Snippet #2046380

The bloodmage had fallen, cut to bits by the hurricane of slashes that came from the Seeker’s double pronged attack. Before he realized himself, Rev had already made several slashes to an already dead body. He staggered backwards, almost in horror, as if he came from a dream. He shook his head as if to shake the last drunken bits from his head, and looked at the carnage he made. The gore before him almost rivaled that of the Shapeshifter.

Damn.

Some templars had, of course, seen such things from Fenlen, but in these late years it was almost unheard of. He was a champion of night; silent kills and unknown deaths were his business. Of course, he could hold himself in a fight, he was quick and agile, but that was not how he fought. Silence and strategy were his main weapons. Yet here he was, mutilating a body.

This was not the time to think upon such matters, however. Three demons surrounded him, Gruenwald the Black Templar, and an enemy mage; this was not the time to think on such matters.

He was about to take a fighting stance when he heard the party leader giving out orders. “Ser Dalish” and the other former Templar were ordered to fight off the remaining mage. Two others were to relieve them of the sloth demons. That wasn’t particularly a sound strategy, to make the two combatants surrounded by demons to ignore those same demons, if only because there was likely to be unintended cross-fire. Nevertheless, there would be even more crossfire if the others followed the orders and he did not. Misunderstandings in a strategy have caused many of his missions to have extra casualties, and he would rather there be no such thing. In any case, it was only three sloth demons, what could go wrong?

The Seeker looked at Solvej to see if she wanted to finish off the other mage, who was cowering on the floor, trying in vain to stand up. “All yours,” she said solemnly, and he acquiesced. As he drew closer to the mage, the mage squealed in fear. The ruthless way Rev butchered his companion was no doubt somewhat frightening to say the least, and this mage was in no way brave.

Meanwhile, the demons were about to close in, when the blonde-haired leader sent tendrils of the fade to draw the demons back in. Those, putrid, putrid, tendrils. It smelled to Rev as if the Veil itself had almost been torn. As this was so unexpected, it hit him as a large boulder. A flash of light and darkness veered across Fenlen’s vision and he closed his black-within black eyes, cringing as if blinded. Out of the darkness came two globes of golden light, separated by twice their diameter, with slits running down the middle. His senses were bombarded with a flood of information, most of which he could not make out.

Though still dazed, after a moment he regained control. When he opened his eyes, the mage lay before him, preparing a fire spell in his left hand. Evidently, the mage wanted to take the opportunity handed to him by the elf’s hesitation. When their eyes met again, however, it was the caster who hesitated. “Your eyes…” he let escape before his opponent grabbed his left wrist, pulling upwards, and stabbed the apostate in the abdomen, and tore upwards. A fireball escaped straight upwards, and exploded forcefully in a brilliant show of light.

Rev disappeared behind a shroud of smoke and shadow, and though the battle still needed a bit of finishing, he took the remaining time to collect himself. He didn’t even notice the block of stone hurl its way towards a demon, or a couple of his companions hurl their way towards another one. He needed a short respite, and he needed it now.

He’d need to talk to the lass about this.

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The battle was now done with, and Revaslin Fenlen was back to his old, chipper, self. The Dreamer cast a healing spell on them all, though the Seeker hardly needed it. Most of his opponents were dealt with from a far. She then began to address the group as a whole.

Ethne, for that was how she introduced herself, was trying to stutter something out about bandits and a cache that was described in a note from the corpse that was the reason they had been ambushed. When she finally collected her thoughts, she communicated her intent to go after said cache.

He heard the responses from the party, and as nobody was against the idea, it seemed that the job was left to him. Evidently, as always, he would be the only one focused on the task at hand. He left the shroud of darkness once more to make clear his disdain for such an idea.

“I’d loathe being the voice of reason here,” he began, not a trace of sarcasm in his voice. His tone was almost servile, but most of all, calm. “but we have a mission to accomplish. We also have a crew waiting to transport us. We have enough supplies to get us through, we’ve all been provided well. There is no reason to go out of our way to meet another fight.” He paused, looking about the group for the looks of disbelief and nerve to assail him.

“If we truly want to help people, we’d do good to continue on our journey to stop the Blight. The locals, I’m sure, would much more appreciate the end of the blight than our frivolous battles with some common highwaymen.”

His last words were spoken directly at Ethne. He hoped that she would see reason and not simply follow the majority. He then turned to the side to look at Da’mi perched at a nearby oak. He could see the rest of the group in the periphery of his vision, but he simply wanted to look at the tree, who would’ve understood his position and left him alone.