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

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

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She doesn't stop what she's doing as Obi-Wan speaks to her, focused on keeping a pin in place as she twists another delicate piece around the gears.

"Miniature crossbow," she replies to his question after a slight delay, turning in her chair to hold up the mostly-completed body of one. "I've been trying to make a model that can be fired similar to a blaster but is light enough for a scout to carry without being encumbered." She misses blasters. She may not have ever used them much, but if they had enough blasters, the Venatori wouldn't have them hiding underground like rats.

He follows her line of thought to it's inevitable end; blasters, mass-produced and deadly, for all their inelegance. And their lack.

"Mh. A few good Troopers might have made a certain difference in the odds, I'll give you that," Obi-Wan replies, quiet, but never too quiet to be heard. He knows their experience of what had begun as the Grande Army of the Republic was very different.

It is not the first time he's missed the solid, unwavering presence of Commander Cody. It is unlikely to be the last.

"You're always thinking of others, before yourself. When did you last sleep?"

She has a very different experience with "Troopers" than Obi-Wan she knows, though her mind drifts, as it often does, to one particular Stormtrooper. Her first real friend, and someone she knows she may never see again, despite a promise she'd made before leaving him in the care of the Rebellion.

His question gives her pause and she frowns a little, shaking her head.

"Last night." Maybe for a few hours, but that was usually all she managed. Sleeping had never been something that came easy to her, and it was even worse, now.

"Dreams woke me up a few times," she admits, after an indignant pause. After the third time she had just gotten up.

Edited 2017-02-11 16:12 (UTC)

Obi-Wan turned at that, facing Rey a little more fully, intrigued. Or, perhaps he was merely concerned. So often, Rey reminded him of Anakin-- more often in the ways they were dissimilar, than anything else. He knew it did a disservice to both of them to compare the two, but....

Well, if he told no-one, then there could be little enough censure, outside the privacy of his mind. Just the same, Anakin had often told him of dreams. Terrible dreams.

"The Force sends its clearest messages to the calmest minds," He reminds her, and this lesson he's given a thousand times, he knows. Obi-Wan does love his rote and ritual, "What did you dream? It might be nothing. But then, it might be important, also."

She sighs, shaking her head and putting the prototype bow down on her desk.

"They were nothing, I'm sure. It wasn't entirely like my prophetic dreams," though there had been some similar feelings, and the intensity of what she'd dreamed had been similar to her first vision of Kylo Ren. Though once it was clear that there was no returning to where they had come from, that dream had all but ceased. "It was just... faces, mostly. People we've lost." She absently touches her forehead, her fingers ghosting over the edge of the scar above her eye, before she pushes up from the desk, walking the short but cluttered span of the room to the doorway.

"I saw that group of people we lost at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, five years ago. The one Hermione was with." She had known some of the others in passing, but Hermione had been the only one she'd considered a friend.

Obi-Wan's hand fisted where they lay across his thighs, the memory of loss tuging in the ghosts of what he too had lost. Even those who did not die were.... gone. Just, gone, as if they'd forgotten him.

Well, perhaps that was his own fault-- it wasn't as if he visited. Not that it would be easy, and yet...

"It's been a long time," He says, after a moment's respectful silence, all consideration, quietly bitter, "But then, you never forget a good friend."

That was much of what they had remaining to them, after all. Memories. Dreams. Regrets.

"Rey. Keep your heart open; in these dark times, it's too easy to despair. Remember what I've taught you."

Rey gives him a grim smile, pushing away from the stone doorway and moving to crouch down in front of Obi-Wan's wheelchair, reaching out to take his hands, squeezing gently.

"I know. I lived my life in despair, this is much easier." Her smile warms a little for him, because while she had been used to the loneliness, having him around made everything a little less lonely. If she'd lost Obi-Wan, despair may very well have taken over, but as long as he survives, it's held at bay. Squaring her shoulders up a little she attempts to shift the mood. "Have you eaten? I saw Yngvi today and he gave me half a nug's worth of meat."

His sigh is this time mostly affect, mouth quirked into something wry that he wants to be a stern line, but which is more smile than Obi-Wan would care to admit. It's a rebelliously fond expression; here she is again, trying to cheer up this sad old man.

Such a bright spark, is Rey; the Force is well-kept, in her hands.

"I haven't eaten today, no. Let's make stew, shall we?"

"Sounds like a plan," Rey replies, her smile widening as she stands again, turning to walk into the room that more or less serves as a kitchen in the hovel. Say what you will about the dwarves, they make efficient use of space.

"You know we aren't so bad off that you need to be skipping meals, don't you?" Sure, rations could be a little scarce at times, but Rey was a master at making food stretch out for weeks longer than it likely should. She had lived and breathed at the edge of starvation for most of her life. Making sure everyone had enough to eat now was almost too easy for her.

"With you around, I could hardly starve if I wanted to," Obi-Wan says, putting hands to his chair, and beginning the somewhat laborious task of maneuvering himself to follow her, "I lost track of the time, that's all."

Not strictly true. Something about living underground had slowly been diminishing his appetite. Maybe it was the lyrium, easier to find here, in dust, in stone. It was precious stuff, valuable as ever, but less so now than it had ever been. And air traveled everywhere it could.

Or maybe, it was something else.

"You're too young to worry so much about a crippled old Jedi," An old complaint, delivered fondly, "I did muddle along somehow, before we met."

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

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