faderift | OPEN: The Western Approach

OPEN: The Western Approach

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: The Western Approach is a terrible place. You should definitely go there.
WHEN: Bloomingtide 15 onward
WHERE: The Western Approach
NOTES: This is open to everyone. Characters who would not happily go to the hell desert probably have to go anyway; it's a war, not a vacation.

Once these wastes were a land of plenty. Can you believe it? The rain came north over the Gamordan Peaks, turning the plains green and verdant for three months of the year. Eight hundred years ago, that changed. During the Second Blight, darkspawn spilled out of an enormous crack in the earth, corrupting it with their foul blood... and it never recovered, even after they were driven back underground. The Grey Wardens built Adamant Fortress to stand watch over that chasm, but eventually even they abandoned it to the wind and the biting sand.

What few of us eke out a living in this Maker-forsaken place do so knowing that any number of deaths await us: darkspawn raids, dragons, bandits—not to mention starvation from the lack of water and game. If we stay, it is because we know there are treasures buried in the bones of this place, ruins from the time when Tevinter ruled, and even earlier. We pass tales around our campfires of the things we have seen shrouded in the dust storms. My favorites are the ones about relics that could restore the Western Approach once more... but I don't believe them. Truth be told, on nights when the wind is calm, I can stand on a hilltop and see for miles in the moonlight over a stark beauty of which no other Orlesian can claim to know the equal. On those nights, I hope it will never change.

—From Lands of the Abyss by Magistrate Gilles de Sancriste

I. THE DESERT

When Scout Harding calls somewhere the worst place in Thedas, that's probably a bad sign. Even when nothing in the Western Approach is deliberately trying to kill you, there's nothing kind or forgiving about the landscape: bare and arid, carved through by sharp-dropped canyons, dotted with abandoned mines and signs of the deaths of lost travelers. Winds sweeping through to whip stinging sand into uncovered faces, and periodic dust storms obscure visibility entirely. It's warm enough to be dangerous but not so hot, at this time of year, that heat exhaustion and dehydration can't creep up on you while you aren't paying attention.

And at any given moment, something probably is deliberately trying to kill you. The food chain in the region is top-heavy, with quillbacks, phoenixes, hyenas, and varghests roaming hungrily and as likely to attack one another as the sparse local prey population. Compared to their natural competitors, the Inquisition's forces look like easy marks. The camps the Inquisition scatters at lookout points throughout the region require constant watch, and going anywhere alone is inadvisable. Not only because of the hostile local everything, but also because it is incredibly easy to get lost. One rock formation looks much like another after hours in the sun or bathed in shifting moonlit shadows, and good luck finding many other landmarks. There are a few: chunks of pillars or arches from some ruined structure, or the occasional odd pillar that might, if someone investigates, prove to mark a trail of sorts.

Plus: the only people who seem determined to survive out here are cutthroat bandits and stray Venatori. Double-plus: a high dragon makes occasional fly-bys, scouring the ground below for anything edible, armored or not.

Some reprieve comes at night, relief from both the sun and the area's primarily diurnal predators. But that's when the darkspawn come out.

II. GRIFFON WING KEEP

Bloomingtide 16-17: Taking the Keep

Only a small force of Tevinter cultists remains in Griffon Wing Keep when the Inquisition arrives, seemingly on their way out the door already, but the sight of Inquisition banners is enough to make them stay and fight. There's no need for siege equipment, but there is call for a little bit of patience. With it, a small battalion is able to evade the mages and archers on the walls and storm the doors with few casualties. Fewer than three dozen warriors wait inside. It's a quick, brutal fight; it only takes a night.

Bloomingtide 18 Onward: Home Away From Home

Once the Keep is cleared of occupants, it's ripe for the Inquisition to… occupy… But with implicit permission, at least. Those who aren't needed for fights elsewhere may be put to work clearing out debris and small animals and the remnants left by the cultists, and within a few days the fortress is a serviceable outpost, much more hospitable than the camps out in the sand. Barracks mean even those who don't have beds at Skyhold may have one here, and it takes less than a week for an enterprising merchant to arrive with ale.

III. THE STILL RUINS

Despite signs of recent activity, the lavish Tevinter palace tucked incongruously into the canyons is quiet and still, when the Inquisition discovers it—quiet, still, but not empty. The ancient ruin is brimming with demons and Tevinters in incredibly outdated fashions, all frozen in place, as they have been for hundreds of years. No one breathes or blinks, but their skin is still warm and alive to the touch.

Beyond the entryway and halls and through the courtyard, there are signs of research and experimentation, and one man stood unmoving with his hand clasped around something unseen.

Perhaps someone will discover the cause. Perhaps someone will undo the spell that's been cast over the palace. Perhaps, if someone does, someone will take the opportunity to not immediately murder all of these valuable sources of ancient information, and instead only murder most of them. In the meantime, however, it is unlikely that anyone will ever be able to get this close to a rage demon without receiving a face full of fire. Take advantage.

IV. CORACAVUS

Signs of the Venatori point upward: up the hills, up ladders and towers, and into the ancient Tevinter prison, Coracavus, that was built into the mountainside. The ruin is filled with sand now, with half-collapsed walls and anything not made of stone worn away by winds, and the Venatori are long gone, their hunt for relics from the glory days of the Imperium abandoned when an excavation attempt opened the prison to darkspawn, instead. The darkspawn have retreated as well, but there are signs of their presence. Namely the smell and the half-eaten corpses of slaves—primarily elven and dwarven—who were left behind to their fates when the Tevinters fled.

There's no sign of them now, but digging through their abandoned camps may turn up a name, if anyone would like to see that he pays.

V. ADAMANT FORTRESS

A day's determined walk from the nearest Inquisition camp, Adamant Fortress overlooks the vast chasm—dubbed the Abyssal Rift—from which darkspawn poured during the Second Blight. It stood abandoned for nearly 150 years before the Grey Wardens' recent reoccupation, and it's abandoned again now, emptied out well before the Inquisition's forces arrive. There are signs that the retreat was a hasty one: scattered belongings, opened doors, abandoned meals, and no fewer than fifty bodies left on a mass pyre that only half-burned without anyone to tend it.

The Veil has always been thin here, and it's thinner now, where demons have been pulled through from the Fade. Rifts hang over the battlements and in the corridors, and escaped shades lurk in the dark corridors, siphoning away the willpower of those who linger until they come close enough to attack. Those who visit the Fortress set up camp outside of it rather than within it, wisely.

There are clear signs of blood sacrifice, for those who look: the bodies, blood stains on the stone floors, neat lists of names systemically crossed through. Sorting through documents left behind may turn up vague notes in a mage's runic shorthand or the journal of a trepidatious new recruit (Lourde, a pickpocket, crossed through on the registers). Behind a locked door in the lowest rooms are the bodies of sixteen mages, still in their Circle robes, left lying where they fell when the Joining took them. Mages who were among the rebels in Redcliffe may recognize a face or two as belonging to the hardliners who left with the Tevinters.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Shoes are wonderful, Sam. Ask Ellana, the Dalish elf who pulled on a pair as soon as she found them in her size at Skyhold. She loves having her feet protected. Of course her feet are miserable like the rest of her right now, because she's hot, achy, and she has a sunburn across her face. The rest of her is well covered, but as she comes upon Sam, it's clear that her face is in the process of peeling.

"Oh, Sam," she says, looking down at his feet. "You should have some sort of covering for your feet. You don't want to get a sunburn there."

Sam peeks up from beneath his hood, smiling when he sees the elf.

"Hello, Lady Ellana," he greets her. "Don't you worry none about that. The hair'll protect 'em, right enough." He gestures to the hair covering his feet - which, indeed, seems to be doing a fair job of protecting the tops of them from the sun - and then frowns up at her in concern. "Oh, but what about you? Why your face is all - " He stops, going a bit pink himself. Perhaps it's rude, to point it out.

He does have a point, as she looks closer to see that the hair is thick enough to hold back the sun. She smiles a little at his observation of her skin, however.

"I think I've had the worst of it already," she answers. "It's on the path to healing, don't worry. Where are you headed off to here? Were you given a task? Maybe I can help."

Sam looks less than convinced, peering skeptically at her peeling skin, but he drops the subject for the moment, holding up a large bag he'd been dragging along.

"Collecting deathroot," he explains, opening it up for her to see what's already a fair collection inside. "It's easy enough to find, and it comes right out of this sand with naught much more than a sharp tug. Still and all, it's no kind of name for a plant."

"It's certainly descriptive," Ellana replies, sounding amused. "But you're quite the gardener, aren't you? What would you call it, if you were the first to discover it?"

"Me?" Sam looks surprised at the question, and taken off guard. He's spent his life learning the names of plants, not naming them himself. "I...I don't know. Sandroot, perhaps. Or Royal Root, on account of the flowers." He gestures to the small purple blossoms dotting the plant. "Any road, death's got nothing to do with it, nor with any plant. Not when it's so alive - when it's able to bloom and grow, even in a place like this."

"Those are good names, though the second might get confused with royal elfroot." Ellana has to smile at Sam's innocence, especially about how the plant can grow here, therefore its name must be wrong.

"I can tell you why it has the name it does. We Dalish learn this rhyme as children, so we don't endanger ourselves while picking plants: 'Heart-shaped leaves with veins of green: Elfroot, to ease the pain. Flat-capped and gray that grows in the clay: Blightcap, the hunter's bane. Spindly with thorns like the great demon's horns: Felandaris, marking the Veil. Loose-leafed and tall with a high purple stall: Deathroot, to make minds frail.' If ingested, deathroot causes paranoia and hallucinations. You could walk off a cliff, or attack someone. But it's useful for things, like grenades and poisons."

Sam loves rhymes and poems of all sorts, especially Elvish ones, and while this one sounds more like a rhyme that might be taught to young hobbit-children in the Shire than anything he's ever heard from an Elf before, his eyes light up and his ears perk up all the same.

"Deathroot, to make minds frail," he repeats, his brow furrowed in concentration as he tries to commit the whole verse to memory. He'll probably make Ellana repeat it another time or two before the day is out, just to make sure he's got the whole thing down. "Well that makes more sense then. It's still not a very nice name, mind you; but then again, I suppose it's not a very nice plant, either. Even if it is useful."

Perhaps once the elves had grand poems speaking of their empire, but now there are only fragments, or something that was invented after the loss of the Dales. Personally, while Ellana loves the grandeur of Galadriel, she herself is a much simpler person, and child's rhymes suit her just fine.

"It's definitely a reminder to be careful with it, but I see you are being careful."

Sam nods emphatically. He's been very careful and suffered no ill effects that he's noticed, but even so, he holds the bag a little further away from himself now than he had been.

"You don't have to worry none about that," he tells her. "But to answer your question, it's very kind of you to offer, but I can get along without help. Why I'm nearly done, I think; leastways this bag won't hold much more deathroot than I've already gathered. If the Inquisition needs any more than that they'll have to send me out again!"

"If you're nearly done, why don't we head back to the Keep together? There's safety in numbers, and I can keep a lookout if you see any more deathroot you'd like to gather along the way." Ellana hates the idea of anything happening to Sam, and is happy to defend him against whatever is out here.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about me none, Lady Ellana," Sam assures her. "I can look after myself! Why I've killed an Orc, you know." Which is true enough, though it doesn't have much to do with whether something could sneak up on him in the desert. "But I'll walk with you all the same. You're right after all; it's safer with two." He's thinking more of her safety than his, which is a bit unfair, as she's so much bigger than he, and hasn't done anything to suggest she may need rescuing. But he straightens his spine a little all the same, careful to take heed of their surroundings as they walk.

"Have you?" she asks, sounding a little surprised that Sam's killed anything at all. It seems like killing would upset him. Maybe an Orc is an animal for eating? "And what is an Orc?"

"Oh!"

Somehow he'd forgotten that Ellana wouldn't know what an Orc was. And now, he finds both that it's difficult to explain, and that he's not sure he even wants to. After all, a beautiful, wonderful Elf like Ellana shouldn't have to hear about such nasty, horrible things as Orcs.

"Just...a creature we have back in Middle-earth," he says, shrugging and looking at the sand. "A creature of the Enemy, it was - a horrid thing and no mistake! But you don't want to hear about them I'm sure."

"It seems like something that wouldn't be a very nice thing to discuss, would it?" She really doesn't mind, but Sam's gaze at the sand suggests that he would rather not subject her to the telling. "But I'll bet you were very heroic in killing it and keeping it from hurting anyone else."

Sam shrugs again, the tips of his ears turning red. "If you want a hero, you should meet someone like Strider," he says. "But there wasn't much choice really: they were after Mr. Frodo you see; after all of us. And if I hadn't been quick with my sword he would've gotten me first!" He lifts a hand to his head, brushing his hair aside to show her the scar where the Orc's blade had scraped his scalp.

Ellana frowns and reaches out a gentle hand to just lightly graze her fingertips over the scar.

"That's terrible!" she exclaims. "It's remarkable you made it through all that, and you protected your friends too." It's strange to picture Sam wielding a blade, but desperate times can make heroes out of anyone.

"The best heroes are the ones who are humble. The ones who don't do it for glory, but to protect innocent people."

"I suppose that's true enough," Sam agrees, smiling reassuringly at her as he lets his hair fall to cover the scar again. "You should see Strider! He looks foul and feels fair, as he put it: not like a hero at all! Why I didn't trust him a bit, when we met him in Bree, he looked such a scoundrel. But he proved his worth and protected us, all the way to the River; there's no one I'd rather have to look after me, nor Mr. Frodo."

Ellana chuckles. "Appearances aren't everything, it's true. But you speak very highly of this Mr. Frodo. Will you tell me more about him?"

"About Mr. Frodo?" Sam blinks, taken off guard. For as much as he mentions Frodo - nearly every time he speaks of home - he's tried to avoid thinking about him too much. Thinking of Frodo inevitably leads to thinking about the Quest, and the Ring, and everything that might go wrong in Sam's absence. But it's hardly in him to refuse such a request from Ellana. "Well, I suppose so - that is, what would you like to know?"

"Well, what do you think I should know?" she asks, gazing down at him. "I would say 'everything,' but that seems a bit much, and I won't make you talk about him until you're hoarse. Let's start with how you two met." That seems a natural starting point, doesn't it? And from there, Ellana can ask more questions about this mysterious Mr. Frodo.

"That's easy enough," he replies with some relief. Telling anyone about Mr. Frodo is quite a request, after all - he'd hardly know where to start without some direction. "My ol' gaffer - that's my da - he worked for Mr. Bilbo - that's Mr. Frodo's uncle, or rather, his cousin twice over - since before I can remember right up until he went away. Mr. Frodo came to live with Mr. Bilbo at Bag End after his mum and da were drownded on the River away up in Buckland, Mr. Frodo being half Brandybuck of course. By then I was helping my da out a bit in the gardens up at Bag End - just a bit, you know - I wasn't even a tween yet! But I remember the day Mr. Frodo came to Bag End still: so quiet and somber he was, not like any hobbit I ever met before or since. But he was kind, right from the start: offering water and a bite to eat on a hot day or even a cool one, and always with a kind word to say about the flowers."

Oh, dear. Ellana struggles to keep up with the cast of characters and locations, but in the end, she thinks she understands.

"That was very kind of him. I know the pain of losing both parents at the same time, and to be able to reach out and show kindness to others is something special." Up ahead, the keep comes into sight, looking slightly wavy from the desert heat rising.

"Let's get inside and have a rest with some water, and maybe you can tell me more?"

She does? Sam looks up in concern when Ellana mentions losing parents, but she doesn't offer any details, and he won't pry. Instead, he nods soberly, perking up a little when the keep comes into view.

"Water sounds even better than ale right now," he says eagerly, already thinking of how cool and fresh it will be. "And perhaps if we're lucky there'll be a bit of food too!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OPEN: The Western Approach

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