Cloudreach 9:44 Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

I

[coiledscales]

"Haven't you anything a bit sharper...?" That's Alacruun's first question to the poor woman trying to hit a demon with a mixing spoon. He doesn't much care either way, but the idea of it is incredibly amusing. At least when he's not the one about to be ripped to shreds by the thing. Still, he did come along to help, didn't he? He extends his hand and murmurs a few words in a sharp language and he forces the demon back with a zap of lightning from his hand.

"I don't say this often, but perhaps you'd better stand behind me."

At least he's a qunari. That makes him... biggish.

[summerfae]

Well, what the everloving fuck. Resa looks surprised to see the qunari, but not shocked, less like she's just glimpsed a giant grey horned man for the first time, and more like she simply wasn't expecting one to show up here.

She's never actually seen a qunari before, but fae come in all sorts of different shapes. He controls lightning too--and doesn't have a problem using it openly. He looks like the kind of fae who would work for Fiachra, and the whole thing smacks of his machinations. It puts her on edge, but the man is willing to put himself between her and the demons, and she's not apprehensive enough to refuse a meatshield.

There is one question that springs to her mind, though she waits until she's safely behind him to ask. "Hey, thanks, but--Um. Are you just...going out like that? Like, um. Yourself? Is your glamour on the fritz?" Magic can be a weird, mysterious thing, and can occasionally have hiccups--just like technology, really.

Still. Either he's got some people who can make humans forget anything inconvenient, or he's going to get in a lot of trouble with the courts.

[coiledscales]

"I'm not wearing a glamour," Alacruun grunts in reply. At least they're speaking similar 'language' when it comes to magic. Although he's also a bit distracted. He murmurs another spell and one of the weaker demons just seems to shrivel and die as he gestures at it. He still has some power, just not nearly as much as he'd like. And every spell feels draining and exhausting and it's getting more and more so the longer he stays in this fight.

Why did he agree to come along again?

"This is the form that this world decided I was going to wear while I was here, that's all-"

[summerfae]

“Well, clearly.” She puzzled out he didn’t have a glamour, or at least didn’t have one on, currently. “But isn’t that an issue?”

A quick glance around, at the other people fighting demons—who are all starting to look the worse for wear, no thanks to Resa—and then back to him. “There are humans here. Like, they’re gonna see you. Your true form or not, I think they can puzzle out that you’re not one of them.” Maybe she got lucky with the magic here, only shifting her so that her glamour became her true form.

And then there’s the lightning bit, which is really cool—way more advanced summer court stuff than she can wield—but also very not mundane. And flashy, to boot.

[coiledscales]

"I should think not," Alacruun replies smoothly, "Or I would already be in a great deal of trouble at this point-"

He doesn't have the time to elaborate. There are demons and he hisses underneath his breath as one angles for them. Why is he doing this? Why is he fighting for someone who he doesn't give a fig about? Long-term planning. He clears his throat and straightens arms flung out as he speaks another smattering of words in a strange tongue and extends his hand with a gesture - a sickly flash of green light dances between him and his target and it slows as a portion of its flesh begins to simply rot away as if being eaten by an infection.

Not enough to kill it, though.