[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

[muckspout]

Edgard hadn’t thought much beyond the one abomination and his eyes widen a bit.

“Do you think that likely?”

Edgard’s hands briefly tap his knife at his belt and his bow at his shoulder. Useless, as per usual.

“Should I—-should we go look?”

[hornswoggle]

Could they look? Any other strangers in the Gallows would likely be discovered without much effort. A pessimistic assessment says they'd come looking sooner or later.

"If he came with friends, they'll have something to say about what happened here."

A minor adjustment, upon realizing his own implication. John looks around the room, draws in a deep breath. He can see no familiar bodies laid low, and the rising chaos of voices is an exhausting muddle already.

"I have somewhere else I need to be," he says finally, which sounds absurd, but solidifies as truth once he's said it aloud. "But if the opportunity arises, after everything else is said and done, we might point out that our visitor could have attachments."

[muckspout]

Edgard nods recognizing the truth in his words. Everyone has an ally and even the worst leave someone behind.

“Don’t let me keep you.”

He moves out of the man’s way. Edgard doesn’t know who he is, but it’s clear he is knowledgeable. Useless again Edgard thinks as the man leaves him behind.