text.

[altsolani]

I don't know whether to be grateful that nothing repaired stays fixed forever or frustrated. One the one hand, it keeps me in a job, on the other it means that there's an awful lot of running around Zion.

I thought this might be an easier way to find out where I'm needed. I can do repairs to cooling and venting systems in your homes and have some training as an electrician. A lot of the major repairs come through dispatch but if you happen to realize your system isn't working as well as it ought too but hasn't reached failure yet, I can help out with those during my free time.

My name is Blight. You can contact me here or message me privately.


[A pause, he adds:]


Yes, I realize how pathetic it is that my first post here is an advertizement. Hopefully I'll have more interesting things to say in the future.

Comments

[altsolani]

Oh, they use it that way where I'm from as well.

It's also a sickness, a taint. And it's also what they call it when an archdemon rises and terrorizes the world, not that Tevinter has ever really cared about that.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure if we're talking about it the right away. It would probably be more correct to say 'where I thought I was from.' Archdemons aren't real, after all.

[dissent]

Tevinter. Archdemons. Where you thought you were from was Thedas.

[altsolani]

That's true. Is it the same for you?

[dissent]

Yes. I was a Grey Warden, once. Which is why I have to ask: why in Maker's name would you name yourself after the Blight? Surely that wasn't of your parents' choosing.

[altsolani]

To remind myself of what happened there and to remind me that the machines are to blame.

It's easy for me to focus on this life. If I did that fully, I'd probably convince myself to forgive and forget. I don't want to do that. I don't want to forgive them.

[dissent]

You make it sound like you think the machines are evil.

[altsolani]

Evil is a pretty loaded word.

At the risk of you ending this conversation, my family is from Tevinter. Many who are still plugged in would apply that label to us without knowing us.

[dissent]

Ah yes. Blind hatred. I'm familiar with it. And you think that's the machine's fault?

[altsolani]

I think some of them wrote the Blight into Thedas's code. Perhaps not all, perhaps not even many of them.


Not all in the Magisterium are evil, that doesn't mean the suffering of those sacrificed to blood magic should be forgiven.

The system is the problem. It's the system that shouldn't be forgotten.

[dissent]

I'm not exactly a Chantry scholar and I've never been north of the Marches, but wasn't it Tevinter mages who brought the Blight to Thedas?

It's not that I disagree with you on that last point; I'm the last person to argue in defense of systematic injustice. It just sounds to me like you're equating the Magisterium to the machines.

[altsolani]

That's a valid point. Perhaps I am.

[After a moment, he adds,]

My father was a Magister. He wanted to change things for the better. When I got sick, he was driven mad trying to find a cure.

[dissent]

What does your father have to do with it? Why are you telling me this?

1/2 (sorry for the edit!)

[altsolani]

Because it's a good reminder that not all of a group considered evil always is evil, and that they have reasons for what they do.

I'm sorry. You have me something to think about. I only meant to respond positively to it rather than being defensive.

2/2

[altsolani]

Can I start over?

You're the first person I've met who knows that Thedas is. It's made me nervous.

[Not to mention talking to a Gray Warden adds a whole new level of confusion that has Blight thinking about things and only saying half of them.]

[dissent]

[ Anders is still wary of anyone who would compare the Tevinter Imperium to the mass genocide and enslavement of the human race by literally soulless machines, because it's a bit too much like something Fenris would say... but he relents in his irritated arguments, at least. ]

How long have you been here?

[altsolani]

A while, but I spent a lot of time in the hospital recovering. I haven't spoken to many unplugged.

[dissent]

We're not the only ones from Thedas.

Recovering from what?