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]

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.