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

[rathercommon]

It seems rather like something out of a Makepeace play, doesn't it? A young lady imperiled by demons. About to face doom. A handsome man with a (she has to note) really nice arse swooping in to save the day like some grand action hero. The only thing missing is a lengthy period in which people sing a song about the wickedness of something something something, thankfully, because she would not be able to stand a musical number, because musical theatre really is the worst.

Well, and also, in Makepeace's plays, the girls never got knives, either. They got stuck getting rescued or every once in a while standing towards the back of a group of magicians. So this is an improvement, she reflects as she hefts it, and checks the balance. Good.

The man parries the wraith's downward blow. While it's distracted, Kitty takes the opportunity; she drops down and, quick as a flash, slams the knife behind the creature's kneecap. It's a sickening feeling, feeling metal on bone, and it makes a sickening crunching sound as the knife cuts tendon. She grits her teeth, and yanks the knife free, and the creature sags as its leg is taken out of commission.

"Thanks," she pants, and swallows before saying - "Sorry, they'll keep - until we what?"

[mousquetaire]

While he threw the knife to her, he hadn't imagined she'd be so sharp with it as that. The wraith goes down quickly as a result, crumpling under its own weight and giving d'Artagnan an excellent target to sweep his sword free and plunge it through its chest. Given the nature of the beast, he has some doubts that will keep it down.

But it will at least give them a breather.

Pulling the sword free again, he turns to her and nods, impressed.

"That was vicious," he says, which in this tone and with this smile, can be nothing less than a compliment. He's breathing hard himself, and his uniform is spattered with the kind of gore he'd rather not think about. These creatures are disgusting.

The rift is not much better, honestly, given that it's spitting them out. A gloved hand points towards the green tear in the sky.

"The rift. It's the door they're coming through. You see your hand?" The one with the green shard, which happens to be the exact same colour as the thing in the sky. As it turns out, not a coincidence. "They react with the rifts. We near enough, and they'll close it. No more wraiths."

He pulls off his own glove while he's talking, and holds up his hand to show the matching shard embedded in it.

"The more of us that help, the better."