terror takes the sound before you make it

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters & characters in the Fallow Mire
WHAT: More people falling into the bog than usual
WHEN: Firstall 21
WHERE: The Fallow Mire
NOTES: This rift will open just as the Inquisition manages to close another with the assistance of previously-arrived rifters, and reinforcements will be called in quickly, so everyone in the Mire is welcome.

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.

But there's no waking here, just a flare of green-white light and a jarring impact, a plunge into waist-deep water that smells sour and tastes worse. It's raining, dark, and you are not alone. Others splash into the murky water nearby, as bewildered as you, and those who have already found their footing in the muck are no less confused.

You are also not as you were: in the palm of your left hand there glows a narrow splinter of light the same sickly green as whatever brought you here. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. Like the freezing water. Or the fact that you're being attacked by monsters--some tall, spindly stick-things with too many eyes, some hunched and hooded with no eyes at all. Every splash into the water and every thrash thereafter brings wakened corpses rising out of the bog with their old weapons still in hand.

From dry land--near a small cluster of homes, one with firelight--there's a shout, then another, where Inquisition forces had just closed a larger rift and begun to regroup when the Veil split open again across the bog. A few arrows are loosed at the demons that look most likely to succeed in killing someone. Help is on its way; just last until it arrives.

Comments

[fleurdesel]

"...We have not quite tested that just yet. If you really want to try I'd recommend doing it on your own time." She curls her hands around his palm, fingers and eyes beginning to glow blue as she channels Compassion's power.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Whoa!" He jerks his hand, and therefore Adelaide's hands. "The fuck are you doing, I thought maybe you'd just rub some ointment on it or, like, give me two pills and call you in the morning!"

[fleurdesel]

"You have a magical shard of some sort that is both here and not embedded in your palm. And you want me to spread ointment on it and call it a day?" Is he hearing the words he is saying? "The cause of the pain is magical. Thus, the cure too shall be done with magic. Or are you allergic to that as well?"

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Oh my god I am so tired of this fucking bullshit magic bs! It's one thing to David Copperfield a statue on tv but god damn, with the glowing, and the demon portals, and the shooting ice from sticks, what, is this a case of stupid advanced technology we just choose to call magic?!" Apparently this is the hill he wants to die on/dig a hole into.

"You're seriously serious about magic. A pretty lady who doesn't take any shit, and we're going to talk magic."

[fleurdesel]

"...We do not all need sticks to shoot ice." The glowing of her hands dims as she turns one palm over and for a moment, there is noting. Frost gathers on her skin and soon ice is forming a very fine, very small violin in the center of her palm. "Magic is magic. There is a science and an art to it, but this is not 'advanced technology'. It is magic. We are talking of magic because I am a mage, magic is what I happen to do. I do it slightly less when people complain about how it is done."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Okay! I'm just saying, this is fucking weird! And I'd totally want to shoot fire from my hands if I could! Oh my god, do you think I could shoot fire from my hands? I would be unstoppable. Can I like...learn this crazy shit or..."

[fleurdesel]

"Your excessive use of profanity and attire are 'weird'. The fact you've fallen through the ream of dreams without being a demon or spirit is 'weird'. Magic is not weird. And may the Maker have mercy on anyone foolish enough to try to teach you magic- one is either capable or they are not now stop gesturing and let me do my work." She's half tempted to paralyze him to get the work done.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Okay! Jesus, lady, just do your health up potion magic bullshit and make everything stop." Yeah, that sounds right--wait no. "Hurting. Aching. Whatever." He can still gesture with his other hand!

[fleurdesel]

"A potion would do fuck and all for your hand, Ser." Her fingers go tight around his hand, holding it still while the glow flares up yet again and a cool flow of magic pours into his skin.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"...Whoa." That...feels tingly. And cool. And weird? But also kind of like sticking an IV of something analgesic into him. Maybe. He wouldn't really know.

[fleurdesel]

The glow pulses around the mark in his skin once more before it fades and Adelaide sits back, letting his hand drop free. "Does that help?"

[motherfucking_ghost]

"...Yeah." Presumably the dulled ache means it fucking works. He flexes his hand a few times, then reaches for his tea again. It's cooled to a more reasonable degree. "Um. Thanks."

[fleurdesel]

"That will be five coppers." She turns her hand over, presenting him her palm and a lift of her eyebrows in the universal sign of 'well, it isn't going to fill itself with money now, is it'.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Well then you can undo your magic mojo, woman," he says with what seems to be an actual grin, "cuz I have all of jack and shit on me but the clothes on my back. Which, I should add, aren't even mine. They were just there on this body when I fell through the sky portal. You guys should really close that shit, by the way, before more assholes of my caliber start falling through."

[fleurdesel]

"...you are possessing someone else's body?" All her humor drops away at that, hands snapping out to catch at his wrists to peer into his eyes. They are a particularly vibrant shade of green, almost luminous, but...

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Whoa, hey, watch it!" Aaaand there goes his tea, and the cup it was in, all over the ground. And his hand. Thank god it's not scalding hot. "You crazy bitch, the fuck is with this hot and cold switching up bullshit?"

What, like possession's such a big deal? "You'd think you'd never seen someone like me before. Or, uh, maybe you haven't, but I don't know what else could be happening given this is definitely not the body I was in before I fell out of your fucking wormhole." Jesus, in a couple ways than one. Not in the Meta's body, he knows that. Not in Wash's, and not in any of his own.

[fleurdesel]

"Be quiet." She snaps, glowering at him. Compassion senses nothing more than a soul in a body, nothing like their own, nothing like a demon. That same glow pools in her palms and flows over his wrists, washing over his skin in a swift, tingling wave up his arms as she seeks out- whatever it is that he is, more thoroughly. "What body did you have before you arrived? What are you?"

[motherfucking_ghost]

Attractive blonde women who definitely don't like him totally need to not be his type. Thankfully his response is to usually give as good as he gets. ...Her grip is pretty strong, though. Maybe that's a magic thing. Given the magic up his arms. "You get the fuck off me and maybe I'll think about telling you, jesus christ! I'm just a guy! Ghost guy thing, whatever!"

[fleurdesel]

"You talk, and you talk now. If you are possessing an innocent man I will have to see you exorcised or killed. If you are simply a spirit made flesh as does...apparently happen that is something else entirely. So calm. Down. And speak. Slowly and thoroughly on what you are and how you came to find a body before you fell through here." The magic continues flowing to his shoulders, dipping to his chest and throat- not restraining so much as sensing and- aside from some bruises he feels...human. Entirely human.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"I didn't find a body before I fell, that's what I'm trying to fucking say!" Don't you tell him to calm down when you're threatening to cross him with holy water or execute him. "Look, I was in a robot body, then I hitched an entirely consensual ride in someone else, then I hopped into another brain not to take him over or anything, and now I'm here and I'm in a human body that seems to be my own, cuz I sure don't feel any other assholes knocking around up in my head. Booooo, I'm a ghooooost, I'm not gonna fucking haunt your ass unless you give me a reason to."

Huff. Puff. "And you're starting to give me a reason to."

Not that he knows if he can hop around like he used to or not. Maybe don't try it right now.

[fleurdesel]

"...So you are a spirit, but not a demon, but not a spirit as we know them either?" What? "What is a robot? What is- one cannot hop from one host to another without being some manner of demon or spirit. Ghosts do not exist in such a manner- they do not possess people." At least not as far as she is aware.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"A robot. A--a robot!" He'd do his gesturing emphatically thing if she didn't have a grip on his wrists. "You know, a...robot. A mechanical...robot body? Metal and wires and circuit boards and shit? A mecha-body got built for me to live in cuz my other body got blown the fuck up. ...My bodies tend not to have long life spans, so I'm hoping this one sticks."

It's a place with magic and, so far, no cars, no warthogs, no pelicans, no pumas, no chupathingies. Maybe he should consider that this really is some bullshit high fantasy tabletop game and try to explain it from there. Okay. Puff a breath out. "Like a suit of armor, but without an actual physical person inside. And, I don't know, maybe I wasn't a ghost," but he is not explaining Wash's bullshit artificial intelligence because shut up he doesn't have issues YOU have issues, "but whatever I am, I could hop around and hitch rides or just appear outside my body if I really wanted, or, yeah, possess people. Fucking deal with it."

[fleurdesel]

"A golem?" An enchanted suit of armor with the soul of a living being imbued into it? That- no. No, it is not her place, it is not her problem- but him tossing phrases like 'possess people' and 'hitch rides' and 'hop around' is only going to get him killed. "Do not speak of this again. I need you to understand this and understand it clearly. Whatever in the Maker's name you are? It is not like how spirits and demons possess the living nor the dead. Templars are temperamental enough with mages that simply speak to spirits- knowing you have possessed through some manner or another any kind of body? They might kill you for it to be certain of saftey. So do. Not. Tell anyone. Ever. DO you understand?"

[motherfucking_ghost]

"...Are you serious? Someone would kill me just for me saying I'm a ghost? You can't kill a ghost, genius!" Maybe he should keep his voice down now that the possibility of losing this body and/or who knows what kind of death he might actually suffer here or not looms. "Okay, if I'm not like anything you guys understand, then that should mean keep me alive as long as possible, not, like, kill it with fire or whatever. Plus! The whole being from another world thing, kind of a good point to make. Where the rules are different all around. That doesn't play into this at all?"

[fleurdesel]

"When a mage is forcibly possessed by a demon here they become an abomination. Their magic is wild, more powerful, ad infinitely more dangerous. The union of demon and human drives the fade creature mad and warps the human body beyond all recognition. Their lives are extended moments of torture. When a mage allows a demon to possess them, the demon works through the fade to manipulate their actions. Nothing good comes of this. There is pain, blood, and death. So, yes. Saying you are a ghost, saying you have possessed anyone for any length of time will see you killed. That is a mage's worst fear in this world- to be possessed. So do. not. Speak of it." How difficult is that?

Apparently, quite difficult.