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.

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Jester is better at walking than she was when she first arrived. It is still strange, being without her tail. But she is learning. Only, now that she is on a ship, she has that to contend with too. Trying to keep balance in two different ways is not very easy.

All this is to say that when this guy stumbles into her, Jester stumbles, too--backwards.

"Heyyyyy!" She grabs onto the stranger to stabilize herself, and keep herself from totally falling on her ass. It kind of sort of almost half works. He's shorter than she is--something else to get used to!--and there's not as much to grab.

All this is to say that when Jester grabs onto the stranger, they both fall down together.

"Wh--"

Oh, bad move, bad move.

Daniel may have been healed a bit, but he is nowhere near peak physical condition right now, the closed-up gash in his side still hurts, and falling on top of someone in no way helps, though he pretty sure he avoids elbowing her in the face or anything like that.

He rolls off her with a pained expression and gritted teeth, clutching at his side, where his clothes are still torn and bloodied. "...Ow," he punctuates finally, and he's just gonna... lie on the floor for a second right now, if you don't mind.

"Oof!" Jester's breath leaves her all at once, when she hits the deck. It doesn't feel good, but it doesn't hurt that bad, either. Now that she's so big and tall, she can take more damage.

She pushes herself up onto her elbows and rubs at the back of her head with one hand, half-smiling and half-wincing.

"Owww," she agrees. But much more cheerfully. "If you wanted to meet me, we could have just shaken hands, you know. My name is Jester," and expectantly, she holds out her hand to him. Then she catches sight of his clothes, and her hand goes to cover her mouth instead. "Ohh! Did I do that to you? Oh no, oh no..."

She's scrambling around now to sit up and get closer to him, already preparing Cure Wounds.

"No no, it's fine," Daniel answers quickly, giving her a reassuring (if slightly pained) smile. "This is from earlier, you know, with the demons. It's just a bit sore still," he explains. She was there, right? He thinks he saw her there.

But hey, he appreciates the concern. Gives a positive first impression. Well, relative to the circumstances, anyway.

He props himself up on an elbow, and holds out his hand to her in return. "Daniel."

The demons. Her nose wrinkles in disgust. "They were really, really mean. And uglier than they were mean. Which, since they were really, really mean? Is really really really really ugly."

Anyways. Jester takes his hand and gives it a careful shake, like she's still not sure if the wound is one hundred percent the work of demons and not somehow partially exacerbated by a super strong tiefling-qunari.

"That happened way back there, and nobody fixed you up yet, Daniel? Aww, man! Okay, hold still--"

She releases him from the handshake and stretches her hand out toward the wound, and casts Cure Wounds on him. A little tingle and shimmer of magic, and--well, it's not perfect. But it's better than it was.

"I'm still practicing," she explains, sensibly. "I'm a Cleric. But like, there is so much more healing to be done than I am used to, you know? Like everybody keeps getting hurt and I have to clean it all up, when I do not usually have to do that."

[Sorry I'm slow, panicking about upcoming exams and failing to study for them is taking up much of my spare time, yanno how it is.]

Well, he can't argue with that assessment of them. Ugly and mean is pretty accurate.

To be fair, multiple people fixed him up, both magically and non-magically, but there's a limit to how much one person can do. Daniel is used to taking weeks to recover from an injury like this, he's not complaining. Well, not complaining much.

Did... did she just do magic? (He has to find a better name for it than magic, he's still reluctant to admit that's a thing.) She did, didn't she.

He sits up a little straighter, and it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it used to. He might not even end up with a scar after all this healing he's enjoyed, though if he did, it would go with his appendicitis scar if nothing else. (With all the injuries he's sustained, it's weird that one should be one of the few to leave a lasting mark on him.)

"...Thank you," he answers with a note of surprise in his voice. 'Cleric' doesn't really make sense in the context for him, that generally just means something like a priest, but he'll go with it.

[NO WORRIES clearly!!! my weekend was crazy.]

"Daniel," Jester says, with something approaching fond exasperation, like they've known each other for years and years and years, and this is the way he always is, saying thank you for things that do not need thanking. "Don't be silly. It is just a little bit of healing, okay?"

She swings her legs around to get into a more comfortable position on the deck of the ship--cross-legged, clearly settling in.

"Do you know what the worst part of those demons was? They didn't even have any good stuff on them!"

[Slow-tagging it is! Mostly. Except for when I'm procrastinating by tagging.]

They could go find somewhere to sit, with actual chairs and-- no? Well, alright then.

He can't help but be amused at how she goes straight from sharing her woes at how much healing there is to be done, to reassuring him that it's just a little bit of healing and there's no need to thank her. Though from his brief interaction with her so far, that seems like just the sort of thing she'd do.

"Yeah, they just sort of vanished, didn't they?" he observes, pushing his glasses up his nose a bit. Not that he generally needs to be doing looting anyway. The people he fights rarely have anything interesting on them. You just gotta get to them stop shooting at you so you can go read books or explore ancient ruins, that's the sort of reward Daniel prefers.

"You do that sort of thing a lot?" he asks, curiously. She doesn't seem too bothered by the concept of fighting them.

Jester blows a raspberry as she thinks back on how right Daniel is. The demons had totally flaked away and left them with shit, and it was so lame. Shoulders slumped in disappointment, Jester puts her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hand, like a pouty kid. It looks funny on a qunari, but she doesn't have a self-conscious bone in her body. Even if her bones are way bigger now.

Luckily, his question perks her up a little. "Oh, sure, sure. I fight all kinds of bad guys. Well--not these kind of bad guys. But I have fought other weird things before. Liiiike... undead gnolls, and regular gnolls, and a manticore, and a manticore baby, annnnnd... oh, these super gross rat balloons, they were like, totally undead, and if you poked them too hard then they would explode like balloons and splooged their guts and blood and poison all over the place. It was really really gross," she concludes, matter-of-fact and candid, before veering abruptly back into excitement. "What about you, Daniel? What is the grosses thing you ever fought?"

Daniel makes a look of distaste at that description, because yes, 'gross' is accurate. When she turns the question on him however, he opens his mouth in surprise, then closes it again with a thoughtful frown. He doesn't usually rate things by grossness.

"Uhh, well, there's been a few politicians," he jokes, with a crooked smile. "And there were some undead -- human undead, that is, but they weren't actually that gross, just dead," he continues, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Mostly though, I've fought these... They're called the goa'uld, they kinda look like snakes, but they get into your body through your mouth or your neck, and then they take completely control over your body." He considers that gross both physically and morally, definitely. Even if he's pretty used to the concept by now, he still hates them pretty passionately.

"Ooooo," Jester says, hushed and amused and scandalized all at once, "Daniel. Pretending politicians are monsters! You are very bad." In a good way, clearly. She puts a finger to her lips. "Don't worry. I won't say anything to any politicians I meet."

Especially because now she is only going to be thinking about the goa'uld, which is a funny name for some creatures that sound way, way less than funny. Jester drops her hands to her lap as her nose wrinkles.

"Those sound pretty bad, yeah. What do you do to kill them? Do you burn them or freeze them or throw them off of a really high cliff and say something really cool when you do or what?"

Well, technically only some politicians. He has met some OK ones. Although most of them come across as fairly obstructive and frustrating, because, well, most of his interaction with them has been them obstructing him in work that needs doing.

"Uh, well, they're vulnerable to the same things human are. They just heal faster, and have advanced technology to protect them. Forcefields, stuff like that," he answers with a shrug. "Not sure saying something really cool helps in actually killing them. Anyway, preferably what you want to do is capture them, so you can free the host."

"It always helps," Jester says, totally confident in her contradiction. "Trust me. I have killed a lot of weird monsters. But I guess if I knew it was a monster that was totally possessing my friend then I would not kill my friend. I would kill the monster. Okay, so what do you have to do to free the hosts? Do you do a ritual or take them to a temple so they can do a ritual, or what, what do you do?"

"Uh. Take them to a temple to do a ritual is pretty accurate, yeah. It's something called an Extraction Ceremony, we have allies who can perform them," Daniel answers with a nod.

"So, what do you do that you run around fighting monsters and saying cool things all the time?" She does not seem like the personality type to pursue such a line of work, honestly.

That basically sounds like a ritual. Basically. Jester nods knowingly, to denote how basically, she understands what Daniel and his friends do.

"Oh, me? I am just a simple cleric. Everyone says I am very rich and sweet and de-mure. Which is basically true." The high pitch of her voice is mostly put-upon, a little sing-songy. The way she is grinning suggests that there is a little more to Jester than those basic facts. "Actually, I have never really had a job, you know? I was in Nicodranas... just minding my own business... living with my mom... and the-en, bam! All of a sudden I was out on the road and I was all alone. For a little while. I have friends now. So-o, I guess you could say I am an adventurer, kind of? I do lots of things, for money."

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Cloudreach 9:44 Rifter Arrival

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