Rilien read over the parchment, noting that Emeric had sent the missive both to Sparrow (at the Darktown address, he presumed, though he lived above his shop, most of the time), and Aurora. That one probably would have had to go through someone, as he doubted very much an apostate wanted to be on record. Everyone knew where Sparrow livedâhe gathered that very few knew where Aurora was located. He, of course, was one of the easiest people to find in Kirkwall, unless he desired to be otherwise. As there was no particular reason for him to hide, Rilien did not.
Folding the letter along its former creases, he tucked it away into his shirt. Another woman had gone missing from the Circle, but the Templarâs vigilance on the matter had allowed for quick access to her phylacteryâit had ben traced to Darktown. The Templars had to go through official channels to get men down there, channels which were apparently being curiously slow, on both ends, from Orsinoâs office and Meredithâs. One might have wondered why, but Circle politics did not concern the Tranquil. At least not until someone paid him to make it otherwise. Emeric was not, but this was a task Rilien was intent on seeing to completion, if only because he had started it.
The location was enclosed with the letter, and he supposed the others would meet him there with all due speed. Which was why, after taking a selection of weaponry and potions from the shop, he headed immediately for the nearest entrance to Darktown, which happened to be down a steam-release hatch and into the sewers. It was unsavory, but he paid it no mindâthe waterproofing job on his boots was adequate to the task of keeping out anything potentially infectious. Heâd lived in the place long enough to grow accustomed to the smell, anyway.
Rilien found himself outside a door. It looked like every other door in Darktown, save that heâd never had cause to go beyond this one before. It doubtless led, as many did, to a warren of tunnels and passageways, but that was of little consequence. He paused, however, before opening it. It would make sense to give the other two a bit more time to appear before forging ahead by himself. Given what theyâd encountered thus far in their search, ill magic was almost guaranteed to come into play at some point. Allies would not go awry.
Sparrow did not pore over her missive as Rilien might have done, nor did study the lilting handwriting to identify its penman. Her fingers skittered over the parchment's edges, and she brought it briefly to her nose, before shoving it into her back pocket in a crumpled mess. Hardly anyone sent her messages in Darktown save for Rilien with his cryptic letters, always folded in unusual ways and annotating puzzling directions to meet him somewhere (always, always far too cryptic, in her opinion). Other than that, the Blooming Rose seemed dogged in their pursuits to have Sparrow make an appearance, sending papers smelling distinctly of roses, heavy perfumes and sweat. They, too, had found out that she was no longer a male, and had never been one in the first place. Curious things were difficult to conceal when you no longer looked as masculine as you would have likedâyoung boy, pseudo-girl seemed more appropriate. Either way, the brothel wanted oddities, and she would have fit in nicely. Not that she'd ever accept, but it was an option.
She sighed softly, tugging her boots on while rocking back on her disheveled bed. Whatever needed being done was, peculiarly, in Darktown. No use dragging her feet when the location was close enough to spit at. Though, Sparrow questioned why she was being called upon. She'd never been a good candidate for someone to rely on, nor anyone shining with goodness. Saving kittens from trees and swindling no-gooders all the way to the Gallows was not something she'd even consider, but somehow, Emeric thought differently. Missing mages from the drab-inner workings of the Circle, no less. It served them right, but the news did not sit well in her stomach. The Templars seemed nonplussed by her disappearance, hardly moving from their snail-crawl of a pace, unless it involved apprehending said mage and throwing her atop Meredith's blade, or whichever punishment they preferred to deal out when it came to unruly apostates. It sickened her to no end.
Gathering up her thingsâher mace, fitted leathers and cotton hood, Sparrow looked once over her shoulder, murmured something soft under her breath and slammed the door shut behind her. They would be dealing with dark things, no doubt. Though, Sparrow still childishly hoped that the Templars were the cause of this. Her anger could have been justified, backed by generations of wrong-doings. She would have no qualms fighting them. It hardly worked that way, and if they faced more mages, turned down darkened paths by years of oppression, she would have no other choice than to strike them down. Quickly, efficiently, before anything else could crop up. She promised she would never succumb to any creature again. She zigzagged through dark alleys, only slowing her sauntering gait to greet hunched-over figures, shouting dealers and small children squealing to be lifted up, and swung around like birds. This place was her home. Perhaps, as much as the Alienage was Amalia's home. Two sides of the same coin, she'd thought. Though, Sparrow belonged nowhere, drifting between the thin line of elves and humans.
No one could successfully creep up on Rilien, though Sparrow always tried. Her tiptoeing had always been louder to sensitive, trained ears, bordering on the clik-clak's of armored heels and horse-hooves. She paused briefly, straightened her shoulders and resisted the urge to plow into Rilien's back by settling her hand on his elbow, tugging him back from the doorway. âYou weren't thinking of going on ahead without us, were you?â She inquired, eyebrows knitting. The mock-sobriety crinkled out of her face, replaced by a seedy smile. âI'm still not sure how you made it here before me, but I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. So, what have we here, at this door?â Her hand fell away from his elbow, and perched above the chipped door handle.
With the tape firmly bound to her fingers, Aurora began to flex her hand, balling both into fists and then relaxing them, putting the digits through the paces. Pleased with the mobility the bandages provided, she looked up to her nurse with a smile. "Hey, you're not bad at this," She told Milly. The elf simply shook her head and went about cleaning up the excess, sliding her medical kit underneath her bed. Well, bed was optimistic, in reality it was more of a cot held together with Milly's hopes and prayers. She wasn't too enthused about the missive Aurora had recieved, because usually when letters like that arrived, she returned home with bruises and cuts that she had to heal. More often than not, they were found on her knuckles.
The chilly air did not escape Aurora, and she tilted her head in puzzlement. "I'm going to be alright. I always am," Aurora said, fishing out a heavy boot from under her own bed. She learned the foolishness of trying to kick something solid without a thick piece of leather between her fragile toes and her target. Fortunately, there was enough time this go around to actually prepare for what was to come. Thus the taped fingers.
Milly's hazel's eyes stared at her in response. "What if you're not?" Came the accusation. Aurora was silent for a moment, unwilling to answer it so quickly. She'd grown accustomed to living on her own for so long, only having herself to depend upon. She had made friends within the city, yes, and she trusted them with every ounce of her soul-- But at the end, there was her, and only her. Others could guide her, aid her, but it was her to walk in her own shoes. No one else could do that for her. It was this she found her problem.
She never worried for herself, but the feeling of having another worry for her was alien. Maybe Amalia and Nostariel worried for her at times, but then again it was never so... overt as Milly was making it. "What if you're not?" Milly repeated, "What else do I have in this city? You're the only reason I'm here." With those words came a wave of guilt. Living on her own had made Aurora selfish-- or perhaps she had always been selfish. Either way, she could see the weight weighing on Milly's shoulders. But what was she to do? She wasn't the kind of person to leave things like this half-done. She needed to see it through.
Aurora stood up and marched across the room, wrapping Milly in a wide hug. When she pulled back, she gave her the biggest smile she could manage. "You worry too much," She said, dismissing Milly's arguments entirely. "I'll be alright, so don't you worry about me leaving anytime soon. I'll be right back, I promise," She said, slipping quickly out of the house.
As soon as she was outside, the smile from her face dropped just as fast. Herself and her own problems she could deal with, but Milly's worry was something she couldn't get a handle on. Illusion or not, it was hard to get it out of her mind. With her thoughts weighing her down, she took her time heading toward Darktown. When she arrived, she noticed that Sparrow and Rilien had both beaten her there and both were staring at a door-- Sparrow's hand hovering above the handle. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned the blade hidden within her bracer. Her head tilted curiously and she asked, "Is it locked? I can help with that."
Is it locked? Sparrow chuffed in amusement, wrinkling her nose. Her fingers touched the top of the handle, retracted a few inches and came to rest atop Rilien's snowy hairâso soft for a man's, as she'd so often noted. He wouldn't have cared even if she ruffled it, but she merely left them there, as if she'd placed her hand on a horse's muzzle, stilling it from tromping ahead without them. âThe beauty arrives, diligent as ever,â[/i] she greeted with a twinkle in her murky eyes, shrugging her shoulders, [color=#1589FF]âWe aren't even sure whether or not it's locked, to be honest. I just kept our hot-headed friend from dashing off ahead.â Nothing could be further from the truth, because Rilien was capable of anything but hot-headedness. Treating him so, as she would any other, made her feel like their relationship hadn't changed in the slightest. He was still the Tranquil, not-so-Tranquil, and she was still Sparrow, the woman who sometimes hid beneath her own flesh. She nodded and stepped back, allowing Aurora to move closer to the door, and finally releasing Rilien with a cheeky grin splayed across her lips.
"It is not,â Rilien replied simply. Heâd stopped at Sparrowâs approach, and then it had seemed only pertinent to wait for Aurora as well. The deduction was not hardâit was they who had begun this, and so it fell to them to finish it. Lucien was out of town at the moment, besides. Perhaps he would have been here, otherwise. Whatever the case, Rilien would fight outside the other manâs looming shadow today. His eyes flickered just briefly upwards as if to chastise the roughened hand that rested atop his crown, but of course he did no such thing. "But it is trapped.â He pointed, and indeed, right before the tip of his finger was a wire, so thin as to be almost invisible.
Simply cutting it would set off the trap. The work was a bit more delicate than that. Removing several tools and a drop-shaped weight from a pouch at his belt, he stepped forward and out from underneath Sparrowâs hand. His movements were deft and quickâthe trap was of a fairly standard assemblage, even if it was at what he considered to be an inappropriate height for a tripwire. Within a few seconds, he was pulling back, and he used a foot to push the door open. They were met with, unsurprisingly, a passageway, this one quite apparently empty. He blinked at it for a moment before he started forward. It would make the most sense for him to lead, as he had a trained eye for traps.
Indeed, there were several more. "Someone does not wish to be caught unawares,â[/b] he observed after disabling the third consecutive pressure plate. This one was right at the top of some wooden stairs, and they appeared to lead down into an area occupied by a sort of living space, dominated by several bookshelves, a fireplace, and above it, the portrait of a middle-aged woman. He felt something shift in the Fade, and His hands were at the hilts of his knives by way of warning when several demons appeared, spawning from the ground itself. Sentinelsâit seemed they were in the right place.
There were two rage demons, a desire demon, and a handful of shades. Vaulting off the staircase and onto the ground below, Rilien brought a knife down into the single eye of one of the shades, banishing it immediately. Three more of them headed for the stairs, and he found himself immediately juggling the two rage demons.
Sparrow's mouth curled at the edges, though she only shrugged her shoulders. Her hand barely touched the doorknob, so she wasn't exactly sure why Rilien had been lingering there in the first place, but something was obviously wrong with the door, no doubt. If it was locked, broken, or otherwise fabled with tricky traps, Sparrow would not have been surprised. Nothing was easy when it came to the things they were tasked with. Especially if it involved any building residing in Darktown, let alone one she was not familiar with. This doorâand whatever it led toâwas an enigma, slowly piquing her interest the longer they stood there. Her hand remained on Rilien's head, nestled in his unsuspectingly soft hair, until he nonchalantly ducked under it. So unusually, and almost unsettllingly, soft for a man. She clicked her tongue in disappointment and settled the offending fingers across the pommel of her mace. âSharpest eyes in all of Kirkwall,â she cooed softly and sidled closer to Aurora.
The last time she stepped into a ramshackle building, Sparrow hadn't seen the traps littering the floor, stupidly stepped into them and caused all sorts of misfortune. It ultimately led to years of misery, as well. She would not repeat the same mistake twice. Never again, she'd promised. She squinted at her companion. Traps had never stopped, or even slowed, his progress. Her fingers were hardly nimble, even with his careful, steady instructions. His patience with her lack of progress, even as a Tranquil, was uncanny. The most basic of mechanisms were impossible puzzles she could not complete, and she had no desire to practice. Sitting still for long periods of time rattled her nerves. Why learn something new when you could smash the obstacle to pieces? Or otherwise freeze, set to flame, or bash with rocks? Her eyes slowly trickled away from his hands, moving like clockwork. She'd never have thought that Aurora had a knack for locks, and just as she was about to inquire, the door creaked open as Rilien toed it open.
Her gaze swung back. An empty passageway. It wasn't what she was expecting. Sparrow was about to step in front of Rilien, taking the lead like she normally did, but was beat by him moving under the threshold first, which might have been for the best. Her pride prickled at the thought. Nothing special about the room that she could see, but Rilien was already bending down. Fiddling with things she could not see. Even when she focused her eyes and blurred her vision to see only movement or misshapen tiles, Sparrow saw nothing unusual. âIt'd make it easier if they just stationed thugs,â she sighed, scratching the back of her head. Thugs could be beaten, bought off, or worse. Traps usually elicited terrible outcomes, by means of shadowy entities, harmful poisons, and arrows thundering past your ears. None of those enticed her. She only hoped that Rilien could spot and disarm each one. She followed him up the stairs, idling so he could deal with the plate, and then stopping short of the odd-looking painting above the fireplaces mantel. Calloused fingers trailed the lower edges of the frame, searching for a name. All artists wrote their names on their work, right?
Her fingers retracted. She, too, felt the eerie shift. Like stepping into an uncomfortably cold chamber, bare feet and all. Sparrow had enough sense to disentangle the mace from her hip, and cast a lingering shroud of arcane energy over Rilien, before slipping around Aurora and swinging her blunted weapon through the shade that appeared behind her. It disappeared, leaving a trail of dust in its wake. She whipped around, turning to face the desire demon, closest to their right.
The shift in the air was not lost on Aurora. In fact, she honestly sighed at the arrival of demons. "How much you want to bet there's a bloodmage at the end of this?" Aurora muttered without an ounce of humor. It was stunts like these that ensured that they'd never be able to walk free as mages. Aurora threw a quick glance around them, surveying the field and then slipping it into her memory. She then tilted her body to the side, opposite of Sparrow, and brought her hand around-- hidden blade unsheathing itself in midflight. The steel sunk cleaning into the eye of the shade that had appeared there-- and ensuring that it didn't catch Sparrow off-guard as she dealt with the one behind her.
The shade melted into dust as it was banished back into the fade, and that left one more out of the group that had approached them. With Sparrow dealing with the desire demon, she took it upon herself to pick up the nuisance. She brought her hands back around to her front and dipped into the fade herself, summoning energy to her hands. Strands of her cardinal hair pricked and lifted from her shoulders as a static charge gathered around her. In a moment, the charge was dispelled through her hands in an arc of lightning, striking the shade and branching off into the other demons around them.
She managed to catch a glimpse of her fingers-- noting the tape still intact despite the magical assault. It seemed that Milly was right on with their placement, though there was a moment of guilt. She ran past the guilt, and into a dead sprint toward the stunned shade. Midstride, she drew back her offhand, and encased it in a spear of ice. The uppercut that ensued pieced through what Aurora would call the closest thing it had to a head, and to make doubly sure, stung it a couple of times with her wristblade in the midsection. Her ice-blade melted away with the shade and she turned to clean up the rest of them-- keeping her allies close in mind in case they needed her aid.
"There always is,â Rilien replied, just as humorlessly. In truth, heâd been rather expecting that since the first murder. He was, of course, well aware of the possibility of a more mundane serial killer, but one of those would not likely have targeted two mages in his schemesâthey were harder to get to, and riskier to take, with the Templars constantly sniffing around. Unless, of course, one was somehow prepared to deal with that⊠or had help on the inside. That suggested either apostate or Templar, and the constant presence of shades and demons at every stage of this venture pointed to the former.
The rage demon on his left went in with a sweep aimed from his midsection, but Rilien leapt backwards, the magma-covered limb missing his tunic by a hairsbreadth. He threw the ice-enchanted knife in his hand, hitting center mass on the creature, and its molten carapace began to harden around the spot, stiffening it and limiting the movement of its torso. The other one, not so inhibited, lurched forward before he could press the advantage, and managed to collide bodily with him before he could twist out of the tight quarters between the demons and the wall. He hissed reflexively, a soft sound, as the heat from it nearly scorched the right side of his rib cage, but fortunately for him, silk did not burn easily, and so the heat itself was the primary problem.
Rilien rolled his entire body with the hit, allowing the momentum to carry his upper half backwards, and then he converted the rest into enough torque to flip his feet over his head, and landed in a three-point crouch, reversing his direction and pushing forward, driving the blade of his remaining knife up through what passed for the creatureâs lower jaw. It emerged from the upper one, and he twisted and yanked it out, dropping the creature and then darting to the side to latch onto his other knife, still lodged in the second rage demon, and drag it sideways through its body, opening up a large wound before he pulled it free. A couple more quick strokes to the hardened portion of its body effectively dismantled it, and it too returned from whence it had come.
The Tranquil straightened, shaking a bit of excess fluid from the daggers, and turned to the others, who also appeared to be finishing up. "I would suppose there is something in this room that we were not meant to see.â What exactly that was would only become evident if they looked.
Did they always have to deal with shady bloodmages? She wished that these were Knight-Commander Meredith's lackeys. How satisfying it would have been to see her fingers muddled in this particular pie, but alas they had to deal with their own kind (and she did think of them as her own kind, because mages needed to stick together as best they could without setting each other on fire). Had they been dealing with commonplace thugs, or sticky-fingered, ass-backwards bandits, Sparrow may have been less disappointed. The Fade felt uncomfortably close, like a wool blanket being thrown over her head. Itchy and far too warm. It spread through her fingers, gripped her knuckles and tightened what-little muscle she still had on her upper arms. Her biceps, her shoulders; aflame with budding energy. If she were a stronger person, she would have sworn off magic altogetherâbecause it had hurt more people than she could count on her fingers, and doing something else she'd only regret later was the last thing she wanted to do. However uncomfortable it was, magic still had its uses.
Sifts of ash blew behind her, billowing where Aurora had gracefully stepped in. She flashed a grin over her shoulder and quickly turned away, recklessly dashing towards the Desire Demon. Its arms were spread wide, fingers poised and searching, as if it were welcoming a lover to its barely-concealed breasts. Sparrow would have none of thatânot this time, nor ever again. No tricks, no rose-rimmed promises could cause her to sink so low. Her answer was a resolute no, coming in the form of a wildly arcing mace; two-handed, swung over her head. The demon was smart enough to jerk backwards, pulling her arms to her chest. Her whispers abruptly cut off, and replaced by a grim-faced, screeching hiss. She did not slow. She did not temper her aggression. Instead, she allowed her momentum to carry her to the demon's right side, where she twisted her body to challenge the creature once more and slammed the back of her fist, bristling with arcane energy, into the demon's unprotected face. Whatever it had been expecting hadn't been that. It lay sprawled on the ground, holding its nose in its claws.
Desire Demons, as a rule, hardly ever fought unless it was absolutely necessary. Why fight if they could simply weasel their way past someone's defences? Sparrow shook the numbness from her hand, and approached with the mace leaning against her shoulder; striding purposefully. Bags of goldâwomen, all the womenâatonement and forgiveness and identity pooled from the creature's purple lips, in many different voices. All familiar and all so pronouncedly false. She focused energy through her mace until it shimmered and wavered, somewhere between the physical realm and the Fade, hefted it into both hands, drew it back over her head and hurled it down. What remained was little more than dust and ashes, crinkling away like burnt parchment. She kicked up puffs of the stuff and whirled around to face her companions, and see how they fared. Perhaps, she shouldn't have been too surprised. Each person she'd met in Kirkwall had faced unbeatable odds, she was sure. Shades, demons, destitute bloodmages, beefy Qunari and bandits alike. She wiped the sweat from her brow, tied the mace back to her hip and squinted at the corners of the chamber. Most likely, it'd be Aurora or Rilien picking up what she could not.
âNothing looks out of place,â she murmured, approaching a nearby wall. She never liked puzzles, let alone secret passageways or anything that wasn't an open doorway. Sparrow knuckled her nose, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. Aurora had gotten considerably better in combat since last they fought together (and Rilien was as efficient, as usual). She still hit things hard, but her strength wasn't what it used to be. âYou should teach me that some time,â Sparrow ventured, flicking her arm out as if she had an ice-blade, "I've never seen anyone use their magic that way." Truthfully, she'd only seen magic used a handful of times. And usually, only in the means of healing. She continued moving around the room, occasionally scuffing her boot and crouching down to look at things. Dirt specks, upturned chair, page from a book. Nothing useful.