faderift | [OPEN]

It's been just a few short months since the last trouble with Rifts in The Weyrs, but once more agents of Riftwatch find themselves traipsing through picturesque farmlands after a rift in need of closing.

This particular rift has peeled open in the basin below a grove of olive trees. In the rosy dawn, the shrubby plants switch back and forth up the steep hillside above the soon to be battlegrounds to where the grove eventually terminates against a low stone wall. Elsewhere in the region, small gray birds had flit among the trees and shrubbery, calling cheerful morning songs to one another. But here there is no birdsong, and the early daylight is dominated by the crackle and pop of Fadelight from the rift at the hill's base.

Upon approach, the seam of the rift shudders. With a now-familiar clap of air, it cracks open.

The tear belches out darkness and countless demons that roar into the countryside. The sound would have been heard for miles. They swirl out at the bottom of the hillside creating a horrible viscous puddle of shades and slavering hunger. This hill is now the worst hill that has ever existed. Thank the maker it happened here and not in the middle of civilization. There is absolutely no one around to–

A Chantry Sister comes tumbling down the hillside with a yelp. In her wake, yelling significantly less as he's clobbered by the hill, a man tumbles end over end over her. Season-end leaves and bits of yellowing grass shred up after them until, with a great undignified crunch and clatter, the pair are spat directly down into the chaos of the open rift and the slew of demons swarming there.

Edited 2023-10-16 23:59 (UTC)

I.
Lia is staring at her left hand where the rift shard is embedded. She stretches her fingers out and then holds her hand out farther as one would a ring. It’s definitely not unattractive.
Speaking to whoever will listen, she speaks:
“They have told me that this”, she wiggles her fingers, “imprisons me here. How does that work exactly?”
Careful, she will have lots of questions.
II.
Later, Lia might be found in a courtyard staring at a stone wall her nose scrunched.
“Is everywhere here this ugly? Is it purposeful do you think? Or did someone just have a thorough lack of imagination?”
III. Wildcard

i. the gallows
On the third floor of the former Templar tower, a door hangs open. A desk comes squeezing through it and out into the corridor, propelled by a slight man with a sword at his belt. The feet of the desk squeal sullenly over the stone floor until they finally catch against some lip or seam of the flooring. The piece of furniture abruptly halts.

Here, the man straightens. He dusts off his hands—anchor shard flashing in the one, a leather glove on the other—and, with the appearance of being reasonably satisfied with this progress, he returns to the room from which he and the desk originated.

Inside, half of the furniture is in some state of disassembly or rearrangement. With the desk dispensed with, the man has turned his attention to wrestling the old mattress from the second bed. It fwumphs sadly over, crumpling with a crispy rasp of its ancient straw stuffing.

Later, once he has finished redecorating, Desidério may be found poking around the various division workrooms—yes, even the ones to which he doesn't belong—, in the rookery putting the finishing touches on a note before it's slipped into the leg cylinder of a waiting messenger raven, or attempting to scrub all the road dirt from his person in the baths.

ii. lowtown
The Cutthroat Ox is a particularly cheap tavern in a particularly cheap corner of Lowtown—a statement of some significance given that nowhere in Lowtown is known for being particularly rich. Beyond its lintel, marked by the swinging sign of an ox's head with a rusted dagger dangling point up on a chain's link from the animal's chin, lies a tangled warren of rooms populated by mercenaries, and low rank carta, and merchant train security men, and (presumably) the type of thief and cutpurse skilled enough not to actually bear the outward branding of their professions.

Each of the Ox's multitude of backrooms has been decorated as a tribute to some manner of murderous implement: here is the spear room with its walls arrayed with a battalion's worth of broken spear shafts and points notched beyond repair, and here is the cudgel room with a fat balloon-headed stick displayed prominently over the bar and suspiciously well within reach of the woman pouring drinks, and here is the sword room, with every variety of blade crossed and pinned about.

Helpfully, another sword is presently being added. The saber in question has been knocked free of its owner's hand at such velocity that it plunges deep enough into the crumbling plaster of the ceiling that it actually sticks there. An amused cheer goes up among the spectators of the duel.

The smaller of the two men who had been fighting along the room's back wall takes a modest bow, sheathes his own blade, and then clambers onto a nearby chair so he can actually reach the pommel of his disarmed opponent's weapon. He makes to pry the sword out of the ceiling with his offhand, a glint of green anchor light playing briefly across the steel.

—and later (or earlier, or some other time that is less specific and more likely to be repeated), this same man can be found on a stool nursing a drink. He has a collection of swords propped against the wall beside him, and an expectant look in his eye. Eventually someone else will take him up on his challenge, or he'll pack it in and take these prizes off to the nearest pawn broker.

iii. hightown markets
Surveying the comings and goings of Sal Fabiano, a recent addition to the merchant milieu plying their goods in Kirkwall's hightown markets isn't particularly glamorous work. Luckily, Desidério isn't particularly interested in glamor.

Over the course of several days, accompanied by a variety of partners from Riftwatch's ranks, he slums around the Hightown market district and keeps half an eye on the stall, and the merchant in question. This takes the form of shopping for new shirts, or breakfasting at little market adjacent establishments where a good egg might be had in addition to a convenient eyeline, or occasionally even following Fabiano out of the market district from a prudent distance.

And just once, in the dead of night after Fabiano has slipped from the city on some mysterious excursion, does it involve sneaking out over Kirkwall rooftops and along a high wall toward the rooms that Fabiano keeps while in Kirkwall. So maybe a little glamor after all, so long as one's definition of the word includes breaking and entering.

iv. wildcard.
[you know what to do; hmu if you want something bespoke, but happy to roll with whatever]

Edited 2023-10-17 05:56 (UTC)

UNINVITED GUESTS - Closing the Rift (ota; single group thread only pls)

Lia, After. OTA

desidério, later; ota