Into the DANGER ZONE

[faderifting]

WHO: All Rifters + the 7 natives who signed up
WHAT: Searching the ruins of Haven for survivors, an Inquisition crew finds something strange. And demons. It's kind of scary that the demons aren't the strange thing.
WHEN: Third week of Harvestmere, 9:41
WHERE: Haven
NOTES: We've broken rifters and rescuers (or "rescuers") into two groups. This log has an arrival comment for each group--you can start smaller subthreads beneath those rather than try to have an eight- or nine-person log, just incorporate surrounding chaos/fighting--and a third top-level set for the whole group's journey back to Skyhold

You were asleep-- deeply or fitfully, for the last time or just resting your eyes for a moment-- and then you were not. And wherever you were was not, anymore, replaced by nothing but the sensation of falling, tumbling into endless, bottomless nothing. If this were still a dream, you would wake before you hit the ground. You can't die in a dream, they say. In some worlds.

But there's no waking here, just a flare of green-white light and a jarring impact, barely softened by snow that lies a foot deep with an icy crust that cracks beneath the force of your landing. The wind is biting cold, the sun is bright, and you are not alone. Others thud to the ground nearby, as bewildered as you, and others run up who look no less confused for having their feet beneath them.

You are also not as you were: in the palm of your left hand there glows a narrow splinter of light the same sickly green as whatever brought you here. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions. Like that you're being attacked by monsters, some tall, spindly stick-things with too many eyes, some hunched and hooded with no eyes at all.

Welcome to Thedas!

Comments

[slipshot]

"It reminds me of one, actually," Gavin said thoughtfully. "About a Fereldan woman that used to leave pies on her window sill... Creators, Cole, you've never smelled anything so sweet, I promise you, but didn't everyone in the valley know it! She used to have to smack thieving hands with a rolling pin at least three times daily."

He smiled to himself, but his mind quickly wandered from pies to good smells to good sights and then finally back onto Galadriel, whom he'd had a hard time not thinking about for the last several hours.

"Did you - did you see the people that came out of the rift?" He asked, glancing back towards where most of them were marching. "What do you think about them?"

[colecomfort]

Cole's head tilted curiously when Gavin's thoughts turned to the elf lady. He'd noticed her, too — brighter than the others, radiating wisdom and kindness and power. He'd been apprehensive about approaching her, more out of respect than fear.

But Gavin was asking about the group.

"They're shards. Broken from where they should be. They belong here, for now, but they didn't before. I don't know if we can put them back."

[slipshot]

"Shards..." Gavin murmured thoughtfully, his brows pulling down as he considered it. "You really do have a way with words, Cole. That's exactly what they feel like. I ah - I talked to one, a little," He added, the flush tinting his ears red before he could help it.

"She told me where she came from, but I'd never heard of it in my life, and it didn't - she didn't even know what the Fade was. Can there really be places like that? Somewhere beyond the Fade?"

[colecomfort]

"I suppose there have to be." It was news to him, too, but also, it made sense. Simple as that. "They're not from the Fade, or Thedas. So it has to be somewhere else."

[slipshot]

It was a bizarre thought, and had he been sharing it with someone else he probably would have then laughed, or scoffed, but something about Cole's even, quiet voice made it seem more plausible than he really wanted to believe.

"... I want to say that makes sense, but it doesn't. It also makes the most sense out of anything I can think of." He sighed, rubbing his head. "Why is the fade so confusing? I don't see how any of these mages or scholars can make sense of it."