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

[kartereo]

"--Huh," Waver said, tapping his chin. "I guess the idea of having diverging timelines would be an issue, but I'd say you already did that the minute you engaged in time travel magic."

He gave it another thought, then shook his head. "I'd vote that it better to try and undo things regardless. The brink we're at now likely can't be salvaged. Even attempting to do a reset is preferable. Hell, if we're lucky, most of us won't remember these events."

[el_tybs]

Diverging timelines. Didn't that mean that returning back to the past wouldn't necessarily change this future, but just start a different path? Someone had mentioned that, but honestly some of this was just going over his head since everyone thought of time travel different - he was a healer not a traveler of time.

Even if he wants to ask he doesn't, not really wanting to bring up that point with Waver since things were already dark as they were. "If we can get back... I don't think any of us know exactly what happened. It'll take some time to just figure that out."

[kartereo]

"I trust that you will. The time paradoxes can sort themselves out, and if not, may we be none the wiser about success or failure."

It was hard to not worry about it all, but for now, there was little point. No one could move forward yet. But that did bring up something else.

"Are you doing okay in all of this?"

[el_tybs]

The question causes Sam pause, eyes furrowing slightly in that he was not expecting it. He's had a decent amount of run ins now, and while some had been friendly there was not a whole lot of asking how he was doing.

"...I think I'm very much out of my element. Nothing is as it was, and things I felt confident in... well I'm feeling less confident."

[kartereo]

"Well, I think that's understandable given the circumstances," Waver says with a reserved smile.

"Has anyone offered to get you a drink to help on that front?"

[el_tybs]

"Most people are too busy taking shots at me or telling me that I'm not who I am... So no." Course there have been some good encounters, but the majority have just a bit hostile. Getting a drink hadn't been on anyone's mind.

"Why are you offering? Or just asking?" he asks, with a small smile, clearly relieved at how... easy? this meeting had been. Obviously there was much they both needed to wrap their heads around, but something 'normal' was just what Sam needed to really let things sink in.

[kartereo]

"Offering," Waver said, nothing on his face suggesting the offer is anything but sincere. "Especially based on the whole people taking shots or doubting your identity. That alone deserves some alcohol."

Being easy going about this stemmed two fronts. The first being that his home school of magic supported time travel theory and parallel universes. Going from one to the other wasn't unheard of, although it was painfully rare. Another was the fact that just as a rifter, these kind of jumps were hard to deal with, and now the shoe was on the other foot.

[el_tybs]

He supposed his situation was pretty similar to that of the rifters, though not entirely the same. Prejudice or the like he's used to, but it is certainly a shock considering it's from people he knows, or knew rather. The hardest part was knowing that they had good reason for it.

"I would really appreciate that, Waver. Ah... is it actually consumable?"

[kartereo]

"Yes," Waver said. "I've found that I sometimes can't think too much about it, but that's only for the ale. The higher proof stuff from distilling root vegetables has actually proven to be pretty good."

He paused, then quickly added, "Just don't have more than two glasses of that, or you'll be temporarily blind."

[el_tybs]

He's glad for the warning, but at the same time hearing that has Sam furrowing his brows and looking at Waver with concern. "... Are you elaborating, or can you literally go temporarily blind from drinking the stuff?" He already wasn't that much of a drinker, but having something now seemed worth it, except if he would end up worse then before.

[kartereo]

"I'd just get a glass, then split it between the two of us and water it down," Waver confessed. He clearly had done this more than once, evident by his slightly embarrassed grin. "That's about two or three glasses of good quality whiskey. Doable, and you'll be alive come morning."

[el_tybs]

Alive come morning. First it was blindness and now the risk on his life; excuse the continued concerned look on his face, Waver, when he hears that. Even so, he isn't saying 'no' to having that drink - he couldn't just let Waver drink on his own after all.

"Makes me wish I was getting Maraas-Lok instead."

do you want to wrap up the thread next tag?

[kartereo]

"Ah, but you're not," Waver said, starting to head towards the tavern district. "And I'm possibly exaggerating."

His smile made it clear that this was all rather ambiguous. The point wasn't the alcohol anyway, it was trying to get Sam at ease after what sounded like a terrible time.

sounds good to me!

[el_tybs]

"That fills me such confidence," he says dryly, still making a face, but follows regardless.

A perfect plan. Make him fret over his well being over liquid he was putting into his body, rather then focusing on the time and culture shock of time travel. Waver was such a good friend - and that wasn't sarcasm.