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[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

[fleurdesel]

"To your people the spirits are...gods?" That was certainly a different perspective- not one heard of in the circles. Then again the Circles were ruled over by the Chantry until recent events and with the Maker being the end all and be all, considering the spirits to be more than spirits was probably some manner of heresy in their eyes.

What would that sort of reverence and faith do for a Spirit? She had to wonder, it certainly would leave for an interesting dynamic between those that heard them and those that sung.

"That is not how I was taught- but I can see how they would be thus to people that did not have the Chantry's Dogma so tightly bound in magic." It was something worth considering.

[spiritlost]

"Yes," She replied simply, matter-of-factly. "Though from what I understand of the Chantry... the word god likely means different things, between us. But they are gods, and they protect us, and nurture us, and teach us. And sometimes those teachings come in song." It was hard not to sound proud, because she was, despite everything. Despite what she was, and what she was doing, she yearned for home.

"The song you heard is one of the rarest I know," She offered. "For only Hope sings it, that I know of."

[fleurdesel]

"Most likely." But well worth understanding. It was a fair description of the purpose of Spirits, their desires and intent, Compassion offered a swell of agreement. Approval, even. Bid Adelaide take the next few steps closer to join this woman at the fire.

"Hope is a rare thing when times are good. With the world as it is? I am not surprised it is so hard to hear. It has been years since I last heard it myself." Other spirits did not speak to her so much with Compassion settled so neatly on her skin.

[spiritlost]

"Hope is rare, in the best and the bleakest of times," Nadja admitted, turning her gaze from Adelaide back into the fire. "It has... been some time, since I have heard her voice," She admitted, trying not to let the grief slip into her face and failing.

"I wonder, occasionally, how I came to be allowed to hear it at all. But I will not forget it. That much, I think, I can promise." She turned her gaze back to Adelaide. "I will be honest, I did not know that Northerners even listened to the Gods, let alone sought to understand them. You said you were... a spirit healer?"

[fleurdesel]

"Sometimes we are chosen for what we might be taught. Sometimes they are curious. Sometimes we are able to seek them out and call them closer to do good for the world." Something she'd been told and had passed along to most of her students in spirit healing. They were strange and marvelous beings, the spirits. Understanding them was not easily done.

"Compassion has been with me for as long as I can remember." She turned her hand to be palm up, the barest blue glow pooling in the center. "With their power I am able to heal the injured and ease the burden of the ill. While I have always heard them I wasn't able to understand until I was older. It is a rare and dangerous practice- as the unaware can too easily be lured in by demons."

[spiritlost]

She turned her head to it, gently reaching out to allow the tips of her fingers to only just brush the soft skin of Adelaide's palm.

The grief that hit her was so strong and potent that if she had not been so familiar with it she would have cried out. A knife, slid between her ribs and into her heart. It was unfair, a lowlander-- No. She couldn't think like that. She mustn't. Not in this place.

"It is... Strange, to hear a lowlander attempt to teach me about the Gods," she mused. "Or to warn me of one who has become corrupted. But I... To see one with you..." She trailed off. With her, yes. But within her? With a warning such as that?

[fleurdesel]

"Before all of this I was a teacher- and I am mentoring a few of the other Mages in my craft. It's something of a habit, I apologize." Teaching was as much a part of what they were meant to do as anything else. If people and mages understood better there wouldn't be so much fear, so much pain. It helped to learn and hurt to remain ignorant.

So close were they and so keen that pain, Compassion reached for her without thought, the light brightening, curling around her fingers much like a comforting hand. To ground, to soothe. "We are partners. I follow the rules they set before me and in turn I am able to use their power to heal- or to relieve pain. You grieve, they feel it."

[spiritlost]

Compassion's touch worked, at least enough to get Nadja to push the darkness from her mind, to smile softly at the spirit's tendrils whisping around her. "No, I should apologize," She murmured. "I have not spent long outside of our people. I... forget, sometimes, what the rest of the world is. I am sure there is much we could learn from each other."

She rested her hand in Adelaide's palm, the blue light between them, and squeezed before letting go. "Yes, I grieve. As I've no doubt your partner knows well." There was no point trying to lie about that, to a spirit. "Thank you, for your kindness. It is an honour, to meet one they have deemed worthy." That was when it occurred to her that she had not even given her name, and she frowned. "And I have been rude. I am Nadja An Hildegarde - though I am afraid I can offer you no hold name."

[fleurdesel]

They could not always do much when the wounds weren't bleeding- but sometimes they could do enough. An hour's respite from sorrow, from pain, from whatever ache may rest in their bones that could not be banished by magic or medicine. Sometimes it was enough. Sometimes it wasn't. Tonight? It seemed to be the former, though grief is not so easily set aside.

Perhaps she had Hope once and lost her? Adelaide couldn't imagine not having Compassion at her side, on her skin, singing her to a peaceful sleep.

"And I forget not all the world is like the Ivory Tower in which I was raised." The glow faded and her hand dropped back to her lap, smile small but kind. "Adelaide LeBlanc, of...Skyhold, I suppose."

That was her home now. As much as the Spire had ever been. "I shouldn't have interrupted. The rudeness is one we share."

[spiritlost]

The grief never left, but Compassion had dulled it, and that was enough.

Nadja shook her head. "I admit, if I had heard a lowlander sing such a song, my curiosity would have been much the same." Had it been Hope's... the jealousy might have been just as strong. Not that she would admit that to herself, of course. Not that she could.

"Yes, I suppose I am now of Skyhold, too," She mused lowly. "Though I am not sure I could call it my hold. It is... not the same. And while they have been kind, there is always an adjustment." She said as if she knew - as if this wasn't her first real time among people that were such strangers to everything she knew.

[fleurdesel]

"It is a home but not your true home." That sentiment was easily understood. The whole of what made Skyhold and the Inquisition function was quite different from the structure and means of the Spire; for someone not even familiar with that much or all the various baggage that came from everyone coming to take part? She couldn't imagine how strange it might feel. "For some that lasts longer than others."