TEST DRIVE MEME!

[faderifting]

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.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS TDM FEATURES SNOW.

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, currently covered in snow and ice; 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, currently very cold. 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. In the snow!

II. KIRKWALL: A quick row across the near-freezing harbor will take you to Kirkwall proper. The city is built into the cliffs, from exclusive and wealthy snow-dusted Hightown at the top to impoverished Darktown in the abandoned mining tunnels below, where discarded waste is presently frozen into slushy brown ice. In the middle is Lowtown, home to taverns, merchants, and plenty of trouble to keep anyone looking for it happy. And a lot of snow. You’re welcome to spend your free time and your money here—but try not to annoy the locals too much, please, in case the Inquisition's welcome runs out. It’d be a shame to have to pack up and leave in all this snow.

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 Denerim, in the snow, pouring demons into the snowy 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 snow-covered road, or to gather samples out of the snow and take notes on the rift’s location once its closed, or to speak to prominent locals (in the snow) 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. And snow.

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.

There is no snow on the crystal, unfortunately.

V. WILDCARD: The whole of Thedas is yours to explore, from coast to uncharted wilderness filled with bears, and did we mention that there is snow? Anyway: choose your own adventure!

Comments

[strangel]

"Lady," she corrects, with authority befitting the role, even if exactly nothing else about her or how she says it suggests nobility. The thick roll of her accent, if nothing else, might just give away that she is not a Marcher.

The smile becomes more entertained, and she holds up one of her hands, wrapped around with a bandage that's a little bloody and messy. It's also concealing the light that's invaded her skin. Pieces of magic stuck into her flesh and her bone, a tether to the demon house.

"My name is Helena. I am being with the Inquisition."

[swaging]

In Great Noring, there's two categories: us, also known as Fereldens, and everyone else, a world of foreigners with unrecognizable accents. She could indeed be Lady Viscount or Seeker or Champion or peasant Orlesian and Bie would hardly know the difference.

At least she doesn't expect a handshake. Bie eyes her raised hand with a kind of resolute uncertainty. Like, she doesn't know what that means, except that perhaps there's terrible healers in the Inquisition, but she's not going to flinch or anything.

"Bie," she says. "With the Inquisition now, I guess. What'd you do to your hand, there?"

[strangel]

Helena looks at her hand is if it were something she'd not seen before, flexing the fingers back from her palm before relaxing her hand again. "I was bitten by demon." So far as she can tell, that isn't strictly wrong, just not the way most people would describe it.

No, that's close enough. She inhales dramatically, and gestures to the buildings of the Gallows. "You have made it to the mage prison, bumble bee. This is what Inquisition buildings used to be for."

[swaging]

What.

Despite her staunch attitude, Bie recoils. And then she thinks, do demons bite? Or, more properly: do they leave bites behind? Don't they just destroy? Eat people whole?

But also, "Bie." An important correction. "Just Bie. Er, right, but-- a demon bit you? And they just put a bandage on your hand and sent you back out with the rest of us?"

[strangel]

"Yes." As concerned as Bie might be, Helena is not at all. "I wrapped it up myself. But all the good soldiers are sent back out together. Scouting and hunting and doing what Inquisitions do."

She leans closer, conspiratorial. "Do not trust them all. They can make lightning with their hands."

[swaging]

Bie sinks back a half step when Helena leans in. She doesn't turn tail and run. It's more wary than cowardly. She looks over Helena's shoulder, at the buildings looming behind her. The Gallows, where they used to keep Kirkwall's mages. And rightly so, in some cases.

"Mages. You mean mages. They're not meant to just do that, are they. Far as I know it, they're-- you know. Meant to be careful. Even if they're fighting demons. Maybe especially then. 'Cause--" She frowns, and finishes that sentence there, with a final, "'Cause. What is it you do here, anyways? Scouting?"

[strangel]

"People are meant to be being many things. Careful, quiet, clever, holy." Her breath catches on the last one; a little painful. A little raw. Helena likes to invoke reactions, but she also pines for the days of righteous certainty in her faith.

For a moment, Bie could be forgiven for thinking she is forgotten. Merciful, that's another one.

"Do you think it is mercy or vengeance that is more important?" Her smile, when it begins to return, is a little less sharp. "I do both of those. What are you here for?"

[swaging]

Bie, truly having thought that she was forgotten, was just beginning to move to respond with the traditional have-I-been-forgotten gesture: the wave in front of the face. She is preempted from doing so when Helena suddenly resurfaces from whatever pool of word-associated memory she had been submerged in.

"Came with my friend, to join up." It's an easy response, because it's true. Less easy: "What kind of a question is that, which is more important. 'Cause they're both important at different times, aren't they. As in, I wouldn't get revenge for some little kid swiping my bootlaces. I would get revenge for some bastard swiping my kit. So if you do both of those, then so do I, I guess."

So. She tries to raise one shoulder. The weight of her pack makes it more or less impossible, so instead, she cocks her head. Same idea.

"You doing mercy for the Inquisition? You don't strike me as a Chantry sister."

[strangel]

"Death can be a mercy, also. Mercy and vengeance are taking many forms. I began to read the Chant of Light. I think the Maker is an angry gods, but his Lady Andraste is hard to say. Leading armies to stop slavery; it is vengeance and mercy at the same times."

Helena is very bad at answering direct question, or maybe just doesn't care to until it is convenient to her, personally.

"Not Chantry. I am of different church." Her head tilts to the side, a mirror to Bie's tilt, though the angle goes further, seems a little unhinged. In the technical sense of hanging off a hinge, moreso than the other sense, although it certainly couldn't be entirely disentangled from that meaning.

"Are you Chantry?"

[swaging]

Different church probably just means cult, but Bie isn't about to back away from a cultist, even if she probably should. Theologically speaking, she agrees with some of Helena's weird assessment of the Chantry's beliefs, though she would never frame her thoughts anywhere even adjacent to the word theological. That's the kind of high-minded thinking that goes on, well, high above her head. No pun intended.

She snorts at the question. "Definitely not. I'm a dwarf. Just 'cause I'm not grubbing around in a mine somewhere worshiping a rock doesn't change that. Nah--I'm a blacksmith."

She says it with all confidence, and without batting an eye. Yeah, it's a little bit of a lie, a decidedly favorable upgrade to her situation--but she was as good as finished with her apprenticeship anyways. Might as well make the most of being in a new town. No one's going to bother writing letters to the lesser forge at Great Noring to check on her credentials, and if they do, well, Bie will make best mates with whoever reads the letters around here and see that they owe her a favor so that particular scroll can disappear, once it comes in.

"I get what you mean. About vengeance, and mercy. And I don't know that I thought too much about what the Chantry does or doesn't do with it. I guess they think of themselves as, you know. Good folk. Whether they are or aren't doesn't matter much to me. I stay out of the way of any zealot, and I live longer for it." She gives Helena a quick up and down look, without bothering to hide it. "Real question is, does that mean I'm going to have to start avoiding you? How into vengeance are you?"

[strangel]

"There is being a story from my home country, about a dwarf who wanted revenge. A beautiful princess, Princess Pietnotka, was being wooed by many mens, and she turned down many to choose Prince Dobrotek. There were many disappointed hearts, and one of them was so disappointed that his heart turned to raging and vengeance. He was a dwarf, with a beard seven feet longs, and in his fury he turned into whirlwind. The hurricane he was blew into the wedding, and carried the bride aways to his underground palace. He was powerful wizard. Very angry."

It's not anywhere near the whole story. "I am not vengeful enough to be hurricane."

So that's good news. The bad news is that she is sort of an avenging angel, so... give and take.