OPEN: turn off the lights and I'll glow

[faderifting]

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.

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.

Comments

[thelastking]

With his shot perfectly aligned and the consent of his current companion, Aragorn fired. The arrow whipped past the heads of a few genlocks and hurlocks before finally piercing the heart of the dawnstone. It slammed right into the shard with enough force to make it shatter upon impact sending a ripple effect throughout the rift. Now that the dawnstone had been destroyed, the caverns of the Deep Roads begun to quake. Falling stone and bits of rock slammed into the ground and squished anything unfortunate enough to be in the way. Plenty of Darkspawns suffered a gruesome death thanks to Aragorn's heroics today and plenty more would die once the caverns sealed up.

"It is done." The ranger said as he lowered his bow. He gave the qunari beside him a quick glance before looking at his handiwork from earlier. While he had no clue about the people of this realm or the wars they fight, it's clear that Aragorn will be lending his aid in the near future. There's no possible way that he could remain idle after witnessing the horrors of the Darkspawns.

[qunari]

Done. If only the Darkspawn were so easily dispatched. Still, he'd done well, no question there. Bull gave him a short nod. "They'll try to dig their way out, eventually, but this will hold them for a while. That's time we can use."

The Qunari's head jerks towards the direction of the nearest campsite. "A lot of people around here are going to be glad to have you. Rifter or not. You got a name?"

He's got a story. That's clear enough from just looking at him. He's still taking in the details, working them over in his head, like a puzzle to be solved.

[thelastking]

Every man has a story but not every story is worth telling. Although, Iron Bull will get a chance to hear it someday. Until then, the ranger will keep to his secrets.

"Aragorn." He says as he hops off the towering boulder. "Aragorn, son of Arathorn." The ranger knows his name holds no weight here in these strange foreign lands but he answers nonetheless. "Rifters?" He questions as he glances down at his hand again. Just how much trouble will this strange stone cause him? The eerie green glow is enough to win his discontent but something tells Aragorn that the shard might be the least of his worries for now.

"Let us make way for the camp before our 'esteemed guests' try to dig themselves out." Aragorn says with a slight smirk.