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

[shri]

She tenses almost immediately at the sight of him. Only one thing stands so much taller than a man - and they only have one action or thought.

But she is ill-equipped to fight. Even if she wasn't bleeding, the lengthy embroidered lengha had caused her enough problems to want to go leaping up immediately again in the blasted thing. Let alone when there clearly was some relative safety in the camp.

So she takes a breath, she eases her shoulders back and she takes stock of the question as it comes to her. "Well enough. I am sure they could have done much more."

[coiledscales]

"They're nasty pieces of work. I've had to fight them once or twice, although I... try to avoid that. I'd rather not end up dead," Alacruun shrugs casually. He doesn't see an issue with putting voice to his doubts about fighting for the cause. It isn't his cause and as far as he's concerned, this is temporary.

"We'll be out of here soon enough, though. The city isn't terrible and the accommodations are much more comfortable..."

If he's noticed the way she tensed at his approach, he hasn't commented or given any sign of it. At least not yet.

[shri]

"Death is a small price to pay when facing such things, surely?" Her tone is incredulous - she could not be the only to think so, even arriving as recently as she just had. Her brows furrow, behind her drawn veil. Her fingers raising, to the hem of the embroidered material. Holding it between her first two fingers, tugging it idly to keep it in place.

"What they might do against simple people would be terrifying. I could not imagine standing back and letting them do such."

[coiledscales]

"Death is rather final, isn't it? Better to live and be part of the solution then die. I"m typically a scholar, not a warrior - but needs are great and we couldn't leave you out here to die. Although they were a bit late when my group arrived..."

Musing on the past. It's not really relevant now, but he's still a little sore that he had to spend a week in the freezing cold before they were rescued.

"The point is, we all have roles to play. And while I sympathize with that point of view... I am not given to rushing in."

He doesn't sympathize with that point of view at all.

[shri]

"Not at all." Her smile is sharp, toothy, barely a smile at all. Though whether she means about roles to play or that death is final, it wasn't to say right ten. "But you are right, striking smart is always better." Her head bows, to him, to his point. "Though, strange..."

Because that's what she hears, what she thinks, when she hears talk of roles, of positions where some people were somehow better of in places than others. Then again, she was a hard woman.

"... I would not think one of your... size would be interested in taking anything less than the front lines." He was the size of a horse, impressively so.

[coiledscales]

"Looks can be deceiving," Alacruun laughs, "I've always been more of a scholar than a fighter. Believe it or not, I wouldn't know what to do with a sword if you handed one to me."

He spreads his hands with a little shrug, "Size only counts for so much if you don't have the skill to back it up with."

[shri]

She looks him over - openly appraising him with a tilted head. The gold chain that hooked her nose ring into her earrings and hair pieces swayed. The gems glittering in the firelight. "I see. I cannot fault that either. I have fought many things your size that think that ought to be enough."

But here she sits, still alive. There didn't need to be any other explanation about how those fights had gone.

"Still - it remains. Once you do know better, your duty is owed to help those who cannot help themselves. The greatest scholar I know is a lamb of a man, but he fights, and bravely." The fool, the little fool. Tesla, she cannot protect you in the Order's halls.

[coiledscales]

"I would think that duty calls for the need to win a victory, not just fight. Sometimes it is better to husband your strength," Alacruun comments in return, "Although I can fight. Just not with my fists or with a sword."

He flashes a grin, teeth glinting in the firelight, "Both here and in my homeworld, magic is a great equalizer. Although it takes skill and practice, so in a way, both ways of fighting are simply an application of skill and time."

[shri]

"Ah, I suppose there is that. We do not have such magic - " outside of stories and nightmares in the dark. "We rather have guns for such a purpose. Artillery will do what I saw those beasts do just the same, and the right chemicals."

She laughs. She lives on the battlefield, it seems, that she can find humour in such a thing.

"Well, sometimes it will leave a greater hole than that but - just the same. Then it does not matter if you are man, woman, half-breed or knight. A bullet has no care." Sir Bors was 900 hundred years old and had seen every greatest change from ancient times to the peak of the modern day.

Even he had not been a match for a bullet to the head.

[coiledscales]

"Artillery I know of, as well as bullets, but I imagine they do different things than I'm used to, where ever it is you're from. Guns... guns aren't familiar. I've never heard the word before, honestly."

He cocks his head to one side. A bit like a bird, in some respects. Which is a strange little tic on a man (or creature) so large.

"My name is Alacruun; may I have the pleasure of yours?"

[shri]

"A canon, but smaller. It fits into your hands. Requires nothing more than the strength of pulling the trigger. It has changed the battlefield." A change she has watched happen, and it ends the words in a sigh.

"Well met. I am ... " what did it matter? she supposed, in giving her name at least. "Rani Lakshmi Bai. Rani will suffice."

[coiledscales]

"Rani it is. Your... guns sound very interesting. If we ever get our hands on one, I'd love to examine it, if only to see the mechanics of it. I'm not an artificer, by any means, but I do have a great deal of interest in new and interesting things..."

Alacruun makes a low 'hmm' noise and leans back slightly, one arm bracing himself against the ground.

"Forgive me if I overstep - there's something... regal about you that you don't see in most. Did you have rank, where you came from?"

[shri]

She laughs - rich, light, her head tossing back for all her miserable mood and present frustrations. "Gold you mean. I wear more gold than you see in most."

Lakshmi shakes her head, waving a handoff in the need for him to try being polite and respectable over what was quite obviously too much. "I am, I do. Rani is not a term you familiar with? It means... " her pause isn't on translation. But rather, she knows immediately how this tends to go, and she has enjoyed her anonymity so far as she never didn't say who she was, she just... never brought it up. "... Queen, simply. I am Jhansi ki Rani, the Queen of Jhansi."

[coiledscales]

"Gold, yes, but there's also the way you hold yourself. Don't underestimate body language," Alacruun replies with a slight quirk of his lips. He won't argue about it, though. The flash of gold did tend to tell one more about wealth - but body language, that told you who was used to command.

As she explains her title, he nods slowly and then dips his head in half-bow.

"Well - it's the first time I've met a queen in such an informal fashion. But I am pleased to meet you, all the same. I hope that you'll adjust quickly - and that you won't find the rest of us rifers too uncouth."

It's a bit tongue in cheek, but what else does one do when meeting royalty?

"Of course, I doubt many of the natives are going to care over-much about titles and blood-lines from... your home."

[shri]

"Hardly. I am not that sort of Queen." It's purred, still bemused. Still laugh, as quick to it as she could be her anger.

As for the rest - she shrugs. There is more to it than she is willing to say now. Her home burned, and she burned along with it. Ripped and torn like meat off the bone. That now, she would burn monarchs, not fuss over their position. That the world was better off without them.

She held onto it still not for expectations, but far more simple an equation. Something given with so much blood cannot be so easily undone. "My title belongs to my people - it is their love that raised me, no less. Why should strangers care for something they have no reason too?"

[coiledscales]

"That is not an attitude I have heard from most of the monarchs I have met, to be fair. They tend to expect their rank to speak for itself; to give them some sort of... privilege, regardless of where they are. You are different - I find that fascinating."

His head tilts to one side, "If you so wish, I won't treat you much differently than I do anyone else."

Not that he was planning on it, but hey. Score some points where you can.

[shri]

"It would, I'd wager if more remembered by whose grace it was that they ruled by."

She's coming for your throne, Victoria, she will burn it out from underneath her. She smiles sharp, mean, all teeth before the bite but lets it slip from her as quickly as it comes.

"I ask for respect as any deserve. No more or less."

[coiledscales]

"Then you're a wiser ruler than most," Alacruun replies breezily. Not that he's ever held to that sensible idea, but he's also a dragon and is so not constrained by the opinions of mere mortals.

"Your people must be very fortunate to have you born to lead them."

Not a knock at monarchy at all, in truth. Blood counts for a lot, as far as he's concerned. Although mostly it's draconic blood.

[shri]

"I wasn't born too it. I was raised to it. I was born the daughter of a servant."

Her eyes lower to the fire. Watching it crackle. What would her father make of her now? She did her best to never talk of home, never speak of what she had to leave behind. For most knew her, knew the titles to know why not to talk of it. It had burned, all of it.

She had never been able to retrieve her father's body.

"You ask me much, but say little of yourself. Where is it you come from?"

[coiledscales]

"...that is even more impressive," Alacruun admits with a nod. He's not that caring of a person, but he does have a certain detached admiration for people who can work hard and better themselves. Although ultimately if they get in his way, he'll still push them down the metaphorical stairs.

"Oh, myself? A land called Faerun. I was... a researcher and lore master there. A wizard, if you've heard of those. I enjoyed studying histories and researching the mystical arts. There's not much to tell about it."

[shri]

She looks - surprised, all told, her brows lifting, catching his gaze directly. A bold claim for anyone to make. Wizard.

"Like Merlin?"

[coiledscales]

"...Merlin?" Alacruun looks confused, brow furrowed and expression distant, as if he's trying to call the name up out of his memory. After a moment he shakes his head.

"No. I've never heard the name. Who is he?"

[shri]

She was the last person to explain him - but Galahad lay still, sick upon a bed where she had slept beside him in a fitful need for rest as she waited for the fever to leave him.

A dream that left her here. There wasn't much for that, and she sighs a little, trying to remember the half stories she'd heard when she cared about them. "Merlin was... a wizard, or a druid, I cannot remember which. These are not my tales. But he served a once great King, Arthur of Camelot. He advised him, and when he died, he hid his body away." She frowns a little, was that quite the order? No doubt Galahad would give him a better answer. "He is the only one I have heard described with that word that I know."

[coiledscales]

"Truly? The only wizard you've ever heard described as such? We come from very different worlds, then. Wizards are... not precisely common, but nor are they uncommon. They ply their trade with magic all over the world and do their own forms of research. But... I take it magic itself may not be as widespread where you're from," Alacruun replies. He doesn't sound... disappointed. Maybe a bit surprised to hear that there's so little magic that she's only ever heard of one wizard and he from a very long time ago.

[shri]

"That - " she smiles politely. "I did not say."

She does not look or reach for it, but she feels it, heavy against her breastbone, the phial of blackwater that had been passed to her for an ancient purpose. Fighting the Half-Breed. Given to her by someone that lived longer than men ever were supposed to. "We have magic, in our stories, in the land. Just as we have monsters."