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, where the Chantry, aided by the Inquisition, marshalling Orlais and the faithful of Southern Thedas into a new Exalted March against 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.

You're part of (or allied with, recently hired by, imprisoned by, etc.) a new organization that's an offshoot of the Inquisition, dubbed Riftwatch, that consists mainly of the otherworldly new arrivals, rebels and Wardens, and other people who want to prevent the apocalypse without necessarily marching under the Chantry's banner to do it. Their headquarters is an island fortress called the Gallows—formerly a Circle of Magi, more formerly a prison for slaves, but its new occupants have done a good job removing the more grotesque reminders of that past and making the place livable.

Maybe you're here because you want to help. Maybe you need the money (though there isn't much of it). Maybe you acquired an anchor and sticking around is the only way to prevent your hand from falling off. Maybe you've been sent by the Chantry or some other entity to keep an eye on everyone—they're rumored to be a lot of weirdos and troublemakers. Or maybe you're a new rifter and just going where the nice people with swords tell you that you need to go.

I. KIRKWALL: Even when enormous evil darkspawn are trying to take over the known world and you and your colleagues might be the only ones who can truly stop him, you can't work all the time. And when you aren't working, Kirkwall is there for you with its dingy Lowtown taverns, its flashy Hightown establishments, its market stalls and street musicians and cellars hosting gamblers. (Or maybe you can work all the time, and you're in the city to do some official shopping, try to spy on a suspicious character, or show a potential financial backer a good time.)

II. THE PLANASCENE FOREST: West of Kirkwall lies the Planascene forest. As far as enormous, ancient forests go, it's fairly small, but still large enough to disappear in if you aren't careful. And someone hasn't been careful. A merchant en route to deliver raw materials to the Gallows has gone missing somewhere on the road, and you're one of the lucky short-straw-drawers sent to find them. Or whatever is left of them. There are Dalish in the woods—mean ones, rumor has it—as well as Thedas' typical unnaturally aggressive wolves and bears, steep drops and hidden traps left behind by hunters, and at least one group of vicious bandits.

III. THE DEEP ROADS: The ground beneath Thedas is threaded with cavernous ancient roads, once used by the dwarves to traverse the continent, now largely abandoned by anyone except roving bands of darkspawn. Unfortunately for everyone, this abandonment and inhospitality make them an excellent way to travel unnoticed beneath everyone else's feet, which is why you're currently engaged in a skirmish with a gang of snarling, corrupted genlocks, or trying to cross a narrow stone bridge without thinking about how bottomless the dark beneath it seems to be.

IV. SEND A MESSAGE: Each member of Riftwatch (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 bloody frontlines of the war, Thedas is yours to explore.

Comments

crystals;

[revise]

Have you considered looking in the infirmary?

crystals;

[hemitheoi]

The stink of magic is all over that place.

[revise]

Then you had best get moving. It's quite the walk to Tantervale.

[hemitheoi]

I don't have time for your offence. Are you going to help or not?

[revise]

[A pause, in which a tone is checked and grudgingly revised.]

What kind of affliction needs mending?

[hemitheoi]

A wound. To the chest.

[revise]

[Squint.]

How severe is it?

[hemitheoi]

I am still speaking, aren't I?

[ One day the need to say what he actually needs will outweigh the need to spout off witty one-liners.

But this is not that day. ]

But I am going to run out of bandages, eventually.

[revise]

[Still speaking, still in possession of the will to be particular, she thinks and does not say.]

I'm afraid I can't help you. I meet none of the requirements. But [there's always a but, isn't there?] if you tell me where you're bleeding through all these bandages, I can see to it that someone hurries in your direction.

[hemitheoi]

Why not?

[revise]

[Bluntly, like he's asked a stupid question but she's trying not to be sharp:]

I'm not a healer. And I stink of magic.

[hemitheoi]

Ah, so you answered because I hurt your delicate magical feelings, is it? I will never understand you all.

Southerners. [ UGH. ]

[revise]

More or less. [Equally blasé.]

[hemitheoi]

Then what even is your purpose?

[revise]

[To give stubborn children direction.]

To encourage others to be self sufficient, I suppose. Did you care to send your whereabouts so I can take a healer to you, or will the bandages hold after all?

Waves hands over address

[hemitheoi]

[ And here's the part that makes it better and worse, quite probably. ]

The Qunari delegations quarters.

[revise]

[Who can say. It certainly doesn't reflect in the even quality of her response. Still, it's all a far cry from that first arch call out, isn't it?]

I'll see who can be tracked down.

[hemitheoi]

Good.

[ Just in case she was thinking there might a thank-you. ]

[revise]

[So to the Qunari delegation quarters she goes. It's in the company of some fresh faced physician idealistic enough to have not refused the work outright once explained and with a basket on one arm. She spends the entirety of the trip over picking loose threads from the young doctor's shirt. Who dressed you like this? Is this a Rifwatch issued shirt? Look at this cuff; if you wear it any further, it may come away from the sleeve.

Suffice to say, the pair of then paint quite the unimpressive picture at the doorway. He is some tall narrow rail of a young man and she falls entirely in his shadow - small even in her belted hip length coat with its patterned collar and lapels. She is all greys and limpid greens and she is tapping absently on the basket with her fingers, a minor clack clack of fingernails there which stop abruptly as the door opens.]

Messere chest wound, I presume?

[hemitheoi]

[ And when Deimos opens the door, he doubles over the pair of them easily. All seven-foot and slate grey skin and horns. Bare-chested, and yes, wounded. A pile of at moderately clean rags in his hand, held over a wound running across his could and down. Mopping up the blood as best he can for the time being. It isn't serious, not now, but it will be if it goes unattended for much longer. ]

The mage, I take it? And - [ he jerks his head at the cowering young man who apparently just realised what he volunteered for.

And what is currently scowling at him like he can't tell if he means to eat him or not. ] - whose this whelp?

[revise]

[He is quite tall. She has to tip her face slightly up to meet his eye properly rather than simply facing the wound. It should be intimidating - the combination with the general width of him, and the blood, and the horns, and the qunariness of it all (Did you know that in the Qun they keep their mages on chain leashes and they may never be left alone, not even in sleep?), and her shrinking companion -, but she has decided ahead of time that she doesn't mean to be frightened by the sort of person who is particular to how he keeps his blood inside of him and so she is not.

Mostly not. She can convince herself to ignore it.]

He is a seamstress. [A small noise of protest from the young man follows.] Would you see us in, or would you rather be stitched up here on the doorstep?

[hemitheoi]

[ He does not answer immediately, as he looks them both up and down, every bit. Like he could taste any deceit if he stared them down long enough.

Or the pain was really starting to fog his mind, neither way showed on his face much. His brow creased and he grunted as he stepped away, fine, as she wished. There was no ceremony here, or at least not one cared about at this particular moment.

The edge of the bed would do. Though as they step through, they are not alone. Another Qunari stood by the small desk they had been provided with. Deimos nodded at him, the once was enough for the man to take his leave. In so much as he takes his position by the door.

With that done, Deimos sat on the edge of the bed frame, the beds here were ridiculously small for one his size, but so were doors, chairs, tables. They didn't break yet, so there was that going for them. A hand fisted on his knee as he sat stock stiff with a straight back, the hard line of a soldier first and foremost as if the leftover scars of many cauterised wounds weren't hinting as it was.

Or perhaps it was the sword at his side, clanking against the wood as he slowly moves his hand away to expose the gash. Open, red and raw, a steady trickle of blood. ]

Proceed.

[revise]

[At the revelation of the wound, the woman who had ushered the young doctor in past the watching eyes of the second Qunari at once becomes assistant rather than leader. The boy nervously asks for things from the basket under her arm and she simply produces them: the cleansing rub first, and then the cloth and waterskin. He hesitates--]

I'm certain he won't mind you touching him. [To Messere Chest Wound:] Brace yourself; I believe it may sting.

[hemitheoi]

[ He almost, almost laughs. Looking from her face to her terrified attendant with near bemused expression. Eyebrow lifting at the nervousness. ]

I don't bite. Unless you ask me too. [ If that's a joke, nothing changes in his expression. ] And I assure you, you can't hurt me enough to make me aroused, let alone for me to strike you for doing what you're supposed to. [ He rolls his shoulders back, hands bracing beside the bed, fingers curling around the bed frame. ] Now get on with it.

[revise]

I would prefer not to discuss your sexual proclivities.

[Is the terse, nipping response to that. But she gives the young doctor an encouraging nod and he gets to work - first with the stinging solution, and then with the lukewarm water and cloth until the split edges of the dark skin and a majority of the dried blood has been cleaned away.

Miriam plucks the pink stained cloth back when he's finished with it, wringing it out there on the stone floor before folding and replacing it into the basket.

Next come the sturdy surgeon's needle and the coiled catgut, of course.]