OPEN ↠ FALSE GODS, GREAT DEMONS (OPEN LOG 1)

[faderifting]

WHO: Living Residents of the Horrible Future
WHAT: Ah ha ha ha stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
WHEN: ALTERNATE FUTURE, 1-15 Cloudreach 9:48
WHERE: Anywhere, but especially Orzammar
NOTES: This is the first open log for False Gods, Great Demons. Anything that happened prior to Cloudreach 9:48 should go on the flashback meme. Most members of the TTT and their friends in Kirkwall will be arriving in Orzammar on approximately Cloudreach 7. In the meantime, feel free to make your own adventures. If you want to blow up an bridge, assassinate an NPC of your own invention, steal supplies, or anything else--it's all yours, go for it!

SOUTHERN THEDAS is a wasteland. The Blight crawling across the Orleian countryside and into Ferelden leaves nothing alive in its wake, scarring the land like an insatiable fire until no birds sing and the only things that grows is the Red Lyrium that speckles cliff sides and crawls up dying trees until they look like rows of jagged bloody teeth. And where it's still green, where people can still survive, the atmosphere is nearly as stifling. Every city and settlement is watched over by a Venatori or trustworthy collaborator. Those who don't keep their heads down and their dissent a whisper may vanish without warning. They may take their whole families with them. There are flashes of hope--an assassinated lordling here, a village rousing itself to brief and doomed rebellion there--but for every man the Imperium loses, they seem to find two to take his place.

NORTHERN THEDAS is at war. The worst of it doesn't reach west into Tevinter or the Anderfels; the line between the Qunari and the Imperium is drawn straight through Antiva, with Nevarra and Rivain on either side quiet and calm as only lands under martial law can be. The Free Marches vary between complacency and rebellion, but the rebellious ones risk ruin--there are murmurs it won't be long before a whole city is made an example. A steady stream of desperate refugees is fleeing north to the Qun, but plenty are picked off and punished as traitors before they can cross into Qunari-controlled territory. Your best best for a clean escape are the pirates who still hold Llomerynn free from both sides of the conflict.

ORZAMMAR is the only kingdom in Thedas that looks much the same--and Kal-Sharok, but they're not accepting outsiders. The heavy doors at Orzammar's entrance are sealed and guarded, as much against the steady flow of refugees asking for help as against the Venatori. The refugees are turned away. There's no way to know who can be trusted, and even if there were, there's not food enough for people who can't fight. Orzammar Thaig is still the dwarves' home--though with stealing shrinking numbers and poor prospects, King Bhelen has been amenable to allowing casteless surfacers some leeway--but the once-abandoned Ortan Thaig is the Inquisition's. Quietly. The only things stopping a full assault on Orzammar is the Venatori's need for dwarf-mined lyrium and the plausible deniability that the Inquisition's remaining rebel bands are using the Deep Roads with Bhelen's consent.

An hour's walk through caves and deepstalker swarms, Ortan is a city in its own right. A crammed city, one where cots and bunk beds crammed into shared housing are the norm no matter how important someone is and you occasionally have to protect your dinner from a restless, swooping griffon, but one where you can still find a pint of ale or a game of cards if you've time to waste on them. It's just that not many people do. There's the watch to keep; the tunnels that creep further into the deep teem with darkspawn who are held back at barricades, while the hidden, narrow tunnels that lead to the surface are watched at all hours so anyone coming or going can be identified. There are weapons to forge and sharpen. Plans to make. Bands to lead. Maybe you weren't a leader five years ago, but these days, there aren't that many people with more than five years' experience still alive to give orders. Fewer every week.

And so we burned. We raised nations, we waged wars,
We dreamed up false gods, great demons
Who could cross the Veil into the waking world,
Turned our devotion upon them, and forgot you.
Threnodies 1:8

Comments

Orzammar

[onlyhymns]

In the early days of their arrival, Cade looks about as terrible as he ever does, though now with the added bonus of being in red lyrium withdrawals. Throughout the journey from Kirkwall he has always taken care to find a space for flipping out where he's not going to hurt anyone, but his control is dwindling, the burning pain is constant, and the madness is real.
Beleth is with friends. It's going to be all right. She is, at least.

Those who remember him from Skyhold will bear witness to the entrance of a monstrously mutated Cade, wearing clothes appropriate for traveling (and with no Templar insignia, for his own safety) and with half his face and neck crusted over with glowing red lyrium. One of his eyes is nearly swollen shut, and... well, there's more, but he's otherwise covered to the tips of his fingers and toes to spare anyone the trauma of seeing it.

He doesn't stay long. With each passing day he seems to fade, both socially and in his mind itself, and one day a week or so in he just isn't there anymore.
His armor and weapons, with the exception of a single dagger, are all left in the chamber he occupies next to Beleth's. On his pillow rests a note that simply reads "Andraste guide me."

5ever late w/tim hortons

[ombranera]

"Cade." The awkward moment while imprisoned notwithstanding- whatever this thing with Beleth will inevitably become (with or without the disaster that is their future, strains of how they were before remain constant)- If anyone would give him something of an insider's perspective on what has happened and how, perhaps, to prevent it? Cade would be that person.

Perhaps it is also some manner of self flagellation for not caring enough or not trying hard enough to work with the man in the past. Who can say?

[onlyhymns]

Cade is standing at the edge of the path in the Commons, looking down at Dust Town and into the chasms beyond. He's doing his best to stay out of the way-- a remarkably familiar way for him to behave-- and, more than ever, is given a wide berth by most. He wouldn't want them to touch him anyway, he doesn't want to cause any further pain.
He looks over his shoulder at Zevran, at a somewhat awkward angle, since he has to ensure the good eye and the less disturbing half of his face is visible.

[arlathvhen]

Beleth wasn't sure what she expected, when they came to Orzammar. She was hoping that they would fix him, that they had dealt with enough red lyrium they could bring him out of this fog. But no matter how much progress they've made, what happens to the Red Templars is a different matter altogether. The only thing they can give her is their best wishes.

She walks back to the shared house, feeling her heart sinking more and more. She immediately heads to Cade, and as soon as she finds him, pulls him into a tight embrace. Hugging is...more physical contact than they usually engage in. But she needs to hold onto him, as if she can keep him from slipping through her fingers, if she just clutches him tight enough.

"Is this my fault?" Her voice is small, more vulnerable than she shows anyone else. It's okay though, if it's just him. "Did I just get you hurt again?"

[onlyhymns]

He doesn't even flinch anymore-- if nothing else, even if the red lyrium has him in constant pain, his other tactile senses have been dulled. No wonder they fight so well, for so long. He's honestly amazed he's been allowed to stay here, looking the way he does. It makes people nervous, with good reason.

"No," he says, his voice gravelly, "there's nothing you can do." Aside from continue to fuss, and to worry about him, which is the opposite of what he wants. They're out of harm's way, for the time being. His use to her is dwindling.

Orzammar

[ombranera]

There is noting for it but to listen, to observe, to take in as much as possible so that when he does return home? He can offer up every detail to prevent this. Arrogant to assume that anything could turn the tide of this cruel twist of fate. To think that who they were and what they did were instrumental in preventing this-

He is not one for hope, but hope he must. There is no room for despair in this. As he wanders to find familiar faces, to silently grieve those lost- he sticks to the shadows. He listens. Occasionally? He steps forward enough to ask a question as inconspicuously as possible. Some assume him a trick or a demon and honestly?

Were he in their shoes, he might think the same.

[justice_is_blond]

It's difficult, seeing ghosts from the past and believing that they're real rather than figments of his imagination or signsthat he's lost it. But seeing Nate fade before his eyes is a reminder that he should seize what opportunities he has, real or not, so he approaches the elf when he sees him. And then stops, unsure of exactly how to start.

"Hello," he tries. It sounds stilted. "You've... It's been some time. I'm glad you're alive. Or haunting us, either way."

[ombranera]

"The only one I am haunting is my son, it seems." The boy had taken up with Alistair or- well. What Kestrels were left, whoever wasn't him. Not that Zevran can blame him for the resentment. He'd been there, he'd been gone, and explaining such things to a child is impossible.

It's impossible to explain to adults as well. He has a difficult time wrapping his mind around it. "...You've been taking care of him, have you not?"

[samahl]

Cyril first has to deal with his own mixture of emotions regarding Sam before he can seek out Zevran, but finally he does and it isn't empty handed.

He is holding an arm band and a chain with a piece of a dragon's tooth. He's heard Zevran is back, but he isn't exactly sure where to look for him so he goes to where people have been gathering to talk and meet with the ten who disappeared and looks around, frowning a bit as he tries to find the legendary assassin.

[ombranera]

Off to the side, settled in the shadows. Listening, searching- he stopped wondering after his family, his lovers long before they arrived in Orzammar. As accustomed as he is to grief? To know what little he'd managed to pin down as solid and certain is lost to him in so short a span isn't something he thinks he might manage with any kind of grace.

And then there is Cyril, standing like a pale beacon among the stone and dust and whispers. "Tesoro."

Worn, yes. Older, with a lean edge to him that is strange to see and far more reminiscent of his brother? Yes. But it is Cyril none the less. "I am glad to know you are well."

[amygdalae]

He's heard the stories from some of their new... guests, but having more to work with is always good. If he was to do the mission he had been assigned it was best to get as much knowledge as possible. Last thing he needed was to be caught off guard due to a lack of information. They could not afford to lose any more than they already had.

So when he spots Zevran, Bruce immediately goes over to him. The crowds around him part as he moves - not due to reverence or anything, but from the wariness that comes when a man with an arm encased in lyrium crystals and an ever-unsettling gaze walks close to them.

Bruce pays no attention to them, his focus directed onto Zevran, and he walks up to him speaks without even giving the other a chance to talk. "I require your assistance." His voice is flat and toneless, as blank as the expression on his face.

[ombranera]

Well, that is an unfamiliar and unsettling sight. A mage? Not that odd. A mage with a limb encased in lyrium after so long that very thing only being a sign of the tainted red crystals tearing their way through them and creating something other, something awful?

In his sardonic and subtly wry associate? "...Is there a particular reason you need me, or is it simply because you missed the pleasure of my company?"

Smirk. Roll your eyes. React in some way that isn't simply staring like one made Tranquil.

[arlathvhen]

"Is it fascinating?"

Beleth hadn't gone looking for her former mentor, but she had seen him. Watching. Studying. Like this place is some kind of exhibit ('How to dose the world on fire and throw a match at it', children 5 and under get in free). "Getting a glimpse of a dark, terrible future. Hoping that it's just a momentary detour before you get to go back to where everything is nice and rosy. This is just..." She trails off for a moment, eyeing the Thaig. "...Some horrible nightmare to avoid."

Without her vallaslin, her facial expressions are more open, but you wouldn't have to be a genius to figure out that she's not exactly thrilled by current circumstances. Even if she chose to come here.

[ombranera]

"You and I both know there is no true comfort in hope." Learn the lay of the land- adapt to suit. Simply because the Herald had fallen back through years ago, had found a way? Does not mean they shall be so fortunate. If this is to be where and when he spends the remainder of his days he needs to know what has changed.

Adapt to fit. Find a place, find names, and begin cutting throats.

"It is a touch better than I expected- but only a touch." Only most of the people he knew were dead and warped instead of all. It isn't comforting.

Orzammar

[doneisdone]

Teren is too tall for Orzammar. She has never been here before, and she hopes she never has to come here again, because this place is terrible.

It's not just that all the doorways and chairs are so low, however. It's the fact that everyone here is crazy or dying or wrong somehow, and with each passing day she feels a little more unease creep into her bones that this is going to be her reality for longer than 'temporary'. Whenever they can get back to things being right. If that happens.

She's been taking stock of things while renting a room at one of the larger inns in the Commons, and though she's hardly more social than she would normally be, she does wander quite a bit. It seems unfair to have lost these years, to be so instantly estranged from the Wardens whom she... to be fair, was in the process of estranging back home. Though she doesn't fully understand what's happened, she can hardly be surprised.

Having escorted Benevenuta and Dorian back here, she looks in on them periodically, but otherwise spends her time gathering information and trying not to get in the way of those who perceive her to have abandoned them.

[She can pretty much be found anywhere, so wherever your dude is just assume she's passing by!]

dun nun. dun nun. dun nun dun nun dun nun.

[byblow]

It takes Alistair some time to emerge from Nathaniel and Anders' shared house, but when he does his eyes are dry and hollow and it would take particular attention to detail to notice the occasional shakiness of his hands. He's fine. This isn't his tragedy. It's Nathaniel's, and Anders', and there are things that need to be done.

Teren isn't the first person he sees, but she is the first person he stops for, halting suddenly. He's been avoiding her—all of them, keeping his gaze averted like someone with a weaker stomach avoiding the sight of an open wound—and for a moment he almost looks like he doesn't recognize her or has forgotten that she was there.

He rubs his mouth. Looks her head to toe. He's thirty-seven now, but he still manages to look a little bit like a sullen and distrustful child.

Still: "Nathaniel is dead. I need a hand."

[doneisdone]

It's amazing the difference only five years has made in Alistair's bearing, the wrinkles it's put into his brow, the confidence it's sucked from his posture. Teren finds it almost too difficult to witness, and has been avoiding him as much as he has been her. But now they have undeniably seen one another, and she's certainly not going to walk away after that little revelation.

"What?" she starts, alarmed by the cavalier nature of the announcement. "How?" She's had no opportunity to encounter either Nathaniel or Anders yet, and hadn't even realized they were here.

[unbrokenoath]

Alistair wouldn't lie to her about this, Kaisa is confident in that. However, she doesn't know what happened to him in Kirkwall, and there are plenty of other people who came back...not all there. So, while Kaisa is quick to begin the hunt for Teren, she really isn't sure what to expect. Expecting Teren herself feels...almost naively optimistic.

But, even five years later, Teren cuts a figure easy to pick out in a crowd.

Luckily, so does Kaisa.

"TEREEEENNNNN!" The older woman is saved from Alistair's fate of being straight up tackled, but when Kaisa bounds up to her, she will still have to suffer the indignity of a tight hug. It's been five years, give Kaisa a break. When she pulls away, theres the only hint that she isn't the same woman she was five years ago--her eyes have that swirling, offputting glow of red lyrium. But if it, or the Calling, or anything else is effecting her, she shows no signs of it.

"I can't believe it! You really are here! Alistair told me, and it's not that I don't trust him, but--five years! And here you are! Still old, but like. Regular Teren old, not five years of death old, you know?" There's a pause, for Kaisa to take a breath, and perhaps allow Teren to ponder if she does know what the heck Kaisa is talking about. "This is amazing! With everyone from the prison back, we're almost back to our old numbers. Man, I'd never have believed it." She's trying really hard to resist jumping up and down right now.

"We should....I don't think we can throw a real party, but maybe we can just all get together and talk? That'd be great!"

[doneisdone]

Teren has only the briefest opportunity to whip her head around and see who's shrieking at her before she's covered in Kaisa, and nearly loses her footing in her surprise and dismay at being hugged. "Maker-- Kaisa," she greets breathlessly, and gives her a customary little pat on the shoulder.

"--no parties. Nothing... so grand. I hope not to be here for long." She realizes what she's said, and winces. How to explain it without it sounding like she's just leaving again? "Maker willing, there'll be no reason to celebrate."

ortan thaig; closed.

[byblow]

When Anders is gone they check on Nathaniel at intervals. At first, months ago, there was some pretense involved: making up questions they needed him to answer, dropping off food or ale or something Anders wanted to see when he gets back. Now everyone has largely given up on excuses. Alistair has, anyway. He's done pretending nothing is wrong.

Today, when he passes by the little house the two men share, he raps his knuckles on the door before opening it uninvited.

"Nathaaaniel," he says through the crack. "Are you a ghoul yet?"

—a question he's asked before, because done pretending nothing is wrong doesn't mean now handling the man with kid gloves. He thinks whatever parts of Nathaniel are left in his decaying corpse of a body would appreciate that.

He pushes the door open further with his shoulder, because regardless of the answer, he'll need to see for himself.

[pinprick]

For the first time, there is silence. Stepping inside, Alistair will see the once-proud man crumpled on the floor, hands wrapped around a bedpost, head bowed. After a few seconds, he makes a low, wordless wail, a keening noise humans only make when they are in utmost anguish. It's pinched off with a sob, and his forehead drops to the mattress.

Nathaniel is his name. When he forgets that, someone says it to him and reminds him. Nathaniel, son of someone, a Grey Warden, in love with someone, brother of someone--there was a time when all those someones had names. He doesn't know if the pain is worse from the full-body rot or from his loss of everything that makes him--what was his name, again?

One hand is curled, clawing at his own palm. When he opens his hand, dead flesh has been peeled away like wet paper.

Orzammar, mostly open

[justice_is_blond]

1. Closed to the first Warden who takes it

He's tired after his mission with Jamie. It had been needed, been important, and Jamie had been just as helpful and trustworthy as expected, but he's tired anyway and filled with the quiet dread that always comes with returning home. Nate will be there, he tells himself like he does every time his feet are on this path, Nate will let Anders hold him and it will be all right for a little bit longer. He pays little heed to the way some people aren't looking at him; that's usual. All he has time for is focusing on the house he shares with Nate.

--

2. Closed to Saoirse

He's not drunk, though a part of him wishes he was. He's not heading down to the Deep Roads, though a part of him wishes he was doing that too. He's even not out trying to pick a fight to get his anger and fury out, though almost all of him wishes he was doing that.

Instead, he's sitting in a corner of the excuse for a tavern Ortan Thaig has, keeping an eye out for any familiar face who won't know what's happened, who won't sit down and tell him how sorry they are because he'd like to go just a few minutes without crying. Which is why, when he sees Saoirse, he sends the nearby bartender over to offer her a drink if she comes to join Anders.

---

3. Open

He's not doing well. Whether he's distractedly healing, or sitting at a fire staring into space, or dozing off in the chair in his house because he can't stand to use their bed, Anders is lost and it's obvious. Alone isn't something he's been able to deal with since his year in a cell in Kinloch Hold, and for close to two decades it isn't something he's even had to deal with at all.

This makes him fairly easy to find, though. It's even easy enough to find him when he's furiously pouring over maps spread on a table in the room he heals at, muttering about personally ending the life of every agent of Corypheus that still wanders about and draws breath. ...And the ones that don't. Corypheus is the reason his research into dealing with the blight had been broken off, and while no one is truly to blame for the end of Nate's life, Corypheus is the clearest target and Maker how he wants a target.

1. DIVES IN AND TAKES IT

[doneisdone]

The whole debacle over Nate's situation, and waiting for Anders to get back, is actually not immediately on Teren's mind as she makes her way through the market in search of some decent thread. She's still dealing with some of the emotional fallout from it, of course, but Anders is the last person she expects to see on her errand.
And yet, there he is.
She stops dead, staring at him with a very uncharacteristic air of nervousness. Should she blend back into the crowd, make him believe he's seeing things? No... as surely as she can recognize him, she's certain he'll recognize her. Teren, after all, looks exactly as she did the last time any of them saw her.

She does, at least, go stock still. If he notices her, fine, she'll deal with it. If not... no harm done. Or perhaps lots, but later.

[unbrokenoath]

Grey Wardens die all the time, it's an occupational hazard. It hurts, every time. But you mourn, and you go back to fighting the good fight, because what else can you do? But this is different--at least, it is for Anders, in a way she can't possibly understand. As many friends as Kaisa has, as much as she likes them all, there's a certain emotional distance maintained. She balks at the idea of letting anyone cross that gap, let them close enough that romance would even be possible.

All she knows is that her friend is suffering, in a kind of pain she can't imagine.

How can you comfort someone in such a situation? Like any good Fereldan, she decides the first step is food. So while Anders is doing his gazing into the fire for a thousand miles thing, Kaisa plops down next to him, and offers him a bowl of braised nug stew. Not exactly gourmet, but that's what they had to work with.

"Here. You need this."

cries into the night

[sulena]

She has always been fond of taverns and the people found there. It's different now, she can see it in the eyes of those around her and in the way they hold themselves or drink their mugs of... whatever they have managed down here. Saoirse feels at a loss, staring at her dirty hands and pondering everything that has happened since arriving in this strange timeline.

It is a surprise when the bartender appears with a drink and some words. Saoirse stares at the man before looking to Anders, blinking once before giving a strained smile before raising and approaching.

"Thank you." She says, smiling again as the bartender returns with a drink.