Test Drive Meme!

[faderifting]

'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.

Comments

[arachnis]

The next thing to fall into his lap (seemingly in answer), is a body. It's a dead bandit, his (now broken) bow and quiver landing next to him a few seconds later. The tree above them rustles a little, but is otherwise still; if Tony plots the trajectory, it's pretty obvious that the body came from the tree, but if there's a reason for it, it's not there, especially considering someone would have had to have waited for him to pass under the tree to shove the body at out him. Maybe it's someone with a sense of humor?

Not like it matters. It's another couple of seconds before the caravan itself is descended upon by the rest, less dead, bandits, now likely furious that their compatriot has been slain while on duty. There's a flurry of black fabric and the shine of knives, a loud heavy thunk in the back of the caravan and it lurches as someone lands in it.

She doesn't stay still long. She's already too busy trying to keep the bandits who've managed to catch up to them out of it, tossing one over the side to get trampled with a disinterested look on her face.

She glances over her shoulder at the mage, raising an eyebrow. A little help, maybe? Someone else can drive.

[ferrushomimus]

All right, Tony likes quite a few things in his lap - only two of them are adult sex related and the rest usually revolve around sitting down and having a bottle of wine while he's reading or building or both. Dead bandits don't even make the top one hundred list.

Still, points for style. Even as the bandit is kicked over board. Because ugh, dead bandit, how he getting this out of silk?

The sudden thumping noise draws his attention to the woman, all knives and red hair and damn. He quirks a half-smirk at her, before he tosses the reins over the Recruit McChuckles.

"Drive." A pause. "Straight, if you can."

And with that, a dive and a roll to the backseat, he's sliding on one of his gauntlets and aiming it center mass at a bandit trying to climb up over the back, and blasting him back into his fellow compatriots.

"So ... Nightengale send you, or is my wish coming true about gorgeous women falling from the sky?"

[arachnis]

"I'm your escort," comes the reply, Natalia pausing in speaking only long enough to knee another bandit in the face. There's a loud crunching noise, his nose reduced to pulp when he goes flying back, and Natalia goes after him, grabbing him by the shirt and flinging him out of the cart.

"Cullen sent me."

[ferrushomimus]

"Clearly, I owe Cullen a fruit basket." Tony stated, before he lifted up his hand and summoned his other gauntlet to his wrist, so he could put them together and blast the next bandit off the cart with a flash of lightening.

"Don't suppose with your secrety Bard powers you figured out how many of these guys we're gonna have to - " And there's a guy jumping out of mid-air, Tony swings his fist back in a punch and blasts him back into a tree, " - clear out?"

[arachnis]

Her response is immediate, Natalia taking a brief moment to give him a bit of a stink eye. She's nothing so lowly as a bard, even if their spymaster is one of the best.

"I'm not a Bard," she says drly, pulling a knife out of her belt and throwing it into the throat of another bandit trying to climb up the back of the cart.

"I'm a Crow. Or I was."

[ferrushomimus]

"Huh." Tony watches the bandit start to choke on the knife in his throat, before he gives the woman a more considering look. "Well, before I was impressed. Now I'm just scared to death."

He twists, to send another blast towards the ground, frightening one of the bandit's horses. "So what is a Crow doing in the Inquisition? Outside of scaring the piss out of me."

[arachnis]

She snorts, moves to respond when their driver is taken out by a stray arrow. Natalia curses in Antivan, jumps up onto the driver's seat to take the reins and yanks hard to get the horses to stop.

She calls out over her shoulder. "Running is getting us nowhere, we're taking a stand!"

[ferrushomimus]

Tony lets out a curse, going to make sure that McWhattheMakerishisname is still alive. Still breathing, but barely. He looks back at her, his expression somewhere between enraged and cold-stone determined. Then he just lifted his hand, and from behind her, parts of armor came flying out from underneath the tarp. Attaching and securing themselves into place, with a red and gold dragon emblazoned across the entire breastplate, it's eye the shimmering green and blue gleam of Tony's own generator.

His armor clanked, as he moved to stand behind the wagon, "Ready when you are, Scary Assassin?"