TEST DRIVE MEME!

[faderifting]

What if there is no tomorrow?

Only more 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 AND NOW ALSO ADDED KINDNESS TO ANIMALS (MOSTLY).

1. IF I GET SCARED, YOU'RE ALWAYS AROUND

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. THEY SAY WE'RE YOUNG AND WE DON'T KNOW

The Inquisition has, possibly, been a little too good at dealing with the Hinterlands' bear problem, and a group of concerned citizens--including young burgeoning naturalists, farmers concerned about the effect an unchecked population of rams may have on their crops come spring, and at least one woman who claims to be directly descended from bears--has taken issue. Maybe they're blocking your character's attempt to enter a bear-infested area. Maybe they've doused your character in bear blood. Maybe the bears they have been working so hard to save have cornered them in the wilderness and they're changing their tunes.

3. WITH YOU I CAN'T GO WRONG

The Inquisition's (cough Leliana's) habit of communicating by raven works out fine, usually, but this particular raven has gone a little rogue. It's not the raven's fault! She's young, she's trying. But she has very important information tied to her leg, and instead of delivering it, she's joined a flock of identical wild ravens to hunt for food in the snow. Recover her, somehow, without hurting her and making any spymistresses angry.

4. BEFORE IT'S EARNED, OUR MONEY'S ALL BEEN SPENT

The tavern at Redcliffe remains as busy as ever, filled with locals, travelers, and Inquisition members. But this month in addition to the usual free-flowing ale and rowdy conversation there is also a contest going on. Bakers have come from across the Hinterlands bearing their very best in an effort to win a coveted ribbon and the title of Best Cake. They pack the tavern and spill out into the surrounding courtyard when the weather allows, cakes sold off tables, out of packs, small chunks given away to whoever is passing and not paying enough attention to refuse. The votes are carefully guarded by several serious looking fellows in the back corner of the tavern. In addition to traffic issues, the cake madness has also caused an infestation of large local rodents, who have appeared out of their holes to devour the many crumbs. Legend has it that if they can be humanely eradicated from the tavern before the final vote is cast, spring will come early. No one in living memory has succeeded, but you are strongly encouraged to try anyway.

5. AIN'T NO HILL OR MOUNTAIN WE CAN'T CLIMB

Hunt game so you can rescue it before other hunters get there, kill demons or maybe just try to hug it out?, dig under the snow for herbs or plant some of your own to replace what others have taken, track bandits through the snow and see if they need a hand, deal with someone charging extortionist coat prices now that it's snowing and convince them to do the right thing, fall off a deceptively tall rock into the snow and admit it was your own fault, 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 so that you can give it a decent burial, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow and be careful not to knock them down, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow but leave a nice apology note, run from a dragon in the snow and promise not to trespass on its territory again, definitely don't kill any fennec foxes, set up camp and chat around the fire about your feelings because it's snowy and cold, give yourself a pat on the back (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your playground.

Comments

[eviscerates]

"Got it." One, two and she groans with the exertion as she forces up against the bark, feels it digging into her palms. Her hands are already scratched and grazed, and the strain presses the weight of the tree harder into the existing bruising on her hands. None of that makes for a good reason to stop trying, though, and so she grits her teeth until the stranger speaks. The effort brings an orange-gold glow to her eyes, traces of the wolf shining through.

"Yeah," a breath of a word, as Red quickly scrambles out from where she was, rolling free of the tree and branches. She needs to stand, but honestly she just had a tree on top of her, so maybe he'll forgive her for just taking a moment to actually breathe.

And then, a slight wave from her spot in the snow, as she tries to ease herself up and her ribs protest. "Thanks. I'm Ruby."

[metaari]

The tree gets unceremoniously dropped back to the ground once the girl rolls free and Metaari draws himself up to his full height, rolling his shoulders to try to get them loose after the strain of it. He glances down at his hands and wrinkles his nose a bit before leaning down to pat snow against them, easing the slight burn from rubbing against the bark. He decides to sit on the now fallen trunk and grins down at her, lifting a hand in a return gesture. "Don't mention it. Name's Metaari."

His eyes drop sideways toward the tree and he pats it slightly. "Not often I come across someone trapped under a tree. You sure you're alright?"

[eviscerates]

She's immersing her hands in the snow, as well, though it's partly to obscure the green glow that one of them has afflicted with, even if it's not necessarily the most effective tactic. Ultimately it just has her grimacing just slightly at the sting, before glancing up with something of a lopsided smile. If she had to guess, she'd be pretty confident saying this guy wasn't a monster. Real monsters, the people you needed to be scared of, they only helped when it benefitted them - Rumpelstiltskin comes to mind. He'd have made her promise something in return for getting out from under that tree.

"Metaari, huh? Nice to meet you." And a huff of laughter, shaking her head a little. "Honestly, I don't want to think about what my ribs look like right now."

Hopefully they are not also glowing. That'd really suck. "Anyway, I'm still in one piece, so it's not as bad as it could be." A moment of silence, just thinking something over, before she tries a cautious, "are you from around here, Metaari?"

[metaari]

Well, it'd actually help him pin her down a bit more. He's been around the Inquisition long enough now to know what that mark designated, maybe he could point her to the right people. Either way, at least there'd be no judgment. "We could get you to a healer once you're up for a trek. They'll be able to patch you up pretty quickly."

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he studies her, grinning a bit at the question. "The Hinterlands specifically? Not quite. I have a place I was born, but I'm not really from anywhere. I'm spending most of my time with the Inquisition these days. I guess you could say that's where I'm from. What about you? I can't quite pin your accent."

[eviscerates]

Under some circumstances, trekking off with a stranger would be a poor decision. But she's generally been in the business of trusting people and giving them chances, even after all the knocks. It's a strange place to be, when you want so much to meet people and understand them, and when you feel like you're so, so isolated.
"A healer would be great," she agrees, bright even through the tiredness and the thudding pain that comes with each breath.

"The Hinterlands?" She speaks without thinking, and then there's that moment of oops that visually crosses her face. A native would probably at least know what the place name means, even if they don't know the place, right? Then again, there were so many places in her home world that she didn't know, hadn't been to, maybe it can all be chalked up to being sheltered. (Sometimes she really misses the days when she truly had been sheltered, much as she railed against them at the time.)
"I, uh," I'm from the Enchanted Forest, and I'm from Storybrooke, Maine, and-- No. "I'm not local. I've moved around a lot, you could say. Have... you ever heard of Misthaven?"

There's a chance, right? A chance the magic bean that turned into crazy green light and spat her out here might have just set her a little off course?

[metaari]

There are a lot of reasons a person could not know where they are: they've been traveling for so long that everything has blurred together; they're really bad at geography; they never really looked at a map. Of course, the bears and the snow and the vast everything of the Hinterlands makes it a little hard to miss, but it still probably wouldn't be entirely impossible for someone to not know.

"Misthaven?" Metaari pauses, mulling the name over a little, trying to see if he can place it. He's traveled pretty extensively, but even he hasn't seen everything Thedas has to offer. Still, it's not pinging anything in his mind and he shakes his head. "Starkhaven, yes. Misthaven is unknown to me."

He pushes himself up to his feet and steps over toward her before crouching down a bit to hold out a hand to help her up. "If you can stand, we should probably get moving. The last thing we need now is to run into any bears."