RIFTER ARRIVAL, Bloomingtide 9:45

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters, rescuers, and anyone else
WHAT: New arrivals are collected and transported to Kirkwall
WHEN: Mid-Bloomingtide, 9:45
WHERE: The Amaranthine Ocean, near Denerim, and Kirkwall
NOTES: This log contains prompts for the ARRIVAL and RECOVERY of new rifters, as well as the subsequent QUARANTINE period. All prompts are open to anyone.

I. ARRIVAL

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 green light, you plunge into water—or, more accurately, you are suddenly in water, but there's no splash. It's as if you were always there. But you're alive, and the sun above is bright enough to orient you toward the surface, if you can swim. (If you can't, someone will be with you shortly.) And once you can take a breath and a moment to evaluate your condition, it will be apparent that you're unharmed, 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.

A ship is anchored only a short swim away, and a boat is already being lowered to the water. The sky is bright blue, with scattered, fluffy clouds; the water around you is equally blue, with gentle foot-high swells, scattered with any buoyant belongings that may have arrived with you. Those that don't float and aren't in your hands already are on the sandbar beneath you—not too far to dive for, if you need them right away, but waiting a moment might be best. Because between you and those belongings is something bright green, obscured by the waves, and around you, a number of skeletal figures in tattered, sopping-wet cloaks are rising up above the water.

The bad news is that these figures would like to murder you with ice. The good news is that, in the process of flinging freezing energy at you, they may create floes and paths of solid ice large enough to support your weight. The even better news is that you aren't alone: the rowboats from the ship, quickly approaching, are full of people—humans, or at least humanoid—who are armed and armored, ready to intervene on your behalf, pull you into the boat, and supply you with a sword if you need one. At least a couple of them seem to know what they're doing. They've been waiting for you.

II. RECOVERY

Once the rift is sealed and the last of the demons dispatched, there's time to breathe, to fish your stuff out of the ocean, and to retreat to the ship. Your first nights in Thedas will be spent sailing—but your rescuers brought plenty of food and clothes in various sizes, and the sailing is smooth all the way back to Kirkwall.

III. KIRKWALL

Kirkwall sits perched on, below, and within the black cliffs surrounding a harbor. The Gallows sit in the center of that harbor, on a rocky island occupied almost entirely by a massive fortress. Despite everyone's best efforts at removing statues of slaves and depressing murals, planting more greenery in the stone courtyards and gardens, and removing unnecessary bars, it still has the lingering aura of a prison, or a place where something terrible has happened, or both.

Still, it's home for at least the next few weeks, because new rifters are quarantined in the Gallows on arrival. They're given rooms with everyone else and permitted to wander the grounds freely, but not to leave the island fortress to explore the city. It's for their own safety, someone will explain—there are social mores they may not understand yet, people who would like to kidnap or kill them who they must learn to be wary of, writing that may or may not be unfamiliar and a thousand places to get lost—as well as everyone else's, but as long as no one exhibits any signs of contagious disease or a propensity for murdering civilians, it won't last very long.

In the meantime, they'll be gathered together or taken aside frequently for talks on a number of issues considered vital to their success, or at least their basic survival, from a quick overview of Thedosian geography, to an explanation of the war against Corypheus and this organization's place in it, to a breakdown of the local currency. The newest rifters have arrived in the middle of an upheaval: there's a new Divine in charge of the Chantry, Thedas' major religion, and the organization that's currently housing them is in the process of separating itself from the Inquisition. It's okay to be confused.

There is also a seemingly endless list of don'ts. Don't touch red lyrium. Don't touch lyrium at all. Don't approach darkspawn unprepared. Don't put anything covered with odd black film anywhere near your orifices. Don't deal with demons. Don't use magic in the streets unless absolutely necessary, or else the locals might panic. Don't mouth off to nobles. Don't wander too far for too long, if you insist on wandering at all, or the anchor in your hand will become unbearable. Don't forget that you're guests—frightening ones—and making a good impression now may make all the difference in the future, when the war is over and someone has to decide what to do with this collection of Fade-touched strangers.

And don't forget, when you are allowed to leave, that the last boat back to the Gallows is at midnight.

Comments

[elegiaque]

They aren't trying to reach the boat, ( grimly matter of fact, reluctant to hold to the rift and leave not so much the demon murder as the preventing demons from murdering her part to anyone else but seeing, for the meantime, no immediate alternative— ) they can kill us from there.

( so,

that's comforting. )

The thing in our hands is connected to the rifts. We can close them. Do your level best not to die first. If you have to let go to duck or stab something, feel free,

( but they are, irritatingly, mostly relying on the rest of the party and new arrivals to keep demons off them while they're locked to the rift. )

[servility]

❰ oh. comforting indeed. brienne's certainly-... not at all reassured, but fortunately that doesn't much change how she handles the situation at hand. which largely consists of 'continue to aim her hand at the rift', for lack of any reasonable alternative. ❱

I'd like to think I'm difficult to kill, ❰ she offers a bit dryly, hunkering down somewhat into the floor of the boat to at least present a smaller target.

after a few more seconds, she thinks to ask a bit more urgently: ❱ How long does it take?

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle is about to say depends, but the rift—pulsates—which is roughly as pleasant as it sounds, and the fade-light linking them to it dissipates as something seems to be happening, unearthly lights dotting the water around them. it hasn't closed, but it isn't right this moment belching demons at them, and there's time to at least catch their breath and perhaps urgently mutter some more instructions, )

...it depends, ( then, ) but that's a good sign. There'll be another wave. There's usually only a few, and then it—

Closes.

( explaining this to someone is roughly as surreal for her as it is for brienne to experience; this isn't the first rift she's seen, but it is the first she's seen rifters come through, and the first that she's been expected to do anything about them and not only the rift itself. at least lakshmi's not here, she's not going into one of those fucking things ever again.

after a beat, she offers her hand. not the one with the anchor-shard, which is in her left and has obliged her to become somewhat ambidextrous, )

Gwenaëlle Baudin. Congratulations, if we live then you've just been conscripted by whatever the fuck we're calling ourselves now. We don't control the rifts, so it wasn't intentional, but they are ripping the world to pieces at the behest of a monster that wants to remake it in his disgusting image, so it's sort of pressing. There'll be a better explanation at some point. From—not me.

[servility]

❰ that's. certainly a lot of information brienne isn't at all sure what to do with. she takes the offered hand in a brief shake (it's professional but largely unpracticed - someone of her general position bows more often than shakes hands, by a fairly large margin), rolling the words around in her mind to try to make as much sense of them as she's able in such a short time. ❱

Brienne of Tarth, ❰ is the least she can offer in return, followed after a beat by, ❱ What is it that we've been conscripted to do? ❰ perhaps not the most pressing issue right at this precise moment, but it's something she'll be concerned about until she asks, so that may as well be now. ❱

[elegiaque]

Brienne of Tarth.

( gwenaëlle will do her the courtesy of bothering to learn and remember her name, given their particular means of becoming acquainted; it's not necessarily something she bothers with when new rifters arrive, at least not until they've proven relevant or like to linger. this one seems promising, regardless.

(the shake is a little odd on both sides; gwenaëlle spent a great deal of her life being bowed to.)

and she asks smart questions, under the circumstances. in a steadier moment gwenaëlle might be less patient, annoyed that her exposition didn't speak for itself, that the pieces were not as obviously put together on the other end as they seemed in her head—

but for a start, she has been firmly reminded that she is not always very good at communicating information to other people, and for another thing, this is nobody's best fucking moment. fair enough. )

Save the world. ( oh, you know. just that. a little thing, really! ) Personally, as someone living in it, as you now are yourself, I prefer it not torn to shreds and enslaved. Call me old fashioned.

[servility]

❰ to be entirely fair, 'obvious' is a somewhat relative concept. perhaps if brienne had come from a world in which saving the world were an everyday concept, it might have been a bit more apparent what gwenaelle was getting at - but quite honestly, she can barely fathom that the world west of westeros or east of essos exists at all, and saving the entirety of it about as familiar a concept as if gwen had said they've been conscripted to blast off into space.

when she asked her question, brienne had assumed that they'd been conscripted to do something a bit more feasible. a reasonable assumption, as far as she's concerned.

in response to the explanation, she really just wants to say, 'and how exactly are we expected to do that?', but that in itself might be another painfully obvious question. so, only a moment belated: ❱ And we save the world by closing these rifts?

[elegiaque]

It's on the list.

( it's incredible how much bureaucracy is involved in saving the world, frankly, and if they weren't about to be inundated by another round of maker-forsaken fucking demons then gwenaëlle might warm to her favourite subject of the underresourced and overworked mission that more people should be prioritising—

but brienne is (probably temporarily) spared that tangent, because the rift chooses that moment to belch demons. )

Ah, fuck—

( she'll elaborate later, probably. unless she were to tragically die on a routine excursion with fifteen other people, but what are the odds? )