The Pulse of Freedom: A Dragon Age Tale
- Thread starter Ina_meishou
- Start date
Re-edited and expanded
Feedback is as always appreciated.
O0O
The stones of the prison are rough hewn here. In the upper levels, the dormitories and labs of the prison proper, the stones are smooth with the polish of countless generation of feet. In those levels our jailors like to keep a pretense of normality. There the hold is never a prison, always a sanctuary, a place of safety from the harsh world.
To suggest otherwise is to invite punishment.
But here, deep in the catacombs dug into the rocky isle, the stones are rough. Rarely touched and seldom thought of.
There is no way to know how long I have been down here, other than the fact that I still draw breath. Not much longer though, before this prison becomes my tomb. Food and water come rarely, and never enough. And in this place my connection to the Fade is barely open to me, naught but a trickle of power eked out through the seals.
Not nearly enough to keep me whole longer than a few days more.
Even as I think this though, there comes the soft scrape of slippered feet against stone. Someone comes, a mage, by the sound of the steps. Templars rarely dare to come before a mage, even one so shackled as I, without their warded armor. It should be impossible for a mage to be here alone. Templar seals bar the way, and after the adventure that brought me here not even Irving or Greagor would be foolish enough to let a rod of fire out of their sight. But when the rattle of keys fades from the lock, and the heavy wood door creaks open, it is a lone mage that stands before me.
"Alim? Alim Surana?"
The candle he holds casts barely enough light to make out the shape of his robes, and his voice is so quiet and hushed I can't recognize it, but I manage a grunted yes in response. He shuffles closer and tosses a bundle at my feet., it's a clean robe, well mended, but I leave it alone and snatch at what it holds.
Full water-skins, and food. A thick loaf of bread, half a cheese wheel, and a bulging sack of dried meat.
It's hard to pace myself, to take small bites and sips, but I do. Food is too precious to waste sicking up.
"It's time Alim," the mage says, his voice still hushed nearly beyond understanding, "Uldred will move in a few hours."
I very nearly spill the remaining water choking. Surely I could not have been here so long. Uldred had been years away from action when I was caught. Still quietly secreting away runes and weapons and loyalties.
"Ha..." my voice gives out, and I take another slow sip of water before trying again. "How, how long?"
I barely recognize the rasp as my own voice, but the mage understands. This close in the shadowed cell, I think I recognize him as Eadric. A tiny fellow, easy to miss. If Greagor knew half the things he'd inadvertently told us by not noticing the tiny mage off in the corner, he'd probably pull his beard out.
"You've been here nearly two months Alim. Truth is, we weren't sure you were still alive, but Uldred said we couldn't leave our own to rot."
"My thanks" I could say more, I could ask why Uldred wants us to move before we're ready, ask how many of us are going to die today who don't have to.
I won't though. I'd follow Uldred to the Black City itself if it meant freedom from the prison.
I pull on the robe and snatch up the rest of the food, I can eat as I walk, and if I want any chance of seeing the light of the sun before I die, I'd better get moving.
The artifacts stored down here should help even the odds.
My lips split into a grin even as I shove another chunk of cheese between my teeth. It will be so very good to watch a Templar scream.
O0O
The moment I step through the door, everything leaps into clarity. It feels like wool had been stuffed into my ears, my eyes, my nose, my head, but now removed. Everything looks sharper, I can hear the thud of Eadric's heart, feel every grain and seam of the strange staff I took from the basements. I can feel the fade, hovering just out of sight, all around me.
Glorious.
I stumble as I push open the final door and enter the prison proper. The only one to see me is a templar hurrying past with sword drawn. I can hear the intake of breath as the man recognizes me. His steps shift and he charges. The chant rolling off his tongue seems to settle over the world, resisting change, resisting the pull of the Fade.
Not fast enough though. Prepared, a Templar can hold off almost any mage, only the most potent casters can break through the wall of their trained certainty. I'm not nearly among that company. But with the bastard surprised, the wall of faith has barely begun to slide between me and my power when I reach into the fade and draw in the formless chaos of the realm of dreams.
The wall shatters, the templar stumbles, and I form a plane of air that cuts through his belly. The shrieks will bring more of them, but that's all to the good. I stand in a small doorway, with open space stretching before me. They cannot come on my by stealth.
It's a good place to defend, and if I fall, a fine place to die.
Two more step into the room, steps solid and the chant of denial already firm about them. This time, I reach not to the fade, but to another source. A lesser source, in some ways, finite, slippery. But in others...their armor runs red as I call the blood from their veins and draw it to pool about my feet.
They thought Jowan impressive. A fumbling novice, barely understanding what forces he meddled with.
They fear Blood, and so they should. Let them come. Let them Die.
O0O
I allow the bloodfire serpent disperse as I press my boot into the apologist's corpse and lever the butt of my staff from his stomach. The mage had been surprisingly tricky, but the screams as my fire construct roasted his Templar allies alive had distracted him, and he fell.
Eadric vanished some time ago, doubtless there are a dozen templars and apologists dead before they noticed it. The man is frustrating like that.
It's been about an hour since I had to abandon my nice doorway, another mage tried to collapse it on my head. He took a fireball to the chest for the opportunity, but the damage was done and I was forced to abandon my shelter.
Still, I've not had nearly the trouble I'd been expecting. It seems a good number of the templars are missing entirely, along with some of the more powerful apologist mages. Doubtless there's something important going on, perhaps an Orlesian invasion, or those rumors of Darkspawn massing to the south.
Regardless, it's a godsend. Uldred must not be mad after all. Once we take the tower, even Wyne or Fedwick would be hard pressed to root us out. We'll have a strong base, deep stores, and good wells. Then we can begin making arrangements with Uldred's contacts within the mundane nobility.
Seize the day, as Archon Julius once said.
A figure in a robe rounds the corner ahead of me, another apologist with fury on her face and staff held high. I barely break stride as I strike her down. I'm heading towards the top of the tower, each step carrying my down the single hallway that winds it's way through the floors of the tower to the single stairwells that connect them. It's a terrible mess when you need to get somewhere fast, but it makes it very convenient for the templars whenever they feel they need to clear the tower. They can just start from the bottom and work their way up, killing anyone they feel is tainted along the way.
No need to watch the flanks or rear.
Now, it serves our purposes as well. The templars and their apologist dogs are scattered throughout the tower, confused and lacking direction. Any attempt for them to group together means they must fight through our own numbers. We on the other hand know exactly what is going on, the revolution we have spent so long planning. My brothers and sisters have been busy, I've already passed more dead than I've slain.
It's not until I reach the top of the tower, in the harrowing chamber, that things start to go wrong.
The woman shrieking before Uldred is one of ours, though she spent her time playing a very convincing supporter of the aequiterians. The entire room is shrouded in Fadehaze, the veil is gossamer thin, and all of it is filled with spirits. Pride spirits, rage spirits, desire spirits, sloth spirits.
The apologists would call them demons.
One of them, a great brute of the thing in the shape of a bear, is twisting. It's boundaries overlapping with those of the woman. Her flesh bubbles and cracks as she writhes in the grip of a pair of twisted men I barely recognize as Hamell and Gunter, twins, and both of them Isolationist.
And Uldred is standing there, arms upraised, twisting flows of fadestuff into the poor bitch.
He's already gone. I can see the marks of possession. Whatever spirit did this must be powerful indeed, for Uldred is among the most powerful magi I've ever heard of, much less known. He can beat down a Templar's walls
I could stop and talk with him, try and bring him to his senses, help him cast the spirit out. But if I failed, he would swat me like a fly, and once the grip of a spirit is established, almost nobody can truly break the ties. Already, I can feel the spirits shifting, they know I am here, and the hunger to take my form.
It is a decision of moments. Slim hope of freedom held against a certainty of eternal chains. Chained in my own body, no less. The lance of power I call is tiny, no thicker than the shaft of a quill, but behind it is all the power I can draw, from the fade, from my blood, everything but the last scraps of power that are my life. It is not enough. One hand casually gestures at me, and my lance stops inches from the back of Uldred's head.
"Do not be hasty child. Your turn will come soon enough."
And then he turns, slowly, his face slackens, and I notice the knife sticking from his ribs. His hand falls, my lance of power drives through the side of his head, and he drops to the floor.
The veil snaps shut once more, the barrier between the world and the chaos growing thick and hard. Spirits screech and scream, and vanish, pushed back now that the power that had cloaked the wardings of this room was gone.
I pull the last remnant of power from Uldred's blood, more than enough to firm my legs under me and ease my heaving chest.
Eadric pulls his other knife from Hamell's chest, Gunter and the woman are already laid out on the floor, and casually cleans it on a sleeve.
"Well," he says, "That was an adventure."
It's only then that I notice the rest of the room. All along the walls are Templars and mages, sitting bound hand and foot, watching me.
Irving is there, and Greagor, and the leaders of the other fraternities, more than a hundred all told. Some I recognize from our secret meetings. Some I recognize as our most dangerous foes. Some look uncertain, some hopeful, some lost.
My eyes settle on Irving. In the end, it is him I'll have to deal with. Irving has always had sympathies for our cause, but he's never approved of going so far. He won't accept this, won't accept what needs doing.
I raise my staff, and he shakes his head sadly. It almost hurts, when I tear the life from him and take it for my own.
A good two thirds of the mages start to struggle, some of them supposedly on our side. Behind me, I hear more people enter the room, but Eadric will watch my back. Now that I've begun, I can't bring myself to stop. I might never find it in me to start again.
I turn to the next mage. The templars can wait, they will be long in death, and raise my staff.
"Join us, brother?" I ask. His face is stark terror, his mouth beyond speech as he gasps, but he shakes his head.
I reach, and pull.
O0O
With a long sigh, I let the folded parchment fall to the desk before me and lean back in the massive chair that was once Irving's. Most of the leadership of our revolt is gone, dead in battle or lost to Uldred's final madness. Those left, perhaps a third of those who once inhabited the tower, took it into their heads to look to me for direction. Not that I have much idea what to do next, since I lack the network of favorable nobles and sympathetic ears Uldred had spent decades cultivating. Our island is secure, and our stores could last for years give the preservation spells.
But we have no means of resupply beyond trade. And that could dry up in a moment if the Chantry invests the crossing.
Fortunately, based on the papers I've had the tranquil collect and bring to Irving's...my office, that seems unlikely. None of the letters bear any outright incriminating words of course, no correspondence we were allowed was actually private. Still, buried in the meandering mash of spell theory, bad poetry, anecdotes and gossip are more serious thoughts. It helps of course that most of the letters are written in half a dozen languages, the meaning often buried in conflicting grammars.
Going by what Uldred and the other senior enchanters were apparently hearing from the Circle of Val Royeaux, the Divine will probably have better things to worry about than what the insignificant barbarians are doing with their mages rather soon. I suppose it's too much to hope for that the unrest will actually wind up killing the old bitch, and the grand consensus would just elect another anyway. But one can dream.
It was possible of course that the Grand Cleric of Ferelden would order some sort of retaliation herself. But even if she did, the nobility was unlikely to support her given the apparent menace of the darkspawn rising in the south. We could probably make good of that if we could find some of the bloody nobles and promise to support them in killing the monsters.
“Enchanter Surana.â€
I break off my thoughts at the soft call and refrain from wincing. Caoimhe had been a friend for years, before the Templars had made her Tranquil four months before my harrowing. Looking at her, at any of them, still hurts.
“Enchanter Eachann requests that you join him at the tower entrance. Visitors are approaching.â€
“Thank you Caoimhe,†I offer as I stand and start towards the door. “Please return to your duties.â€
She nods plainly and vanishes around the doorframe. By the time I step into the corridor she has already vanished. As usual after speaking with a Tranquil I have to fight down a wave of revulsion at the empty shell that had once been a friend.
Still, work beckons me, and I set off for the stairs. The Circle rarely sees visitors. Occasionally supply runs landed of course, and Chantry inspections. But few inmates had both the Templar connections to approve of a family visit and relatives rich enough to travel to the tower. The last visitor indicated by the records was four months ago, a royal messenger bearing a request for mage support to be detached to the King's army.
Later correspondence indicated that said army was now lost, which begs the question who this newest visitor might be.
O0O
As it turns out the visitor is a Grey Warden, or so she claims. Two Grey Wardens rather, along with their entourage. The apparent leader is a slip of a girl almost a head shorter than my not particularly impressive height in rather tatty leathers. Her apparent second is a rather tall human male, probably a head taller than I am and at least twice as broad at the shoulders, even discounting his filthy splinted coat. With them are a hulking kossith, a very obvious apostate somehow even paler than the average inmate, a very uncomfortable chantry sister, and a positively massive mabari.
“So,†I say, folding my hands before my face and focusing my gaze on the leader's eyes, “the mundanes are finally desperate enough to beg our aid.â€
It's somewhat amusing to see the warry glances the party exchange, though their apostate appears to be moments away from laughter. It was apparent from the moment their party stepped ashore that they had not expected to find the tower in it's current state. The sister especially seemed quite distraught when she realized that there were no templars at all still living on the island.
The leader, to her credit, shows more spine than most would when faced with a mage. It's plain that she's terrified of course, but her voice is remarkably steady as she pulls a carefully maintained roll of parchment out of her belt pouch and slides it across my desk.
“I am not begging for anything,†She says with rather more anger than I would have expected from someone raised in an alienage. Perhaps it is merely my own ears that cause that. A human might find her more deferential. “The Circle of Magi is obliged by sworn treaty to aid the Grey Wardens in the time of a Blight.â€
The line sounds rehearsed. Probably she spent a good while making sure it sounded formal enough to get humans to pay attention to the little elf girl. Instead of responding immediately I carefully unroll the scroll and look over the supposed treaty. It really is a ridiculous document. In it, the Grand Enchanter swears that in times of Blight all mages of the Circle will give due aid to the Grey Wardens for the Duration. The Wardens in exchange offer nothing of value save their 'deepest appreciation for the sacrifice of the magi'. Apparently while our magic is valuable, it is simply not valuable enough to bestir the wardens to aid our cause as we aid theirs.
“Regrettably, Warden, this document promises aid only in the name of the Grand Enchanter and the College of Magi. As the College has not seen fit in a eight hundred years to bother upholding the rights of Magi, we no longer offer our loyalty to that body.†I re-roll the scroll and push it back across the table. The apostate looks positively gleeful with spite, the two wardens seem rather stunned. The sister is actually gaping. The Kossith is wearing the exact same expression he was when he first entered the tower, one of mild disgust.
“However,†I let a smirk twist my own lips as I went on, “The Blight after all is indeed a serious threat. If the Wardens would like to discuss a separate alliance with our own group. We would of course be most receptive.â€
Their party erupted into furious whispers.
Feedback is as always appreciated.
O0O
The stones of the prison are rough hewn here. In the upper levels, the dormitories and labs of the prison proper, the stones are smooth with the polish of countless generation of feet. In those levels our jailors like to keep a pretense of normality. There the hold is never a prison, always a sanctuary, a place of safety from the harsh world.
To suggest otherwise is to invite punishment.
But here, deep in the catacombs dug into the rocky isle, the stones are rough. Rarely touched and seldom thought of.
There is no way to know how long I have been down here, other than the fact that I still draw breath. Not much longer though, before this prison becomes my tomb. Food and water come rarely, and never enough. And in this place my connection to the Fade is barely open to me, naught but a trickle of power eked out through the seals.
Not nearly enough to keep me whole longer than a few days more.
Even as I think this though, there comes the soft scrape of slippered feet against stone. Someone comes, a mage, by the sound of the steps. Templars rarely dare to come before a mage, even one so shackled as I, without their warded armor. It should be impossible for a mage to be here alone. Templar seals bar the way, and after the adventure that brought me here not even Irving or Greagor would be foolish enough to let a rod of fire out of their sight. But when the rattle of keys fades from the lock, and the heavy wood door creaks open, it is a lone mage that stands before me.
"Alim? Alim Surana?"
The candle he holds casts barely enough light to make out the shape of his robes, and his voice is so quiet and hushed I can't recognize it, but I manage a grunted yes in response. He shuffles closer and tosses a bundle at my feet., it's a clean robe, well mended, but I leave it alone and snatch at what it holds.
Full water-skins, and food. A thick loaf of bread, half a cheese wheel, and a bulging sack of dried meat.
It's hard to pace myself, to take small bites and sips, but I do. Food is too precious to waste sicking up.
"It's time Alim," the mage says, his voice still hushed nearly beyond understanding, "Uldred will move in a few hours."
I very nearly spill the remaining water choking. Surely I could not have been here so long. Uldred had been years away from action when I was caught. Still quietly secreting away runes and weapons and loyalties.
"Ha..." my voice gives out, and I take another slow sip of water before trying again. "How, how long?"
I barely recognize the rasp as my own voice, but the mage understands. This close in the shadowed cell, I think I recognize him as Eadric. A tiny fellow, easy to miss. If Greagor knew half the things he'd inadvertently told us by not noticing the tiny mage off in the corner, he'd probably pull his beard out.
"You've been here nearly two months Alim. Truth is, we weren't sure you were still alive, but Uldred said we couldn't leave our own to rot."
"My thanks" I could say more, I could ask why Uldred wants us to move before we're ready, ask how many of us are going to die today who don't have to.
I won't though. I'd follow Uldred to the Black City itself if it meant freedom from the prison.
I pull on the robe and snatch up the rest of the food, I can eat as I walk, and if I want any chance of seeing the light of the sun before I die, I'd better get moving.
The artifacts stored down here should help even the odds.
My lips split into a grin even as I shove another chunk of cheese between my teeth. It will be so very good to watch a Templar scream.
O0O
The moment I step through the door, everything leaps into clarity. It feels like wool had been stuffed into my ears, my eyes, my nose, my head, but now removed. Everything looks sharper, I can hear the thud of Eadric's heart, feel every grain and seam of the strange staff I took from the basements. I can feel the fade, hovering just out of sight, all around me.
Glorious.
I stumble as I push open the final door and enter the prison proper. The only one to see me is a templar hurrying past with sword drawn. I can hear the intake of breath as the man recognizes me. His steps shift and he charges. The chant rolling off his tongue seems to settle over the world, resisting change, resisting the pull of the Fade.
Not fast enough though. Prepared, a Templar can hold off almost any mage, only the most potent casters can break through the wall of their trained certainty. I'm not nearly among that company. But with the bastard surprised, the wall of faith has barely begun to slide between me and my power when I reach into the fade and draw in the formless chaos of the realm of dreams.
The wall shatters, the templar stumbles, and I form a plane of air that cuts through his belly. The shrieks will bring more of them, but that's all to the good. I stand in a small doorway, with open space stretching before me. They cannot come on my by stealth.
It's a good place to defend, and if I fall, a fine place to die.
Two more step into the room, steps solid and the chant of denial already firm about them. This time, I reach not to the fade, but to another source. A lesser source, in some ways, finite, slippery. But in others...their armor runs red as I call the blood from their veins and draw it to pool about my feet.
They thought Jowan impressive. A fumbling novice, barely understanding what forces he meddled with.
They fear Blood, and so they should. Let them come. Let them Die.
O0O
I allow the bloodfire serpent disperse as I press my boot into the apologist's corpse and lever the butt of my staff from his stomach. The mage had been surprisingly tricky, but the screams as my fire construct roasted his Templar allies alive had distracted him, and he fell.
Eadric vanished some time ago, doubtless there are a dozen templars and apologists dead before they noticed it. The man is frustrating like that.
It's been about an hour since I had to abandon my nice doorway, another mage tried to collapse it on my head. He took a fireball to the chest for the opportunity, but the damage was done and I was forced to abandon my shelter.
Still, I've not had nearly the trouble I'd been expecting. It seems a good number of the templars are missing entirely, along with some of the more powerful apologist mages. Doubtless there's something important going on, perhaps an Orlesian invasion, or those rumors of Darkspawn massing to the south.
Regardless, it's a godsend. Uldred must not be mad after all. Once we take the tower, even Wyne or Fedwick would be hard pressed to root us out. We'll have a strong base, deep stores, and good wells. Then we can begin making arrangements with Uldred's contacts within the mundane nobility.
Seize the day, as Archon Julius once said.
A figure in a robe rounds the corner ahead of me, another apologist with fury on her face and staff held high. I barely break stride as I strike her down. I'm heading towards the top of the tower, each step carrying my down the single hallway that winds it's way through the floors of the tower to the single stairwells that connect them. It's a terrible mess when you need to get somewhere fast, but it makes it very convenient for the templars whenever they feel they need to clear the tower. They can just start from the bottom and work their way up, killing anyone they feel is tainted along the way.
No need to watch the flanks or rear.
Now, it serves our purposes as well. The templars and their apologist dogs are scattered throughout the tower, confused and lacking direction. Any attempt for them to group together means they must fight through our own numbers. We on the other hand know exactly what is going on, the revolution we have spent so long planning. My brothers and sisters have been busy, I've already passed more dead than I've slain.
It's not until I reach the top of the tower, in the harrowing chamber, that things start to go wrong.
The woman shrieking before Uldred is one of ours, though she spent her time playing a very convincing supporter of the aequiterians. The entire room is shrouded in Fadehaze, the veil is gossamer thin, and all of it is filled with spirits. Pride spirits, rage spirits, desire spirits, sloth spirits.
The apologists would call them demons.
One of them, a great brute of the thing in the shape of a bear, is twisting. It's boundaries overlapping with those of the woman. Her flesh bubbles and cracks as she writhes in the grip of a pair of twisted men I barely recognize as Hamell and Gunter, twins, and both of them Isolationist.
And Uldred is standing there, arms upraised, twisting flows of fadestuff into the poor bitch.
He's already gone. I can see the marks of possession. Whatever spirit did this must be powerful indeed, for Uldred is among the most powerful magi I've ever heard of, much less known. He can beat down a Templar's walls
I could stop and talk with him, try and bring him to his senses, help him cast the spirit out. But if I failed, he would swat me like a fly, and once the grip of a spirit is established, almost nobody can truly break the ties. Already, I can feel the spirits shifting, they know I am here, and the hunger to take my form.
It is a decision of moments. Slim hope of freedom held against a certainty of eternal chains. Chained in my own body, no less. The lance of power I call is tiny, no thicker than the shaft of a quill, but behind it is all the power I can draw, from the fade, from my blood, everything but the last scraps of power that are my life. It is not enough. One hand casually gestures at me, and my lance stops inches from the back of Uldred's head.
"Do not be hasty child. Your turn will come soon enough."
And then he turns, slowly, his face slackens, and I notice the knife sticking from his ribs. His hand falls, my lance of power drives through the side of his head, and he drops to the floor.
The veil snaps shut once more, the barrier between the world and the chaos growing thick and hard. Spirits screech and scream, and vanish, pushed back now that the power that had cloaked the wardings of this room was gone.
I pull the last remnant of power from Uldred's blood, more than enough to firm my legs under me and ease my heaving chest.
Eadric pulls his other knife from Hamell's chest, Gunter and the woman are already laid out on the floor, and casually cleans it on a sleeve.
"Well," he says, "That was an adventure."
It's only then that I notice the rest of the room. All along the walls are Templars and mages, sitting bound hand and foot, watching me.
Irving is there, and Greagor, and the leaders of the other fraternities, more than a hundred all told. Some I recognize from our secret meetings. Some I recognize as our most dangerous foes. Some look uncertain, some hopeful, some lost.
My eyes settle on Irving. In the end, it is him I'll have to deal with. Irving has always had sympathies for our cause, but he's never approved of going so far. He won't accept this, won't accept what needs doing.
I raise my staff, and he shakes his head sadly. It almost hurts, when I tear the life from him and take it for my own.
A good two thirds of the mages start to struggle, some of them supposedly on our side. Behind me, I hear more people enter the room, but Eadric will watch my back. Now that I've begun, I can't bring myself to stop. I might never find it in me to start again.
I turn to the next mage. The templars can wait, they will be long in death, and raise my staff.
"Join us, brother?" I ask. His face is stark terror, his mouth beyond speech as he gasps, but he shakes his head.
I reach, and pull.
O0O
With a long sigh, I let the folded parchment fall to the desk before me and lean back in the massive chair that was once Irving's. Most of the leadership of our revolt is gone, dead in battle or lost to Uldred's final madness. Those left, perhaps a third of those who once inhabited the tower, took it into their heads to look to me for direction. Not that I have much idea what to do next, since I lack the network of favorable nobles and sympathetic ears Uldred had spent decades cultivating. Our island is secure, and our stores could last for years give the preservation spells.
But we have no means of resupply beyond trade. And that could dry up in a moment if the Chantry invests the crossing.
Fortunately, based on the papers I've had the tranquil collect and bring to Irving's...my office, that seems unlikely. None of the letters bear any outright incriminating words of course, no correspondence we were allowed was actually private. Still, buried in the meandering mash of spell theory, bad poetry, anecdotes and gossip are more serious thoughts. It helps of course that most of the letters are written in half a dozen languages, the meaning often buried in conflicting grammars.
Going by what Uldred and the other senior enchanters were apparently hearing from the Circle of Val Royeaux, the Divine will probably have better things to worry about than what the insignificant barbarians are doing with their mages rather soon. I suppose it's too much to hope for that the unrest will actually wind up killing the old bitch, and the grand consensus would just elect another anyway. But one can dream.
It was possible of course that the Grand Cleric of Ferelden would order some sort of retaliation herself. But even if she did, the nobility was unlikely to support her given the apparent menace of the darkspawn rising in the south. We could probably make good of that if we could find some of the bloody nobles and promise to support them in killing the monsters.
“Enchanter Surana.â€
I break off my thoughts at the soft call and refrain from wincing. Caoimhe had been a friend for years, before the Templars had made her Tranquil four months before my harrowing. Looking at her, at any of them, still hurts.
“Enchanter Eachann requests that you join him at the tower entrance. Visitors are approaching.â€
“Thank you Caoimhe,†I offer as I stand and start towards the door. “Please return to your duties.â€
She nods plainly and vanishes around the doorframe. By the time I step into the corridor she has already vanished. As usual after speaking with a Tranquil I have to fight down a wave of revulsion at the empty shell that had once been a friend.
Still, work beckons me, and I set off for the stairs. The Circle rarely sees visitors. Occasionally supply runs landed of course, and Chantry inspections. But few inmates had both the Templar connections to approve of a family visit and relatives rich enough to travel to the tower. The last visitor indicated by the records was four months ago, a royal messenger bearing a request for mage support to be detached to the King's army.
Later correspondence indicated that said army was now lost, which begs the question who this newest visitor might be.
O0O
As it turns out the visitor is a Grey Warden, or so she claims. Two Grey Wardens rather, along with their entourage. The apparent leader is a slip of a girl almost a head shorter than my not particularly impressive height in rather tatty leathers. Her apparent second is a rather tall human male, probably a head taller than I am and at least twice as broad at the shoulders, even discounting his filthy splinted coat. With them are a hulking kossith, a very obvious apostate somehow even paler than the average inmate, a very uncomfortable chantry sister, and a positively massive mabari.
“So,†I say, folding my hands before my face and focusing my gaze on the leader's eyes, “the mundanes are finally desperate enough to beg our aid.â€
It's somewhat amusing to see the warry glances the party exchange, though their apostate appears to be moments away from laughter. It was apparent from the moment their party stepped ashore that they had not expected to find the tower in it's current state. The sister especially seemed quite distraught when she realized that there were no templars at all still living on the island.
The leader, to her credit, shows more spine than most would when faced with a mage. It's plain that she's terrified of course, but her voice is remarkably steady as she pulls a carefully maintained roll of parchment out of her belt pouch and slides it across my desk.
“I am not begging for anything,†She says with rather more anger than I would have expected from someone raised in an alienage. Perhaps it is merely my own ears that cause that. A human might find her more deferential. “The Circle of Magi is obliged by sworn treaty to aid the Grey Wardens in the time of a Blight.â€
The line sounds rehearsed. Probably she spent a good while making sure it sounded formal enough to get humans to pay attention to the little elf girl. Instead of responding immediately I carefully unroll the scroll and look over the supposed treaty. It really is a ridiculous document. In it, the Grand Enchanter swears that in times of Blight all mages of the Circle will give due aid to the Grey Wardens for the Duration. The Wardens in exchange offer nothing of value save their 'deepest appreciation for the sacrifice of the magi'. Apparently while our magic is valuable, it is simply not valuable enough to bestir the wardens to aid our cause as we aid theirs.
“Regrettably, Warden, this document promises aid only in the name of the Grand Enchanter and the College of Magi. As the College has not seen fit in a eight hundred years to bother upholding the rights of Magi, we no longer offer our loyalty to that body.†I re-roll the scroll and push it back across the table. The apostate looks positively gleeful with spite, the two wardens seem rather stunned. The sister is actually gaping. The Kossith is wearing the exact same expression he was when he first entered the tower, one of mild disgust.
“However,†I let a smirk twist my own lips as I went on, “The Blight after all is indeed a serious threat. If the Wardens would like to discuss a separate alliance with our own group. We would of course be most receptive.â€
Their party erupted into furious whispers.