faderift | THE SEAS SHALL RISE & DEVOUR, Part I

THE SEAS SHALL RISE & DEVOUR, Part I

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.

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Nearly two years in Thedas, accomplished student that she is of devouring as much information as she can get her hands on? Of course she knows your name Loghain but there are other things that matter more: knowing a person for who they are on their own merits, and the situation at hand.

Right now they're trying to make sure everyone escapes with their skins and though she might appear deceptively small, she handles the oars confidently in the choppy waters to keep them steady as she can once Loghain's moving. Planting one of her feet flat to feel for something that isn't the water making the boat move.

The tail lashes and she hauls in one oar to keep it from being damaged. "Watch, it's coming back around!"

"I see it!" The bulk of the serpent's body jostles the boat beneath them, and Loghain has to plant his legs in a wide stance to keep himself from staggering. Through the sea spray, he spots the wet slick of its back cresting the surface of the water--

--it's a different serpent entirely that lunges out of the water from the port side of the boat. The time it needs to get a bead on the two humans, to decide which one it will strike first, is enough time for Loghain to twist around and ready his sword for the forward thrust needed to embed his sword almost to the hilt in its skull as it lunges forward. The blade skewers straight through the roof of its red, bloody mouth, and is quick to protrude through the crown of its skull. For a moment it thrashes reflexively, and Loghain has to turn his face away from the spray of blood that gouts from his maw.

Pulling both oars in quick as she can, she grabs for silkdart. The oars can't be risked, they need those, and closing her mouth (too wary of anything that was or might lyrium now) to avoid any blood she stands up to get a better feel for it. Granted the best way she could do it is to dive out, look, then haul herself back in but he's probably not going to be up for her doing that and after that last time something big bit her and shook her as if she weighed nothing, she isn't keen on repeating the experience.

The dagger is better for thrusting than a rapier when the blood in the water draws the second serpent she'd warned for, but unlike demons this isn't something she's frightened of. Why should she be? The sea is the sea, they both came from it and she slices up with silkdart to under the chin as it thrashes, managing to get part of the jaw to sever before it rears back and away. If she had height or weight on her side she'd have done a better job but wiping the blood from her hand she swaps hands, rapier in the right, dagger in the left. "We need to haul one back after, the kraken's too big but someone has to look at these!" Araceli Bonaventura y Castell maybe just wants some nightmare fuel to draw in peace later.

He could not have possibly heard her right.

"What!" He'd shout even if it wasn't necessary for his voice to be heard over the rush of the sea and the roars of the monsters around them. Still skewered on his sword, the sea serpent gives a sudden lurch backwards as its dead weight starts to drag it back down into the water. Loghain swears and quickly yanks the sword backward before the dead animal can capsize the boat--though it does mean that this particular serpent is lost to them.

"On whose order!" he demands, though he's already looking for something he can use to assist in this mad quest which will almost certainly end in one of them eaten alive by a kraken or a corrupted sea serpent.

He absolutely did hear her right.

"A dead one, even these big ones would die on land." In her mind it's kinder to kill them in the water and to have most of them to let the sea reclaim them than it is to drag one back so it can labour for however long it tries to, the way things do sometimes, gasping, mouths gaping for air they can't get to. "How am I to--"

It coils under and back, knocks the boat enough she has to grab to steady herself and slash out again when she can before she draws herself to her full height for a moment because she has reasons she can try to use here. Even if her full height really pales in comparison to a grown man when she's absent her boots too. "I lead naval forces, I have sailors I speak with in Kirkwall - I need a good drawing of this to show to them!" (Also Madame de Cedoux but she needs to make sure she can get anything from sailors who sail these waters and who have contacts on this.)

Oh and here's her friend missing a chunk of the jaw coming back for more, time to for a nice quick jab to the side with a rapier friend.

On her order, then. Right.

He spots the injured serpent lashing its way through the waves towards them again, its wounded maw weeping gore into the waves. "Watch it, he's coming around the starboard side--" Loghain readies his sword again, as well as a length of sodden rope left to moulder in the bottom of the boat.

When Araceli lunges forward with the rapier, he drives his own sword deep into its flank, as much to hold the beast above the surface as to slay it. His clothes are soaked through with the beast's blood; here's hoping he hasn't ingested any of it. He holds off throwing the rope around its neck just yet, just in case it makes one last bid for freedom and ends up dragging them along for the ride.

Pulling her blade out, she stabs in again, lower to puncture the windpipe hopefully. It's a quicker death and as she pulls the rapier out to free up her hand she watches the water frothing beneath and under the boat. She can't see the serpent with the damaged jaw now and that's not a great sign but her hair is in her eyes, clinging to her face with the sea and blood in it as she fights the dying serpent.

"There. Enough, enough now." To the serpent not Loghain, grabbing her dagger to stab it again with a wince at the way it contorts under her but it's bleeding heavily by now, struggling to get any air in. Maybe the other one swam away, maybe someone else in a boat got it, maybe it's fighting a demon but her hand doesn't hurt as much now as she stabs a final time hard enough her body half-collapses over the top of it as the serpent howls, giving a desperate attempt at a final spirited effort but it can't now.

She leans back into the boat. Wipes her hands and the flat of each blade on her clothes after pulling them free. Takes a breath that tastes of salt. "Okay. Okay we can get the rope. I can slip in and lash it round if we must."

Its death throes are a tortured thing to witness, but Loghain keeps his blade buried into the serpent to the hilt, heaving his full weight onto the thing at its every twisting, writhing attempt to free itself. The death blows themselves he leaves to Araceli to deliver, and he marks with grim appreciation how each strike from her blade aims to bring about the swiftest death possible. The corrupted beast is still just a beast; it doesn't deserve to suffer more than it already has.

At the right moment, he passes her one end of the length of rope without criticism or complaint. "Mind the saves," is all he advises her, meeting her eyes. There's a silent promise in his stare to watch her back.

What she would have given to have seen this before when she'd sailed to Rivain on what had been just an opportunity to study a place less known to much of Thedas at the recommendation of her teacher. Or on the journey home after what that had become, with friends, with Korrin and The Outsider, if they'd seen the tentacles of a kraken rising lazily from the waters, serpents racing the ship as well as whales breaching.

The serpent is dead weight now as she gets the rope, looping it round once then twice before she feels comfortable enough to pull out her weapons and drop them back in the boat. The dagger she tucks in her belt before she slides in and-- it's warm. Warmer than she'd like but she'll find somewhere to wash off the blood and scrub herself afterwards as she loops more rope around it because the body moves easier in the water than out of it.

"I'm going to lash it to the stern eye, once it's knotted on my side, can I pass the rope to you and have you knot it so it's secure enough?"

"I'm no sailor," Loghain responds, "but I'll get the job done." The best promise he can offer in their circumstances. The sight of the young woman in the red, foamy waves makes his gut lurch unpleasantly, but he won't usher her out. If she didn't want to do this work, she wouldn't have thrown herself at the task.

He waits for her to secure the dead serpent to the stern, then quickly takes the rope so that he can make the line fast, securing it as best he can. He offers her a hand to help her out of the water, once that's done.

A hand on the boat to guide herself all the way since she can't open her eyes until she's free of the blood has her heart pounding wildly in her chest, same as escorting terrified nobles through the gardens of the Winter Palace with only a dagger and Red Templars, same as being bound in the dark with lyrium in her veins courtesy of the Venatori, same as that first time she picked the lock on a window and crept into the estate of a noble in Castileos as a teenage girl.

At least it's done without something biting her and she accepts Loghain's hand, sparing a look to the serpent and finally, finally, breathing. "Gracias senor," she says as she drags a wet mass of curls out of her face. "I don't snap that way, not-" in public, "very often. But I have contacts. Friends. They sail this way."

He remains on high alert up until he's able to hoist her back up out of the water and help her into the boat, which lists lower in the water now that there's a dead sea serpent secured to one side of it. To more evenly distribute their weight, he moves to the other side of the boat and reaches for an oar.

At her words of apology--or near apology--he gives his head a subtle shake, as though to indicate he isn't bothered. "Let's return to the shore," he says, after casting a quick glance towards the other boats. All appear to be turning back now. "I imagine you'll want a change of clothes."

Taking the other oar once her weapons are sorted - cleaning, checking for damage, she'll do that once they're back on the shore when she can sit down and find her boots and coat she threw off in a hurry - Araceli can feel the strain in her arms as she starts rowing, a cramp beginning somewhere from the wrist down in the right that she readjusts for.

"If I can find them, I can't spot where we pushed off from. Probably a fire too, hopefully there's some kelp or seawood if the driftwood's wet through," she agrees. "A lot of people already in shock and then throwing themselves into cold water? A fire will be good."

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THE SEAS SHALL RISE & DEVOUR, Part I

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CW blood and violence and head injuries

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