faderift | Harvestmere Rifter Arrival

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Harvestmere Rifter Arrival

WHO: New rifters & their rescuers
WHAT: People fall out of a rift and get attacked by stuff… in the desert!
WHEN: Harvestmere 10
WHERE: The Western Approach
NOTES: The arrival log is open to all. Solas was able to alert the Inquisition to the general area where the new rifters would be arriving so people could be sent to pick them up.

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.

In this world, you wake with a jolt when you hit rock or sand or wooden planks--you've been dropped into a narrow canyon, into the rocky orange sand at the floor or onto the rickety scaffolding along the steep wall. Judging by the heat, somewhere above is a bright and unforgiving sun, but view of the sky overhead is blocked by a flaring green rip in reality. There's a narrow splinter of light in the same sickly green as whatever brought you here, now glowing out of the palm of your left hand. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions.

The way ahead is blocked, too, by a monstrous, horned beast with too many eyes and electricity rippling down its arms: a pride demon with a very off-putting laugh. The only quick way out is up. The ladders and scaffolding and narrow bridges across the gorge have demons, too, but only smaller shades and wraiths. Your chances are better up there--you and the people you arrived with, four altogether, collectively less dangerous-looking than the demon.

Along the way, the planks are littered with debris: crustaceans, skateboards, crustaceans on skateboards, a cyvasse piece, a dagger, a set of bloody and very sharp canine teeth. And an enormous, moving, roaring tiger made of something green, translucent, slightly bouncy, and fruity smelling. The tiger has a rider, at least briefly, clad in a crinkly white suit and rounded helmet. It also has saddle bags, which are full of donuts if anyone is able to get close enough to check without getting swiped by a giant paw, claws sticking out through the ends of pink bunny slippers.

And at the top of the canyon walls, there's help--armed, armored help--already making its way down to meet you.

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Sansa has no idea what is going on. She's disoriented and lost, afraid, and none of her choices appear to be safe. There's a monstrous being before her, something she's never seen before in her life and creatures only slightly less monstrous above her. Her first instinct is to scream and she does but she chokes that off quickly; that's the instinct of a stupid girl and she's not a girl any longer.

She looks among the debris for a moment and she spots a few others stranded with her. Others might help her or harm her. For now, she should put her trust in the other people stranded with her, shouldn't she? She tips her gaze up and sees what appears to be men and women-at-arms. She's going to have to trust them.

"Help! Please, help!"

"We've got to get up, away from those things," Harry is there, near her, almost right after the call. He really had a weakness people who need help - more so when those people are red haired women. He has his wand in his hand but he's not using it, he can't risk it with it being damaged. Instead, he comes closer to Sansa and looks towards the ladders. "You start, I'll watch and distract them if they start to attack."

He's not exactly sure how. He'll throw rocks at their faces if needed.

Sansa nods quickly. She knows that she's not going to be able to do anything by standing frozen and screaming and he at least has a plan. She can go along with it for now even if she doesn't know him.

She can do this. She fled through the Wolfswood from dogs and through snow and she can climb these ladders. She begins her ascent, looking back to make sure her companion is following. "Don't let me go alone," she says, worried that he might end up getting left behind.

Harry nods then. "I'm right behind you," he promises. He puts a hand on the ladder to let her know he will start the climb once he knows she's safe.

Sansa starts the climb. There's no way to go except for up, after all, and up she'll go. She'll put one foot in front of the other until she reaches safety, just like the Wolfswood months ago.

She makes it up a few steps when she's stopped by a shade, paralyzing her in her tracks. "What do I do?"

Harry tries the stunning spell again, this time, miraculously, the spell hits its target. He should be more worried about doing magic around people who might be Muggles, but right now his main concern is getting them to safety. The demon stumbles a bit from the spell but isn't completely defeated.

"Go, hurry." He isn't sure the next spell will hit as neatly.

Sansa doesn't have time to contemplate how he makes the creature stop dead in his tracks, only that he does and that it buys her time to escape. She'll have to get his name because now House Stark owes this man a debt, a life debt, and she takes such things deadly serious.

Once, she'd had a head filled with nonsense about knights and flowers and silly things. Now she has a head filled with sense but she still wants to recognize service when it needs to be recognized and she will recognize this man's service to her house. She will. Now, though, she won't have a house if she doesn't get away and so she does, scrambling across a bridge and up a ladder.

"Go," she shouts. "Follow me!"

Harry would be more than a little bemused at the idea of being owed a life debt, but that conversation is for another time when they aren't going up rickety ladders and bridges.

For now, he's hyper alert to things around them, trying to make sure another one of those monsters doesn't attack or get in their way. He's far more concerned with getting out alive than anything else.

"There's people up there," he comments, talking about the Inquisition members that they can just barely start to see. "They might be able to help." They might also be in cahoots with the monsters, but Harry would deal with that if it turned out to be true.

"They don't seem to be shooting at us," Sansa says, continuing her ascent upward, occasionally glancing back to see if he's following. She doesn't know if they're friend or foe but she thinks, if it's their death they want, it'd be easier to go ahead and pick them off from here.

"I think we should trust them for now." It goes without saying that she trusts him. He's saved her life once already. "I'm Sansa, of House Stark."

It's been so long since Harry has had to really introduce himself to someone that it almost feels awkward. "I'm Harry," he says. "Harry Potter." Then after a moment, "It's nice to meet you but I'd rather it have been under better circumstances." He means that as a bit of a joke, and his tone is a little dry as he says it. He's still on the lookout for more demons.

"Likewise," Sansa says, smiling just a bit.

"I don't think anyone would want to meet in circumstances such as these. It's all a bit dire, honestly, and I don't want to wish that on anyone. Still, well met, as much as can be considered."

Harry offers her a smile in return. "Seems like most times things are dire," he admits after a moment. He had just finished one war to find himself trust in a world with monsters. He'd have to make sense of that when they weren't trying to escape.

Tyrion looks down the ladder, to see a familiar head of red hair. The fellow with the bottle green eyes, being the good lad that he is, is making sure that they are all on their way. Tyrion can see a few others, and he is shouting to them all, especially that familiar red head,

"Up here!" One of the sliding horrors is coming right at him, and with the pure will of someone who wants to survive, he clubs it as it swings claws at him, hitting it grimly in the mid-section.

As soon as he can see that flash of red out of the corner of his eyes, he calls out, "Lady Sansa, what an odd pleasure to see you again."

He slammed the board into the creature's midsection one more time, and it screeched, fading into the ground and leaving a nice wide scratch on his arm.

"My lord!"

It comes out as a startled gasp, both at seeing the creature dispatched and at seeing him again alive. She's been told that he's dead, that she'd been a widow before being married to that cruel monster and now to know that she'd never been a widow is making her head spin a bit. Still, there's no time to contemplate that now. Now, she's got to focus on getting to the top of this canyon and to safety. She cannot think about anything else right now.

"My lord, thank you. Thank you so much."

He would take a moment to bow - but it is that moment that he is grasping her hand and pulling her along to the next ladder. He shook his head slightly. "Thank me when we're at the top of this cliff and we're not about to get eaten by things out of our nightmares. For now, just go! We will be right behind you."

Sansa scrabbles upward as quickly as she can, wishing she wasn't wearing her heavy Northern cloak and gown. Oh, what she wouldn't give for something brief and silken and Southron in this moment. If only! Still, her boots grip the ladder better and she makes it to the top, scrambling upward and clearing away so she can reach for Tyrion and the other man.

"I'll help you up," she says, stretching out her arms. "Come on!"

He smashes another creature, this one made of flames - flames, how was that even fair? - making sure that the young man was following behind them, then flinging himself up the next ladder. He gripped his weapon under one arm, getting close enough to Sansa to throw it over the edge near her, and then grasping both of her hands, allowing her to pull him to safety.

He huffed as he scrambled to his feet, "Many thanks, my lady ... ah, here is my faithfully odd weapon ..." He plucked up the skateboard, "Is the lad behind us?"

Sansa glances past Tyrion for a moment to confirm that the other man is behind him before nodding quickly and turning her attentions to her lord husband.

"He is, my lord. Are you hurt at all?" It's been ages since she's seen him and he looks worse for the wear but she does not release his hands, too shocked to see him alive.

Well, he was going to be honest, he did not expect her to hold onto his free hand like that, and cover his other hand with hers. He looks at her with shock and surprise, his eyebrows raising together. So confused was he, that it took a moment for him to gather his thoughts once more.

"...I. Yes. But nothing major." He cleared his throat. My it was dry in the desert. "Just a few claw marks."

"I will tend to your wounds when we are able," Sansa says, squeezing his hands lightly. "And you must tell me of what has happened since we saw one another last, all right?"

It seems that there are others who want to talk to them and a flurry of activity all around them. It hardly seems the place for a private conversation but Sansa knows that they must have one and soon.

"Do you promise, my lord?"

He pressed his mouth together, confusion again flashing through his blue eyes. This one was slightly less terrifying, however, than the creature below them, but only slightly less.

"I am ... I promise, Sansa. I will ... tell you whatever you wish."

"Good. It has been a long time," she says, giving him a tight smile. "And much has happened to me. I imagine it's been the same for you, too, and it will be good to speak with a friend again. It's been a long time since I've talked to anyone I knew in King's Landing."

Her smile grows but only a little. "I saw my brother Jon again."

"Yes ... yes it has. Months. Almost ... well. Almost a year now, if I were to guess." A friend? Well, they had been getting there, friends who could depend on one another. Inbetween his stabs of lust and his family heartlessly murdering her own.

Something in his chest surged, bastard, you live yet, before he exhaled slowly. "I want to hear all about this -- once we aren't getting hunted by horrors."

"Yes, exactly," Sansa agrees. "I just thought you'd want to know that I lived," she says. "And that I made it to Jon."

Not in the condition that he'd seen her last, no, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that she survived and she'd made it north again to Winterfell along with Jon and they are the last Starks in their ancient seat once again.

"I am relieved to hear, and to see." He crooked a smile at her, before he bowed deeply at her, "As you can see, I am also alive. In mostly one piece."

"I am grateful, my lord," Sansa says, her own little smile firmly in evidence. She never wants him to think she is anything but grateful, considering how he protected her when he did not have to.

"I am glad."

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Harvestmere Rifter Arrival

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