allthisshitisweird | TEST DRIVE MEME!

Guess.

go on, guess.

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 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. BEARIED ALIVE

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. NICE PLACE FOR A SPOT OF CAMPING

If there were an inn, which there's not, there wouldn't be room for you in it. Traveling with the Inquisition means carrying your own bedrolls, putting up your own tents, and sleeping alongside whoever you've been told to share with--no matter how much you hate them or how loud they snore. If you really can't stand it, the alternative is sleeping outside. On the ground. With the bears.

3. A BIG CRAZY LIGHT IN THE SKY

Not everyone thinks the Breach was a bad thing. In the southeastern mountains, a burgeoning cult has taken up residence in Winterwatch Tower to wait patiently for the Maker to reach through the tears in the veil and gather the faithful to his bosom. They're a little kooky, maybe, but harmless, and they're happy enough to share their wine and lager with travelers in the area. The demon-spewing rift behind the Tower, on the other hand... Too bad the Herald didn't close that thing before she bit it. Watch your step.

4. TROUBLE IN THE DEEP

The Carta is everywhere, but it's here in force, occupying dwarven ruins in a chasm behind a waterfall. Inquisition forces have already cleared most of the smugglers out of the hold, but there's still a vault to break into, bodies to loot, and old texts to search through for anything worth adding to the Inquisition's growing archives. Also: darkspawn. Sorry.

5. 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i;
He'd been trying to hunt when the bear had ambled up on him. The ram had been in his line of sight, fatter than anything he'd seen in so long; he had poached when he'd been a boy, nugs, hares, rabbits, all small things you could hide easily, after his father had been killed for having a haunch of venison.

It's when he takes the breath to fire that he hears the bear, turning sharply and moving. The ram bleats, bolting down the hillside right as Fiachra locks eyes with the bear, turning his bow quickly. He had men to hate him before, men or the Dalish but he backs up, bow drawn, firing an arrow between the eyes and praying to the Maker that his footing stays secure enough.

He didn't come so far from Starkhaven to be mauled by a bear and left for dead out here in the Hinterlands and he draws again, looking for higher ground to give him any advantage, casting a quick eye about for someone who might do something.

"Andraste see me through this," he murmurs quietly, firing again with a small sharp grin when the arrow flies true, hitting the bear in the throat, making it roar with rage.

ii;
It's been a long time since he last camped, and Fiachra is wary. A lone elf is usually considered easy prey after all, and this isn't terrain he knows well but he has a small tent, hunkers down by it accompanied by a girl perhaps in her mid-teens with wide eyes, human, not elven, and for all his urging she sticks by him; he's a healer, he found her wounded on the road, she has followed him since.

For the moment though she is at least lured away by the stories the Inquisition scouts are telling, giving Fiachra time to sort through his pack.

His bow is laid out, not a very fine bow but functional, plenty of arrows that don't match but you make what you can with whatever you can, that's what you do in the alienage. It's the healing supplies he wants to check on by the light of the fire, and that's what he'll be doing, ignoring the dinner the girl brought over to him some time ago now, face pinched as he takes inventory, twisting the wedding band on his finger as he thinks.

v;
[Wildcard; choose your own adventure!]

I'll match whatever style you roll with, I just prefer prose for starters!

"Hey, you piece of shit! Over here!" A tall, horned woman with her staff ready glares at the bear from a distance...and then blurs forward, getting much closer. Normally, mages keep their distance in a fight and for good reason, but she doesn't seem to fear the consequences. Having a glowing blade of some kind might have something to do with it. She doesn't dare glance to the elf and risk the bear turning back to him, but hopefully those arrows will strike true while she's busy slicing into the blasted thing.

It's impossible not to have heard of Qunari, especially living in the Free Marches, but seeing one is something else, and Fiachra falters for a heartbeat when he catches sight of the woman. A mage too, and can Templars actually contain Qunari mages? Do they even fit inside Circles? (There are bigger concerns in the alienage than rumours of the grey invaders from across the sea, he doesn't have time for holy wars when people are dying from simple infections or coming to him with broken bones when the humans get rough with them.)

Get a grip, he tells himself angrily, thinking of a girl back at camp even if she'd be better off if he didn't come back in all likelihood, firing again and moving around. "Don't draw more!" He doesn't shout, keeping his voice pitched just low enough for her to hear through his clenched teeth. He notches another arrow, pulls back until his whole body quivers with it, and it strikes the bear in the eye.

The howl is louder than anything he's ever heard.

That statement gets a huff of dry amusment from Korrin, who readies her staff. The howl is louder than anything she's done so far, for all her lack of stealth. "You say that like they aren't on their way already now." Fucking bears, where there's one, there's half a dozen nearby. Knowing that they might not have that much time before that proves true, she conjures a boulder from the Fade and slams it into the large beast with a force that causes it to stagger back.

"Elves know how to avoid being seen." An elf like Fiachra has lived a life where barring few exceptions where he's had to go out to speak to the guards, to the Templars, to the Chantry or to some merchants, he's managed to avoid ever holding the eye for very long. One elf looks very much like another one if you grow up in a city, and what stands out most about him far from home is the Starkhaven brogue. Before he aims and fires again he listens carefully, then shakes his head, firing into the ankle of the bear once, twice, three times until it can't put weight down on the front paw. "A lone bear, and hungry, I don't hear anything else-- What are you doing!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not an elf." Whereas 'qunari' don't really have the option to blend in, at all. If it's not the great height that gives them away, it's the horns. Not that Korrin really considers her traits to be a detracting point, in most cases, but more likely than not she's already drawn attention from the wildlife by virtue of what she is. "And I'm stopping this menace before it can stop us."

Readying her spirit blade again, Korrin takes advantage of its staggered state to renew her assault before it recovers and decides to tests her barrier.

The child had fallen asleep after a good while of stories, unnoticed by the scouts for the most part. He listened too, much like the little girl and sitting the way he was, few would believe he was over several hundred years old, the curiosity and love of stories both getting the better of him, though his trust in the Inquisition was all but minimal still. A hood of the cloak hid away the ears, pulled up to ward away the evening's chill.

When the scouts dispersed, to sleep some, others back to their duties or other tasks, Legolas too was about to leave, only the sleeping girl caught his attention. It was not a good place for her to stay, though, much less so asleep, and he had seen her before, he figured the elf that she followed was her guardian of a sort. And thus, Legolas found himself with an armful of a human child, carrying her to her guardian.

"You are her guardian," his tone rang as much of a question as it did of a statement, smiling gently, "She had fallen asleep in the midst of all the storytelling, too long for a child so young to sit through."

And as he spoke, he crouched low to relieve himself of the sleeping girl.

TEST DRIVE MEME!

fiachra sullivan | native oc | city elf

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