Test Drive Meme!

[faderifting]

You'll Never Leave the Hinterlands Alive*

Welcome to Fade Rift's very first Test Drive Meme! Use one of the prompts below or make up your own, and tag around! Have fun, try out the setting, generate samples for your app, coerce your friends into joining you.

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, early fall finds 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.

1. In the Deep Dark Hills of Western Ferelden

You have turned the wrong corner, forded the wrong stream, crested the wrong hill, entered the wrong cave. Maybe you are far from camp. Maybe you are in camp. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased by bears. Did you provoke the bears? Are they huge? Babies? Fade-touched? Mage-controlled? What are they chasing you away from? What are they chasing you into? What do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you?

2. There I Read on a Hillside Gravestone

The rebel mages and renegade templars have ravaged the Hinterlands, skirmishes breaking out all over. It looks like you've just missed one-- great spikes of ice melt slowly in the cool autumn sunlight and patches of grass and trees have been scorched away. Three bodies are scattered about, two templars and one mage judging by their clothing. You could bury them. Or search their pockets. Or track their friends. Or all of the above, if you're feeling industrious.

3. Won't You Walk With Me Out the Mouth of this Holler

Whatever task you were actually sent out here to do, you are going to be late. One-Eyed Jimmy asked so nicely for your help finding his prize ram, Lord Woolsley. It's been in the family for years, so smart for a ram, it's a good luck charm, their business has boomed with it around, and it's lived for so long, he just can't abide thinking of it getting eaten by some mangy apostate. And then he went and offered you money, too. How could you say no? Maybe you're still wandering, asking everyone you pass if they've seen a ram that looks like it's wearing an orangey-red sweater. Maybe you've found it and are chasing it around a lake or trying to lead it back to the village for your reward. Maybe you've gotten fed up and gotten out your sword to bring Jimmy a new sweater instead and discovered that lucky Lord Woolsley is a demon in sheep's clothing. Surprise!

4. Fill Your Cup With Whatever Bitter Brew You're Drinking

Just because the region's had a rough time lately doesn't mean the tavern at Redcliffe is any less crowded than usual. Bella behind the bar dishes out tankards to refugees and soldiers, scared villagers and angry farmers, merchants traveling through from Orzammar and Orlais and families fleeing the rifts in the foothills. It's packed, basically. The Inquisition has only recently extended its influence into the region, and while some have already seen the benefit-- demons killed, fighting broken up-- others are skeptical.

5. Spend Your Life Just Thinkin' of How to Get Away

Choose Your Own Adventure: hunt game, kill demons, gather herbs, track bandits, haggle over the price of armor, fall off a deceptively tall rock, 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, rummage around in empty homes, run from a dragon, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot was, set up camp and chat around the fire, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your Frostback Mountain oyster.

*Yeah, I had this stuck in my head. It's a good song!!

Comments

[mythalenaste]

"Is that how all Antivans surrender an argument, or just you?"

[antivanleather]

"Who says I am surrendering?" A diversion is a diversion, an evasion an evasion. "I have no reason to do so- at least not so publicly. Unless, of course, you are into that sort of thing in which case..."

[mythalenaste]

Pel is losing the battle against the smile. Its territory has expanded to one corner of her mouth, creating a dimple there.

"People don't normally start throwing rocks if they have arrows left."

[antivanleather]

"Must we sling stones and arrows? I can think of far better uses of our time. And our hands." His fingers drum against the table, certainly he may have conceded the argument- but the war for a lovely smile may be turning in his favor.

[mythalenaste]

And there's the smile. She hasn't been flirted with like this in years. It's nice.

"You want me to lay down my arms?" she teases lightly.

[antivanleather]

"Mhmm." Ah, there it is. Point to Zevran! The war is won, all shall rejoice. or rather he shall rejoice, pleased by this. "Rather I would have you lay them upon my person, but wherever it is you wish to lay them, I'll not complain."

[mythalenaste]

Mythal help her, she actually considers it for a second.

"I..."

She spreads her hands, palms down, as if poising them over an instrument she is thinking about playing. They clench after a moment, briefly.

"I didn't mean to take up arms in the first place. I don't remember why I did."

[antivanleather]

Conflict- and not of the amusing sort. The smile seems to melt away and that will not do. Tension and frustration is for outside the tavern, away from the company of this oh so dashing stranger.

"I think, perhaps, it was one of the human ruffians going on about the purity of their printed history in regards to the horrific night here roughly a decade ago as compared to my retelling of said night, having been there myself. In the thick of it, as it were. I do not recall if I was about to express my discontent when you oh so eloquently cut in for me. Defending my honor, as it were."

[mythalenaste]

"And then you..."

Pel's eyes narrow.

"You little shit," she says, not in a particularly serious or hostile tone. In fact, the smile is edging back in. "You started baiting me."

[antivanleather]

His grin widens, hands spread in helpless surrender. "I would never."

But he would. He would and he did. "I felt I was more deserving of your attention than a random human drunkard. Was I mistaken?"

[mythalenaste]

That gets not only the smile, but a blush.

"That's a lot of work to put into a girl you don't know."

[antivanleather]

"But more than enough for a girl I hope to know." In every meaning of the word, as lovely as she'd been with the smile? The blush makes her lovelier still. "And what better way to begin than by sharing our names, yes? Zevran Arainai, at your service."

[mythalenaste]

"Pel." Yeah, he's adorable. She likes mature men, too. So much less stupid than...the others. "Of Clan Ashara. Not that it's a very common name among the Dalish anyway. I think it's actually human."

[antivanleather]

"Pel. Is this short for something else, or is your name truly as sweet and petite as the rest of you?" He may be turning the charm up a notch, leaning in across the table.

[mythalenaste]

More blushing. She's really not used to this at all.

"I think Pel is a human name. Pellian is an elven name, but for a man. I'm not entirely sure why my parents chose it. Maybe a fascination with the shemlen. They named my brother Kim, and that's a human name as well."

[antivanleather]

"It is a lovely name for a lovely woman. Perhaps they chose it knowing you would be this beautiful?" Magnificent foresight on their part if so.

[mythalenaste]

"Now you're just being silly."

Pel is a short, simple, unglamorous name. Practical, but that is how a First and a Keeper ought to be.

[antivanleather]

"Perhaps I am attempting to charm a laugh from you." He is nothing if not shameless.

[mythalenaste]

"You will have to try harder, ser." She uses the style like it's the default among 'civilized' folk.

[antivanleather]

"Try I shall, Bella." Dripping out the Antivan usually works for a blush- even if the recipient doesn't understand the language. The intent usually flows around the silken syllables, warm and languid as a morning in Antiva City.

[mythalenaste]

It sounds so much like her own name that it catches her off-guard. She looks briefly puzzled.

"What does that mean?" she asks after a moment, wondering if it relates to pel as it might exist in a language she doesn't know.

[antivanleather]

"Beautiful woman." He grins, crooked and roguish. "A most venerable compliment in Antivan."

[mythalenaste]

"You're making that up."

[antivanleather]

"I am absolutely not lying to you. Why would I lie about my native tongue, mm? Shall I say it in Elvish instead?"

[mythalenaste]

"Try."