allthisshitisweird | Test Drive Meme!

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!!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, one today. I do try to avoid them if I can help it.

[Kaidan had drawn up a barrier, shimmering a pale blue when the bear came towards him, but he was prepared to stand back for now and let this stranger deal with the bear. He was ready if he needed to intervene, if things went sour, but intervene when he didn't have to? Not his style. Leave that to younger, more enthusiastic Wardens.]

_{[Or, y'know. Sprightly young mercenaries wielding weapons that logically were heavier than they could wield. Krem's hands were incredibly dextrous, spinning the maul in such a way as to gain the maximum speed behind the weighted head of it with the least amount of physical effort. He concussed the bear as it finally got tired of trying to find a good time to run at him, letting it stumble and fall then planting a boot on its head and using the razor-sharp utility knife at his hip to cut its throat, letting it bleed out. The elves wandering the camp would appreciate it, he figured, if they didn't have to worry about doing it themselves.

Wiping the bloodied knife on a clean but somewhat dingy-looking rag, Krem turned his attention back to Kaidan, a brow arched up at the barrier the man had put up.]}

So, what are you doing here? Thought all the Wardens went missing months ago.

[Messy, especially with the amount of blood shed by the bear, but he supposed it was effective, when you didn't have magic to wear down an opponent. Kaidan was one of those mages that didn't mind actually using his staff as a weapon, up close and personal, so he could appreciate the skill involved in watching a warrior kill.]

Looking into the Wardens that went missing months ago. [A wry smile.] You wouldn't have seen any, would you?

Besides you? Not that I know of. Could ask back at the camps.

_{[Krem sheathed his knife and bent to be sure that the bear was indeed dead, or nearly there, at any rate. He knew he couldn't haul the thing back, himself, or he might have tried to.]}

The Inquisition could use the help of even one Warden though. You probably heard what happened at Haven. Lots of refugees, fighting, people pouring in from everywhere every day. Could get some information from Lady Nightingale.

[He frowned a little. He'd hoped that there would be something in Ferelden, but he'd found no clues so far.]

Yes, what happened at Haven was tragic. How do you know what has been happening there? Part of the Inquisition? [Lady Nightingale was not unknown to Kaidan, given his role.]

Chargers and I were there when it was attacked. Damned mess, all of it was. Darkspawn bastard marched in with an army, we didn't stand a chance.

_{[Krem frowned in kind, arms crossing. Unhappy about what had gone down at Haven was a dire understatement, that much was certain.]}

Darkspawn bastard? [He frowned, then it cleared again.] Corypheus. [Well, at least he knew that all his research was correct, at least. Small comfort for the hundreds who had died, or the thousands that would likely die.]

Where has the Inquistion ended up?

Fortress up in the Frostbacks. Skyhold, some abandoned elven place. Little more than a ruin right now, but it's housing the rest of Haven.

I didn't know there were any fortresses up in the Frostbacks. Huh.

A lot of us didn't. It was the only hope any of us had of finding a place after Haven though. Long walk in deep snow, but it was worth it. For the most part, anyway.

_{[Krem shrugged. He and the Chargers would have probably been fine after recovering from their losses, but they'd opted to help the civilians rather than ducking out on the Inquisition.]}

Test Drive Meme!

Real life needs to slow the hell down

I know that feel intimately.

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