faderift | Cloudreach 9:44 Rifter Arrival

WHO: New rifters & their rescuers.
WHAT: Welcome to Thedas.
WHEN: Cloudreach 10, 9:44
WHERE: Amaranthine
NOTES: This is the arrival log for all new rifters, open also to current characters who would participate in their recovery. New players can also assume everyone survives and arrives back in Kirkwall within a couple of days, but please note there will be a brief quarantine period when they won't be permitted to leave the Gallows, to get them up to speed while ensuring they're not diseased or otherwise going to kill anyone, before they're set loose on the city.

You were asleep—whether deeply or fitfully, falling unconscious for the last time in a pool of blood 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 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, bathed in the light of a flare of too-bright, greenish light you will find yourself hitting mossy cobblestones with an unforgiving smack. You're alive, and you're fine, except for 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.

Above you is a shifting, crystalline tear in reality; beyond that, gray clouds and a sea breeze, framed by the high walls surrounding the city you've landed in. There are people on the walls, some of them armored and armed, all of them briefly and collectively paralyzed by the sight below.

Don't let their terror go to your head. It's not you that has them intimidated, nor is it any of the humans (or Qunari) who are sprawled out on the ground around you, nor is it the assortment of unfamiliar—to them, not to you, perhaps to you it's very familiar—junk that's spilled out as well, most notably some flaming metallic debris and a giant wooden cross.

It's the beings that are coming out after you, almost as if in pursuit. Two are drifting, spindly things with six spidery limbs in addition to grasping skeletal arms, eager to grab hold of anyone who comes too close and fill their field of vision with swirling darkness and corner-of-the-eye glimpses of whatever frightens them. Several more most closely resemble trees, perhaps, with half-melted squids for heads—which might not sound particularly scary, fine, but their ability to dive into the ground and resurface anywhere with rasping screams helps on that front.

All of these things would like to kill you, and the people around you, and the people on the walls, and perhaps the other people screaming and scurrying into taverns and shops for cover. But you're not alone. Out of those same taverns and shops come people who do seem to know what they're doing; many are wearing a symbol that looks a bit like a hairy eyeball being pieced through by a sword, and at least a couple of them seem to know what they're doing. Almost like they've been waiting for you. In fact, exactly like they've been waiting for you.

AFTERWARDS, the grateful citizens of the City of Amarenthine might provide a drink, a meal, or a place to tend to wounds before everyone sets back toward Kirkwall. It's not a long trip, but one that requires boarding a ship to cross a narrow sea. It will be a rough, stormy journey, but there won't be any demons.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The sailing this time is less eventful, fortunately for all parties involved. No one needs a repeat of the last rifter arrival that required a sea voyage and a stopover for repairs by way of Llomerryn, and Araceli is happy to come along for the trip since honestly she looks for any chance to come sailing (not that's it hard, it's her job here really) as she tugs her cloak tighter about herself as she makes her way round the deck.

Sometimes a person needs a little peace, certainly a new arrival, but hearing that? How can she ignore someone saying that?]

This is part of the Waking Sea, it opens out onto the Amaranthine Ocean but on the other side of this is Kirkwall. Is it your first time sailing?

So I was right, this isn't even as big as it gets. ( In a sense, she knew this fact. After all, it was called a sea. But hearing it laid out that it opens up to something bigger is a little bit mind blowing.

The result is her plopping her arms down on the railing and resting her chin on her arms to stare out the sea. She does give a nod, though. )

Yeah. I've never seen a sea before. We have a lake back in Glassiel, but you can see the city on the other side of it. It's not this big.

I can't see the other side here... ( She picks herself up again, even if she's being amazed right now she should gain some composure. ) Sorry, just not used to so much openness.

Where I come from [Araceli's left hand rests on the rail, the green flash of the anchor something she's accustomed to after years of it being there though that doesn't mean she necessarily enjoys it still] my home is surrounded by ocean. Islands, archipelagos. We're not landlocked. Everywhere you go you can see the sea.

[She watches the other woman carefully just in case because she's seen enough people seasick before, or when their legs decide they don't want to work right on a ship because everything is moving instead of staying still but there doesn't seem to be any danger of that. And she's sympathetic to it. To landing somewhere so different. So foreign.]

I fell into snow when I came here, I'd only read about it. We were all staying in a place called Skyhold then, high up in the mountains, another thing I'd only read about since we have cliffs but no huge snow-capped peaks like that in my nation. All that snow and ice staring back at you when you looked out, even in the dark. It gets easier. Glassiel is your home?

( Luckily enough, at least for Araceli, the seasickness came and.... it didn't necessarily go. But Kara is more than accustomed to coping with pain and discomfort from exercise and fighting. The worst of the seasickness did pass, the rest she can tamp down enough to allow her to enjoy the view. For awhile.

Just don't feed her. )

It is, yeah. ( She offers a smile, a softer one at finding someone else who's been mystified. ) I've seen snow before, though nothing natural. Definitely not cliffs and mountains like you described...

You're a from the... things. The glowing green things. ( She gestures at the rock in her hand as she tries to remember the word people called it before. ) Tears? Nah... rifts! Rifts, right? That's what brought us here? ( God, she hopes she's talking about the right thing here. )

[That'll be after. The secret agenda to lure people to the life of naval presence: she's a damn good cook now that she has her own place with her own little kitchen though sharing a ship's kitchen? She'll take a hard pass there, no one enjoys potato peeling duty because somehow that's always what you get landed with.]

Magical snow? [It's the only thing that might explain it since mages have ice spells so it doesn't seem too far of a stretch for it.] There are mountains near to Kirkwall too, just not nearly so tall or snow-capped, thankfully, now that we're out of the Frostbacks.

From a rift. People tend to call those of us who come through one a rifter despite whatever other name you might prefer to call yourself. [Her mouth doesn't pull into a line but it's a near thing, voice flatter as she says it.] I came here close to three years ago now? There's still not quite any sort of pattern to it but it's been more frequent than it had been for a while, more arrivals from so far away. Some of the natives have these too though, but they were too close to a rift and struck by one to end up with a shard lodged in them.

[Probably less painful to get it the rifter way, all things considered.]

Uh, manufactured snow. ( Is that a better description over magical? Manufactured snow could technically be magical snow, just manufactured through magic? She has no clue. People in this world use magic to aid their daily lives, where it's more a threat in hers in the very specific form it exists in. ) We use science to make our snow. So seeing real snow and even mountains would be totally cool, and something I've gotta take time to do.

( She offers a genuine grin at that, before returning to the rifter topic at hand. )

So what name do you prefer? I'm not really picky personally, but rifter does sound a bit generalizing when we all seem so different. But probably less of a mouthful to say natives and rifters too. ( A little pity is spared to the natives probably just as confused as she is even though it's apparently been going awhile...

wait. )

Did you say you've been here three years now?

Snow. That's made. Why would-- Do people want snow that badly? Sorry, I spent so long up a mountain staring at it, or wading through it, the place before where we went to find the newest arrivals? Blizzard doesn't really describe where we were, I thought my mount was going to freeze out there and he's a hardy boy. [The shudder isn't even an exaggeration, just the thought of being back there in the Sunless Lands again is enough to have her fighting off the urge to rub at her arms, the coldest she's ever been in all her life.] There's Emprise du Lion but I don't know when anyone was last out there either, the entire river was frozen over.

[Not so good for the people there but skating around on it had been fun.]

Usually I go by my name - Araceli Bonaventura y Castell - or I prefer to be called Inquisition, I pledged to serve, to see this through to the end however I could. I'm part of this now, I work for it, with so many others, I lived with them in Skyhold, close to them in Kirkwall. I want it to succeed. [Which sounds simple enough to say but life, unfortunately, is rarely that.

Then she smiles sympathetically, hides her wince, and nods.] Coming up for that. Sometimes it feels longer, sometimes it can't believe how much time has passed especially since we moved to Kirkwall.

Cloudreach 9:44 Rifter Arrival

aftermath;

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