"I don't believe I ever got your names," Sophia offered, if only to break the silence. How these two could stand it, she didn't know, but the walk to the Bone Pit had been more than long enough and more than quiet enough to become rather awkward, in Sophia's opinion. That and, well, it wouldn't hurt to get some basics down, right? If they were going to be working together on something that could potentially become dangerous, they should at least have something to call each other by.
"That's because I never gave you mine, shem," Ithilian shot back, eyes off the road as ever, searching for other threats. "But if you must, call me Sataareth. It apparently suits me." He didn't so much as glance in Amalia's direction, and certainly didn't intend to speak for her. It had been enough of a challenge for Ithilian to accept that he'd be working with this len'alas. He supposed another blade would be useful in the event that they were attacked, but that was about as much use as he could think of for her at the moment. He had his doubts she was even competent with the hunk of metal strapped across her back.
Sataareth. Sophia rolled the word around in her mind. It was certainly no word she'd ever heard before, but she would be the first to admit that was not too difficult to accomplish. To her shame, she had little understanding of the languages of other races, only those spoken by humans. She could tell by his appearance, however, that the elf was Dalish, or at least had been. She had never seen an elf so... well, confident, before. Also well armed. And the tattoo along his neck was something she was certain was a Dalish thing. Perhaps it was a Dalish word, then. It would work as well as any real name he had. The woman, however... Sophia didn't have the slightest clue who she was or where she came from. She could only hope she'd be willing to enlighten her.
Amalia's tread did not waver as Sophia's voice dropped words like stones into the stillness of their silence, but upon hearing Ithilian's response, the Qunari did something most unusual: she smiled. It was not an overt thing, and she flashed no teeth, but there was a definite, perceptible shift in the set of her mouth, as though she were contemplating some small, but complex secret and wondering slightly at its depth. On another face, it would have almost been a smirk, but not so here. Her eyes shifted almost slyly in the Sataareth's direction, but he was still looking about in that way the vigilant (or paranoid, but it was a thin difference to begin with) were inclined to do. He was playing games with the human woman, and she knew that, but it didn't seem to bring her any displeasure that he was using her words to do it.
"I am Ben-Hassrath, and I have need of no other name. It pleases some to call me Amalia, and you may do so if you are among them." She had not so much doubt as Ithilian did about Sophia's competence; she rcognized a warrior's tread when she saw (and heard) one. It continued to confound her that humans saw fit to place their women in such positions, but that itself was no mark against any one of them in particular. Anyone could, with proper work and training, become skilled in just about anything- this itself was not something the Qun denied.
The mountainous incline was beginning to level out, presumably as they approached the mine. The ground here was well-worn and gritty with the passage of countless feet, though it took them precariously-close to dropoffs that would likely kill if fallen from. Amalia was not naive, and she had no doubt more than one unfortunate had met his or her end in this way. Likely most of them were not accidents, either, but beyond a certain point it was all conjecture, and she wasn't about to bother when there were more concrete matters to be taken care of. There was, she noted, a rotten smell on the air, faintly but certainly. She suspected it might be coming from the mine passages themselves.
Instead of focusing on how she'd been randomly saddled with perhaps the strangest pair in all of Kirkwall, which she certainly could have, Sophia decided to focus on the road ahead. They had nearly reached their destination. The Viscount's daughter had not actually been here in such small numbers before; she'd had no reason to. It had been a desolate, abandoned place up until not so long ago. Still, she knew the way, as perhaps any local would who had been in the city long enough. It was located not far from the city walls, and its infamy insured that all knew of its whereabouts if they listened long enough.
The skies had clouded over by the time they arrived, leaving the haphazardly paved stone roads and venturing onto the rough dirt path, which eventually became little more than sand beneath her boots. She took a single glance off the side, enough to know that she didn't care to do that anymore. There was an ill feeling in the air, one couldn't help but feel it. The land itself seemed to protest to being tread upon, but Sophia was not one easily deterred, nor did she suspect her companions were. Still, the fact that there was hardly a bird chirping in the trees was slightly unnerving.
After a sharp left turn and a small rise, the entrance to the mine itself came into sight. Sophia was immediately greeted by the stillness of the scene, for the most part. There was, as Hubert had predicted, not a worker in sight, and the equipment was strewn about the ground in a careless manner, implying that whoever had been here before had quite hastily made a departure. It didn't appear as though there had been an attack, nothing was burning or destroyed, but the state of the entrance seemed to imply some kind of flight on the part of the workers.
The movement that did catch her eye, however, came from directly in front of them, down the little hill, at the start of the abandoned equipment. A few people were poking about through the dirt, searching through abandoned sacks and pouches, looking for perhaps valuable left behind in the haste. Sophia's gaze narrowed in disgust. Looters. The first to be on the scene, no doubt Darktown dwellers who had heard from a miner why they'd left, and thought to brave whatever dangers there were in order to pick up a few easy coins. Sophia called out them, but made no motion to draw her sword.
"Hey! You there! Stop!"
It had quite the opposite effect. A looter's head darted back to where the trio of unnanounced visitors had appeared, before slapping his fellow on the shoulder, and the pair bolted away. A few others further in dispersed as well, far out of the group's reach. Ithilian made a lightning quick motion, his bow in his hand and an arrow drawn back before the humans had so much as ten paces from where they'd started. He aimed for a brief moment, steadied his hand... Before his bow was pulled down hard by an outside force just as he released the string, sending the arrow twanging awkwardly away into the dirt. "What are you doing?!" Sophia shouted at him, having interrupted his shot. "We don't need to start killing anyone just yet, regardless of how lacking in morality they may be."
Meanwhile, Amalia, who detested wasting time, had moved at just about the same moment as Ithilian, with precisely the same thought. The only difference was an operative one: she was not quite so obvious in her intent, and rather than drawing a weapon, she simply disappeared, vanishing from broad daylight. The sand, she took as sufficient disguise for the sound of her motion, and so she did not bother slowing for stealth, instead sprinting dead-on for the nearest pair of fleeing looters. She stayed out of the elf's most likely arrow-trajectory, and though she was puzzled when it landed far short of the goal and much closer to her than she would have expected, she did not pause, using her momentum to leap into the air, launching herself into a scissor-kick that caught one of the looters about the neck. All three of the parties involved hit the sand, but Amalia was (as she had expected to be) by far the first one to recover, and rolled over on top to the back of her intended target much faster than either of them regained their breath.
Twisting one of his arms behind him, she ignored his feeble struggling and leveled a glare at his friend, flickering back into view. "Leave," she commanded in a flat, almost-bored contralto, and the man shot a glance at his companion. Amalia hissed faintly, the exhalation of annoyance whistling past her teeth. "Now, basra. I will not ask twice."
Apparently, that was enough, and the second man turned tail and fled once more, though he did look several times over his shoulder, as if to confirm that he was not being followed. The one beneath her was whimpering slightly, and she loosened her grip just enough to relieve his pain. Removing her knee from its spot between his shoulderblades, Amalia stood, bringing the looter with her. "This way, bas. Cooperate and you will leave intact." So saying, she walked him over to where Sataareth and the woman Sophia were still apparently arguing about something. Amalia and her quarry approached the two from behind, and the Qunari cleared her throat, loud enough to be heard, but not obtrusively so. "This basra will speak, and he will start with anything he knows of a human boy named Finn." She gave the man in question a meaningful look, and then released him, dusting off her hands and crossing her arms over her chest. If he ran, he would be pursued, and not nearly so gently as the last time, either.
The elf looked as though he'd just been told by Sophia perhaps the stupidest thing he had ever heard, and took a moment to overcome his own incredulity, before he looked over the scene again. The majority of the looters were gone now, save for the one that Amalia had managed to ensnare, her approach having been much more subtle than Ithilian's, and thereby avoiding Sophia's attention. He quite forcefully pulled her arm from his bow, shoved it away, and moved forward to retrieve his arrow. "Len'alas. I aimed to cripple, not kill. They could have told us something." He flipped the arrow about in his hand, before sliding it back into his quiver, and glancing back over his shoulder. "Do not do that again."
The looter Amalia had captured, a young man of scrawny stature, freckled face and shaggy brown hair, cowered slightly before his attackers, breathing heavily from his futile attempts to struggle away from the Qunari woman. Having been released, his eyes flickered about left and right, possibly looking for a quick escape, but upon taking a better look at his captors, made the smart choice, and remained still. He held his hands out before him as to show her that they were indeed empty, or perhaps clean of whatever she thought him guilty of. "I dunno nothing, miss! I mean, I may'a seen Finn 'round the Undercity once or twice, but we wasn't friends or nothing! Haven't seen him since the miners started coming back to town, raving 'bout monsters in the mine or something."
"Be specific, shem," Ithilian suggested, his free hand resting on the quiver of arrows at his hip. Not deterred by the elf's earlier wrath, Sophia stepped forward, perhaps attempting to calm down the young man somewhat. "Any information you can give us will help. We're trying to make sure the miners are safe, that's all." Though she wasn't quite sure that was what her companions were doing. Apparently they were looking for someone specific. She wondered what for.
"Right, right," the looter said, nodding to himself, "I was jus' hanging about the Darktown, and I overhear some workers sayin' the whole crew ditched this place, 'cause they didn't want to get eaten or nothing. I asked 'em about it. They said there's some kinda monsters in the mine, they didn't know what. I asked if they was coming outside, too, an' they said no. I figured I'd go poking 'round the equipment out here with some others, seeing as they're not using the stuff no more. That's all I know, I swear. Haven't seen Finn, or any of the miners since I got here. Maybe the monsters got him, I dunno. Can... can I go now?"
That made things more complicated, Sophia thought. She was glad for the company of these two, seeing that they were at least skilled, although she still wasn't sure as to what their motives were. Monsters was such a broad term. She didn't like going into the mine blindly, but it seemed they didn't have much choice. They had to get rid of whatever was making the mine dangerous, and her two companions would no doubt want to go in to search for their lost person. She nodded to the boy. "Yes. Thank you for your help. Try to stay out of trouble, would you? Not everyone will be forgiving."
He took a few cautious steps away, as if waiting for one of the others to make a move, but when they didn't, he bolted like the others, taking off and out of sight. Ithilian scowled (or continued to scowl), but made no comment in regards to Sophia's mercy. The woman herself had turned to Amalia. "If I might ask, who's Finn? I'm just curious if we all have the same purpose here. My intent is to make sure these miners will be safe when they return to work. All of them."
"Their affairs are not mine to be concerned with," Amalia replied levelly, "but his are. Finn is Athlok, viddethari. A child, and so my responsibility. If our actions help others, then so be it, but such considerations are irrelevant." Her words were blunt, their tone factual, but all the same there was nothing patently unfriendly about either. It was as though she were simply commenting on the weather. So having spoken, she turned without further comment and headed for the mine's entrance. The basra's story had troubled her, though she would not allow this to be apparent. Her fingers twitched for just a moment, the motion curiously-simliar to the one she'd use for flicking a harpstring.
"Come. We are wasting time and breath this way. If we are to speak, let us at least move simultaneously."
"That's because I never gave you mine, shem," Ithilian shot back, eyes off the road as ever, searching for other threats. "But if you must, call me Sataareth. It apparently suits me." He didn't so much as glance in Amalia's direction, and certainly didn't intend to speak for her. It had been enough of a challenge for Ithilian to accept that he'd be working with this len'alas. He supposed another blade would be useful in the event that they were attacked, but that was about as much use as he could think of for her at the moment. He had his doubts she was even competent with the hunk of metal strapped across her back.
Sataareth. Sophia rolled the word around in her mind. It was certainly no word she'd ever heard before, but she would be the first to admit that was not too difficult to accomplish. To her shame, she had little understanding of the languages of other races, only those spoken by humans. She could tell by his appearance, however, that the elf was Dalish, or at least had been. She had never seen an elf so... well, confident, before. Also well armed. And the tattoo along his neck was something she was certain was a Dalish thing. Perhaps it was a Dalish word, then. It would work as well as any real name he had. The woman, however... Sophia didn't have the slightest clue who she was or where she came from. She could only hope she'd be willing to enlighten her.
Amalia's tread did not waver as Sophia's voice dropped words like stones into the stillness of their silence, but upon hearing Ithilian's response, the Qunari did something most unusual: she smiled. It was not an overt thing, and she flashed no teeth, but there was a definite, perceptible shift in the set of her mouth, as though she were contemplating some small, but complex secret and wondering slightly at its depth. On another face, it would have almost been a smirk, but not so here. Her eyes shifted almost slyly in the Sataareth's direction, but he was still looking about in that way the vigilant (or paranoid, but it was a thin difference to begin with) were inclined to do. He was playing games with the human woman, and she knew that, but it didn't seem to bring her any displeasure that he was using her words to do it.
"I am Ben-Hassrath, and I have need of no other name. It pleases some to call me Amalia, and you may do so if you are among them." She had not so much doubt as Ithilian did about Sophia's competence; she rcognized a warrior's tread when she saw (and heard) one. It continued to confound her that humans saw fit to place their women in such positions, but that itself was no mark against any one of them in particular. Anyone could, with proper work and training, become skilled in just about anything- this itself was not something the Qun denied.
The mountainous incline was beginning to level out, presumably as they approached the mine. The ground here was well-worn and gritty with the passage of countless feet, though it took them precariously-close to dropoffs that would likely kill if fallen from. Amalia was not naive, and she had no doubt more than one unfortunate had met his or her end in this way. Likely most of them were not accidents, either, but beyond a certain point it was all conjecture, and she wasn't about to bother when there were more concrete matters to be taken care of. There was, she noted, a rotten smell on the air, faintly but certainly. She suspected it might be coming from the mine passages themselves.
Instead of focusing on how she'd been randomly saddled with perhaps the strangest pair in all of Kirkwall, which she certainly could have, Sophia decided to focus on the road ahead. They had nearly reached their destination. The Viscount's daughter had not actually been here in such small numbers before; she'd had no reason to. It had been a desolate, abandoned place up until not so long ago. Still, she knew the way, as perhaps any local would who had been in the city long enough. It was located not far from the city walls, and its infamy insured that all knew of its whereabouts if they listened long enough.
The skies had clouded over by the time they arrived, leaving the haphazardly paved stone roads and venturing onto the rough dirt path, which eventually became little more than sand beneath her boots. She took a single glance off the side, enough to know that she didn't care to do that anymore. There was an ill feeling in the air, one couldn't help but feel it. The land itself seemed to protest to being tread upon, but Sophia was not one easily deterred, nor did she suspect her companions were. Still, the fact that there was hardly a bird chirping in the trees was slightly unnerving.
After a sharp left turn and a small rise, the entrance to the mine itself came into sight. Sophia was immediately greeted by the stillness of the scene, for the most part. There was, as Hubert had predicted, not a worker in sight, and the equipment was strewn about the ground in a careless manner, implying that whoever had been here before had quite hastily made a departure. It didn't appear as though there had been an attack, nothing was burning or destroyed, but the state of the entrance seemed to imply some kind of flight on the part of the workers.
The movement that did catch her eye, however, came from directly in front of them, down the little hill, at the start of the abandoned equipment. A few people were poking about through the dirt, searching through abandoned sacks and pouches, looking for perhaps valuable left behind in the haste. Sophia's gaze narrowed in disgust. Looters. The first to be on the scene, no doubt Darktown dwellers who had heard from a miner why they'd left, and thought to brave whatever dangers there were in order to pick up a few easy coins. Sophia called out them, but made no motion to draw her sword.
"Hey! You there! Stop!"
It had quite the opposite effect. A looter's head darted back to where the trio of unnanounced visitors had appeared, before slapping his fellow on the shoulder, and the pair bolted away. A few others further in dispersed as well, far out of the group's reach. Ithilian made a lightning quick motion, his bow in his hand and an arrow drawn back before the humans had so much as ten paces from where they'd started. He aimed for a brief moment, steadied his hand... Before his bow was pulled down hard by an outside force just as he released the string, sending the arrow twanging awkwardly away into the dirt. "What are you doing?!" Sophia shouted at him, having interrupted his shot. "We don't need to start killing anyone just yet, regardless of how lacking in morality they may be."
Meanwhile, Amalia, who detested wasting time, had moved at just about the same moment as Ithilian, with precisely the same thought. The only difference was an operative one: she was not quite so obvious in her intent, and rather than drawing a weapon, she simply disappeared, vanishing from broad daylight. The sand, she took as sufficient disguise for the sound of her motion, and so she did not bother slowing for stealth, instead sprinting dead-on for the nearest pair of fleeing looters. She stayed out of the elf's most likely arrow-trajectory, and though she was puzzled when it landed far short of the goal and much closer to her than she would have expected, she did not pause, using her momentum to leap into the air, launching herself into a scissor-kick that caught one of the looters about the neck. All three of the parties involved hit the sand, but Amalia was (as she had expected to be) by far the first one to recover, and rolled over on top to the back of her intended target much faster than either of them regained their breath.
Twisting one of his arms behind him, she ignored his feeble struggling and leveled a glare at his friend, flickering back into view. "Leave," she commanded in a flat, almost-bored contralto, and the man shot a glance at his companion. Amalia hissed faintly, the exhalation of annoyance whistling past her teeth. "Now, basra. I will not ask twice."
Apparently, that was enough, and the second man turned tail and fled once more, though he did look several times over his shoulder, as if to confirm that he was not being followed. The one beneath her was whimpering slightly, and she loosened her grip just enough to relieve his pain. Removing her knee from its spot between his shoulderblades, Amalia stood, bringing the looter with her. "This way, bas. Cooperate and you will leave intact." So saying, she walked him over to where Sataareth and the woman Sophia were still apparently arguing about something. Amalia and her quarry approached the two from behind, and the Qunari cleared her throat, loud enough to be heard, but not obtrusively so. "This basra will speak, and he will start with anything he knows of a human boy named Finn." She gave the man in question a meaningful look, and then released him, dusting off her hands and crossing her arms over her chest. If he ran, he would be pursued, and not nearly so gently as the last time, either.
The elf looked as though he'd just been told by Sophia perhaps the stupidest thing he had ever heard, and took a moment to overcome his own incredulity, before he looked over the scene again. The majority of the looters were gone now, save for the one that Amalia had managed to ensnare, her approach having been much more subtle than Ithilian's, and thereby avoiding Sophia's attention. He quite forcefully pulled her arm from his bow, shoved it away, and moved forward to retrieve his arrow. "Len'alas. I aimed to cripple, not kill. They could have told us something." He flipped the arrow about in his hand, before sliding it back into his quiver, and glancing back over his shoulder. "Do not do that again."
The looter Amalia had captured, a young man of scrawny stature, freckled face and shaggy brown hair, cowered slightly before his attackers, breathing heavily from his futile attempts to struggle away from the Qunari woman. Having been released, his eyes flickered about left and right, possibly looking for a quick escape, but upon taking a better look at his captors, made the smart choice, and remained still. He held his hands out before him as to show her that they were indeed empty, or perhaps clean of whatever she thought him guilty of. "I dunno nothing, miss! I mean, I may'a seen Finn 'round the Undercity once or twice, but we wasn't friends or nothing! Haven't seen him since the miners started coming back to town, raving 'bout monsters in the mine or something."
"Be specific, shem," Ithilian suggested, his free hand resting on the quiver of arrows at his hip. Not deterred by the elf's earlier wrath, Sophia stepped forward, perhaps attempting to calm down the young man somewhat. "Any information you can give us will help. We're trying to make sure the miners are safe, that's all." Though she wasn't quite sure that was what her companions were doing. Apparently they were looking for someone specific. She wondered what for.
"Right, right," the looter said, nodding to himself, "I was jus' hanging about the Darktown, and I overhear some workers sayin' the whole crew ditched this place, 'cause they didn't want to get eaten or nothing. I asked 'em about it. They said there's some kinda monsters in the mine, they didn't know what. I asked if they was coming outside, too, an' they said no. I figured I'd go poking 'round the equipment out here with some others, seeing as they're not using the stuff no more. That's all I know, I swear. Haven't seen Finn, or any of the miners since I got here. Maybe the monsters got him, I dunno. Can... can I go now?"
That made things more complicated, Sophia thought. She was glad for the company of these two, seeing that they were at least skilled, although she still wasn't sure as to what their motives were. Monsters was such a broad term. She didn't like going into the mine blindly, but it seemed they didn't have much choice. They had to get rid of whatever was making the mine dangerous, and her two companions would no doubt want to go in to search for their lost person. She nodded to the boy. "Yes. Thank you for your help. Try to stay out of trouble, would you? Not everyone will be forgiving."
He took a few cautious steps away, as if waiting for one of the others to make a move, but when they didn't, he bolted like the others, taking off and out of sight. Ithilian scowled (or continued to scowl), but made no comment in regards to Sophia's mercy. The woman herself had turned to Amalia. "If I might ask, who's Finn? I'm just curious if we all have the same purpose here. My intent is to make sure these miners will be safe when they return to work. All of them."
"Their affairs are not mine to be concerned with," Amalia replied levelly, "but his are. Finn is Athlok, viddethari. A child, and so my responsibility. If our actions help others, then so be it, but such considerations are irrelevant." Her words were blunt, their tone factual, but all the same there was nothing patently unfriendly about either. It was as though she were simply commenting on the weather. So having spoken, she turned without further comment and headed for the mine's entrance. The basra's story had troubled her, though she would not allow this to be apparent. Her fingers twitched for just a moment, the motion curiously-simliar to the one she'd use for flicking a harpstring.
"Come. We are wasting time and breath this way. If we are to speak, let us at least move simultaneously."