faderift | DRAKONIS RIFTER ARRIVAL

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DRAKONIS RIFTER ARRIVAL

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. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Artifact is well and good, mates, but I ain't from a world with any kinda magic. I mean, weird science maybe, but..."

She trails off for a second, frowning hard. "Say it is an artifact, it'd need to be something in common to all our worlds, right? I don't reckon anything that exciting would be sitting in my office. Not unless it was an enchanted chihuahua, or something." Who knew what mysteries could lie behind those eyes? Chihuahuas were pretty dramatic, in their own way. "Not sayin' it's wrong, but freaky shit is always in high tech labs, or in ancient tombs or haunted houses that some idiot is messin' about in."

Even so, she drags her hand over her face, and looks towards Iorveth. "What's that conjunction thing, then?"

There's the pain in her hand to consider, the curiosity over whether its been aching for other people, the weakness the tall, dark & loomy mentioned, but she's trying to desperately organise her brain around one thing at a time. God, she misses coffee. And rum, actually, but right now coffee might be more productive.

He doubts a single item caused this - he’d been touching nothing but the tree he’d fallen asleep against before coming here, and the others bring up valid enough points. The comment that this is a remnant is rift itself, though, seems the most likely, which is why Iorveth thinks to focus on that, mostly.

“The Conjunction of the Spheres. An phenomenon known of in my world - the colliding of several separate realms on a dimensional scale, causing a bleed over of elements of each plane to the next.” Not some legend of something - a solidly accepted fact of each race’s history. A thing they have evidence of, rare and terrible and ancient but unavoidable. “1,500 years ago, it brought monsters to my realm, along with humans.”

And some magics, and all kinds of other nonsense. There’s plenty to be blamed on it, but it’s the thing that’s been haunting Iorveth’s mind since arriving here. Pulling up he hand, he picks at the edges of the crystal there, lips twisting in distaste at the pain of it.

“The scar must be some marker of it. A side effect of passing through.”

"I mean—"

She makes a face, jerking her thumb over her shoulder, in the direction of the crevasse. "It doesn't inaccurate."

But she's been talking a lot, without really helping much, and looks around to the rest of the group hoping one of them might have something to jump in with.

"Well none of that sounds like much of anything to me," Dolores speaks up, her folksy drawl heavier than most here, but not too out of place among these accents. She has her arms crossed over her middle and a frown on her face. Her dress is perhaps among the heaviest clothing here, but that's not saying much, it certainly didn't help with the climb up out of the crevasse.

"I reckon we might want to pay more mind to the ice and snow, and to signalling for some folk to come rescue us before we all die." She considers the small fire and gestures around the camp. The lack of food is pretty apparent...but the lack of flammable substances might not have been. "I can make smoke signals, but we ain't got much to burn at all."

D'Artagnan has observed most of this from off to that side, leaning against the wall of the shelter with his arms folded. The possible explanations are of various degrees of plausibility to him, ranging from seeming not very likely, to being incomprehensible. Radiation? An artifact connecting multiple worlds??

He speaks up, tone a little wry.

"She's right." Meaning Dolores, simultaneously the only one making any practical sense, and the only one dressed in a fashion that might not turn heads where he's from. He's personally dressed for travel and battle, his clothes all toughened leather and his sword hanging at his side. "We need to find people. That's the only way to truly explain any of this. For what it's worth, I'm fairly sure I was asleep. I probably still am. Unless we find someone who knows, any guess is as good as another."

Newt has been mostly listening to the conversation, not wanting to intrude and content to remain by himself for the time being. Everyone raises interesting points, points all worth examining. And they have the time to examine them, given that it isn't when or if, even, anyone is coming along to rescue them.

He takes off his left glove to study the green shard embedded in his hand again, a kind of magic unknown to him.

"Do you think we could use these to help?" He wonders out loud. "I feel like we have these things for a reason. Perhaps they can help us survive, or call for help?"

"As for fire, we could probably make use of some of the wood of the crates I've seen around camp?" He suggests.

"Use them how?" He chimes in, having gone back to listening. He looks down at his gloved hand, removing it to show his own shard, the glow pulsing like a heartbeat. The green color reminded him of a Jedi's lightsaber, even if he knew that this was no kyber crystal. It was something else.

"A fire is a start. We don't want to stray too far from one another." As much as he would like to be rid of all this chattering noise, he likes not dying of the elements. "We have the crates. What else is there to burn?"

He scans his surroundings, waiting for someone to point out something else to burn.

At this point, a white-haired youth speaks up from his position on the ground, where he's been seated for most of the conversation. Of perhaps greater note is the creature huddled beside him; a small, greenish yellow dragon, around the size of a wolf. Her head has been resting quietly in his lap, but when he speaks, she looks up to regard them all with piercing green eyes.

"Well, there's always the scarecrows," Aro says, mildly. "They're usually made of straw. Not to mention all the other bodies of the things that keep trying to kill us. Sorry, I know that's all quite morbid, but I'm not sure I much like leaving them here where they lie. We need a fire, and they need a funeral."

He shrugs, and the dragon lets out a discontented little rumble. Aro puts a steadying hand on her neck.

Kylo looks to the youth and his pet, watching the creature as it watched them. Its kind made him recall the creatures one might find in the wilds of some distant planet back home, scaled and horned with gnashing teeth and claws. This one seemed more attuned to its companion, regarding them all with calm.

"I agree. They could build enough smoke we need to signal, if someone is out there." And they would get a funeral. He wasn't suspicious of what would happen without one but he did recall the custom from his own home.

All interesting theories and ideas, all coming from people who have apparently come from a dozen different worlds. If he weren't trapped here with them he'd find it an utterly fascinating case study. However, Alacruun's interest seems piqued by the dragon. For a moment, it's all that he's looking at, eyes glinting with a hidden sort of interest. Then he shakes himself and tries to focus on the present. There will be time for that later.

"More than that, fire would keep us from freezing to death. As for the portal and these... things in our hands, I still think they're a side-effect of whatever brought us here. Some artifact or remnant of the magic that pulled us between worlds..."

There's a pause and, almost as if he can't help himself, he spouts a greeting at Aro and his dragon in a sibilant, hissing language. Draconic.

Edited 2018-03-12 16:19 (UTC)

Chance has been listening awhile, but he's been fairly distracted the whole time. He's a bard, though. Magic comes a naturally to his music, but beyond that he's not studied that deeply. He could have, but that wasn't where his interests lie.

He does finally speak up, glancing around the group.

"I don't know if this complicates things further... but did anyone else wake up not looking like themselves?" He wiggles his bare toes in the snow. He's never owned shoes before. Never had a need.

"I don't know if that informs any on what's happened to us. But this isn't how I normally look."

"Given the choice," Dolores cuts in, a bit louder than usual at the start and falls back to her normal volume as she speaks. She looks a little pale and more than a little nauseous as she says: "I'd rather keep the wood for us and burn those bodies outside...least' until we have no other options.

"Anyone got a way to haul them out of that crack? I don't imagine they'll have as easy a time climbing up as we did." And it wasn't easy. Not at all--but the man who'd just spoken is barefoot and confused. Something in Dolores's expression hangs, then shifts to concern as she looks at him.

"How do you normally look?"

"If all my magic were functioning normal, maybe I could help get them out of the crack." But Chance shakes his head. He's tried to teleport many times with no luck. And there's no reason it shouldn't be working, at least no normal reason.

"As for how I normally look... A little less grey. An added tail. Hooves instead of feet," he gestures down at that. "Sharper ears, and pure black eyes. No white at all.

Essentially a more handsome version of this." The last bit is more a joke, but he shrugs.

"A tiefling?" Alacruun ventures a guess, "I know of them."

He does not, however, note what he looks like normally.

That was Draconic. Aro's eyebrows shoot up, and he turns to the dragon just as she looks at him. Now he's on his feet, just in time for for another of their number to admit to looking very different at home. He draws the same conclusion as the man who'd spoken to him and smiles, unable to hide his relief.

"As do I," he says, and returns the Draconic greeting to the other. He looks between them both. "You're from Toril, aren't you? Both of you."

Now he focuses on Chance, a line forming between his brows.

"But I don't know what's happened to you. I always look like this, I've not noticed a difference. It must be magic, all of it must. What else could change you without your knowing?"

Edited 2018-03-12 19:49 (UTC)

Iorveth had quieted down after sharing his bit, not particularly worried about how the (mostly) humans would manage their crisis. He had his own plans to scout, and honestly isn’t expecting much from them in assistance with that.

However, they start discussing using the stock of salvageable wood, and Iorveth would rather not have resources they may desperately need to ration used up on a bonfire that might be utterly useless. Stop that, city dwellers. Calm your tits.

“The wood should be saved. We don’t know how long we’ll have to survive here, and we have enough in the way of clothes and blankets to survive the cold now.” Not comfortably, but wasting valuable resources on comfort is just suicide in a tundra like this.

“Set the bodies to a pyre. The smell won’t be favorable, but they’ll burn for a decent while.” As for their looks, he showed up here just as he was back home, so he doesn’t add to that conversation.

Edited 2018-03-12 19:53 (UTC)

Chance nods his head, an answer to both questions about being tiefling and from Toril. Although he doesn't speak Draconinc. He'll just have to skip that club.

"You get used to the smell," he adds, with a shrug. Not his first time having to burn a body, probably far from his last.

"Usually magic that changes my looks is more like illusions, though. This is something far deeper. Not to mention my magic is also different now." He frowns a bit at that. "I was going to try to teleport us... somewhere? I had hoped familiar, but now if we're on a different world...

Regardless of the where, I can't teleport at all."

This is all extremely screwed up, but she's doing her utmost to resist, you know, pointing it out repeatedly to the other people suffering the screwed up situation. If they get rescued, she can yell at their rescuers about how everything is weird as hell. That seems like a good solution.

"I, thankfully, remain my beautiful self." There is something deeply self-mocking in how she says it.

"Well, okay. Do we wanna, I don't know, figure out a plan? I mean, maybe a group doing a sweep to see if they can find any more supplies and firewood while another group works on moving those bodies? Burning those outside to try and create a smoke signal ain't a bad idea, but I reckon that we wanna save the wood and the straw for keeping up warm, as much as we can. I mean those things were pretty fucked up - I don't know if any of us wanna chance inhaling the smoke that comes off 'em."

"Well, in terms of a plan, we need to figure out where we are. At night we may be able to take a look at the stars, get some sense. Course, that depends on the sky clearing up at all. I mean, we can also wait and hope whoever left these clothes comes back, but I'll be honest, I don't really like that plan for a few reasons."

Jang looks over at Alex. "A signal is a good idea though...I can send up...a sorta flare. Not that bright, but it's loud. Downside is it could attract less friendly attention."

Magic and devils. That is what the boy described, himself as a devil. Tail, black eyes, cloven hooves.

Helena watches the discussion in silence, for now, sitting beside her sister. Her face and hands are still speckled with blood that hasn't been washed off by snow, and her blonde hair is a mass of curls and tangles.

Her lip curls back in a silent sort of snarl, but she holds her silence for now.

Well, so far no one else that seems to have experienced the same changes Chance has. That's usually how his luck goes, though. So he shrugs it off for now. It's an issue he'll have to address later.

"If this isn't our world, will the stars match any any of us recognize?" He asks. "I'm not sure how much help the stars would be for finding a way out of here..."

Newt feels as though his head might fling from right between his shoulders as he follows the conversation, the way it seems to bounce across all of them that are currently in this predicament.

"It couldn't hurt to examine our surroundings," he says. "To try and see if there's anything we can make use of, beyond kindling."

"I suspect we'll need to look for additional food," he points out.

"Toril! Yes. Faerun or thereabouts..." Alacruun replies with a little smile, "But I've been traveling-"

Well, reminiscing about 'home' can come later. They have more important things to worry about. Like navigating by the stars apparently. He pulls a face and glances skyward.

"Even if we could see them and navigate by them, we don't know which direction to go in. We could be wandering further into the wastes, for all we know."

"They're right, the skies won't help us." The stars - they'll won't be any help if this is a different world, and given none of them seem to know the same world, he's expecting it is. Can they even assume the sun rises in the east and sets in the west here? Who knows. "We'll have to use the camp site to gain bearing if we venture out. "

Pulling up the wood he'd been carving at to keep himself busy, he shows the others that he's whittled a small pile of stakes - markers to lead the way back once they explore out. They're thin, small things, that didn't take much more than a couple planks from the crates.

He also doesn't miss Helena near growling at the horned boy, and had it been someone who hadn't become somewhat familiar to him, the immediate aggression against something nonhuman might've bothered him. But Helena is just odd by nature, it seems. Iorveth holds out a piece of broken crate siding and one of the knives he'd been carving with to her. Hush, booboo, the bard's harmless. Help him craft things to take your mind off it. Now, answering Newt's comments - "Foraging isn't a likely option in this environment, but the furs must have come from somewhere. We should form a hunting party."

"I don't know if hunting will work...I mean look at this place, no trees, no life, nothing. If we knew where a body of water was we may be able to at least get food. I don't suppose anyone has any skills to help us find things? A Locate spell or something?"

Jang looks around the odd party. A lot of people dressed strangely, and a lot of strange people. At least one magic user, someone who at least heard of America, and another one who claimed he had a tail before.

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