allthisshitisweird | Test Drive Meme!

'Tis The Season...

...To Still Be In The Hinterlands

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.

NOW WITH ADDED SNOW.

1. I CAN'T BEAR THE COLD

You have turned the wrong corner in the snow, forded the wrong stream in the snow, crested the wrong hill in the snow, entered the wrong cave in the snow. Maybe you are far from camp, in the snow. Maybe you are in camp, which is also snowy. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased through the snow by bears. Did you throw a snowball at the bears? Are they huge and snow-dusted? Babies burrowing through the snow drifts and coming for your ankles? Fade-touched in addition to snow-touched? Controlled by cold mages who are hiding in the snow? Popping up out of the snow like a game of whack-a-mole? What are they chasing you away from in all of this snow? What are they chasing you into, other than more snow? What warm things do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them in the snow? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you in the snow? P.S. It's snowy.

2. GIVE ALL THE TOYS TO THE LITTLE RICH BOYS

Winter came. The villagers are freezing. Recruit Whittle totally saw this coming. Now he might have sent you haring (get it) across the countryside in search of supplies that apostates or bandits may have hidden in caves and crannies. He might have handed you some sticks and told you to build a fire. He might have eyed your nice coat with a contemptful gleam that suggested you'd better find some blankets if you didn't want to have your own clothing requisitioned. Nobody's freezing to death on his watch--except maybe you, if you're really bad at finding hidden caches. In the snow.

3. DON'T SHOOT ME SANTA

The sky is beginning to darken and white snow continues to fall, but you and the supply wagon you're protecting should make it to the little Hinterlands village before sunset. The wagon is laden with food, blankets, and other sundry supplies, and so it's important to stay sharp and alert as you make the trecherous journey. And for good reason: an arrow is fired from the tree line and topples an Inquisition soldier from his horse. Beset by bandits, will you manage to fight them back? Or do they overwhelm your troupe and you are forced to flee? Or, perhaps, you could attempt a negotiation, knowing they could be as hungry as the people you protect.

4. DOES THEDAS HAVE FIGGY PUDDING?

It is not only snowing, it's blizzarding, and the tavern in Redcliffe is the closest and warmest place to duck into to wait it out. Unfortunately, half of the Hinterlands had the same idea. The Gull & Lantern is so packed with thawing visitors that it's hard to walk from one side to the other, the owner has given up on telling these Fereldens they can't bring their dogs inside, and that lady in the corner is almost definitely someone you've tried to kill before, or vice versa. But there's a fire going, and the bartender seems to think that giving everyone half-price drinks might prevent a brawl instead of causing one, and there aren't any demons indoors, so it could be a lot worse.

5. WILDCARD

Hunt game in the snow, kill demons in the snow, dig under the snow for herbs, track bandits through the snow, deal with someone charging extortionist coat prices now that it's snowing, fall off a deceptively tall rock into the snow, 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 in the snow, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow, run from a dragon in the snow, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot in the snow was, set up camp and chat around the fire because it's snowy and cold, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your ~~Frostback Mountain~~ oyster, topped with snow.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh yeah ... that's right. You're a genius too." One corner of his mouth tilted up.

Which was the whole reason he had created the generator - allow armor to power itself without lyrium, to save Templars from becoming addicted, to give mages access to something that would not require blood magic. Yet the level of skill it would take to ride that lightening.

"I thought all that ... and I was wrong. Faith is not enough, Addy. I put the work into metal and magic for the Chantry. Now I have to put that in for our people. The mages who survive, the templars who still stand for that damned name. We have to rebuild, we have to unite ... really unite. Not only that ... you know how many innocent lives I've cost the world? Not just mages, but just ... innocent every day people, who were caught up in this war?"

He shook his head, "No. I've got to make amends -- and that starts with the Inquisition."

"...There are worse ways, I suppose, for you to spend your life." That she was there should come as no surprise. It was sanctuary. It was hope. It was the one organization that was doing something about this madness and for that they had her loyalty and her skills. Tony's interest was somewhat surprising, considering how for control and support of the templars he had been but-

A broken faith did things to a person's perspective.

"Can you promise me that you will be careful?" She reached out, tentative compared to her earlier tight embrace, hand touching his wrist lightly. "I have only just found you again. Having to chase you all over Thedas is not precisely how I would like to spend my days, Tonton."

"...Hey, you've seen me in some of those worse ways." He said, that old Stark smirk flashing through his dark eyes. He becomes serious again, before he wrapped his hands around hers. He was always going to be about control -- especially seeing how magic out of control gave you people like the Venatori.

But he didn't want to hand over innocents to people who saw them as tools, as threats, and not as people.

"...I ... promise I won't blow myself or any large amount of property up?" He quirked up a faint smirk. "Careful is not exactly a word I use for anything outside of forging, you know." Another hand squeeze, "But hey, you got other things to do than chase me around. Just know I'm here for your back too."

"That is about all I can ask for." Anything more was stretching with Tony. He did what he did and the rest of the world either kept up or was left behind. Adelaide had managed through sheer stubborn force of will to keep up by clinging, occasionally sprinting off to one side in her own tangential line of research shared shortly afterward.

One thing was certain: Skyhold would never be dull again.

"We've rules of conduct for mages, now. There is a council that minds them, guides them. Speaks for them." A beat. "I am a part of it."

For all that she hated politics and the like, she was. "...your having my back is worth quite a bit, I should think."

"Well good because anything else would make a liar out of me."

And now ... both eyebrows Up. Way Up. "I am ... trying to decide what is more improbable -- that at the end of the world the mages finally started getting along, or that you have a part in it."

Huh. "But ... you need my support there, you got it. I'll even sit in on the club meetings."

"I was nominated." And couldn't very well walk away from it, not easily. "It needs to be done and someone mindful must be involved and...I'll need your help." She sighs. "Thank you."

"Always the catch. What have I told you? Leave the room before they snag you." He gave her a crooked smile, before he lifted an eyebrow, "...Let me guess. I'm the one who is poking and charming people into doing the right thing?

"Tony, of the two of us- who is actually charming?" Not her, that was for certain. "Sensible I can do but- charming is not my skill. It is yours."

"Charm is easier when you try to pretend that you don't hate everyone for being less intelligent than you." Tony said with a straight face, his dark eyes glinting. "But if you need someone to schmooze, I'll schmooze. I just won't ... take anything they hand me."

"Be fair, you do not hate them. You're angry with them for not trying as hard to understand as you know they can. Saying you hate them for it is easier than saying you expect better of them." It's the only reason they got along, really.

"Hey, stop calling me out on being a decent human being. People might get ideas." He broke away from her finally, to start packing up his tools, and of course, the armor. "Do I know any of this new Council of Magi - he says without quotation marks?"

"How terrible it will be for people to know you to be a decent man." She snorted, slumping back in her chair to watch him, the tools, the armor. "We both know of one. Madame Le Fer."

"No kidding. Then people will try to be all friendly and nice to me. Can't have that." He is as careful with the tools and armor, as he would a small child. Then his eyebrows shoot up, "The Iron Lady? What brought Vivienne out to the boonies?"

"Interest in the Inquisition while the Herald yet lived. Now? Making certain we are very aware of how going back to the old system would be the best option available." A year ago she would agree. Now? Now. Not quite so much.

He lets out a soft sort, "Well, she's half right. We need Circles but man, they need to be overhauled. More restrictions on templars, stronger spells put in place around the young and the 'likely to go blood mage'. And ... no tranquils. No more of that crap."

"Considering there may be a cure for Tranquility? It's something of a moot point." It had been only a rumor but- well. It had been quite the rumor.

"... Is there? Really and truly? Or is that just more hope thrown into our faces with no actual resolution?" He shook his head a little, "I'll give it to the Divine - she never, ever made us promises she couldn't keep."

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