PARTY BANTER MEME

[faderifting]

In the Dragon Age games, as you travel Thedas with your best pals, they have a lot of short conversations about politics, the weather, butts, etc. So this is the Fade Rift equivalent, in four easy steps!

1. Imagine your characters are on a very long walk somewhere, or on a very long walk back after kicking ass, or standing guard together, or gathering herbs, or working in the library late at night, or anything else sort of boring. You can provide context if you'd like, like "[ On the way back from Antiva: ]," but it isn't mandatory.

2. Post a few different remarks your character might make—similar to TFLN, except spoken out loud and less ridiculous, maybe, or maybe not, I don’t know your life—while passing the time.

3. Tag around to reply to those general remarks or to start new/wildcard conversations! Threads should be pretty short and involve minimal action; there’s no need to turn anything into a big production. Threadjacking to create multiperson conversations is encouraged (unless someone says not to). Multiple different conversations between the same characters occurring on different days are also encouraged.

4. Gather up all of your little conversation snippets like a bouquet and keep them forever, because they’re game canon.

Comments

drags you forcibly into time machine (3)

[hassaran]

The report will be three sentences long. "Encountered enemy advance party of superior numbers, no treachery suspected. Gathered intelligence regarding Venatori counter-intelligence operatives, see attached dossiers. Returned to Gallows." And at this rate, we may cut the third. Hold a moment, I've blood in my eye.

[katabasis]

You've some on the rest of your face as well. [Helpful. But it's not like he's replete with handkerchiefs to offer her either.]

Maybe they'll have replaced us already.

[hassaran]

I'm aware. [ She manages to locate a small scrap of shirt clean enough to stop it dripping from her eyebrows without leaving worse behind. ]

If they've even noticed we're gone. Who do you think they'd choose?

trapping you in backtagland. yknow. the usual.

[katabasis]

Bastien for Scouting. [His certainty has little to do with any great faith he might or might not have in the man in question. He just knows who Byerly would advocate for.]

Rowntree for Forces if they're desperate. One of the Wardens if they're not.

[hassaran]

[ Bastien gets a nod, her pick as well. Some rare consensus, shame their presumed death is the way it comes up. ]

Rowntree's more likely than Ellis. And they'll like the idea of a mage. We should go this way, if there are any more bandits lingering we'll see them from the hill.

[katabasis]

[Sure. Right after he wrestles this quiver of bolts off this corpse.]

How's your aim?

[His draw, at present, is shit even with the mechanical advantage of the crossbow's lever. But if they're going to make their way over a hill then they might benefit with reach as well as vantage.]

[hassaran]

[ Yseult looks at her hands, flexes and clenches fingers a couple times. Some of the blood flakes off, other knuckles flood freshly red. Something twitches in her cheek when she rolls her wrists. She shrugs. ]

Not my strongest suit, but at this distance: fine. Better if we can set up in cover and pick them off.

[katabasis]

If we stay low while cresting the hill, we might not have to. A clear path forward may be just as plain as any reinforcements.

[That said, the look he gives her with the crossbow and quiver rings of skepticism. That's not what they're going to do though, is it?]

[hassaran]

[ No, that is not what they're going to do. Yseult's answering look is equally clear. ]

And let them take revenge on the village?

[ Not a chance. She slings the quiver over a shoulder and takes the bow in both arms, heading up toward the ridge, path angled toward a bristle of shrubbery at its apex, remains of some long-abandoned border hedge. ]

[katabasis]

[Flint fetches his commandeered sword from the soggy patch of grass into which it was thrust after having hacked through a half dozen bandits, and follows after her without protest.

Fair enough.]

[hassaran]

[ As they near the top of the hill she crouches to remain hidden behind it, bending lower the higher they go until she crawls the last few meters into the brush. The scrap of hedgerow is gnarled and spiny, but the twist of the trunk has left a gap at the base wide enough to accommodate them.

There is a little cluster of remaining bandits behind a larger clump of hedge at the base of the hill. One sharpens a blade while another checks gathered arrows and returns them to a quiver. Another helps wrap a bandage around his fellow's head. Yseult loads a bolt and winds the mechanism taut before lining up a shot. ]

Ready?

[katabasis]

[Having trailed after her in kind, Flint gently eases himself back up to a crouch behind the imperfect shield of the most dense part of their cover. The gentle rustle of dead leaves and brambly fingers of the brush is more or less in keeping with the soft click-click crank of the crossbow's draw. He's slower to move than she is, and will need his feet under him to start with if he means to intercept whatever may come tearing up this hill toward them once that first bolt flies free.

Flint shifts his grip on the heavy sword's grip. He nods without looking at her, attention fixed on bandits. ]

Ready.

[hassaran]

[ The clack of the bowstring is not much louder than the snap of a twig, and the bandits are too far for the impact of the bolt to carry up the hill to their ears. So there's a moment of silent suspense after Flint confirms and before the man sharpening his blade slumps far enough over to slide off the stump he'd been sat on and alert his comrades to the bolt that's now lodged in the back of his neck. Then there are shouts, men on their feet scrambling for weapons, looking around. It's not difficult to figure out the direction and, given that hint, the precise spot where the shot must have come from.

Yseult tips onto her side to crank the string back again. Her second bolt hits their archer in the hip, too late to stop him launching one of those scavenged arrows at their position. ]

cw: bloody action sequences can be banter if you squint

[katabasis]

[The crackle of the arrow punching through the brush would be chilling if it weren't competing with a half dozen other pressing concerns and it's more than enough to prompt an unconscious, instinctive flinch from Flint as the scraggly sticks about them tremble from the blow. Where the arrow flies after is a mystery—either between them or too high—unlikely to be solved in the moment. He certainly doesn't do more than to verify that Yseult remains capable of continuing to load the crossbow before breaking free of cover.

He makes directly for the wounded archer, half sliding down the muddy incline toward the man who apparently still has the wherewithal to recognize the disadvantage of his situation enough to go scrabbling through the mud toward another arrow. That there are more hands rapidly finding arms and their bearings is a problem for ten seconds from now. The arrow is nearer by half that.

With the alacrity afforded by adrenaline, Flint springs from the base of the incline, takes two long strides, and hacks directly through the archer's wrist.]

it sure can

[hassaran]

[ The bandit shouts, first, lifting his arm to ward off Flint's attack, and then screams as his hand falls free of it and drops to the ground beside his boot.

Behind him, two of his colleagues have found their weapons, an axe and a sword, respectively. They're coming fast up the hill and Yseult's next bolt hisses harmlessly by them, the one after digging into the dirt just ahead. She waits until they near Flint and slow in the approach, winding up to strike him, before firing again, this time putting a bolt past Flint's ear and through the larger man's biceps. ]

[katabasis]

[The sword tumbles free of the subsequently loosened fingers. It affords Flint the luxury of catching the swinging axe against the flat of his sword, to lay his free hand opposite it and shove the bandit hard enough back that the man loses his footing on the incline.

In counterpoint, the last stragglers have armed themselves and come charging up the hill—making directly for Yseult's position rather than moving to aid either of the two men Flint is presently hacking a sword through.]

[hassaran]

[ Yseult reloads as fast as she can and manages to hit one of those last stragglers in the belly, but misses her second shot and it's clear by then she won't have time enough to get a third off and still be on her feet by the time they reach her. She picks up the bow and swings it like a club into the first man's gut, using the butt of it to crack his skull as he hunches over. But it's too awkward and heavy to keep a grip on for long and she drops it for a knife, fighting in close with the remaining two men, using their size and lack of speed against them.

The first goes down after a half-dozen stab wounds, but the last she ends up grappling in the dirt, finally getting her knees around his head, a hand gripped in his hair as she fails to find the necessary leverage to snap his thick neck and instead hangs on as he struggles against a chokehold. ]

[katabasis]

[Luckily, this last one's lost track of his short sword and in the pell-mell scrabble has forgotten the knife in his belt. Instead, he grasps after Yseult's thighs. Reaches blindly higher, grappling and striking whatever falls within the range
of his knuckles while his head and heels both thrash like that of a tangled animal struggling to right itself.

Flint's arrival is less pounding foot falls and more hardscrabble over the muddy, torn up turf. With similarly little fanfare, the man trapped in the vice of Yseult's knees doesn't scream when the knife punches up between his ribs. He just jerks in surprise, first under the abrupt planting of Flint's knee in his middle and then again for the pop of the knife. The sound he might make is squashed into a gurgling inhale.

And then, abruptly, they are the two people left at the top of a corpse strewn hillside.]

[hassaran]

[ Yseult wrenches the grip on his hair tighter, her free hand trying to fend off the thrash of his arms. It's desperate and ineffective but the impact of knuckles on hip bone makes her grunt through gritted teeth, and she tries again to snap his neck, again without success, the force of her twisting just sliding them along in the mud a foot or so. When Flint arrives she just holds on and lets him work.

When it's done, and she's flopped her legs free of the corpse, she stays there for a moment, catching her breath, before rolling over and getting gingerly to her feet. ]

I think he broke a rib. [ Worth it? ]

[katabasis]

[Despite lacking broken anything—indeed, between this skirmish and the previous one at the other side of the hill, Flint is remarkably unscathed—, he's slightly slower to peel himself up off the ground. He opts to leave the knife where it's stuck. He is not, however, above rifling through the dead man's pockets.]

Go sit down. [He nods toward the stump where one of their charges had earlier been having a bandage applied. Likely there are additional adhoc first aid supplies nearby.] I'll see to them then come bind it.

[hassaran]

[ Yseult remains standing a moment, idly waiting to see if Flint finds anything interesting in the man's pockets, or maybe if any additional injury presents itself to her attention. Finding nothing worth comment, she heads down the hill to the remains of the bandit camp. It hardly merits the name, but they have left behind some supplies, and she is not above (or beyond) picking through them. A few traveling sacks of various shapes and sizes are hauled over to the stump, where she drops to a seat and begins digging through them, one arm wrapped around her middle.

By the time Flint has finished searching the others, she has begun sorting potentially useful items into two of the bags to take away with them, including what's left of the bandit medical kit, which she holds up as the Commander approaches. ]

Some coin, a few more weapons in poor repair, a couple blankets I wouldn't touch in other circumstances. Some food they must've just stolen because it's not moldy yet and barely eaten. That sack [ she points at a large, lumpy one across the way ] is valuables, candlesticks and pewter jugs and such. We can give that back on our way out.

[katabasis]

[Having picked through the various weapons to hand, Flint has evidently opted to stick with the somewhat machete-like falchion. He's stripped a scabbard more or less suitable for it from one the bodies and is in the process of securing it to his belt when he joins her.

'Give that back' she says. He's already begun to rummage through the kit and has produced a spotty roll of bandages, but here the point of his attention swivels to the bag in question—]

Okay.

[He pivots back. Skepticism is written clearly there in the line of his brow. Unsatisfied with the roll of the bandage, he shakes it out—allowing the trailing end drop back into the relative security of the kit rather than onto the muddy ground, and then begins re-rolling it tighter across his thigh.]

We might be able to persuade someone to give us a lift in return.

[Unlikely. Never mind the state of the countryside, crawling with opportunistic soldiers and the carrion that trails naturally in their wake. It's summer. Who has a free horse and a hand drive it with in the summer?]