faderift | [OPEN] look at me, still talking when there's science to do

WHO: Mohinder Suresh and you
WHAT: Falling through a rift, wandering around
WHEN: Cloudreach
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: HI

I. Through the Rift

When Mohinder wakes from his nightmares these days, it usually takes him a good solid minute to reassure himself that none of it is physically real: there are no scales down his arms or poisoned webs in his lungs, no grotesquely disfigured test subjects begging him for mercy, no resentful pyrokinetic rednecks threatening to burn his face off if he doesn't work faster.

This reassurance falls flat now, when his fucked-up dreamscape doesn't actually have the decency to go away when he opens his eyes. The stupid dream-logic particulars--the lab coat with its gibberish logo; the comically oversized syringe that had been shameful and frightening a moment ago and now just looks like a big plastic sight gag--will register in all their strangeness once he has time to think, but time is not on his side right now. The ground is hard, and cold, and bathed in sickly green light from the pulsing rip in the air above him, and none of the monsters he's ever dreamed of can compare to the spider-eyed thing that has just burst from the earth to shriek at him with an unhinged jaw full of fangs.

The syringe is good for something, then. Mohinder stabs at the thing with all his strength, buying him just enough time to get up and bolt for his life.

II. Research Work Room

Riftwatch doesn't seem dangerous or unethical from the sales pitch Mohinder's been given, but then again, neither did the last three ultimately-sketchy enterprises he joined under duress. He would really like to think he's learned some kind of lesson by now about throwing in his lot with anyone who can use the phrases "important research," "unusual abilities" and "save the world" in a sentence, but...anyway, here he is.

Having already claimed a bedroom next to the communal baths he's definitely going to complain about, it seems the next step would be to find himself an available desk in the work room. And while he does that, is there any reason not to poke around and see what's being studied on the unavailable desks? Surely not. That's just healthy scientific curiosity. Nobody ever won a Nobel Prize without being nosy as hell, probably. Come tell Suresh to stop touching your stuff.

III. Training Yard

Making himself useful with his research skills is Mohinder's comfort zone, and he doesn't anticipate doing things much differently here, except--there really are a whole lot more things to fight in Thedas than there ever were back home, and it's not like there was a shortage of combat opportunities there. As ill-gotten, guilt-soaked and untested as his powers might be, it would be downright foolish to waste them now instead of figuring out how to use them for good.

This attempt at figuring things out takes the form of venturing into the training yard as if halfway convinced he's not allowed to be there, picking up the largest and heaviest-looking sledgehammer-type weapon on a rack, and swinging it in a casual arc like a baseball bat after what should probably have been a more thorough check to make sure nobody was standing behind him. It's a start?

IV. Wildcard

[ Anything you want! Mohinder will just be poking around all over the Gallows while he's quarantined, so there's probably nowhere he couldn't reasonably be found at some point except for a private room. ]

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"That's," comes a hasty exclamation from behind, and a large hand moves to stop the haft of the practice weapon before it can be swung again, "--a great way to lop your own head off, mate."

Really, where do these people come from?

"New in town," Barrow observes, nodding to the glow on the stranger's hand with a smirk more friendly than cautious, "welcome to Riftwatch."

Mohinder, ever the suave and poised picture of professorial dignity, jumps and startles to the point of nearly dropping the hammer anyway. But he doesn't! Embarrassment averted. Or not.

He leaves the weapon to Barrow, letting go with an awkward, shamefaced little half-smile of greeting.

"You could say that," he deadpans, as the shard gives a little punctuating throb. "I didn't think it could hurt to experiment before I went and bothered anyone for proper training, but..."

The ARRIVED system is working as intended, and as he usually is, Jude's one of the first responders. It's handy, knowing where the rifts will open up ahead of time.

Probably better for the mortality of the folks rifting in.

The world tears itself open, and Jude is in fur, settles in to wait. Legs spread, head low, golden eyes on the writhing, sickly green. The shard buried between his paw pads pulses in sympathy, a steady painful ache.

It doesn't take long this time. The rift spits out what looks like a youngish man in a lab coat -- who seems possessed of an excellent set of reflexes. When the monster lunges at him he has the presence of mind to attack (with a comically large syringe) rather than default to screaming his damn head off. Jude is fondly reminded of Clarisse, though she came through with an actual spear.

From behind Mohinder a fearsome wolf howl cuts through the air, the kind of hunting song that sends the animal hindbrains of anything ever hunted into a panic. It's meant to.

It's followed by a gut-clenching snarl as a fuckoff-enormous black wolf darts between Mohinder and the monster, nearly obscuring the man behind him with his bulk.

The wolf sideswipes the monster from the rift, and it shrieks, immediately turning to go after the interloper, who dodges with a canny intelligence more human than animal.

"Not always the worst instinct," Barrow offers, smiling a bit himself, "except when even the practice weapons could kill someone, used incorrectly." He pats him lightly on the shoulder, offering back the hammer.

"You want to put your hands here, and here, dominant one here," he explains, pointing out where he means, "anyone can use a two-handed weapon, but the smaller you are, the more like you are to fly away with it." And Mohinder is... well, he probably doesn't need to say it.

"I'm Barrow," he adds, "I weapons train most of the new arrivals. Consider me bothered." He doesn't look bothered, at least-- if anything, his smile is friendly.

Eli has a similar thought about seeing what's lying about on the other desks, though he doesn't really care much if Riftwatch is dangerous or unethical. Those things don't matter to him. Danger? Well, as far as he knows, he can heal from pretty much any injury. (That isn't exactly true here, but he'll learn that as he goes.) Ethics? Ha, as if he has any.

But curiosity he has in spades, and there's a lot of information here in the research room. His primary interest, after encountering some strange tales, is Corypheus himself, if only because the idea of someone cheating death forever is pretty disgusting to Eli. He's self-aware about that; he cheated death, didn't he? But God saw fit to bring him back, and then to send him here.

But he's been sidetracked by something about the Blight. He's not sure he understands what that is, so he has some books and scrolls about it. This whole place is a little over his head.

He comes back to the desk to find Mohinder peering at the open book. But rather than chase him off, he just drops the book he's holding on a clear spot there on the desk and dusts his hands off.

"Find anything noteworthy?"

[OPEN] look at me, still talking when there's science to do

III

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I. Through the Rift

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