faderift | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Her knee-jerk reaction is to immediately tell Cade that no, of course he isn't a coward, don't be silly. But that isn't going to help him, and what he needs isn't empty reassurances. So instead, she just turns to look at him, voice soft.

"Why do you think that?"

She tries to recall if he did anything particularly noteworthy during the fight that would be considered cowardly. He was pretty scared, but. Being scared of a horrifying leviathan infested with ungodly corruption isn't cowardly, that's just good sense.

Pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes, Cade's anxiety grows when he's asked to elaborate. "I didn't--" he begins, his voice hitching, "I didn't want to fight, I was afraid." It took Simon calling him a craven for him to pick up the bow in the first place, even if that wasn't Simon's intention.
"I shouldn't be here," he continues, "I'm a problem." Like always. Somehow, even when he's not in the Templars anymore, Cade manages to get in the way.

"Cade..." Beleth gently tried to reach for one of his hands, voice still soft, sympathetic. "It's not cowardly to be afraid. Especially of something like that monster. Something like that--It's beyond us, it's beyond anything anyone could have imagined. Of course you were afraid. I was afraid, too. But you helped, anyway. You fought beside me, you helped Ser Norrington rescue that rifter, even though you were afraid. That's bravery, not cowardice."

She knows there's a decent chance Cade will just shrug off her attempts at consolation, but at least she can say that she tried. Maybe some of it will stick with him, work on him slowly. "And for what it's worth...I'm glad you're here. You probably kept me from doing something stupid and dying." She pauses, and gently nudges him with her shoulder. "And I'm just glad to be around you, you know. You're my friend."

Though he flinches when Beleth touches him, Cade accepts the gesture, at least until it's time to dig his fingers into his hair and press against his head. It helps, somehow. "I used to do it all the time," he rationalizes, "I was a Lieutenant." Maybe a Dalish elf wouldn't know what that is, but she's also head of scouts, so she probably does by now. Either way, he doesn't think about it.
"I broke. It's impossible now. Maybe I helped you, but it wasn't true valor." He shakes his head, still clutching it. "I would have fought to the end for the Knight-Commander, but she's dead and I failed her, and the Circle, and everyone, and--" He doesn't even seem to realize he's still talking, everything spilling out at once. "--and the Champion of Kirkwall is a respected and heroic person who I fought against. I could have died by her sword or she by mine. She's a hero. I'm a waste."

Beleth freezes when Cade flinches, pulling her hand away. Attempts at comfort would be pointless if she just...ignored him acting uncomfortable. It's not easy, even so, to just watch him, clearly in pain. What is she supposed to say? What's she supposed to do?

Maybe she can just grab him and shake him until he coughs up whatever she has to do to make him feel better.

Instead, she just closes her eyes, listening to Cade, and thinking. There's a small, bitter part of her that just feels tired. He can be so draining sometimes, and sometimes, a small, bitter part of her feels like he'll drain her, and everything she pours into him will just drain right out of him, too. The holes in his soul will leave both of them empty.

"Cade...Knight-Commander Meredith isn't here, nor is the Champion. I am here. You didn't fail me. You'll only fail me when you give up."

Though Cade is pretty far in his own head at the moment, it also makes him overly sensitive to the reactions of people around him, so he can sense the tension in Beleth even if he doesn't know from where it stems. "I'm sorry," he says quickly, cutting his eyes back to her, "you don't have to listen to this."

"No, no--It's fine." Beleth quickly assures him, because whatever trying to help Cade may cost, it would be far worse for him to think that she had written him off. "I don't want you to feel like you can't speak to me about your problems. I'm glad that you can. I just..."

She tries to find the words for a few moments, then says quietly: "...I just wish I knew how to help you. But I'm not sure how. I'm just...kind of useless, I guess. I'm sorry."

Few things could make this conversation more awkward for both of them, but Cade will likely manage somehow.
"No you aren't," he replies, actually sounding offended by her suggestion that she's useless. "...I don't... I don't think anyone knows how to help me. Or if I can be helped." Furrowing his brow, he looks out at the water again. "That's not your fault."
Exhausted, he lets his face fall forward onto his hands and sighs into them. "Maker, I thought we were dead."

If Cade had any great skill to call on, it was probably making things more awkward, no matter the situation.

Beleth actually looks startled that Cade takes her casual name calling (of herself) so poorly. Her knee-jerk reaction is to argue--of course she is, Leliana certainly wouldn't have allowed the Inquisition to be in this position. She would have done...something, anything, that would be amazing and save them all.

At the very least, she wouldn't be sitting around in the sand and kicking her feet in the tide.

"Me, too. I'm amazed that we got all the rifters out of there alive. I swear, all the times I've thought I was about to die and got out of it, I feel like I have Fen'Harel watching over me." There's a short pause, then she tacks on: "The trickster god. He's known for being able to bestow luck...though what kind depends on his whim." As trickster gods are apt to do.

THE SEAS SHALL RISE & DEVOUR, Part I

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