[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

aftermath

[doneisdone]

It looks worse than it is. ...probably.

But in a room off the hall, under a broken table, lies a bony pile of black leather and blistered skin, her skinny ribcage puffing in and out as she keeps her breathing measured.

Shows how old she's gotten; back in her heyday, Teren used to get thrown like this all the time and get right back up to keep stabbing genlocks.

"Hello, pretty," she croaks fondly, recognizing that blonde head and, perhaps, finding it an irony that they should meet again this way, "haven't got a healing potion, have you?"

[bloodandsand]

"Goodness, you do look a mess," Poesia says, sounding no more alarmed then if she'd found Teren had been splashed in filthy water. She pulls one of her pockets and hands it to Teren, "Those lovely healers gave me some and sent me off to find people who... Well, I supposed ended up like you."

[doneisdone]

"Bless," Teren replies, taking the potion in her bony hand and popping the cap. She chugs it quickly and hands back the vial, in case Poesia wants to hold onto it for a refill, or just bring it back to the infirmary.

It takes a few moments to kick in, but then Teren is able to sit up: she's still burned, but a bit less broken now.
"I've got to stop fucking doing this," she mutters.

[bloodandsand]

"You do seem rather too human for the business," Poesia says, offering a helpful hand, "You ought to have someone who's specifically made for that sort of fighting."

[doneisdone]

A dry laugh turns into a groan as Teren gets to her feet, immediately doubling over to brace herself on her skinny legs so she doesn't just fall back down.
"Got several of those," she muses, "but I'd sooner die than send another to do my work."

[bloodandsand]

She pouts, offering her arm, "That's a very deplorable misuse of resources, ser." And rather disappointing, all things considered. "You ought have been a reaver with that talk."

[doneisdone]

Teren snickers, taking her arm with a chiding shake of her head. "Too noisy," she points out, "I wasn't cut out for drawing attention."
As is apparent, considering she just got thrown into the room.

[bloodandsand]

"I can hardly believe that, Ser," she says, almost primly, even if it's play, "You are a striking figure, though normally I think that it involves less being struck at." And she'll help Teren out of the ruins of the room, ushering her towards the infirmary.

[doneisdone]

[o u think ur cute]