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]

"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."

[antivanleather]

It's been quite some time since he's made use of the scraps of the forgotten language he'd picked up in his all too brief time with the Dalish, but he manages to piece something together.

Hopefully. "Asha ina'lan'ehn."

Nailed it!

[mythalenaste]

A grin.

"Not bad. Where did you learn elven?"

[antivanleather]

I spent some time with a clan in my youth. They did not often dwell near Antiva City- but it was long enough to learn some of their spoken lore.

[ And that nothing he did, despite his mother being of their clan, would be enough to make him one of their own. ]

[mythalenaste]

I'm glad you had that experience.

Whoops wtf did NOT mean to change formats on you there /facepalm

[antivanleather]

"They humored me for a time." And shortly afterward- the Crows. Perhaps if he'd been able to remain his life would have been quite different. As it stands he does not know if he'd take that change. "Beyond that there are some books of Dalish lore to be found if one knows where to look."

I didn't even realize.

[mythalenaste]

"Why the fascination?"

sorry!

[antivanleather]

"My mother was Dalish, or so I have been told. Learning more of them tells me more of her."

It's totally okay!

[mythalenaste]

"Oh!" Well, there's no way of identifying the woman from the Arlathvhen, if he's speaking of her in the past tense.

"I'm...sorry. I grew up without knowing my parents. It isn't easy."

[antivanleather]

"A toast then, to what we have in common aside from our very fine ears and voices." He lifts his glass to her, refusing to let this become overly maudlin.

[mythalenaste]

"The finest," she agrees lightly, although she's looking at his glass like...what's she supposed to be doing? Her eyes dart between him and the glass, then around at the other people in the tavern. Is anyone else doing the same thing?

Deciding to just go with what makes sense, she holds her hand out to receive his cup.

[antivanleather]

He gives it over, more amused and curious than he is offended. "Normally-" He begins, not at all unkind. "You would raise your own glass in turn. But I see you do not have a glass and I should have fixed that for you earlier. How rude of me."

[mythalenaste]

"Oh." She stares at the cup for a second. "I...didn't know. Is that an Antivan custom?"

[antivanleather]

"Do the Dalish not...do toasts?" HE had only spent a short time with them. "I think perhaps it is a human custom, or more likely dwarvish that took popularity once brought to the surface.

[mythalenaste]

"I couldn't tell you what other clans have picked up. But all of this--" she opens her hand, probably indicating the tavern "--we're more likely to do round a fire instead of a table. At night. It's not really the same."

[antivanleather]

"No, no it would not be." His own experiences spent around a bonfire did not often include toasts. More planning for war and the great inevitability of a conflict that may kill them all, deep soul searching conversations-

He almost misses it. Almost.

"What one does is raise their on glass in turn. Which you did not have. I shall mend this, yes? One moment." He steps away from their table to fetch another pint of ale for himself- and one for Pel as well.

[mythalenaste]

It's really not necessary, but it makes her smile after he turns away. Maybe he's doing it to get into her pants, but it's fun to talk with him.

The smile fades as she waits, but brightens when she sees him returning.

"What have you brought me?"

[antivanleather]

"Only the finest ale in all of Ferelden. Which, to be perfectly honest, is not saying all that much." He offers her the pint with a quirk of a grin, sliding back into his seat. "They try, they truly do, but it still falls flat compared to just about any other ale I've tried in Thedas. Unless they're mulling it with spices. Then it becomes quite lovely."

[mythalenaste]

Pel wrinkles her nose at the smell of it, though the smile is still there.

"The only time I've drank beer is when the water was unfit to drink."

She sips.

"I'm not really sure why people drink it any other time, actually."

[antivanleather]

"When it is made well? It compliments a meal. When it is made poorly? Enough makes you forget how bad the accompanying meal doubtless is as well." Give him a fine brandy or Antivan wine any day. Still- the Ale is better than the food.

[mythalenaste]

"If you don't like the food, there's plenty outside, and you won't have to pay. Want me to show you?"

She takes a swallow of beer.

[antivanleather]

"..." A long moment passes where he simply stares at her, enraptured and thoroughly curious. "Yes."

[mythalenaste]

Five-year-olds can do the things Pel is about to show Zevran. And she's about to use these basic Life 101 skills to impress a boy. City boys are great.

She takes a huge swallow of her beer and shoots to her feet, reaching out to grab Zevran's wrist and drag him outside.

"I don't have any weapons, but that won't stop us from eating well. This is good land."