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

[apostasia]

There was blood about his mouth, still, splattered on his throat and shoulders in a way that didn't fit with his wound - this was something Adelaide would have occasion to notice in a moment, if not immediately. More pressingly immediate was his hand at her throat, a grip that suggested the ability to choke her without exerting himself overmuch without quite clenching to do it. The tension in his strained muscles was apparent - his flat gaze met hers and there was a long, uncomfortable pause.

With his free hand, he loosened the amulet's sit and lifted it over his head, keeping the chain clenched in his fist.

Silkily, quiet, "I will do that, my lady."

When he let her go, it was abrupt.

[fleurdesel]

A pulse of power to clean the edges and-

Sudden, of course it was sudden and of course the sharp cry of Compassion couldn't warn her quick enough- weary, so very tired from the fight and the healing she had left to do and she could not snap up a defense, could not move away before the hand was around his throat. What may have been a patient became someone else, somewhere else in less than a heartbeat.

No wall behind her, no sword before her but she's caught, trembling, eyes wide and wild- what scraps of healing magic swapped out abruptly for ice. Under his palm her skin has gone frigid, her breath clouding like a cornered beast as she tries for something, anything- a crackle of light, a wall of force but her fingers were clumsy as the caught at his wrist instead of forming the spells. The words wouldn't come, air wouldn't come- she did not travel all this way only to die here-

She barely heard him when he spoke. Stumbled away when he let her go and staggered to put some distance between them. Heart hammering and hands shaking- they weren't supposed to shake they were supposed to be steady and certain as the rest of her- she held her staff up. A warning. A warding.

Composure was long to return.

"Don't." It wasn't steady at all. "Never do that again."

Lest the precious contract she kept be shattered out of reflexive terror.

[apostasia]

The only word for Martel's response to this - his decided lack of a response, observing her stumbling and trembling expressionlessly, making no move to either threaten or reassure - is dispassionate. Perhaps, if you were very inclined to come up with another, impersonal. He regarded her with much the same indifference with which he'd met most everything else that had happened to him since being hurled through a rift without so much as a by your goddamned leave, patient in the way of someone who had little investment in whether she calmed herself or not.

"Well," he said, in the same quiet, steady way, with just the barest hint of something droll - as if somewhere underneath all the blood and exhaustion he had a personality and everyone was probably better off as currently was, "I rather imagine you won't startle me twice, my lady."

Having learned the lesson so well the first time.

[fleurdesel]

Not even a hint of regret. She decided, abruptly, 'fuck this.' He could bleed out for all she cared, she was not going to tend to a bastard that held people by the throat for trying to do their job. Without a word she whirled on her heel and began to stalk off. Seeping chest wound or no. He could clearly handle himself.

The spatter of blood on his mouth and shirt, something in the lungs, something that needed fixing. Compassion did not let her get far, perhaps five tense steps before it reminded her of their agreement. It is not hers to choose who she heals. It is all or it is none, nowhere in between. Swearing violently under her breath she whirled about and stalked back till she was an arms length away from him.

"How long were you coughing up blood." She didn't lift her hands or call upon Compassion just yet- but she would tend to him. Eventually.

[apostasia]

Very little had changed in the few moments between her decision to leave him be - a reasonable one he was disinclined to protest - and her subsequent change of heart, such as it was. And what it was, mainly, was less explicable, but he made no argument, for all that he looked no more grateful than he had regretful.

So she had a spine to call her own. Delightful.

"It felt longer than it was. I don't think they were quite done fighting when my blood decided it might as well stay in my body."

That's the best she'd likely get in terms of a timeframe, and at a rough estimate, it probably tracked to five minutes at most. Martel's impression of what was going on around him had been fairly hazy up to the point where he was being hustled into this long walk will he or nil he.

[fleurdesel]

"And from a scale of 'oh is there a needle in my heel' to 'Blessed Andraste's flaming tits, there is acid in my eyeballs', how much pain would you say you are experiencing?" Wary, infinitely wary, she began to call upon Compassion. It was a subtle thing at this stage, the brightening of her eyes and the most subtle of glows around her fingertips. She would tend to him and move on.

No need to make a thing of it.

[apostasia]

"What a charming introduction to local religion you make, madam," he said, dryly. "It hurts rather less than it did immediately before it ceased to hurt much at all. Whatever wretched magic brought me here, I can only assume it's done half your work for you already."

No need to dissemble; he had died, and if this wasn't hell, he didn't belong here.

Let her decide to leave it. Perhaps he'd have better luck a second time.

[fleurdesel]

"Then I shall complete the work and trouble you no more." The glow around her hand flared bright as she extended it to rest against his chest. Despite what he'd done, despite the injury- her touch was light. Gentle. Whatever had pulled him through with this wound that ought to have killed him-

That probably did if what he said was anything to go by?

She would not cross it by allowing him to bleed out. Besides. Compassion bid her work, so she worked. "Breathe deeply for me and hold it till the count of fifteen."

[apostasia]

"Leave the scar,"

was all he said before taking his breath.

[fleurdesel]

"As your vanity dictates. Fool." She muttered, pouring her power into the wound, mending flesh and bone and tendon. She knew what was and what ought to be, calling upon Compassion to see it done would take precious little. Fifteen seconds and she has to let her hand fall, glowering at the wound rather than the man. Something did not quite wish to heal. "Take a moment."

[apostasia]

Vanity.

Yes.

The reminder was grimly humorous, and he was smiling as she carried on; a bleak expression that spoke to nothing pleasant, but a smile, all the same. Fool is the least of things anyone had seen fit to call him over the years, and when he exhaled, slowly, that bitter smile lingered.

It wasn't stoicism, precisely, but he didn't do anything other in that moment but wait.

[fleurdesel]

A grinning fool. How novel. Her own lips remained pressed thin as she considered the wound in his chest and the mark embedded in his hand. She would handle the latter once she had finished the former, but it did not quite wish to be mended.

Probably the lingering scraps of death that did not wish to be banished. Staff tucked against her shoulder she brought up her other hand, the glow intensifying around her fingertips as she set them against his wound. Murmured words helped her focus and better channel Compassion's will to wrest that bit of rotted reality from them man's chest. A twist, a sworn oath, a flourish and it was done.

He had the scar he wanted, but his wound was healed.

"How does that feel?"

[apostasia]

"Much as everything else in this place does," he said, blandly, whatever amusement he'd derived from his own circumstances (and the reasons for same) having since faded. "If you're quite done."

She acted out of obligation, that much was plain - he had no interest in expressing some false gratitude for something that was as obviously no desire of hers as it was no wish of his.

[fleurdesel]

If she were a petty woman she'd-

No. No she wouldn't. Contractual obligations. Her hands dropped away and she stepped back without another word. He wasn't worth the breath it would take to speak them. There were other wounded (some equally troublesome, she'd learn) and a long walk to mind. Should he yet be in pain- it wouldn't matter. She'd seen to the worst of it. He could endure the rest on his own.

She walked away.