Snippet #1368005

Asmara resisted the need to double over. It seemed that each step came only with twice the effort of the last. She had fled Ostagar after the bloody massacre that occurred there, even though she was still exhausted from her Joining. The pendant, filled with Darkspawn blood, hung heavily against her chest, a constant reminder that the same taint, that identical blood, was coursing through her system even now. The knowledge weighed on her tangibly, and for a moment, she wondered if there might be anything left for it. How much she wished to return to her woodland hut and go back to her peaceful life there!

But it hadn’t really been all that peaceful, had it? She was probably just idealizing it in retrospect. Well… all of that mattered little, anyway. She was here and now, and she would do the best she possibly could. Teyrn Loghain’s betrayal had spelled the end of most of her compatriots, and green as she was, Asmara was going to need some help. The question now became: how to obtain it?

The swampy terrain informed the mage that she was once again in the Korcari Wilds. Some of her fellow recruits had found the are imposing, but Asmara herself was well-used to such surroundings, and the transition from the ancient fort to the swampy forest outside it was a welcome one. It meant that her flight from her pursuers would be all the easier. Presently, she was being followed by a contingent of Loghain’s men, this much she knew. She did not have the skills to fight all of them; fleeing was her only option, and she was going to need everything she had in order to get away with her life.

She tried to make less noise traveling through the thrushes and other wetland plants, but she didn’t have time to properly cover her trail, especially at the rather breakneck pace she was currently moving. The young mage would be easy to track, but she had to put more distance between herself and those following her before she could even think about backtracking or moving without disturbing anything. She just wasn’t sure she had enough stamina left to make it. A rather harrowing recruitment, a swift and arduous joining, a battle bigger than anything she’d ever experienced in her life; Asmara was lucky she could still move at all, much less keep on running as she was. Things were looking grim indeed, she reflected, crashing through more underbrush, ignoring the stinging cuts she was receiving from plants and branches. There would be time enough to heal those later, when she wasn’t about to die.

Someone… anyone… Spirits help me…