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

[somethingwild]

Newt can't blame the young man for the look on his face, the one that seems to say that he has little intention of staying close to said rifts for long. Given what said rifts tend to spit out along with people and beings from all different worlds, Newt can understand that look, even as he knows Willem will likely see more rifts than he would care to, given what the shard in his hand is capable of doing.

"Yes," Newt nods sympathetically. "You're rather stuck with it, from what I've been studying on them."

He wonders if he should hold off on the information that you can get rid of the shard: by getting rid of the hand. Probably not wise, he thinks. Given the various amounts of shock he must already be dealing with.

"All of us who've come through the rifts have them," he explains, holding out his own left hand, palm facing up, so that Willem can see his shard as well.

[wolfslayer]

Willem doesn't hyperventilate, but for a moment, it looks like a near thing. He doesn't breathe, then he breathes quite a lot very rapidly, high up in his chest. He stares fixedly at his hand. He waits for a demon to burst out of his own skin, for his personhood to be reduced to some kind of macabre flesh suit. It's kind of good, that ultimately, none of that happens.

A bit disoriented, he looks back at Newt. Nods, numbly. He's dimly grateful that no one is raging over to chop his hand off to prevent anything coming through here, but this is all taking a moment to adjust to. "Right. Sure. Yeah, why not.

"Are you a copper or something?" he asks, finally. It's always a tossup with coppers. Either they help you out, uphold a reasonable law, and provide information— which Newt seems adept with! Or you have to ultimately run the Hell away. "Do you know where I should go next?"

[somethingwild]

Newt grows concerned as Willem first stops breathing and then begins breathing very fast. He steps forward cautiously, not wanting to cause the young man to panic further by crowding him or otherwise making him uncomfortable.

"It's alright," he says quietly, employing the same tone he would use on a panic-stricken creature. "It's alright. Just breathe. You're alright now, I promise."

At the question, Newt can't help but stare, incredulous, for a moment. Then he bursts out laughing, as scenes from his recent adventure in New York play out in his mind. "Far from it," he tells him. "But I can help you where you need to go."

[wolfslayer]

It's a little better, actually, when the wizard comes in close and uses his fancy voice. Maybe that's a different kind of magic, one that doesn't require use of a wand to focus. Willem isn't sure, but it's much like a spell cast over him, settling down his rumpled edges, and needling some of the feeling back into his face. It's fine.

Newt might not be a copper, but he seems to be one of the good ones of whatever he is. And he'd said he'd been here a month, Willem realizes. He's not the sharpest tack in the tack box, but he does realize that means that the other man managed to survive this long and seems to be voluntarily out here fighting monsters, besides. That's-- encouraging, if you squint a little. Maybe a lot.

Newt has a nice smile. Willem finds himself putting one on his own face, tentative at first, but it settles in proper. It's good. He can feel his face, now. He takes a deep breath.

"Maybe I'll follow you, mate."

[somethingwild]

Newt feels a sharp sense of relief when Willem appears to calm down a little. Not that he blames him in any way; this is an abrupt change of situation he finds himself in, and a drastically abrupt one, at that. He tries to heed his own philosophy of never worrying, knowing the kind of additional suffering it offers, but he also knows that people come in varieties just as much as creatures do; everyone reacts differently.

He nods, pleased that Willem appears to unwind enough to smile. That's certainly a good sign.

"They have places to get food and drink in the nearby town," he says. "Let's find our way there. I always find food helps, even just a little."

mild powerpose lmk if not ok

[wolfslayer]

He's still a little slow, and he'll-- always be a little slow, frankly, but Willem nods his head in agreement, following along quite well with what Newt is saying. "Don't tell anyone I said this," he mumbles, "but the notion of building a village anywhere near a gigantic bloody green hole in the sky where demons and strangers come out of it seems a bit daft." He feels a bit guilty as soon as he's said it. In his world there's some equivalent of people who bitch about the way that others live in tornado zones or earthquake areas, or or. or or or. He doesn't want to be one of those people, he's just out of sorts.

And thus, a bit unthinkingly, he reaches out to grasp Newt's hand. Casual as you like. It won't be hard to shake him off if Newt prefers; he just sort of is that way. It might be a bit of an odd juxtaposition, this willowy fellow with his giant fucking sword holding hands, like a shy grade-schooler on their first day in class, but there you have it.

"Thank you," he says. "That would be very lovely."

You're totally fine! Thank you for asking though! <3

[somethingwild]

"Your secret is safe with me," Newt promises, offering a smile he hopes comes across as reassuring, even just a little bit. "A bit mad, indeed. I agree with you there. But I don't think the villages have any choice in the matter; I think the rifts came after."

The sudden sensation of having his hand held catches Newt by surprise. He arches an eyebrow in response, an instinctive reaction. But he doesn't let go. He might not be entirely used to or even comfortable with human contact, but if such contact provides comfort to Willem, he won't deny him it. After all, he's had something of a long day; if he can help him in even the smallest way, Newt would like to do something. He knows all too well how much he'd wished for something familiar back when he'd first arrived, after all.

"Good," Newt says, nodding. "Food it is. And then everything else."

would you like to fade this one and do something else later day c: im good either way

[wolfslayer]

It will probably comfort Willem eventually to know that there's a city across the sea, prepared reasonably well to receive them. It's nice to think there are systems in place. Back home, 'adventuring' tends to have very little of a system to it. It's very irregular and hard to follow.

"'Everything else?'" he repeats. He manages not to sound too alarmed. Mostly because he still sounds just hazy and overwhelmed instead, clanking along at the wizard's side. "I suppose it makes sense, that there must be other things else. And a lot of them, if I'm in an entirely new world." He lets out a slow sigh, managing to resist the urge to make a face. A face isn't going to help anything!! unlike, of course, the reassuring grip of Newt's fingers.

"What did you eat, your first meal when you came through the absurd green arsecrack in the sky?"

Fading is fine with me, no worries!

[somethingwild]

"Er," Newt fumbles to come up with something placating, not wanting to further distress his companion. It takes him a few moments before he can come up with the most polite way of saying he'll explain it all later. "I mean to say, there's...a lot to come to terms with, here," he says. "It can certainly feel like a lot, at least."

"But you shouldn't worry about it just yet," he adds. "For now, we can take one step at a time and focus on getting food."

"Well now, that is an interesting question with quite the answer," he replies, a wry smile on his face. "Seeing that I feel from the sky into a giant crack in the ice out in the middle of nowhere."

fadeyfade <3

[wolfslayer]

The warlock's eyes get a bit bigger in his head, and deservedly so, for Newt's tale of arrival and bravado, even if the wizard probably doesn't see it that way. Ice. It stands to reason, probably, that the terrain would be as diverse here as it was at home. He couldn't be in a new dimension that was spring and summer all year around, to make up for the demons.

"All right," he says, smiling. "I look forward to hearing all about it, love."

And it won't be too long, before the village peeks into view. And the peasants have dozens of questions, casual and otherwise, about the demons. Willem will defer to Newt to answer that and much else, before the day is out.