THE SEAS SHALL RISE & DEVOUR, Part I

[faderifting]

WHO: Any Inquisition members + all rifters
WHAT: A semi-involuntary tropical island vacation
WHEN: Kingsway 20 onward
WHERE: The sea and an island east of Rivain
NOTES: OOC post.

I. THE JOURNEY

Two ships depart from Kirkwall on the morning tide, sturdy vessels crewed by veteran sailors--but a mere skeleton crew, as it turns out, or so a few of them would have you believe. They're prone to assigning tasks to anyone who happens not to look busy, shoving ropes into hands without a care for station or experience, barking out instructions and expecting to be obeyed. With plenty of work to do the journey seems quick, and besides the unexpected chores it's otherwise smooth sailing through the Waking Sea. Some claim to've spotted the Windline Marcher one night, but it could just as easily have been clouds on the horizon, and that's it for excitement until the ships round the island of Brandel's Reach and out into open ocean, the ever-present coastline finally falling away behind.

The sky is bigger out there and the waves are too, especially when a storm strikes a few days out, dark clouds and driving rain sending any inexperienced sailors below decks to wait it out. The worst of it being the pitch of the ship rolling up and crashing down the massive waves, and the way the hold fills with the stench of people being sick. But the next morning dawns calm and clear and with no lasting damage done.

The group is bound for a desert island, drawn on maps with a big deep cove like a bite chomped out the side it, and a narrow channel through the surrounding reefs to reach it. That's the only moment of true tension on the voyage: as soundings are taken every few feet and the helmsmen adjust and readjust in response, carefully threading the needle to avoid running aground on ship-killing banks of sharp coral.

Both ships make it, and anchor offshore in the bay in the sheltering lee of a cliff, safe from future storms. The first party ashore reports back that Qunari are present in the area, but while they've displayed a palpable wariness, hostility does not seem their aim today, and they retreat back up to the hills above the beach as Inquisition forces arrive. Anyone able-bodied is tasked with assisting in unloading, and those less hale with helping the quartermaster's assistants track the process to make sure nothing goes astray between hold and shore.

Camp is to be a collection of tents: large ones beneath which makeshift facilities for cooking, eating, and working are set up, and many small ones designed to hold 2-4 Inquisition agents. They're still hammering stakes into the sand and tying off ropes to the sturdier palms when a shout goes up, though anyone present who possesses an anchor shard will not need to be told: a rift has opened nearby, a couple hundred yards out into the bay, a knot of shapes splashing about it. Better hope the rifters can swim.

II. ARRIVAL

Rifters

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, when the afterimage left by a flare of too-bright, greenish light fades, you will find yourself at sea. Not metaphorically (though perhaps that too) but literally: dropped into what is unmistakably the ocean, from the salt in your mouth and the incessant slosh of waves into your face, the squawk of gulls circling overhead. You had better start treading water.

Thankfully, if you can keep your head above the waves long enough to make a quick inspection, it turns out that land is in sight, only a few hundred yards off. Unfortunately, between you and it is a strange slash of greenish light. It sticks up out of the water but seems to continue beneath as well, turning the otherwise-turquoise waters the same pale greenish shade of a man gone seasick. The cluster of demons emerging from the rift are tall, spindly stick-things with too many eyes who flail about like stickbugs dropped in pond, but use the long reach of their arms to attack. Some are hunched and hooded with no eyes at all, their shrouds sodden and draped in seaweed. Others are mere wisps of greenish light that float easily over the surface. While you might get the impression they are as surprised as you to find themselves in the drink, any humor that might bring is probably outweighed by how angry it seems to make them.

If that were not enough to contend with, there is also the narrow splinter of light the same sickly green as whatever brought you here that now glows out of the palm of your left hand. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. But there is some good news: from the beach over yonder boats are launching. Perhaps they'll save you.

Rescue

As if rescuing rifters from drowning and demons weren't hard enough work, all the commotion in the water inevitably draws the attention of the local predators. But what arrives isn't the usual eel or ray or even a shark: it's something much bigger and much...redder?

Slinking through the water comes the flash of a fin and the glint of a scaly back, so quick and sinuous it's hard to say how many of the sea serpents there are. As wide around as the circle of a man's arms, with snapping jaws lined with an unnatural number of curving teeth, but what should be smooth snakey curves are instead jagged with the jut of brilliant red crystals that catch the light and make the sea seem to be already splattered with blood. They're studded all over its body, making any even glancing blow carry twice the danger: there's not just the stunning force of the strike to worry about or the possibility of being coiled in a crushing grip, but also being sliced and gored by red lyrium.

And the serpents aren't alone. While all eyes are on the churning water and the incredible sight of demons battling it out with sea monsters (because everything in that water is fair game to the beasts, not just the Inquisition), one sailor is suddenly plucked out his boat and carried screaming down into the depths by a great, crystal-encrusted tentacle. Cleansing runes are effective, but the monsters are canny enough to avoid capture, falling back into deeper water before attacking again. The arrival of a red lyrium-tainted kraken is just about the final straw for the ship's crew, and after seeing the monsters come dangerously close to cleverly flipping one of the longboats, they insist that the Inquisition row back for shore.

If flight is hard to stomach, consider it a tactical retreat: in shallower water the great bulks of the monsters become a liability, thrashing about among the rocks as they try to give chase. Escape back to the beach is possible, and surely the safer course, but it may be possible to lure one of the sea serpents into a tide pool or to beach itself up on the sands. The rest continue to prowl the bay, visible circling the ships at anchor and making any return impossible for the time being.

III. STRANDED

Once everyone is safely on land and out of the monsters' reach—after any wounds have been seen to, with particular attention given to any that may have been exposed to red lyrium—it's obvious that there's no way to leave for the time being. There isn't much to do but to try to make the most of things and try to accomplish what you came here for.

Some of the team will be tasked with continuing to set up camp. Now that the stay might be longer than a single night, it needs to be a little sturdier. The beach and cove are protected from harsh winds and exposure by a half-circle of rocky cliffs, and the Qunari communicate in grunts and one-word answers that large predators make sleeping in the jungle itself a bad idea. They've only been here a few days (that much can be gleaned despite their reticence), but some of the untamed jungle has been cut through to make clear paths to fresh water and fruit sources.

Penetrating the rest of the island is slow, difficult work—though magic may make it easier. The goal is near the top of the formerly volcanic peak in the island's center, but hacking through the growth to create a path may abruptly become a waste of time when it gives way to a steep drop-off or an equally steep incline and forces everyone to double back and try another route. If there was ever a clear road to the top, it's gone now, grown over during centuries of abandonment. But there are signs of past habitation: the lower portions of the island are spotted with crumbling ruins, chunks of moss-coated wall rising out of the forest floor, the occasional pillar looming up amongst the trees. Some have architecture and faded murals that are distinctly elven. Others, more recent, are clearly human, including a statue of Andraste in the center of a clearing. Others are harder to identify.

The predators the Qunari were trying to warn everyone about turn out to be real--they're large, jet-black cats about the size of a height of a mabari but longer, with short manes, near-scaley skin, and horns almost like the Qunari's. And before anyone gets any ideas about keeping one, they're fiercely territorial—always likely to try to eat your face, but doubly so if you come near their adorable kittens. Feeding them may buy a moment or two for escape, but nothing is going to win them over.

Comments

Reaper | Open

[shotgunsakimbo]

II. Arrival - Rifters

Reaper had been dreaming of times gone past, memories that liked to skirt the edge of his awareness. Memories that he kept shoved aside during waking hours, they would only distract. And then falling, falling, and even in his dreams, his misting ability tried to stop it, but it didn’t work until he hits the ocean. And gets a lungful of sea water for his trouble before he tries to right himself under the waves.

Breaking the surface, and coughing to clear his lungs, impeded only slightly by the mask, Reaper manages to get a good look around. The demons and the odd green light have him reaching to pull out a weapon, one of signature shotguns, but before his hand can break the water, he knows the weight is all wrong. That’s all he needs to realize that he’s not equipped for combatting this and turns to start swimming towards the shore and boats.

III. Stranded

On dry land, and safe (well, relatively after being in the ocean with demons and a giant glowing red kraken), Reaper is keeping nearby but out of the way for the moment as camp is made. He really would like some better answers, but there’s also priorities at hand here.

He’s working on getting dry, his body armor set down alongside the bone mask and a pair of black metal swords. He’s ignoring the green glow and pain in his left hand as works on wringing the water out his sweater. He keeps glancing around to keep an eye out for anyone that’s stopped working on setting camp or taking a break, calling out, “Hey. Don’t suppose I could get a better explanation now?”

iii;

[foxsays]

Checking that the fire isn't in danger of collapsing on itself, Araceli turns to look at the speaker once she's done. The Fallow Mire was the previous wet arrival prior to this one but it was at least into a bog and not the open waters so she's sympathetic to anyone who arrived as they did.

She's got some larger sticks propped up carefully and her own coat stretched over one, hand extended. The left, marked same as his.

"Here, let me." Haven had been snow and ice, bone-chilling cold on top of shock. "Araceli Bonaventura y Castell at your service. You're in Thedas, you came through a rift from wherever you were before."

[shotgunsakimbo]

"Thank you." Reaper finishes wringing out his sweater best he can before holding it out to be taken, noting the similar mark. There's a pause as he debates what name to give, but if it's true that he's no longer on Earth then neither are going to be recognized.

"Gabriel Reyes. Guessing this isn't the first time this has happened then?"

[foxsays]

"I used to keep track. I was in the first group to come through and that's just shy of two years now," Araceli explains once she's set his clothing out to dry. "Some of us try to be there wherever it happens so we can close the rifts, help you out, deal with the demons that come out of the rifts."

Sitting down, she starts to pat herself down for wherever her flask went once she got back to land after the fighting and rescue attempts were finally done. Taking a swig, that gets offered out too.

"That's watered rum, sailor's rations. This is the first time it's happened out at sea before but I don't think it makes any of it less shocking to you. Or any of us." Her smile is a little tight but the red lyrium kraken and sea serpents are far beyond the usual complications. "The thing in our hands? It helps close up the rifts that people and demons come through, if it hurts that'll stop soon."

[shotgunsakimbo]

"That explains what else was in the water besides the sea monsters." Reaper nods his thanks as he takes the flash and takes a drink, mulling over the information Araceli's giving him.

He tries not to clench his hand at the mention of the shard, a pang of pain just to remind him that it's there. "And good to know. And I'm guessing the rifts only like to work the one direction then?"

[foxsays]

"Natives of Thedas know them best but if you want to know more, Warden Inessa Serra leads one of our projects all about rifts as well as being a mage. They know far more about demons than almost anyone else you'll meet." Perhaps she could mention Templars and Seekers but Araceli's always sided with mages first and they do understand demons far better than anyone else since demons are interested in them.

And it feels good too, getting to pass on the name of another of their new project leaders. Hopefully the Warden won't mind too much. "Opening them has happened," she admits since it has and he can find that out from asking anyone and she's not going to lie about that. "But going back through them? No. No, that hasn't happened."

[shotgunsakimbo]

"I'll have to contact her when we're not," Reaper gestures with the flask towards the island and sea, before offering it back. "Stuck on an island. Thank you for answering my questions."

There's genuine gratitude in his voice as with information to start on, he certainly feels less adrift. It also mostly does give an answer to the biggest question that had started to circle in his mind - can he go back to his world? The thought of being stuck in a different world is a rather heavy one, which is definitely going to take some time to process.

"Anything else that might be good for someone not of this world to know? Or how to contact her later?"

III

[iceblade]

A tall woman, redheaded and tattooed, stands nearby as she cleans the muck off her weapon. The greatsword seems practically made of ice, but can't completely be true or it would have melted in the heat...right? Glancing over, she realizes he must be one of the newcomers and flashes a sympathetic grin.

"I'm new to all this, but not as new as some. So, I'll try! Take that sweater over to the firepit and I'll get something that'll put warmth back in those bones, eh?"

[shotgunsakimbo]

"That'd be... appreciated. Thanks." It's difficult to not feel off balance, and the hospitality isn't something Reaper's been used to in his day to day life as of late. The sword does get a second glance, mostly to confirm that's exactly what it is, as he moves towards the fire pit.

He gestures towards the open sea with his marked hand, "It's all fairly convincing that I'm not actually having a fever dream."

[iceblade]

Placing the sword on her back once more, she strides over to where the quartermaster's set provisions and roots around until she finds a bottle of wine. Uncorking it, she takes a swig, manages an approving grunt, then brings it over to the firepit and offers it when she sits down. Glancing to the sea, she manages a wry smile. "I wouldn't blame you if that was a hard notion to shake. If it helps, no one else was expecting to see a kraken encrusted with red lyrium all over, or other creatures like that. You didn't get exposed to much of that shite, did you?"

She looks him over, glad that he's at least coherent but wary after all she's heard about the toxic substance.

[shotgunsakimbo]

"Don't think so." Reaper wrinkles his nose as he takes the bottle, thinking about how much time he spent in the water and becoming aware that there was more danger there than he was aware of. He takes a drink before glancing down at himself, the only thing unfamiliar being the green splinter of light in his hand which he's trying not to linger on.

He offers the bottle back, and asks curiously, "Does red lyrium have a habit of making such ill-tempered creatures?"

[iceblade]

Taking the bottle back, she nods. Her usual cheer subsides, and she visibly shudders at the memories provoking. "Yeah, they do. They grow powerful, it's true, but they're also mad as red lyrium corrupts them inside out. Which, by the way, it can do to humans. Whatever you do, don't let it near your mouth or any open wounds or the like, there's a better chance to get infected that way. And it's not a pretty way to go, as you might've guessed.

...sorry it's grim, but there's nothing good about that shite."

II

[wardeneructate]

One of those boats had a pissed off looking dwarf on it. Who was slicing at tentacles wherever he could. Least until he saw a very wet looking masked maybe human in the water. He was short as any of his people would be but that didn't stop him for reaching out a hand to the man.

"Oi! Grab on you sopping wet sod! You're not any use in that piss pool there and I want my hands free to fight this sodding things again!"

Sooooo best greeting went to Oghren, right?

[doneisdone]

The person rowing said boat is a very peeved middle-aged woman with the build and bearing of a hawk. "Hurry up!" Teren calls to Oghren, some of her usual savagery for him returning. She's about to say more when a serpent's head erupts out of the water, but in her panic, Teren gives it a good thwack with the oar. It screeches and falls to one side, subdued for at least the immediate future.

[shotgunsakimbo]

Trying to seize the opportunity with the serpent gone, Reaper quickly swims closer, reaching out to both take the offered hand and then grip the side of the boat.

The mask certainly hides the incredulous look, but not the tone of voice. "You're trying to fight them?"

[wardeneructate]

For how small he was, he was seriously strong. He hauled the man with the weird mask into the boat then looked at the woman he was with. "Get us going! I'm slashing what comes our way!"

And with that he turned back to the waters, trying to stay as steady as he could. He figured Teren could be the one to talk to the Rifter. Seemed a good enough thing for him.

[doneisdone]

Now that is a voice. It certainly gets Teren's attention, and she stares at the newcomer in vague horror-fascination before she begins rowing again. "Maker, what happened to you," she mutters, half to Reaper, half to no one.

II

[arlathvhen]

From her position in one of the smaller boats, Beleth can see one of the rifters surface, and quickly goes to grab rope. Rope acquired, she leans over the end of the boat, shouting as she gets ready to throw the rope. "Um--Hello! If you could just gra--"

Attempts to commune with the rifter grind to a halt, replaced by a startled, ungraceful squawk of surprise as she gets a glimpse at the rifter's--What was that? Face? Mask? Skull???

It was alarming, whatever it was. Alarming enough for her to promptly pull back, staring at him with wide eyes. "...Are you. Um. Are you a demon?" Would he admit it if he was? Damn. "...I'll help you, but if you're a demon, I've killed a lot of demons. Just so you know." This was probably a bad idea, but even getting eaten by a kraken seems a bit cruel of a fate for a demon. So, with some wariness, she tosses the rope out to Reaper.

She's really hoping he's not a demon, because that would be a really embarrassing way to die.

Re: II

[shotgunsakimbo]

Despite, or maybe because of the danger of the situation, floating amidst sea monsters and strange green energy, that draws a startled laugh out of Reaper. His mask design still gets the responses he had been going for, even if it's not helping in this case. He kicks forwards to grab the rope, and swim closer to the boat.

"Not a demon. Promise." He's trying to at least sound a bit reassuring when he answers.

[arlathvhen]

"Never heard that one before." Beleth mutters under her breath, but she still pulls the rope that Reaper has grabbed, bracing her legs against the edge of the boat. There's a look of nervousness as she offers him her hand, but it has less to do with whether or not he's a demon, and more if she could manage to pull him into the boat.

Well. May as well give it a shot.

"Welcome to sunny, picturesque Thedas, by the way. This will probably be the worst you see of it." Probably. Maybe. If you're lucky.

(And Reaper is super lucky, of course.)

[shotgunsakimbo]

Frankly Reaper wouldn’t be surprised at not being taken at face value, it isn’t as if he’s got the best voice for sounding reassuring especially coupled with the mask. He takes her hand and helps hoist himself into the boat as smoothly as he can without tipping it.

Once in, he reaches up to pull the mask off to take a better look at the whole scene of sea creatures, monsters, and whatnot. There's a pause before he comments dryly, “The sea monster watching tours weren’t advertised.”

[arlathvhen]

Beleth can't help but carefully watch as he removes the mask, and feels a bit of relief when she sees an actual human face behind it. Okay, so, probably not a demon, probably not going to kill her. Considering everything else that's currently trying its damnest to do that, it's a relief to cross one out.

"I've never even heard of anything like them--let alone infested with red lyrium. That's--uh. The red rock-like substance that's poking out of them. Try to avoid it, it'll kill you." Like...everything else around here. "I've never even heard of a rifter retrieval going quite this badly. I...guess you're just particularly lucky."

Lucky or no, everything trying to kill them or no, manners are still important, so Beleth turns to the man, and places her hand on her chest, bobbing her head to him in what is probably some weird greeting. "Beleth Ashara. I'll be trying to keep you from getting killed."

II

[crowncitizen]

The only reason Prompto's going anywhere near that water is because people need help. It's just like Altissia all over again, though at least a whole city isn't at stake this time. Just two ships and the poor sods being dumped out of a Rift.

Prompto's in one of the smaller boats, paddling over frantically towards the man in the water.

"Hang on, I'm coming!"

[shotgunsakimbo]

Reaper lets out a huff as best he can without inhaling sea water under the mask. May mutter something under his breath about ‘hang onto what exactly’ because getting dumped into the ocean unexpected does make for a trying experience. He raises a hand to wave towards Prompto to try to indicate that he heard the man, and starts swimming towards the boat.

[crowncitizen]

There's a bone chilling roar not too far from where they are. The beastie is making a mess of things over yonder, and Prompto's terrified it'll turn its gaze on them soon enough. TIME TO PADDLE FASTER.

Soon enough the boat pulls up alongside Reaper. Prompto holds his hand out, reaching for Reaper to help him into the boat.