Firstfall Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters & their rescuers
WHAT: Weird people fall out of a rift with demons! Again! But this time there are trees.
WHEN: Firstall 8
WHERE: A ruined fortress in the wooded region between Redcliffe and Haven.
NOTES: This log is OPEN to new rifters and to anyone who might have volunteered or been ordered to go retrieve them. Rifters: the log is intentionally backdated to allow you to also jump straight into RPing in Skyhold. It's safe to assume everyone lives.

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 earth and stone, dropped from above by a flaring, crystalline green rip in reality that hangs overhead. Beyond it the sky is dark, but the light from the rift is bright enough to illuminate the stone walls around you--a fortress, once, now a ruin, walls crumbling and beginning to surrender to the trees and vines from the surrounding forest. The air is cold enough to sting, but it's yet to snow here, and with the walls and trees sheltering against wind it isn't so bad. At another time, in other circumstances, it might be peaceful.

No chance of that now. The brief period of quiet after you fall is shattered by a hoarse shriek. Three hoarse shrieks. Three tall, spindly creatures with gasping mouths and too many eye sockets advance on you and the people lying around you, and beyond them, six flickering, ghostly wraiths begin to throw bursts of green magic that saps anyone hit of energy and strength. And 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.

But you're not alone. There's that. You've arrived with company. Scattered around on the ground with you are weapons--maybe one of them is yours--and it won't be long before more people arrive, armed and armored and not at all surprised to see you. Just a little late to get here. (Delayed by highwaymen, you know how it is.)

Comments

[areou]

[ clarisse should probably be used to shit like this happening to her. the labyrinth did fuck all whatever it wanted, dropping people halfway across the world by taking a wrong turn down a hallway. it feels a lot like that, almost, except she knows that it isn't. this place is distinctly unfamiliar, and even if she wanted to blame it on the labyrinth, annabeth and percy were supposed to have destroyed it. besides, the last she remembers -- ]

[ well, she doesn't want to remember what she last remembers. she's not about to forget it, either, but thinking about silena right now isn't going to do her much good. thinking about that ... dream, or whatever it was, isn't going to do her any better. she's used to having weird dreams, too, as most demigods do, but this was just as different as the place she's in now. definitely not manhattan. probably not earth, unless she did manage to get that fight with kronos and he sent her here (god of time and all). but that's doubtful, she thinks. she would remember that. she would have died trying to wipe his smug face from the earth. ]

[ at least there's one thing that's familiar -- the crackle of maimer, in tact, even though it shouldn't be. but, then, there's an unfamiliar weight on her wrists, and she almost thinks it's a dream come true, until she realizes silena is nowhere to be seen. she doesn't have time to think how cruel of a joke this is before something nearly hits her right in the chest -- bright green light she barely manages to dodge, cursing under her breath as she rolls over her shoulder to grab for maimer. her sword must be around here somewhere, too. ]

[ she hardly registers the cold (is it the weather or an aftereffect of battling a hyperborean giant and losing?) or the pain in her left hand -- she's fought through worse, and, frankly, it's the adrenaline that really gets her going, the absolute rage that she's here alone, when she can still feel the phantom touch of silena's soft hands slipping jewelry over her wrists. think of me, her voice echoes in clarisse's head, and clarisse charges forward, caring little for the dangers she might be diving straight into. a fight is a fight, and she intends to conquer it. ]

[ whoever might be around to offer their assistance, she blatantly ignores, frequently shouting "out of the way!" she can handle herself. or so she thinks. ]

[kartereo]

--Happily!

[What else can one yell when there's someone charging ahead and making it clear they are stopping for no one and nothing. Waver barely has the time to move before he realizes the person running straight into a fight could easily be the age of one or two of his students.

That part doesn't chill him as it might others. He's seen those much younger than him pull off greater achievements then he could never do in his life time, to say nothing of his young apprentice's abilities. The only thing he calls after the young woman rushing past is:]

There's another coming right behind that one!

[athnvas]

[ it's not entirely new to her - this feeling of falling, this sudden appearance into something new. in fact, she'd been expecting it. been planning and preparing for it. she'd assumed there would be more time, a harder fall, a different...well. landscape. falling into tartarus hadn't been something she'd really chosen to do, but when presented with the inevitable, she'd shifted to prepare.

what she finds isn't any tartarus she'd read of, but that's fine. that's alright. take a new route. she is here now, her leg healed and her dagger in hand, and while none of it makes sense and none of it can be explained, there isn't much time to question it either. percy wasn't here, percy should be here, and unless she lost him completely during the fall he was somewhere around her and she needed to figure out where. she needed to find him, and get back up. somehow, some way, but hey - it's not like they haven't faced the impossible before.

annabeth is on her feet before she hears the screeching, the horses, and then she's on the move. there are others around, people she doesn't recognize, but as the six horse figures advance on where they're all lying, she doesn't have time to question. she needs to find something - something to hide behind, to locate the horses and the people and figure out a plan. her left palm burns, but she doesn't even bother looking, dodging behind a crumbling stone wall to escape a sudden flash of green.

she takes a breath, and then a second, guaging how far away each of the horses are and if there is any pattern to their movements. they seem to be attacking the people, the others like her, and she's momentarily brought back to an image of a colosseum, gladiators, fighting to the death. she grits her teeth, tightening her grip on her dagger, turns to glance around the rock for some kind of way out when-

out of the way!

was that...clarisse? annabeth blinks, confused, before she's pushing into action, jumping out around the wall and following the direction of the voice. if she can catch up to clarisse, then she can figure out what she knows, maybe get an idea of what's happening. if anything, she can watch her back, and it'll increase both of their chances of survival.

annabeth jumps up onto one of the crumbling walls, her boots nearly slipping at first before she can catch her balance and keep running. she wishes she had a sword, a shield, some kind of armor - but it's been just her and her dagger enough that she isn't that worried about it. she runs, nearly catching up to where clarisse is engaged with one of them, and jumps - driving her dagger into the neck of the creature and letting the weight of her body drag the blade across the back of its neck, before dropping into a short roll as she lands. ]

Go! It's neck! [ she knows clarisse won't hesitate, it's not in her blood, but annabeth hopes that her sudden appearance in battle won't eat up the seconds they have to do something. she curses under her breath before she's pushing back up to her feet, running up to get behind clarisse, to - quite literally - watch her back in the midst of it. ]