open: something grabs ahold of me tightly

[faderifting]

WHO: Inquisition Forces
WHAT: Inquisition forces cross the mountains into Orlais to deal with Emprise du Lion
WHEN: Wintermarch 25 onward
WHERE: EMPRISE DU LION
NOTES: This is a mingle-style log for the Inquisition camps, local tavern, and general/open Inquisition work, etc.

This time they hike down to the west, but the trip through the mountains is no easier. The snow is heaped up about the road where wagons have pushed it aside, stomped into slippery pack beneath the feet and hooves that have gone before. Of the main track it is ankle deep at best and in places it drifts, waist-deep on a tall man and enough to bury a dwarf who hasn't come prepared with snowshoes. Everywhere the wind howls, biting cold, and the sky hangs low, a pale flat grey that makes it difficult to judge distances. Those who know winter weather call it a snow sky, and near-daily squalls prove them right.

They set up camp in Sahrnia, across the broad expanse of frozen river that has trapped the villagers here upstream. Tents pop up in rows and in the shells of tumbled-down buildings, fires blazing and thawing the ground to mud. When the supply wagons roll in they re-open the local tavern, brightly lit with flaking paint on the walls that might once have been colorful and patterned tiles on the floor that seems to swim like an optical illusion after too many glasses of the cheap red wine that fills the cellars.

Even deadlier reds hold the hills: Red Templar sightings have been frequent and it is said they are operating in several locations in the region in significant force. Some of these men and women have become hulking, crystalline beasts. Many others are in the earlier stages of corruption: red-veined and -eyed, aggressive and superhumanly strong, but still visibly human and coherent if spoken to. Red lyrium is even easier to find, jutting out of the ground or cliffsides, filling caves-- the Tower of Bone, a fortress that has stood for centuries, now threatens to split from the inside out. The area's wildlife was none too friendly before, but now the wolves and bears have begun to be corrupted by the lyrium and many will attack on sight, without provocation. (The snofleurs that bumble harmlessly around the river seem unaffected.)

Everywhere there are ruins: broken bridges, crumbling colosseums, and the great hulking mass of Suledin's Keep tucked between the distant hills. Scouts reported that Red Templars hold it as well.

RIFTER ARRIVAL - SAHRNIA - THE HILLS - TOWER CAMP - A HANDY MAP

Comments

[maladgogo]

As Gam turns over and pushes himself to his feet, one of the last remaining demons turns on him. He digs the branch out of the snow and turns with it held in his hands like a bat. The thing chasing him reminds him of some of the last creatures he'd seen back home, and if it hadn't shrieked in his face, he might have felt sorrier for it. As it was, he swung and nearly knocked the Terror's head clean off of its shoulders, its cry cutting off with a sick gurgle and crunch. It crumpled to the ground and then disappeared back into its rift.

"That's right motherfucker, you better run!" he yelled after it, his steps staggered just a bit. He straightens up with a huff and glances around to be sure that there weren't any more coming through, and that Korrin isn't in the middle of a fight she can't handle (ha, unlikely) before lifting his hand to the rift itself, now doing its graceful silk dance in the air again, and pushing the energy back out into it. He stumbled back when the air around it collapsed inward, and just like that, it was peaceful again. The only evidence that anything had happened here was the trampled snow. So now, Gam sits in the snow, panting quietly and staring at the spot that the rift had been.

[gatheringstorm]

Always happy to see a Terror demon get what it deserves, Korrin flashes a grin before finishing off her next target. She slices through the last of the demons just before Gam stretches forth that marked had to do what she's seen so many times by now. It's hardly an unfamiliar sight at this point, watching the rift vanish and the Veil mend, but Korrin smiles nonetheless, and she turns to the rifter, crouching to rest a hand on his shoulder.

"Good work. Thanks to you, the villagers are that much safer. There are more rifts, all over the area and beyond, but I'll take whatever victory we can get."

[maladgogo]

"'s not much, but it's certainly somethin'." He looks around at her with a large, lopsided smile, then slaps a hand down on her wrist, gripping it gratefully before picking himself up out of the snow again. "Hell of a wakeup," he mutters, heading over to a blotch of black and green in the snow. He knows better than to prod at it, but it doesn't seem safe to just leave it here.

"So...what now?" he asks, turning back to her, his hands rubbing together to get some warmth back into his fingers now that he's lost one of his gloves.

[gatheringstorm]

"Now you're welcome to return with me to the Inquisition camp just beyond town. We have food, tents and, yes gloves. You don't have to, but I'm not sure how much help you'll find in the area otherwise. Between rift demons, red lyrium and Red Templars, this is as hostile as hostile gets. You don't have to be one the front lines to help -we have a fortress known as Skyhold, east of here- but I won't lie, we need rifters and other people so marked to seal whatever rifts we find. It's the only way to begin restoring order to the mess that is southern Thedas right now."

[maladgogo]

"Don't know my ass from a hole in the ground around here so I'm thinkin' that's the safest bet I got 'til I know one way or the other if there's somewhere else to be." He looks to her to lead the way, figuring he'd rather trail behind like a lost duckling than wander off in the wrong direction and still end up freezing to death somewhere before he found the camp itself.

"Alright so I know a little'a what we got puttin' folks in danger here, but you said Red Templars? Th'fuck is that?I'm just assumin' the red lyrium's that spooky shit juttin' outta the snow."

[gatheringstorm]

And now that there's nothing left to fight, Korrin is just as happy to depart, leading the way toward camp. Once there, she'll also ensure that he has access to whatever weapon he deems best-suited to defend himself. They have a decent range of them, the last she checked.

"Red Templars are Templars that splintered off and ingested red lyrium, now corrupted into twisted beings that serve Corypheus. He's an ancient darkspawn magister who's responsible for the Breach, and thus all the rifts, and the Inquisition intends to stop him before he can make another attempt to enter the Fade, probably killing us all in the process. The Fade is a realm of spirits and demons, where people go when they dream...and where they pass through when they die. It's that connection to the Fade which grants mages their talent."

Hopefully any of that makes some sense, but she seems ready to elaborate if it doesn't.

[maladgogo]

"I only understood about two thirds'a that, sis," he admits, but he takes it upon himself to try and talk it out in a way that might make more sense to him, looking to her for corrections.

"So you got mages like y'self, n' they tap into a dream realm f'they magics. N' the demons come from that same place. If the Fade's a place of demons that people dream theyselves into, 's that mean they shape it? Or the other way 'round, with demons shapin' they dreams? N' I'm just assumin' Darkspawn's another sort'a fuckin' demon thing. Magister's not a term I'm familiar with neither, but if the root's the same, 's that make them mages? So we got a demon mage motherfucker all wreckin' shit, turnin' soldiers into evil fuckin' things, n' we got dream monsters pourin' outta wherever I passed through to be gettin' here, n' that's this Coryphimus dude's fault too..."

At least it made some sense to his mind, especially since most of the vocabulary here seemed pretty similar to what he was used to back home.

[gatheringstorm]

That he's able to work a lot of it out for himself earns Korrin's respect, though she still tries to fill in the blanks where and when needed.

"...more or less. You have the general idea right there. Darkspawn aren't demons, but humanoid beings with a different kind of taint from red lyrium. They're usually mindless, their sole goal being to kill or corrupt everyone and everything. Corypheus is...different, somehow intelligent if not sane. A magister is a mage of the Tevinter Imperium, the only place in Thedas where mages rule. But it also endorses slavery and blood magic, so it's not exactly a positive example to the rest of us. So when I say he's a darkspawn magister, I'm really saying he's the worst combination of terrible things Thedas has to offer."

Yeah, there's more to it than that, but she's trying to keep it relatively simple for his sake. "As for the Fade, you're right about people shaping it; my mentor described it as people setting the stage and demons stepping into the roles we provide them. Most don't remember time while dreaming, so it's not a conscious thing. Only mages remember; and dwarves don't dream at all. Their connection, if it ever existed, is severed, so they can't be mages."

[maladgogo]

"If demons is steppin' into the roles the dreamers make for 'em, does that mean not all of 'em's bad? Can't imagine everyone with connections to the Fade'r bad people that'd make a demon do this shit they doin' outside in this world. You said they was driven mad by passin' through it but what about when they keepin' to themselves?" He wasn't going to touch on blood magic, and slavery was a damn touchy subject as well for him. Best to keep to those things that were a little more foreign and a little more important to what they were doing here.

Besides, it's a good distraction from the cold and the long walk back.

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin doesn't mind the questions, though she doesn't seem convinced when it comes to demons. "Well, there are spirits and there are demons. The line can get rather muddled, but as I understand it, a spirit becomes a demon when denied their original purpose. Some idiot summons them, gets them to go against their nature and boom, demon. Or as I said, they get sucked in through a rift. There are probably other ways, and possibly some demons who always were just that.

Honestly, I'm not an expert on them, as I try to keep away from spirits and demons as much as possible. It's sound practice for mages; demons want to influence this world, and one way is possession. A mage is like a fucking beacon for them, and when they take control? The result can wipe entire villages off the map. Those are called abominations, and the only thing they do is kill. So, non-mages admittedly do have some reasons to fear us. It's not nearly enough to justify the fate of most mages until recently, but that's a whole other can of worms."