allthisshitisweird | 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. TOURNEY: Barely had time to make yourself at home, did you, before you were sent away from Kirkwall again—but for fun! Sort of. You've been sent to Wycome, the party capital of the Free Marches, for the Grand Tourney. It's a week of celebration and chillin', shopping at vendors' stalls or drinking and making new friends while fighters from across Thedas try their hands at friendly (or "friendly") competitions of skill and/or muscle, leading up to the prestigious Grand Melee. Your mission, which you've presumably already accepted, is to put on a good, respectable show for the rest of Thedas—particularly if you're someone like a rifter, or a mage, or an elf, or anyone at all who isn't an Andrastian human—so the Tourney's affluent visitors take only good gossip home to their countrymen. Which is to say: if you get involved in a drinking competition, you better win.

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

She had been watching the fighters for quite some time, and he her, from a discrete distance of course. The activity she was engaged in was not especially out of the ordinary, but the intensity of her focus was intriguing to Connor. He could tell that she was taking notes of some kind, and appeared to be constructing anatomical diagrams- quite accurate ones from what he could see. He drew nearer. He noted the breath of data she had catalogued, the swiftly made but reasonably accurate figures.

"How thorough-" he said appreciatively. "Uhm, sorry... I didn't mean to interrupt your work." In truth, he hadn't meant to voice his observation aloud like that.

Edited 2018-06-19 05:19 (UTC)

Her work is intense and dedicated as she stares at her notes, skimming through pages and pages as she details the shapes of bodies, making notes of where breaks happen, where things go wrong, the damage people take. She's curious about their bodies, curious about the make up of them, curious about what can be done to repair them and fix them. It has to be more than the humours, has to be more than the nature that people say, especially with magic and other things at the focus point -

Hearing a voice she jerks to one side sharply, tilting his head up.

"... It is necessary." She frowns, leaning back to look at him properly. "It is no trouble."

A gentle smile tugs at his mouth. "My name is Connor. I'm new," he tilts his head and continues gazing at the diagrams and notes. Before the Change, he had little need to actively memorize information. He wonders how much of what he sees he will be able to retain later, now that he cannot rely on his hardware to analyze for him. The body in particular was a strange new world to him. Not a little frightening, if he was honest. Before the Change his biocomponents had been engineered to simulate human anatomy to a high degree, but being on the inside of the real thing was still a bewildering and often disturbing experience.

"I admire the accuracy of your observations," he continues after a moment. "Both the diagrams and notations are scrupulous." He dips his head, as though in respect to her, while still fixing his eyes on the pages.

New. That means a Rifter, then, one of the strange beings that has been brought from beyond the Veil? Or someone from another place, foreign to Ferelden just as she is? Laurelle cannot decide which one she is more comfortable with; she simply nods her head along with it, frowning as she considers the implications. A Rifter might have more knowledge of what she's doing, some understanding of the body and the nature of medicine than Thedas itself is aware of,e specially if it is true that they are from other worlds.

If they are not....

"Laurelle." She doesn't quite move to offer him the pages, still a little protective of her notes, but she does nod her head. "I will use them later when I study. It is better to have good notes now than needing to come back another day."

"Are you with the research division? I think the Inquisition will be placing me there; I was an investigator on Earth, before I arrived through... one of those 'rifts."

He says it in an odd tone, like the word is wrong. It isn't the word that's wrong, it's the rift. He doesn't know how to relate to a tear in the sky, or the 'veil' or having red blood and a heart that can't be removed with the flick of a wrist and a strong tug.

"I am."

Not that she thinks many of them are particularly friendly with her, but she doesn't care. She's used to the isolation, to the awkward loneliness that comes hand in hand with it, to the strange, twisting feeling of being on edge and uncertain. She's grown better for it - stronger, in the long run - and she doesn't let it bother her too much any more.

"You are a Rifter, then." She frowns, looking at him up and down. "You come from... Earth?"

"Yes," he hesitates then hastens to add. "I became human when I arrived; before then I was a machine designed to assist and obey humans. I looked and acted like one, but being the real thing is..." he purses his lips and shrugs.

"So, you see, I have rather a lot of catching up to do," his mouth quirks into a self-deprecating grin that quickly fades. "I just thought you should know I'm not the same as the other human rifters." There's a hint of deference to his tone when he refers to the others, like he wishes to distance himself so he would be in his proper place in relation to them- definitely below them.

Became human when he arrived... So he was not human when he was in his own world, or place, wherever it is that Rifters arrive from. It interests her because it offers something to investigate, something to look into; she has not spent much time learning about anyone from beyond Thedas, but it seems she's being given a rare chance to learn for the first time in a long time.

"I see." It's obvious that she's curious and she finally places her things to one side, turning to look at him properly. Her head tilts, just a little, before her lips curl into something almost like a smile. "May I examine you?"

"Yes," he shifts his weight so that he stands quite square. It's not exactly at attention. He seems at ease in the position yet the balance is almost like that of a dancer- a little too perfect. He looks past her, not focusing on anything in particular. He momentarily tilts his head and quirks his brows. "I don't think you will see anything unusual. All of my biocomponents have been replaced." He reaches tentatively to his right temple. "My primary interface point used to be here. From there I- or an operator- could enable or disable certain functions." He lets his hand fall back to his side.

Laurelle pushes herself up and to her feet, moving to walk around his body and take him in. He seems almost too perfect to be a regular person - are all Rifters like this? Are they all made so sharply in comparison to their Thedosian counterparts? She wants to move closer and inspect him, to find a means of looking into his body and discovering his insides, to see how he would be prepared for death, but there is no means of doing that without harming him.

"Your insides were replaced when you arrived here." She doesn't know what that means for the man in front of her. Would he be treated the same? Would he bleed like a human or would it be something else? "Have you been ill before?"

"Ill?" his eyes widen as his mouth hangs open slightly. He teeters now, no longer so unnaturally poised, and flicks his eyes to the ground. "No," he continues in a muted tone. "I've not been ill before. I... suppose that's inevitable."

His voice trails off, and he is silent for a moment. Inwardly, the realization that he has more than injury to fear chills him. "Before... the Change, I was able to run my own diagnostic to self-check my systems. I was incapable of feeling pain, of becoming diseased or infected..."

TEST DRIVE MEME!

ii. kirkwall/gallows

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