The heaviness pressed inward as they approached the barrier, prodding it's intruding fingers across his mouth like a clamping hand and filling his ears with damp cotton. His stomach was already twisting into uncomfortable knots, threading nausea and unease through it's ilk like shlepping intestines. It wasn't unusual for the Fade to have this affect on people, else wise it wouldn't have been so feared. It made movement excruciatingly slow. It made your innards writhe like serpents, coiling around each other until you felt that you had spill pieces of yourself across the cobblestones or they wouldn't stop moving. It was a sickness, it was a disease, it was comfort being forcefully ripped from your breast. Goose pebbles and bumps shivered across his limbs as he trailed behind Solvej and the moody Templar, Emil. Tiny insects felt as if they were scrambling under his fingernails. Perhaps, laying eggs. Or, at the very least, creating an itch he couldn't possibly rid himself of. He watched as Ethne regarded the barrier, exchanging words with Rudhale and Emil. Strangely enough, Rhapscallion felt himself gravitating towards Rudhale, who shifted Emil's bow across his back, if not for the fact that he'd saved him from meeting an untimely death. His voice caught in his throat as if he were struggling through muck, fastidiously fastened in a net of sludge. His heels clicked backwards, before he found himself to Kerin's right. āBet she misses you. 'Least the seas' a lot more pretty than this.ā
Luminescent lights shivered down the expanse of the Templar's arms, and Solvej's spear, expanding outwards and glowing a brilliant blue ā a pure colour, and beautiful, too. Had the Templar's ever stopped to admire their own handiwork? Not what they did while they overlooked mages, but what they created with their colours. With abilities that they so hated, and tried so desperately to subdue, in others. The not notmagic was magic, after all. His eyes reflected the beams of light, as well as the rebounding sparks snapping back from the impact: almost like fireworks. The shapeshifter's own sortilege was no more impressive then the Templar's, calling upon his raw energy while occasional streaks of lightning surged from the sky. Gusting rocks and pebbles swept around him as if he were a part of the wind, as if he were bending the climate to his will and lending them it's strength. These potentiality's were deep, ocean-bottom, crackling along like hairline fractures, because they moved through time and changed things that simply were. He could never completely understand how it worked, and he certainly couldn't try to explain it to someone else. In those spectacular moments, Rhapscallion wondered how someone could fear someone like Ethne. How they could be so unswayable. She was not most mages. She was not the ones he'd seen squirming in the alleyways, fighting a losing battle within their own flesh because they'd been treated badly. Because they were afraid of something, or everything. There was an untarnished, untouchable vibrancy behind those eyelashes, pinching her mouth into a smile that couldn't be slapped away. The kind of expression only available, only attainable, by dreamers and thinkers. She could laugh and love and cry and talk. Could Emil say the same?
He would never learn to never, ever, ever be afraid. It wasn't weakness, no; it was just human. So, even as Rhapscallion swayed behind his companions, watching idly as they worked their own sort of magic on the barrier, there wasn't any other place he'd rather be. If he was given the choice, then he would be standing exactly in the same spot. Inhabiting the same air they breathed. He knew, or he hoped, that they all felt the same. The Fade tingled reprehensibly on the back of his tongue, reminding him that even though he did not share the same aptitude as his friends, that he could still easily fall to the darker wiles if he wasn't careful. His attention snapped back to the shuddering barrier, careening into ripples that reminded him of a disturbed puddle. Then, it finally pulled back towards the ground like a great eyelid opening. If he squinted hard enough, then he could still see remnants of the barrier ā so now, it was Ethne's turn to get rid of the damn thing. Rhapscallion blinked, peering around Mirabelle's slender shoulders before straightening his back with an audible: āHuh?ā There were no screams, no Darkspawn scrambling over fallen corpses, no people scampering back into the shelter of their homes. It was eerie. Where had they all gone? Surely, if anything already happened, there'd be telltale signs. His stomach tightened. No longer were there fluttering butterflies of anxiety or the ever-present sensation of vomiting. Rhapscallion felt like he'd pitch forward if he didn't lean on his blade, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes so that he could recover. Soon enough, the wave of nausea subsided, and was replaced by a feeling of wrongness. As if the barrier were trying to divert them away. The half-breed's eyes went wide when Ethne rocked forward, steadying herself on the dome. He could do nothing for her now. Powerless to do anything but watch and glance worriedly in Solvej's direction: could very nearly hear his Mentor berating him for not believing in her.
There was a high-pitched ringing that hummed in the airwaves, like a distant vibration. His sensitive ears twitched. āD'you hear that?ā He asked, rather to confirm that he was still sound of mind and not going insane. The half-breed stared up at the beginning of a white fissure, blossoming through the barrier's smooth surface. Those feelings of sickness and unease and wrongness suddenly disappeared when the magical barrier shattered, spattering glittering pieces over them. She would've found it beautiful. Rhapscallion's head slowly roved across his companions, landing once more on Ethne, only to see her knees buckling. Trembling under the effort to remain standing. The air vacated his lungs in one fell swoop. His instincts ignored the stinging pain roaring at such brusque movements, tearing his stippling fingertips away from his stomach. Rhapscallion dipped forward, quicker than he believed he could move in such a state, and threw his arms in front of him, catching hold of Ethne's shoulder so that he could pull her into his chest and keep her from slumping unceremoniously on the ground. His pain is insignificant. And thank the Maker. He hadn't known why, but he'd been afraid she was more than unconscious. Her chest still rose, slowly. Her heart still beat; four quick pulses of his for every one of her slow, calm pulses. Blessedly cool arms began picking her up, gently, as if she were fragile. A little porcelain doll who'd given her all to see them through this particular obstacle. His smile was strained, but genuine: and proud.
āL-Let's finish this, shall we?ā
They were an interesting study in contrast. If Solvej had had the right words to speak of art the way it deserved, she might have even used them here. She might have pointed out that they, the Templars, were precision and technical skill, finely-sketched details and realism painted on a canvas so lifelike it was almost hard to distinguish it from the real thing. Emil was apt, there was no denying that. She could feel it, she could see it, and she'd never been one to just throw away the evidence and hold her prejudices close to her chest for succor. That was weakness in its most insidious form, for it often masqueraded as strength, of a sort. Conviction, they called it, as though turning your face to the sky and begging some merciless god to save you was more courageous than forcing your own way through whatever blocked your passage.
Suicide was another thing entirely. Broad strokes of color, dashed vibrancy and raw force. She was struck by it, but of course the barrier had the most literal end of that particular thought. The earth rumbled beneath her feet, and she took a half-step back, steadying herself, though her gaze never did leave the darkly-opalescent obstruction. Did he see it as blocking that path of his, she wondered? To be willing to give so much to see it cleared, well... perhaps they were not so different, despite the obvious things that spoke otherwise.
The magelet's art was more subtle, like a tune hummed so low it was almost subliminal. She simply walked up to the barrier and touched it, and the only thing to betray the sheer complexity beneath that action was the occasional echo, flickering across her face oh-so-faintly. Solvej could feel the Fade shifting, though she knew not what was happening, exactly. Was there a war being fought in a dream? Even that was more real than things she'd placed faith in before. That girl... she was so breakable-looking, and yet when all was said and done, the hairline fractures spiderwebbed not from her skin or bones, but from what had, moments before, seemed so much more solid than any one of them. From the others, she expected steel, and recieved it in spades. And yet it's the glass that does the trick.
Not without price, it seemed, and though she moved forward to catch the small elf, she was beaten by her own trainee, who, heedless of his own injury, planted himself in their guide's way, blocking her decent to the ground with uncommon tenderness. Solvej snorted, but there was no mistaking the quirk of her lips and the glint in her eye: she was smiling to see it. Still, there was work to be done, and though there were no Darkspawn immediately about, she could sense one, powerfully enough to clench her free hand into a fist at her side. She'd known the archdemon in her nightmares, but this wasn't like that feeling at all. She could almost taste the Taint on the back of her tongue, like she had done the day she drank the blood, and the fleeting grin vanished like so little smoke in the wind.
Nodding, she pointed. "It's in the Chantry." What had the girl said it was called? Ah, yes. "Morpheus." Gripping her spear tightly, the Warden proceeded forward, setting a moderate pace, but not so fast that they could be flanked without awareness of it. She couldn't sense any other 'Spawn, but that one was so overwhelming that she didn't trust herself not to miss an ordinary specimen, and they could kill you just as dead. Sparing Rhapscallion a grey-eyed glance, she shrugged. "Look after her, and stay towards the middle... ser." Her light jab was accompanied by a wink, but she was already ahead, not inclined to waste time waiting for him to respond. The half-breed followed his Mentor at a longer distance than he was used to, lips struggling to subdue his goofy grin. He obediently remained in the centre of the group, relying on his companions to fill in the gaps. It would not do him no good to dive headlong into combat holding one of his companions, and bleeding all over the place.
The pirateās hands didnāt leave his sheathed weapons for the entire walk, except to return Emilās bow to him. He was no Warden, with Darkspawn-senses to tell him when the brutes were near, and he would have no trouble admitting that he was just as susceptible to the Taint as the next fellow, but there was no denying that even to him, something was fundamentally wrong here. āNever thought Iād see the day when Iād rather a horde than none,ā he said, quietly enough not to really break the odd atmosphere that had settled over the group.
Nonetheless, he was not afraid. Uneasiness was a kind of instinct, and one that had served him well- the fact of the matter was that the wary tended to live longer lives than the naĆÆve. For all that, though, fear was a paralysis, and he generally preferred not to give into it. After the fashion of some of his companions, he flicked his eyes this way and that, never resting on any one spot for too long, straining his ears for the faintest hint of scuffing footsteps that did not belong to any of the people around him.
And yet, there was nothing. As they approached the Chantry, a building grand in architecture and undoubtedly as shiny as it was on the day the Darkspawn invaded (which was in itself interesting), something twinged in the back of his mind, and his muscles relaxed slightly, some of the tension bleeding from his posture. Hold on, thatās not-
But before his thought could even wholly constitute itself, the door to the Chantry swung inward, and they were quite nearly compelled to step inside. His feet moving of their own volition, Rudhale felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but try as he might, he could not will himself to draw a weapon, much less open his mouth for some doubtlessly-witty quip about bad feelings and how they tended to lead to trouble. Instead, he and the rest continued, and his eyes went wide as he observed the other people about them: Chantry brothers and sisters, citizens of all kinds, and a large portion of what he supposed was the noble population of Orlias, were strewn about the floor, unmoving. From this distance, it was hard to tell, but they bore no visible wounds and he did not think they were dead.
The sound of the door falling shut behind them echoed in the silence, but even the boom of the grand portcullis drew not one stirring from any of those present. He expressions on the faces of the prone seemed to range from rapt bliss to tortured horror, but for the life of him he couldnāt decide why. The pirateās eyes were at last drawn towards the center of the room. Atop a massive staircase sat the throne of the Divine, but the woman herself (or at least someone wearing the appropriate raiment) was cast to the ground in front of it, just as still as everyone else. Instead, sitting like a cormorant atop some unreachable cliff, was what he guessed must be Morpheus. Sharp eyes would be able to discern something amorphous in the Darkspawnās shadow, but the cloud that had descended over his perception did not allow him to dwell upon it.
The Darkspawn general was nothing like heād expected. Indeed, the creature more resembled the illustrations of arcane horrors and certain types of demon, though perhaps it could be an emissary of some sort. Unlike the usual sickly white of the creatures, this one was ash-grey in tone, though he seemed almost to fade at the edges blurring into his surroundings as though her were not fully constituted. For al that, he looked moreā¦ human than most of his kind, and though there were spots here and there where the corruption of the Taint was obvious blemish on his skin, he appeared otherwise to be a very thin old man, dressed in the style of the Ancients. Nowhere was his otherworldliness more evident than at the foot of his throne, where his own feet seemed to disintegrate into a curling cloud of ash and fog.
Welcome. The word echoed not in physical space, but in Rudhaleās mind, and he supposed that the others must be hearing it too, because at that moment, Ethne gasped awake in the laddieās arms, eyes wide and fingers clutching desperately at the young manās shoulders. She appeared to be in a state of panic, turning back to look over her shoulder at Morpheus with the gaze of a cornered rabbit.
āDonāt listen! Heās-ā her words were cut off by a lazy gesture from Morpheus, and out of the āSpawnās shadow stepped a man. Rudhale recognized him immediately; Lord Christophe Du Lac was not a person one easily forgot.
āThatās the one.ā was all he said, and there was a tremor from beneath the ground as Morpheus rose to his feet. The stone floor just to Rudhaleās right erupted, a jagged blue crystal emerging from it. Ethne, whatever the reason, jumped from Rhapscallionās hold, pushing him backwards even as the stone was joined by others, surrounding her and molding over her until she was encased in what appeared to be a pyramid-shaped prison. The pirate reacted immediately, at last able to draw his saber, but his inclination to attack as immediately overridden by that voice.
Sleep.
And so they did, joining the native Orlesians on the ground beneath, unmoving, unseeing, and breathing only shallowly.
Ethne watched them fall, fists pounding uselessly on the lyrium prison in which sheād been encased. Her first thought had been the obvious one: to follow them into the Fade and help them out of it. But, trapped as she was, she could do no such thing, and she realized with a sinking feeling that they were on their own for now. Looking up, she realized Morpheus had disappeared, leaving only the other man behind. He was looking in her direction, and she had the distinctly-uncomfortable feeling that she was being measured. There was something so unspeakably cold about him that she shivered reflexively, sinking back against the opposite side of the pyramid when he approached.
āSo, youāre the somniari, then.ā he mused, and maybe it was just her, but his voice carried an underlying tone of authority so convincing it was dangerous. She nodded mutely.
āYouāll have to forgive me for that, but one does not win a game of chess without sacrificing a few pieces. Sometimes, even a bishop or a queen must go. Iām sure you understand.ā She didnāt, and he must have read it on her face, for he smiled coldly. āBut even pawns have their uses, donāt you think? Be patient, and weāll see what happens.ā
She swallowed, unable to move much at all until he tore his eyes away and strode off, leaving her to sink to the bottom of her prison and stare forlornly at the motionless forms of her companions.
For them, the ordeal was of another kind entirely. Each had their weaknesses, and Morpheus had read them like so many books, weaving effortlessly a dream of such reality perhaps even the somniari would have had difficulty telling them apart. Every time one tried to think beyond what they could see and feel, they almost immediately lost the inclination to do so, and in the end perhaps reality and dream were not so different after all.
Morpheus languished disinterestedly, head propped on one translucent hand, watching. These ones were special, he understood, and for them he had lovingly crafted prisons of their own making, left to his hands. The Seeker found himself back in his forest, his lovely betrothed at his side, blessedly free of the one problem that had plagued him most for the last number of years, and unaware that the lovely woman beside him was dead beyond all saving. Merry music filtered in on the playful breeze, rustling the leaves, and it was perhaps time for a hunt, though only if the mood took them.
For the barbarian, heād elected to force complacency; the mages prison was a fathomless vista of stark whiteness in which no other being dwelled. There was no road to follow, no end to seek, and nothing whasoever to accomplish. The newly-minted Warden was back in her brothel- no memories of Darkspawn or terror or the raw knowledge of dead comrades to trouble her.
The dwarf was so simple heād almost laughed. It was no great difficulty to create an Orzammar without caste, to resurrect her dead brother and place him once again at her side, and allow her he freedom to be whatever she would in this world of hers. Heād always had a particular revulsion for Templars, and so the bowman received a ship, tossed about in a storm as its crewmen fell overboard, one by one. As soon as he tried to act, however, the man found that his hands were tremulous, his vision blurry, his whole being in need of lyrium that he could not procure. And for all he knew, that was everything his entire life had ever been.
The first thing the half-breed Warden would notice would be the smell. In the darkness, it would smell of leather and horses, overlaid with a faint tinge of coppery blood. His eyes would yield him nothing, but his ears, well, heād wish he had none. He would hear them, his friends, calling for his help, their rescue at his hands, and yet heād be unable to move, trapped in his own fear, laid low by the baritone rumbles of his fatherās voice, repeating over and over the things heād already heard. It was so much simpler when the lie could be built on so much truth. The pirate king would be nothing of his own make any longer, exactly the fool he pretended to be. The bodies of his crew lie strewn about him, his own hands chained in his familyās dungeon. The words of that foul Chant repeat themselves over and over, and a mechanical voice- a womanās voice, without feeling or emotion to it at all, asking him just who he was, really.
The Black Templar was just a girl. A weak, untrained little girl, watching a grotesque scene play over and over. A line of mages were marched into a room, condemned to Tranquility. All struggle against their bonds save one: a young man, fair-haired and unseeing. His mouth alone slowly quirks upwards, as though he has reached peace, but he does not see the other preparing to attack. It is a bloodbath, again, and again, and again, and she can do nothing to stop it.
They really were quite curious, these damaged people. He would gain much from their joy and their torment, amusement most of all.
The Mission Briefings have been updated.