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

[samahl]

Cyril lets himself be pulled close and puts his head against Zevran. Some of the tension is released inside of him. He wasn't even aware that he was holding in something that was expecting Zevran to be angry with him. He still can't let himself snap or break, but there's a little less fear being carried around in his shoulders.

Slowly, he moves an arm to hold onto Zevran. He sighs.

"People have told me that," he says after a moment. "And yet somehow it doesn't seem to really help much..." Not that he seems to blame Zevran for saying it too. If anything, he's grateful to hear it in Zevran's voice.

He also doesn't pull away.

[ombranera]

Will it matter, telling him now? IF he is able to return, if they can- Cyril will never have heard it. Tass will never have died. They will never have this moment of silent grief. Making up his mind takes less agonizing than he might have thought- the transience of this particular moment, of this life? Helps.

The rest is simply a desire to have someone that lives know of it. Someone that will actually speak to him, that is.

"I have done the same for far less noble a reason. The blood is on the hands of the Templar that infected him. You ended his pain." Nothing more, nothing less.

[samahl]

Cyril nods a bit and takes a bit more comfort in Zevran's words and presence before finally he pulls back. "If you want, I can take you to where he buried his ashed. I planted something over them. It's..." He pauses, frowns a bit. "It's as pretty and peaceful as anything else on the mountain side can be."

[ombranera]

"I would like that." He's- Death happens. Losing those he cares for or is fond of? Happens. In a world and life like this, that is all he knows will be constant. Anything else? Slips through his fingers and he has long since accepted that fact.

"He was neither. He was...marvelous and brutal and wonderful for it." Even in his gentleness. "So it suits him."

[samahl]

That actually manages to make Cyril smile a bit. The corner of his lips lift slightly. It isn't the grins of his youth, but it's something.

"I think he was one of the most beautiful people I've ever met," he replies and there is a bit of warmth there. It's strange how he can access that emotion even when talking about Taas. It helps that Zevran isn't blaming him or making him feel as if all of this is his fault. He comforted instead, offered support and understanding. "Though I'm terribly biased."

[ombranera]

"Someone can be beautiful without being pretty. I will not deny- he was beautiful. Massive, marvelous- and kind." Fond remembrance does much for old wounds, this he knows. Speaking of Rinna soothed his heart when he could bear to do it.

Perhaps the same might ease Cyril's grief.

[samahl]

Cyril nods at that and looks down at his feet for a moment. Then, after a moment, he takes another deep breath and looks up at Zevran.

"You're beautiful too," he points out. "I wish he had been able to see you again."

[ombranera]

"Of course I am." Content preening, tossing his head as his hand slips up to comb through his hair. Scar and milky eye and all, he knows his flaws, knows his merits.

Can measure them down to the last inch of skin.

"If I had any say in the matter? I would not have left."

[samahl]

Cyril can't help but find a bit of comfort in Zevran's easy confidence. It's reassuring and makes things seem all the more real.

"That does seem to be what all ten of you feel," he agrees. "It is... good to see that you all survived the trip into the future at least."

[ombranera]

"As comforting as it is to know I was missed-" This is not how he would have liked to learn of it. "I need to know was much as possible if we are able to return and prevent this. Or simply who it is I must hunt and kill in reparations for wrongs done to yours and mine."

[samahl]

"Well, if you do go back into the past keep an eye on Beleth. She turned the second it was easy for her to do so," Cyril commented. "She and Cade are the reason this happened." He gestured up to his face and the scar that ran down it.