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

[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.