Wintermarch Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters and their rescuers
WHAT:
WHEN: Wintermarch 10
WHERE: The Southern Hinterlands
NOTES: This log is backdated intentionally to allow new rifters to also immediately play in Skyhold and have a few days to handwave acclimation and explanations, if you'd like. It's open to rifters and to any Inquisition members who would volunteer to recover them.

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 stone, dropped from above by a flaring, crystalline green rip in reality that hangs overhead. Beyond it is blackness--no, if you focus, it's not emptiness, but stone, with the light from the rift reflecting on distant crevices and stalactites. You're underground. And you're not alone. There are two other people on the ground with you, and something with a deep, guttural laugh not far from you.

The source of the laugh is soon lit up with light of its own, arcing purple electricity rippling over a hulking body so large that humans don't quite reach its hip. It's the only demon here, but it isn't going to go down easily. And the only way out is a narrow tunnel that the demon is--demonically--blocking.

But you're not alone. There's that. The ground around you is scattered with weapons and belongings--maybe one of them is yours--and it won't be long before more people arrive, armed and armored and ready to fight.

Comments

[gatheringstorm]

"I know the official Chantry version. Beyond that, it happened so long ago that it's all we have to go on." Korrin shrugs, not having planned to spout Chantry doctrine upon a first meeting, but since she was asked.... "When the Tevinter Imperium was at its height, seven magisters did this huge-ass blood sacrifice so they could enter the Fade. Their plan was to reach the Golden City, seat of the Maker...or the Old Gods, depending on perspective. In their greed for more power, they didn't realize that their very presence was corrupting the city, turning it black. The Chantry always holds this up as proof that the living aren't meant to make that journey, and in their hubris, the magisters were cast out, turning into the world's first darkspawn. The started the First Blight, the one that lasted for a couple hundred years and nearly destroyed everything. If it wasn't for the Grey Wardens, none of us would be around today."

[meds4sale]

"I wonder what the truth is."

He was sure there were grains of it, buried within centuries of religious doctrine, warped and twisted to suit whatever narrative they needed to excuse the next war with whoever their enemy was at the time. He'd seen it, again and again. People were very good at skewing history in favour of killing each other.

"Is there something unique about these Wardens that allow them to stand against such odds...?"

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin shrugs, spreading her arms. "Probably. You can ask, but don't expect them to answer. They keep their secrets very closely guarded. Besides, I think most of the Wardens in the Inquisition are relatively new to it all, so they might not have been entrusted with a lot, anyway. We do have some veterans of the Fifth Blight with us, though, some of them not even Wardens. Our spymaster, Leliana, is one of those people."

[meds4sale]

"It must be something terrible indeed," he said, the slightest hint of an edge to his usual monotone, "if secrets take precedence to combating a disease of body and land."

There was almost certainly more to it than that but for now he seemed content with Korrin's answers. It gave him a foothold, knowing where to start when he began his search for information in earnest.

"Thank you. Much of that was very helpful."