OPEN: The Western Approach

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

Adelaide LeBlanc | OTA

[fleurdesel]

IRifts in the desert- not so strange. After having run into them once or twice before they aren't that difficult to wrangle. Kill the demons, let those with shards close them, try not to fall or die. Or tumble down the dunes, in this case. What she hadn't quite learned was the art of dodging things that the rift spat out. Between one moment and the next she went from happily raising barriers among those that sought to seal the rift and stumbling backward to avoid a sudden crate that'd been hurled from Maker knows where and buried in the sand.

She pays it no mind until after the rift is sealed, only then crouching to peel back the top and stare at the bizarre contents.

"...Shaded...eyeglasses?" What in Andraste's name?



II part 2

Adelaide spends the bulk of her time at the healing tents, either working to patch up those coming in or tend to them once more before they are sent out on patrol. The weary and wounded are seen to with her usual humor (ill) and a warning to stop being so foolish and turn back to camp when they feel faint. When not minding the injured, she goes back over her notes of things seen, questions she needs to ask, and stocks for a salve against sunburn. Or. Handing out those odd, shaded glasses that were spat at her from the Rift. They seem to work well against the sun's glare.

I

[colecomfort]

Cole has mostly been seen in the Approach only in glimpses: he appears where he's needed, in a fight, or when someone falls from exhaustion, but he vanishes as soon as he has finished helping.

He lingers this time, after sheathing his daggers, only because that box fell out of the rift. He's seen people fall out, but never something like this.

He rests a hand on the open edge of the crate.

"What are they for?"

[fleurdesel]

"...I do not quite know." Adelaide blinks a bit before attempting to slip on a pair- "They do cut down on the sun's glare quite a bit."

Perhaps enough to warrant the oddness of the shape. They're hardly pleasing to the eye- or at least to her eye. She pulls a different pair out, squinting at the odd shape across the lenses and offering them to Cole. "Some of them, at least."

[colecomfort]

He takes them gingerly, as if afraid they might bite: still wary of the unfamiliar object, still unaccustomed to accepting anything that might be a gift. He turns them over in his hands before slipping them on as she did, then lifting his head enough to look up at the sky. Or try to, anyway.

"I can't see anything, now."

[motherfucking_ghost]

Church is having a time. He's not used to being so far out of Skyhold. Or out of Skyhold at all. He's making an effort lately for the sake of rifters and for the sake of...not being completely useless. As he's lately realized he is. (Even he can see, despite his deliberate blindness and boasting, that he's not likely to hit fuck and all with a crossbow. Yet! Yet.) But he's hot and everywhere is sand and lugging around a sharp hunk of metal while not in a powered suit of armor all kind of sucks.

He's still learning how to sword. But he can at least hit things with a sword. ...Just...it uh...it requires getting close to dangerous things. It is not as swish-swish-stab as Tucker made it out to be, but to be fair, his sword was made of fucking energy that he could turn off at will.

He's getting better at helping close rifts with the practice, at least. So. Not 100% useless. It still sucks to do, though. So he's glad to be distracted by Adelaide's box.

"Oh sweet, shades!" He snatches up a pair of aviators and dons them with a grin. "This is awesome. I hope these rifts keep spitting out more modern junk." Hey, Ruby got a poster of fucking Ziggy Stardust. Maybe they're closing rifts too fast!

[fleurdesel]

"You know what these are?" Considering they were shaded glasses it shouldn't be so great a leap of logic to think that they could be called as such- or that someone from a further point in time in their own world would know of them. After a long moment of peering up at Church, she snorts.

"I suppose they do have a certain appeal." A certain strange appeal.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Yeah, sunglasses! Shades. They've all kinda got their own names." He motions to the ones in her hand. "Those are uh...more of a fashion statement than strictly useful. Where these are useful and--what'd you say, have a certain appeal? Means you like 'em."

I

[gatheringstorm]

Pacing around after the rift is no more, Korrin checks to make sure that no one need potions or that the local wildlife hasn't taken advantage of the distraction. But since nothing urgent requires her attention, she now pauses by Adelaide, raising an eyebrow.

"That's what the rift spat out?"

[fleurdesel]

"It cannot all be strange people from strange worlds." Though this is, without a doubt, the oddest thing Adelaide has seen that has come from these rifts thusfar. More than a little curious, she offers Korrin a pair, the mirrored finish strange in so many ways. "Can you even see through these?"

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin inspects the pair of mirrored lenses, turning them this way and that. After a moment, she lifts them up to her eyes and frowns a little. "I can, actually. It cuts out some of the sun's glare, though...Maker, they look so weird. Lena would never let me hear the end of it if she saw me with these."

I

[el_tybs]

"Adelaide, are you alright?" He had seen the odd crate come flying out of the rift, and while it looked like it hadn't hit her, it was still concerning. After all this was a normal rift right? That even these were tossing in things from other worlds was something to consider in the future.

Walking up closer Sam gets a better look at what Adelaide is looking at and immediately he frowns, just as confused as her at the contents. They did look like glasses. But dark. "More strange stuff."

[fleurdesel]

"It does not seem dangerous- and I am not hurt." No, it simply seems strange. Very strange. She pulls a pair out and squints at the lenses, how darkened lenses would be of any use she cannot imagine- but they weren't made of metal or wood or bone or glass or anything she'd seen before. "Better this than more demons."

[el_tybs]

"Thank goodness for that. Bad enough with this heat than to add demon attacks to it," he mutters, looking into the crate. When nothing seems to happen when Adelaide takes one, Sam slowly reaches in as well and pulls out a pair. "Nothing like I've seen before."

They looked like glasses, but the lens were rather large, and how was anyone supposed to see anything with them so dark? After a time Sam eventually opens them up and sets them on his face, glancing around to see if it did anything. "You can actually still see with these on."

part 1

[universal_charm]

It was the first time Kirk had seen a rift besides the one he came through, or seen anyone close it and how it was done. He had chosen to mostly stay back for this one, wanting to observe unless he was needed. Otherwise he felt he would get in the way, which would be dangerous not only for himself but everyone else.

So he was in a good position to see the box from through, surprised, but like Adelaide does not approach it until the danger has passed. He comes over to see what it is she has, and has to let out a bark of a laugh when he sees what is inside.

"I think the universe has a wicked sense of humor," he reached in, taking a pair and slipping them on. "Sunglasses in a desert. Excellent timing."

[fleurdesel]

"Is it humorous if it is exactly what would be most appropriate?" Irony, perhaps, would have been something related to ice. Furred cloaks or gloves or boots fit for traveling in snow- though the dunes and stones have been their own hazards in traveling. She'd never been this far out before.

But it only took one tumble for her to learn how to walk.

Or.

Perhaps more than one, but only one where anyone saw and that was what counted.

[universal_charm]

"Well, I think it's funny anyways. I mean, out of all the places that Rift could have led to, it led to a place with these and in a handy box." He picked up another pair and twirled them on his finger before holding them out to Adelaide.

"Funny, because this is just to much good luck to be a coincidence. Put them on. They'll protect your eyes against the sun, though everything will seem a touch darker. To bad it didn't toss in some sunscreen to go with them."

for kane + adelaide.

[apostasia]

"That's different," Martel remarks, crouching down nearby Adelaide and the crate to get a better look. He's not without a bit of caution for anything that comes flinging through a rift - between the fact that he did and the papers that came from his world, a bit of healthy caution strikes him as a very wise thing - but upon first glance, it hardly looks like a threat.

He snags a pair by one arm, turning it upside down. "How are you supposed to see through them?"

[letterandspirit]

Kane is not far away, ambling to converge without real curiousity for the crate being crowded until he sees Martel duck down to retrieve something from it. He heralds his presence with sheathing his sword, wiped clean of demon gore, the whisper of metal against sand and the crackle of dehydrated twigs and bramble in the dust, underfoot. He nods to Adelaide, reflexively, recognition through osmosis.

He picks one up as well, his examination curious as he opens the arms out. The glass is a sort of fading amber-brown that reminds him of rich whiskey, and he holds them up to puzzle out at Martel's query, peering at the man through glass, still held out at a hover.

"They're not that dark, actually," he notes, before-- well-- he goes to slide them into place, with only minor hesitation.

[fleurdesel]

"That is putting it kindly. Perhaps we ought write a letter to toss through the next rift. A list of requests, if we are to be receiving random baggage." Maker knows they both carry more than enough. The Templar likely just as much- he's a templar. All templars have their own quiet, soulful baggage of some manner they cart about in one of two ways: with grave stoicism or a self-righteous reminder of 'oh how I suffer, I suffer for you'.

To Adelaide's knowledge, Kane has thus far been the former and all the more pleasing company for it.

She takes a moment to blink at them both, squinting to be precise. Gauging. Considering. Judging. "...They suit you."

Said with all the conviction of one dubiously testing the weight of a thoroughly rotted plank on a bridge.





"Somewhat." Specificity matters.

II

[bookish_lioness]

Though Hermione had helped close it, she doesn't know that anything had been spat out of the rift other than demons until some time later, when she hears someone remarking on how the crate had almost crushed Adelaide. Concerned for her, she makes her way to the healing tents at her first opportunity, meaning to check in on her.

She waits until Adelaide isn't helping someone, though she gathers from that much that nothing so bad has happened as to have any sort of negative effect on her. When they're finally alone, she approaches Adelaide, looking her over carefully. "Are you all right? Sorry, I've only just heard that a box of some sort had almost hit you during the fight. I didn't know cargo could come out of the rifts."

[fleurdesel]

"I am well, thank you." At the time it'd been terrifying, yet one more thing spat out from these rifts that could have been anything. An explosive, weapons, a box of yet more demons- but now? She's sifted through the mass and found some amusement in it- even if it'd almost cracked her in the skull when it'd fallen through. "And you? You've kept yourself hydrated and from overheating?"

It's a concern for everyone- but the younger members of the Inquisition, all the more so. "This seems to be...shades, I think Church called them. Sun glasses."

I

[qunari]

"What's that?"

Bull's panting slightly as he hefts his axe back onto his shoulder, regarding the mage as he starts to come down from the battle. Fighting demons requires his full attention, and he's got to break that tunnel-vision somehow.

Focusing on whatever she just found might help with that.

[fleurdesel]

"A crate of glasses with varying degrees of use." She murmurs, sifting through the lot. Some had lenses, some did not, some were bizarrely shaped- and the pair she holds up for inspection has...pink lenses shaped like...hearts?

"What do you think?"

[quietblade]

"...this is the weirdest shit I've ever seen, but it works," Taas says as he's handed one of the glasses for his watch. "I'm kind of amazed we don't have these in Par Vollen. It would help a lot."

Peering down at her, he gives her a small smile. "How's things here? We got a lot of wounded?"

[fleurdesel]

"They are not metal and glass. Well. Most of them are not. Perhaps some manner of resin?" She squints through a pair of her own at the nearby fire, gauging how much it is dimmed. Some help more than others. Some seem a joke. The glasses she sets aside for the moment in favor of offering a mug of tea. "More fools that overextend themselves in the heat than wounded- we have been fortunate that none have lingered too near the darkspawn. I do not know how we might manage to treat any that caught the blight, here."