faderift | OPEN ↠ FALSE GODS, GREAT DEMONS (OPEN LOG 1)

WHO: Living Residents of the Horrible Future
WHAT: Ah ha ha ha stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
WHEN: ALTERNATE FUTURE, 1-15 Cloudreach 9:48
WHERE: Anywhere, but especially Orzammar
NOTES: This is the first open log for False Gods, Great Demons. Anything that happened prior to Cloudreach 9:48 should go on the flashback meme. Most members of the TTT and their friends in Kirkwall will be arriving in Orzammar on approximately Cloudreach 7. In the meantime, feel free to make your own adventures. If you want to blow up an bridge, assassinate an NPC of your own invention, steal supplies, or anything else--it's all yours, go for it!

SOUTHERN THEDAS is a wasteland. The Blight crawling across the Orleian countryside and into Ferelden leaves nothing alive in its wake, scarring the land like an insatiable fire until no birds sing and the only things that grows is the Red Lyrium that speckles cliff sides and crawls up dying trees until they look like rows of jagged bloody teeth. And where it's still green, where people can still survive, the atmosphere is nearly as stifling. Every city and settlement is watched over by a Venatori or trustworthy collaborator. Those who don't keep their heads down and their dissent a whisper may vanish without warning. They may take their whole families with them. There are flashes of hope--an assassinated lordling here, a village rousing itself to brief and doomed rebellion there--but for every man the Imperium loses, they seem to find two to take his place.

NORTHERN THEDAS is at war. The worst of it doesn't reach west into Tevinter or the Anderfels; the line between the Qunari and the Imperium is drawn straight through Antiva, with Nevarra and Rivain on either side quiet and calm as only lands under martial law can be. The Free Marches vary between complacency and rebellion, but the rebellious ones risk ruin--there are murmurs it won't be long before a whole city is made an example. A steady stream of desperate refugees is fleeing north to the Qun, but plenty are picked off and punished as traitors before they can cross into Qunari-controlled territory. Your best best for a clean escape are the pirates who still hold Llomerynn free from both sides of the conflict.

ORZAMMAR is the only kingdom in Thedas that looks much the same--and Kal-Sharok, but they're not accepting outsiders. The heavy doors at Orzammar's entrance are sealed and guarded, as much against the steady flow of refugees asking for help as against the Venatori. The refugees are turned away. There's no way to know who can be trusted, and even if there were, there's not food enough for people who can't fight. Orzammar Thaig is still the dwarves' home--though with stealing shrinking numbers and poor prospects, King Bhelen has been amenable to allowing casteless surfacers some leeway--but the once-abandoned Ortan Thaig is the Inquisition's. Quietly. The only things stopping a full assault on Orzammar is the Venatori's need for dwarf-mined lyrium and the plausible deniability that the Inquisition's remaining rebel bands are using the Deep Roads with Bhelen's consent.

An hour's walk through caves and deepstalker swarms, Ortan is a city in its own right. A crammed city, one where cots and bunk beds crammed into shared housing are the norm no matter how important someone is and you occasionally have to protect your dinner from a restless, swooping griffon, but one where you can still find a pint of ale or a game of cards if you've time to waste on them. It's just that not many people do. There's the watch to keep; the tunnels that creep further into the deep teem with darkspawn who are held back at barricades, while the hidden, narrow tunnels that lead to the surface are watched at all hours so anyone coming or going can be identified. There are weapons to forge and sharpen. Plans to make. Bands to lead. Maybe you weren't a leader five years ago, but these days, there aren't that many people with more than five years' experience still alive to give orders. Fewer every week.

And so we burned. We raised nations, we waged wars,
We dreamed up false gods, great demons
Who could cross the Veil into the waking world,
Turned our devotion upon them, and forgot you.
Threnodies 1:8

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bethany gives him enough time to eat, to sleep, to debrief all the others, before she appears at his bedroll, her expression strained but desperately hopeful. Brown eyes, locked on his face, as she searched for an answer to a question she hadn't even asked yet.

Yet ask it, she would ... but first she was Bethany Hawke nee Darton, so the first question out of her mouth is this, "So ... if I don't ask you about the experience, the outside world, or whether or not you found out what color bloomers Corypheus is currently sharing with the fake Herald of Andraste -- may I ask you something?"

It is her own way of saying, I am glad you are okay. I know you do not want to talk about it, so I will leave you a joke to get out if it, if you wish.

From his bed, Alistair blinks at her, slowly transitioning from half awake to three-quarters awake over the course of that question. It isn't odd for her to be here—the house, perched on the wall of the thaig, is home to a number of people, crammed in and living on top of one another, and comings and goings of people who don't sleep there barely register. But he still needs a second to catch up.

"Uh," he says during that second. Then he sits up, scrubs his face with his hand, checks the empty half of the cot to confirm it is in fact empty and not occupied by any elves who need their vulnerable sleepy faces shielded from view, and swings his legs over. Fortunately for everyone, he's wearing trousers. He just needs to find his boots. "Purple. Purple bloomers." Boots found. He starts shoving his feet in and looks up at her, a little trepidatious. "Ask away."

Really, she uses the place to sleep, and gather food from, but live here was something of a stretch. She spent most of her time between her lab, the barricade, and when she had the chance, outside to look for Aleron and gather more supplies.

She gives him a half-smile, still warm despite the strain on the corners of her eyes. She folds her arms over her chest, letting out a quiet chuckle at the line of purple bloomers.

Deep breath. No reason to hope for anything different. "Did you see Aleron?"

—right, that nervousness was entirely warranted, then. Alistair looks at her for a moment, pity scrawled across his face; he's not good at masking that sort of emotion except by joking, and this isn't something to joke about. When he realizes, he ducks his head to focus on buckling his boots. It all right if he looks at his own feet like someone's died. His feet don't care.

"He's here," he says after that pause. "We brought him back with us. But he's not—it isn't good, Bethany."

Her heart sinks the moment he looks at her - because pity is easy to read in those eyes. Then he looks down at his boots, and she can feel her heart clench, and start to crack into the final pieces.

"... Is he? Is he dead?" Another horrible thought, "Turned, to their side?"

"No. Tortured."

Left boot on. Right boot next. He tries to move more slowly so he will have an excuse to not look at her for even longer.

"I don't think he's--all there, anymore. But I'm sure he'll be happy to see you, if he can be."

Everything ... stopped, as she stared at Alistair with absolute horror, before she grabbed one hand with the other and squeezed it hard enough to leave a bruise.

"Where - where is he? Where did they take him?"

"I don't know."

He looks up from his boot, since he can no longer use the hand she bent down and grabbed for the buckles, and frowns up into her face. That's probably not a very good answer to give an upset wife who's already trying to murder his hand. But it's the only one he has.

Something hard flashed through Bethany's gaze then, her jaw tightened and lifted and the smear of blood across her nose and cheeks almost disappeared with how red her face became. She released Alistair's hand, and abruptly turned on her heel, all but growling.

"Then I am going to find out."

Alistair's eyebrows go up at the way her face changes, and he glances to one side as if maybe, possibly, someone might be there who can tell him what it is he said to warrant that kind of reaction. And also save him, maybe, if he's about to be shouted at or smacked. But no one is there--and Bethany turns away anyway. So that's good.

"Ah," he says uncertainly. Finding him shouldn't be hard. As far as Alistair knows, no one is hiding any rescued Seekers behind any rocks. He's probably with the healers. Or with the other Seekers and Templars dealing with red lyrium problems. But, again, Alistair doesn't know. So: "Good luck."

"I don't need luck. I need a great deal of magic, which I already have." Bethany shot over her shoulder, all but stomping towards the door. If she had to rip this Thaig apart, she was going to get her husband back.

"Do not light our secret hide-out on fire," Alistair calls after her, because that seems like an important boundary to establish. He is not sure how magic is going to help find Aleron more quickly than asking the healers or other Seekery Templary types, but maybe there's a spell for that. One that doesn't involve fire. Because she isn't allowed to light the thaig on fire. They need it. As he bends back down to fasten his buckles, he adds, "Please," in more of a mutter.

Women.

OPEN ↠ FALSE GODS, GREAT DEMONS (OPEN LOG 1)

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