Test Drive Meme!

[faderifting]

No, Seriously, You're Never Getting Out Of Here

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.

NOTE: We will not have an App Help/Enable Me meme this month, but anyone who has questions about OC concepts or AU adaptations is welcome to ask for assistance on the Mod Contact page.

1. WHERE THE SUN COMES UP ABOUT TEN IN THE MORNING

QUESTS COME AND GO BUT BEARS ARE ETERNAL: 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. THEY MOVED DOWN SOUTH OF REDCLIFFE

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. AND THEY LAUGHED AND SANG A NEW SONG

Hey, there's a big, crazy light in the sky that craps out demons! Let's worship it!: 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. NO ONE EVER KNEW THERE WAS LYRIUM IN THEM MOUNTAINS

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. AND THE SUN GOES DOWN ABOUT THREE IN THE DAY

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.

Comments

[ashesandboneyards]

"Mage had them, if I had to guess. They get stuck on the business end of a sword. Then a corpse has them. Then templars - I think they're templars? The madmen with swords calling themselves templars, anyway - have them."

If she's intimidated, or at least more intimidated than she is fascinated by the enchanter's hat, then she's not showing it. Friendliness is friendliness, no matter how feigned, and if it's better than the normal reception that elves (and mages, and scruffy cowards with no shoes in general) get, she's more than happy to accept it. She continues after a moment of very unsubtle hat-staring.

"I come in at the end. They're burning mages' things, you know? Books, robes, staves. In case they're all - I don't know. Demon-y. That kind of thing. Seemed a waste to me. I figure if they don't want this stuff, someone else might."

[madame_de_fer]

Ah the girl admires her attire. It's obvious, just from how her eyes are more fixed on her hat than looking her in the eye. Vivienne finds herself at least in the smallest bit flattered and frankly that's the only thing sparing the elf a tongue lashing severe enough to leave her bleeding on the ground. Not that the girl isn't entirely incorrect in her description of the tantrum throwing Templars, but it's still impertinent. Well then. Time to address this... problem.

"I wonder, if you were aware that these are stolen goods?" One slender finger taps with annoyance at the blood spattered on a priceless and irreplaceable tome. "These are the property of the Circle, stolen right out of the library, and I should so hate to see you imprisoned for what is clearly not your doing."

She's being polite, but there is a veiled threat that she'd have Chaya hauled in to the authorities for the theft, if they are not immediately given into her own custody. Not that there's a particular problem with looting a body, but Vivienne won't have these simply being scattered to the winds and lost forever. The knowledge within is far too valuable.

[ashesandboneyards]

"Figured that they might be. The kind of folk who end up with swords stuck in them tend not to be the same kind of people who'd come by this kind of thing honestly, if you get my meaning. Anyone who knew enough to get value out of these things would probably be better at not picking fights with folk stronger than them."

She pretends to ignore the threat once more, but the talk of the Circle has caught her attention.

"Well, if you could point me in the direction of the Circle, I'd be only too happy to return the things. I can't make heads or tails of them myself, and I figure most people who could in these parts already left with some set of folk or another."

[madame_de_fer]

How fascinating. For a Dalish elf, this girl actually has a refreshing awareness of the stupidity and lack of morality in those who abandoned their Circles. The theft alone is troubling enough, but even moreso is the waste of human life and magical talent that came with the rebellion. It does bother her to no small degree that this young woman has no apparent difficulty in peddling items she knows to be ill-gotten. This is why she had so hoped the Herald could have found and secured these tomes, to prevent just such an atrocity from occurring.

Those blood spatters are irritating Vivienne, but that's a matter to be addressed once these priceless books are firmly within her possession. She looks up from the detestable defacing and faintly smiles. "Why, my dear, that would be me. As the leader of the last loyal mages in Thedas, I would be more than happy to reinstall these precisely where they belong."

With intentional cautious and respectful care, the First Enchanter, picks up the top volume. There is precision in how she opens the binding, turns the pages. Her eyes scan the pages, looking for internal damages or marring. "I'm hardly surprised you struggled to understand the material. Which is no reflection on your intelligence, my dear. But this is one of the more esoteric texts on magical theory and application. Most Circle mages would never have had access to it, much less possess an ability to comprehend this particular discourse." Which is actually not meant in any way as an insult. If mages would struggle to grasp at the contents of the book, one who isn't a mage (to her knowledge at least) would almost certainly come up blank in the understanding of it.

[ashesandboneyards]

"You, hmm?" She looks Vivienne up and down again, muttering something about how that would explain the hat under her breath. "I was hoping for a more- a more not-just-one-person sort of Circle. You know- with templars and- and they're called harrowings, right? And-" -the word 'phylacteries' escapes her- "-them blood things they make."

And she shrugs, smiling. "Look- can't hurt to tell you, if you're a mage. I'm an- apostate is the word, I think." The admission comes as easily as anything else she's said, as if it means very little to her. "I'd really rather not be - I don't much care for getting killed or possessed or, you know, those sorts of things that happen to apostates. Point me in the right direction and you can have the books. I can even show you where they were burning the mages' things, if you think any of them'd have survived it."