Or: Meet Me In The Bone Pit, Sucker
In the lowlands outside of a city called Kirkwall, on a continent known as Thedas, lay a deep, dusty bit of bad land known as the Bone Pit. Riddled with holes dug by miners and less savory beings alike, the Bone Pit earned its name for its chronic accidents that left myriad casualties and skeletons beyond count beneath the skin of the ground. That, and the stone was particularly calcified; Enough to dry out the skin of any foolish tourist without the sense to equip themselves with a good brand of Antivan lotion.
It has been said that the toil, trouble, and death within the Pit may have thinned the Veil there - that the boundary between the material world and the Fade was much less substantial. It was true enough that spiders, dragons, skeletons, and perhaps a demon or two were known to lurk there at times, but in the times since Kirkwall's Hero, Hawke, slew the last high dragon to act like it was somehow a nice place to live, it was quite barren both of wildlife and of tourists.
Not corpses, though. The Bone Pit was certainly full of bones, and bodies like to become bones soon. Today, exactly two visitors had come to check on the decay process. The first to arrive was a small black raven, eyes tinted gray and feathers tinted a slight red. The second was probably outside, but we'll get to him after the meal.
Right then, the bird was working on picking a bit of desiccated flesh from the red silk ribbon around its neck, a nasty bit of spilled meal that would have been fine were it just blood, but the pit's corpses were as dry as the pit itself, so the poor bird had gotten green-gray flesh on its bright red scarf - and how that clashes!
He had to look presentable, he thought, even if he hadn't a clue where he was. The raven was quite lost, not only having snuck out of his usual haunts, but out of his world altogether! In his aimless gliding about, the little feathered foreigner had torn his own little hole through the Fade and into the Free Marches at the bottom of a nasty, dusty mine, and decided to make the best of it.
Once he was clean, he took wing and sniffed his way toward where the air was cleaner by just a bit, crouching in front of a thin wooden door. "Well," he crowed to himself, "That's a bit of an obstacle!! I better find some thumbs quickly." Settled into think about how he, at a foot high, would open the door, he didn't even hear it creak open...
