faderift | 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

Even though it's letting her approach and attack in a way that benefits her--slipping in and ripping apart without being noticed--there's a moment of fear where she's sure, she's just sure, that he's pulling the same damn thing he did with those demons and mages that got him captured in the first place. There's nobody left here, right? It's empty, right? Are they sure? She keeps an eye out, and if asked, would say she's just making sure more shades don't sneak up behind them and flank.

Still. Got some nasties to kill. And she isn't going to pass that up and let him play hero all day. She rushes around, surprisingly agile for her body, and kicks one in the back (or...whatever counts as a back on something like that), catching it by surprise and sinking her blades in, pull apart. Rolls back out of potential range for a swiping arm. Between the two of them, this should be a piece of cake. Unless there's an ambush. There won't be an ambush. They're sure the Wardens abandoned this place. It's fine.

All things considered, Rachette isn't wrong. The Hansen men have always had a penchant for the dramatic, really. His father got torn apart by darkspawn, his brother was disgraced, his son disappeared on a mission.

Really, Herc should have died in that cell, if he wanted to keep up tradition. Herc batters one of the shades, and between the two of them it is going well. Being sound of body isn't the same thing as having kept up training, though, and between the time in the dungeon and all the time he waited before getting Anders to treat it when he felt so tense about magic, Herc's not at top form. One of the shades rushes him and he falls, landing awkwardly on his shield.

She hears the clatter and the panic of losing him returns. But a shade isn't going to drag him off to a dungeon. (...Presumably. Shades can't be that smart, right? They're not people.) She ignores all else and barrels at them. Takes a leap and sinks both blades deep in the shoulders of the shade, landing atop it and scrambling for purchase. It makes a terrible noise and flails a hand at her, and she settles her legs around it and stabs, repeatedly, into its neck, vicious. Her own sound is, in a way, terrible and angry with effort.

Not on her watch. Not here.

Maker. Herc isn't shocked still, far from it, but the pain in his arm and his back make moving hard for a second. It seems longer in a fight and with how frantically and viciously Rachette's moving, and it feels absurdly long before he's on his feet and drives his blade through the other shade and cuts it down.

"Rachette. Rachette. It's done."

Her shade is practically already disintegrating into a fade-y goop pile, and she thrusts her sword into what's left of the back of its head before hefting herself back to her own two feet, panting with the effort exerted and with the wave of emotion that had overcome her.

And he's up. He's safe. Of course he's safe; he knows what he's doing. This isn't a trap sprung in the middle of a canyon, and everyone who had left piles of bodies and pools of blood had left some time ago. She tries to get herself back to normal, back to centered and collected. This shouldn't get to her.

"Yeah," she eventually says, slowly sheathing her blades once she's sure there aren't any other shades come attacking. "I'm here. I'm fine." Looks over at last. "You're still recovering." Less of a question, more of an observation. "Maybe you should've stayed at Skyhold for a while longer."

He is going to ignore almost every single part of that, for now.

Almost.

"This is Warden business. I've been a Warden for close to eighteen years. I'll be a dead man before I leave this to other people to clean up. This is my responsibility. These were my people."

Once you became a Warden you gave up everything else. People who weren't one of them didn't understand - how could they?

"Hey. You alright?" And, more bluntly: "Your head in the game?"

It sure does mean she doesn't have to shout something unfortunate about how this is the fault of his people. Because of course he knows that. He is well aware of that. He's been trying just as hard to fix this as anyone else. And she doesn't want to be angry with him about something he has no part of, but as a Warden, he makes such a convenient target.

"I'll be all right when this is done, and we all get back safely." That seems like a safe enough answer. It's the truth, she hopes.

Her arms cross, unable to drain herself entirely of the tension she's pent up. "When they're taken care of. The Wardens who did this to their own. What do you think is going to happen to your order?"

"If you want us to get back safely then pull yourself together. There's not room for losing your head in battle."

It's not unkind, but keeping them both alive is his priority - Rachette alive especially, if it comes down to it.

Still, he doesn't know what to say to that. "I don't know. What kinda order would do this to their own? To anyone."

He's at a loss.

"You're welcome," she mutters in response (like a true teenager). It's true that she had lost something there, in her strike to attack, to rip and to tear, but it was for his sake. Then, more loudly, "It won't happen again." She'll make an effort, at least.

It's really almost nice to see a Warden doubt so much. Almost. "Maybe it means the Wardens are finished. Who knows what numbers they might dwindle down to, if this is what they're doing." Her nose wrinkles in distaste, reminded of the acrid smoke and smell of...meat on the fire, in an unpleasant way. "For whatever form of power they think they're going to gain."

And, in the true styling of Dad Who Isn't Great At Discipline, Herc ignores the mutter and just nods.

"That's what I like to hear." Resting a hand on Rachette's shoulder for a second, Herc isn't so sure if he's the best man to offer support or comfort or anything like that, but she really seems like a kid, sometimes. It's easy to forget in a war how young people really are.

"This isn't about power. Least-- not the kind you're thinkin'. They thought they needed to go out in a final big blaze, try to wipe out all the darkspawn down in the Deep Roads. "We came back from Ostagar. We've gotta come back from this. There's more work to do."

And he walks off with that, though whether he's talking about the Wardens having work or just he and Rachette is another matter.

OPEN: The Western Approach

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