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allthisshitisweird2016-01-01 03:35 pm
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2016-01-01 03:35 pm
Entry tags:
Test Drive Meme!
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 yourFrostback Mountainoyster, topped with snow.
2!
[Bruce glances from the patch of herbs he had been working from, looking towards the other with a questioning glance.]
What are you putting to sleep? [He hadn't exactly seen anything himself, so he's a bit lost on what she's asking.]
no subject
I thought I heard something skittering around inside.
[Ah yes, there's that litter of wild nugs romping around inside the cave. One pokes its head out and starts rooting around in the grasses.]
Forgive me, I'm not familiar with the local wildlife to know if they are prone to aggression and I'd not disturb or provoke them if I can help it.
no subject
Oh, you don't need to worry about them. [He glances back to her and manages a smile.] They're entirely harmless.
no subject
Twelve bless, they're terribly cute. What are they?
[Her hands are practically itching to pet them. Mama always hated her coming home of an evening with some newfound critter wanted for a pet.]
no subject
[He watches them as they cautiously approach closer, quirking a small smile.]
'Cute' isn't what most people would call them, though.
no subject
It isn't? Why not?
[Because she could just scoop up the whole lot of them and adopt them. There's a vague niggling that the elementals would not approve of removing an entire population of a creature from their environment because they are precious, but she's quite ignoring that for the moment.]
no subject
They're not exactly what people would think of in general terms of cute and cuddly. [Cats and dogs are cuddly. Nugs, not so much.]
no subject
[Now one of the little creatures is settled on Celinie's lap getting a petting. She's taken with them, even if most others wouldn't be. Then again, she's got a soft spot for most animals, doubly so if they're injured or abandoned.
Eventually she remembers why they're even out there in the first place. She points to the royal elfroot she'd spotted initially.]
Was that something we were looking for?
no subject
[They are pretty sweet, all things considered. They are after all absloutely harmless despite their not cute looks.
He looks in the direction where she is gesturing, quickly noticing the royal elfroot there and giving a nod to confirm her question.]
Yes--royal elfroot. That's what we need.