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

[justice_is_blond]

While he's fairly sure his identity won't remain secret for much longer, he's not about to explain that he's previously helped Zevran with a Crow problem. A new topic is welcome. Even if she's trying to solve the puzzle that is him.

At least disappointment is better than hurt, and he's not going to attempt to kill her. Small consolations.

"You know, I don't think I can do worse than that." Justice approves of her, if not how Anders feels toward her. She's trying to help them, and he's the greatest threat to anyone's survival from their direction. "I also think that everyone is their own puzzle, Ade-Ade. Strange, too. But perhaps some are a little simpler than mine, if we're to take a comparison entirely too far."

He gives her a small smile. "Once mine was entirely simple. Farmer's boy, looking after cows." It finally reaches his eyes as he shrugs. "Perhaps it's a good thing I never truly enjoyed tending them."

[fleurdesel]

"I would like to think I am relatively straightforward. What one sees is what one gets." A studious workaholic that takes on more work than she truly ought out of some twisted sense of obligation. It was what those that didn't survive the Spire would've wished. They died, she lives- she owes it to them to try.

"Teacher, looking after students. Circle life might have been restrictive in some ways but it was not so bad. At least not until the last few months before it all went wrong. I- until everything fell apart I honestly thought if we listened, if we kept our heads down and waited and put our faith in the First Enchanters; we would be fine."

[justice_is_blond]

Her words sting in multiple ways all at once, and the smile fades away. Not so bad, because that's the sort of life mages were so used to taking as the best they can get. All went wrong, his doing. It went wrong for the right reasons, but everything did go poorly at first.

The only comfort to be found is that they're currently out of captivity, and progress is being made.

"I was what one saw, and then I added a... friend. But I never found Circle life to be not so bad." Which the scars she knows about can attest to, even if she doesn't know the full story behind them. He's the only one alive who does, he's fairly certain, and Anders works to keep it that way. "I know there were better Circles. Yours sounds like it wasn't so harsh a cage, but..."

He exhales and trails off as his cat stirs in his hands, stretching and digging claws into his leggings.

"But here I've a cat, and friends who aren't all in my head." Right now, not everything is so bad.

[fleurdesel]

"I never believed it until our own fell. There were murmurings of what happened in other Circles- especially after Kinoch hold. After Kirkwall. But we were the Circle of Val Royeaux. The mages of The White Spire, the seat of templar power in Orlais." There's pride in that, tarnished by time and distance and opened eyes- but then? Then it had been more than enough. "It couldn't possibly touch us. There were always rumors, gossip- there is little more to do in a tower but study and gossip- of Templars taking liberties. Apostates brought in and forgotten in the dungeons, mages struck for insubordination- tales meant to frighten willful apprentices into compliance."

Her voice goes thick, her eyes distant. "They couldn't possibly be true. We'd never thought to question. The templars simply were, they did their duty, we did ours, we were safe from demons and those that feared us should we travel beyond the walls of the Spire- they would protect others from us should the worst come to pass. I never thought to ask. To investigate, to question. Theories and antiquated traditions, spells and academia- this I questioned. But never the system itself. I was willfully blinded by comfort. Content. What a bitter awakening it was, when everything fell apart."

[justice_is_blond]

It's hard to hear her fear, and there's little satisfaction in the fact that his actions had opened up her eyes. A view of reality had been needed, but the price had been high. At least he can take comfort in the knowledge that the cycle of ignorance and abuse has been broken.

For a few moments he's quiet after she stops speaking, simply looking down at his hands.

"It was always bad," he finally says quietly. It's his own emotions getting in the way of him being cold and firm in the way Justice wants. She's struggled and seen, and deserves compassion. Fittingly. It's the Loyalists who are still loyal who don't.

"But everyone's been trained so long that it's hard to see it. We're taught that magic is bad, makes us dangerous and worthless, that we should accept being locked away, while everyone else is taught that we're dangerous and not simply people, that they should fear us. It's divisive. Tactical. Create a dangerous enemy, and people will gladly look to you to protect them, and that's what the Templars and the Chantry have done. Some still refuse to see us, simply the threat that a few of us could and do pose but most do not." There's still so much work ahead of him. Ahead of all mages who chose to move forward rather than clinging to easy, stupid simplicity.

"We need training. I'll not deny that. But in proper uses of our skills, not in fear and shame and servitude."

[fleurdesel]

"I suppose that is what Unger saw wen he held me to the wall." A hand thick and cold from gauntlets, crushing in it's grip. Her fingers drift up to massage the base of her throat, eyes distant in memory. "Perhaps I was fortunate in that I never truly saw such people in my time there. Those that do not look at us so much as they do through us- to which we are little better than beasts, than things to be used and discarded."

It takes a moment to reign that fear and frustration back in. Unger is dead, the world is a mess, they must do better. Above all else they must do better than what they had before.

No other option is acceptable.

"Depending on how things go in the Inquisition, we will set a precedent. Provided we are not forgotten entirely."

[justice_is_blond]

Held to the wall. That would be the friend that tried to kill her, then? Especially as she touches her throat. Anders has seen that gesture from a hundred people, and knows what it means.

"I saw... I saw a lot of them. Had run-ins with more than a few." Sometimes Rolan still walks his nightmares, as do several others, intent on trying to finish the job. He'd never been a person to them. Just someone who was trouble. Meredith too. Cullen. Alayre. Even Greagoir didn't really care except for Irving and Wynne. The rest? They were just objects. Most Templars couldn't see past their own noses.

"But you're right. At the very least, the common people are being exposed to mages, making friends, having to start thinking of them as people. If that can spread... And we've some self-governance. The course of history can be changed for the better. We can be free. We can... We can have lives." Even with all the difficulties freedom involves, it's worth it.