CLOSED: Drakonis Rifter Arrival

[faderifting]

WHO: New rifters & Solas
WHAT: Arrivals and returns
WHEN: Drakonis 20
WHERE: The Dales
NOTES: This log is slightly backdated and closed to new rifters and Solas. However, it is safe to assume that everyone (a) survives and (b) is led by Solas to Skyhold by Drakonis 25, so you're free to make new logs and begin playing at Skyhold when you're ready to do so.

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 cold dirt and long grass. When your breath returns and the light's after-image fades from your eyes you will find yourself beneath a canopy of trees, illuminated deep green by moonlight in the distance and brighter green by the crystalline tear in reality hanging suspended above you.

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. Surrounding you and the rift through which you arrived is a circle of six ghostly, humanoid figures, shifting colors in the dark like iridescent gems and throwing fire, ice, and bursts of physical force at whomever catches their attention.

Luckily, you are not on your own. Around you others are rising from the ground, equally confused, with the same green lights flaring from their hands. And not far is a lone figure, coming to help.

Comments

DEMON FIGHT - OTA

[singularwill]

He was spending too much time in the Fade. He knew this, knew the pull it held for him, the simplicity and the comfort after months of despair. He knew he had to spend more time in the 'waking' world, had to regain his strength and seek new ways to destroy Corypheus, without the anchor. And he was. But still, slumber called, and he drew into it, as a source of solace.

That night, it was more.

That night, a spirit appeared to him - almost in the shape of a woman, glowing with power, and they spoke in the shifting darkness of dreams.

When he woke, he knew where to go.

He knew where the shard bearers would appear next. Perhaps it was because he was already so close, slumbering in crumbling elven ruins deep in the Dales, that the spirit had come to him. Or perhaps it had been searching for him this whole time. It did not matter. He heeded her words and took into the woods at a run, feeling the urgency compel him forward.

He arrived just in time, for the green flash of the rift, the bodies already on the ground, the demons pouring forth.

His lip curled, his staff striking out - a freezing blast of ice ripping forward, crackling through the air as the rage demon bore down on the first of the bodies, already stirring to rise.

[ooc: group thread, but don't worry about tagging order.]

she's literally a damsel in distress rn i'm so sorry

[dressmaking]

Lacey was fortunate enough to hit the ground on her hands and knees, rather than sprawling flat; still, the impact knocked some of the breath out of her and left her a bit dizzied. Last she remembered, she'd been asleep, but this—

It wasn't like any of her nightmares, though the hellish green glow in the sky was nightmarish-looking enough — and this wasn't District 8, which had no green space whatsoever to speak of, let alone forest. She got to her feet, slowly, wincing at the pain in her skinned knees — and the worse pain in her hand, so intense she expected to be bleeding all over the place. Yet there was no blood, just a splinter of light in her palm the same color as that... whatever it was hanging in the air.

For a moment she just tried to breathe, not to give in to the panic slowly rising up to grip her by the throat. There were others, men, as far as she could tell by what light was available — none of them familiar. And there were... creatures, things she had no name for. They weren't human, and even Capitol mutts usually looked like something that could be recognized as having been an animal once—

There was heat and light suddenly out of her peripheral vision, and without thinking Lacey rolled out of the way, came up to her feet, adrenaline kicking in immediately; the fireball the demon had thrown at her sped past her head, close enough to singe the ends of her hair. This was some new arena, had to be. The Gamemakers were trying to kill her. Never mind that she was years past reaping age, and she was a victor, they couldn't reap her anyway — but the Capitol could always find excuses for a little entertainment.

She was unarmed, and she should have run, regardless of whether these other people here were enemies or potential allies. In the Games, everything and everyone was there to kill you. If you couldn't fight, you ran to save your own life. Lacey backed up, breathing fast, almost on the verge of sprinting for it... and then her back hit a tree and, inexplicably, instead of running, she froze up.

Then there was another man, with a staff, and the bolt of ice that tore through the air out of what seemed like nowhere was at least not aimed at her, but at one of those things. Not that it mattered. He'd probably try to kill her anyway. That was how things went in the arena. Alliances couldn't be trusted.

[parkourprince]

Legolas fell back first, blessedly missing any rocks or fallen logs on his way down, though it hardly made his landing soft. He was winded and his hand hurt, the arrows scattered from the quiver upon his fall, but all the same, he was back on his feet within a fraction of a second, stumbling only once before he regained his balance. The air reeked of corruption and that had him on full alert. The flash of icy light startled him only further, delayed him by a full second in reaching for what still remained of his arrows.

Finally, though, an approaching creature - vile not unlike the orcs, or any of the other creatures of Morgoth - jumpstarted him into action. Legolas grabbed a fistful of arrows, or what would have been a fistful had there been any more than two, and immediately nocked one to his bow, releasing an arrow straight at the creature's eye socket. It sang in the air, reaching its mark with ease.

He caught the sight of a woman with the corner of his eye, frightened and on the verge of fleeing, backed up against a tree. A stranger, likely much like himself finding herself in a situation beyond her understanding. Without a word, in but a handful of silent steps, moved to stand between her and the approaching creatures, the next - and his last - arrow already nocked and ready to be released once he found his mark.