faderift | OPEN ↠ HEART LIKE ICE

OPEN ↠ HEART LIKE ICE

WHO: New Rifters & Inquisition Members
WHAT: A journey south to make new friends and kick some ass
WHEN: Drakonis 15-25
WHERE: Sunless Lands
NOTES: Violence and language assumed. Warn for anyting else. OOC post.

The Sunless Lands are not, in fact, sunless. This time of year there can be as many as eight hours of daylight, some of it blinding where it reflects off of snow and ice that stretches from the southern edge of the Kocari Wilds as far as anyone can see, broken only occasionally by rocky masses of land jutting out of the snow cover or barren tundra peeking out in patches where constant, unforgiving wind has pushed it aside. You'll be traversing this span primarily on foot—there are sleighs, too, pulled by hardy dogs, but they're carrying essential supplies rather than spare people. The only way to get a ride is to successfully feign passing out.

Beyond the dogs, the area isn't devoid of native wildlife: white fennecs hunt rodents underground, and a herd of excessively fluffy wild druffalo is seeking out whatever vegetation it can find. But hunting down a meal or two early and preserving rations for further south would not be a bad idea, because the further south the team travels, the more inhospitable the terrain grows, and the less life can be seen. And sometimes not much of anything can be seen, when clouds roll by and burst with snow thick enough to halt progress entirely for hours.

The nights are cloudy as often as clear, but when they are clear the sky is split by green and purple ribbons of light.

I. THE RESCUE

Two days' journey south, the monotonously icy horizon is broken by something new: smoke rising in interrupted puffs, an intentional signal. Someone is out there. Chances are, it's the rifters, with or without their first group of intended rescuers. But there's no way to be sure. And approaching with caution is wise either way. Rifters have strange powers (and strange personalities), and they've been out here for days now, dealing with demons and Maker knows what else on their own. For all anyone knows, they could be the reason for the rescue team's disappearance. Orders are to approach carefully.

Then, once contact has been made and initial concerns have been allayed, make sure those poor people have something to eat, and try to figure out where their original rescuers disappeared to.

II. THE STORM

After the rifters are recovered, there's still the matter of the red lyrium mine to address. Another two days' journey south will put the group within good range of the mine: not so close as to be seen, but close enough to be able to get there in a couple of hours as needed.

Halfway there, however, in the middle of the day, progress comes to an abrupt half when the darkest clouds yet gather suddenly on the horizon and barrel down on the group, bringing with them a glut of snow that reduces visibility to only a few feet and wind that roars so loudly you have to shout to be heard. Magic can help some with heat, but the storm shows little sign of quickly abating and with hours of deadly cold conditions to deal with, digging in and getting cozy for a few hours might be the most feasible solution for everyone.

III. THE VILLAGE

Shortly before the point everyone is aiming for—one marked by an enormous stone carving of an owl, several times taller than a man, that's inexplicably been left by the ancients in the center of the tundra—something else appears not far to the west. On closer inspection, it turns out to be a circle of low-sitting animal-skin tents pressed down into the snow to protect them from wind, rocky fire pits, and abandoned sleighs. Overall, it's a cross between camp and village indicative of a nomadic group that's staying a while but not forever.

It's empty now, with a coating of snow on most of the structures that indicates it's been at least a few days since anyone was here. Closer inspection reveals personal belongings inside the tents, including toys and clothing belonging to children—and, in many tents, chunks of red lyrium in the center or beneath the skins that form the beds, each piece emanating heat. They probably thought it was safer than fire.

Wherever they went, they don't come back while the Inquisition is there. But the activity does get noticed. A few hours after arrival, enormous white bears apparently moving in a pack come within a hundred yards of the camp and pace at a distance, watching the interlopers with wary interest. Some of them are wearing collars or harnesses decorated in the same style as the tents. For enough food, they may come closer, and they'll turn out to be abnormally tame.

IV. THE BATTLE

The red lyrium mine that Corypheus' followers built when their operations were crippled in Emprise du Lion is nestled in an icy canyon, with massive scaffolding built up the sides of the cliff and too many cages to count, though few of them hold living prisoners anymore. It's a massive operation, but one that's been crippled by its distance from civilization. It's sparsely guarded compared to its size, and other than the cliffs, it has minimal natural protection. The enemy has magic-silencing Templars, enormous behemoths, and a chained white-furred giant, but they are clearly not prepared to be attacked.

Ahead of the onslaught, traps are set and any surviving prisoners are evacuated under cover of darkness. Everyone else sent to fight either creeps down shortly before dawn, rappelling quietly to avoid notice in the dark, or waits at the top for the first surprise strike to provide enough distraction for them to descend more openly. If anyone has been particularly nice to the bears (see above) then it is entirely possible they'll allow themselves to be ridden into battle.

Once their presence is known, their orders are pretty simple. Destroy it all. Leave no one behind and nothing worth returning for.

Fire is a good strategy. Red lyrium doesn't do well in heat.

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[Snow stopped bothering Brónach right about the time frost dragons started appearing semi-regularly in Skyrim; what's sinking up to your thighs in a snowdrift you can trudge through compared to frozen breath lashing you from above as you try to draw your bow to fire or get to shelter, slower with every step?

She's quiet, slipping in the way that those loved by certain Daedra tend to be (or by the Dread Father, if any know what he is) and wonders at the-- creature. If, should it take exception to her if what a Bosmer can do with most beasts will work for long enough to get her back out again with some distance.

Her pack is light, same as the armour, and she makes it plain that she's going for it and not the bow or blade (both with an uncomfortable red glow to them) as she opens it.]

Hungry, thirsty or both? [There's a lot of cheese, Kirkwall's kitchen was decimated on her way out the door.]

[ Iorveth, still new to things like endless winter and blizzards, hates the fucking snow, and no matter how many yetis might try to eat him in it, he's still going to despise it. thankfully, the stupid dream chicken that followed him here makes a very good space heater, and the girl that comes ducking into his already overcrowded tent has pointy, elf looking ears. So he doesn't immediately get the urge to punt her out on her ass.

More than that, she comes bearing offerings, and Iorveth, from where he's laid up against the oversized hen, using her wing as a blanket, squints his one good eye at her, then at her pack, and back to her face. ]

Neither. Just freezing my ass off. [ but the sentiment doesn't go unappreciated, and he nods towards the last free space in the meager tent. ] Close the bloody tent and sit.

[ strap the flap down tight, please. He can survive this kind of cold, but that doesn't mean he likes it. ]

[Disappointingly there are no horkers. She'd very much like some horker meat and tusks. Thedas has such boring beasts to hunt and this-- abomination of a thing is going to be decidedly off-limits since most things, even every horse bar Shadowmere has eventually become parts and pieces.]

No ice wraiths here at least, just cold enough to bite all the same. [Her fingers still work well in the cold but she'd be a hundred times dead if they didn't by now, the pack hauled into her lap rattling against the quiver as she listens with her head cocked but it's still. Very still. All of her would prefer something more than the waiting.] How was the fall through? I thought coming through to here would be the worst but then all of you get this.

[She takes a bite; habit to prove that things aren't poison since she's lived long enough in places where people like to go sticking daggers in you because they think it'll solve their problems.]

Near disastrous. [ Iorveth tells her, dry. ]

My world has demons and monsters as well, though I'm not usually the one slaying them. Thankfully, the ones here die as easily as humans do. [ He doesn't say 'people'. He says 'humans'. Devil's in the details, etc etc. ]

It was more the snow and lack of food that was killing us.

[ Thankfully, they lost no one, but they'd been close to it by the time the Inquisition showed up. While he's perhaps still suspicious of them, it's without a doubt that they'd have died out there if these people didn't show up when they did. ]

How did you know to find us here?

That bit I know well, at least there weren't dragons because they don't know how to keep dragons dead here. Extinct must mean something different to the humans. [Oh it's been a while since she let it slip when there are so many humans (oh she has humans she likes but they grate on a person) around, when she has to explain everything to them.

She does not say, the pack set down and everything is going to be frozen, she'd better be able to hunt here, that the lack of food wouldn't bother a Bosmer. Instead, a shrug, trying to think back as she sucks her teeth--]

Folk were sent to get you but they stopped keeping in touch, don't think that's happened before since it all went fine when I came through; fell through the rain, demons shrieking, sealed the thing shut with my hand, people were there to fight. We kept on the road to their next stop. [Or they could've gone back but the thought of that had been too much so she had stayed on the road, crept around, gotten in the way and under foot, hadn't slept for days.] There's some mining thing. Red lyrium. We were coming to look into it and I wanted out of the city we're all crammed into worse than fish in a barrel. There's a whole-- this project thing looking into the rifts, the things in our hands, all that shit.

The seemed to know it well enough in my realm. Thankfully, most dragons that don't seek to mingle with them are fierce enough to survive any hunting parties seeking a trophy. [ He couldn't imagine anyone outside of Geralt being able to slay Saskia, but gods, if he did, they'd be skinned alive and tied out for crows and vermin to pick at. ]

And how did the first set of folk know where to find us? Can they track these rifts? [ There isn't much room left in the tent for a fire, but iorveth starts digging in his pouches and pockets for his flint. not much left of his supplies to make tinder, either, but maybe some scraps could help. he's looking anyway, while he speaks.] How are they, these humans' cities? Aside from what a city normally entails. Where would people like us fit in?

[ people like us. nonhuman. elves. different. he wants to know what he's walking into, and with whom, before he follows these people all the way into their kingdom. he could be met with shackles and a task master, for all he knows. he'd rather not have to kill his way out of a city and put a price on his head so very soon. ]

Dragons ruled once in Skyrim. It's in their nature so when they returned they attacked, ice and flame, tooth and claw. Somewhere here bent down to worship them as gods and they trace all strife back to those humans. [Because, as you know, humans.]

There's an elf that knows much, and a whole project. I joined it but to keep track of them keeping track of us; there was a survey, some suggestions were unpleasant reminders. [Brónach doesn't have a face for happy smiles, this one pulled tight, tight as a Thalmor rules for how to live. She has spare arrowheads, scraps of metal and bone that she digs from a belt pouch. The hoarder life.] They think us demons with the hands. Untrustworthy. Some are better than others but watch for that but for us? They'll call you knife-ear. Mistake you for the servant, some might not serve you or you'll get the blame for whatever happens. Elves are beneath the humans. They've got a bit in cities they live in. History there is long and sad and bloody, strange to lay it out next to mine.

[Humans doing it to the elves for the whole rather than other elves and greater forces after all. Elf the worst she got called before when she could go as she pleased really with only the Nords cared compared to this unwelcome scrutiny.]

It's rare ours show themselves in human lands. Which are most inhabited lands, these days. [ Iorveth listens carefully, a habit he's made over the century of war and trying to keep his people alive - always know everything you can about everyone. Information is topples kings and keeps the out-numbered alive, if one has the courage to seek it, and use it. It doesn't hurt that he's genuinely interested in the world Brónach's come from. ]

Anything that comes from elsewhere will be looked on with distrust. It's the way of things. [ Of humanity, he means. Which is the majority, and the majority sways the opinions of the rest, or at least speaks loudly enough one would think they do. What she tells him about how Elves are regarded, though, boils in his veins, lips twisting with a want to snarl. It sounds so much like home, but Iorveth hasn't had to endure it directly in a long while, choosing to live freely out in the forests, already branded outlaw from the wars so with nothing to lose if he skins any human daring to speak to him as lesser.

It doesn't seem he'll have a choice if he's to follow these people to their civilization. Not if he wants to stick around long enough to figure out what's going on here. ]

Sadly too similar to my world, at least in terms of their cities. [ Striking the flint together, Iorveth works at getting sparks onto the tinder, a little more difficult with the dampness clinging to everything. ] But I welcome any here to try calling me servant. I could use working out some frustration.

[ by gruesomely murdering them, he means. ]

Time gets involved with dragons. When humans send their leader forward with it then it gets more complicatd. [Leave it to an elf to fix it right?] They're not flesh and blood, they were and are, there's something-- something that can make time break with them; the World-Eater is time ending, humans have the god of time who is linear time, but mer have infinite looping time. Prophecy dictated they would return, and prophecy is rarely ignored. [So she's learnt the hard way. It's interesting though, humans spreading and it's true that they're there and everywhere but is where Iorveth comes from closer to Thedas where the elves are lesser? There are homelands. (Were. But the Dunmer do that to themselves.) The dominion who stand as golden monoliths to some bygone era they seek to reclaim that stirs so much bitterness in hearts, something elves here might reach for with both hands greedily ignoring all her words of caution.]

I had my head on the chopping block once when I left, sometimes I'm waiting for that again here. [How long does it take for it to happen. To be the one in the wrong place, at the wrong time, to have someone look at you with a shrug in their gleaming livery as the onlookers gawp or turn their heads away as if that might mean this isn't happening, as if they're less guilty of allowing it. This time no one will return their bones.

(They have no bones here, that's the truth of it.)]

Is it just elves for you? Here it's Dalish for the ones with markings on their faces who think they know their past with their gods shut away, or the city elves they look down on who live in cities, obviously. I know it better as 'mer or people. Bosmer for me for a wood elf, Altmer for high elves who want to be all our ancestors were [it catches in her mouth worse than a fish hook] then Dunmer, the dark elves, fallen from favour with Azura. The Dunmer got the worst of it in some cities because they came as refugees when their homeland turned to ash, the Altmer...make it complicated for us. For themselves. [A shame she hasn't the fire breath here though that bird--

Anyway.] How quiet can you be? Can you call the shadows friend?

[ that is... some seriously intense dragon involvement there, and Iorveth can't even begin to imagine the single dragon he knows getting up to anything similar. he hadn't heard anything about prophecies involving them, and really, it's an utter rarity to see one at all, even from a great distance. Saskia is unique among her kind in that regard, but she's never been malicious in her interactions. ] My world doesn't have nearly so much lore for dragons. They keep to themselves for the most part, unless purposefully bothered.

[ aka, hunting parties, aka crowds of idiot nobles with mercenary guards looking for a trophy. whatever. it's the part about the chopping block at has Iorveth barking a sudden laugh. that is... all too familiar. story of his freaking life. he can't step foot into any human village safely at this point. the last time was before the Peace of Cintra, and the massacre of his people that had them branded war criminals. reaching up, his gloved hand pulls at the section of his headscarf that covers the right side of his face, showing Brónach the empty, scarred socket where his right eye used to be. ]

My head was chained to a torture cell wall. Would've been for either the noose or a ravine filled with corpses had I not gotten free. [ and fucking ran for the woods, nearly dead for the eight billionth time when the dryads found him and patched him up. ] The Inquisition tells me we're headed to a human city, Kirkwall. Half of me expects to be led straight to the dungeons. If not the executioner.

[ as for the question of terminology, he shakes his head, so freaking glad there's finally another like his kind that doesn't got by elf here. ] My people are Aen Seidhe. 'Elf' is the word humans made when they couldn't pronounce the other. Besides that, we have no real names for separate locales and lifestyles. The elderly, the mages and the cowards live in a puppet vassal state named Dol Blathanna. When humans sacked our cities, some left for the Blue Mountains, call themselves Free Elves now. The youth who wouldn't accept the state of things became warriors and live in the forests. We're called Scoia'tael, and they look at us as rebels and terrorists. The rest besides just inhabit the slums of human ruled cities as second class citizens.

[ The 'we' making it pretty clear there which group he belongs to, and something about how he feels about this bullshit. he just doesn't have it in him to live quietly, it seems. As for the question of shadows and quiet, he smirks, and shrugs. ] I wouldn't have lived this long if I couldn't. Why do you ask?

It's not in the nature of dragons to do that in Tamriel. Their very nature is to dominate. One asked me, one who lived in isolation alone for a long time what was more worthy: What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort? [It's there in her. Her nature. Atop the highest point in all the world as the snow fell through the gaps in his wings, colder there than it might ever be here when Paarthurnax had looked at her, through her, into her, into green-knotted bones she'd thought Y'ffre had made: You feel it in yourself, do you not?] There were priests and cults when dragons ruled. When there's a terrible thing there are always those who grow powerful with it and raise their hands up to touch it, with others following after. They went beneath the ground when the dragons went before, now the dead walk sometimes in their crypts and barrows with eyes of blue flame.

[Is she jealous of what Iorveth is telling her? Maybe. Life would be simpler without the constant threat of a dragon overhead, without the idea of them being sewn into time itself the way that they are.]

At least the Imperial offered to send my remains home to Valenwood. [Brónach looks where the eye was, doesn't flinch away from it but her mouth pulls into a thin hard line at it. At what people do to each other. Taking an eye away leaves a blindspot for most - maybe he's had the years to compensate - but it won't come back, and it stands out for good, forever. A careful detail in the dossier to be read to anyone assigned to an area.] They've got dungeons but it's for any prisoners taken for whatever they do, that I've seen, being what you are isn't enough to be marched off. Yet. [Humans and holy wars, give it time.] It was a slave prison in the old days for them, for the people that had elven slaves, then the mages got kept in it. Now we live in it. Pick your room when you go and maybe a roommate. Some of them live outside of the Gallows if they've got the coin for it but it suits me fine enough for now where I know what's going on.

[Harder to do outside of it. Just living in the walls you hear everything if you know how to shut your mouth and open your ears.]

It's not as if a human cares. Dunmer are grey, Bosmer are short, Altmer are tall and gold; Altmer cause the problems but they call all of us elf just the same, say we can't be trusted, hands to yourself, I'm watching you. Then expect you to care about their great lineage if you make the mistake of sitting near them in the tavern for a moment. Valenwood has those of us who won't accept the purges no one hears about and fight then you go to Skyrim where there are Dunmer refugees made to live in the Gray Quarter where the local drunks go to shout abuse at them every night, the part that stinks of fish and waste from the docks.

[The Dunmer aren't her people but they're closer to her than an Altmer would ever be. Their home is gone and the sting of it is the same. The same thing she sees when she goes creeping after curfew to the less savoury parts of Kirkwall, claps eyes on the Alienage.]

I make a habit of going about parts of the city where I will, lifting a few things here and there from the merchants to keep some skills sharp but it's a good way to know what's going on without standing out. If you know how to do it. Not everyone does. [Everyone knows those folk. The ones that lumber about. Set off the traps. Walking, talking, clanking suits of armour where you begrudge them every breath and every step. She's got about six or seven at last check stashed in various houses. (Jarls stop gifting her these loud humans, she has no need of them.)] That and there's a curfew for folk like us, I don't always keep it but you need to be careful about it, don't want a lecture from any of the higher-ups.

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OPEN ↠ HEART LIKE ICE

the storm;

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