Ferelden

The sound of clanking armour made it's way through the trees. A hooded figure clutched itself to a tree, panting. He was going to be discovered any minute and being an Apostate was bad enough without them finding out about his talents. Templars were making their way through the woods muttering to each other and themselves about Andraste and the Chantry. Their boots hit the ground and were getting closer and closer. Caldean would have to run soon, he couldn't take two Templars at once. He struggled with one. They were too close now. He needed to leave. The Apostate lifted and ran as fast as he could, turning and firing a blast of lightning at the Templars. The bark of a nearby tree exploded and sent shrapnel everywhere, the wood bouncing off the hard armour as if it was nothing.

Caldean sped through the forest, jumping over logs and rocks. He was faster and that was his advantage, they would cut him to ribbons if they caught up which hopefully they wouldn't. He needed somewhere to disappear. He couldn't hide from the Templars really, they always seemed to find him but he could run from them. The Wilds. They wouldn't be able to find him there would they? It'd be like finding a needle in a hay stack. He could always tap into that if the time was desperate and then he'd need to run again. He hated running. Couldn't he just one day not have to run from anything? Not run from Templars. Not run from Darkspawn. He just wanted to stand still for a moment.

The Apostate ran. He'd lost them for now. As he hid, hoping for the Templars to not find him and allow him to move along he heard something. He heard talking from a group not far from him. A Dwarf and a few Elves. The minorities had banded together it seemed but that was when he heard two words he really didn't expect. Grey Warden. Caldean allowed the conversation to die down a little before he broke through the brush. The Templars would follow him soon. "I'm just passing through. Mind your own business." Caldean turned to watch his back as he attempted to not be caught up in whatever it was that these guys were doing.

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”Hmm?” Gabriel was more alert as Arrietty spoke to him. He knew she had a tendency to be tedious in her questions but he never seemed to have a problem with it, he would just sit up no matter what he was doing and listen ever so carefully to the young child.

“Do you know when we’ll be arriving ashore?” she inquired prompting Gabriel to sit up in the hammock and look out to the horizon.

Kirkwall was just a tiny speck now, almost nothing remained in view, and to the other three directions there was naught but endless sea, without a single speck of land awaiting your eye’s glare, “Well, I’d say we’ve still got awhile let to go…” he rubbed his chin in thought for a moment and then looked back to the young elf, “I’d suggest you take a nap, Ari, I know I intend to… but you do have more youthful energy.” He laid back into the hammock and pointed his nose toward the helm of the ship, his eyes closed as he spoke louder this time, almost shouting, “Or perhaps the Captain and Helmsman will be more accepting of your questions now that you’ve saved their lives! I know I would be!” the Captain, a bigot, frowned in frustration but said nothing in response.

“Either way this is the first time we’ve been able to take a nice day at sea for a long while, just enjoy it okay?”

He again sat up a bit, still lying down though; to turn his attention to the others there, “So, let me guess… you lot must be either crazy or ingenious to be heading into Fereldan at the height of a Blight…”

“Well, where there are those in need there are always those who respond to that need.” The Kirkwall merchant commented rubbing his hands together with a creepy smile like any greedy bastard would have on their face.

Gabriel figured as much, the other nations surrounding Fereldan were not really forthcoming with aid at the moment. In fact Gabriel had sneaking suspicions (in other words he was absolutely certain) that those pirates they were attacked by were employed by Krikwall under the table to intercept any “aid” intended for Fereldan. “That country is being offered up on the sacrificial alter…” he muttered.

“Pardon, sirrah?” the Orlesian woman piped in having caught his mutterings.

“Nothing… anyway your philosophy is astounding, Sir, or perhaps I should say tedious… isn’t that just a nicer way of saying ‘where there is need, there is profit’?” Gabriel surmised prompting the man’s smile to fall, “So I can assume that the reason we were targeted by those pirates is that one of you has something on board they really shouldn’t, right?”

“Ho-How dare you insinuate!” they all jumped back as Gabriel continued.
“Incinuate that you’re breaking the embargos of the Orlesian port by shipping… what is it? Potions and Lyrium, yes?” he commented looking to the woman who went from anger to shock, “You’ve got lyrium dust on your collar… and you, Sirrah, Kirkwall has an abundance of food right now due to all the rain, I don’t suppose the Officials would mind a trade agreement with Denerim for the right price.” Unlike the woman the Kirkwall merchant just smiled and stood straighter, almost proud of his business savy, “Which brings us to you, Arms I take it, you’re the one the Pirates were after in the end…”

“You’ve got no evidence of that, Sirrah…”

After letting them sweat for a moment Gabriel just relaxed again, “Don’t worry, I’m not chastising you… hell I applauded you all. This whole, ‘let Fereldan die so that we can survive” is a sickening plot to me. If you can get aid to the masses of that country by all means do so…” they too relaxed, “Though I take it your goods come at a cost.”

“Of course I personally try to keep costs low for those unfortunate people… however, there are costs to consider.”

“Indeed…” taking one last look at the merchants who had already brought him trouble Gabriel closed his eyes at last and began to work on getting back to sleep, “We’ll leave it at that for now… if you’ll excuse me saving your arses has left me rather sleepy… Ari! Try not to distract the Helmsman too much, please!” he called unsure if she could hear him or not as the others dispersed muttering curses at him. He didn’t care as he drifted off into a light nap.

The darkness had been a good cover for the Ex-crow as he maneuvered his way between the ranks of a scouting party of darkspawn, his daggers finding chinks in the armor of a few of the Hurlocks, while just completely beheading the three genlocks. "six darkspawn.." He mumbled to himself wiping blood from his face. and sheathing his daggers, drawing his bow and letting loose one quickly notched arrow into the base of the skull, of a retreating genlock. "Seven..." He said that with a smirk. Ryuu had been making his way through the wilds, on a quest of his own to help protect a small town just north of the wilds, needless to say one elf wasn't going to stem the entire tide of the horde, but at least it gave a few of the villagers some peace of mind knowing he was out here decimating scouting parties and the like.

He had currently wandered quite a ways south; having been tailing that scouting party for the better half of a day, having moved so far south that the only sign of anything that wasn't darkspawn were ruins of old towers and such, though he had spotted hound tracks, amongst other things, which in itself was a good sign that he wasn't alone out here with the darkspawn. "It's getting late.. those tracks are my best option to find a place to lay low for the remainder of the night.." He thought to himself out loud, as he jogged into the wilds following the tracks of hounds, and humans. He forced his way through the thick of the wilds, dodging camps of chasind and such; knowing the tracks weren't their's considering they weren't careless like this. It wasn't long before he moved out into a more open area; near a giant set of ruins, which he had heard about in taverns and such during his travels; Ostagar. Though he never truly paid attention to current events figuring he had played enough of his hand in causing the fall of kingdoms and such, to actual care about any possible offense against the darkspawn horde; it seemed that Fate had led him here; and regardless of his desires to not be here, it was obvious that his gut had led him after that scouting party.

"Alright, I suppose I can look around here, keep to the shadows, mind my own business and get out of things get way to dangerous for me." He thought to himself spotting the outlines of a couple of people near the entrance to the ruins. He made his way quietly towards them deciding if he was going to find out anything about the plan for the horde was, it would be to silently observe, without getting caught hopefully.

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