allthisshitisweird | Test Drive!

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 9:49, and the war continues. An enemy force partially occupies Orlais and has decimated several Marcher Cities, while the Chantry, aided by the Inquisition, has marshaled 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. 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.) an organization, dubbed Riftwatch, that split off from the Inquisition several years ago. Riftwatch consists of these 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. Their goal is to do what the Chantry can't or won't do, to go more directly after Corypheus and the dark magic he employs, and to keep the Veil from coming apart entirely.

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 killing you. 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.

NOTE: This is a static test drive! We post them once per year or so and continue to use them for a long time, so you're never late. Current players are encouraged to track new top-level comments.

I. THE FREE MARCHES: Hasmal, Tantervale, and most recently Starkhaven have all fallen to the Tevinter incursion, leaving Kirkwall the largest city-state in the Free Marches to remain unoccupied. For Riftwatch, that means the war is closer to home than ever, and traveling anywhere north of the mountains runs the risk of running into enemy scouting parties. Perhaps you've been sent out to find these scouts before they find the unwary, or perhaps you're just trying to pass through unnoticed to Antiva or Rivain when you run into trouble. Or maybe you're more in the thick of it: joining the Free Marches armies in harassing the occupying army as best they can from outside the city, or slipping your way into one of them to gather intelligence or meet with an ally.

II. THE WAKING SEA: When Riftwatch isn't traveling by griffon or magic mirror, it frequently travels by sea, courtesy of a small assortment of allied pirate ships. So welcome aboard. The sea is choppy and frequently violent—violent storms, violent enemy ships, or both at once—and the crew may not have much patience for incompetence, so either make yourself useful above or try not to get sick below.

III. 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.)

IV. SEND A MESSAGE: Each member of Riftwatch 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He rather towers over her now. In so many other ways, though, he's the same boy who spent endless afternoons sliding down the banisters in her home. Weedy and well-dressed, curious and observant, with a face that lights up in a smile the moment he recognizes her. He's got a short stack of books cradled against his chest, but he maneuvers them under one arm.

"Madame Baudin," he says with a little bow. But that's a level of formality he's unwilling to keep up beyond greeting. He comes close enough to pull her into an embrace, adding, "You were so much taller in my memory."

She'd had two eyes as well - though it seems impolite to mention that here.

“Gwenaëlle,” she insists at once, where someone else might have been corrected with Captain but Maker forbid Kieran think she means him to actually call her that. After Kieran there had been her cousins at the banisters, or learning card-counting from pirates, or spending altogether too much time with their grandfather’s sultry-eyed Nevarran mage — they, too, all but grown.

She’d thought, once, that they’d have won the war by the time she saw Kieran again. She’s learned, since, to appreciate seeing someone she loves at all.

It is impossible not to think of Alistair, and difficult for a moment to talk around her heart in her throat, but she’s beaming like he’s the best thing she’s seen all day when she does say, “I’m taller in my memory, too. When did you get here? No, —walk with me, I’m going to my office, I just need to put a few things down. Hardie, you remember Kieran,”

if she’s smaller than he remembers, the Anderfels shepherd that haunts her heels is probably bigger, nosing forward from well-behaved sentinel to overly-familiar curious animal at her encouragement.

"Gwenaëlle," he agrees with an open smile. There's a slight strangeness to the whole notion of speaking on a given-name basis, an oddly affecting weight that comes with it. Maturity in the eyes of his mother's friends is...not unexpected, not least because he left a boy and returned a man, but it's a sensation he's not yet used to feeling.

He'll find his footing soon, helped along by more friendly faces - and if he seems even more pleased to see Hardie, it is, hopefully, forgivable. The creature is the closest he's ever come to a pet; for all he'd petitioned Mother for a war dog to join them on their travels, he'd always been rebuffed. (In retrospect, such a thing was never going to happen, but a twelve-year-old's dreams are stubborn things.) Bending down a little, he gives Hardie an affectionate scratch behind the ears. "Hardie! What a beast you've become!"

To Gwenaëlle's office, though, and with some dignity (and perhaps he'll see what tricks Hardie still remembers later). He follows her down the stairs, finally answering the question she'd asked in the middle of everything. "I came a few days ago - overland from Nevarra. The countryside was choked with Venatori, I'm sorry to say, but I'm sure you're well aware."

To be fair, Hardie is maybe the most endearing of the various menagerie that makes their home in Gwenaëlle’s houseboat—

“So a nice change from the restless dead,” she suggests, dry, thinking of her own recent trips to the parts of Nevarra City that’re actually accessible. Hard to envy the Mortalitasi their work there, or everyone else who’s going to make that place liveable again. Or who have to put up with her fucking brother while they’re doing it, a thing she immediately has no interest in dwelling on, “Just the more obnoxious living.”

When they arrive, her office is clearly intended to be shared; equally clear that no one currently occupies the post to share it with her, half of the room and the other desk neat and clean but plainly unused. Her side is well organised and evidence of how busy her own post keeps her — a few keepsakes displayed, but it’s mostly well ordered professional chaos. Duty rosters, notes on the armoury, some infirmary inventory that seems a little out of place with everything else.

And, of course, there’s a cushioned bed for Hardie near the desk.

“Are you joined up with us?”

(A fleeting and sincere stab of anxiety: Maker, she’d rather go back to Sarrux than face Morrigan if anything happens to him. Wow, probably this is how Coupe felt. No need to examine that at all.)

"Markedly less interesting," he answers, adopting the same wryness. His time in Nevarra had been...deeply unpleasant, actually, but he'd been struck by the shambling movement of the corpses overrunning the place. It had been easy to understand just why an entire country of mages could become enamored with the magical possibilities lying dormant in their fallen countrymen.

"Provided you'll have me." The broad you, Riftwatch as a whole - but with the knowledge that Gwenaëlle could easily put in a hesitant word if she so chose. She wouldn't sabotage him - he's quite certain of that - but if she felt him unable to rise to the task at hand, she's perfectly capable of saying so. "I was shown great kindness here when Mother was affiliated with your organization. I'd like to give something in return."

Tamping down the burgeoning sense of pride — he isn’t her charge any more, hasn’t been for years, and she’s not going to try to claim more of an influence in the young man he’s become than his mother (to whom she credits more of her own journey than Morrigan would probably agree with) — she nods, thoughtfully, leaning her hip against the edge of her desk as she sets her gauntlet down upon it. (A curious thing, wires and lenses; her anchor focus. The glove that she drops on top of it matches, but for near purely aesthetic purposes.)

It’s still hard not to look at him and see the boy with his wooden sword, showing her what Alistair had taught him.

(Alistair and Morrigan, both asking her if she thought them awful once she knew. How easy it had been to say it had never entered her head not to trust that they’d done their best, made the best decision available to them.)

“We can use you,” she says, frank. “We’re still shorthanded more than we aren’t, but the work is...you aren’t going to be bored, I can promise you that. Though I suppose you might find our eluvians rather old hat, knowing your mother.” Fondness colours her voice; she misses Morrigan constantly, thinks of her often.

If she’d led a different life, maybe she’d have a daughter now, named for her.

It's a relief to have her answer, and to have one so undeniably positive. Gwenaëlle has never struck him as effusive; she chooses her words carefully and avoids the sort of dramatic commentary much of the Orlesian court delights in. Hearing we can use you from her is as good as a paragraph from someone else, and his appreciation shows in his smile.

"I don't take well to boredom," he informs her, though he doubts she has to cast back too far in her memory to know it already. His dedication to his studies was always fitful: easy when he was interested, easy to set aside when he wasn't. Fortunately, everything that holds his attention can be found within Riftwatch's work; if he slips away from a dull textbook to spend an afternoon with a foil, he won't actually be abandoning his duty. "But I do quite enjoy an eluvian."

Hardie nudges politely against his leg, and he leans down just enough to pet the dog's head. "Is there anything I should know before I sign myself away to you for the foreseeable future? Besides the obvious."

Which is to say - the war's not going particularly well. I know it's been a struggle.

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