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

[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?]