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

[in_death_sacrifice]

"I'd never considered the gender of the sea before. What a curious thing. How did the moon end up so far from... well, home, for lack of a better word, if it was a mermaid's creation?" That's probably a whole tale in itself, really, but they've got time for that sort of thing right now. There's not much to do in the downtime on a ship, other than find some way to occupy one's self.

"When you're surrounded by something in such a way... I can see how it would be your entire life. It's how I feel, the closer I am to the sky, in open air, in a high place... It's why I took so strongly to griffon riding." Maybe his ancestors ought to have gone straight to worshipping the sky and the air, alongside the dragons that flew through it. "But... hm... I'm glad you're not forgotten. That reassurance must mean a lot. I've often wondered whether or not any deities ever notice or care if we forsake them..."

[foxsays]

"She made a wave so large that the seafoam froze about as she swam - have you ever seen the things that come from the deepest waters sometimes? Swept up in the storms or if the nets go deep? Giants. Leviathans. She slumbered next to the sea's heart so when she swam?" Araceli's breath whistles low between her teeth, there's no other way to describe such a wave that came after her. "Everything in the sea swam with her. Made it bigger. Up, and up, and up it went until there she was in the sky."

One day. One day she'll do as suggested and put the tale down in writing so Thedas has a record of it. Maybe it can just be some fairytale for people to say 'how strange' or whatever they want to say about it, or people will want to keep sailing, or some of them will know the records, will know that it's all true. Here is a story from beyond a rift that a girl wrote down once, a footnote or margin in some library will say.

"Have your family always been connected to Grey Wardens? I've wondered what it must be like to fly on one of those-- birds?" There aren't many things in Thedas that seem capable of flight, those are the only things she can think of (if only in terms of keeping Lux far away from something he might want to squabble with). She isn't quite sure if bird is the correct term but beast might be an insult. Still, he speaks of the Maker, a subject that tends to sit sourly with Araceli for obvious reasons given her own beliefs. "If something can turn its back on you until all prove themselves to it? Does it matter? Could that thing be said to care at all if it can keep a cold shoulder until every voice sings of it from every corner?"

[in_death_sacrifice]

Kain listens in fascination, trying to picture this in his mind's eye. He's definitely seen some strange hauls on the occasional sea voyages he's been on... things from deep down there are always so much stranger and larger than he likes to imagine. There's something about it which unsettles him... it's all the wrong element. But the sky... that part, he can relate to better. His ancestors practically worshipped the sky, a long time ago.

"Yes. My ancient family definitely had a lot of Wardens among them. They were also usually Reavers, or something... very similar to it." They drank the blood of dragons, at the very least, until such a time came that there weren't any. They always found some way to still honor old tradition though. "My father was a Warden. I wanted to follow in his footsteps, and so I am. I honor him by being one of them. We've always felt strongly connected to creatures of the sky. We belong in the sky, so being griffon riders comes naturally to us Ventforts. Griffons are remarkable creatures... I still can't believe they're finally back among us. It's incredible riding upon something that was just a legend for so long."

He speaks of that whole thing highly, almost with reverence, as if it's the most amazing, important thing in the world. All of this just means so much to him and his personal identity.

He sighs quietly. He really isn't the most devout, mainly because there are times where he feels that the Maker isn't completely his god. But he was raised with it, he believes in a higher power of some sort, so he gives it his best. "I've often wondered that, myself. I don't know. I don't know if anyone does know what the Maker truly thinks of us. All I know is that he surely exists and it's worth stepping into a chapel on occasion to remind him that we're still thinking of him."

[foxsays]

"You will forgive me for not knowing what a Reaver is? I don't know so many warriors in Thedas to know the names for what they can do." Truth be told she keeps an eye on them but keeps a careful distance from them, from people who have the ability to bear down on her and beat her in a fight she can't easily get out of. "It was my understanding that it's rare for Wardens to have families, that the Wardens become their families instead. This is a strange time in the world though, even if it comes from someone who came out of a rift. People like me, a magister or Darkspawn, red lyrium...that you have something good that's come back to all of you as a light in the dark, that's a comfort."

Or so she would imagine, she can't truly imagine flight since falling through the air is different again and she's only really found her riding seat in the past few months on a horse then the nuggalope. But it's important to him. And that's what counts, when a person feels it in all parts of them.

The Dalish believe but their Creators are locked away from them. The dwarves revere their ancestors and the Stone around them. The Avvar gods are living and breathing to them from what Araceli's managed to figure out there. But the Maker? Andraste is dead and the Maker doesn't care to do much for anyone. "The sea is a constant, same as the moon, the tides. All things in it. We lost where we came from once but we gained so much more than we had in the past, I just...I find it very hard to wrap my head around this thing that reaches so far when the Maker turned his back, and much of the Chant was written after His Bride was slain is all."

[in_death_sacrifice]

Kain nods slowly, understanding that he has a lot to explain. He doesn't mind, though, since all of this is stuff he enjoys talking about, important to who he is. "Well... my family weren't all Wardens. Sometimes, there were several children, and only one among them might become a Warden, usually a younger sibling who had less to inherit. Or, there were a few who simply became Wardens later in life, such as my father." There's no having children after joining, after all. He'd only joined late, after losing Kain's mother and everything, wanting to be a hero during the Blight and all of that.

"As for reavers, we're warriors with an added ability to take a few more hits than most. I can turn an enemy's attacks against them. The more they damage me, the more I'll be able to damage them. Blood... is power."

That's the simplest explanation, anyway. There's drinking the blood of dragons and all that comes with that, but he doesn't tend to want to get into the creepiest parts right from the start. Just a little precaution there.

"You're not the only one who wonders about that aspect of it. Living in the absence of a god, as opposed to the presence... My family worshipped in other ways, back in ancient times. They worshipped... more tangible things, things they lived beside and cared for, who cared for them in turn." He shrugs. "But all of that is gone." Mostly. "Perhaps someone more devout than me could explain better why people turn to the Maker and Andraste so fervently. It can be... exhausting, constantly trying to prove yourself to an absent deity, though." But he does it, because that's the kind of person he is, though there's always that side of him wondering if the old ways are better.

[foxsays]

Choosing then. For some, perhaps for most which is more than many can say in Thedas when a family lays out the path before their feet to dictate who goes where, does what, for what purpose. Even if it's to rid yourself of an inheritance you'd rather not portion out an extra share of, there's at least that. (How sad it is that Araceli can pick it apart this way, lay it out neatly, flat at the table, a map unfurled to be pinned at the corners. Perhaps this is what family is in Thedas more than at home.) "An unusual choice for your father I take it? Men in Thedas of certain years tend to have predictable paths for the most part."

Looking at him more curiously this time at those words, Araceli considers her words. "I thought only magic would do such things." She says it carefully. Blood is best to be stepped about in Thedas when it isn't the thing flowing through you. Even then, how tricky it becomes.

"The devout often turn me back to the books I've already read, written after the fact, as I've said." Not exactly a complaint but a simple clarification: sometimes a person wants opinions rather than 'this is a thing that happened because we say that it happened this way' when they pass it down, and down, and down. When they strike pieces of it away. "Enough exhausts me here without that stacked on top of it. There's never a shortage of work to be done."