Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
faderifting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2016-02-23 01:43 am
faderifting) wrote in faderift2016-02-23 01:43 am
OPEN: turn off the lights and I'll glow
WHO: New rifters & characters in Emprise du Lion
WHAT: More people falling on ice than usual, this time with demons, templars, and bonus nighttime
WHEN: Guardian 23
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: This month, the arrival log is open to all.
WHAT: More people falling on ice than usual, this time with demons, templars, and bonus nighttime
WHEN: Guardian 23
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: This month, the arrival log is open to all.
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 onto freezing stone or ice that is twice as cold and just as hard. When your breath returns and the light's after-image fades from your eyes you will find yourself beneath a dark sky, a full moon straining to be seen through intermittent clouds, and a second moon low on the horizon. Its light reflects off snow to add an eerie ambient glow to the darkness, made stranger by the sickly green tint added by the fluttery menacing shape of the rift hanging in mid-air. Be careful getting up: you are at the edge of a cliff, what was once a waterfall now frozen solid in a massive curling sheet of icicles. The drop to the bottom is several stories, surely a deadly fall even without the huge humps and spikes of ice and snow that litter the ground where splash and spray were petrified.
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 the fact 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. Some are entirely different but perhaps more monstrous for it: men and women in heavy, gleaming armor, all of them with chunks of red crystal protruding out in a way you soon realize indicates it is actually growing out of their skin. Their eyes are a dull red, hollow and empty, and they attack with a single-minded determination.
Luckily, you are not on your own. Around you others are waking up, equally confused, with the same green lights flaring from their hands. There is stuff scattered about, like the contents of someone's life exploded through the rift with them: a picnic table and benches upended, metal camp furniture flung about, clothes and utensils, bits of wood and canvas and mattress littering the ground. Even better, you are not far from a path leading toward an Inquisition camp, and noise travels far in this terrain, echoing up canyons and off cliffsides, carried by the chill night wind. Help is on its way; just last until it arrives.
But there's no waking here, just a flare of green-white light and a jarring impact onto freezing stone or ice that is twice as cold and just as hard. When your breath returns and the light's after-image fades from your eyes you will find yourself beneath a dark sky, a full moon straining to be seen through intermittent clouds, and a second moon low on the horizon. Its light reflects off snow to add an eerie ambient glow to the darkness, made stranger by the sickly green tint added by the fluttery menacing shape of the rift hanging in mid-air. Be careful getting up: you are at the edge of a cliff, what was once a waterfall now frozen solid in a massive curling sheet of icicles. The drop to the bottom is several stories, surely a deadly fall even without the huge humps and spikes of ice and snow that litter the ground where splash and spray were petrified.
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 the fact 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. Some are entirely different but perhaps more monstrous for it: men and women in heavy, gleaming armor, all of them with chunks of red crystal protruding out in a way you soon realize indicates it is actually growing out of their skin. Their eyes are a dull red, hollow and empty, and they attack with a single-minded determination.
Luckily, you are not on your own. Around you others are waking up, equally confused, with the same green lights flaring from their hands. There is stuff scattered about, like the contents of someone's life exploded through the rift with them: a picnic table and benches upended, metal camp furniture flung about, clothes and utensils, bits of wood and canvas and mattress littering the ground. Even better, you are not far from a path leading toward an Inquisition camp, and noise travels far in this terrain, echoing up canyons and off cliffsides, carried by the chill night wind. Help is on its way; just last until it arrives.
no subject
Red draws a dagger from her belt, and grabs what looks like it could be a metal pole from a tent. Not that hefty, though it might just have to do. "You bet," she calls in response, and she's not sure yet if this is the guy she's going to have to take on, or if they're about to be fighting on the same side.
The guy seems like a risk, and she's not seen someone make the ground shake like that if they weren't a giant or an ogre, but she leaves off throwing a knife as his back for now, holding the metal pole and twisting, whacking one of the-- the things in the face. Yeah, she prefers to fight as the wolf, but maybe waiting before transforming is the smart call, at least for a minute.
no subject
Even Asher doesn't need more bloodshed in his life right at this moment.
"If you lose one," he grunts out as he rolls with surprising agility for a man of his size, narrowly avoiding a blow so he can get back to his feet and strike again. "I've got a spare on me." A knife though, not an axe, where the hell would he hide a second axe anyway - if he had the rope he'd buy her the time to tie it to the pole for something more like a spear but well, there's enough to contend with at the moment.
no subject
A nod is all she has time for, because there's some kind of monster coming her way. Ruby sweeps low, striking towards its knees - gross, twisted, monstrous knees - with the metal pole, and striking towards its chest with the dagger. Once, twice, and the thing is shrieking some unholy sound that makes adrenaline and panic rise in her chest. She's not prepared for it, for something that'd make her feel so scared, the kind of fear she's not felt in a long time and is tied into all her worst memories.
Her knife stops short of the next strike, and the monster smacks her hard with its gnarled, tree-like arm, sending her sliding back through the snow and closer to Asher as she tries to remember how to breathe.
"What is that thing?" Gasped out, as the thing in question starts to draw closer.
no subject
When he goes to speak, all the words fly from his head, his heart pounding harder and faster than it already does in battle, head spinning. Rage and panic are a bad combination at the best of times but right now he grips his axe with one hand as he staggers over to get her up, or to at least put himself between her and the next onslaught.
“Terror demon,” he explains before he manages a swing that has it recoiling from them, enough to buy some time though now they’re both on the same side of the thing. “‘m Asher.” Might as well give her a name when they’re up against a monster that wants them both dead and he shouts at the demon, an angry echoing yell, moving to attract its attention.
“Keep an eye on it! They can disappear and burst up again!”
Maybe on Asher. Maybe.
no subject
"Ruby," she responds, though there's barely a moment for it to be heard when they are moving so fast and getting on with dealing with this. It'd be better to let the Wolf out, she's sure of it, but between Korrin's warning and how dizzy the change is leaving her here if she does it too fast, she's not sure it's the smartest plan.
She's pretty sure she can smell the thing. At least, she can smell ambient fear, and she's guessing it has to be from that thing. When it bursts up through the ground, she reacts fast, with strength beyond what her size would suggest, forcing the metal bar through its chest. The downside is that she's now covered in gross... demon blood gore stuff, and one of her weapons is now lodged in what she'd guess was its ribcage, but hey. She hurt it, she's pretty sure.
no subject
Hopefully if this goes tits up then one can remember the name of the other and drag themselves to a camp or to somewhere safe where there's help. A shame he'd left Bronson back there, sleeping it off but given he's half-blind then he'd be more likely to be hurt by the demon.
"Ah fuck," he mutters. An Asher mutter is still loud, and he's moving, turning sharply and deciding to cut some time when he rolls instead, coming up across from them both to aim a careful swing sideways. Under the ribs, above the hips. Not that even he's sure if demons possess (well, not like this but it'd make him laugh) anything internal that looks like human parts. "Small of my back, knife!"
But don't stab him, he will make the angriest smelliest ghost Ruby. He will break the lore to be that creature.
no subject
The weapon she's best with is a bow, though, and Ruby doesn't have that, here. What's she's even better with are her claws and her teeth, and that she can access. One hand raises to her throat, undoing the clasp of her hood, red silk brocade tumbling down her shoulders to pool on the ground, and she braces herself. "Remember, I'm on your side," she warns Asher, before starting to sprint towards the demon.
It's Ruby who starts running, but it's a giant wolf that lands against the demon's chest and tears towards its throat. Bigger than any normal wolf, fur black and grey, with eyes that burn gold.
no subject
Whatever protests he was planning on voicing all sort of die on him as he finds himself struck dumb. Not often that Asher loses the power of speech, even rarer in a battle but both eyes go wide and he just kind of watches, ill-advised but if a lady that definitely isn't a mage suddenly turns into a giant frigging wolf then it's simply rude not to watch.
"Well fuck me then." Not an invitation but also not not an invitation. He's moving again though, because there's a shade sliding over with interest but it's easy to make short work of it because they're softer than a terror demon and warriors alone have enough of an aura that makes most things back off and reconsider. The thing that a reaver projects? Even stronger and he can slam the axe into it and watch it crumple.
"Need a hand or you good there?"
If she can speak. Stories differ on the abilities of werewolves.
no subject
Sadly, this particular wolf can't talk, and she tilts her head at Asher quizzically before shaking her head. Besides, there's one more thing moving towards them before they're in the clear - creepy, looking like the grim reaper, but with teeth that make up its entire face. It makes a horrifying feeling well up inside her. The Wolf rounds on it, growling, and is about to leap towards it when the despair demon unleashes an ice attack that bursts up through the ground beneath her and makes the Wolf stagger.
no subject
It'd sound more serious if Asher wasn't grinning and laughing, wiping his brow before he looks up when the sweat starts to freeze on his skin. Fuck. Fucking terror demons, because you really needed a primal fear of bags of rags and something with a face like a nug's ugly cousin at a wedding. It doesn't stop how he feels frozen to the bone, how it's a struggle to breathe around terror demons but he lets it make him angry, digging his fingers into a still healing wound on his arm until the pain makes his vision blur before the world comes back into focus.
The ice burns when he forces himself to keep moving but the wide head of the axe takes the brunt of it, gritting his teeth close to take a swing.
"It moves fast when it wants to! We need to--" Well for a start he needs to not get hit with a shower of ice to the face that steals his breath. "Pin it!"
no subject
Once she's heard his orders (suggestions? communications? whatever) the Wolf is moving, fast away from Asher. It can't attack her and Asher at the same time, and with the Wolf snapping at its ankles, she's pulling the attention onto her as she turns it away from Asher. She's seen his attacks now, seen how strong they are, and as a team this'll be a piece of cake, aside from how her heart feels uncomfortable in her chest. She can handle the ice better, and he can send the damn thing back to Hell.
Or... wherever these things came from. The demon swipes and claws, and she darts and snaps, attacking it low down. Maybe this isn't quite what he meant by pinning it, but it's a pincer movement so... kinda works, right?
no subject
Strategy always has to change on the battlefield and unlike the common rank and file, Asher knows how to make a situation work once he's at least got an outline of it. And he'd never say that while she could easily tear out his jugular but he runs with a big solid hound almost all the time so this is pretty much how Bronson would do it, if he made Bronson fight demons. (But he won't if he can help it, no old dog needs that and if there's something that's going to hurt him? It'll be the demons with how fast they move.)
Taking a good swing, he catches it where it should have ribs. You know if it wasn't a sack of robes, ice, and too many teeth. At least it screams and falls to the ground for him to hit it again.
"Fancy going for the jugular?" Tell him how it tastes lady wolf bro.
no subject
It's done, she thinks, and her mouth tastes disgusting. The enhanced senses of a wolf aren't always a wine, and she moves away from the body, light shimmering and air going smokey before clearing to show Ruby there, once more. She's kneeling on the ground, holding herself up with one hand because of the exhaustion and dizziness that's overtaken her with the change, scooping some snow into her mouth so she can wash the taste and blood out.
"Nice work," she manages, before shoveling in more snow.
no subject
Leaning forward on his axe, he watches her, unable to stop himself from tensing because he's heard stories. Everyone has heard stories, especially if you're from Ferelden, but they were stories, even for someone who believes in ways the stories of his own gods, his own people. Slowly, his heart calms itself, the pain and rage recede, his mind is his own again; he's Asher, sweat cooling on his skin, lungs screaming for air, mind catching up with what it saw.
"Not so bad yourself," he manages. One hand drags through the braids and hair twisted back at his scalp. "So...mages. Mages can do what you do. Or a rare few can. Except you are absolutely not a mage. You a werewolf?"
no subject
"I'm not a mage," she confirm. "And some people call people like me a werewolf in fictional stories from back home, but, uh. There's so many different stories about werewolves it's kinda hard to know what anyone means when they ask that.'
Ruby shrugs, pushes herself up, looking up at him with a careful gaze, green eyes clear and serious. She feels... she feels heavier than she did before the fight. He's twisting his hand through his hair, and he's riled up from a fight, and she knows what men fresh from a fight can do when they sight a legitimate danger. She knows what all kinds of people can do when they're afraid.
"I'm a human and I'm a wolf. That's all you really need to know."