TEST DRIVE MEME

[faderifting]

TEST DRIVE MEME

While in some alternate, tidier timeline, the War against the Elder One ended years ago, you're not in that timeline. It's 9:45 and there's a war raging in northern Orlais between the Inquisition and its allies and the army of demon-bound Wardens, Red Templars, Venatori loyalists, and darkspawn Corypheus has amassed over the last four years. Rifts are still scattered across the continent, periodically spitting out strangers from strange worlds with green-glowing anchors embedded in their hands. There's no Herald of Andraste to save Thedas. Someone else is going to have to do it.

Under the leadership of the Herald's advisory council and Seeker Pentaghast, the Inquisition remains in Skyhold and manages an army of thousands. But you're not going to Skyhold. You've been assigned to the Inquisition's outpost in Kirkwall, one occupying an island fortress called the Gallows—formerly a Circle of Magi, more formerly a prison for slaves, but the Inquisition has done a good job removing the more grotesque reminders of that past and making the place livable.

Maybe it's an honor; they're doing important work. Maybe it's an insult; they're rumored to be a lot of weirdos and troublemakers. Or maybe you're a rifter and just going where the nice people with swords tell you that you need to go.

I. THE GALLOWS: Welcome to the Inquisition. Here's a broom, and there's a mess: a shattered window, a splintered pile of wood where a wardrobe was thrown out that window into the frost-encrusted courtyard, a whole shelf of jars containing rat hearts and deathroot and other miscellanea that exploded like firecrackers. The Gallows doesn't house much in the way of a cleaning staff, so it's up to whoever doesn't have anything better to do, and whether you like it or not, at the moment that person is you.

The source of the mess—an apparent invasion of ghostly spirits—has already been dealt with, but a door might still slam, and the shards of glass might still rattle. It's harmless, though. Probably.

II. KIRKWALL: The Marquis d'Lussard is very heavy, as you discover when it becomes your job to fetch him from the Hanged Man, where his sightseeing tour has ended in a drinking contest that he decidedly lost. Now he's swinging between unconsciousness and mumbled drinking songs, apparently a hugger when he has control of his arms, and heavy. He's also, diplomatically speaking, worth his weight in gold, so getting him back to the Gallows' guest quarters in one piece is worth the effort.

That means making your way through the streets of Lowtown and down to the Gallows at night, on ice-patched streets, with a masked Orlesian nobleman whose entire slumping, singing presence screams please rob me blind. Try to resist any and all urges to drop him into things, including ditches, uncovered drops into Darktown, and the harbor.

III. THE WAKING SEA: The island is too small to have a name, a dot of land off of Kirkwall's Wounded Coast that's traditionally only seen use by fishermen who wanted a guarantee they wouldn't be hassled for a few days. But in more recent years, it's been a permanent home to someone, people say, until the last few months, when the nightly fires stopped appearing. Nervous whispers from the coastal bandits and explorers who ventured out to see if its resident left anything worth stealing have reached the ears of Provisional Viscount Bran Cavin, and as a personal favor to him, the Inquisition is sending a couple of people to have a look.

And here's what you're looking at: a rocky, sandy stretch of land with a few dozen scraggly trees, each of them decorated with dolls in various styles, in various states of decay. All of them give off energy—some friendly, some malevolent, some despairing—and if you're very quiet, it's possible they whisper. Or maybe that's the wind through the masts of a nearby shipwreck. Either way, they're definitely home to bound spirits, and probably more than one spider.

There are more in the wooden hut at the island's center, which is also where the bones and tattered robes of the island's former occupant can be found. (There's no sign of blood magic or ill intent. Just a lot of dolls. Everyone needs a hobby.) Box them, burn them, have a funeral or don't. As long as someone can tell the Viscount that he doesn't have to add an island of possessed dolls to Kirkwall's list of tourist attractions/nightmare fuel, the mission will be a success.

IV. SEND A MESSAGE: Each member of the Inquisition (or rifter, or ally) is assigned a blue crystal, small enough to wear around the neck, that can transmit voice messages, as well as an enchanted book tied to that crystal that can be used to exchange written messages. They're secure enough to discuss the war, if you'd like to get down to business, but loosely controlled enough to ask a question or play a game with only a few rolled eyes from people who hate fun.

V. WILDCARD: From the Gallows' library to the pirate islands off the coast, from Hightown's high-priced market stalls to the frostbitten frontlines of the war, Thedas is yours to explore.

Comments

[rathercommon]

"Well," she says, "given that I'm not going to gulp down my drink and get blisters all down my throat - " Unlike some people - "I'm going to be here a few more moments. So - why don't you go and find something?"

He's not going to run off; she's sure of that. And she could take a few moments to herself to try to sort through all that he's just told her. Because - her, doing summonings...So giving him something to do might be good, at least for a little while.

[reshapes]

He all but tosses the empty bowl aside. In an instant, the boy is on his feet and dusting his hands of the comfort of the hearth.

"That suits me just fine. Meet you at-- you, where's the closest room for rent?" This, to her burly tattooed neighbor. "In an hour?"

[rathercommon]

Kitty opens her mouth to protest that maybe a burly half-drunk tattooed sailor isn't the best source for this sort of thing, especially when you've just addressed him quite rudely as you - but he responds to Bartimaeus in a voice that's quite civil, saying, "Two doors down that way. Sign of the frog at the crossroads. Clean rooms for a good price."

"Oh - thank you," Kitty says, a little unsteady, and then looks to Bartimaeus with a small shrug. She does realize now, thinking about it, that sending him off on his own might not be the best idea; the demon is proving to have very little in terms of common sense, and he definitely just bolted more alcohol. Some drunk, foreign-looking kid staggering around demanding charcoal...But what business is it of hers? She's not his minder. She's -

She sighs. "Give me another minute and I'll come with you. All right? Just one more minute to warm up a bit."

[reshapes]

The boy shoots her a skeptical look, just this side of a proper lip curl.

"And have you slow me down? Don't be ridiculous. But I tel you what, if you're in that much of a hurry, let's make it the Frog in a half hour." He holds his open hand out to her, palm up and expectant. "Lend me a copper or two."

[rathercommon]

"You'll - "

Honestly, Kitty, he's a thousands-year-old demon. Why are you fussing? So she sighs, and fishes in her pocket for a few coppers. She drops them into his expectant palm.

"Just - be careful, won't you?"

[reshapes]

"Your concern is noted," he says, somewhere between rank sarcasm and an attempting an illusion of sincerity. After all, there's nothing to say she wouldn't simply fail to meet him. And then where will you be, Bartimaeus? You should have taken her up on her offer! Wouldn't it have been better to keep an eye on the girl to make sure she didn't scuttle away into some dark corner?

Oh well. Too late now.

The coins are pocketed alongside the ones he stole from her earlier on the stairs. "See you soon," he reinforces, and then is pushing through the crowded public house and is gone.

[rathercommon]

She finds the meal doesn't sit well. She's certain at just about every moment that Bartimaeus is off transforming in front of the wrong people, that they're murdering him for his demonic nature as she sits sipping cocoa... She's up from her seat within fifteen minutes, at the frog-and-crossroads within twenty - which leaves her with ten regrettable minutes to shiver and fret.

He is a demon. At the end of the day. Fretting makes no sense. But he's also a good, helpful demon who just saved her life, and not for the first time...

She sighs and runs her hands through her hair.

[reshapes]

A no doubt grand adventure happens off screen, the finale of which is Bartimaeus showing up five minutes early - "Hey now, aren't you enthusiastic!" he says at the sight of her - wrapped in a nondescript new cloak with a pocket of pressed chalk.

They buy a room. The landlord asks them if they need any unmentionables. Somehow, neither of their skeletons leave their bodies at the suggestion and in ten quick minutes, they're clearing all the furniture in the room away to the walls. Bartimaeus stacks the side table on the bed for good measure. The cloak, evidently not a figment of his essence, is thrown over the chair in the corner.

"--as I was saying, it's really a very simple recitation. Summoning is difficult, but getting rid of us? It's in everyone's best interests to get that over with as quickly as possible. How well can you draw?"

[rathercommon]

A shrug. Kitty finds herself in a very poor mood - because she's embarrassed to have worried so much, and because the innkeeper's question was just so - so - ugh. So her response is a terse - "Tolerably."

She lets out a sigh and tries to force her crabbiness away. "Have I got to draw it, or could you do it for me?"

[reshapes]

Hopefully Kitty isn't the type to resent a good mood when she's in a bad one, because her company is practically whistling as they strip back the paper thin rug from the floorboards. Him! Draw the pentacles! Oh she's the same girl as the one who summoned him all those weeks ago all right. What a stupid thing to trust a spirit with; anyone else would break into hives at the mere thought.

"I can do most of it. You'll just have to close the lines."

With a toothy grin and showman's flourish, Bartimaeus produces two pieces of chalk. He passes her one, then sets to marking out the guidelines for the first pentacle's most interior circles and symbols.

[rathercommon]

She studies the drawings as he makes them, frowning slightly in concentration. There's clearly some meaning to it, some purpose - she can tell that from the way he moves. And - well, there are patterns, aren't there? She can see that symbol being repeated - there, and there, mirrored in both circles...And there's a consistency to the angles. They seem precise and deliberately chosen.

"Why are we drawing circles, anyway? What's the point of that?"

[reshapes]

"What's the point--" The movement of his hand pauses, bewildered, before the arc of his arm continues. He doesn't look up, but it's a near thing. "Do you even hear yourself? Have you never seen summoning pentacles before? You need this band here for protection and these runes here are--" No. With a wrinkle of his nose, Bartimaeus resumes the single-minded mark making.

"Look, it isn't important. You aren't a magician, remember? Now close those lines there and there, then draw the star here like so--"

Why are we drawing circles? Honestly. And this is the girl who later summons him on her very first try! How embarrassing.

[rathercommon]

Kitty gestures impatiently. "First off, of course I've never seen summoning pentacles before. And second - I'm not asking what the runes and bands and all that are for. I'm asking why they're needed at all."

She studies him then, frowning. There's absolutely no chance that this is going to work - but it strikes her, suddenly, that also, it might. And if it does, then what? Back home, she'd been trying to think of ways to get in touch with Bartimaeus again, and - well, that must have been her solution; learn magic. Well, here he is, in front of her, with everything he knows and all his history and experience, and she might be about to just send him away again.

Not that it matters. Not really. She's not going home again. That much has been made clear. Any knowledge she gains here isn't something she can use to affect things back home. So it doesn't really matter. But. She chews on her lip a moment - then does as he says, and draws the circle according to his directions.

[reshapes]

"It's just-- they just are. You can't just tell at the air 'Hey spirits, come on over! The kettle's on!' and make us appear here. You have to open a gateway for us to travel through. Pentacles are the popular means because they're quick, relatively easy, and don't require any real work on the part of the magician. Great for lazy old sods who don't want to do any of the heavy lifting involved with traversing the planes." His hand is moving all the while, sketching the outlines of runes and the beginning and end marks for lines that he directs her to fill. There's no reason to share any of this, of course. He should instruct her to shut her mouth and do as she's told, hold the back chat, and can't you see he needs to concentrate? Because never tell a magician - even and maybe especially one who insists she isn't anything of the sort - more than you have to.

But really, what's the worst that could happen? She might learn a thing or two about pentacles, but it's not like she knows the words to summon him back with once he goes. And who doesn't like to hear themselves talk about a subject they know everything about and despise? And do you know how long it's been since he could talk about any of this at all? He'll tell you what, it's been a real trial being the only person in the room with any context for anything.

So chat he does.

[rathercommon]

And listen she does. "What's that mean? Traversing the other planes?" Because with her experience in the Fade - with being pulled here in the first place - that's an interesting prospect. Can you enter the home of spirits, the way she walked in the Fade? Is it similar? She hopes not. Awful place, the Fade.

"And how d'you get there, to other planes?"

She finds, incidentally, that her mood is improving considerable now that he's answering her questions.

[reshapes]

"A magician opens a door from here to the Other Place-- the home of spirits like us, since I doubt anyone's told you much about that either--, they uses a spirit's name, and we have no choice but to come here. It isn't like taking a bus. You just" --jazzhands-- "manifest in the new plane. More or less. Ish. Look, the method is complicated but the means are simple. The trip between places isn't really remarkable. It's existing in this one that's the headache. Ah!"

He straightens and flicks the chalk away. It pings off the wall and disappears behind some piece of furniture. "Done."

And not a moment too soon, if the trajectory of this conversation is any indication. "How's your Aramaic? As terrible as your draftsmanship?"

[rathercommon]

She shoots him a slightly exasperated look. "I wasn't asking how you got here. I was asking how a magician might get there." But she suspects that he's going to be far, far too squirrelly to answer any more questions until she does this for him, and he's going to be too angry and disappointed when it fails, so - So, most likely, she'll never find out about it.

What will he do, when he's disappointed? Will he turn on her? She has a little silver knife strapped to her ankle. Would it be enough to ward him off? A djinni of his power? Doesn't seem likely, but her necklace had warded off Honorius...Well. She's given her word to help him, and if he gets murderous, she'll...deal with that when it happens.

"Go ahead," she sighs. "What do I say?"

[reshapes]

Thank the stars that they have every reason not to linger on any of that. It's such a uniquely useless line of inquiry, so fundamentally exasperating that they're better off ignoring it and the twinge of resentment or despondency entirely in favor of--

"I've written it down for you. You can read, can't you?" Bounding to the cloak, Bartimaeus retrieves a scrap of paper from some inside pocket. He thrusts it into Kitty's hands, then takes her by the shoulders and steers her into the smaller of the two pentacles. "Just say the words exactly as they are there."

He scampers into the larger pentacle, dusts his hands, and smooths back his hair. Stands with his feet shoulder width apart and-- "Oh. Feel free to have the cloak when I'm gone by the way." And-- "And don't forget to erase these pentacles before you go."

[rathercommon]

She opens her mouth, takes a breath - and then bites her lip and looks down. Poor Bartimaeus. It's not going to work. And if it does work - then poor her - And if it doesn't work, poor her, too, because she's going to have to deal with all of it. Even if he's not murderous, he'll be upset. And Kitty was never really good at dealing with grief.

Well. Nothing to do but try.

She whispers the words to herself twice, rehearsing the strange and unfamiliar syllables. Then, in a quiet and steady voice, she reads them out.

[reshapes]

He has been in Thedas for what feels like some time now, the rift shard nibbling away at him as a moth might a sweater. And before that, he'd faced that exhausting evening at some older, sharper Kitty Jones' less than tender mercies. And before that, he'd suffered through just a long term of uninterrupted service as he'd ever known. It's really a wonder there's anything left of him at all. He's ready to go back to where he belongs. He's ready to be done with this body. He's so very eager for it in fact that he doesn't even criticize her pronunciation. Sure, he thinks, that's close enough to count.

It should be anyway.

It isn't.

That much becomes infinitely clear in the lingering, quiet moment that follows. The room about them remains unchanged. His feet are exactly where he first put them inside the pentacle. "Your consonants aren't right at all. Say it like--" He recites the words from the page, stressing particular syllables. He snaps his fingers. Shifts where his feet are planted. "Go on."

[rathercommon]

There's pity in her look. Indeed, she pities him enough that she's able to resist the urge to say something irritable in response to being snapped at. Instead, she smooths down the paper, looks critically at the text on the page (dreadful handwriting, Bartimaeus has) to make sure she's got it all right, and then tries again.

Again, nothing.

She lowers the page and says to him, gently, "It's not going to work. The rules are different here."

[reshapes]

For a moment, the narrow boy standing in the center of the other pentacle doesn't answer her. He's remarkably quiet, mutely studying the lines of the chalked pentagram under the thin soles of his shoes, and utterly still except for the absent flexing of the hand with the rift shard buried in it. The dull green glow of it shifts between the fingers, a sickly flicker here and there in the low light of the let room. The boy's jaw sets. A muscle jumps in his cheek.

Then the blank quality of his expression clears. He straightens, all off the cuff as he dusts his hands. "Ah well. Can't blame me for trying, eh?"

With a lazy dash of his heel, Bartimaeus smears a wide streak through the center of the meticulously drawn pentacle. He wants to do it twice. A well-angled Detonation would sear a black mark across the whole floor, he thinks. But more than anything, he wants Kitty Jones to stop looking at him like that. So with an ambivalent flick of his fingers toward her pentacle-- "Well don't just stand there. That mess isn't going to clear itself away."

[rathercommon]

That's...it? He doesn't, as she'd expected, rant and rave; he doesn't tear at his hair or lunge for her throats in some last-ditch effort to free himself. He doesn't even really look all that put out. It's rather disturbing, really, just how sanguine he seems about the whole thing.

"You don't want to...try again?" She doesn't like how timid that comes out, but what can you do. "Try something else?"

[reshapes]

"What, like an Algonquin leaving ceremony? Bah. We'd be here all night. And all of tomorrow. Nevermind that you haven't the fortitude for it. Besides, out of everything I know - which I shouldn't have to tell you is considerable, but seeing as you don't know pentacles or Aramaic then maybe I do -, dismissals could be considered something of a speciality of mine. I know it when I hear it and if anything would have done the trick, that would have."

As he's been speaking, Bartimaeus has whipped the rug back to the floor and been pushing it around with his foot to rub the chalk of the larger pentacle into an unintelligible smudge. He leaves off it now, the rug a dusty pile slumped across the floorboards.

"No, and I say this quite literally, you don't have the authority to tell me to do anything. Or to go anywhere."

Which, shockingly, turns out to be a real pity. In fact, the dysphoria of it might carry him all the way through the next few minutes.

Bartimaeus takes up the cloak and whips it about himself with far more enthusiasm than he feels. For good measure and in case the strange, hollow feeling plaguing him is showing anywhere in the arrangement of this horrible guise, he rakishly tosses an edge back over one shoulder. "Well, Kitty. I can't say it's been a pleasure."

[rathercommon]

Kitty had been rather halfheartedly scrubbing at the floorboards, obscuring the symbols while doing her best not to get a great lot of splinters in her fingers from the rough floorboards. That gets her attention, though - has her looking up with her brows furrowed, caught somewhere between quizzical and disapproving.

"Hold on," she says, rising to her feet. She tries to dust the greasy chalk off her hands by scraping them against her trousers and manages to leave handprints on the backs of her thighs. "What d'you mean, it's been a pleasure? You're not leaving?"