faderift | Cloudreach 9:44 Rifter Arrival

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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

"More like your soul did the traveling and brought the rest of you along when you reached the rift, or at least that's my best guess. You could try asking those in the Rifts and the Veil project when we get back to Kirkwall, but I wouldn't expect even them to know too much. This is all relatively new to us, too. There didn't used to be tears in the air that spill out demons and people, until someone fucked it up for the rest of us."

Well, this is just peachy. Tessa stares at Korrin for long moment, almost like she expects her to go "Just kidding!" But that doesn't come. To say she's confused would be an understatement. So she's here because she was dreaming, and her dreaming soul dragged her body through a demon hole?

A thought occurs to her and she quickly rummages through her bag, pulling out her cell and unlocking the screen. Naturally there's no reception, but she's checked that already. Instead she navigates to her gallery and pulls up a photo. As she starts to turn the screen towards Korrin, she says, "Okay this isn't crazy devil magic or anything, I promise. It's not going to steal your soul. But would you look at this pic? He's my friend. I need to know if he's here. If you've seen him."

The picture is of a scruffy looking man probably in his early to mid-thirties. He's not looking at the camera because he didn't know she was taking a photo. There hadn't been much reason to have her cell phone out after society collapsed, so she'd had it turned off, but one day a weird urge struck her to take his photo. It wasn't like she could upload it to Instagram, and her battery wasn't going to last much longer, but she just had to have it. Maybe there was a reason for it. Maybe she can use this to find him here.

"His name's Mike. We were in the same place before I landed here." All this crap about souls and dreams and the Fade is jumbling up in her head, so she figures it's possible he's here too.

'Crazy devil magic' gets a snort of out of Korrin, even as she leans in to get a better look. "Oh, so it's like Prompto's old camera. He uses a different one now, but I get it." His battery has long since been drained, but Korrin doesn't know the specifics or really thought to ask.

She takes a good long look at the picture of the man, but shakes her head. "...no, I'm pretty sure I haven't seen him. That doesn't mean he's definitively not here -I can't pretend to know everyone- but that's not a face I recognize yet. I'll keep a lookout, though. And it's possible he might still crossover later, even if he isn't here now."

"No shit, you got cameras here?" Must be some weird mix of technology from different eras. But that's hardly important right now. What is important is seeing if Mike's here too. It'd make all this... easier to swallow somehow. It's just the gift he has.

"Well, thanks anyway." Now she holds the button down to turn her phone off, knowing that without electricity, she'll never get it to charge again. She wants to have that little bit of battery left in case she needs to see his face again.

Once the phone's back in her bag, she draws her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around herself. Now that everything's quiet and she has time to think, she has time to dread what's next too.

"Tessa," she says suddenly. "You gave me your name, but I didn't give mine." It seems the decent thing to do. Call her crazy, but it would probably be a bad idea to piss off a giant horned lady.

"Welcome to Thedas, Tessa." Korrin manages a wry smile, sympathetic. "And we don't have cameras here ourselves, but sometimes objects from other worlds fall through rifts. Prompto's a rifter and he had his own for a while, but he found this other one at...the market, I think? And sometimes people find random shit like slippers that make animal noises or these strange shoes with wheels, or posters with strange writing on them.

...not that any of that is urgent information, of course." Sorry for going on a tangent, Tessa.

The info makes Tessa snort aloud. Slippers that make animal noises? It's so random, but it'd also be a comfort to have something familiar from home here. At least she has some stuff in her backpack. It's mostly clothes, but they're hers. Judging by what she's seen others wearing, it seems like a lot of uncomfortable looking armor is standard. Tessa will stick with her leather jacket. It makes her feel like a badass.

"So what happens next? Big demon hole's closed, a bunch of us, uh, rifters? Are stuck now. What now?"

"Now, we get the hell out of this frozen, desolate land and head back to Kirkwall. It's a port city where one of the Inquisition's bases is located. Whether or not you even join, we offer shelter to rifters who are stranded here. The island fortress we occupy has rooms, kitchens, baths, and so on." Korrin still won't live there, but that's opening a whole other can of worms that won't be helpful right now.

"So, basically we travel north until we hit the Waking Sea, then take a ship over. I hope you don't get sea-sick."

For a moment, Tessa's lips pucker up in consideration, moving left and right. They were offered shelter back home too, and then all the shit had gone down at the hospital. An island fortress sounds safer, but at the same time, if shady shit is going to go down, it'll be hard to escape. But she's a stranger in a strange land right now, and if Mike were here he'd probably say they should just keep their heads down and play along to see what's up. It's not like she'd have much of a choice anyway. The Inquisition seems ready to "collect" all the rifters and she doubts they'll let her off to do her own thing.

"Okay, sounds good. Uh, I've been on a boat? But that was in a river. I'm guessing a sea gets a bit more choppy than the Allegheny." Probably less dirty, though. She doubts this Waking Sea is full of people's garbage.

Korrin shrugs at that. "Choppy, sure...but it's not the open ocean, and winter is on its way out, believe it or not. It shouldn't be that bad, all things considered." She reaches into her pack and draws out a map, unrolling it. "Here's where we are, down at the bottom...and here's where we'll end up."

Tessa leans in, a look of amazement on her face that this is one of those old fashioned maps like in the movies. Or from history, but her mind automatically goes to movies first.

"Wow," she breathes out, looking at the world laid out before her. Suddenly pointing to Lake Calenhad, she says, "That totally looks like a bunny. Like one of those chocolate Easter bunnies?" Looking up at Korrin, Tessa suddenly winces. "Do you guys even have Easter here?"

"Nope, whatever that is, but I've heard the bunny comment before. That's Lake Calenhad, in Ferelden. I've seen it before, mostly passing through from Redcliffe or the roads along it. Ferelden has crap weather and they're obsessed with their dogs, but they're not bad folk overall. I'll take them any day, over the Empire of Orlais, to the west. Snobby, racist, invading assholes.

...though we're technically allied with them now, so I probably shouldn't be shit-talking them. Oh well, oops." She gives a very unconcerned shrug. "Kirkwall is in the Free Marches, a bunch of city states that only have a sense of shared identity for the Grand Tourney. That's where I'm from, in Wycome which is basically known as party central. A little to the west of us is Nevarra. They have some weird practices about their dead, and their royal family is famous for its dragonslayers. Wayyy up north is the Anderfels and I hope you never see it yourself since it's a shithole; too hot and barren and it's a political mess, anyway. Next to it is the Tevinter Imperium, which is even worse than Orlais since slavery and blood magic are still actual practices over there. The asshole who created the Breach and the rifts is a vint, to no one's surprise."

By the time Korrin says Redcliffe, Tessa is already lost. It's a lot of names to throw out at her at once, and there's no way she's going to keep all this straight. At least not yet, anyways. She doesn't really want to stop to consider just how long she's going to be here, and whether or not she'll eventually become familiar with these places. But she keeps listening, nodding along like a person who lost directions after the third turn, yet lets the person go on anyway.

Her interest is piqued at "party central," and Tessa wonders what constitutes a party in medieval magic land. Is it all fancy dresses and court dances, or do they get down with booze and games? Might be something worth looking into. The rest? Sounds like a bunch of racist, slave owning, necrophiliacs to her.

"What's Kirkwall known for, other than being a port city?" If that's where she'll be headed, she figures she should get a sense of what it's all about. Is it 'The City that Never Sleeps,' like New York or 'The City that Falls Asleep at 10pm,' like Pittsburgh?

Fortunately, there isn't going to be a pop quiz about Thedosian locations. Korrin doesn't expect her to remember most of it, but she does hope having a visual helps somewhat. She smirks a little at that question...oh, where to begin.

"I'm not going to lie; Kirkwall has a reputation for being the center of several shitstorms in the past. In ancient times, it used to be a center for slave trade until a revolt happened. In more recent times, it was ground zero for a qunari rampage that saw the death of the reigning Viscount and later on an explosion that destroyed the Chantry, killed a lot of people, and startled another revolt.

Since then, the place has rebuilt and the issues of the past that lead to those bouts of chaos either aren't a thing anymore or it's on hold while we deal with bigger issues. That isn't to say that there's no tension -anyone who tells you that is lying- but right now, it's as stable as it's ever likely to be until we deal with the asshole that started all this."

Well as long as there was a revolt and there isn't still a slave trade. Imagine if Tessa had landed here before that happened. She wouldn't want to be anywhere near that shit.

"Okay, I'm a little lost. Sorry. What's a qunari rampage? And what's the Chantry?"

"It's alright, I'd be lost too. The Chantry is the dominant religious organization in Thedas. It's based on the Chant of Light, a series of teachings written by Andraste, the prophet of the Maker and founded by the first emperor of Orlais. The Chantry's followers are known as Andrastians.

The Chantry's goal is to spread the Chant of Light to all four corners of the world and to all races. Once all peoples have accepted the Chant and practice its teachings, the Maker will return and restore the world to its former glory, blahblahblah. You get the idea. It's usually lead by the Divine, who's always a woman because of Andraste, but the mess that spawned the Breach -the mother of all rifts- killed her off along with a lot of leadership, so the Chantry's been without ever since. That's a mixed blessing."

This is starting to feel a little bit like school all over again, and Tessa isn't a very attentive student. Once again, the names all start to blur together in her head until she can't tell one from the other. It's like trying to memorize the presidents or something.

"So when you said there was an explosion that blew up the Chantry, you meant blew up all their leaders?"

"No, what happened in Kirkwall was different explosions that 'only' took out one of their leaders, and that was done by someone else. It's...well, look, no one expects you to memorize everything the second you pop out of a rift. The important part is that shit's happened and Kirkwall doesn't like change...probably because it's almost always come with something awful. So, they're keeping an eye on us and we're at least trying to behave enough so that they don't kick us out. We need a port, after all.

That said, some people won't be too fond of that green glow in your hand. So, just be careful. I've tried telling everyone and anyone that you lot aren't demons just because you fell out of a rift, but not everyone buys it. Nevermind that I'm a mage and I know what I'm fucking talking about when it comes to Fade shit...."

"So no pop quiz when we get back? That's a relief." Falling through the rift may not have been the plan, but it got her out of a dwindling world where each new day could be her last. Despite the joke, she doesn't mind learning about this place and where she stands in it, but she's not ready to become a Thedosian scholar just yet.

Once again she turns over her hand to inspect her palm, frowning at the eerie green glow. It makes her feel like she's got some radioactive goo under her skin and she might develop super powers any minute. Well, in a way she already has, because whatever that nonsense was with closing the rift, it definitely wasn't natural.

"Does it ever stop hurting?"

"...mostly. The initial pain will wear off in a matter of hours, if that helps. There are times when it fill flare up again, though; when you're near a rift or a place where the Veil is really thin, when you're overexerting yourself with your anchor, if you ingest a large amount of lyrium -don't do that-, or if you spend too much time too far away from the majority of our anchor-bearers."

Korrin sighs, her expression apologetic as she explains the catch. "If you go too far away, it'll begin to hurt worse and worse, increasing the longer you're away and further afield you go. Returning to Skyhold or the Gallows will take that pain away, and traveling with a group of other anchor-bearers will make that pain advance more slowly...but the end-result is the same. I think the most time I've heard with a smaller group away would be a month. Closing rifts also provides some temporary relief."

"So I just shouldn't go on vacation in Rift Town, Veil-landia; got it." Sounds simple enough. Sticking together with the other rifters was in her plan anyway, since it's better to stick with people stuck in the same situation as her. "Where's Skyhold? And what's lyrium so I don't accidentally come across it?"

"Skyhold is over here, up a big-ass mountain." Korrin points to a spot in the Frostback range, tapping the marker. "Lyrium is usually found and mined underground, so I wouldn't worry about it...at least the regular stuff. You have to ingest it long-term for it to mess you up, anyway. Red lyrium, on the other hand, really doesn't fuck around. Even brief exposure can taint you, make you go mad...you eventually turn into the stuff, literally. So, if you see any red crystals jutting out of the ground that have a weird haze, stay the fuck away."

"Red crystals. Got it." Because it can taint you. Her kneejerk reaction is to make a joke about taints but she's pretty sure it would fall flat here.

"I appreciate all the tips." Maybe she'll last more than a day now that she knows not to lick hazy red crystals and such. "Do you happen to know when we're headed out from here?"

"Probably as soon as the Inquisition ensures that Amaranthine is left the way we found it, minus the rift. We'd have a terrible reputation if we just came and went without picking up after ourselves, and reputation could make or break our situation. It wasn't that long ago when we were heretics no one would listen to even as the world was falling apart. I'd rather not go back to that."

Edited 2018-04-18 18:39 (UTC)

"Wow, this place sounds pretty judgy. And super religious. Are people, like, gonna convert me to the Chantry, or whatever?" Because she really doesn't want to be in such a situation. No, thank you.

"...good question. You're human, so that's a point in your favor, but on the other hand, you're a rifter and plenty of natives worry that you lot are all demons in disguise, anyway. Nevermind that I'd know and keep telling them such, some people wouldn't believe the sun rose in the east if there wasn't a Divine to tell them." She thinks it over, then shrugs.

"In the Gallows, you should be fine. The Inquisition cares more about getting shit done than making sure everyone follows the Chant of Light. And if I see you or anyone else getting shit, I'll be more than happy to step in. People usually back off when I loom over them."

Cloudreach 9:44 Rifter Arrival

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