DRAKONIS RIFTER ARRIVAL

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters
WHAT: People fall out of a rift, get attacked, and discover that they are trapped and alone.
WHEN: Drakonis 10
WHERE: A snowy pit.
NOTES: This month, the arrival log is CLOSED to new rifters only. Don't worry, there will be chances for everyone else to meet (and help!) them soon.

I. ARRIVAL

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. At least in some worlds.

In this world, you wake with a jolt when you hit the ground, soft for an instant and then bone-jarringly hard. You've landed in a pile of loose snow, beneath which is more snow, frozen solid, and all around you are walls of more snow, tinted by the shifting green gash in the air. There are other people finding their feet after a similarly sprawling arrival, and then emerging from the rift in your wake are a number of hunched, greyish creatures in tattered robes that shuffle about, keeping their distance as they send sharp spikes of ice flying toward you.

They're accompanied by floating beings with too many insect-like arms, and creatures that seem to emerge from the ground like plumes of magma, their fire causing the walls to drip and turning the ground beneath your feet treacherously slick. There is also one giant scarecrow, nearly twenty feet tall, and with giant scalpel blades for arms. It is dressed in a tuxedo, a fine bolo tie, and a cowboy hat, and accompanied by five normal-sized scarecrows in matching suits and hats. Needless to say, they are not friendly either. There are many of you, but even more enemies.

If that all weren't enough there's also a narrow splinter of light in the same sickly green as whatever brought you here, now glowing out of the palm of your left hand. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions, and seems to call your attention back to the rift.

II. TRAPPED

After the first few waves of demons are defeated (there will be no more scarecrows), there will be a lull long enough to regroup and take stock of surroundings. You appear to be at the bottom of a deep crevasse, the walls stretching high above your heads. The space is only about 20 feet wide at its center, but nearly fifty yards long, tapering narrower at the ends, with the rift located near the southern end. There is no exit, no cracks or tunnels leading away, and no hand or footholds in the sheer walls. There are some animal bones scattered about, but no evidence of other living creatures. There is also no evidence of other people, here or above you.

Luckily, the rift has spilled out a great deal of crap along with you and all the demons. There is a gigantic cake several feet tall half-smushed into one wall, its ten tiers delicately decorated all in white fondant, with whorling patterns and flowers made of frosting. Each layer is a different flavor, ranging from the mundane (chocolate, vanilla, carrot) to the bizarre (strawberry & pickle, spicy lemon olive, red velvet mackerel). There are also some actual mackerel, a heap of live fish having spilled through the rift and scattered about the crevasse during the battle, along with bundles of dried (but now soggy) cornstalks.

You can see a narrow patch of sky above and sunlight does filter down to you, for the few hours of the day that there is any sunlight at all. Given the reflection off all the snow and ice, during those daylight hours it is pleasantly bright, though tinted a bit blue (and green by the rift). Unfortunately, daylight only lasts about eight hours, and it is frequently cloudy, which leaves the crevasse dimly lit, as if in a perpetual dusk. At night it will be utterly pitch black except for the rift's eerie glow. It's also very cold, with temperatures remaining below freezing during the day and well below at night.

III. LOST

Whether with magic or creative ice-pick improvisation, scaling the walls of the crevasse is not impossible—but there is minimal reward for the effort. Fully exposed to the wind, it's colder on the surface than in the crevasse, and on the third day there's a whiteout blizzard that reduces visibility to twenty feet for hours. Even when the weather is clear, though, there's not much to see. The land above is a wasteland of ice, snow, and wind, without visible vegetation or landmarks other than monotonous gentle hills. The only disruption to the landscape in any direction is about a hundred yards north of the rift, where spots of color and piles of snow mark what is, on closer inspection, an abandoned camp.

Whoever was there before built low walls out of packed snow to block some of the wind and dug enough snow caves to sleep a dozen people, though a few have since caved in. There's no food—there was food, before, but overturned crates and animal tracks suggest the area is not as devoid of life as it looks—but there are thick fur blankets and sets of boots or outerwear. More than a dozen, in a variety of different sizes. Almost like they were expecting poorly-clothed company.

Maybe someone was coming for you. Maybe they'll be back. Or maybe not.



[ ooc | The rift will continue to spit out demons at semi-regular intervals. After the rifters defeat the first couple waves of demons, the pace of these reinforcements will slow—instead of a few minutes, it may be a few hours until the next batch comes. It is possible for your characters to close the rift themselves, but because they have no idea what they're doing it will require trial and error to figure out how, and all (or near enough) of them working together to succeed. This should take at least two days to manage.

Other than the stuff described in the post and the inventories everyone arrived with (as approved in your apps; please don't suddenly remember some other useful things in your characters' pockets) there is nothing in the crevasse except snow, ice, rock, and animal bones. But don't worry, we promise we're not leaving your characters all to die. Your characters have arrived in the Sunless Lands, and the Inquisition is on its way. When the mod plot post goes up this coming week, it will include a prompt to rescue all of you. Until that time, please refrain from RPing elsewhere in the game and enjoy this exclusive opportunity to bond with your rift-mates.

Your characters will be alone for approximately five days IC. Please keep them from wandering off too far, since that will make it implausible for the Inquisition to find and rescue them and then you won't get to play in the game. If they would insist on trying, you're welcome to use adverse weather, ice collapsing into other caves beneath them, or whatever other natural obstacles necessary to stall their progress. ]

Comments

[strangel]

Sarah doesn’t smell gross, because Sarah is the perfect person? Obviously? How dare you suggest otherwise?

On the plus side, there are no bizarre ingredients added to make for a typical Helena belly-hurting combination. On the down side, it is basically just fish cooked in water without any seasoning added. There’s meat in there, though, so it’s got a little extra sustenance. Incredibly fishy sustenance, but even so.

“You are less fevery.” Her smile is small, but happy. “How are you… feeling?”

[coppelganger]

Sarah slumps back against the cave wall so that Helena can sit beside her. She takes another sip of the soup and then offers the teapot back to her so that they can share. The soup isn't remotely good, but it's filling, at least. And she's hungry enough that whether it tastes good or not doesn't matter.

"I feel alright. Just confused. About all of this." She assumes Helena is, too, but then Helena always seems to know things, even when things are insane.

[strangel]

"It is confusing. Strange monsters have carried us away in our dreams." She is quiet, and scoots closer to Sarah, so they are sitting shoulder to shoulder, Helena angled towards Sarah. Close, attentive; Sarah is the sun, she is the flower that turns to follow it.

"In Ukraine we call them mara. Devil women, sometimes invisible, sometimes in different shapes. They torment your sleep." A thoughtful little frown. "I think we are waking now."

She bites her lip, worried. Sarah must be missing little Kira.

[coppelganger]

"I've never had a dream last this long." Nor has she had one this detailed. She's had weird, vivid dreams before, but a dream where she can actually feel the biting cold of the wind, or the ache in her hand from that strange green shard?

Sarah goes quiet for a minute, thinking. The wind howls outside. It's so unlike the desert prison she'd been in just before arriving here. "Helena, where'd you go? After you left."

[strangel]

“I do not think is still dream.”

Quietly, she takes another sip of broth, and hands it back to Sarah, before tipping back her head and looking to the snow ceiling. “Our sleeping carried us off somewhere else. I have not slept in dreams before, but are sleep since we get here.”

But the question confuses her. “When was leaving? After hospital?”

[coppelganger]

"No, when you left me at the prison." Sarah is carefully moderating her voice, trying not to sound upset, although thinking about the way Helena just walked off and left her in that cell is definitely not her happiest recent memory. She takes the teapot and sips at the soup to stop herself saying anything else, just waiting to see what Helena will say first.

[strangel]

Helena frowns deeply, but it's a frown of deep confusion. Prison?

She tries to think. Prison. Testing the word out, like there might be some other meaning to it, but if there is she can't figure out what it is.

"I did not leave you at prison," she says slowly, cautiously, like she's expecting some sort of reaction. If Sarah were Tomas and Helena were still holding the teapot, she'd certainly expect it to be slapped from her hands, at the very least. "I followed you from mother's house," an echo of what she'd said, before the blizzard and the monsters, when she'd found Sarah tied up in Rachel's shower.

[coppelganger]

"No," Sarah says, but the word is drawn out slowly: no-o-o.

"No, that happened before. This was—the military prison. Castor." She looks at Helena with an expression that's both questioning and concerned. She doesn't understand.

[strangel]

A couple of confused blinks, as she tries to figure out what Sarah is talking about. Thinking, thinking really hard. Her sestra is clever, and sometimes tricky. Sometimes she misleads and sometimes they hurt each other. Sarah's manner with her has been so different, though, she she leaned into that welcome and the friendliness offered. Now she is uncertain. Her fingers itch for a blade.

"What is Castor? The prison name?" The words come hesitantly. "I'm sorry," she offers, a little nervously.

[coppelganger]

Sarah shakes her head, less an reply to Helena than an indicator of her own thoughts. Helena doesn't remember, or Helena's doing a really good job of pretending she doesn't remember. She doesn't put it past Helena to lie to her, but her instinct says there would be some kind of tell, and the look she sees on Helena's face is sincere.

"Hey, meathead," she says, and puts an arm around her sister, trying to sound gentle. "It's alright if you don't remember."

[strangel]

The affection from Sarah is strange. Craved, longed for, but unfamiliar. She’s a little shocked for a moment, before leaning into the contact offered by Sarah’s arm around her shoulders, her hand balling into a fist as she grips the side of Sarah’s shirt closest to her. She’s in too much shock, really, to even protest “meathead.”

“Did something happen to me?” Did Johanssen take more from her than she thought?

[coppelganger]

Sarah can only be honest. "I don't know. But if it happened to you, it happened to both of us." The two of them are here together, after all. There's the green light in their hands, and the strange people around them, and the fact that they're trapped in a frozen place when the last Sarah remembers, it was desert.

[strangel]

"Yes," Helena agrees, although her brow is furrowed, and she chews on her lip out of concern for her sestra, head tilted so she can use Sarah's shoulder as a pillow and cuddle closer. She must think of a way to fix it, to undo it. Keep her sestra safe.

"I am glad we are together." They way they should be. She had thought Sarah might turn away, even after they woke up.

[coppelganger]

"So am I." It comes out with all the easiness of a lie, though it's not one exactly. She's glad to be with Helena, after all the days of looking for her, and even after Helena abandoned her at the prison. She can't fully blame Helena for that, and maybe now they'll get to fix some of what went wrong with the two of them. She's glad to be with Helena; she's just not glad to be with Helena here.