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]

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.