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

Blackwall frowns, though he manages to mostly hide it in the flickering shadows and light from the fire. Two towns, both becoming home, both destroyed. Stories like Bethany's weren't nearly uncommon enough, but it didn't make it any less tragic.

"The weather might be nice, but that's about all," He chuckles. "Well... who knows now that the Chantry is scrambling and disorganized. Used to be, between the Templars and the City Guard, they made Tantervale a place to keep clear of. I'm partial to Markham, but I've a bit of a personal bias there. Wycome is nice. No one ever has a bad time in Wycome."

He nods, "I can't disagree. I suppose, I just always assumed the Chantry, the Templars and the Circles were doing what they told all of us they were doing. That there was a balance there. That Circles were as much for the benefit of mages as for the rest of us. Obviously not."

Well, the Dragon Age seemed to be the age of tragedies, both large and small. For Bethany -- it was all she had known, really. The loss of one home after another, the loss of both parents. And now, to be separated from her brother and sister - again.

She sighed, one corner of her mouth twisted, "I suppose Markham is as good a place as any. Is that by the sea?" She wouldn't mind a place by the sea, for her retirement. "Wycome I know is ..."

She gave him a wry smile, "You and all of Thedas, my friend. The truth was a great deal more complicated than anyone wanted to know. So, to find balance again, we have to shift the order of things."

"Markham? Not really, but it's not even a days trek to the coast. Sort of nestled on the tail end of the Vimmarks. It's certainly quite a bit closer to the coast than Tantervale, that's for sure, but not so close that you have to worry about raiders and the sort," In his opinion, it would a great place to settle down in, though he'd also become pretty fond of Redcliffe, maybe a small bit of land outside the city itself.

"Seems like it. And people think the Wardens have secrets. Apparently, the Chantry has plenty of it's own," He frowns slightly, settling on a grim expression. All of them had their dark secrets apparently.

"Now see, that I can get behind. I like the ocean air but I've never liked the raiders ... well, except one or two personally." As if she could ever really hate Isabela. "So Markham it is, where I shall start my little mage school."

She shook her head, her lips pressed together, "We all have secrets," she said, unconsciously echoing Blackwall's statement, "It's whether or not we are holding onto them to protect others, or hurt them, that makes the measure of us."

"Just don't tell them I sent you," He chuckles with a wink, mostly because no one there would know the name Blackwall, but he'll turn this into some light teasing, "I'd rather not have a whole village coming after me for the trouble maker I've sent their way."

The mood takes a sudden and dramatic shift as her words hit a little too close to home. His gaze remains steadily on the fire, expression carefully guarded, but his eyes give him away. Guilt.

Not that this was news to him.

"Oh, you can bet I will, just so they know where to send all the bills." Bethany said blithely, before she looked over at him, dimpling slightly. The shift in his expression was abrupt - and she realized, 'oh yes, perhaps where he came from was rather ignoble.'

"It's always our actions that define us. If we have secrets, if we strive to make up for whatever crimes they cover, that lessens any blow. Makes it so much easier to forgive than someone who lies for lying's sake." There, if he had a criminal past, he should know now he had nothing to fear from her.

So what did his actions say about him? Still a coward, still an idiot.

Her words made him think of those who had been under his command. Just another reason why he shouldn't have command of anyone here while with the Inquisition.

He just wasn't sure how he could fix what he'd done. Being a 'better man' now was all good and well, but what good was that to those he'd caused harm to?

And then he realizes how long he's let the silence stretch for. "Sorry... got lost in thought there for a moment." Lying for lying's sake. Right.

She looked at him for a long moment, before she cleared her own throat. Maker, she really stuck herself in it now. "I... nothing. I'm sorry, Blackwall. I didn't mean to imply anything."

"No, don't apologize," He shakes his head, focus still anywhere but on her. Apparently the fire was requiring a lot of attention at the moment, "You are right and you haven't... you haven't implied anything. Just... making me think. You know how it is."

With so many Wardens at Skyhold, he needed to figure out what he was going to do, but as usual, he had no idea where to start. The truth? That seemed like the craziest option of all.

"Well ... I know how it is. Getting locked into a situation about this, it makes you think abut all kinds of things." She paused, a sharp breath coming out, before she gave him a tired smile. "I think I will head back to my tent. Get some sleep."

"Of course," He returns the smile, looking equally as exhausted. "I'll see you in the morning, m'lady."

She rose to her feet, giving him the same weary smile, and a gentle, "Thank you, Blackwall. Good night."

Then she turned from the fire, and walked back towards the Keep.

OPEN: The Western Approach

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