OPEN: Justinian Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters & helpful Inquisition volunteers
WHAT: Welcome to Thedas!
WHEN: Justinian 7
WHERE: On the outskirts of the Exalted Plains
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. Reaching this rift, as well as returning to Skyhold, will require passing carefully through the active and ongoing battlefront for the War of the Lions. Don't get stabbed.

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. There's a massive, monstrous horned giant stomping toward you, electricity crackling over its purple-gray skin, flanked by ghostly wisps of green light that rear back to hurl bursts of pure magic in your direction.

Your options for escape are limited. To one side, a river; to another, a rock formation too tall and steep to scale. But there's cover behind you in the form of a ruined home—burnt out, missing half of its walls, but still able to resist some damage—and, on the other side of the rift, people coming to help.

Comments

[arcaneadvisor]

Better a mage than a soldier; by this point the War of the Lions is ugly enough that the men and women fighting aren't likely to be friendly to new arrivals. One has to wonder if any of the rumours of rifts have truly reached them or if they've been too preoccupied with fighting their war and trying to keep themselves alive.

"You are fortunate, to be certain." Recent events mean that she does offer a smile, small and sharp, giving her a look as she glances up to the sky then back again. "As for what you speak of, tis a rift, one of many that now litter Thedas since a great tear in the Veil dividing this world and the Fade. Wherever you have come from, you have passed through one. And somewhere, you will bear a mark. Does that hurt?" She pauses again because it's a lot to take in, she knows that now from experience with rifters, from how much she's had to explain to them though there's little enough she can do for her hand, least of all here.

[youwonscience]

The smile is... vaguely reassuring, though Cosima takes a minute to parse the answer - she'd meant the creature stomping toward them rather than the the giant green rip in the sky, but now that the woman mentions it, that's also kind of worrying. She also registers the question.

"Uh, some, yeah, but I can handle it." Or the immediate throb in her hand, at least, she can handle that. She flexes it, idly, now that her attention's been drawn to it. "Do we need to be, like, running away? Or..."

[arcaneadvisor]

"If that changes, then I am afraid there is little I can do." Healing isn't really her speciality and Solas is the only one (conveniently enough) that knows much at all about how the shards function. "Your arrival is less fortunate than others - what you see about you is the midst of a civil war fought in the Exalted Plains - that terror demon and the wisps might draw walking corpses from the battles too."

Pointing her staff at the ground behind them, she lays an ice mine, ready to freeze the demon should it choose to follow them. It'll buy them time, if nothing else, since the wisps won't move so quickly or unpredictably as the demon might. "Unless you wish to strike the terror demon down? Then I suggest we make for somewhere safer with haste."

[youwonscience]

"Uh." That's a lot, and Cosima is trying to catch up, but does agree with at least one thing. "Yeah, I'm not much use at striking anything down, let's get out of here."

Between the total stranger and the 'terror demon,' Cosima will go with the total stranger.

[arcaneadvisor]

"My name is Morrigan." A name might be good, if they get separated, and some people here might even know her by reputation. "We shall have to run, if I stop then tis to cast a spell - such things must be done standing still." Either that or the terror demon will have exploded under their feet or she might have changed her shape into something more suited to tackle it but bridges to cross when they come to it. "You are able to run, yes?"

[youwonscience]

"Yeah, running I can manage." She's still in fight-or-flight, that should get her a ways. Hopefully far enough. "I'm Cosima. If you stop, should I stop too or keep going?"

[arcaneadvisor]

"Keep moving, if you hear the sounds of battle, avoid them. The elves you might encounter could well be hostile." A wisp floats close but a few blasts from her staff gets rid of it quickly enough, though she doesn't stop to see where the rest are. If the soldiers or even some of the wolves prove to be of more interest, then so be it. "Fortunately they are lacking in bears here unlike most places."

[youwonscience]

"Uh, great. Probably no bears." That sounds like a silver lining. "Is there a city or someplace safe nearby to run toward, out of curiosity?"

Just... don't think too much about whatever that was, she tells herself.

[arcaneadvisor]

"We will be making for Skyhold, the only place where one such as you will find refuge. Marked as you are, having come through a rift, you would be treated with suspicion at best, hostility at worst." It's an answer but also not since Skyhold isn't exactly a short journey away though the Inquisition can get people back safely enough. "Val Royeaux is safe from the fighting, for the moment, but that will not be an option."

[youwonscience]

"Great, that's... fantastic. So for now, just 'away,' then." Cosima supposes it's better than dying, but it's not great news, especially as she'd been at home, asleep her bed, minding her own business. She's familiar enough with difference triggering hostility, but it's not like she asked to be marked, either.

[arcaneadvisor]

"You will have answers soon, though perhaps not all you might wish. I would assume that 'how does one return?' is near the top of your list?" It's not a topic she's heard the rifters as they tend to be collectively known discussing openly but then why would they? She is a native, and she comes with a reputation, one that these days has her keeping very close to the spymaster. She stops to summon lightning, crackling from her fingertips to flash out and through several of the foes, and she doesn't see the terror demon--

Hopefully it's distracted somewhere else. What's one more dead chevalier these days?

[youwonscience]

"Given the tone in which you said that, I'm guessing the answer isn't 'click your heels together and say there's no place like home.'" Cosima is frustrated, but she's also still concentrating on not dying for now. (And running isn't as easy as she'd like it to be, though she's trying not to let that show as it catches up to her.)

"Yeah, I want to get home, but I want to survive the next hour too, you know?"

She tries not to snap at the person who is keeping the demons from killing her. Both of them, presumably, but the point stands.

[arcaneadvisor]

"Clicking your…" Only Morrigan could raise one eyebrow quite so high and turn her head in a fashion alarmingly like an owl whilst still running because that is ridiculous. "If one wishes to look like a fool whilst being devoured by demons with their limbs being torn from their body then well they might!" Clicking their heels, how foolish, what sort of world does this woman come from? With a sigh, she stops by an outcropping, using it for cover as she peers out.

"You survived the rift, believe me, once you know the truth of that you will know that you have survived much of the worst."

[youwonscience]

"That'll be comforting once we're away from the demons, I suspect," Cosima says, not purposely rude, but a bit short as she catches her breath a moment. "Will they give up eventually?"

[arcaneadvisor]

"A demon embodies a part of our nature, rage, desire, hunger, pride, fear, despair. They feed on such parts of us, their strength, their intelligence are drawn from those darker places within us." Terror demons are base fears but given that they're running, she has no idea just how frightened the rifter may or may not be - Morrigan is too proud to believe she would be frightened were she thrust into an unfamiliar situation as such. "If they find other prey, then yes. Demons are not known for strategy. There is much fear in the air here to draw a terror demon elsewhere."

Like that passing patrol of unfamiliar soldiers.

[youwonscience]

Better them than us is not at all Cosima's usual outlook, but the truth is that the group of soldiers look like they're able to fight back. Cosima is not really qualified to defend herself, or even keep running indefinitely.

"Okay. So calming down might help make a less attractive target in the meantime," she says, latching on the one active thing it sounds like she can do. She knows emotions are largely chemical responses, and there are external ways to influence them. Steady, deep breaths, for one.