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

He could not stifle the soft laugh this time. Sam was adorable in his way, and Kirk was finding the exchange refreshing. Legolas, he thought, was right in his assessment of the Hobbit.

Bill as set aside, however, in favor of Sam's question. He had turned over the issue his mind for awhile, and had decided that given the wide range of people and worlds represented and the fact he was but one man, letting some things slip about his own world was not exactly against the rules of the Prime Directive, and frankly he wasn't sure how he was to be expected to keep it up. He was interacting, which was a violation of itself, and he couldn't very well not, after all.

"Well... not quite so much falling..." he smiled and pointed up towards the sky. "Visitors from the stars, to be precise."

Sam obediently looks up, but the wide blue sky above offers no clues. He looks back at Kirk, brow furrowing in confusion. "From the stars?"

He nodded. "In my world, we can travel through space - that is, the stars. The universe is much, much bigger than anyone can properly imagine. Chances are, most of those little lights in the sky are really whole new worlds waiting to be explored."

"Travel...?" His eyes open wide, and he shakes his head, trying to think of it. It's a beautiful idea, of course, but hard for a little hobbit to wrap his head around. "But how could that be? The sky is so far away - why even the Eagles can't fly up to the stars, and Men can't fly at all! How would you ever reach them? And how can they be worlds? They're far too small, little lights, not like Middle-earth or Thedas at all." Something occurs to him, breaking his string of questions (for he has more) and he pauses, going quiet.

"Is...is Middle-earth one of those worlds, then? One of the stars, so far away?"

It seemed a difficult thing for everyone to wrap their head around who wasn't already aware of the space-age, but that was fine. Kirk didn't really expect them too, and he actually kind of enjoyed opening their minds or shocking them.

"Well, you see, the stars - they're like the sun. They produce light, but it takes that light a very, very long time to reach us here and let us see it. So they look small because they are very, very far away. Many, many years away if you were to travel by horse - or even fly like an eagle," he explained to him, ignoring trying to explain the concept of space-travel.

"And it might be," he nodded, deciding that the concept of other dimensions was also something to avoid for now. "It could be one we cannot see too. But I am sure it is out there."

Sam's silent for a long while, looking contemplatively up at the sky. It's a strange concept. The sun is so big and yellow and hot, and the stars are so small and white and cold.

"I don't know about that," he says at last, though reluctantly; it's a nice thought, being able to see Middle-earth up in the sky, if rather sad and lonely. He shakes his head sadly. "If you'd ever seen Middle-earth you'd've known; our Sun's more like this one, not like any star at all."

He chuckled at that. "Well, that's because your world is closer to that star. It's a matter of perspective." He pointed off into the distance where an outcropping of rocks jutted up from the sands. "Those rocks seem small and far away now, but as you get close to them, they grow larger, yes? It's the same concept - just with a star."

He looks at the rocks, then thinks about the stars, and finally shakes his head again.

"If you get far enough away from the rocks, you don't see them at all; and they're a lot closer," he points out (reasonably). "And anyhow I don't know about all that. It's a nice story, anyhow." How anyone can claim to know so much about the stars, and such strange things too, he just can't explain.

Well, it had been worth a shot. He knew it was a strange concept to wrap your head around, and he decided that it was a bit much to try and explain the concept of the speed of light. At least now. Besides, did it really matter if Sam believed him or not? It wouldn't make much of a difference, in the long run.

"At least it's distracting us from the heat, right?" he changed subject amiably. He cocked his head at Sam curiously. "Why'd you decide to come out on this, then, Sam?"

"You'll laugh, you will," Sam warns him. He smiles ruefully, to show that he won't mind the laughter, and gazes around them at the vast expanse of sand. "And perhaps you should at that; my da surely would, if he was here to see it. But I came because I was tired of the cold and wet, and wanted to see somewhere that wasn't snow or bog. I suppose I got that anyway!"

He did laugh, but it was not at the little hobbit. Rather, he found his reasoning funny because he shared it.

"Well nothing wrong with that - that's precisely why I wanted to come!" he grinned at him. "Skyhold's nice, but I'm not used to being in one place for so long. I jumped at the chance to explore more of this world. It's to bad Bill couldn't come along and enjoy the adventure with us."

Sam grins back in relief. "The desert would be too hot for poor old Bill," he says sadly. "I don't think he'd like anyplace well enough to enjoy a visit; leastways anywhere I've been. Skyhold seems to suit well enough. Now if there was a place he could go that's lots of green, with trees for shade and streams to drink from and lots of apples to eat, that's the place for Bill!"

"It's to hot for us!" Kirk lamented with a soft laugh, wiping at his brow again as they marched through the sand, kicking up grains with each step as the stuff practically sucked at him. "Heh, it sounds like a perfect sort of place. I just might have to follow Bill if he should ever find it. But I think it will take a lot of walking if this journey is much to go by."

"That it is," Sam agrees ruefully. "But if there was such a place, we wouldn't have to walk - I could ride Bill; he's strong enough now: much better than he was when I first met him, poor old thing, and stronger still since he came to Skyhold. I think he likes it there. But he wouldn't mind a bit of a trip maybe; and as for you, why, there's all manner of horses in the stables, big enough for a Man for certain."

"Yeah, big enough for a man, but not much use to a man who doesn't know how to ride," he chuckled. "Where I'm from, horses aren't the desired mode of transport, except for some groups who keep them for religious or recreational reasons. But maybe your words are bits of wisdom I need to hear and learn to ride. It would make my life easier here, I suspect."

"Don't know how to ride!" Sam repeats in astonishment. "But what do they use then, back where you came from? I can't see how you'd ever get anywhere without horses - not unless you walked everywhere, and I can tell you, that stops being fun right quick! Anyhow you should learn here, soon as you can, if you don't mind me saying so; I'm sure it'll make things a lot easier sooner or later."

Oh Sam, you are so small and precious. The astonishment makes him smile a little, and he wonders if it's a bad thing that he finds everything Sam does adorable. Was it because he was a hobbit? Was it like kittens - small and cute?

"We use -" how did he explain cars and trains and motorcycles and space ships? "We use things that are like wagons, but they can move on their own, and much, much faster than a horse can travel. You can travel hundreds of miles in a day."

A small huff of a laugh, rubbing the back of his head.

"But you do have the right of it - I should learn. I'm not sure my boots can take it if I insist on walking everywhere."

Again Sam gives Kirk a skeptical look. He's seen many things since leaving the Shire that he never would have imagined; but like Middle-earth itself being up in the sky, far away, the idea of horseless wagons moving hundreds of miles in a single day is something beyond either his experience or his imagination.

Still it's not worth arguing over, as far as he can tell; and besides, it is hot out, and even Sam's feet are starting to grow tired.

"Well, that's as may be," he mutters doubtfully. "Any road there's nothing like that here I'm certain, or none of us would have to walk anywhere at all. It's horses or nothing I'm afraid."

"I'm starting to get that idea," he laughed, though it felt tired with the sun beating down so hard on them. "Is that an offer to teach me, Samwise?" he teased the little hobbit as they trudged.

"Teach you?" Sam asks, startled. "Me?" He shakes his head. "I'm no horsemaster! Bill's a different sort; and a pack animal mainly. Why a real horse would step on me before letting me lead him, like as not!" He smiles at Kirk, softening the words. "But if you need a tip or two, well, I suppose that's all right." He rubs his eyes, starting to hurt from the bright sun, and glances around, hoping to see camp soon.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, Samwise," he smiled before turning his head, hearing a faint call from the front, spying the signals that meant stopping.

"Looks like we're going to start pitching for the night soon. I need to go help set up," he nodded to Samwise. "Nice meeting you, Samwise. And thank you again for saving me earlier. I'll see you around." He raised his hand in farewell and made his way across the sands to attend his duties.

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OPEN: The Western Approach

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