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

[rowancrowned]

There are always a few things, with the Rifters, that hint at the worlds they may have come from. The cut of their clothes, how fine the stitchery is on them, what they smell of-- but this is an interesting one. Paper fine enough to cut oneself on-- he is rich, but for something to be so commonplace that there's a name for it, well. Thranduil's curious.

"If it worsens, you ought to inform someone."

A fairly standard line, but now he cannot be faulted for not saying it. Speaking of formalities:

"What is your name?"

[not_the_question]

He was still looking at his hand when the question was asked. He heard the recommendation, but he doubts he'll take advantage of it. He didn't plan to be here long enough for that. A week tops. That was usually all it took for him to escape a place like this...

"Oh! I'm the Doctor. You?"

He offered a smile and his hand for a hand-shake.

[rowancrowned]

Thranduil has to consider the hand before him for a few seconds before he realizes what is expected of him; he reaches out and clasps the Doctor's hand with his own. As with the Outsider before him, Thranduil's already stuck the Man (not a Man?) into the 'give name' box.

"We always are in need of more healers," he says pleasantly. "Thranduil, of Greenwood. A pleasure."

[not_the_question]

"Well, I do what I can, but that's not so much what I do. It's what I'm called."

And some places it's defined as 'great warrior.' He does offer a small smile, though because he's been around humans too long. He releases the other's hand.

"Sorry. What's customary for..." He looks at the other and sees the ears. "Erm. Elfs?"

[rowancrowned]

Perhaps the name is just translating oddly. He lets the matter drop-- he's really not in a place to care right now, nor to focus on anything but Thingol, the other's presence a constant beacon, a yearning to stop whatever he's doing and bask in his lord being here. Again. After so long.

"Quendi. Elves," Thranduil agrees, and draws his hand back to his side. "It would depend on the elf you asked, who was being greeted, when, and why. Just as it is for Men."

He can't speak on Dalish greetings, but doesn't bother making the distinction in the differences between the kind of elf he is, and the kind Beleth is.

[not_the_question]

Wouldn't particularly matter to the Doctor if he did try to distinguish between the elves. Unless they were the distinction between natives and rifters, it doesn't matter very much to him.

"Ah, yes. Of course it would. Apologies. So, what do you prefer?"