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allthisshitisweird2016-03-02 10:14 pm
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2016-03-02 10:14 pm
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME
A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like
it's the 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. WILL IT EVER BE WARM AGAIN WE JUST DON'T KNOW
1. AND THE BEARS THAT ONCE CONTROLLED ME CAN'T GET TO ME AT ALL
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. In case you hadn't guessed, it's still snowy.
2. LET IT GO
At first it sounds like a folktale, passed around tavern hearths and campfires after a few too many tankards. An evil witch with a heart of ice atop a frigid mountain fortress, casting endless winter upon the land, turning those who oppose her into snowmen. But it turns out it's true-- or at least partly. Maybe. Sort of. If you can weed through the stories, the common threads are these: several locals and travelers claim to have been accosted on the back roads through the hills by a female mage who used ice magic to trap them and steal their belongings, sometimes freezing solid those who tried to fight back. Some said she claimed to own the land, others that she was collecting a toll, and several that she cackled wildly about ranted about endless winter. Whichever version you choose to believe, there seems to be an apostate who needs dealing with. Perhaps you'd like to wander the roads in the guise of a wealthy traveler and lure her into an ambush? Scout the caves in the hills and try to track her to her lair? Make a friendly visit and recruit her to the Inquisition?
3. LET IT GO
The Hinterlands are dotted with lakes and ponds and streams, nearly all of which are frozen solid. The locals sometimes travel this way, pushing goods across on sledges, or strapping blades to the bottoms of their boots to skate, carrying messages and supplies or just racing when the weather is clear. Some enterprising souls have even attached sails to their sleds or runners to their rowboats and skitter across the ice hoping not to tip over or stray off-course into rocks. There are other hazards, too: in some places the ice is deceptively thin, and you may come across a stranger unlucky enough to have lost a boot or gotten a leg stuck or fallen through altogether. Maybe you're the unlucky one, treading icy water and calling for help.
4. I AM ONE WITH THE BLAH BLAH BLAAAAAH
The tavern at Redcliffe is rid of both cakes and rats, but is still filled to the brim with rowdy drunks. Tonight they are both rowdier and drunker than usual, and something sets someone off. Maybe it's you, maybe it's the guy next to you, maybe it's someone all the way across the room and you don't even see it happen, but suddenly the entire place is engulfed in a knock-down drag-out glass-smashing chair-swinging bar fight. Dive right in, pick a side, pick no side, get caught off-guard, hide under a table, try to sneak out, it's up to you but you'd better decide quickly.
5. THE COLD NEVER BOTHERED ME ANYWAY
Hunt game, or kill demons, dig under the snow for herbs, track bandits, open a streetside scarf stand in Redcliffe, 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, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow, run from a dragon, definitely don't kill any fennec foxes, set up camp and chat around the fire, sing a rousing solo about your love of the weather, do whatever the hell you want-- the Hinterlands are your endless frozen playground.
no subject
Had they any left to spare. Other fighters took the worst of the demons in the time it took to close the rift, they are without. He will have to make do, much the same as this fine lady.
Hands go on wounds, his eye flicks to their surroundings. The bear is gone- for now. The demons are dead, also for now.
That could change. ]
Be quick.
no subject
( like she enjoys being trapped in long conversations with marcellin's mother, she's enjoying this moment between them. she's loving it so much that even in her inability not to give a droll response, she doesn't waste any time; steels herself and shoves the needle through, lips pinching together into a thin line. it hurts, and it bleeds, and it has to be done - her hands tremble with a combination of the cold and the pain, but she grits her teeth and pulls the thread through, tight, knotting it and not giving herself a moment before the next stitch.
the sooner this is all over, the sooner she isn't in the hinterlands any more. she wants to be gone from here as badly as he wants her out from underfoot, on that they are absolutely agreed. )
no subject
[ What is normally an endearment is twisted until it is wry and flat and bland- though he does raise his brows in surprise. She'd been serious about stitching her own wound. Most nobles he knew would get as far as pricking their skin with the needle and either fainting or ordering him to do it. So she is not entirely useless-
Or merely has a higher pain threshold than most.
Curious but not enough to ask over it, he minds the sides of the wound to make her job somewhat easier. If it was stitched crooked they'd have to do this again in half an hour. Better to not. ]
no subject
for her father, specifically, who isn't so much distrustful of mages or physicians as he is a difficult drunk who has to be cajoled, sometimes, into letting her mind him. maybe, she thinks, he just likes that she tries. well, now he's sent her to ferelden and there's nothing for it, it's his own stupid fault she isn't there. )
Almost.
( she knots it again, snips the end of the thread with the knife he'd forestalled her using earlier. it isn't pretty, but for what it is, she did a good job. )
There.
no subject
[ He removes his hands once he is certain she isn't about to spill more blood or bits of her into the snow and takes a step back- normally he'd be more forward, more flirtatious, but there is a migraine on the horizon, more rifts that need closing, and bears.
Ever and always, the bears. ]
Apply a poultice over it- that will hold the stitches or at the very least mask the smell of the wound from wolves and bears.
no subject
does. actually. because this is the sort of place where you carry poultices around, and she'd been loyal to her physician over the less-known-quantity that is the mage healers, so she is particularly the sort of person who ought to be carrying them around, even so. her lips tighten into a line like she's biting back words and she does as she's bid, using her scarf to bind it all and cover tightly where her dress is now prepared to let all the weather in, skin turned to gooseflesh.
she'd just wanted to go home. the country had been so claustrophobic, that woman's eyes following her even when she wasn't in the room - she'd just wanted to go back to her house, and her things, and it was all over but the shouting in halamshiral. the civil war rages on (the world is on the brink of falling apart, why not let gaspard have a crack at it?) but not outside of her house. she just wanted to go to her house.
if she'd stayed in the country, the rift that broke her carriage would have been someone else's problem. and so would this mouthy elf. )
Are we very far?
( from camp. her ignorance will annoy him, she thinks, but so does everything, apparently. she wants to know. if he can't be put in a better mood, anyway, she might as well know. )
no subject
Pining for silk cushions.
As she is no longer bleeding (hurrah) he turns his attention elsewhere- far up along the path they'd been taking, sighting the sky for birds or the sickly green glow of another rift. ]
Miles to go before we sleep, mia Bella, [ Her ignorance is grating. Perhaps they could simply lose her in the woods. No one would know. ] And a long walk uphill at that.
no subject
no one here cares if she dies or not.
gwenaëlle sets her jaw and tucks her hands in her cloak, following him silently. there's not much else for it. )