#is a sneaky kosith mage

[neverending-shenanigans]

The Drinkquisition AU

“I promise this is the last time I’ll ask, but… are you sure that this is the right way?”

Evandra ( @bulmavegotaku ) hadn’t noticed Muse ( @amusewithaview) stepping up next to her, which was quite impressive. Not only because, as a dalish elf, she benefitted from slightly better sight and majorly better hearing than she usually had in real life. But also because Muse – this Muse – was a tall Qunari. Kosith. Tal-Vashoth. Whatever the game had decided, really. They hadn’t figured this part out yet. Point being, she was tall, horned, and unlike Evandra, she was not even a rogue. So there was no unnatural stealth skills involved. Evandra blamed it on this blasted storm that just wasn’t letting up.

“I’m still not sure, but I still suppose it is. I don’t remember this region being in the game. If you know better, do tell.”

Muse sighed, brushing a lock of snow-white hair from her face. The wind kept pushing it back into her face, though. “No, no, it’s fine. It’s not like I remember this region either. But that’s just it, you know. It has been a while, but I’ve played through the game often enough to think that something should seem familiar. Despite the snow storm.”

“Yeah, I know. I think so, too. But it’s also quite logical that not everything on that world map was in the game. But I still think that based on … wild-life, and the weather and that skyline of those mountains, we really are in Ferelden.”

“Probably. But all this shit is so weird…”

“I feel you. It’s strange to even seriously think about being in Ferelden. It feels surreal.”

“Well. On the up-side, this is the most immersed I’ve ever felt in a video game.”

Evandra burst into laughter, for a moment.

“Hah, yeah. Beat’s VR-gaming, doesn’t it. I’m fucking freezing to the bone. Still, I think if I could have picked a game to get thrown into by a freak accident during a gaming convention, I’m not sure I would have picked this one.”

“It could be worse, I think. Imagine if we’d still been at the Witcher Panel.”

“Hey, guys! Wait up a little!”

Muse and Evandra slowed their pace and simultaneously looked back over their shoulders, where the rest of their little group was marching up the mountainous path. Noemi ( @uru-viel ) was jogging up to them, through the snow, and Hannah ( @lucid-dreamer-dreams)  and Sirrah (ME :)) were flanking Beatrice ( @beatrice-babe), a little ways behind.

It was the only human in their group, Noemi, who had called out to them, waving around with her staff to gesture toward them to wait. Muse had her own staff strapped to her back, but Noemi had resorted to using hers like a crutch as the way had gotten steeper in the last hour. Still, she was visibly exhausted.

Evandra and Muse waited for Noemi to catch up to them. They meant to continue walking on as she had reached them, but she grabbed both of their arms before they could. “Look, people. Sorry, but … can’t we take a break yet? I mean, we’ve been walking all day without running into anyone. We’ll probably be fine, won’t we?”

Evandra and Muse exchanged glances. Noemi hadn’t started playing Dragon Age yet, so she had no idea what exactly they could be encountering in this region. If they had been thrown into Origins, there could be Darkspawn popping up, or werewolves, or great bears. If they were in Inquisition there could be… all of that, and also demons and possibly Mages and Templars fighting each other. Ferelden was riddled with danger, to be honest.

Out of their group, only Evandra, Muse and Sirrah had played through all of those games, and none of them had felt like explaining this potential problem to the rest of their group. They had just persuaded them that it was vital that they first figured out in what game they were before resting or doing anything else.

And with that snow storm, it was just impossible to get a clear view of the sky and use that for guidance. If Inquisition had happened at all, there would be either a green, glowing hole in the sky, or a scar, but all they could see were dark clouds hanging way too close over them – and freezing fucking snow. So, yeah. Sitting around and waiting didn’t seem like a good idea.

“It’s just a little longer, Noemi,” Muse tried to placate the other woman. But even she felt bad for saying that. She had, after all, no idea how much longer they would actually walk.

And Noemi probably knew that, too. She huffed, and then gestured to the rest of the group. “Fine, but for your information, we really can’t keep doing this for much longer. I mean, you and Sirrah lucked out – you’re these tall horned-people.”

“Kosith.”

“Yeah, that. And apparently, Elves like Hannah and you, Evandra, are also super… sportsy, or I don’t know.”

“Resilient, I guess.”

“Whatever. My point is, I am human. A human with a stick and a coat and I’m freezing. And Beatrice is a dwarf. Have you seen her legs? She’s tiny. She has walked, like, thrice the path I have walked. As a nurse, I’m worried. Officially worried.”

“I offered to carry her, and … ” Muse started, but Noemi just made a dismissing gesture.

“I know, I know. But can you blame her for not wanting to be carried around like a baby? Waking up a dwarf in that cave must have been hard enough as it is. She must be freaking out right now.”

“She can hear you perfectly fine, thank you. I’m a dwarf now, apparently, but not deaf,” Beatrice called out cheerily over the storm. The trio was almost caught up to them, and yeah, Beatrice did seem more exhausted than the other two – maybe a bit more sweaty – but she was also smiling brightly. “Also, don’t worry too much, Noemi. It’s sweet, but I’m fine, really.”

“How can you be so chipper, Bea? I mean, I’ve at least played the game we are in right now.  I sorta know what could potentially be going on. And I am still freaking out,” Sirrah shook her head, and almost instinctively reached up to palm her horns – just about the fiftieth time in the past hour. Hannah swatted at her hands, and Sirrah lowered them obediently, a little ashamed at what seemed to become a bad habbit already.

“Eh, I treat it like improv-theater. On a really grand scale. But, you know… all the world’s a stage. This is just the most elaborate play I’ve ever been in,” Beatrice shrugged. “Also, being a dwarf is… interesting. I don’t know why, but somehow everything in me is actually really… comfortable with this. There’s a vibration that’s just… humming in me. And I actually don’t feel too cold either. An entirely new experience. Are dwarfs resistant to being cold?”

Sirrah shrugged, a little helplessly. “I don’t know? I mean… I think I remember Varric bitching about the snow, but that could have also been the rain.”

“Varric might have just bitched about the weather because it was his duty to make the point that he was not an outside-adventure-dwarf,” Elandra chuckled.

“I don’t remember reading anything about cold-resitant dwarfs in the codex either.” Amuse looked Beatrice over, a little worried suddenly. “Maybe your feet are just so cold that you don’t feel them any longer.”

“Eh, I don’t think so. Maybe I’m a special dwarf. I’ll just make sure to read up on dwarfs later. At any rate, you guys don’t need to worry about me. I’m totally cool.”

“And you got those cool facial tattoos,” Hannah added helpfully, with a nod. She was using her giant bow as a bit of a crutch to help her in that snow as well. She gestured to Evandra. “And you have facial tattoos, too. And piercings. I’m an elf, why don’t I have these… fancy twirls, like you Elandra? I meant to ask this earlier, but I kind of forgot in the chaos of Noemi accidentally electrocuting me.”

“I said I am sorry like a thousand times now,” Noemi muttered. “Give a girl a break. How was I supposed to know how magic works here.”

“You’ll get the hang of it, Noemi. And about your tattoos, Hannah, it’s most likely because you’re a city elf. And not a dalish elf,” Evandra explained. “I mean, in theory, there could be other reasons but we won’t know for a little while longer. It shouldn’t really make much of a difference, though. They’re purely cosmetic. “

“We’ll paint you some tattoos later, if you want, Hannah” Sirrah offered with a small smile. “But for now, we’d better continue. Can’t be that much longer, can it?”

Amuse nodded, then shrugged. “We are pretty high up by now. We should have a good view soon, and then we can figure out where to go from there.”

“Good,” Sirrah rolled her shoulders. “Because I’m just about ready to give up on this stupid great axe and leave it behind. I still can’t believe I’m a kosith warrior. I’m tiny and weak in real life. I blame you for this, Hannah.”

“Me?” Hannah sounded indignant. “Why me? I’m an elf. With a freaking bow. It’s not like that’s my real-life job either. What the hell do I have to do with you being a horned, beefed-up giant?”

“Because you wrote me as the muscles in your Leverage AU. The universe must have decided that this is my job now. This means that I’ll have to do… I don’t know… press ups or shit now, so I can be useful.”

“I’m aboard with this. It’s all Hannah’s fault,” Noemi laughed, siding up next to Hannah and linking their arms. Hannah fake growled at her.

“Now that you mention it, Hannah suggested we meet at a gaming convention, too,” Muse offered with a grin.

“Yeah, but it was Sirrah who insisted to wait in line to punch a bag that looked like a bald elf. So it’s her fault we were still in the Dragon Age booth when that… power outage thing happened.”

“You can’t blame me for that, that was sort of manatory trauma therapy,” Sirrah protested. “Besides, Beatrice here was still talking with a writer about the use of iambic pentameter in video games, so we were justified to wait in line.”

“Evandra, what’s your take on this?” Amuse called out to the elven woman, who had again left the group to stalk a little further ahead, but was now rooted to one spot. She turned, and there was a bright grin on her face.

“I think you should ask me what I can spy ahead.”

Noemi immediately jumped at the chance. “Legolas, what do your elf eyes see?”

“I see Skyhold.”

“What, really?” Amuse immediately started running up to her, and after a moment, Sirrah did too.

Noemi, Beatrice and Hannah exchanged slightly confused looks, but after a shrug, they jogged over to the where the two horned giants and their pierced elf were frantically point at something.

And what they were pointing at got obvious from that spot in the road, where the path ahead twisted around a mountain side, and presented them with a clean view of … more mountains.  And, oh, indeed. There was a … building there. A fortress, really. It was just far enough away to be hard to spot.

Noemi pushed her glasses up a little, squinting. “Is this what we were looking for? I thought you wanted to find some kind of temple?”

“Ideally, yes,” Evandra nodded. “I thought that finding the temple could give us insight into what time we are in. It’s in Dragon Age Origins, and there’s a cult and a big Dragon there. And pre-Inquisition, there’s a conclave at the temple. And at the beginning, that temple gets blown to pieces, so if there’d be a ruin there, we would have known we were post-Inquisition time. Seems I was off a bit as to how far north we are though.”

“To be fair, the Frostback Mountains are hard to navigate. We don’t get to see much of them ingame. It’s pretty impressive that you recognized this to be the Frostback Mountains at all,” Sirrah said, with a shrug.

“Finding Skyhold is actually even more useful,” Amuse added, after a pause. She was rubbing the base of her horns, staring wide eyed at what was still a good days footmarch ahead of them. “When we get closer, the Heraldry will tell us if someone lives in it or not. If the place still looks like a ruin, and there’s no goatblood on the gates, we can live in it until we figure out what date it is and the Inquisition arrives. And if the Inquisition is there… well. We can claim to be pilgrims to the Herald of Andraste or mercenaries who want to join them.”

“Oh, right,” Evandra nodded. “That’s a good idea. There were thousands of andrastians coming to visit the place, right?”

“Pilgrims of who?” Hannah looked confusedly back and forth between Evandra.

“Female Dragon Age Jesus, basically,” Sirrah said, with a shrug. “We’ll explain later. But for now, I think we’ll just have to continue marching on.”

“Really? This place looks like it’s several more hours of travel away. Through snow. I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Hannah shook her head.

“We really should find some shelter and get warmed up again before we continue. Nurses order. Did I mention I’m fucking freezing?”

“Yeah, you did, Noemi,” Sirrah laughed. “But it’s not like finding shelter here will be super easy. We can’t set up tents, because we don’t have any. We’d need another cave and … Beatrice?”

The tiny dwarf was pushing by them, ahead on the road, and then pointed at something. “There! There’s a … cave, I think? We can totally make it over there, can’t we?”

And indeed, there was a smaller cave ahead. “That’ll do,” Evandra agreed. “That’ll do just fine.”

“If there aren’t any bears in there,” Amuse muttered under her breath, but she started to march into the direction. “Well then, ladies. Off we go. First to reach the cave get’s my last bottle of that ale we looted earlier.”

Before she could even end the sentence, with a whooping war cry both Noemi and Sirrah started running, and with an indignant “That’s cheating!” Hannah followed. Evandra chuckled and practically skipped after them, which left Muse and Beatrice to exchange meaningful looks.

“Promise them something to drink and suddenly they can run.”

“Just a suggestion, but you only promised them the bottle, right? Nothing keeps us from drinking it on the way?” Beatrice winked at her.

“Hah, I like the way you think. This will be … interesting.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it. Stupid plans and a group of merry idiots are such stuff that legends and great adventures are made off. In the immortal words of the bard: To unpassed waters, undreamed shores!”