. "...Yeeeeaaaaah, I think a lot of native people are going to have a problem with about everything you just said. Pretty sure there's no Void here, though. Just the Fade. Not sure if those'll end up being similar or not. Did you seriously just say four thousand years?"

"The Fade?" And, well. Yeah, a lot of native people have problems with that in his own world, too. "No. I said over four thousand years ago. I have lost track of the exact year; after long enough, one year seems less important than ten, and so on."

Especially in the Void. Especially when everything outside the Void is especially boring for a few centuries.

"The Fade's the weird green place you were falling through. It's kind of a place where all the spooky supernatural shit lives? And is also kind of an afterlife? Honestly I'm not sure even they agree on what it is." Can't seem to agree on spirit vs soul, anyway, and shit like that.

"Okay, don't fuck with me, are you seriously a god-being? Because, look, I'm used to weird alien shit, but thousands and thousands of years is... I mean, that'd put you in, what, Mesopotamia? Babylon? I have no idea what civilizations existed then."

It certainly sounds familiar, if the wrong color. He will have to research the Fade, and magic, and- well, a great deal of other things, from the sound of it. Luckily it all, so far, seems relatively interesting.

"Yes. The Void hungers for something to represent it. I am not the first, and I will not be the last." Which is likely not very god-like at all, to most people, but that is simply how the world he lives in works. "I have seen civilizations rise and fall and be forgotten. No one in my own world now would recognize the name of the place where I was born."

"I see the Void also hungers for eyeballs. How do you see?"

What? Valid question. Void-boy's got Voids for eyes. That doesn't usually translate to vision. More like to a bad grenade throw and cybernetic implants.

There is, for a moment, just a very long stare.

Then: "The Void did not take my eyes."

He's honestly not sure how to react to this. People are not like- he has no idea what this person is called.

"You may check for yourself, but in the meantime- I do not know your name."

"Okay, snake-eyes," church no "I'm just saying... I mean at least they don't glow. That'd probably be worse."

There's a thing a lot of people have that filters out what the brain thinks and what the mouth says. Maybe that's a part of Church that got filled with holes too! "I'm Church. Do you have a name? Or is that lost to the sands of time, too?"

To be fair, Snake-Eyes is probably a better nickname in Thedas than the Outsider is. Church is an odd name as well (he wonders, briefly, if the man's parents were simply that religious), but the question about his own makes the corner of his mouth twitch up.

"In a manner of speaking. I am most commonly called the Outsider." His old name belonged to a human boy. Even with different powers, with the fact that he can feel that he is not the same, it still doesn't seem to apply.

"Yeah." He smirked. "No. I mean maybe you'll respond to that, and hey, it's even true, but I mean...it's not really a name, is it? The Outsider." His head tilted at Void-Boy-God-Snake-Eyes. "You look kinda like a Steve. Joey? Jacob. Hm...I mean work the name if you want, but if you want to get a more normal-y name just in case..."

"And what is 'normal'?" Normal to Church? Normal to the Outsider? Normal to Thedas? None would really make him blend in.

Though perhaps it would not hurt, to find an alias. It's never something he's needed in his world, but he's always been able to simply return to the Void in his world. That isn't an option here, and he may have to be far more like Corvo and Daud than he ever thought he would.

It's a question that sounds easy right up until he has to define it. Opens his mouth, closes his mouth. Huh. And here he is suggesting changes to a newbie who hasn't even been introduced to this world yet, just because he's hidden some of his history (for good reason)--maybe that's the wrong way to go. Maybe instead of trying to blend in, they should be who they are as loudly and proudly as they want.

It's a future goal, anyway. "Y'know what? Good point. You're the Outsider? Then fuck it, that's your name, don't wear it out. You got void eyes and float around creepily? That's just you, and anyone with a problem with it can fuck off. ...Still, people are definitely going to have a problem with some of you."

"As they always do." His smile is crooked, somewhat amused. It had been interesting to watch Church work that out, and he wonders, idly, if it will change anything the man does himself. "I dare say that I am used to it."

He has no idea, of course, of the differences in scrutiny between those of his world and of Thedas. He also hasn't been stuck in the physical world before with no escape. But he'll adapt.

"So you normally poke your head out of Voidspace to spook people spookily? I mean, what does the god of the Void do, exactly?" yes, church, besides 'be creepy'

"I watch."

So- 'be creepy'.

"Sometimes, I offer abilities, or information, and I see what the individual in question does with them. Most people are predictable, but once in a while, someone takes me by surprise. They have potential."

"You just...hand out powers? To random people? For fun?"

"I would not calm them random." But yeah, basically.

"...I don't suppose you could do that now?" Hey, look, it's worth a shot okay??

There's a pause and he looks down at his hands. Then he stares at Church for a moment, brow furrowing.

"... Apparently not."

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OPEN: Bloomingtide Rifter Arrival

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