Test Drive Meme!

[faderifting]

New Year...

...Same Old 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, the first days of the new year find 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.

STILL WITH ADDED SNOW.

1. SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT

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 still snowy.

2. WE TWO HAVE RUN ABOUT THE SLOPES

Farmers have been forced to abandon their homes after a series of vicious attacks by wolves. Packs of them are roaming the foothills and stalking paddocks and even roads seemingly without the usual wariness of humans. Inquisition agents and local volunteers guard travelers through the affected region, hunt the wolves through snowy woods, and track them back to their cavernous lair in the edge of a canyon. Only eliminating the demons that lurk there will free the wolves from their influence and allow the area to return to normal.

3. AND PICKED THE DAISIES FINE

Winter snows freeze and bury the ground, but the need for healing herbs is as great as ever. Stockpiles are thin after the chaos of the last year, and Corporal Vale is desperate enough to send people out to search caves and hollows and cliffsides and beneath overhangs for any plants still clinging to life. The weather is brutal, the search tedious, the footing often treacherous, but that last patch of Crystal Grace could be a key find. Getting it requires clambering up a slippery hillside and stretching up to a ledge and hoping whatever creature lives in that foxhole beside the plant isn't at home, but it's worth it, right?

4. WE TWO HAVE PADDLED IN THE STREAM

With many roads through the hills and ravines blocked by deep snow, some crazy, desperate few have begun traveling by river. The ice is thick and jagged along the shores but in the center the water rushes, just deep enough for a shallow draft boat lightly laden. Supplies are carried down from the passes toward Redcliffe this way, a white-knuckle process that you, for some reason, have become involved in. Maybe you were hired to help fend off the bandits that haunt the calm shallows and try to demand tolls for passage, maybe you're paying your way downstream by helping port both boat and cargo around the steep falls, the mist so thick and cold it coats whatever it touches in a thin sheen of ice. Maybe riding a glorified canoe through rocky rapids and narrow gorges just sounded like a good time. Don't rock the boat!

5. WE'LL TAKE A CUP OF KINDNESS YET

It is still snowing, and the tavern in Redcliffe is still the closest and warmest place to duck into to wait it out, and not only is it packed to the gills but it seems that the First Day celebrations have continued within long past the dawn of the second day. 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 Fereldans they can't bring their dogs inside, every few minutes the group in the corner breaks into a traditional First Day song that will be stuck in your head for weeks, 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.

6. 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

we are a winning team

[fightingale]

Oh, but it was nice, the emptiness. It allowed for a more intimate setting, for conversation to be more private than it can ever truly be in a room full of ears. You could never tell which were drunk, disinterest, and which came with malicious intent - and failing that there was curiosity, which could be just as bad. (Perhaps, she sometimes thinks, Marjolaine was right after all. They are much the same, for all that the Warden had tried to assure her otherwise.) Leliana thinks to comment on how much she appreciates the space, but she is not quite the girl she was when first she met the golem.

"Very prudent advice," she admits, "though I spoke metaphorically. I wanted to express that it is a pleasure to see you again, stone sister."

You see, Shale? She still cannot be dissuaded. "What brings you to us? Not rumours of excessive pigeons, I hope."

sorry for my slow ;u;

[fightingale]

( Stoneskin. The gravelly sound of it sparks memories, ones that she would sooner not have, at this moment. Leliana's problem was, so often, that she felt too much and too keenly, and she has been forcing it all into submission by degrees. Wynne had her protective spells during battle, drew on the very earth and healed them, got them through each battle. Shale was a golem, so the connection was hardly difficult. Stone invokes memories of Ozammar, of lying in the dirt, of so many things, and there are none of them able to be acknowledged, in this moment. Now she fights, and later she can light a candle at the Chantry to honour Wynne.

And if not for the dragon, the memories would still be pressed back, for this is a stranger and a mage, for all that she is casting magic to aid her. Assessments were necessary before trust could be granted. She barely casts the woman a glance, not when she is bringing a flaming arrow up and training her sights on the dragon once again. One arrow, and another, and she leaps from the wagon, to draw the creature away from her charges. The magic has allowed her to have a little more daring, more recklessness than might have been wise, in other circumstances.

The dragon stumbles with another arrow, but it is still not enough. ) Do you cast offensive spells?

( Called to her new company, Orlesian accent a little harsher with the urgency of her yell. Offensive was a word that, in the past, she would have applied to more elements of Morrigan than simply her spells... but she was helpful in a fight, for all their differences. She had yet to see what this new mage would be like. )

[gatheringstorm]

Well, that's...different. Korrin's seen golems before, but not up close and not without a control rod. Despite being a little unnerved, thanks to the feathers and blood, her lips twitch at that last part. "Sometimes, but Chantry folk really hate it when I speak about Andraste's, so there's more appeal in that."

Yeah, it's immature. So sue her. "So you're responsible for the avian massacre, huh? What did they ever do to you?"

[fleurdesel]

"I am not your sister, Ser." Low and wry and habitual; more often written than spoken but no less sarcastic for it's writing- but that she's called such, that she replies in kind, that the bear is gone and she can listen and hear that name she hasn't been called in at least a year-

"...Tonton?" He'd been missing- or so the rumor went. Letters had gone unanswered for too long even for his forgetful self.

[forgottensavior]

Oh no. Not now. There is the sharp pain Celinie knows too well that comes with an almost nauseating wave of lightheadedness and disorientation. A rush of sound in her ears as the Echo triggers. The Qunari's question goes unheard as her "gift" takes hold.

In a hazy view, she sees Korrin with others on a snowy ledge, looking at half-dressed, half-starved people in cages. They're guarded by men with red crystals growing on and out of their bodies. It is terrible to behold. More horrible, the discussion that ensues that they cannot rescue the captives alone and must leave them behind for reinforcements.

As suddenly as the vision starts, it ends, leaving the poor Elezen staggering to remain on her feet. Her worry isn't as much for herself as what she's seen. Celinie doesn't like revealing that she has the Echo, but she cannot cannot refrain from asking. She must.

"Those people in the cages. Were they saved?" Gods be good, please let them have been spared.

no no! this is great! Leliana is <3

[forgottensavior]

[Ah that question. Celinie knows how to call upon the wind to inflict little bleeding cuts, how to pull up chunks of the earth to inflict bruising. She knows, but she just can't. She cannot bring herself to harm anything, not anymore. She'd promised to be true to peace, then run off to aid in the war, thinking such measures were justified, that she was bringing about peace. Only to watch everything and everyone she loved crushed, killed, stripped away, demolished. To be left alive with her guilt and shame, that was her punishment, and well she deserved it.

No, she couldn't manage an offensive spell anymore. She can't even drum up the strength of will to fight back for her own defense.

Heartbroken that she'll prove so little aid, Celinie shakes her head.]

I cannot. I can try to put it to sleep should you wish to flee. Else, I will not let you fall.

[Unusual mage though she probably seems, armed with a leafy twig for a weapon.]

omg 8D thank you!

[make_my_mark]

Lara. [Said on an exhale. Resignation. Determination, as she made her decision and set her course. She shifted in the chair slightly, leaning toward the table, her eyes set on the other woman.

Steady, Lara.]

Where am I? And how did I get here?

[If this wasn't a dream - some long delayed break from reality after all the stress (and repeated blows to the head) over the past two years - that was the first thing she needed.

One goal, one step, at a time. Any journey could be made that way.]

[lastoftheredwings]

Huh?

[It takes Ceodore a minute to realize that he's just been given an ale. Another split second to realize it means he's being treated like an adult. And he likes that. A delighted smile lights up his face.]

Thanks!

[He looks up, really really up, to see who his surprise benefactor is and blinks. That lady has horns.]

Are you an Eidolon?

[Ah Ceodore, speak first, think after.]

[ombranera]

[ It is easier to focus on the task at hand, the removal of talons than it is to speak or consider the twist of sentiment that bound together their merry little band. They were not all often friendly and were not all often kind- but it does something to people that live through what they lived, that shouldered the burden of saving the world together and survived to tell the tale of it.

Wynne survived. Wynne had more time than any of them expected- Zevran supposes she might have had as long as she liked.

Being here without her...it feels more than strange. It feels wrong. ]

I sent her a carving of her likeness, once- I do not recall where I found it but she was certainly not amused with the ample cut of her bosom.

1

[ombranera]

Not a suicidal bear, no, but an elf. A painted elf that flitted from tree to tree, peering into the distance to check the status of the bears in the wood. He had become sidetracked by a rather peculiar path in the snow and to come upon it's source- well.

Golems were not something one saw often on the surface. He had not seen one in roughly a decade.

The fact that there was no master with it's control rod wandering about anywhere around narrowed the possible list of 'many' to 'singular' in short order. "...Shale?"

[ferrushomimus]

"Well yes, it would make it difficult for you to marry me if you're my sister." Was the automatic reply, before he grinned broadly and he went to hug her so tightly that he was lifting her up off the ground.

"You are Alive! I am so Maker be Damned Happy! I can't believe you're here and you made it and ... You two." He put her down, to glower at the two Scouts who were running up with swords, and bottle of wine, in hand. He reached over and grabbed his wine away from the scout. "You did not save me from a bear. You do not get wine."

He then handed the bottle over to Adele. "She's amazing. She gets wine."

[gatheringstorm]

About to ask again, Korrin stops and stares as Celinie asks that question instead. Her face goes blank with shock, though she snaps out of it enough to prevent her companion from taking a tumble, offering her support. She hesitates a moment, but finally nods.

"Some of them. We're going back for the rest soon. How...how did you do that?"

[fleurdesel]

She locks up tight against the embrace- too shocked by the fact that it's him, that he's here to be overwrought but the sudden surge of contact. Or the lifting. There is lifting going on and her brain shorts out a moment until she's back on her feet and stumbling-

Knowing Anthony is much like knowing a hurricane. You often end up dizzy.

"Yes, I survived the spire- but where have you been?" She combs her hair out of her eyes, blinking at him and the scouts and at him and he's here and there's something-

Off. Something off she can't place. He'd been missing, he had to have been missing. "If that is Ferelden I am dissolving the betrothal."

That wasn't so much as a betrothal any longer but a joke; any formal attempts at a union had ceased when her magic manifested. But details like that are for other people, not for Anthony.

[gatheringstorm]

Compliments of the booze fairy.

[Korrin smirks and lifts her flagon to take a sip, but pauses upon being asked that.]

A...oh wait, those are the things Kain told me about. No, I'm not one of those. I'm a Vashoth. People also say qunari, but that's not strictly speaking true. I won't throw a fit if you forget, though. You're from his world, then?

[It seems a slim chance that they'd know each other even so, but Korrin will try nonetheless.]

[maladgogo]

The shivers are still happening, visibly, hard enough to jostle the snow from Guy's dreadlocks, but rather than squinting up at Shale, he's looking around the area a little more closely.

"You said 'Hinterlands' right?" he asked slowly, just hoping to confirm what he already knew. "N' you said there's a fuckin' village near here. 'd that be Redcliffe?" He turned that suspicious gaze back on Shale, then reached up and brushed a little more of the snow off the golem's stone shoulders, hopping up to do the same to his head, then backing up in case they got the idea to sock him in the gut for touching him at all. "Th'fuck...whatchoo doin' all the way out here in the middle'a the fuckin' hills, bro? Actually no nevermind, can you be motherfuckin' pointin' me to the village 'fore I catch my death?"

[ferrushomimus]

Which is why he needs someone as calm and steady as Adelaide in his life. He is beaming at her and then glowering at the scouts. "You two. Go back to my camp. Get a fire started. Yeah, I'm ordering you. Go go go!"

Yeah, Tony's just that guy who can yell at people and they do things without thinking. It's a gift.

Mostly because it gives him a few minutes with one of his oldest friends, and he's ... got to be easy about this or she was going to freak out. "...Okay, Addy, I need you to stay calm, all right? It's a long story, and I'll tell you all of it. Remember my last letter? I was heading off to Kirkwall, to talk to that Bianca? Best smith of her dwarven generation, blah blah? Well ... I was kidnapped on my way there. By Gaspard and his goons."

you're welcome ;u;

[fightingale]

( Reaching into a pocket concealed in the lining of her clothes, Leliana draws out a map. The parchment has been folded and unfolded many times and along exactly the same lines, the brown, green and blue inkwork much faded. Smoothing out the map on the table, she indicates Redcliffe. ) Here.

( And then leaning back to observe, to allow Lara a modicum of space and herself room for analysis. )

Presently, you sit in the village of Redcliffe, on the shores of Lake Calenhad and in the western hills of Ferelden, an area many here will call the Hinterlands. Ferelden is but one kingdom among many, and these realms come together to make Thedas.

( A moment, but just a moment, to see if she is following. ) This is not your world, Lara. You arrived through a rift, though that is a matter more complex than I would care to discuss in such a venue as this.

[twelvelabours]

( Serenity suits her better, and yet he isn't going to imagine he's off thin ice, yet.

In the meantime, he doesn't interrupt, just makes a face at Max who whines back, before barking happily as the poultice is completed, and pulls the top of the water skin so he can take a sip. He's learned not to drink too fast when he's feeling rough, over the years. It'd seem smart, if it weren't also an indicator of how many times he's been in a rough state. )

Thanks. ( The cloak is a relief, even if he still winces a little at the pain, and hauls himself up. She'd had to do enough, without literally dragging his sorry arse about. ) Allow me to escort you back to camp?

( just the barest hint of self-deprecation, mixed up in humour and fine manners. )

[fleurdesel]

"...Every time you open with 'I need you to stay calm' the story invariably contains scandal, explosions, and some way for you to make it partly my fault." Thus it has ever been, even if only through letters. 'No I won't take that match, I have a bride in the Spire' has been a common refrain for years. Nevermind that her own family quietly ceased any attempts at matchmaking and that only served to strengthen his resolve to remain a bachelor by using her as a beard. "Yes, I remember."

It arrived shortly before the first body was found. It'd been-

Well. Something.

"...For the civil war." Anyone with Stark Armaments would turn the tide.

[ungovernable]

( the lofty arch of her brow suits her better, too-- )

It is the least you might do, Warden.

( for all that it'll be her staff protecting his sorry arse if it comes to that, probably - but they aren't far from the nearest inquisition camp, and she thinks - hopes - they'll make it there without further incident. it's a rarity enough that she should venture out of it in the hinterlands, unaccompanied; she's bold enough, but not a fool.

she is far from home, and far from what she knows best. dangerous, yes, but untested in the situations she dances through now. the council wrangling and library inventory is a touch more her speed, usually--

except you can't tell benevenuta she can't do something. she'll only die trying to prove you wrong. )

Hiccup Stoicson | Native AU

[dragondowner]

1. The literal worst Avvar
"This is fine, great even," Hiccup complained loudly, to himself, as he scrambled up a narrow ledge and flattened back against it. Were he any more stout than a filleted cod, he might not have fit on the impossibly thin outcropping of rock. Fortunately, (sort of) Hiccup was not a striking figure; he was rail thin, pale as winter snow, and appeared to be comprised almost entirely out of knees and elbows. It wasn't a look that endeared him to the ladies but, thankfully, it did enable him to scurry up near vertical surfaces with the agility of a mountain goat or giant spider.

And scurry up that sheer rock-face he had.

"You won't need a sword in the lowlands, they said, it's much less dangerous there, they said," he added, a thick affected accent drenching his words in sarcasm. Below him but not, frankly, "below" enough for his tastes, a great bear roared at the rockface. Its huge claws, each bigger around than any one of his limbs, scraped violently at the granite and Hiccup tried to flatten himself into the rock. The rock was not being particularly accommodating. Above him, by a ledge or two, a pair of rams stared at him, dead-eyed and unsympathetic.

One bleated, perhaps mocking his terrible predicament. The lowlands were great.

"At least the weather's nice," he added, his voice a touch manic. To his credit, he managed not to actually scream when the great bear tried jumping to reach him, but it was a near thing. Okay so he screamed a little--but only a little.

Okay it was a lot.

4. And now with the sinking--
Hiccup felt that he was a reasonable sort of person and even though they'd laughed when he offered to man one of the boats, he'd still agreed to do it. Sure, it was the fastest way to the lowlands and, sure, he really didn't want to walk, but that wasn't why he agreed. He wasn't the strongest or the most impressive looking person, and he'd probably seen Dalish elves who looked more like Avvar than he did, but he was still a highlander and, Korth's Wrath, he wasn't just going to let some Ferelden drown trying to take an icy highland river alone.

At least they looked Ferelden, but that assessment was worth about as much as him in a fistfight.

"So, the key here is trying not to die," Hiccup announced in a tone that was shooting for "firm" and ended up somewhere near "laughable" as his voice cracked in the middle. He swung his arms to compensate but the whole motion just made him look a lot like the paddle he was about to pick up. "Right, I'll take the front and you can...uh, take the back? Or whatever you want to do."

"The not dying is the important part."

5. You can't contain all of this--this--Raw Avvar Power
He was soaking wet.

This is what he got for rafting with Lowlanders. Really, it served him right, and even he couldn't find it in himself to complain...well...not more than a little bit. He'd kept it to angry muttering, at least, even as the snow and damp started freezing his furs to his skin. The tavern was a welcome sight and, once he'd spotted the little hanging animal sign that lowlanders liked to mark taverns with, he basically made a wyrmline for the hearth. Well, he tried. Unfortunately, getting from the door to the fire was proving to be a much more trying task than rafting down from the highlands in winter.

"Excuse me--yes, I need to--no, no--nice doggy--can I just--"

Hiccup was not good at confrontation. So, almost immediately, his wyrmline became a sort of terrified-nug-shuffle as he was jostled, bodily, back and forth across the room. His vague zig-zag course, though ridiculously inefficient, was actually making progress toward the fire. If he was shuffled around the room for another quarter-hour or so, well, he might be at the hearth.

So, that was something.

6. Wildcard! Have at.

1. Two teenagers and a vicious bear walk into the Hinterlands...

[lastoftheredwings]

Not too far away from where Hiccup is having a near-miss with the bear's claws, another teenager is likewise engaged in some dubious climbing activities. Just because Ceodore's managed to scale a cliff face without killing himself once (barely), doesn't quite mean he's now an expert at hauling himself up wet, cold rock to grab at plants. But he'll most certainly try. At least, until he hears the screaming.

That's worrisome and forgetting about the maybe herb sticking out of the rock several feet above himself, he slides down to the ground. Got some scraped hands for that rash movement too, but at least he's on his feet and now able to sprint the general direction of Hiccup's verbal distress.

Not considering that it's a bear taking a swipe at the other guy, Ceodore pulls out a sword and rushes the creature. He too is brutally pale, with floofy blond hair that refuses to lay down properly. But at least he's got plate armor and a blade, and not the focus of the bear's attention. He's got at least enough presence of mind to stab the furry one in the backside, hard, before it has a chance to swipe him in retaliation.

"Hey! You okay?!" Just because the knightling doesn't see blood doesn't mean the guy treed, err cliffed, isn't wounded.

1.

[middle_of_calibrating]

Definitely a lot. At least enough to scare off the doe he had been aiming for, which had spent a good hour tracking and then another just chasing it. Still as miffed as he was at his game getting scared off, he still went to see what or rather who was screaming; sounded like trouble.

Seeing as there had only been one scream to go off of, it was a wonder that Garris even found the cliff, raising a brow at the couple of rams there. He might left if it weren't for the growls and bits of roars coming from down below. Sounded like a bear. Curious to see what was up, shooing way the rams in the process, Garris peers over the edge.

If it wasn't for the fact that it was moving, Garris would have missed the white figure pressed up against the rock. "That's not exactly how you fight bears."

FUCKIT *crashes into 1*

[kremdelacreme]

Really, it was a wonder that anyone as small as Hiccup hadn't already been eaten by the local wildlife. Especially as noisy as he was.

It was fortunate that there were others in the general vicinity that had decent enough hearing to pick him out of the landscape as well, and before the bear could make another jump at him, one strong hand was closing around the back of Hiccup's shirt to pick him straight up and put him on a horizontal surface. The rams had fled, though one of them was resting on the ground slowly staining the snow red, most of its head very neatly crushed under a maul the size and shape of a wyvern's head.

"Aren't you a little far from home?" the mercenary asked after dusting some of the snow off the front of his shirt. He'd noted the design of the avvar boy's clothes, and honestly, he was about as impressed as one might expect a man to be when faced with a scrawny teenage boy.

5.

[el_tybs]

It had been the ongoing rambling that had caught his ear, even over the noise of people talking and mugs being clinked and banged around. Eventually after looking around for a bit, Sam's eyes landed on the water logged - or rather ice logged - figure shuffling around, back and forth between bodies.

He had to admit it was a bit amusing, watching as the small figure battled taller men and even a dog to make progress towards the fire. At least it did for a minute or two. After that it was becoming a bit worrisome, seeing as he was not making very good progress and the amount of water that was coming off of him from the ice melting.

Grabbing his staff, Sam makes his way over and lightly sets his hand on the boy's shoulder, blinking at just how cold he felt. "What did you do? Go swimming in the river?"