allthisshitisweird | TEST DRIVE MEME!

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TEST DRIVE MEME!

TEST DRIVE MEME

Maybe you’ve been around for a while, or maybe you’re new to the Inquisition. Maybe you’re new to Thedas, having recently fallen from a tear in reality and been collected by uniformed rescuers. Whoever you are, you’ve been sent to Kirkwall, to an outpost where many of the Inquisition’s members and allies work on some of the biggest mysteries and problems the organization must solve if it’d like to keep the world from ending, where “ending” means “falling under the power of an ancient powerful corrupted being who wants everyone to bow to him as a god.”

And just to be clear, it would like that. It would like that a lot.

I. THE GALLOWS: The Gallows is an island fortress in Kirkwall’s harbor. It’s been home to, in order: Tevinter slaves, a Circle of Magi, a lot of creepy red lyrium, and now the Inquisition, which has occupied the fortress with the provisional Viscount’s blessing. There are walls that still need rebuilding and corners that still need dusting, but for the most part the Inquisition has gotten down to business. There’s space in the stone-floored courtyards to train or spar; or, if your skills don’t lie in the realm of hitting things, there’s a large library and several offices supporting the Inquisition’s areas of research and diplomatic efforts. If you don’t know what to do with yourself, then by all means, ask; someone will definitely be able to put you to work.

II. KIRKWALL: A quick row across the harbor will take you to Kirkwall proper. The city is built into the cliffs, from exclusive and wealthy Hightown at the top to impoverished Darktown in the abandoned mining tunnels below. In the middle is Lowtown, home to taverns, merchants, and plenty of trouble to keep anyone looking for it happy. You’re welcome to spend your free time and your money here—but try not to annoy the locals too much, please, in case their welcome runs out. It’d be a shame to have to pack again so soon after arriving.

III. QUESTING: Barely had time to make yourself at home, did you, before you were sent away from Kirkwall again—but this time on a mission. There’s a rift outside of Markham, pouring demons into the fields, and the Inquisition has been asked to lend a hand. Maybe literally. If you have an anchor embedded in your palm, you’re needed to close the damn thing. If not, maybe you’re here to fight demons or guard against bandits on the road, or to gather samples and take notes on the rift’s location once its closed, or to speak to Markham’s nobility afterwards to make sure that they fully appreciate the Inquisition’s efforts. Regardless, it’s a long trip, so we hope you like campfire cooking and sharing a tent.

IV. SENDING CRYSTAL: Joining the Inquisition gets you access to the very latest in barely-understood magical communication devices—namely, a crystal, small enough to wear around your neck, that will allow you to communicate verbally with anyone else who has one. Or everyone else who has one. Say hello.

V. WILDCARD: The whole of Thedas is yours to explore, from coast to uncharted wilderness. Choose your own adventure!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I.

He was hard at work sifting through heavy tome upon heavy tome of books in the library.

In his home nation, Polnya, he was known as the Dragon. He looked like a youthful gentleman, high-born and resplendent in rich reds and gold — and a rather disgruntled one at that. He was murmuring, chanting unintelligible, silky syllables to himself with a cold grimace upon his face. To the untrained ear it would sound rather like a song, but it was magic he whispered to the long shelves of books, each one drifting to his hand of its own accord. When a book or two snagged his attention well enough to move him from boredom and frustration to mild intrigue, he balanced it in the crook of his arm and made his way to a table to begin his study.

Anyone who would happen across this gentleman would find him pouring over such tomes as Phylacteries: A History Written in Blood or Fade and Spirits Mysterious, his eyes darting hungrily across each new page. And if someone were to observe him long enough, every now and then, a forearm-sized wisp made of smoke and mist would drift in from a nearby window, come to a rest in one of his open palms, and flash a set of flickering images from around the fortress grounds before disappearing in a bright burst of blue flame.

V.

Around the fortress grounds a wanderer may be privy to a strange apparition.

First came one drifting along with the same, delicate wave as a dandelion seed in the breeze. Then came another roughly 30 minutes later, and another, and another in rounds and cycles. They were small, smoky, mistilke creatures, for lack of a better word, that might take a teasing spin above one’s head, or crackle and hiss faintly through the corridors, intent on some secret mission. They flickered ominously with each change in direction, as if they struggled to hold on as they rode the wind.

The strangest thing about them, though, is if one were to stop and peer and them long enough, they would give the impression of staring right on back, a hollow, shadowy semblance of a face materializing in flashes at the thickest parts of the mist…

Edited 2017-06-26 22:58 (UTC)

The first impression that Madame de Cedoux gives is not, typically, 'bold'. Words like soft or amiable or reserved might sooner come to mind; her one disastrous foray into the field will not encourage a second attempt soon. Still - what she is, under the tranquilly politic exterior, is most of all curious. On the list of things that she fears particularly, magic is increasingly low, familiar to her and gaining in confidence.

So she's startled, the first time she sees mist that seems to know what it's about. She makes a little noise, the second. The third time, however, she picks up her skirts off the stone floor to hurry along behind it, only partially stymied by their cyclical comings and goings.

Either, she reasons, she finds the source or what they seek. And, just in case -

to light her way she will insist if all proves well

- she wraps flame around the fist not clutching her skirts.

As soon as Madame de Cedoux summons the flames, the mistlike apparition's mouth (?) gapes wide open and quivers in a silent cry. It dives sharply forward, circles closely around her flames and careens straight into her first, where it dissolves in a showy explosion of blue flame and sparks.

The flames do not cast any heat. Neither do the sparks -- in fact, they feel like a brush of icy cool air, like the frosty breath of a winter's night.

And as quick as it happens, the mist-thing is gone, nothing but a faint trail of glimmering particles twisting through the corridors this way and that, a serpentine trail marking a beacon back to its bearer. The trail lasts for but a few moments, as now a brand new flickering mist-sentinel drifts by the nearest window. There it hovers, taking up exactly the station where the previous creature left off. And it seems to be terribly preoccupied with that flame-fist the woman wields.

The second sentinel waits and watches the Madame, silent, inscrutable.

That -

Perhaps it's telling that when the initial shock wears off - and with it the sudden roar of rising flame, how she'd prepared to defend herself when the mist-thing dove toward her - her second reaction more closely resembles exasperation than anxiety. Someone, she decides, is showing off and that is not at all unfamiliar to her.

She tilts her head at the second creature, and after a pause, shakes her hand out, flames dissipating.

At first, the pale wisp is nearly motionless, adrift on a pocket of air just outside the window. Then it shudders, a nod of approval, and carefully gives the woman a wide berth as it swishes past her and around the nearest corner.

"You're smarter than you look," rings a silky, ungracious voice. "A little." The voice belongs to a man, tall, thin, pale, resplendent in red and gold from head to toe, with a look of utter confidence and mild boredom marring his youthful face. In his upturned palm floats one of those very same mist sentinels, but this one has, on full display, a reflection flickering within it -- a film reel, a reenactment, a mirror of what it has seen and traversed. The Madame can see various images of the compound and its inhabitants flitting by, with a special emphasis on any apparent magical objects, wizards, and witches. It is clear where this man's interests lie.

He abruptly closes his fist and allows the sentinel to dissipate with a pop. His cold eyes sweep the woman up and down, and he frowns.

"Was that a cantrip, or did you really mean to recklessly burn the hall down for a harmless sentinel?" he demands.

Yes, she thinks, her back straightening under that scrutiny; if only his hair a little longer, she might never have left the war camp. It is perhaps this pricking of old instincts that betrays her, some of the cultivated deference with which she's carefully navigated Kirkwall dissipating and a hint of irritation marring her own prettily arranged features.

"I had not seen its like," she says, more evenly than that flare of spirit behind her steady gaze might have suggested she would. "You must forgive my wariness, when one finds such strangeness about every corner in Thedas."

Like him, lurking about this corner, being strange.

(And the most like home of anything; her dress is plain but the jet locket at her throat is not, nor the diamond on her hand, and she holds herself as a lady who doesn't appreciate being questioned rather than a chastened maid.)

"I must."

Flat. Unappreciative. Dismissive. Yet it is her confident, even tone that relaxes his frown into a thin-lipped, almost satisfied look. He doesn't much differ from an amused tomcat. At least this girl is clean and presentable. There is another girl he knows that is farthest from presentable as can be, a loathsome, insufferable idiot that consumes his very mind if he lets it slip, unguarded, for just long enough -- but never mind her. He banishes all thoughts of her by force of will alone.

"Well, now you have." He regards the Madame closely, arms akimbo. "And there is plenty more 'strangeness' I can see on my own if -- if--" he inclined his head meaningfully, "You will stay your flames and not roast the others when you see them."

"Of course," she agrees; it costs her nothing to do so, assured now that the greatest threat presented here is like as not the stranger's ego and not his sentinels. "Though I must-"

her repeated use of that word almost certainly a barely there slyness, an undercurrent of her dry humor, clocking the way he objects to it and well he might, at even a glance

"-counsel more caution. The people of this place may not approach a new thing so carefully as myself, nor listen so sympathetically to an explanation. I understand that people such as ourselves," rifters, practitioners of magic, both, "are viewed with less suspicion than we once were, but not none."

They might apologise for overreacting. Then again, they might not. Rifters are owed no more than they earn.

Edited 2017-06-27 03:17 (UTC)

The man gave an elegant, flippant shrug. He doesn't give much of a care what the others think of him. He has no need to explain himself to them, no reason to make efforts to 'fit in' when he is acutely aware he does not belong to this society. This place, to him, is a way for him to keep himself occupied with some other nebulous evil until he can find his way back through a rift and take care of the corruption still running rampant back in Polnya.

"I already told you they're harmless," he brushed off. "Other people will discern that quickly enough." The people of his own valley grew accustomed to his sentinels with time. So will the people here. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, again examining her with a piercing, dark eye.

It is awfully strange and off-putting to him that magic in foreign lands and foreign peoples is difficult to feel and measure. The people here draw upon a different kind of power than simply an innate one. This girl's power is not quite something he can make sense of, fully, like he could an apprentice or an advanced wizard back home. He would have to read more about magical discernment, find out if any of the tomes here described a swift method of assessment.

"What's your name?"

Some people, she is aware, cannot simply be told. Either consequence will continually spare them, for whatever infuriating reason, and they will always think you an over-cautious fool, or they will learn for themselves the least gentle of ways. So she does not press him further; she has done as her conscience dictates, and he will listen to her experience and observation or he won't, but she is -

she is done, she thinks, taking responsibility for the actions of men who must always know better, best.

"Madame de Cedoux. Petrana," after a short pause, "de Cedoux." None of the titles that she might have claimed; what do they matter in Thedas, torn adrift from anywhere they meant anything? La princesse was a matter of violent dispute in Lamorre, nevermind trying to wring influence out of it here. "I have been here a little while. A matter of weeks."

"Yes, a little while," he quips quickly -- rudely, even, though to his credit, he qualified it with, "I arrived early in the week." Not much longer than himself. Not long enough to know a substantial amount more than him, but then, she is a witch... and he acknowledges that it is good to become familiar with others that know magic.

And judging by her name and title, seems this girl is a true Lady just as he is known as Lord, or at least she is well-kept, handsome, and neat. The Dragon continues to stroke his chin, arms folding across his slim body. He does not offer his own name unprompted, and instead moves on to his next question.

"Do you practice a specialty?"

A not unnoticeable oversight; Petra is in no great rush to pull him up on it, inclined to choose her battles carefully.

"Battle magic," after a slight pause, "with a bent toward defense. I've not often had cause to use it in truth; such focus was intended to ensure that in the event I was left without defense I would not, myself, be entirely helpless. In practise I most often use hearth magic, of the home, small things only. My study has been more extensively esoteric - I find magic fascinating for its own sake," and by this point she's beginning to warm a little to her subject if not the man in front of her, an eager student of the form.

"The study is outlawed in my homeland - between us my husband and I had hoped to lay the groundwork to rebuild what burnings have taken from the world. We wrote extensively."

"It's an asinine outlaw!" the Dragon bites, outraged and horrified at the thought. In Polnya, it is the opposite; the last king long ago decreed that all those with even the barest hint of magic must be set apart from non-magical households and trained properly in the arts. Before they hurt themselves or worse. "If your regents want unchecked and untrained apprentices unwittingly tearing holes through the realm, that is their sword to fall on! Your country will have far bigger problems if you don't school your wizards. You are right to preserve and rebuild."

He barely even discerns that this witch-woman's love of magic and learning warms him to her--just slightly. At the very least he is modifying his opinion to bear some pinch of respect for a fellow magic-user thirsty for knowledge. Perhaps she can be a decent resource for him... for the time being.

"Have you read much from the Inquisition libraries, or the ones down in Kirkwall?"

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Cosima would be in the library anyway, even if she hadn't been assigned to the research division, so it's really just as well they didn't try to row against the stream on that one. She's got a specific project today, though, a list of books she's looking up and, unfortunately or otherwise, Fade and Spirits Mysterious is on the list.

The nobleman with wisps of smoke drifting around was not, in fairness, the weirdest thing she'd ever seen in a library. (Finals week in undergrad had been interesting on more than one occasion.) Still, she waits a while to see if he'll finish up before finally realizing he's not going to move any time soon.

She approaches in his clear line of sight. Her time in Thedas has suggested to her it's not good to sneak up on people who may or may not be casting spells.

The nobleman was comfortable with a girl gawking at him in silence for precisely 5 minutes longer than most would expect. In fact, he seemed, for all intents and purposes, completely content with downright ignoring the open stares and continuing about his business.

But then again, he is a man that prefers to conduct his business where no one else can discern what he is doing.

After a length of time elapses, his fist closes abruptly on his latest wisp-sentinel, and it explodes in a ball of blue flames. With the images extinguished, he bends his gaze back towards his books without so much as granting his visitor the courtesy of some eye contact.

"I hoped you would be bored by now," he says coldly. At least he's up-front about it. He does not look up. "What do you want?"

"I need to look at one of those books for a few minutes," she says, not evidently put off by the brusque tone. "You can have it back when I'm done, but I've got someone waiting on this report and I don't think she'll accept 'I took the rule about no talking in the library too seriously' as an excuse, so."

She's neither offended, nor placating; in fact, her demeanor suggests that they are both reasonable people and, as she's making a reasonable request, there's no reason he should make any particular fuss.

The man's lip curls, and for a long moment, everything about his mien speaks utter refusal. But it is true that the Dragon was not a wholly unreasonable person despite his propensity for recalcitrance. He thrusts the book shut, flipped it around and pushed it towards the young woman on the opposite side of the table.

"Who wants it?" he wonders, without really caring if it is truly any of his business or not. "A commander? Some ranking person in the Inquisition?"

Hey, male academic disdain, you also are not unfamiliar.

Unfazed, Cosima sits across from him. If he wants the book back faster, well, she won't make him wait for her to walk back and forth. She flips to the table of contents, looking for a helpful heading.

"Yeah, the official project leader on rift research. We're kind of skeptical that this book has much of use in particular, but it's cross-referenced in something else and we're trying to be thorough. You know. Especially those of us with the things stuck in our hands." She waves her anchor-sharded hand at him once, briefly, without looking up.

"You can't be too thorough," is his terse reply. Yes, the Dragon is intimately familiar with 'missing' something even in his most carefully studied and unusual texts, much to his chagrin. He hated being wrong far more than being thorough -- even if it were needlessly thorough.

The Dragon absently squeezes his own shard-embedded palm, a sharp ache serving as a reminder of his recent arrival. In the past several days alone, respective Inquisition authorities subjected him to all manner of information bombardment, and, of course, an offer that he could not refuse: to owe his skills to the Inquisition's cause to achieve peace in the realm in exchange for relative freedom and a clean bed.

"Is your ultimate aim to find a way close the rifts for good?" A grim pause. "Certainly gaining control over them isn't without risk."

There is a second question hidden within this one. His chances of return back through the correct rift, for instance. His chances of seeking the knowledge to control the rifts, if it is at all possible without impossible sacrifice.

Edited 2017-06-29 01:31 (UTC)

"I think that's probably among the Inquisition's main aims, yeah, though I'm not high enough up to know 100% for sure," Cosima says, frankly, glancing back up at him. "Given that demons come out of them on the regular, not to mention people like us who don't actually belong here. Me personally, I'm interested in knowledge for knowledge's sake. We also have reason to believe having one of these shards could be dangerous in the long term, so, uh, I'd like to mitigate that."

She notices that he hasn't mentioned getting home right away, so she doesn't either. It's complicated for her; she assumes it might be for others, too.

"Certainly."

The Dragon grows cold and grim.

"I'll take a guess. Do the shards corrupt?" He presses his chin into his palm, bending over the table and watching her spew important information in her matter-of-fact tone. "I would very much not like to slowly transform into a demon, if that's the case." That would be just the cherry on top, after all he has been through warding off and defeating corruption from the Wood, and it would be no better than a death sentence.

"Corruption more like disease than like turning into demons. We've got something like that here too - it's called the Blight - but as far as I know the shards don't cause it. You have to get bit or bled on by a Darkspawn, I think, though there are definitely people in the Inquisition who know more about the Blight than I do."

That's not comforting at all, but he doesn't seem like a man looking to be comforted.

"As far as I know, we've also got some time before it's more than anything but that annoying ache in your hand. But since I don't know how much I figure better help people get on that. I prefer not dying."

Sarkan hesitates.

All of this sounds achingly familiar to him. A slow sickness borne from the shards isn't exactly the same as the Wood's corruption in Polnya, but it bears enough similarities that there is a small chance he already has something in his pocket that could stave it off. It is not something he can test on just anyone. The subject must be strong enough to withstand some hefty curative spells, and even then, there is no guarantee that it would work.

The least harmful, most logical test subject would be himself, if it is possible. But first.. He rubs his palms together, considering his next move.

"I may have something I can offer to that cause," he says at last, "But I need access to books, notes, whatever research you gathered so far. I imagine it will be wise of me to consult your project leaders about this first."

Edited 2017-07-01 02:56 (UTC)

"Awesome," she says, laid-back but not insincere; she relaxes very slightly as it seems less and less likely he's going to dismiss he knowledge out of hand.

"Probably the best person to talk to is Valentine de Foncé." Val, she likes you, but she is not going to say all of the names in between every single time. "He's the overall head of the research division, which includes work on the rifts and the anchor shards. We're in the process of consolidating a lot of our research now, since the move here to Kirkwall, but if you're in earnest about helping I don't see why you shouldn't have access to what we've got. de Foncé comes off a bit glib at first, but he's smart and knows a lot of people."

"That's not a problem." A small, catlike grin pulls up the corner of his mouth despite himself. "It's the witlings I don't want to slog through."

Glib, Sarkan is apt to handle easily, particularly when it's paired with a smart individual. Much easier to speak with someone on equal, loose terms than it is to talk down to impossible idiots who think they possess more wit than they have.

"Well, finish your research and send me to him. I will wait."

It occurs to him that they have not even exchanged names. He fails to care.

The Dragon (Sarkan) | Naomi Novik's Uprooted

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v - tag all the test drives

Much appreciated, I'm just getting back into playing after a years-long hiatus \o/

So delighted to see someone playing from this canon!

Ahhh! Someone who recognizes it!

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