driftfleet | [muffled spooky scary skeletons playing in the distance]

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[muffled spooky scary skeletons playing in the distance]

Who: You! Me! Everybody!
Broadcast: idk but we've sure got a pretty broad cast of folks eh, eh
Action: HECK YEAH PLANET MINGLE
When: 10/7 until plot update or recaptcha

It's a deep, deep forest filled to the brim with fungi, mysterious life forms, and pitch black darkness. Explore if you dare and discover all these things and more! Just don't get lost...

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Ah- right! Better to stick together!

[He'll let Hawke figure out where they are and follow along]

That's fine, I don't mind walking! Don't have my last name for nothing! [Ha...ha...]

[That earns an amused snort. He does actually know Allen's last name. In fact, when Crowley had mentioned him, it prompted a little research on Wolfe's part. Seeing the state the man was in previously he'd rejected the notion of asking him for help. Skill-wise he was perfect but his condition after helping Sorey and his friend wasn't great.

He looks better now, though. As hesitant as Adalwolfe was, the argument he'd had recently with Anders had put into stark relief just how dire it was getting that Vengeance had to be separated, and now that they had even the spirit's blessing for it. well.

But he can't just out with it. That would be rude. Perhaps a bit of small talk first as they walk.]

So, how long have you been in the fleet?

[ Allen definitely was feeling better. Sure, he had a few new scars, but that wasn't anything new for him. In fact, he was just happy to be back on his feet, walking again. He never did good with bedrest. ]

It's been about two years now. Yourself?

Only a few months. Still getting the hang of it. I can't say I enjoy the time between stops. Does that get easier ever? Being in space?

[he shrugs]

Sure, it does! It's not so bad, really. Back home I spent a lot of times traveling in ships and trains. At least the ships are more comfortable.

I guess so. I do like these ships better than ones over water. A lot less swaying.

[He says that with a bit of a grimace. Adalwolfe's prone to seasickness. Something about how a vessel rocks on the water just makes it impossible for him to keep anything down.]

What's a train?

Ha, I don't know- I like the open air of a seaship.

[Unlike here where you're stuck in a metal box basically. But hey, whatever floats your boat]

Oh, right- a train is...[how to explain] It's like a caravan? Except it's mechanical and it runs on set metal tracks.

Oh, huh. To go very far that must take a lot of work to lay down track, then. I've seen little toys like that, or traps with blades on tracks, but nothing big enough to carry people.

Mm! There's people whose entire job is to just lay down railroad tracks! They gotten so far that you can now cross entire continents on a train!

Work is work I suppose. Can't be any worse than mining. Or clearing giant spiders out of mines...

[He'd prefer mining or track laying, honestly.]

Is...that an actual job in your world? Clearing out giant spiders?

Someone has to do it. It's definitely not my favorite thing to do, of course, but if they're attacking the miners...

[He shrugs, trying to play it off, but really he's pretty terrified of giant spiders no matter how many times he kills them.]

Yikes, that's....

Um, about how big of spiders are we talking about?

Usually the size of sheep? I've fought a couple that were bigger than a Wyvern though. They're disgusting.

[His mind is not on those spiders. The Nightmare in particular is always the one that comes to mind, it's side far greater than anything he faced on Sundermount or in the Deep Roads, blooding out the sky and the Black City and taunting him with his own helplessness.

Did you think anything you did ever mattered?

Adalwolfe shudders.]

I take it they don't get quite that large where you're from?

Ah...that is pretty big.

[He's rather glad he doesn't run into spiders that size on the regular. He didn't have a particular fear of spiders, but that seems too big.]

Not in my homeworld, no. There's some deadly ones, but they don't get much larger than a hand.

Did have to fight some shape-shifting half-human, half-spider hybrids once on another world. That was a bollocks mission.

Far too big.

[Spiders are the worst.]

Half and half seems worse though if they could think like a person. At least with a spider you generally know what drives them, but people? That could be any number of things.

Yeah, well their drive seemed to be either use us to gain power, or eat us.

Wasn't great, either way.

Ugh.

[Wolfe shudders.]

Maybe you-all need professional spider slayers.

Oh no, it was fine. We destroyed them before they could eat us. Except for Joy, anyway. She escaped. But she got killed by another hostile group later on. Akihito, another person I knew, was really upset about it. I think he liked her, even though we'd only seen her as a spider...

[He says this all passively. Like he's idly talking about a normal day occurrence. Probably because it is in his life.]

Liked a spider? And you knew its name?

[The passive tone isn't what throws him off - that's his life too, really - but having affection for a murderous spiderperson doesn't make a lot of sense to him.]

Well, yes- I should probably explain.

It all started when Joy came to us, as a talking spider, claiming that her people were under attack by some "metal beasts". We've had our own run-ins with a group with some stolen metal suits in that region, so we decided to go, help out, and maybe learn something about the group.

But it turns out they hadn't been so much attacked as Joy wanted to throw a coup against her queen, so she had manipulated us to do the dirty work. Not that the queen was very benevolent herself, as she wanted to eat us.

Huh. Your life sounds a lot like mine.

[He smirks a bit, a wicked edge to the expression.]

There was this one Chantry sister who asked us to try and help rescue a Qunari mage, getting him out of the city. Only what she didn't tell us was she was setting us up to be killed by the Qunari waiting for us outside the city, who she'd informed. She was trying to get us killed so she could use our deaths to stir up a holy war against the Qunari.

Really? She did that?

[He wrinkles his nose a little. He wishes he could be shocked but...really that sounds like something a crazed religious person would do]

What happened? Clearly you survived.

Barely. She tried other things, always trying to pin it on me and my friends, until finally - after she was responsible for the murder of the Viscount's son when he'd joined the Qunari religion - we confronted her in the Chantry. The Grand Cleric stripped her rank as revered mother and everything, she was going to have a trial for what she did. Then a Qunari killed her. Shot her stone dead right there on the Chantry floor.

[He runs a hand down his face.]

I tried to smooth things over with the Arishok - the Qunari leader - but he was done dealing with all of us and ordered his men to overtake the city. There was nothing left to do but fight.

[He folds his arms across his chest, posture betraying his easy tone for the cover it is.]

So we did. Fought all the way up to the Viscount's Keep trying to get to Dumar, but we were too late. The Arishok had killed him. So I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I challenged him. It was a hard-fought battle.

[He brings his fingers to his abdomen, absently rubbing at where the scar still sits on him under his clothes.]

He went down eventually, but I thought I was done for too. I could barely stand. All these people cheering and the Knight-Commander declaring me the Champion of Kirkwall and all I could focus on was not falling over. Which, of course, I promptly did right after. It's a lot more dramatic in the book, honestly. A hero triumphant over his fallen foe, holding staff aloft and victorious. A lot different than the over four weeks I spent in bed, a quarter of it unconscious and half unable to walk without help.

[He lets out a bemused huff.]

Heroism is a racket.

[Allen listens and wow that was a way longer and more complicated story than he had anticipated with that question. So much political drama! So much war! Battles! You could make this a movie, or some book he guesses. Allen can hardly imagine it, especially as he's not really one to get involved in the politics of a city. One of the benefits of being a wanderer, honestly.

When he finishes, Allen tries to think of what to say. Hell, he has no idea what even half those terms were. So where can you even start? Especially when you don't know a man that well.

Well, to take the advice of an old friend...]

That's sounds rough, sir.

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wolfehawke - 2016-12-06 02:44 (UTC) - Expand

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