[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

[okayimin]

There's a crash and a sudden billow of smoke and Sawbones' swears loudly, rounding on. "Colin, your call. You know more about Templars than I do. There's a broom in the closet down the hall if we don't got a sword." She levels another glare at Barrow and points at him, "You blow out any of your joints with this shit and you'll fuckin' wish you stayed in Orlais."

With that, she grabs her bucket of water and dashes back into the chaos.

[keenly]

Colin can do better than a broom. He takes a lyrium potion from his belt and presses it into Barrow's hand. It's the best thing he has to hand without running up several flights of stairs.

"Make your way slowly. Stay as far away as you possibly can and still be in range. I am going to the kitchen and I'll be back. Don't draw attention to yourself till I get back, because I'm going to cover you. Go slow."

With that, he's running like mad toward the kitchen.

[thereneverwas]

Accepting the lyrium potion, Barrow offers a silent nod. He's already got a candelabra, which is arguably better than a broom, but really what he needs is a singular focus that can also be used as a weapon: hence his request for a sword. A knife. Anything.

He steps carefully through the mayhem, eyes fixed on the abomination, prepared to chug the potion and leap (figuratively) into action the moment Colin returns and gives the go ahead.

[keenly]

You should never run with knives, but Colin runs with a very long, very sharp kitchen knife used to help butcher larger carcasses. He reaches the templar and offers him the handle before immediately stepping back to get out of his way, his magic sizzling at his fingertips to prepare for what's next.