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

[aenseidhe]

Call him near-human and watch him put a fork in your eye, Obi-wan. Meta aside, Iorveth nods for the assumption - yes, a rifter - and takes another drag from his pint, swallowing it back before giving a noncommittal shrug.

"I've been here long enough to get several different welcomes, feel no need to add to it, I promise you." The first welcome was an arctic tundra, then demons, then whack ass templars, then walking for fucking ever, then all the racists in Kirkwall. He's had enough welcomes.

"We were dropped into an ice cavern, made to fend for ourselves in the Sunless Lands for several days." He doesn't seem that upset about it, really. It wasn't the worst thing he's lived through. Then, casually - "That boy that was screaming at you, actually, was there. Bit special, isn't he?"

Said with a flat expression that's come from exasperation.

[hello_there]

If Iorveth is going to treat his own trials so cavalierly, Obi-Wan will do him the credit of leaving well enough alone. No one likes a complainer, and equally true is that no one likes someone who solicits unwanted complaints.

"Hm? Oh, Kylo Ren, yes," Special is certainly one word for it. Obi-Wan's eyebrow is a message on its own; what's your concern with the boy? "You sound as if you're speaking from the voice of experience. Is he a friend of yours?"

[aenseidhe]

"I'm not sure the man is capable of making 'friends' with anyone." Iorveth snorts a short laugh, but it's not entirely honest. Kylo Ren is a... special kind of person, but not any more immune to loneliness than anyone else. More forcibly rejecting it, believing himself stronger for managing his troubles on his own. Still, he's not great at it.

"He'd come through the same rift I did, a month or so ago. His introduction was made by way of demanding answers from those souls more confused than he was."

He was rude. Then again, Iorveth was rude back, and made a show that his rudeness would get him nowhere with him. From there, they'd been surprisingly amicable. But that Obi-Wan doesn't need to know just yet.

[hello_there]

"A running theme, it would seem," is Obi-Wan's reply, all wry tone and eyerolls, "A half-trained Sith deliberately allying himself with the Inquisition..."

It's a wonder anything at all happens in a universe so vast. Among infinite possibilities, that this should be what comes to pass... it's technically no more wonderful than anything else could possibly be. And yet, Obi-Wan still finds himself shaking his head in a sigh.

"Since you're no longer confused, how are you finding all of this? The world, the Inquisition?"