RIFTER ARRIVAL: Justinian 9:44

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters & their rescuers.
WHAT: Welcome to Thedas.
WHEN: Justinian 12, 9:44
WHERE: East of the Hundred Pillars and Perivantium.
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 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, hanging suspended in the air, is a shifting, crystalline tear in reality. It's the same color as the mark on your hand.

Beyond it, the sky is a clear and black, with stars that won't show until the rift's blinding light has been extinguished but two moons visible now. One hangs above you, beyond the rift. Another is lower in the sky, cut by the jagged line of mountains on the distant horizon. There's nothing in between to obscure the view or to block the steady, warm wind from the east, which isn't howling or whistling over the flat expanse of land so much as gently humming. Not gentle: the ground beneath you, which is more rock than sand. Further to the east there are dunes; here, the land has been stripped by the wind. It is nonetheless indisputably desert, with low, shrubby foliage and the earth beneath the rocks cracked and sun-baked.

But this isn't really the time for sightseeing.

You aren't alone here. There are other people on the ground around you—humans, or at least humanoid—with matching green marks, and an assortment of junk that might be familiar or might be very much not. Beyond them, forming a crescent ring around one edge of the rift's light, are a dozen wraiths, each capable of shifting between elements and hurling blasts of damaging magic. There's also a swarm of large buglike creatures determined to eat your teeth and three ghouls in suits chasing one rifter in particular.

All of these things would probably like to kill you. But you're not alone. In the dark beyond the rift's light, a group of armed and armored people swiftly descend on the scene. Many are wearing a symbol that looks a bit like a hairy eyeball being pierced 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, it's only a short hike to an Inquisition camp in the greenery where the landscape begins its shift into plains, where everyone can patch up any wounds, have something to eat, and ask what in the void is going on here. But don't wander off. In the dark beyond the campfires there are other hazards: prowling wildlife, scavenging bands of darkspawn, unfamiliar lands and no map to guide you if you don't already know where you're going.

Comments

[notacrow]

"Never heard of Hindustan. Then again I don't usually fly further than a week or two afield from home. Is it a nice place? Do the ravens there have bright colors, too?" That's the most important part. If the humans have all this sort of stuff it makes sense (at least in her head) that the ravens would be bright and colorful as well.

"A nest? I wouldn't mind havin' a few scraps for the lining. This is soft an' light. Perfect for sleeping in to tell the truth." Myira laughs a little, though it's more of a 'caw' to human ears. "Though I dunno if a human could build a proper nest the way it's supposed to be. Nice of you to offer, though. I couldn't take something like this without giving something in return, though. It's too fine a gift."

[shri]

"India perhaps might be more familiar." She hums a little, with the words. Foreigners names, even if not what anyone else called it. "I am afraid not, no, they are quite the same. But there - we have many other colourful birds. Peacocks are prized for them. So by contrast, something all feathered black? Stands out all by themselves." A consolation at least.

Though to the latter she takes a second to think, seems to be mulling it over with idle speculation. "Perhaps we find something similar to it whenever we reach where they take us. I think this may be too decorated to be completely comfortable to sleep in." Her hand lifts, one finger pointed as she taps a point out of the air. "Then that can be our exchange. I will find the fabric for you, and you can show me how to build a proper nest."

[notacrow]

"Nope," Myira admits. "Never heard of it before. But I don't talk to a lot of humans." Not now anyway. That wasn't something she wanted to think about too much though, so she just brushed past it onto more pleasant things.

"Well, ravens are just about the smartest birds," she opines with more than a little smugness. "And I like my black feathers." She preens a little, the pride in her voice unmissable.

"Sure! That sounds like a fair exchange t'me. I'm hoping they take us somewhere with more green than this--it's too barren for me to really like it. Where's the trees? Ugh..." Myira seems to exchange one thought for another almost as fast as they come into her head.

[shri]

"I do not know... it is home, at least, similar to my own." It's habit more than thought, of a lifetime spent with animals in one form or another - that she reaches her hand up to scratch along black silky feathers.

"The desert stretches on for days there. But people live there all the same. Trees, too. I am sure you will find something to hide in, one way or another."

[notacrow]

Myira seems a little surprised by the touch of fingers against her feathers. But in a moment she relaxes and lets out a soft, happy sound. Humans are good for a few things, she'll concede. This happens to be one of them. Her head tilts, nudging into the strokes a little.

"Desert? No thanks, give me forests and green pastures an' rolling hills..." Myira sighs, wistfully thinking of her home. "Not so much hiding I care about--I like havin' somewhere to perch and see everything."

[shri]

With apparent permission giving, she goes about going in where she's nudge towards, those delicately stained fingers good for more than just being pretty.

But she knows the tone of those words - in the brothel houses, even with it's french name, her rebels would drink and sing about green rolling hills, about coming home to those places. Even if they lived in slums and muddy stone streets. "Are you English, Feathered One?"

[notacrow]

That's the spot. Myira makes a few more soft sounds of contentment. It's so nice to have someone else to do this for you. Fingers can be really useful! She makes a little chirruping noise. The green hills and fields... They all seem so distant now.

"...English? Dunno what that is. I'm a raven. Whether that makes me English or not I dunno!"

[shri]

"The way you talk of it. The people of England talk very similarly of their own country."

It's chuckled, not particularly put out by her answer. "Green hills and valleys of trees, it is what their songs sing of." She shakes her head.

[notacrow]

"Ah. I've never really heard of England. I know the village down the valley was called Wintincaester or sommat like that. An' Aelia sometimes talked about her da going to a market town to sell their crop but I never knew the name of it..." Myira seems thoughtful, a little pensive.

"Green hills and valleys of trees, ayuh. Sounds like home. You should see it all spread out under you from the Skies. Nothin' makes you appreciate th' world than seeing it from above, I think."

[shri]

"Certainly sounds English. Or Welsh, I suppose. I am not so familar with all their differences."

Another idle scratch at feathers - how long to camp ? They were told it was not a tremendous hike, but she wanted some privacy soon, to heal her wounds that were beginning to ache. Old and new. She healed almost everything, but that did not stop them hurting like old scars did, just the same.

"I have seen such a thing, once." Hijacking a United India flyer, no less. "I admit envy that you see such things often, even if I do prefer my own home."

[notacrow]

"Huh. Mayhap it is someplace humans call England then, but I dunno. If I could, I'd ask..."

Myira trails off and makes a happy sound as her feathers are stroked. Yes, she could get used to this. Very much so.

"Aye. If I could I'd show ya but... turnin' other people's skin is a lot harder than turnin' your own. I never tried it, though I heard a grandmother's grandmother did it once't. Never saw it myself."

[shri]

It doesn't matter to her company she suspects, but the thought of turning had but one connection to Lakshmi, and it turns her sick.

"I would not ask it of you." It's gingerly put, doing her best not to let on what she thinks of an otherwise polite offer. "So do not worry yourself on my account."

[notacrow]

"Fair, fair. Not like I know how to do it anyway." Myira sighs. What a disappointment.

"Or even know if it'd work here... the magic here don't quite feel the same," she says with a touch of uncertainty. Everything here is just different enough to be foreign and familiar all at the same time.

"I wonder how much longer we got 'till camp?"

[shri]

"A little longer, but not far." She looks up ahead and lets her breath slow to watch ahead. Looking most especially for the glimmer of firelight against the landscape.

"Are you cool enough? I know it will seem strange if you are unused to it, but it is better to keep yourself covered in deserts than exposed." A gentle hand of experience. Not that it mattered so much to someone covered in feathers, she supposed, but still.

[notacrow]

Myira is still grumpy about stumbling around in the dark. If it were up her she'd find a nice tree to perch in until morning. But it's not up to her so here she is, riding along on Lakshmi's shoulder.

"Oh, ye. I'm doin' just fine so far. Thanks for asking after me." She seems genuinely pleased by the thought of someone looking out for her well-being and gives a faint squawk as she adjusts her weight.

"It'll take more'n this to get me down, don't you worry."