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

[apostasia]

"A group of us will return to it," with a gesture of the hand with the rift shard to make it clear what he means by us, "and with any luck, it'll be closed without any of us dying."

There is no guarantee of that, but they're getting better at it, he thinks. And if he has to die for anything--

"The shard comes from the rift," after a moment, "but not everyone who bears one came through it."

[haseki]

Although much of this is still maddeningly confusing, to Zafire's mind, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future, she can find a linear sense in acquiring a shard from the rift. She came through it, it left its mark on her, a kind of arcane scar. Zafire's feet drag in the snow, briefly, and she readjusts her pace to accommodate for numbed lower extremities. Her balance is not exactly ladylike at the moment, but if it keeps her going, fine.

"So it has some use, at least." The mark's associated ache shows no sign of relenting (quite the opposite, actually), but pain with a little purpose behind it is more easily borne. "How did the others come to acquire theirs, if not through the rift itself? Are they also witches? Or sorcerers, I suppose."