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

[justice_is_blond]

"Of course. I couldn't not. Though I'm...not certain how helpful I've been. Most everyone has been teaching him useful skills; I've mostly played with him." To Anders that's important, though. He'd had part of his childhood taken away; he'd like to give Lucci what parts of one are possible.

"When I've been around." He doesn't want to take too much credit. His missions take him out of the Thaig often, and he spends what time he can with Nate too. "Alistair has taken on most of his care, but I've helped keep both of them in knee piece." Which Alistair could do with remembering before he judges what Anders and Nate are doing for Anders' sake.

[ombranera]

"In a world such as this?" A significant look to the dust and the stone that surrounds them, the orphans, the sick, the grieving. "That is just as important."

That his son ought to be a child. That he has some joy that isn't tainted by a need for survival, that he has better than Zevran. It is all he wanted for the boy when he came to the choice that he would raise him- having someone help in that while he was gone? Is worth more than he can say. "Thank you, Anders. How fares your Nathaniel?"

[justice_is_blond]

The smile that comes to his lips from the first portion of what Zevran says fades at the question. Anders looks down and swallows, knowing that already he's giving more truthful of an answer than he wishes.

"He's... He's alive. But he's not well. The Calling..." Anders shakes his head, and when he looks back up he's looking past Zevran. "I can still see Nathaniel in his eyes. He's still there." There's defensiveness in his voice, a little fear, and both are weak coverage for the grief he's already feeling.

[ombranera]

That is ominous- Anders has never been one to hide his emotions well- and with Wardens not faring well? There are many causes but this deep underground only one stands out.

"For how long?" To become a ghoul is-

It is a terrible fate, from what he remembers. Cousland and their merry band wandered into years ago but to think of Nathaniel like that? Not too far of a stretch. It is the fate of every warden.

[justice_is_blond]

"He's not gone yet," Anders answers. If he says the number... He can't lose Nate, not yet, and he's talking to an assassin familiar with what happens to Wardens. "He still talks. Not, not a lot, but he talks, Zevran, and he knows me."

Alistair may already be a threat to Nate continuing to live, and Zevran? Zevran is practical. Anders is afraid.

[ombranera]

"There was a ghoul in the Deep Rhoads- a Dwarven boy- during the blight." What Cousland chose in that particular moment eludes Zevran but there are few to make that are kind. And on occasion? Kindness can be terribly cruel.

"They can recognize people and talk long after they are too far gone, Anders." Something he says gently, in what little capacity for gentleness that he has.

[justice_is_blond]

"Too far, too far gone to come back, yes. I know. But he's not gone." He'd held onto Karl until the mage was absolutely gone. How could he do any less for Nate? There is no hope, but Nate's not dead yet. There's still a little time that he so-badly, desperately, craves.

"He hasn't hurt me, he's not close to hurting me. Not yet."

[ombranera]

"And how long until he is 'too far' gone, Anders? Would he wish to be remembered as this?" The sallow skin, the hunger. The mumbling. "They've their final walk for a reason. One I consider no less foolish than you but-"

But it is what it is and no cure can be found. Fiona's miracle dagger worked but the once ages ago and it is long since lost.

[justice_is_blond]

Nate wouldn't want to be remembered like this and Anders knows it. When Zevran puts it like that, he feels a twinge of guilt. But it's just that. A twinge. He knows how he'll remember Nate, and it's not like this.

"If he asks for it, I'll give it. But he's not. He's not asked. He's stayed with me." Because Nate knows Anders needs it, he doesn't add.

[ombranera]

"Because when he leaves, you will try to follow- and you are not yet so far gone. You are needed here." It's terribly sentimental logic and one Zevran himself has only recently come to understand-

But it is an established pattern with this particular pair. "If he asked, would you let him go without following?"

[justice_is_blond]

"I don't know." It's the first fully honest thing he's said on the topic in some time.

"I know I'm needed. I know I can help. But I... I don't know how to be without him, anymore. I don't know that I want to find that out." He's a spirit healer, he's definitely needed. But he needs Nate as much as he needs air.

[ombranera]

"He would want you to continue as long as you are able." Until Anders heard the calling or was killed in battle. One or the other- Wardens have only a handfull of possible endings available to them.

None are happy.

[justice_is_blond]

"I don't know that I'd be able." He swallows, hard, trying to figure out how to explain what he means that doesn't make him feel too bare, too vulnerable.

"He, he gives me a strength that I can't always find on my own. Without him... I don't know." He hasn't been alone for close to two decades now. Justice had possessed him for so long, and before Justice was gone Nate had been there, at his side, supporting him and loving him. Anders can't return mentally to who he was before all of that, and doesn't know how to move on alone from this.

[ombranera]

"Then follow." Nevermind the people that would die if Anders left- if he stayed and was only half a man? An echo of his former self? Without the will to act and work and mend- he'd be worse than useless. Take up resources better served to those willing to survive. "Walk with him into the dark."

[justice_is_blond]

He wants to. Maker, he wants to. Anders would feel like he could breathe if walking into the dark with Nate were an option. But his network would crumble. He'd let more people down. And he doesn't think Nate will let him.

"I would. But I can't let him down even more. I have to try." And maybe fail, but the story of his life is failure so he's not certain that will surprise anyone. Anders takes a breath and looks away. "Even if it's all I do, I have to do it."

[ombranera]

"Perhaps it will be a moot point and the venatori will come and slaughter us all." He shrugs. It is highly unlikely- well. Not terribly unlikely, but in the face of genuine grief? Gallows humor.

[justice_is_blond]

Maybe they'll get lucky and the venatori will just kill him and Nate. That's actually something he can hope for and not feel guilty.

"The venatori do seem determined to try," he says quietly. After a breath, he shakes his head. "I'm... I'm going to go check on Nate again. I'll see you around, I hope. It's nice to have you back."

[ombranera]

"Take care, Anders." There is not much else he can offer by way of comfort. A long, drawn out death? Is as difficult as any other. More so for those that must sit by and watch it happen.