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]

If Lakshmi were a different woman, the question that might immediately follow is something what the hell are you talking about?

But Lakshmi is an immortal rebel queen who is responsible for far too much public destruction and fighting with immortal knights about werewolves of all things. So her response isn't to question someone who seems to know what they are talking about - after all, there was a green glowing mark on her hand. Ruler she might be but she didn't have the pride that cared about it when someone clearly knew what they were talking about.

So she looked at her hand, looked at the green mark that was glowing, ebbing, crackling with a power that wasn't natural to her at least. Just point it - ?

Alright, and she threw her hand up pointing her hand at the rift. Palm up and open. Shocking when the light poured out of it. Filling the air connecting with the same green hole in the air. What devilry was this? Every nerve burned, strange and consuming all the way up her arm, but it hardly hurt at all.

[earthbones]

Tree-sap young as all of her people are still for what Talos did to them, Brónach can summon a grin as whatever it is between anchor and rift (ignores the research, watches the researchers, the surveys, how far they pick into them for the sign it goes too deep) seems to stun. A moment of time bought.

Right as the little thing - eyeless and pale as Falmer in the fetid dark of all the dwarven ruins, any other festering stinking pits they've made for themselves, winged as some of the chaurus patrolling launches right at her boot - to have her stomach rolling. The reminder. Unwelcome. Unwelcome, unwanted, lurched back to camp beneath the bare bones of a dragon's empty ribs with hide stretched tight about them to keep the wind at bay, Shadowmere stood sentinel in sparse mountain grass--

Fingers slack on the arrow, she drops it right as this pale, nightmarish thing comes within a hair's breadth of her boot. Then it stops. Chitters. Launches itself at the arrow as she jerks back and stares as it devours it while she draws the next, fires through the small body.

"Don't let those bite you," sensible advice for all things ever encountered but anything that crunches up an arrow (antler, that one, antler and shinbone), "I think it'll eat through you. We close that rift, this stops, it'll take longer with two." Her own hand is up now that the thing is dealt with, a familiar jangling shock all the way to her back teeth that sends a roaring into her ears. Then the pulsing stops, and the green is a wraith, arms, a head, a suggestion of ribs. Whatever these tiny monsters are.

[shri]

"They most certainly will." Is the growl, she's sporting too many marks already. She might look like a temple draping - or even more useless at present, like a Queen - but soldier she has been the better part of four decades and what comes out is the growled anger of one as another one of the little, blasted things latches onto the exposed skin of her stomach, her hip. It wasn't the first thing to do so. To bite her, try to tear her to pieces.

She doesn't squirm away in horror all the same. She snatches it with a strong hand. Throws it down heavy and - of all dreams to pull her from, could it not be the one where she was wearing armour? - smashes the hell of her foot right into it's squealing little head. Good riddance.

Even if there was now muck all over those delicately painted toes.

"How do we stop the ghosts?" Is the breathless response as the wraith forms. Eyes on it, without leaving it as she speaks.

[earthbones]

Part of her - the part that has to wonder at who or what is there, who might sell her out or stab her in the back the instant a thing ends because Thedas isn't enough to break old habits - thinks Redguard. Rich Redguard. Not Alik'r, no hood for it, but enough merchants passed through Skyrim never to leave that Brónach has rifled through their things to marvel at the garments, winced at bare skin, remembered blade, spell, arrow hurting even with armour to blunt it.

No one is painted in-- well, those two Altmer. Them and Elisif in Solitude. A handful of tavern girls but not this way, not the way where fingers itch to take as Brónach wonders how much much the fabric would sell for, even damaged. All things can be remade in the end.

(Thieves end thinking the same as their fences, you need the bargaining position with half of them before you start.)

"They still hurt when you--" Brónach's ready to say more, instead has to duck low and roll to the side when more magic comes her way to clip her shoulder instead of taking her hard in the chest, fingers slackening on the bow. "Shit! WHen you cut or shoot, still hurts them. You can still shoot ghosts."

Or she's used to shooting ghosts. Her own ghost. Well, that time she had a wolf spirit ghost because sometimes you join a guild type group then you drink someone's blood and you're a werewolf; no trapped human souls were involved in that cure so it's a win in her book.

"Closing that rift up for good gets them too, don't know about these, none of them--" Said as she swaps the bow for her dagger, still tucked in a low crouch to catch and stab at them when they get near enough, waiting for the right moment to raise her hand and try again when the rift pulses.

[shri]

She looks back at her - unknowing of whatever plan this woman might have for garments removed to less than savoury means. Because her assessment is right, and if Lakshmi had but an inkling of it, there would be a minor amount of approval to the inevitable defence threat over her at present, meager but highly valued possessions.

( If there is value in any of it to her, it is only that they belong so wholly to a time when she loved and was loved and the greatest pain gave way to even greater happiness. What was gold, to that?

An army was what, and she would figure out what all this was best used for, later. )

But she has no idea, and when Lakshmi looks to this woman she fights beside, it is to meet her eye directly. Nod the once and come closer to her, barefooted and blooded. Assessing the woman in front of her to the bare important marks: she was knew what she was doing, she was decent at ranged, and she didn't miss. The rest, the scars, the hardened leather. They, like everything she saw here, was fairytale clothes she sees on stained glass windows. Or statues of ancient people conquered long ago. But not the statue she had seen of a man writhing in pain, hair sheared to his skull. Long. Pointed. Narrow at every feature. Hard-mouthed and hard-eyed. As if Lakshmi needed any further proof, the scars she bore were enough to tell the sensible story to her skills in fighting and not getting killed.

It forms a plan that has some merit if not in full form and is mildly insane. But it ought to do. After they deal with their current problem.

The little beasts pull at the gold and yank it all wild from her hair. But she pays it no minded, flicking her blade from where it sat in a backhand strike to where she could sweep in and tight, the blade moving in a flicked arc. Daggers, do not need the room and force of swords, Manu, they need speed and a keen eye. Her body turns with her father's lessons and slides her weight into her first strike. Down, hard, slashing, listening to the screech of the little-winged devils. The bladed glittered, a bejewelled hilt set in gold filigree, slick with their strange blood. It's offensive in some way to go hacking like this with it. But it was a weapon, and she didn't have another option. So she forgets the rest and simply does. Killing each and every one of these little things that she can. ( Ridiculous to fight in, but at least there is some boon to the many skirts she's wearing, that when they flare and sweep out with her movements and heavy in the momentum with the weight of all that golden thread, it knocks the creatures out of the air when they attempt to swoop in close. )

Until the ground explodes against with magic, and she has to stop to catch her more mortal breath. "That thing is a problem." She breathes it hard, a harsh hiss of air out of her lungs. "Are you willing to get close enough to strike it?" Then - "I would offer myself, but it would see me coming no matter how quietly I moved."

There's an uptick at the corner of her mouth, Lakshmi finds it amusing at least.

[earthbones]

Brónach nods her approval to the blade coming out, to striking the same way she is since this is unfortunately too close quarters without a mage to do anything that might blast them back. Gilding. Again. The kind sat upon the shelves in the Cistern of the Guild; Right Eye of the Falmer, Barenziah's Crown, cups, puzzle cubs, drinking horns, all the treasures to restore a reputation to keep the coffers flowing.

(Brynjolf would rub his hand. Karliah would smile beneath her hood. Nocturnal a mother who encourages her children to do better rather than to demand worship as others do.)

There's blood enough on her hands through the strikes, the low rolls as the things catch in her hair to claw at her scalp, one savaging the point of her left ear that the anchor is nearly lost when she manages a deep breath. Swallows down the rage that never left purging the beast blood.

"Yes." It comes out a hiss, head turned aside to spit blood from her mouth ruined when she wipes her face with the back of the less bloodied hand. And then, without a moment of hesitation she might have had before because she's here, she's done it once, what will it matter now, she makes a choice. "I can do something to throw them off."

This is--

When isn't it going to be a risk to use the Voice? This isn't Skyrim where it was a summons from atop the tallest peak that had the earth shaking at the sound of her name (it goes beyond title, struck deep into the soul she was born with in Valenwood unknowingly) and only once before has she tried it. More than half of her is locked away somehow with the words in her head that she remembers, understands, knows, but that won't come out when she commands them, this though? This shout remained and she turns opposite, enough room for her to run, and enough for Lakshmi to flank.

It's a strange shout. A rasping whisper as if her voice isn't coming from her but the spot where she wants it to be, three words dredged up from the bottom of her chest: Zul Mey Gut. And then she rolls, covers more ground that way in the low roll where things are less likely to spot her to get closer, the blade back out.

[shri]

For a second, she cannot breathe, but she can feel her own bones inside of her body. Can feel an ache that rends her like only canons fired upon fortress walls have done to her in the past. The jarring thought that takes her - what was this woman she fought beside? Awe, shock on her face but - not fear. Impossible as this all was, there reached a point where all impossibilities became much of a muchness, and she was too used to losing everything she knew to so much as flinch.

It didn't matter. In the way that nothing else mattered apart from surviving the next few minutes. In making sure that her companion could get close enough to deal damage and - it's mad and suicidal but she was good at those, so far as legends go. Distraction - that had to be key.

She had neither a shield nor sword that might make this easier. She had herself, her own short dagger - damn, should have taken the other woman's bow and arrow before she had set off - that left only insanity as an option. So she doesn't run herself, she keeps an eye on her companion out of the corner of her gaze, but most of it forward on the ghost.

Krishna preserve me, no one else will. Her chin lifts and the voice comes out, a loud, bolstering chant. "Jai Bhavani! Jai Shivaji!" Though there was no Maharaja, no Peshwa, to hear her cry his name. Her hand lifts and strikes against all that gold in a loud clang of metal against metal. There was a trick, to shouting above canon, that is old lessons in making it pitch just the right way. Deep, but still loud.

Here, wretch, keep your eyes on me. The next cry of the words, makes her dart sharply to the side when it gets the intended effect. The thing keeps its distance because it can and it hurls the magic at her. So she slips deep into the call of the Blackwater, to the slow of her own mind to something too fast, and where she isn't next to someone now, she does not bother to hide the too fast movements that are not natural. But she only has to keep moving, keep being distracting, long enough for the other woman to get in the hit she needs.

sorry rl caught up with me a bit

[earthbones]

Dragonborn. You're...you're Dragonborn, people said with that look when the dragon lay dead at her feet, the legend humbled, small, throat slit. A good shout for a shadow only now there's as much of her blood to be found on her by the end of this as the things she fights.

Skyrim was kill or be killed from the day Time's jaws snapped shut over his own ending instead of the headsman's axe on her neck.

The spectre is looking elsewhere, is looking to the place neither of them have been, moving with the swarm. Her grin is sharp as her hand reaches out, reaches up and blazes hot as the fires the Bosmer know move beneath the earth.

There's a war cry. Rallying. Some things go past words into the bone and Brónach looks through the haze, the way her arm is shaking, wanting to pull back but there's worse. Not fully human. Something under the skin and under again there that has her reminded of being beast blooded, running and striking until the exhaustion threw her to the ground.

The rift shudders. Brónach falls back down to a knee and doesn't get her arm up to stop the little beasts trapped now but it's shut. Stragglers to be picked off as the sweat slicks the armour to her skin.

pushes rl away!!

[shri]

She moves to do just that - fighting against what remained as the rift was sealed. Feeling the green mark on her hand pulse with the strange nature of it that wasn't... anything she knew. Not even the blackwater, in its cooldarksmooth ever felt like this cold burning.

But she doesn't have time, there was work to be done. A battle was not done until it was won, was that not what her father had taught her? The heavy slash of weapons, the little screams of pain from the winged beasties to her own frustrated grunt when they attempted to retaliate, their flat heavy teeth ripping in deeply. But at least they were quick to kill, which was a smaller mercy. Easy to move through as she makes her way back to the other woman and the offer is plain and simple.

An extended hand and arm for her grip, and a decent amount of strength to haul her up off the ground by.

[earthbones]

Arngeir had stared her down once with the wind biting down same as the teeth of an ice wraith to tell her that to learn a shout was take it into herself, and here it lingers. An eye on her hand, the burn through it that never comes in her throat.

(Part of her is afraid of what it means when she asks the question, what any of them take into themselves. If the people here even know. They ask enough questions, and so little comes from any of it but papers to be kept somewhere, lists, names, records.)

Easier to take the hand extended to her, to get up and shake her head to clear it again with a nod. "Thanks," in the space where others would offer drink she doesn't have. "I could shout again, send them running. See what else goes to tear them apart."

Another shout to test, maybe but Y'ffre help her she'd rather a herd of mammoth come blundering out next time, this is the same as stumbling into a spriggan with bees stinging from a hundred directions all at once.

[shri]

"If you have it in you."

Not a questions - questions are when there is time. Right now? There is too much to do, and she doesn't fancy losing another chunk of teeth to those little buggers if she damn well has too. Right now her hands are curling, uncurling, gaze sliding between her companion, the strange creatures, then back again.

Her words might short of breath for the effort of it, might be pissing blood as it stands - that like questions was for later. "Pity we have no fire." A plan there, but useless for the moment without it.