faderift | OPEN ↠ HEART LIKE ICE

OPEN ↠ HEART LIKE ICE

WHO: New Rifters & Inquisition Members
WHAT: A journey south to make new friends and kick some ass
WHEN: Drakonis 15-25
WHERE: Sunless Lands
NOTES: Violence and language assumed. Warn for anyting else. OOC post.

The Sunless Lands are not, in fact, sunless. This time of year there can be as many as eight hours of daylight, some of it blinding where it reflects off of snow and ice that stretches from the southern edge of the Kocari Wilds as far as anyone can see, broken only occasionally by rocky masses of land jutting out of the snow cover or barren tundra peeking out in patches where constant, unforgiving wind has pushed it aside. You'll be traversing this span primarily on foot—there are sleighs, too, pulled by hardy dogs, but they're carrying essential supplies rather than spare people. The only way to get a ride is to successfully feign passing out.

Beyond the dogs, the area isn't devoid of native wildlife: white fennecs hunt rodents underground, and a herd of excessively fluffy wild druffalo is seeking out whatever vegetation it can find. But hunting down a meal or two early and preserving rations for further south would not be a bad idea, because the further south the team travels, the more inhospitable the terrain grows, and the less life can be seen. And sometimes not much of anything can be seen, when clouds roll by and burst with snow thick enough to halt progress entirely for hours.

The nights are cloudy as often as clear, but when they are clear the sky is split by green and purple ribbons of light.

I. THE RESCUE

Two days' journey south, the monotonously icy horizon is broken by something new: smoke rising in interrupted puffs, an intentional signal. Someone is out there. Chances are, it's the rifters, with or without their first group of intended rescuers. But there's no way to be sure. And approaching with caution is wise either way. Rifters have strange powers (and strange personalities), and they've been out here for days now, dealing with demons and Maker knows what else on their own. For all anyone knows, they could be the reason for the rescue team's disappearance. Orders are to approach carefully.

Then, once contact has been made and initial concerns have been allayed, make sure those poor people have something to eat, and try to figure out where their original rescuers disappeared to.

II. THE STORM

After the rifters are recovered, there's still the matter of the red lyrium mine to address. Another two days' journey south will put the group within good range of the mine: not so close as to be seen, but close enough to be able to get there in a couple of hours as needed.

Halfway there, however, in the middle of the day, progress comes to an abrupt half when the darkest clouds yet gather suddenly on the horizon and barrel down on the group, bringing with them a glut of snow that reduces visibility to only a few feet and wind that roars so loudly you have to shout to be heard. Magic can help some with heat, but the storm shows little sign of quickly abating and with hours of deadly cold conditions to deal with, digging in and getting cozy for a few hours might be the most feasible solution for everyone.

III. THE VILLAGE

Shortly before the point everyone is aiming for—one marked by an enormous stone carving of an owl, several times taller than a man, that's inexplicably been left by the ancients in the center of the tundra—something else appears not far to the west. On closer inspection, it turns out to be a circle of low-sitting animal-skin tents pressed down into the snow to protect them from wind, rocky fire pits, and abandoned sleighs. Overall, it's a cross between camp and village indicative of a nomadic group that's staying a while but not forever.

It's empty now, with a coating of snow on most of the structures that indicates it's been at least a few days since anyone was here. Closer inspection reveals personal belongings inside the tents, including toys and clothing belonging to children—and, in many tents, chunks of red lyrium in the center or beneath the skins that form the beds, each piece emanating heat. They probably thought it was safer than fire.

Wherever they went, they don't come back while the Inquisition is there. But the activity does get noticed. A few hours after arrival, enormous white bears apparently moving in a pack come within a hundred yards of the camp and pace at a distance, watching the interlopers with wary interest. Some of them are wearing collars or harnesses decorated in the same style as the tents. For enough food, they may come closer, and they'll turn out to be abnormally tame.

IV. THE BATTLE

The red lyrium mine that Corypheus' followers built when their operations were crippled in Emprise du Lion is nestled in an icy canyon, with massive scaffolding built up the sides of the cliff and too many cages to count, though few of them hold living prisoners anymore. It's a massive operation, but one that's been crippled by its distance from civilization. It's sparsely guarded compared to its size, and other than the cliffs, it has minimal natural protection. The enemy has magic-silencing Templars, enormous behemoths, and a chained white-furred giant, but they are clearly not prepared to be attacked.

Ahead of the onslaught, traps are set and any surviving prisoners are evacuated under cover of darkness. Everyone else sent to fight either creeps down shortly before dawn, rappelling quietly to avoid notice in the dark, or waits at the top for the first surprise strike to provide enough distraction for them to descend more openly. If anyone has been particularly nice to the bears (see above) then it is entirely possible they'll allow themselves to be ridden into battle.

Once their presence is known, their orders are pretty simple. Destroy it all. Leave no one behind and nothing worth returning for.

Fire is a good strategy. Red lyrium doesn't do well in heat.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[ ooc | Please keep the initial meeting of new rifters and Inquisition to a single log, here! But after that first meeting has established who everyone is and that nobody is going to kill anyone else, everyone is free to mingle and do top-levels for everything else. ]

"Hey, hey hey." Alexandra's hair is billowing around her face, eyebrows and hair a little frosted, as she looks out across the ice. She's so fucking hungry, gave a good part of the last portion of food she had to the little koala curled up inside her coat. "Hey mates, I think the bloody reinforcements are here!"

Reinforcements, or a threat, but at this point, even a threat might be welcome compared to freezing to death.

She jumps down, and starts wading through the soft blanket of snow to try and make her way closer. She cuts a potentially underwhelming figure - just a couple inches over five foot, wrapped up in some furs, with a white coat peeping out underneath.

"Hey," and her accent might sound a little strange, unfamiliar. Does Thedas have Australian accents? It does now. "Took you dickheads long enough."

Dolores is tired, bone tired. She stinks of corpses, has burned herself on the fire and from the cold, and the rumble in her stomach has progressed so far past hunger that it's gone straight through pain and into numbness. Still, she carries on with the tatty tarp she'd pulled out of the camp and making those smoke signals. She carries on right until they spot the caravan on the horizon.

They don't hustle much when it comes to approaching, but Dolores can't find it in herself to mind much. Despite how warm it is, the first thing she does once they've been spotted is drop the tarp over the fire and start piling snow over it. The stench has gotten into the very core of her and the sooner she can move away from it, douse it and forget, the better.

It takes around an hour for the fire to finally smother itself out--good riddance. It takes a while longer than that before the caravan arrives, and when they do she sags with such relief that she nearly faints. She settles for dropping down into the snow, sitting and resting her arms, and smiling at anything and anyone around.

She'd always liked the newcomers but she can't recall the last time she'd been so very happy to see any one of them.

Newt is worn down, clinging to the blanket he's wrapped around himself on top of the additional layers he has on and his wand, which he clutches more out of a sense of security more than anything else. He hasn't been sleeping much and he can't seem to get warm, even when he paces back and forth. (Well, "paces"; more like, shuffling at a speed that makes snails seem fast.) Ice has turned his hair into auburn frosticles.

He's so hungry, he aches. He ran out of his portion of food a fair while back, even with all his rationing. (He got rather desperate enough that he couldn't hold out over the previous couple of days.)

Tired and hungry, he hasn't gone scouting today. He favors, instead, sticking at camp, though he's really not much help for the moment. He squints when he thinks he sees shapes approaching; he doesn't know if he's hallucinating or not.

"Please, please be here to help," he mutters to himself, glancing around to see if the others have noticed these potential rescuers.

"Hello?" He calls out, his voice croaking as he makes his way cautiously forward. He brings his wand out from habit, even as he doubts he has the strength for a single Lumos spell. If it comes down to it and all else fails, he can improvise other ways to use his wand as a weapon; it never hurts to be prepared.

They'd followed the smoke signal rising on the horizon to this point, and what little Loghain can make out in the distance makes it clear to him that they haven't found the Inquisition team sent to retrieve the rifters. Far more likely they've found the rifters themselves, if their cries for aid are any indication.

His dour face looks even more unfriendly than normal, what with the unforgiving cold winds that have been blowing against him and the frost that has formed on what little is visible of his hair. (Next to him, a wolf-dog forges her way through the snow as well.) But he does not reach for his sword, which ought to be enough to allay some of the concerns of the people ahead of him. Instead he raises a hand, in what he hopes is a universal sign of peaceful greeting.

"Are any of you injured?" he calls out once he's close enough for his voice to be heard over the wind.

Alexandra looks towards Newt, brows raised. They're all doing pretty poorly, hunger and cold wearing them down, and that was without taking into account their arrival.

She scowls at the arrival of the man, partly suspicion and caution, partly because his garb does not suggest things are getting less weird anytime soon. Nice dog, though. Under different circumstances, she would already be eager to get its attention.

"We've been in the bloody snow for five days after a shitshow with some monster-lookin' things and our hands trying to burn themselves up from the inside out. There's some injuries, but just about everyone here probably needs medical attention." And she doesn't feel very reassured it's going to be the kind that she's familiar with, Armour McWolferson.

She has about enough energy left to be a shit about things. Thank God.

Church absolutely 100% hates this place already, because this is worse than the frosty Skyhold mountains, or that time everything was fucking ice and the Rifters they were rescuing were sliding around trying not to get eaten by giant wildlife. No, this is Sidewinder, cold as shit, icy as shit, snowy as shit, unforgiving as shit. Shit.

But the Rifters. Approach with caution had been the order, and Church is not exactly one to do caution a lot of the time, in comparison to some of his fellows, but he follows Logain in relative quiet, more muttering under his breath. But when they start popping up--holy shit that's an Australian accent. Unless Thedas has an Australia (they sure do have a France and a Spain, weirdly), then he's pretty sure they found Rifters.

"Your hands." Church holds his up and does something he really doesn't want to do--takes off his glove, to show off the green glow of his palm. Not long, enough to show it before pulling the glove back on again. "You fell out of a hole in the sky and a bunch of big bad shits tried to kick your asses? Did you--" He looks around for a second. "You guys closed the rift by yourselves with your pain lasers?" jesus christ "Man, we're here to rescue you guys and bring you out from the Arctic to somewhere where the concept of 'warm' exists."

This is as 'cautious' as he's getting.

On the ground in the snow doesn't seem like the best of places for anyone to be, and so Nahariel stalks up through it to offer a hand to the blonde woman who'd sunk down into the cold profusion of white.

"You're tired, I'm sure, but we've better" (and warmer) "places for you to rest than there if you can manage a bit longer on your feet."

It's been a miserable few days camped out on the ice and snow. Alacruun's managed to keep himself distracted by learning about the people he's stuck with. Not out of any genuine affection, of course, more for the future and to keep himself from going insane. He needs something to think about, to turn over in his head. Of course, he's used to having long periods with nothing to do but be stuck in his own head.

Maybe that's part of his problem, honestly.

Still, he is not prone to self-reflection. And he's had enough to do - helping to collect food, fighting off the occasional demon that comes wandering through the rift. There's little else to do besides, but when they realize that yes, someone is coming, it's an intense relief. He won't have to eat frozen corpses or try to find his own way out of this desert. There is something out there that isn't snow and ice. This isn't the elemental plane of cold.

Not that he lets any of that relief show. Instead, he's standing in the snow, blanket wrapped around him and examining the newcomers as they come in to their makeshift camp.

"You certainly took your time," he says to the first newcomer who gets anywhere close to him. The glint of a smile adds a touch of teasing to it - or menace, depending on who you ask.

Edited 2018-03-16 16:17 (UTC)

"Pain 'lasers' is one way to put it," Alacruun is finally picking his way over the snow. WHich is a bit odd, because he's a qunari and they're not typically 'delicate'. Still, he doesn't show the faintest traceo f relief. More an air of bored expectation. Finally.

He cocks his head in Church's direction, "Although I'm glad to hear that this whole realm isn't nothing but ice. I was considering that possibility as a very real problem that we might have to try and somehow solve..."

There's a pause and he clears his throat, "That said, Alex is quite correct. We've been out here on our own for a few days. No serious injuries, unless you count the magic burning holes in our hands."

The scouting party appears through the swirling snow storm fog, coming into camp from the opposite side, having just explored toward the last cardinal direction. Nothing for miles and miles, it seems. Iorveth’s mind had been heavy the entire way back. They’ll have to either convince the others to abandoned camp, or sit and wait, hoping for a miracle to occur to save them.

Thankfully, it’s the latter that occurs. Just as he and the chicken-horse step up behind Newt, he noticed the silhouettes in the storm beyond the village, and hears someone calling out to them.

It isn’t until the loud second one speaks up that Iorveth understands these may be the people they’ve been waiting for to return. Turning back, he waves an arm for the rest of the returning scouting party to hurry up.

“It took use two days, but aye, it’s been closed.” He calls back, over Alex and Newt, pacing cautiously across the space between them. Neither of these two are fighters, and if these end up being less than friendly, Iorveth would rather be take the first attack.

Edited 2018-03-16 16:31 (UTC)

"It's a bit of a way from Kirkwall to... wherever this place is, gods, I am so not made for snow —"

For a second there Adalia almost managed to sound like she knew anything about anything here, but by the end of the sentence her false bravado has fallen apart and she shivers, shuffling her way through the snow with her cloak pulled tightly around her. It's a good cloak, at least, thick and warm, with a matching hat and gloves, and she's not nearly as cold as she could be — though still too cold for her coast-raised comfort.

"We came as soon as we could, anyway," she says once she's finally made her way over to the qunari, pushing down her hood and beginning to tug her glove off one hand. "Are you injured in any way? I can help a little, if you are. We brought some other essentials, if you're hungry or cold."

Alacruun is stock still for a moment. That voice sounds very familiar, but it surely must be his ears playing tricks on him. He's watching the newcomer closely, watching the bundled form as she begins to flounder over. And then she pushes the hood down and he knows her. Recognizes her as clearly as he can. His smile twitches and then spreads into something wider and almost genuine.

"Aside from a cut on the arm? Perfectly well, if a bit hungry and cold. And much better now that you're here."

She's here. Now there's something worth considering. Maybe she arrived elsewhere - it's possible, considering that she's with this other group. How long has it been, though? He lifts his hand and offers it to her.

Hopefully the sight of a slight female elf is a little less imposing than the two men in the party who have spoken so far. Ellana steps out from behind Church, dressed in dark armor, but with the muffler already pulled down so her face can be seen under the hood.

"We'll take you back to camp. There's food, and healers there who can help. We're so sorry about this, but the first party who was sent for you disappeared. That's why it's taken so long to rescue you." It does seem likely in this harsh environment that the group from Skyhold ran into a harsh storm, but it's also possible that Red Templars had something to do with the disappearance. And, like it or not, the Rifters aren't getting out of this place until the Inquisition takes care of business first.

...well, that's a welcome she hadn't been expecting. Adalia blinks up at the qunari for a moment, paused in the process of taking off her glove, and then reaches to place her hand in his without even thinking about it — someone offers you their hand, it's rude to refuse, right, and Adalia's generally not given to purposeful rudeness unless she's talking to Alacruun and he's really gotten on her nerves.

"Well, I'm glad you feel that way, I suppose? Like I said, we have food and warm clothes, if you need them. You're going to have to be out here for just a while longer, we have other business to attend to than picking all of you up."

Spoken as if she has any authority here whatsoever, or even a real idea of what's going on, but whatever, this qunari doesn't know who she is. Maybe she could know what she's talking, he doesn't know. Speaking of —

"I'm Adalia, by the way. I came through one of the rifts like you, so I understand if you're confused. If you have any questions, I can try my best to answer them."

"Oh, that's quite alright. I've managed so far - I can handle the cold for a little while longer," Alacruun replies with the smooth, easy, practiced voice of someone who is used to flattering and lying and telling someone what they want to hear. Of course, he's not quite doing that now, but his mood just jumped through the roof. He gives her hand a warm squeeze and then lifts it in an imitation of some sort of courtly love and presses his lips to the back of her hand.

He's being ridiculous.

"Adalia. Dearest. I'm so pleased you're here. You've no idea what that means to me... I trust that your journey through the rift was just as confusing as mine?"

Adalia has the distinct impression that she's missing something incredibly important right now — this qunari is acting strangely, and she didn't even know natives to Thedas could travel through the rifts — and then he kisses the back of her hand and her brain just kind of... shorts out for a few seconds. Not even Elros ever did that, what even —

Her cheeks are more red than they have ever been in her entire life, and it's through a daze that she hears his next words — words which pierce that daze real fucking quick. There's only one person in the entire Great Wheel who calls her dearest.

"Alacruun? How are — why — fuck."

Snatching her hand out of his grasp, Adalia presses her hands to her cheeks to try to hide her blush. At the very least this is a good distraction from the cold — she can't even feel it at the moment, caught up as she is in the terribleness of her least favourite bit of Toril following her to Thedas.

Alacruun blinks and takes his hand back without any real objection, rubbing them together to try and stave off the cold. He really ought to get his gloves back on at some point in the near future or he might have to start worrying about frostbite. As it is, he's just incredibly gratified to see the blush on her features. He doesn't necessarily enjoy embarrassing her, but surprising is another thing entirely.

Besides, as far as he's concerned, they've already gone through something like this once.

"Don't ask me, I'm just as confused as you are. This isn't quite like any other way of dimension-hopping that I've encountered - along with the complete change to how magic seems to work and being put into a new body. Still - convenient, wouldn't you say so?"

He laughs and edges a bit closer in the snow, shoulders hunched against the chill.

"You have no idea how alarmed I was when I couldn't even sense you when I arrived, but if you're here, I'm sure we can put our talents to good use and find a way back in no time whatsoever..."

THE STORM;

[ setting up tents in a snow storm is not the easiest task. Thankfully they manage it, and iorveth only barely puts together one big enough for Geralt, the lime green, horse sized chicken, to fit in. Perhaps the bird has grown on him, or perhaps he just doesn’t want to upset Helena by letting it die.

Odd, that he’s concerned about some human woman’s feelings about oversized livestock. Perhaps Geralt (the non-chicken Geralt) really had rubbed off on him some. Or Saskia, or some combination of the two.

Regardless, he’s now stuffed into a small tent with a giant chicken, warm enough thanks to the bird’s fat and feathers and natural ability to incubate (maybe Geralt is a hen? Who knows ), and anyone else wanting to share this tent with him is just going to have to deal with the limited amount of leisure space, and cuddle up to the chicken. It doesn’t bite. ]

THE VILLAGE;

[ There’s an eerie kind of dread that hangs on Iorveth’s shoulders as they approach the village, only increased when they step inside and brush the collected snow off the tents, fire pits and crates. As if it’s ash instead. An echo of the camp they’d first found, but the evidence of children makes it that much more tragic. Foreboding, with the red crystals they find - this lyrium the rescuers seem to be on about. Iorveth doesn’t touch it, only watches it warily from a distance. ] Just as the first camp was. Like they simply got up and walked into the storm...

[ The assessment is interrupted by a loud squawking that Iorveth’s come to recognize as his chicken-horse losing its shit at something. Which could be an approaching demon, or could be a pillow falling over. Either way, given the setting, he rushes out of the tent he’d been investigating with some others.

What he sees is bears. Many big, completely white, bears. A first for Iorveth, who’s never been to lands that might have things like polar bears. One of these bears is sniffing at the chicken’s fat, feathery butt, only hopping almost playfully along after Geralt the Chicken as it screeches and attempts to run away. He keeps his distance, expecting that chicken is about to save the rest of them from becoming a meal, given it looks like a better, easier meal, but the bears don’t seem to really be giving chase, outside of curiosity. Only peering at them from a distance.

He watches the herd of bears for a time, crouching down like he’s trying to look less threatening, and avoid startling skittish animals. Watching more closely, it’s easy to see the harnesses and cloth decorating some of the bears. Tugging out some of the slabs of fish meat they’d cooked, he shuffles closer to the chicken, a hand in the bird’s fluffy side, the other holding out the meat. ] Please don’t eat that. I need it.

[ he tosses out the meat, remaining crouched where he is, letting the bear sniff at it. ]

PRE-BATTLE;

[ traps is something Iorveth knows well, even if the terrain isn’t as well known. They’d been a chief source of food, as well as stupid humans wandering into the forest for hunting - animals or scoia’tael.

They set up bear traps around the perimeter, but at the easiest points of exit and entry, Iorveth starts to set the igniting ones, carefully stringing wire and setting matches to combusting powder. If anyone tries to come for reinforcements, or anyone tries to leave, the explosion will alert the rest of them. ]

BATTLE;

[ More of the tinder was trailed out through the camp below, lines leading to the tents or weapon stacks. He start the fight off with those - an arrow dipped into a torch’s flame, then fired off to hit the line of tinder directly, from the top of the canyon wall.

The fire travels along the lines and catches to the tents, making bonfires of them and the people inside. The panic that ensues after is distraction enough to draw the attention away from the canyon walls, and the fighters descending them. He’ll continue the onslaught, loosing more flaming arrows into the other tents, setting their roof tops alight. The enemies below scramble to toss snow on the fires, but it’s time wasted as the Inquisition troops draw closer. When the first group of them hit, making chaos out of the confusion, Iorveth holsters his bow, taking one of the repelling ropes in hand to speed his way down, no real caution in the descent.

Nearly at the bottom, the elf commando launches off the cliff wall, springing up to land with his feet punched into a Templar’s back, twin swords burying between soft spaces of the lyrium crazed man’s collar bones. Blood splatters as the blades pull out, Iorveth making an aerial kind of spectacle in vaulting a flip back from the dying man to find his footing on the ground.

He looks like he’s enjoying this murdering and chaos thing way more than he should, but at the very least, he’s clearly good at it. Thankfully, the Templar’s magic nullifying does nothing for someone who has no magic abilities to speak of. ]

Edited 2018-03-16 22:23 (UTC)

Six is one of the people that's most capable of noticing the newcomers; her darkvision gives her an insight into the world when dusk comes, and returning with the scouting party means that she's on the outskirts when the Inquisition actually arrives. She's on edge, not trusting the strangers with no reason to suggest that she ought to, but the sounds of surprise and welcome that meet them softens the edge of her just enough for her to actually be able to interact with them.

It's clear she's exhausted, dark circles under her eyes and her hair twisted up in a messy bun above her head; whatever she's been doing, it hasn't been sleeping. There's an edge of something almost a little desperate about her as she moves around the new people, stepping here and there so she can dart to a quiet corner and lift a backpack into her arms, holding it close and checking the contents before she finally seems to relax, some of the tension slipping from her shoulders as she forces herself to calm down.

With people around to help guard Six is less tense, less on edge, and she moves to one side to give everyone room to meet and gather and talk, preferring to stay on the edge as much as possible. There are some people she has met and made friends with, of course, and she nods to them as they move and gather their things, as they meet up with the strangers, but there's something almost awkward about her - as if she doesn't really know what to do with herself.

If greeted, she'll nod her head, trying to stand tall despite her apparent exhaustion. Otherwise, she grips the necklace that hangs around her neck, closing her eyes as she whispers brief, familiar prayers.

"Don't suppose those healers have medical degrees," she replies a little dryly, rolling her shoulders stiffly. Well, whatcha gonna do? She's just ready for it, honestly. Patent medicines, someone trying to strap a chicken to her or shovel a bezoar down her throat.

Alex huffs out a breath, looks between Alacruun, and then to Newt, taking a step close to see if he needs propping up, as she peels off one of the gloves and shows that yep, she sure does have one of those there marks. "Come on, mate," she murmurs to the wizard. "We get warmed up, I promise you can have another cuddle with Beauregard." (Which is the koalas name, by the by, though the little thing can't currently be seen for how its burrowed against her chest.)

"'Pain laser' is good, I was thinking 'rave lighting,' but your one is catchier." And more accurate, it seems, as Alex makes a face of discomfort.

[ Battles are technically in Wren's realm, but Beleth is responsible for surveying the landscape, in keeping track of what's going on, and who needs to know about it. As such, she's been making rounds before the battle. It's not surprising that she winds up at the perimeter, watching Iorveth make his trap.

She'd have been curious no matter who was doing it, but elf rifters are always of particular interest to her. It's a strange comfort, knowing that even outside of Thedas, they endure. And, occasionally, even prosper.

That's a fine trap. Are the explosions wired to go off when the bear trap is triggered?

[ Even as she asks, she keeps an eye on the canyon, bow in hand and ready. The bow itself is clearly magical in nature, with little trails of electricity occasionally dancing across the length. Despite the weapon, there's a definite look of nervousness as she scans the area that will soon become the battlefield. ]

She saw them come from a distance. Saw them meet with the others, take her sestra away with them. They had all seemed to go compliantly, willingly. That was not always a good indication, though - she had been convinced to do things in the past, and Sarah had been manipulated into doing things in the past, both of them pushed and shaped to fit the demands of the world around them.

Helena was too cautious to simply trust.

That is why she waits, not, wrapped in the blanket and furs she has from the supplies. One blanket was laid downand then the other, and she climbed between them before camouflaging her hiding place with snow, and she waited.

"I don't suppose these have a more official title other than 'pain laser'?" Newt asks, managing to sound amused in spite at the hunger gnawing at his stomach and the cold seeping through to his bones. He peels off his own glove covering his left hand, reluctant as he is to do so, to show the approaching party that he, too, has one of the so-called 'pain lasers.'

The mention of food makes Newt's stomach growl.

He smiles at the promise of another cuddle with the joey. "Beauregard, huh? I like it."

He nods to Alex. "It's hard to argue against food and warmth in this weather." He turns back towards the approaching group, studying them as he would an approaching beast.

"I don't suppose you know what happened to the original group sent to rescue us? Or where they disappeared to?" He asks, curious and cautious both. After what he's seen over the past few days, he could imagine only too well what might have happened to the originally party sent out for them.

"The only healers we currently have are mages," Beleth offers, from under her several layers of clothing. "If you want one of the nonmages who've gone to a university, you'll have to wait until we get back." She glances around at the people gathered, eyebrows up. It's the first time they've managed to rescue rifters without having to wade through a pile of demons and worse, which almost makes up for the bonechilling cold.

Leaving the rifters to deal with the demons themselves is not a very solid plan for the future, though.

"We truly are sorry about your wait, though." She dips her head a little. "We're usually able to arrive around the time of the rift. We'll be sure to investigate what happened to the first team." Or, more like what killed them. Because, let's face it, the odds that it was just a hilarious misunderstanding and they were all alive and well were pretty low.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 45

OPEN ↠ HEART LIKE ICE

FIRST CONTACT

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Tossing this in real quick for the sake of scouting party peeps to be able to join

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Iorveth | The Witcher (new rifter)

no subject

no subject

pre-battle

CLOSED TO WREN | post first meetings/pre storm

no subject

no subject