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

[glandival]

Maybe it's later, before, after, or another day and another campfire.

But there are no sounds of footsteps. At the sight of a fire, glimmering through the dark trees, Sabine had taken the long route, creeping quiet to ensure she isn't about to stumble over a poorly defended stake out of Red Templars. When she spies the solitary figure tending to his fire, she opts to make herself known.

First, snow comes down from disturbed branches. Then, Sabine landing from her perch in the snow and dirt, folding into an easy crouch. She is dressed in light armor, her red hair, wild curls usually loose, bound back into a thick braid and exposing her long elven ears to the elements. She's armed with bow and quiver, and in her hand, held by the feet, are two dead wild rabbits, crimson sticky in soft brown fur.

She approaches the man and his fire, her assessment frank, but otherwise inviting herself over. Dropping the rabbits, ducking into a crouch, extending her hands towards the flames to warm them.

[maladgogo]

When he hears the thump of someone landing in the snow, he glances up, expecting what she had, some sudden ambush by the horrifying lyrium-addled things. But no, it's just one lady elf, with the faint smell of blood coming off her.

The rabbits catch his attention, and he smiles faintly. He doesn't say anything just yet, but he does give her a small nod of acknowledgment before rubbing his hands together close to the fire to try and warm his fingers a bit more. It was somehow even colder, now that the sun had gone down.

"Might wanna be gettin' somethin' over ya ears, sis. Windchill's a fuckin' killer."

[glandival]

When he speaks up, Sabine gives him a considering look across the fire, one that tips off to the side as if judging for herself the feeling of the icy air against the narrow tips of her ears. Hands rub together, bringing blood to the surface, before she reaches back, tugging loose the hood of her cloak, and pulls it up over head.

Her hands return back to the fire.

"Does it snow like this," she asks, "where you came from?" Her accent is that of thick French-analogue, although at no point will it seem like she struggles with the language.

[maladgogo]

He shakes his head some. "Nah, ain't never seen so much motherfuckin' snow in my life. Grew up where it was either always warm, or in the winter not quite cold enough to be droppin' it on us like this. Hell of a thing to have to get used to right off the fuckin' bat."

He notes her accent, but refrains from speaking with her as he'd tried to the last French-sounding woman he'd come across. His accent just doesn't allow for discourse like that here. She sounds like she speaks fluent English anyway.

"What about you sis, you ever had to be dealin' with this shit?"

[glandival]

Sabine has made a point to speak to several of the Rifters, but none so immediately strange as this one, with his unfamiliar cadence and way of speaking, but she listens as alert as a little bird. In the dimness, her eyes seem to reflect unnaturally -- which would be because they do, if not unnatural to her.

Maybe he is a little like Marcel. The familiarity, the shortening of words. She rubs her hands together a little more.

"The lake is frozen," she says, after a moment. "Solid, like marble. I watched men cut holes in it with tools to find fishes. It is never cold like that, but it snows like this. Have you been told, where you are?"

[maladgogo]

"Heard'a people doin' that kinda shit where I come from, way up north where it's always real cold. Ice fishin'. Sometimes people dive right in it n' go searchin' for the fishes so they ain't drillin' holes all over the water for no reason. Dunno how anyone stands it."

He glances from the fire up to the elf, and pauses briefly when her eyes flash. Well then, at least that was one thing that stayed constant between his world and this one.

"Ain't heard much, 'cept this is Emprise du Lion, n' I walked my ass to Sahrnia, n' this camp you all got set up here's Inquisition. Ain't got much context for none'a that though."

[glandival]

Sabine shivers imperceptibly beneath her wools at the idea of diving right into the frozen water, and inches a little closer to the fire. It gives off warmth so freely, taking nothing of what the Rifter has established for himself.

"Emprise du Lion is in Orlais, and Orlais is in Thedas," she rattles off, a little dryly. "But I know those words do not mean much. In the same way New Orleans means little to me. There is a man here who came like you did, from there."

She doesn't outright ask if he is from there too, although a glance of reflective eyes sort of do it for her. She doesn't want to sound stupid, like a simpleton having heard of Halamshiral, and assuming everyone of Thedas comes from there.