allthisshitisweird | Test Drive Meme!

You'll Never Leave the Hinterlands Alive*

Welcome to Fade Rift's very first Test Drive Meme! Use one of the prompts below or make up your own, and tag around! Have fun, try out the setting, generate samples for your app, coerce your friends into joining you.

Maybe the Inquisition sent you, maybe you came seeking the Inquisition. Maybe you fell out of a rift into this world last week and are still just trying to find your feet. However it happened, early fall finds you in the Hinterlands. Tucked between Ferelden's massive Lake Calenhad and the icy Frostback Mountains, the Hinterlands are a hilly region covered in patchy forests and small farms trying to eke out a living between the boulders. Though somewhat remote, the area is rich with game and minerals and home to Redcliffe, a bustling town on a busy trade route.

Lately the Hinterlands have also been full of mages and templars and rifts, all threatening to turn once-peaceful countryside into a dangerous warzone. The Inquisition has set up several camps and sent personnel to try to restore order to the region, unwilling to let it slip into chaos. There's a lot to be done, some of it straightforward killing bad things, some of it weird and nebulous morale-building.

1. In the Deep Dark Hills of Western Ferelden

You have turned the wrong corner, forded the wrong stream, crested the wrong hill, entered the wrong cave. Maybe you are far from camp. Maybe you are in camp. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased by bears. Did you provoke the bears? Are they huge? Babies? Fade-touched? Mage-controlled? What are they chasing you away from? What are they chasing you into? What do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you?

2. There I Read on a Hillside Gravestone

The rebel mages and renegade templars have ravaged the Hinterlands, skirmishes breaking out all over. It looks like you've just missed one-- great spikes of ice melt slowly in the cool autumn sunlight and patches of grass and trees have been scorched away. Three bodies are scattered about, two templars and one mage judging by their clothing. You could bury them. Or search their pockets. Or track their friends. Or all of the above, if you're feeling industrious.

3. Won't You Walk With Me Out the Mouth of this Holler

Whatever task you were actually sent out here to do, you are going to be late. One-Eyed Jimmy asked so nicely for your help finding his prize ram, Lord Woolsley. It's been in the family for years, so smart for a ram, it's a good luck charm, their business has boomed with it around, and it's lived for so long, he just can't abide thinking of it getting eaten by some mangy apostate. And then he went and offered you money, too. How could you say no? Maybe you're still wandering, asking everyone you pass if they've seen a ram that looks like it's wearing an orangey-red sweater. Maybe you've found it and are chasing it around a lake or trying to lead it back to the village for your reward. Maybe you've gotten fed up and gotten out your sword to bring Jimmy a new sweater instead and discovered that lucky Lord Woolsley is a demon in sheep's clothing. Surprise!

4. Fill Your Cup With Whatever Bitter Brew You're Drinking

Just because the region's had a rough time lately doesn't mean the tavern at Redcliffe is any less crowded than usual. Bella behind the bar dishes out tankards to refugees and soldiers, scared villagers and angry farmers, merchants traveling through from Orzammar and Orlais and families fleeing the rifts in the foothills. It's packed, basically. The Inquisition has only recently extended its influence into the region, and while some have already seen the benefit-- demons killed, fighting broken up-- others are skeptical.

5. Spend Your Life Just Thinkin' of How to Get Away

Choose Your Own Adventure: hunt game, kill demons, gather herbs, track bandits, haggle over the price of armor, fall off a deceptively tall rock, get lost circling the same hill ten times trying to find a way up to the weird glowing skull on a stick you can see is up there, climb trees or abandoned towers, rummage around in empty homes, run from a dragon, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot was, set up camp and chat around the fire, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your ~~Frostback Mountain~~ oyster.

*Yeah, I had this stuck in my head. It's a good song!!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ A crowded tavern in the village where he grew up is not the best place for Alistair to avoid bumping into anyone he knows, but he wasn't expecting this particular person he knows, so you'll have to forgive him for stopping short in the middle of the Gull and Lantern, tankard in hand, and squinting for a moment. Then he invites himself over. ]

Aren't you meant to be in Antiva or-- [ He puts his drink down before he sits, meanwhile failing to think of anywhere else Zevran might be meant to be. ] --not here?

[ Alistair is meant to be in Orlais, so he can't really judge. But there are some locals he would rather not see assassinated. Two or three, at least. Maybe just two. ]

Aren't you meant to be in Orlais, drinking fine wine, tasting new and exciting cheeses?

[ Of everyone from his past to find him here or find him at all- Zevran must admit that Alistair is not the worst possible option. If anything some small, nostalgic, sentimental part of him is glad to see the warden. ]

[ What do you mean, small? ]

Tried them all, [ Alistair says, valiantly ignoring how bizarre this is, equally valiantly not mentioning how uncomfortable the Warden situation in Orlais has become lately, what with the blood magic and potential ties to darkspawn magisters and so on. ] I've sampled the full range. There's nothing left for me to accomplish there.

[ Also: Orlais is the worst. ]

I hope you're not here for anyone I know. Or me.

That I sincerely doubt. They have nearly as many cheeses as they have vintages for wine- and nearly as many of those as they have styles of shoes.

[ The days when he'd pass the time listing off what he new to cross-reference the latest fashions for Leliana have long since passed, but the humor remains.

The question, however, earns a positively wounded look, a hand pressed to his chest. ]

I would never take a job for you twice- not with how the first time went. The price I would ask for killing someone I am actually fond of is far too high for many to afford. Besides. You are simply too pretty to kill, Alistair.

[ Alistair considers that while he takes a long drink of amazing (not really) Fereldan beer (he missed it), complete with very thoughtful eyebrows. He doesn't trust Zevran further than he can throw him, but he could probably throw him pretty far, to be honest. He's small.

It's far enough for Alistair to believe him about this, at least. ]

You have a good point. [ If nothing else, his hair is pretty. ] If I bring some people around to talk to you, will you tell them that?

[ For all that he'd met Alistair while at his lowest possible point and at the behest of the man that betrayed him horribly in order to see him dead-

Zevran cannot help but be fond of the bastard. There was something terribly charming- and they'd both been through a very particular sort of hell together- the sort of thing that binds men in the bonds of brotherhood or some nonsense like that. Offers have been made to kill Alistair in the past.

Zevran has, to his word all those years ago, quietly suggested they seek easier men to kill. Occasionally his suggestions included knives. ]

Tell them what, that you are pretty? You should not need my word on that, my friend.

Too pretty to kill, [ Alistair says. ] That's the important part. You could put in any adjective you want, honestly, it wouldn't make a difference to me, but I do think pretty is more believable than useful or important. More--you know. Something you're qualified to judge.

You think I, having watched you mount an ogre on more than one occasion in a positively virile fashion while decapitating it, am not a solid judge of how useful you might be? I who have seen you rally an army in what was thought to be hopeless battle before charging at the front lines, leaving you a war hero renown in song and story, am not judge enough of how important you might be?

[ It has been years, but such things to not change so quickly. ]

You are a triple threat, Alistair. Pretty, useful, and important. Though- are there people here that are afraid I may kill you- or are there people here that want you dead? If so point them out and look away for the next half hour.

[ Virile has him choking on his beer, and it takes him the duration of Zevran's little speech to manage to entirely stop coughing. ]

If you continue being this nice to me, I'm going to start suspecting you're up to something. [ But to answer the question-- ] No one here. Not in this tavern. I think.

[ He glances around as if to make sure, though he's already as sure as he possibly can be. ]

Really, what are you doing here?

Perhaps I am attempting to get you into bed, mm? All those years pining away for you and only now I have the courage to speak my true feelings. [ Keeping a straight face is difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. Especially if Alistair continues to turn such fascinating shades of red. ] Perhaps I have grown weary of my murderous ways and want to spend the rest of my life at your side.

That's isn't— [ Have two more shades of red. ] You're not—

No.

[ So there. He takes another drink to clear his throat out and maybe recover a small amount of dignity. Not all of it, maybe not even half of it, but enough to form a complete sentence: ]

You almost had me until the part where you were weary of your murderous ways.

I am surprised that is what had you convinced of the lie. [ He cracks, cackling with warm laughter, reaching out to rest a hand upon Alistair's shoulder. ] Aah, you should have seen your face. It was beautiful.

Test Drive Meme!

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