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.

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If (perhaps when, if timing becomes an issue) she begins to be weary, he will suggest she save her strength and mana. A helpful magical barrier is, after all, helpful, but he is no stranger to going into battle without one, of course. He's more focused on shifting shadows, shapes in and around the light.

The Wardens rebuilt. It's in question, now, if that was a good idea. For the next Blight, of course, but they might destroy themselves completely at this rate. Are those with the Inquisition even truly safe?

And if not, then what of himself, of Aleron, of Cassandra? It's a question he has only in quiet moments considered to himself. Can they rebuild? And should they? It's no easy road to become a Seeker, and Templars feel threatened by them, and seen by mages as just another brand of Templar. But their work is just. When they do as they are meant to. After a lengthy pause: "There is a world to save, first. We are the Inquisition before anything else." That includes before being a Warden. "Our specific groups and titles must be secondary until Thedas knows peace."

It's not necessarily an answer, and he knows it. Hates it, with a tightening line of his jaw.

"Eh, I've never been big on formalities. The Inquisition, sounds so intimidating. That, and I kind of got a little forced into the whole thing." He shrugs a shoulder again. "We all did, really, just by the sake of dropping our sorry interdimensional asses here. What luck." No he's probably not gonna forgive Cassandra for the whole sword to the throat thing, even if he was making it sound like maybe he was their version of a demon-possessed body. Whatever.

"My sleep schedule's always been kinda wonky anyway. I'll probably pass out on a ladder and get poked with a stick in a few hours." He tears his eyes away from the stars, gazing across the landscape. In one direction, giant fucking canyon filled with black terrible crazy-looking awfulness where apparently unending hordes of undead-looking things crawl out of. But the other direction... "It's almost pretty. When you're not fighting tiny dragons or poison lizard-dogs."

Good, because falling off would involve hitting stone wall, hitting a dwarf, and hitting a lit torch, before hitting the ground. The fall might not kill, but it would definitely break bones otherwise.

Rachette splashes into the water. It's shallow, enough that she feels her concerns over a water source are very justified. It's a desert; there are a lot of people here. They'll need an easier way of filling their sacks of water. The torch doesn't go far, though she's pretty sure she can see a glint of some shiny stone. But there's another light source from...somewhere down the way. Where that draft is coming from.

"If there's really an opening somewhere down here," she calls to the elf over her shoulder, "it would be better to reinforce it or close it off. Might get darkspawn wandering in. Or a sneak attack from Venatori in the night." Totally not a shudder or anything. That's just a trick of light.

"I do like getting the jump on people." She can't say she likes jumping on petty thieves, because boy, wouldn't that be hypocritical? "Sure you're up for it?" she jokes. The fever has since passed, though recovering still felt like an eternity.

"Nothing is wrong with them," Christine rushes to say. "Not on you, or on others. But on me? No, I do not like the look of them. I can only hope they fade quickly."

As it happens, Cassandra had intercepted the report from a scout on his way to Leliana. The scout had looked exceedingly uncomfortable at the idea of handing over the scroll, but in the end, even the future possibility of the Nightingale's censure had not been enough to overcome the immediate certainty of the Seeker's wrath, and he had handed it over without complaint.

The truth is simply that she had wanted to speak to Leliana, but had been unable to bring herself to approach her without some reason. Some excuse to hide behind, should Leliana prove aloof; something solid to discuss to avoid awkward silences. Cowardly of her, perhaps, but only the truth.

Luckily, Leliana seems willing to talk. She shakes her head, unable to keep a disgusted look off her face as she considers the desert.

"Hot, and full of trouble," she says, scowling as she thinks of the darkspawn and the varghests. "We are making progress, however. The water, at least, is safe to drink from again."

Cassandra pauses, raising a hand to stop the soldiers prepared to carry the bodies to the pyre. She looks at Christine, frowning.

"You knew them?" she asks. "They were among the rebels?"

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."

Bruce can't quite keep away the laugh that escapes him at her words, the amusement easy enough to make out from it. It doesn't last long though, at least, and as the laugh dies down Bruce attempts to nudge the dracolisk away from his head once more (still to not much success).

"If it really happens then I'll do my best to handle it." Though Bruce is pretty sure that isn't going to happen... or at least he can't imagine it happening. He certainly hopes it won't happen or otherwise he's going to have to eat his own words.

Intrigued by the hand, the dracolisk turns to sniff at it, seemingly curious to what's been held up in front of it. Bruce watches it do that for a few moments before he glances back at the other, giving him a skeptical look.

"'Magnificent' is not what most people would call them," Bruce returns, as just at the same time the dracolisk seems to have decided that Kain's hand was something of a delectable and opened its mouth to lightly clamp its teeth around his palm.

"Don't touch that one!"

The voice is alarmed, and sudden, and...right about at elbow level. Sam hastens up behind him, breathing hard, reaching up to yank Kirk's arm away before his fingers can brush across the strange plant hanging from a tree branch.

"Give you a nasty rash, it will. Ghoul's Beard, they call it. It's useful enough, but you don't want to touch it with your bare skin - you'll be itching for days!"

"What's that, then?"

Vellana's had a shadow, whether she realizes it or not. Most likely not; hobbits are masters at moving unseen and unheard, and Sam's been known to sneak up even on Galadriel without her noticing.

He'd recognized one of the tunes she'd been humming as one he'd heard from the other Dalish in Skyhold, and had been intrigued enough to follow along behind her, hoping to hear more. He'd recognized a few of them, listened carefully to the unfamiliar ones, and then, subtly, the notes had changed, growing darker and somehow unsettling. Still...she is an Elf. What else would she be humming? "Is...is it an Elven song?"

"It looks Elvish, don't you think?"

It doesn't, really, and Sam says it more out of hope than anything else. He walks up to the arch, glancing high up overhead before placing his hand on the stone. It's not quite cool, but it's shaded enough that it's not hot to the touch, either.

"It seems to be very old, anyhow."

He really hasn't seen so many areas of this world, he realizes as she mentions that. He's already aware of some of it, whether he's heard of it or otherwise... his parrot seems to be from one of those more tropical locations. Will there be an opportunity to explore these far off lands someday, he wonders... "Adapting is for the best for anyone who travels a great deal."

"Yet somehow this world is still standing. That's impressive, in its way."

That's definitely not promising at all. With a sigh, Kain picks at the meal he's grabbed, definitely frustrated that these Venatori have gotten away with... whatever they were trying to do with that blood magic. He doesn't like it at all. "Truly unfortunate. Though I have to wonder if any of them were planning to return at all anytime soon..."

He is so young, hardly more than a child. Cassandra keeps an eye on him as they walk, curious but, most of all, wary and suspicious. His black eyes had first caught her attention, but even so, she had been willing to dismiss them as a product of his own world, not necessarily anything to be alarmed about, until she had happened to glance down at his feet and nearly tripped over her own at the sight.

He had been flying, floating over the ground. She had stared, wondering if perhaps she was hallucinating the sight - too much sun, not enough water. But it had been real. Just as the reports he makes, the ones apparently taken from the eyes of the foxes and hyenas running ahead of them through the desert, have now been proven true, time and time again.

She waits until he comes back to himself, until he returns to the ground and rests against a boulder, to approach him.

"Is this sort of magic common, in your world?"

"A Chantry symbol?"

Cassandra's attention is caught immediately. She moves over to the pillar, squinting against the sun to inspect the symbol.

"It is," she confirms. "A very old one. It stands for...for knowledge - the preservation of knowledge." She frowns. "What is it doing here?"

Ugh, these demonic creatures are such ghastly things. Kain is definitely more than glad he's got some help here... he'd have been swiftly outnumbered if not. Not only does he have to get closer, he can't really do much about that rift until he's not being attacked. So he focuses his attention on the demon coming after him, giving it an upward slash of his lance at it as he leaps upward, then striking down as he descends. It weakens the demon, but he's got to keep on it if he wants to get rid of it entirely.

Kain nods agreement, he'd forgotten how easy it had felt, getting around the Hinterlands. "It's more the weather and the demons and rifts I'm thinking about at the moment... The regular wildlife, I can deal with. A good hunt is always worth the challenge... especially dragons." Though Thedas has proven it has plenty of threatening wildlife, so even a small journey is never dull.

As for Kain, he can get the literal jump on them, though of course, this has to be done carefully, so as to take out as many as possible, as quickly as they can. He glances over at Rachette with a slight smirk. They may not have been in the best situation the last they'd run across one another, but this time they're both much better off. "I'm more than up for it. You can count on that."

Right... it probably does sound like an odd thing to say about such beasts. Kain can't blame him for saying such. But he doesn't have time to reply at first, as the dracolisk decides that his fingers are worth exploring. With its mouth. He gives a startled cry, and slowly slides his hand out.

"That's not food," he says in a firm tone, keeping his voice steady - not sounding angry, though, because that does no good in the end. He glances over at Bruce. "Well... fine. Perhaps I exaggerated a little... but they look like the offspring of a horse and a dragon... they've intrigued me since I first saw them."

[So late to this >_<]

II. Griffon Keep. (While not camped outside Adamant)
The group he arrives with had left Skyhold only a day or so after the first group had, but by the time they get to the keep the following day, the fight is over. The slain have already been taken care of and what's left of the pyre is smoldering outside the gates. That leaves debris to be searched through and cleared and patrols to be run.

He volunteers for an early morning patrol, which tends to run into the most beasts, but avoids the heat of the day. The rest of his time is spent helping to clean the place up, keeping as busy as he can to try to keep his mind off of what his fellow Wardens might be walking into at Weisshaupt, especially after what they'd found in Adamant.

V. Adamant (mostly the camp outside, but feel free to run into him inside)
"Poor bastards," The smell of blood and burnt hair is sickening, even as the pyre is being relit. He doesn't linger at the pyre long, with the fire lit the demons and shades seem to slink further into the fortress. But the further in people get, the more they find. The lists, the bodies.

Maybe it makes him a coward, but he copes by focusing on hunting down what's still lurking in the fortress, leaving the disposal of bodies up to the others until there's nothing left to hunt. He's trying, and failing, to separate the things he's seeing from what he knows about the Wardens. The whispers of sacrifices and blood magic are willfully ignored.

When night falls and the pyre has burned down to ash, he moves to settle at one of the bonfires outside of the fortress, the strained silence only amplified by the emptiness of the desert around them. He's not sure what to think of what he's seen, so he tries not to.

Her reaction is immediate and instinctual, holding it closer, angling it away. Come and get it, pry her future pay from her cold dead hands--

But that might not be right. She's been free to pick other things--shame to let them go to waste--that can be sold or distributed to the others. The dead need no weapons, no light armor. They don't need rings, either. Or coin. Not where they're going (where they've gone). So that the tired man (who has definitely been giving her a look now and again) specifically asks for this item might mean...not so much valuable in coin. Maybe more personally valuable. Maybe only valuable to Wardens. Maybe there are Warden secrets, or maybe it's just a passed down Warden heirloom.

She holds it up, squinting at whatever it's supposed to be. It almost looks like blood. Doesn't immediately hand it over. (Maybe if the man was Hercules; she respects Hercules, in spite of being a Warden.) "What is it?"

"On it!" Firing at someone above them isn't the best strategy, but it's chaos yet, and he'll not go running around blindly. Malcolm peppers the area with a few arrows, if not to harm, then to at least distract for a few moments where they can't fire so he can angle himself into a better position--to take aim and to not be in immediate danger of having an axe swung at his head. When the archer next pops back up, Malcolm's aim is true enough to land a grave hit. "There'll be more where that came from. Watch your head!"

Malcolm is finding that one is never truly prepared for the desert, despite all warnings, especially when one has never been in one. And especially after coming from the snowy climes around Skyhold.

He offers the warrior a small container of salve while they are camped. "The healers apparently anticipated those whose skin disagrees with the sun. I imagine this will help, my lady."

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OPEN: The Western Approach

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she does not deserve this

i'm so sorry kain

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Chantry Trail

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loool... he's just being friendly!

Blackwall

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desert