partially open.

[charmoffensive]

WHO: Loxley, Richard Dickerson, and Riftwatch.
WHAT: A rift opens and only good people emerge. Some demon battle, followed by rifter corralling.
WHEN: A convenient time of your choosing during Harvestmere.
WHERE: The Wounded Coast
NOTES: Open to agreed upon participants! We have two takers, we can probably take a couple more, especially shard bearers!

On reports of the Veil's weakening somewhere along the Wounded Coast, it might be tempting to let this one go, especially today, fitful rain and winds coming in off the ocean. Let bandits and wild animals and demons sort out their own disputes.

Unfortunately, it's also a common and useful route that winds directly into Kirkwall.

So.

Green light, flashing brightly, with the same fits and starts of lightning. The rift, a large, floating seam of queasy green light that churns in place like smoke, can be found pulsing above a narrow band of rocky shore, with grey waves tossing themselves up onto it before pulling backwards. The ground beneath the rift, in patches, shows signs of odd corruption in the form of bubbling ichor, and the occasional burst of green lightning touches its fingers between the rift and the ground.

The dying wail of a terror demon, collapsing, pierces the white noise that is the driving rain on the rock and water. The rift pulses again, preparing itself for a second wave of demons.

From the perspective of the Riftwatch members bracing for the next assault, they see two shades seem to climb up and out of the ground where green lightning had struck, big clawed hand over big clawed hand. Hooded, faceless beings with great big claws that splinter beach grit beneath them as they rise to their full height, wearing robes and tatty leather armor over twisted grey muscle. Black fog trails beneath them as they slide strangely, pivoting for signs of life.

And two more figures appear, with less ominous silhouettes, and less obvious intent.

What Richard Dickerson and Loxley experience is plunging into sleep as if falling down a tunnel, and then never landing, only appearing upon the rocky, rain-swept shore, the sound of crashing waves in their ears and the growls and shrieks of monsters nearby. For Loxley, he appears half submerged in surf and takes his time to struggle out of it with great disorientation, hindered as the next wave in crashes over his shoulders.

He shouts something protesting and inarticulate, boots sliding in sand and waterlogged grit as he struggles to his feet.

Comments

[inkindled]

A dense crop of fire teases straight from the ground beneath the fear demon's pin-stalk legs before it can leap that next distance and finish its charge. Mid-calf flames, and rising higher, as the spell breathes and seethes. The blaze sizzles under seaspray and the sift of rain--but it isn't doused, and the demon wheels back under that assault, its thin limbs windmilling as it shrieks.

Matthias, with his staff in one hand, grabs at the stupid idiot bungling dumb staring Rifter with his free hand. Yanks, hard, on his arm, pulling on him.

"Get out of the way if you're not going to fight it, you tit!" he yells in his face. Cathartic, and also, necessary, in order to be heard over the crackle of the Fade and the crash of the waves and the shouting and the screaming and, you know, the general chaos.

The circle of flame bows, cowed, and the fear demon crouches, tree-knot knees up by where its ears might be, if it had ears, which it doesn't. Flames wreathe its arms like fringe on a fancy coat. Matthias, swearing, lets go of the rifter and swings his staff about, slamming the butt of it against the damp packed beach. There's a whomp, and a great gust of flame thuds into the demon's chest, knocking it backwards, with another bowel-weakening screech.

[charmoffensive]

"--!!"

Loxley probably hasn't been grabbed by the horns since he was old enough to slice fingers for the insult of it, or like. Maybe in a fun bedroom context, which this is decidedly not. Anyway, he is almost as shocked by that as he is the next wave of cold ocean water trying to slide his feet out from under him. Sputtering, cursing.

And looking around wildly. Seeing Richard, and another person he doesn't recognise. Green light, screaming monsters. Like the other rifter getting his bearings, there's another second or two spent on trying to find the shapes of those who aren't here.

Half-cowering behind this rather imposing spear-wielding lady is oddly familiar, though.

"Sorting," he affirms, breathlessly. His hand goes to his hip, anticipating finding nothing there just as much as instinct had him looking for it in the first place, but lo -- his hand curls around the hilt of his sword, and he immediately feels a lot better about his circumstances. At least for the next minute and a half. Just don't think about it, alright. "Sorted."

He moves, spinning past Eshal. Speedy, for such a tall and lanky gentleman, deftly ducking under the overhand swipe of demon claws as he darts within range to flank the enemy, rapier cleanly cutting through air and gauging into twisted muscle, trailing strange green fire as he does so.

A familiar sight to Richard over there, except there are unfamiliarities too. No whipping, spade-tipped tail through the slit of his coat, and his skin and hair both have lost the golden, metallic lustre, all shades of grey to shadow. Fortunately, Loxley himself is much too occupied with hitting things with a sharp sword to notice.

[saam]

Speedy, for a horned man. Most with his bearing focus on strength. A broadsword, not a rapier.

She'll worry about it later. With a shout, she's charging forward, acting as more backup to his bobs and weaves than a full-on charge. It's mostly subconscious. She's used to working with people who look like him; she immediately falls into lockstep with it.

She's noticed there are others, of course. They'll manage, or they won't. It's not, for now, her problem, and that's a relief, not to be leading a charge in battle, worrying about unit cohesion, sticking to the plan. She just... fights.

The fear will come after, if it does. It doesn't always. She's never sure what sparks it.

[nonvenomous]

Firelight lashes Dick’s dumb-stricken absence into sharp relief; he looks down from the windmilling and shrieking and gnashing at his own hands in a wash of orange and black, warmth on his face, his breath gone soupy with steam.

???

A jerk at his shoulder staggers him hard to one side, and the heat is slapped out by the cold flush of Matthias’ shouting directly into his grill: Wuah wuah wuah wuah, YOU TIT.

Richard flinches into focus, eyes sharp with who the fuck are you even confusion.

Rain, thunder, demons creeching — Loxley darts through his periphery, and Dick Dickerson breaks from the WHOMP of a fresh burst of flame to take a pair of hard steps back, whipping a dagger from a hidden sheathe as he goes.

He slings it into the bonfire tangle of howling fire and twiggy limbs Matthias is stoking. A little spit of sparks and a gurgling hiccup amidst all the screaming marks ineffectual contact.

Marking this, Richard measures his odds against Matthias’ attitude, and turns to run after Loxley.

[inkindled]

Matthias straightens out of his spellcasting crouch just in time to see the Rifter starting off. Obeying his command, sort of, but still. Matthias takes precious battle seconds to throw a sneer his way.

"Yeah, all right," he yells, half to the Rifter's back, half to no one, the Maker, himself, thin air, "all right, I'll just sort it, shall I--"

The screams of the dying demon do wonders to disguise the sizzling crack, as a seam of green splits up below the damp coarse sand and dirt. Matthias notices it too late, as it spiderweb cracks and forks down beneath his feet--a long spindly spread of cracks, following after Richard, snatching at his heels. A green glow seethes from within, then busts out, a spill of sick green light as a fresh terror demon bursts from below. Its thin whip limbs lash out, catch Matthias as it kicks out, and goes for Richard with a shriek. Revenge for its fallen brother or just, you know. Demon stuff.

[charmoffensive]

Between himself and the formidable woman he's fighting with, the shade is dispatched with relative efficiency -- and he has no idea if they've gotten lucky or if these are of the more manageable sorts of monsters local to the area, but regardless: Eshal's spear passes so cleanly through the beast that Loxley swerves aside so as to avoid it, before bringing his rapier around to pierce it in kind.

It screams, and collapses into writhing ichor between them, and Loxley now actually looks across at his current battle companion, wide eyed, squinting against the constant assault of rain.

Yelling. Demonic screeching. Movement.

Above them, the rift gives a deep pulse as this next terror demon bursts from the ground. For maybe the first time, there's opportunity for both rifters to notice yet another detail in the chaos -- the ache in one of their hands, buried in their palm, like a burning splinter, as green light pulses brighter out from that point. Loxley, personally, takes it for an injury.

Distracted in kind as he is by the appearance of this fresh hell that's kicked aside a stranger and is hot on Richard's heels. He pivots, moving to get between cleric and demon.

[saam]

"No-" She's heard of Rifters. She knows what they can do. It makes perfect sense to her that a horned man can be a rifter, if humans can. So she makes a grab for his wrist and holds his hand up toward the green glow.

"Close it!" And then, again, in Qunlat. Just in case.

[nonvenomous]

Dick is nimble for someone who looks like he’s spent most of his life holding a clipboard, pelting across wet sand and rock splintered through with shudders of green light, but the demon on his heels has lunging reach. Its claws tangle into his stride -- he’s stripped flat off his feet and twisted up into the rain by his ankle, gravel rattling out of the Richard-shaped trench he leaves behind. Loxley -- with Eshal reaching for his wrist -- is in prime position to glimpse Richard’s struggle to make sense of his life and his choices, upside-down with his hands over his head. One of those hands its glowing.

When he’s slung bodily back down into the sand beneath this screaming monstrosity, he finds himself back at Matthias’ feet, or in his lap, or otherwise entangled inconveniently with his staff. Wherever it is that he lands, he says there -- dizzy, braced in and preemptively closed off from any assessment Matthias has of his contribution so far.

He doesn’t need to find his feet to fan his hands out in a show of arcane hostility -- a sequence of gestures the demon will almost certainly recognize and respect as an ill-tempered warning as it rounds for another slashing attack.

[inkindled]

Sand or no, the ground is unforgivable. Battle-tested, Matthias knows that laying about in dizzy incomprehension is another way of saying and then he died, so he'd used his staff to haul himself back up. Ears ringing, a particular tenderness to the back of his head that will need looking at later, probably--no time for it now--he's looking about for his next move. And, well, with a whump and a scatter of rock and sand, here's the stupid Rifter again, deposited across his boots like a poppet no one wanted for Satinalia.

"Oh, for fuck's," he starts, and then the demon is back, screeching. Matthias crouches, making himself as small a target as possible. Old training. So, too, is the barrier he casts around himself and the stupid idiot dinkarse Rifter--and this even as the Rifter is doing some fiddly work with his hands--magic, but none like Matthias has ever seen, and by the Maker, he's seen magic--and he doesn't interrupt the work, but he grips a hand in the man's shoulder. With a shimmering crackle, the barrier comes alive around them, a green shiver in the air around them.

The demon wheels back from the protective magic, its planned slash interrupted. There's a wild indignation in its next screech--how very dare!--and Matthias, in the greenish glow of the rift and the greenish glow of his barrier, manages a grin.

And then the barrier dips down again, because Matthias is shit at barriers. He loses the grin, swears under his breath and, wrenching harder at the Rifter's shoulder, tightens his fingers around his staff and tries to coax that barrier back to life around them. It could mean their lives, unless the Rifter acts first to save them. Which seems unlikely.

[charmoffensive]

Momentum killed and momentarily off-balance, Eshal raises Loxley's hand-- and before he has the presence of mind to wrest himself free, something like green lightning strikes forth from the rift. It slams into Loxley's palm with such force that it seems like it ought to have kinetic impact, but all energy seems absorbed by the brightly glowing green point that is his open palm.

Still. He yells, "Ahh!!"

And holds. Where lightning is quick to disappear, this vein of crackling energy stays as is, connected between hand and rift. Some churn and exchange of power is happening, and he only feels minimally involved.

"I--"

Enough weird magic shit has been happening to him lately that it's not altogether impossible to grasp what she's said in so few words, although this is certainly a bridge flashier than tricking people into magical friendship or even fighting with a sword of summoned unearthly fire. But you know, why the fuck not this?

"I have it," he shouts, and there's a ?! in his tone. He's not sure what he has, but he can feel something struggle to happen.

And there's still something horrible left alive, over there.

[saam]

"Don't worry," Eshal says, attempting something like comforting shouting over the din of the fight. "I'll watch you. You just close the damn thing."

And she does, protecting his flank from anything that slouches or crawls forward.

"Hey!" This shouting is less comforting, and directed at the other new guy. She's seen everyone else before. "You can do it too! Hand the fuck up!"

[nonvenomous]

Richard kicks himself back up against Matthias’ crouch, heels scuffing for purchase, a human owl pellet of bone and leather and grit stamped onto the younger man’s “small target.” He only coils up into a crouch once he’s out of room to reverse into, eyes electric (not literally) with adrenaline fight over flight -- the cat’s cradle of a spell in his hands held in close behind the barrier.

Purchase at his shoulder is easy to find, layered leather plate studded with steel, and he doesn’t seem to mind, what with them hunkered together in this magical hovel as they are: alive. He’s willing to make fast enough friends to stay that way.

What he does mind is the more familiar ordeal of being shouted at in the thick of combat, which he only catches on a delay. Dick double takes back to Eshal (and her magical goat with lightning hands), war focus muddled with defensive confusion. His brows twist in together. He mouths, What?

The barrier drops. Matthias is well-positioned to feel the sigh that tenses through his shoulders. Disappointment, dismay, defeat, impatience. Whatever he wants to project.

The sound, of course, is drowned out by demonic shrieking.

It slashes for them, and Richard wrests away to stand and raise his hand into the incoming blow. There’s no fire, no shockwave, no flash or bang, but the demon recoils and garbles in guttural protest, necrotic fissures bubbling in electric green from palm to tiddy.

“Please just kill it with fire,” Richard suggests, back to Matthias. Tersely.

He’s kept his hand raised, because whatever is happening to Loxley took advantage of the palm presented it, and is also happening to him, and this is just the way things are now in this dream, apparently. He has the presence of mind to begin casting again with his free hand, one eye on the demon in anticipation of its next attempt.