[OPEN] FROM RIFTWATCH WITH LOVE: PART ONE

[unshut]

WHO: Everyone and anyone
WHAT: An abomination redecorates the Gallows.
WHEN: Early August
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Part One of FROM RIFTWATCH WITH LOVE. Will include some violence, some general chaos, and some light murderin'.

There is a man in a worn traveling cloak. He is dark haired, with sharp features dominated by a dark horizontal scar near his hairline, and later someone will describe him as having been soft spoken when he asked for directions.

But something in the Gallows' dining hall, with its unreliable population for the midday meal, must catch under his skin; he's found his voice again by the time he steps up onto one of the benches.

"Is this all of you?"

Someone nearby tells him to get his boots off the furniture, so the man climbs higher onto the table and is louder the second time: "Is this really all you are? A few people in a tower on an island?"

Heads are coming up. As his voice rises, he produces an envelope from his pocket.

"Do you think this is funny? Playing at being something, and telling people you can make a difference to them? You were supposed to be helping, but you're all just sitting here! Don't touch me"—to someone encouraging him to get off the fucking table—"You were meant to be helping us. You promised you would, and I told her I believed you!"

Hands are reaching for him. No, really, get off the table. You can explain what's wrong once you're down; you're with friends— The man jerks his arm free, snarling, "Don't touch me! You're nothing!" A stronger hand finds him then and begins pulling him struggling down. With a wrenched cry of, "Livia!" the man slips from the table.

A column of fire pours upward out of him like molten heat from a crack in the earth. It bursts so high that it scorches a circle on the dining hall ceiling, and burns so suddenly hot that it sends those nearest to him recoiling backward as their clothes catch. The fire licks again in random directions, in chaotic fits and starts of light and heat, and the thing that rises up again in the mage's place isn't really a man at all.

The rage abomination will ravage its way through the dining hall and prodigious Gallows kitchens, then out into the courtyard beyond leaving considerable destruction in its wake until finally brought down by Leander. In the charred aftermath, the following can be recovered from among the mage's belongings: a leather corded bracelet with a green bead woven in it (too small for anything but the smallest wrist), a functioning phylactery, and a letter from "Riftwatch" which implies a history of correspondence and familiarly refers to the recipient by name, 'Felix.' An investigation of Riftwatch's files will reveal the log of having received a message from a similar Felix, No Lastname six months earlier. The message itself is nowhere to be found among the Gallows records.

The recovered letter assures Felix that all will be well, and includes instructions to wait in the woods above the crossroads of a small Wildervale village.

'Help will be on its way. Good luck, and safe travels.'

Comments

Sister Sara Sawbones | ota

[okayimin]

1. In the Chaos

Well, if ever she needed an excuse to eat in the library... But she doesn't. She's here and the room very nearly explodes with heat and the smell is not the same as the lava rivers, but the chaos and the noise is the Darkspawn ambush that had cut through what had been the rare peaceful moment and-

At some point, she is swept off her feet and she struggles to regain it, groping for stones and bodies that aren't there-

2. After the Aftermath

She calls half a dozen people by the names of Legionaires who, if they hadn't died in front of her, were most likely dead now, but her hand is steady as she helps put out the last of the fires and tends to the injured. She's calm, capable and brusque as ever.

And then, she sits on the floor in a corner of the wrecked dining hall, back against the wall and staring up at the scorched circle in the ceiling. It's more comforting than the empty sky with it's floating celestials at the moment. She's a sickly pale and her hands shake.

"Well," she says to no one in particular, "That's a blasted mess to deal with."

2

[keenly]

"First one's always the worst," Colin agrees, dropping to sit by Sawbones. "Are you hurt?"

[okayimin]

"Skirts got a bit singed," she says, not bothering to conjure up Colin's name, since she had absolutely called him "Browdie" for the better part of ten minutes, "That's all. Startled me more than anything."

'Startled' is perhaps a mild term for how worn out and hollow eyed she looks.

[keenly]

He doesn't think she thought his name was Browdie. He suspects she thought he was someone else. And considering her background, it wouldn't be surprising. He leans in to speak in a conspiratorial tone.

"I could roll you some elfroot to smoke. Just between the two of us."

[okayimin]

She snorts at him, but doesn't say no. "Go on then." And she watches him, "You're holding up well."

[keenly]

A shrug as he takes dry leaves and a bit of paper from his gear. "It's not my first abomination," he says. "Not even my second. And I'm counting by event, not by numbers of abominations. How upset do you get about darkspawn?"

It's an oversimplification, but he's feeling fine, so he doesn't want to question it too much. He finishes the joint and hands it to her before conjuring a spark to light it for her.

[okayimin]

"Everybody should get upset about darkspawn," Sawbones says. It's grim, but there's no heat to it, more the weight of the Deep Roads settled heavy on her. She takes the joint and leans into the spark, lighting it and taking a heavy drag.

"I get your point, though," she concedes when she finally lets the heavy smoke blow out of her mouth.

[keenly]

"You do know what I mean," he says with a squint. "By the time an abomination is made, someone has already died. Usually one of my friends. But I have a lot of practice at not losing it until it's safe. And in this case, it was just the one death. It can wait until tonight, when the nightmares, you know."

Another shrug.

"How are you feeling?"

[okayimin]

She's quiet for a while, takes another drag from the joint and then offers it to him. Might as well share. "Yeah. Yeah, it was like that with the Taint. When it took someone, they were dead. Wasn't fuck all you could do about it."

Her hands are a little steadier now, but she's still got a far away look to her. Sawbones sighs, letting her head drop and rubbing her forehead, "Felt like I was back in the Roads. Not sure I ain't still."

[adjurator]

The table splinters, words gone up in smoke, and Alais freezes; then up, until there's a tiny body before her, under her —

Alais stoops, grabbing one grasping arm in hers, and dragging up. She's never been very strong, but the child (what's a child doing here?) isn't so heavy.

"Up," Get up. Choked over a slamming heart. The moment narrows around her: One step, the next. "Window."

Closer than the exits, full of fallen shelves and debris.

[okayimin]

"Window-?" Half a question, the fuck is a window doing- But then she slams back into herself and Sawbones is properly on her feet.

And she is strong, has to be, and it's only a little difficult to grab one of the stools and hurl it through the glass. "Gonna need a boost."

helping

[bignasty]

Smoke and ash furl out through the shattered window in a belch of hot air. A hulking shape looms up behind them out of the chaos, all huffing breath and soot-streaked plate armor; a pair of massive hands close like a mabari’s jaws around Sawbones’ middle from above and behind -- gentle, but firm.

“Upsy daisy, dwarf.”

Sylvester twists to lob her out through the window she just broke like a pumpkin, and looks sharply down to Alais, clearly wondering if he should do the same to her. He’s either lost his helmet, or didn’t think snatching a twig down off a table would warrant one.

YEET

[adjurator]

She startles, already half-crouched —

"No," Is a very small sound, from a bit a of a small person, in the middle of a very big fire and when she raises her voice it's really more of a wobbly shout of: "No thank you!"

[okayimin]

There's a string of loud cursing on the other side of the window and then Sawbones head pops back into view from where she's clinging to the window sill.

"Get people out and away from that thing! I think this way is clear!"

[bignasty]

For all the sweat and soot and prickle that exaggerates Sylvester’s Presence, there is a very fine tightening at the lines around his eyes at the sound of Alais’ small voice. He hangs in his loom, dripping over her, until the sound of Sawbones’ all clear reminds him to blink against all the sulfur and grit.

He stoops to catch a paw up under her arm, hauling her upright so he can try to get her up around the middle for a repeat performance.

“Right,” he acknowledges, as if she’s consented to this imminent yeeting, “Sister Sara’s orders.”

[adjurator]

With any luck, Sara will have dropped off the sill before Alais' elbow — then shrieking body — hurtles through it, the air shimmering abruptly with something other than heat.

[okayimin]

She's enough luck that she is indeed well out of the way.

"I didn't mean throw her!" she shouts over her shoulder, bolting towards over to where Alais landed, "All right? Feel all your hands and feet still?"

Because they're probably going to need to run soon.

2

[heorte]

"Aye, it'll take some time to put it back together."

It looks like a battlefield. Ellis doesn't think saying that aloud is going to be comforting. How long has it been since his own hands shook like that in the wake of violence? When did that become something he was so accustomed to that it barely unsettled him.

But he sits anyway, hands her the cup he'd been carrying as he settles. It's water. He'd meant it for himself, but.

[okayimin]

She takes the cup with both hands and manages not to spill the water all over herself. She drains it and holds it back out.

"Gonna need a tall ladder to reach that burn on the ceiling," she says, humor dry and flat. She nods beside her, offering him a seat on the floor with her if he's inclined to it, "You're looking in one piece, Warden."

[heorte]

"Just some bruises, I think," he tells her, easing himself down beside her.

It doesn't feel like something to celebrate. He hadn't been close enough, and hadn't been able to get close enough at any point. It leaves him with a few minor burns and scrapes, but others are far worse off.

Maybe he could have changed that. It's impossible to know, but the flicker of regret is hard to oust when he can't stop thinking of better strategies, better responses. That's the trouble with surprise attacks, Ellis has found, though it's been a long while since he's been on the receiving end of one.

"Are you alright?"

A different question that "are you injured," as far as Ellis is concerned.

[okayimin]

Sawbones nods and her face twists briefly at his question.

"Thought I was in the Deep Roads," she says, voice dull, "Kept looking for Dusters who bled out under my hands, expecting them to be there to help with this mess." She lets her head fall back, staring up at the scorched ceiling. "Haven't done that in a long time."

[heorte]

What she describes is not unfamiliar. After the Blight, there had been a stretch of time when Ellis had weathered something similar. Being plunged back into the midst of the Blight, his life being torn down in front of his eyes, it sounds something like what is describing.

He doesn't ask her what she'd seen in the Deep Roads. He can guess. He had survived enough of it himself.

Slowly, he reaches over to put a hand on her shoulder. Comforting? He hopes.

"I know what that is like. I have seen it happen to some I traveled with."

Casually excising himself from the equation.

"I'm sorry."

[okayimin]

She doesn't really know how to feel about the hand on her shoulder. It's grounding at least. None of the Legion had hands that big.

" 's the nature of the work," she says, a little flat, "Old Sawbones always said not to fool myself into thinking I could save every Duster they rolled out on the table. And it's a blasted miracle we didn't lose half the current company over the last few months."

[heorte]

"I learned that same lesson."

All Wardens did, one way or another. But between them, how often had Wardens made decisions and reconciled themselves to the loss? How much shared ground is there between those decisions and the aftermath, likely similar to Sara tended to?

"Plenty of us are alive because of you," Ellis reminds her. "Us and Kirkwall as well."

Ellis has a neat little scar, sewn up in the wake of Nevarra's fall by her hands. He hasn't forgotten it.

[okayimin]

She looks up at him, a ghost of a smile turning the corners of her mouth up. The Deep Roads still hang over her, brimstone and blood scented, but she's here too, with this surfacer she's stitched and who'll live to see her table another day.

"That is something," she says, "And there's always the midwifing. Half a dozen babies will be born in Kirkwall for every burn we've suffered today, mark my words." Death is consistent and inevitable, but so is life. And that's something as well.