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

Gestures like this are rare, especially after someone hears Lena talk, but she takes the offered cup, peers into it, and takes a sniff. She tends to assume people are trying to poison her, but only because she herself tends to poison people. For jobs, not as a hobby. Though mixing poisons is a hobby...

Anyway, she deems it safe, but is unsure why she's being offered it.

"You want something?" she asks, not yet taking a sip.

She'd expected to be ignored, perhaps, or maybe to get a grunt that was meant to be some sort of thank you. The reaction she gets, though, comes as something of a surprise, and Hermione starts a bit.

"What? No, you just-... seemed like you had a bad day. Sorry, that sounds trite, none of us are exactly having good days out here." Shrugging, she concludes, "You looked angry, and I just didn't want you choking on your food. Besides, we could use all the water we can get while we're here."

Lena snorts and shakes her head. But she doesn't go throwing the cup either, so this isn't a truly foul mood. If anything, what Hermione is saying reminds her of something her friend Taaranda would say. She's always upbeat and positive.

"Spent all day chasing after Vints who cleared out already and left a broken tunnel with darkspawn behind for us to fight. Assholes." She takes a sip of water, not about to admit to this girl that she's right, and Lena does need it. But the action should be confirmation enough.

Hermione isn't an optimist so much as she is a realist. While it might be true that a kind gesture can brighten someone's day, she hardly thinks a cup of water will dispel whatever it had been to make this woman sit down as abruptly as she had. So realistically, eve if it doesn't help her feel better emotionally, at least it will unsure she doesn't end up gagging because she'd forgotten how to chew.

She isn't entirely certain what "Vints" are, though she feels that she should know. Tevinter? Probably Tevinter. "I'm sorry," she tells her immediately when the situation becomes clear. "Did everyone make it out all right?"

"Yeah, we were fine. Had to clean my blades extra hard to make sure I got all the fucking tainted blood off them." She makes a disgusted sound in her throat. "Then just when we were getting out of there, a fucking giant appears. I mean, if I can't fight a dragon, a giant is a good substitute, but Maker's balls, the smell."

"I've never seen a giant here," Hermione murmurs, frowning a little. It certainly sounds like an unpleasant situation all around, and certainly not suitable conversation for when the other woman is trying to eat, but she likely has a much stronger stomach than Hermione does. "Do they smell quite bad? The giants I know of back home are just very large humans. A bit on the feral side, perhaps, and unfortunately some of them aren't very bright, but they have their good points if you treat them fairly. Why, one of my former professors and best friends is a half-giant, and he's really very sweet."

Lena gives Hermione a look as if she's grown another head. Of course they smell bad; she just said that, didn't she? Well, it was implied, but still.

"They aren't like humans, though it'd be funny if they were. Would sure bring that human superiority down a notch," she replies. "They smell like shit and rotting meat."

Hermione winces, more at the foul description than at the blunt language. She might have quailed at that sort of vocabulary before, but at this point, she's come to accept the fact that most of the people here are adults who don't need someone around to tell them to mind their manners. She can't exactly deduct House points anymore, after all.

"Sorry. That sounds unpleasant all around." Hesitating for a moment, she adds, "I don't know if there's really any proper place to wash up, but if there is, I can provide you with the water. I don't know if I can do anything about the smell, though, if it's still in your nostrils."

That's good, because Lena would undoubtedly be in Slytherin.

She waves a hand and shakes her head, not about to bother. "It was hours ago. I can't smell it anymore." Then she pulls her arm in close to sniff at her shirt sleeve. "Do I smell? Because that's one way to keep people away from me." It requires less effort than anything else too.

Equal parts disgusted and amused at the way she sniffs at herself, Hermione gives her a wry look and remarks, "You almost sound like that's something you'd look forward to. I can oblige, if you'd like, but for what it's worth, no, you don't smell."

"Most people annoy me," she says. "Too cheerful, ask too many questions, act like idiots." She shrugs. "I'd rather not hear them yammer on."

Lena does like to be entertained. People who make her laugh get on her good side, but she doesn't go telling people that's what they could do to get her to like them.

"Oh... well, I'm afraid I do ask too many questions," Hermione admits freely. "But you didn't catch me within the first week of my arrival, so I think I might have already asked most of the things I could think to ask. Lucky you."

She's slightly sarcastic, but not nearly enough not to add, "But there are always questions to be asked. Not much else can be expected of rifters, after all, especially not when we're still tying to feel out the state of the world through experience."

"Didn't mean you guys specifically." She pauses to drink more water before adding, "I think I've only met two or three of you." Granted, Lena is a good source of information, since she's traveled nearly everywhere in Thedas as a mercenary, but the rifters would have a better go of asking Korrin or Taaranda for information. Lena tends to give clipped responses, if she responds at all.

"But lemme ask you something," she continues, since this topic has got her thinking. "Do you think you're stuck here for good, or are you figuring you'll get home someday?"

That question takes Hermione by surprise; while she might have secretly feared that she'd be stuck in Thedas forever, she'd never really allowed herself to doubt that she would return home. It's the delicate balance between optimism and pessimism that all pragmatic people regularly walk.

"Well... we came in through the rifts, so I would assume that studying them and these shards should eventually yield a way to send us back to where we should be. It might take a while, and I understand that the threat of Corypheus and darkspawn and the mage/templar disputes all mean that locals have more important things on their minds, but there's no reason to assume that all attempts to send us back will be fruitless. Until I hear otherwise, I'll believe that my stay in Thedas is a temporary one, and I'll make the best of it."

For all her attitude, Lena doesn't scoff at Hermione's pragmatic response. She nods once and blows out a breath.

"My friend's got herself tangled up with a rifter. A relationship." She struggles to just get the word out without sounding like it's deplorable. "But this rifter talks of her home like it's the greatest thing ever, so if you guys find the way back to where you all came from, I think she'd go." Her eyes narrow. "Kind of sucks for my friend."

"Oh," Hermione murmurs, frowning a little at the mention of a relationship. She has nothing against romantic entanglements in general, but it feels strange to her that a rifter would allow themselves to get into that sort of thing when there are so many bigger matters to handle in Thedas.

"Would it be possible for a native to travel through a rift and back to a particular rifter world?" she asks, voice thoughtful. "I mean, I don't see why not, but I had never considered it before. I suppose it would be nice for people who don't want to stay here, but at the same time.... It would get sort of chaotic, wouldn't it, for all sorts of people to just be able to travel between worlds like that?"

"Maker's balls, I don't know," Lena says, sitting up from her hunched position. "That better not be possible." Because, well, Korrin is pretty damn smitten, and Lena is selfish and doesn't want her to leave.

Unlike the other horned individuals Hermione's met, this one hasn't proven to be overly friendly, and so Hermione is going to do what she can to keep from saying anything that might upset her. So she doesn't say that it's entirely her friend's choice to want to go anywhere to be with someone she cares for, and she makes sure that nothing in her body language says as much, either.

"We don't know what is or isn't possible yet, but a little research should help clear that up. Perhaps these shards act as a sort of passkey to help rifters get back to where they should be. After all, from what I understand, only spirits, demons, and dreamers can actually pass through the Fade, right?"

Hermione was bound to meet a rotten apple sooner or later. Lucky for her, she met the nicer ones first.

"Passkey," she repeats, mulling that over. Even though her best friend is a mage, Lena knows jack all about magic. Just whatever someone tells her that she happens to not forget five minutes later. "Right. They say that long ago these high and mighty Tevinter assholes busted in there because they figured they were tough shit and could be gods, but the Maker booted them out and made them darkspawn." Lena shrugs. "If you believe that sort of shit, then some people turned up in the Fade once too." She waves a hand absently. "And Corypheus is one of them."

"I've heard the Tevinter legend," Hermione replies. "But considering that no one seems to know for certain whether or not it really happened or if it's just a part of religious lore, I can't say for certain what I believe. Especially when it comes to Corypheus."

Glancing down at her hand, she sighs softly before asking, "Do you know if anyone at least has any solid idea of what the shards are? Shards of what, for instance, and where they'd come from. Other than the Herald, I mean. From what I understand, she'd been just a normal woman before that explosion at that temple."

"Darkspawn are real enough," Lena says. "Just don't know if their origins are from the Chantry tale or not." It should come as a surprise to no one that Lena isn't very religious.

"No fucking clue." They're freaky and she's lucky enough to not be saddled with one, and that's about as far as her interest goes.

"It would make it hard for other religions to exist if there was definitive proof that darkspawn origins aligned with what the Chantry has been saying," Hermione notes. "Not impossible, of course, but it would still make things complicated when trying to incorporate the Elvish beliefs and the Qun and all of that."

At least she's honest, even if Lena's honesty doesn't really do much for her. "Thank you for being forthright, if nothing else. I'm Hermione, by the way. I don't think we got to that part yet."

"Lena," she replies, before continuing to eat her food. There's a sour look on her face, before she finally adds, "The Qun isn't a religion. It's a fucking oppressive society that turns you into a good little worker at best, and a mindless slave at worst."

Hermione nods, cataloguing Lena's name for future reference. She assumes that to be the end of the conversation, only to be surprised by the short outburst Lena has about the Qun. She knows it's a sensitive subject for some people, and so she's made it a point not to mention it if she can help it; she'd just finally managed to forget it at an inopportune moment.

"Oh.... I'd been under the impression that it's a belief system of sorts. I confess not to know much about it, other than the fact that most of the people who'd broken away from it or whose families had broken away from it have some rather... negative things to say about it. I assume the same can be said about you."

"Yeah," she replies. "Both sets of grandparents got out." And they acted just like the Qunari said they would: violent and vicious. Lena inherited some of that. Her parents are much more calm.

"They take you away from your parents and raise you in groups with teachers who watch out to see what talents you have. Then they stick you in that career whether you like it or not. If you protest, you get "reeducated." If you need more reeducation, they just shove your head into a bowl of qamek and it does something to your brain to turn you into a drooling idiot who does what you're told." Needless to say, Lena prefers the reckless life of chaos she has going on than the life of order and obedience the Qun demands.

OPEN: The Western Approach

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