OPEN: Bloomingtide Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[foxsays]

Where Araceli comes from, they have a little something called manners but alas, Thedas is yet to catch up for the most part. As far as someone falling out of a rift goes, she's been there, done that, and she remembers being frightened out of her wits and not caring for anything more than Korrin coming to her rescue so anything odd about his appearance? Well she won't judge, not when she's darting in and out, eyes trained to find weak spots now, putting what she's practiced to good use. It's one of the first times she's really tried using any of the bard tricks outside of Skyhold or the mission to Antiva, unsure of how it would hold up but she feels...well she feels something.

Not that she can be distracted, not when there's fire coming at her until it's not.

"Thank you." Is it with regard to his words or his actions, or possibly both? The song continues when she can draw breath again, a song of heroes of Thedas that she knows only from what she's read but there's enough belief in their deeds, in their valour that she draws on now, catching movement in the corner of her eye and jabbing at the spindly knee of a terror before following through with a heavier slash from the smaller knife, ducking under the arm that claws for her.

[extramural]

Perhaps someday they'll get there. Granted, no one in Dunwall has much in the way of manners either -- it's fear or it's lies, most of the time. The Outsider is certainly lacking in them, but that's mostly because he's out of practice. Still, he remembers the response to 'thank you'.

"You are most welcome." And in return, his blade joins with hers, blocking the reaching arm that tries to follow her evasion. The terror screeches and the Outsider smiles, blasting it into a second rage demon with a sudden burst of summoned wind. It smells, for a moment, extraordinarily like the sea.

[foxsays]

When people like Seeker Pentaghast go sending thugs to drag girls off walls by the ankles? Don't hold your breathe. (Except do it because that might be interesting if she ever finds out what you are Outsider.)

Battle is hardly the time to be distracted, and in truth it's been a long time since she had to face demons properly, something she's grateful for but then he does something she could dismiss as just magic until it stirs something so deep within her that it lives in her bones. A soft sound escapes her, one she can't help but it's been months now, long miserable months with only memories, nothing smelling like home anymore and she turns sharply to stare at him with wide eyes, eyes that burn with the sting of tears. She can't have imagined that. If she did then she's finally going mad here--

"What did you do?" Her voice is too gentle for it to be angry, to even be afraid. It's not even the wind, it was the sea, it was home, it was everything she missed there for an instant in the last place she expected to find it, and for a moment she's so heartsick yet strangely at peace she can barely breathe.

[extramural]

It is a faint product of his own magic, of his connection to the Void and its connection to his world, that brings out the smell of the sea. It's the same reason sometimes his sort of magic sounds faintly like whale song, the same reason his blurred Fade Step looks like the bright blue of whale oil mixed with deep purple and black. It is what his world is, what he is, even before Dunwall. The sea has been there far longer than the city.

And it seems this woman, this Rifter, is of it at least as much as he is.

"It is, perhaps, more complicated than I can currently discuss." Since they're still being attacked by demons and all. "But my world is closely tied to the sea, as am I, and so my magic often reflects that."

[foxsays]

Nodding, when one of the rage demons comes for her, the heat prickling at her skin she rolls out of the way and behind it. Her advantage lies in being faster than a demon, in being able to actually think from everything Korrin and the other mages have told her about demons and spirits. Still, after not falling in ill when things from beyond the Veil were tormenting so many in Skyhold with the belief that it was the sea keeping her safe, meeting someone like this out of the rift has to be a sign that it hasn't forgotten her, right?

"If you could summon up waves and douse the rage demons, that would be appreciated." She's not expecting miracles here but well, it'd be nice to catch some sort of break against these things for a change. At least a blade punching through a demon from the back works well though because one screams, 'arms' stiffening before it collapses on itself into a heap, Araceli jumping back out of the way.

[extramural]

"Alas."

He can't use waves, but he does summon up another blast of wind to try and douse some of the fires. It only fans them, at first, and he scowls -- and tries again, this time aiming down to pick up some of the dirt and dust. That works better.

"I find that I am- different, here. That my abilities are different." From the teleportation-turned-Fade Step to the fact that he's getting tired, things have definitely changed. Severed from the Void as he is, he supposes it only makes sense.

[foxsays]

"I can ask Korrin later, and other mages." Perks of dating a member of the Mage Council is that she can definitely ask anything she likes completely off the record, since well, Templars.

And he is a bit odd. Not that she minds odd when it reminds her of the sea but there's something very different about him, something that makes her work harder to hurry up and finish the fight so they might talk, neat precise cuts.

"What I would give for a pistol." A familiar grievance, a rare slip but she can imagine how satisfying it would to take aim at a demon and to watch the shot punch a neat hole through them instead of having to use all her weight to get the blade to go in, wrenching it back to go up for the throat. It does the trick, and down it goes, only one left but a girl needs a gun these days.

[extramural]

"And tell me what you find out?" Because, well, otherwise it doesn't quite help him.

Still, she seems- helpful. She has the same green mark on his hand that he does, and she knows the sea. It is, for the moment, enough -- at least enough to join her in finishing off the demons.

The mention of a pistol makes him chuckle, low in his throat. Telekinetic force sends a small stone barreling through the remaining demon, though it isn't quite as effective as a bullet. "I take it those here have not yet invented them?"

[foxsays]

"You were invited too, unless you'd prefer otherwise." She's been here long enough now that she's so accustomed to any invitation that involves Korrin usually automatically being extended to others without having to clarify, half her natural gregarious state, and half how they always are, never excluding others until they lock the door at night or steal one away from other people.

With half a dragon tooth around her throat now, she can stake her claim a little more. Or she would, she's not like that, but it's funny sometimes to see how easily she can steal Korrin away anyway.

"They have bows." And a bow is fine for a hunt. But well - look at this fight, how much faster would it have been finished had there been pistols, muskets, rifles? Familiar weights on either hip that she still misses even now because she'd been so used to them. She doesn't speak again until the demon goes down, flexing her green hand with a huff. "Someone called me a demon when I mentioned one to him, things are a little better but such is the world here."

[extramural]

Oh. Well. That's unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. "I believe I would enjoy it." The question is more along the lines of whether the others would appreciate his presence, but as long as no one has to be killed over it, he supposes it will be fine. It may even be fun, considering how much he's unnerved a number of people already.

"You could certainly turn heads creating firearms instead," he muses, then chuckles slightly. Someone called her a demon because she talked about guns? What a ridiculous place. Sounds like home. "Do they often toss around such accusations?"

[foxsays]

Unlike many, she truly does have manners. A whore and a pirate for a father, of course she does, they're the best sort to teach those things despite what most ignorant people might think. And well, Korrin took up with a rifter, and Araceli has a silver tongue so even if it's the two of them asking through other people at first it might work well enough because Araceli isn't entirely sure of how all the loyalties lie exactly.

"I can repair and maintain, I can even draw them but I couldn't fashion my own," but now he's planted an idea and that's terrible. Especially when rifters are feared for other reasons that don't include weapons they could fashion from home, when they could probably figure out gunpowder quite easily. Imagine a bard with a pistol tucked into her bodice. Still, she'll give him the quickest version of the story that she can so he knows, because he smells like the sea that she misses, because she remembers being new and frightened, Korrin's hand hauling her up and out of the snow. "Not so much now but at the start when we were all very new? Yes. A Templar threw accusations very loudly and things from beyond the Veil that come from the Fade are spirits at best - and even then not always trusted - or demons at worst. Many normal people fear them, and they fear the mages because they think a mage is just waiting to get possessed at any moment - they used to lock most of the mages up in towers where they could. That's the kind of world we're in, isn't it wonderful." She smiles, sharp as a knife. At least she's going to make it better for the mages even if it means working her fingers to the bone.

[extramural]

"Others may be able to, if they have plans," he offers. He thrives on this -- on seeing what people will take and run with, with just a bit of a nudge. He doesn't even always need to give the nudge, but- well. Consider it a gift, Araceli.

There's a low chuckle, his own smile sharp like shark teeth, like every sea monster that lurks beneath the waves. "They kill them on sight, in my world. I expect they'll have to try harder, if they wish to bully me into submission." He is four thousand years old, a deity chosen by the Void. He will not bow to threats of capture. "What is a Templar?"

[foxsays]

"And do you? Have plans?" No she shouldn't be smiling but she is, bright as a newly minted coin, swinging up and back on her toes then to her heels. And her, friends with a blacksmith. And a bard that might be able to procure things if she speaks to certain nobles charmingly enough.

"Templars are warriors here, before the Mage-Templar war they were part of the Chantry which is the main religion for the humans and the city elves, and magic was regulated with mages confined to places called Circles. Some Templars and Circles were decent but they had power, and what happens with power?" She shrugs - power is abused easily, especially if it's put the hands of someone with a sword who is told they have the right, they have sanctions, she can only imagine how much worse religion makes that. "They hunted down blood mages, abominations, and apostates too. Blood mages use blood magic, it has a fearsome reputation, apostates are any mages living outwith the Circle, and abominations...abominations are something else. It involves possession, spirits and demons. Things I understand but not well enough to explain to someone, I apologise." She would like to but she just about keeps certain things straight and if she thinks about them for too long then it all starts to slide sideways faster than she can keep up, and she has to go scrambling after it.

But she smiles, wiping down her blades and inspecting them for damage because demons are demons. "They're people, of course, so some are good, some are bad, and most of them will fall in the middle and swing between the two. The peace can get very strained at Skyhold when the Mages have their own Council and are working towards the goal of freedom for good."

[extramural]

"Not physically, but I could create some." From memory, from thousands of years of experience, from seeing every gun in creation thought of and invented and made. They would work, he has no doubt of that.

This information is some of the most interesting and most relevant to date. Even if she cannot tell him about abominations, there is a great deal of knowledge in knowing the religion of the majority. "Similar to Overseers of the Abbey of the Everyman, in my own world," he tells her, since they're sharing. "Save they kill every magic user they come across, and condemn others for use when they simply wanted them out of the way."

Yes, he knows what power often does -- yet he does so love to see how the more interesting use it.

"The majority do hate it when the oppressed rise up."

[foxsays]

"I don't know how I would repay you, but I would." There's nothing but sincerity in her voice coupled with delight in her smile, just a hint of mourning for her pretty pistols handed down from Marjani left at home, and for the array of pistols and muskets in the palace waiting for her to return.

"The Abbey of the Everyman, that would be the religion where you come from?" Is religion everywhere? Don't people just worship the sea like dirty heathen hippies like her people? Anyway, even if Araceli doesn't keep notes for the benefit of the rifters, she's studying to become a bard. That means she's immersing herself in Thedas, in all the things people take for granted, and it sticks with her because any part of it might come to save her life one day, and she needs to be able to fit in and play the Game. "We have no such thing as magic to stamp down, just common people that might rise too high and think they deserve to eat every day, or that the nobles might be held accountable for what they do."

And she does enjoy doing that. Holding them to account, then walking away when she and the rest have left their standing in the dust, when they have to go grubbing in the dirt for their social standing, when everyone knows who and what they are.

"And fear it. Either alone cut deep. Together?" Well, her parents let the sea move through them to have her, and she is perfectly capable of being a shark.

[extramural]

"I like the unexpected, the interesting. This world seems to hold plenty, at least until I get to know it better." It won't be hard for her to repay him if she can provide those, and if not- well, perhaps the introduction of firearms will be interesting enough to consider the debt gone.

"The current main religion of the Empire of the Isles, at least. Pandyssia, the Far Continent, has its own -- and other faiths have risen and fallen with their cities." Some do, at least; there are those dedicated to it in Pandyssia, and those who consider worship of the Outsider essentially the same thing. Yet the Abbey reaches out and strangles such thought, leaving them as lifeless as driftwood.

The plight of the classes would be consistent between worlds. Humans, at least, always desire power, and the good rarely receive it. "The angry, the terrified, they make mistakes."