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

[martyric]

( for a moment the falling, the jolt, the trees and stone and green flares above her head all take a back seat to the simple and thrilling realisation - the crushing realisation - that there is no longer water in her lungs. her first breath actually occurs somewhere between the rift and the ground, but it isn't until she has a face full of dirt and hands planted firmly on solid ground that she actually notices the alarm bells going off in her head, her chest heaving in a desperate attempt to regain more air.

she'd been a goner. she was dead- and now she wasn't.

thankfully life is just a little too complicated to focus on that little detail right about now.

there's another detail that probably should take her attention ( the shrieks going on above her head, mostly ) but for some reason the thing that grabs elena is her damn dress. it's like something out of gone with the wind -- actually it's exactly like she just stepped out of gone with the wind, it's scarlett o'hara's iconic dress. for a hot minute all she can focus on is that stupid outfit. and then she remembers the ache in her hand, the green glow from above, the chaos around her, the fact that she was drowning literally a minute ago.

any person would be well within their right to melt down, but elena would rather not die any time soon, so instead she clumsily picks up a weapon off of the floor that very much does not belong to her. she's used weapons before, but nothing like this. it's heavy and she's in no shape to be swinging it around, but that's the situation that she's in right now. )

What the hell are they?

( elena directs the question to no one in particular, whoever is listening honestly, because seriously - she's dealt with a lot, but this is a totally new ballpark. )

[motherfucking_ghost]

[It's fucking cold, even through his cloak, and it's dark in the middle of the god damn night, but he comes when he's called. Or like, he goes where rifts get opened because it's a thing he does for the Inquisition, okay? He does it more for his fellow Rifters than the Inquisition, but so long as it seems like he's doing something useful, he feels a little safer, okay?

Fucking highwayman assholes waylaying them, the party's already in full swing. (On the other hand, when isn't it?) Decent group this time. And the usual demonic fuckasses. Doesn't look like there's a pride demon this time, though. Good, because fuck those guys.

Church charges in on the first person he sees--because that dress really sticks out, okay--and throws up his left hand, a shine of green the same color as the light above and in her hand turning into a translucent shield that blocks and dissipates a couple lobs of magic those wraiths are throwing.]

Hi. Nice to meet you. You ever use one of those before? [The weapon she's holding, that is.] Cuz maybe we should go duck behind some of the stone here. Just a thought. [Ruins mean plenty of cover, anyway. Beats that time at the top of a mountain in a giant nest covered in ice. That was a shitshow.] And by maybe I mean go.

[blooded]

( elena's dead. that's his first thought.

really, it's his only thought. even as he vaguely processes being spat out onto the ground — when did he even lose consciousness? — and the chaos going on around him, the bulk of damon's brain is taken up with the knowledge that elena is dead. he doesn't know how or why, but elena was clear that her life was tied to ric's, and ric had fallen. suddenly, inexplicably, just... dead. there was only one thing it could mean.

for a long moment, damon stays where he landed on the ground. it's hard to care enough to push himself up to check his surroundings — it's hard to care about anything at all. but there's screeching noises all around him, green glowing at the edges of his vision, and a sword in front of him, and maybe he'll change his mind in an hour but damon doesn't want to die now. not until he knows how the fuck his brother got elena killed.

(it's easier to blame stefan than to think about the fact that she's gone. no vampire blood this time, no uncle daddy to give up his life for hers. she's just... gone.)

it takes a second, even after he's resolved to do it, but eventually damon grabs the sword in front of him and pushes himself to his feet. the battlefield is... not what he was expecting. it's hard to say what he was expecting, honestly, but... it's not what's in front of him. three unnaturally tall creatures with too much arm and too many eyes, and six shrouded creatures hurling green balls of energy at anyone they can see. not something he was prepared for, but damon's willing to fight, if only to find out where and why he is.

at least, he was willing until his ears pick up on a voice he's been attuned to for a year now. a voice he never expected to hear again. )

Elena?

( damon whirls around in the direction of her voice, back to the advancing monsters and not caring. he heard her, he did, where is she, he has to find her — )