"Who called this meeting again," Cullen wonders, making his annoyance apparent to all present in the War Room.
"I did," Leliana answers. "Not the Inquisitor."
"She over an hour late, and I have work to do elsewhere."
"Tardiness aside, Commander, the Inquisitor has made time for us and our concerns, it is only proper for us to do the same for her," Josephine points out, waving her pen in his direction.
An out of breath messenger rushes in. "Message from the front gate, My Lady." He hands the torn piece of parchment to the Diplomat running off.
Unfolding the crumpled monstrosity, her concerned frown now is more apparent. "Agree on what you think is best, and stop fighting so much. And it's signed with an 'I'," she reads out loud, slightly confused.
"There is something amiss," Leliana points out. "She would not willingly run off at such a crucial time."
"Are you saying someone kidnapped her," Cullen questions, incredulously. "From Skyhold?"
"She was probably lured to an isolated location on the road from Val Royeaux and taken from there," the former Bard clarifies. "She rarely goes with a group to the Summer Bazaar."
"We must tell the others and ask them for their help in this matter," Josephine uncharacteristically demands. "She recruited them after all."
"I will send soldiers to search the roads near Val Royeaux. " Cullen hurries out of the room.
The three Advisors wait for the last of the group to straggle in to their impromptu meeting at the front gate courtyard, before Josephine jumps right into business. "You have all been summoned because the Inquisitor is assumed kidnapped, and we require your assistance in finding her."
"Really," Sera says. "And your cloaks can't find her?"
"Assumed means they don't know if she ever was kidnapped. If she feels the need to run off on a whim," Vivienne snidely remarks. "Perhaps she shouldn't be Inquisitor. Someone else should be appointed."
"Like you, perhaps," Dorian snides back, arching a brow.
She barks out a laugh. "Don't be absurd! I would suggest Cassandra, or one of the Inquisition Advisors before myself."
"Implications aside, she's still missing, and needs to be found," Cullen points out over the growing raucous.
"She's hurting." Cole suddenly says, looking toward the rising sun. "Because of the people in her head."
"What do you mean, Cole," Cassandra asks, wrinkling her already stern brow. "Is this about the Inquisitor?"
"They're running away like her friends did, but they're not magic." He lowers his head, staring down at the floor as he begins to ramble. "No, you have to go, please. They're coming, they'll get them, I have to save everyone, I have to. The Templars will hurt them, like at Haven, but they want to stay to help."
"Is she being attacked," Solas questions, "Or is she defending someone?"
"Their screams, Maker please stop them. I need them inside." Cole concentrates on the floor, pushing the superfluous thoughts to the side. "She's trying to do both but her eyes are dizzy."
"Can you tell us where she is?" Off the top of his head, the Commander tries to remember where the concentration of Red Templars is the greatest.
"I have to get them into the hills, it's far way. Climb in armor, make them tired, arrows flying up. The water could wash them away, if it were here."
"Sounds like Crestwood," The Ironbull interjects. "I thought you had people there, Leliana."
"I do. The Inquisitor must have the village hold up in Caer Bornach and my agents defending them."
"Which means she's out their alone trying to fight back an army," Dorian points out, sighing. "Why is she trying to be a hero this early in the morning?"
"Evil never sleeps, Sparkler," Varric snarkily comments, folding his arms across his chest. "Which reminds me, shouldn't we be, I don't know, coming to her rescue now?"
"Get to the fort!"
The last of the villagers run toward Caer Bronach, as the Inquisitor throws the last of her strength into flinging a fireball into the group of Templar assailants. Their panic buys her enough time to catch her breath. The fatigue creeps to the forefront of her mind slowly. "Constant fire casting," she tells herself. "Need to slow down." A duo of bowmen leap from behind the pack, cutting her rest short.
"Your Eminence!" The gate guard insistently waves to her to take refuge.
She stops at the threshold of the great wooden doors. "I need lyrium potions," she huffs, propping herself against the open one.
"But Herald your wounds-"
"Quickly!" Finding them regrouped after a spared glace over her shoulder, and the bowmen kneeling for a better aim, she holds a flame glyph long enough for the guard to bring her five new potions. She drinks one of them, then sets as many as she can on fire once more with a clench of her fist. "Don't open this door under any circumstances," she orders before running off through the misty bluffs down the road.
"Maker bless you for rabid wolves." Taking another from her belt, she immediately downs the entire flask, running toward the wandering pack.
With Templars in hot pursuit, she agitates one of the larger specimens with a bolt of lightning from her staff.
Four pairs of glowing, green eyes turn in her direction before charging at anything moving.
A stray Red Templar arrow nails one of the wild wolves in the side, diverting their collective attention from the sprinting mage to the menacing horde behind her. Inquisitor Trevelyan lays down a wall of fire directly behind the skirmish, just as the jolt of lyrium wears off. "Hills or caves," she reminds herself, drinking another flask for good measure. "Away from the people."
Leading the amalgamation of scouts and armored soldiers is the Inquisitor's motley group, trudging in from the bridge near the artificially formed pond.
Coupling into groups of two, everyone spreads out, taking a direction for themselves.
An older boy keeping watch with a drawn bow, signals a smaller boy skipping rocks in said pond. He gestures to Cassandra, then to his chest.
The younger of the two runs up to the Lady Seeker, examining the monochrome eye of her mock-heraldry. "The lady in fancy dress told me to find someone with a big eye on their armor along the road." The young boy hands the warrior the silk sash with one of the shoulder emblems of the Inquisitor's armor pinned to it. "She said to give them this and say 'The village needs help'."
Cassandra carefully scrutinizes the unwound material and metal piece, finding them genuine articles from her armor. "The woman who gave this to you, why was she here, do you know?"
"My daddy said to find someone across the bridge and bring them to the village to stop the Templars."
"I found her coat." Blackwall trots down from the nearby hills carrying her deepstalker hide chain mail coat. "It was draped on a training dummy hidden in the bushes. The crows were beginning to circle."
"They wanted to take the shiny buckles home," Cole points out coming up from behind him.
"She must be nearby, search the hills," she orders of the accompanying group.
The back of the dark cave blocks her escape route. "Maybe I can-" The sound of a small puddle splashing behind her confirms her worst fears; she's cornered. A gang of now four corrupted Templars trudge out from the darkness. With swords and bows brandished, they slowly approach her.
She makes one last gesture of defiance. "I survived Ostwick," she shouts at the glowing red eyes and emblems taking her fourth potion from her belt. "I survived The Temple of Sacred Ashes." She pulls the cork from the neck. "And I survived Haven." She downs the mixture in one long gulp, gritting her teeth against the bitter taste at the back of her throat. "I can survive you," the Inquisitor shivers and tingles at the surge of lyrium coursing through her veins. "So do your worst!" The mage raises her staff, ready to attack.
They charge as one trying to overwhelming her with sheer force.
The Inquisitor knocks them back with a larger than normal fireball from her staff, running back toward the now empty road.
An arrow catches her in the shoulder, reopening an older wound from an earlier battle. The young woman stumbles, gritting her teeth against the pain, but manages to keep her footing long enough to make it back to the nearest hillside. "Not one more innocent," she breathlessly reminds herself. "Not here." The Inquisitor turns to meet her opposition eye to eye.
Another arrow pierces through her leather chest guard, knocking her off her feet.
"Uhn!" Using the last of her lyrium-fueled adrenaline rush, Inquisitor Trevelyan huffs and puffs the strength back into her arms, yanking the arrow from her chest. "Get up!" Her verbal affirmations of bravery do nothing to move her bloodied, thoroughly fatigued body. "You have to!"
One of them stands over her dispassionately, raising his sword above his head.
An explosive arrow disorients the Templar just long enough for a grappling chain to drag him out of sight.
With numerous plucks of metallic string, and loud slashes from a great axe, the audible defeat of the four Templars leads Varric and Ironbull to their leader lying in a small pool of her own blood.
"You don't look so good Boss," the Qunari remarks, kneeling beside her and applying pressure to the seeping wound on her shoulder.
"Somebody get a healer," Varric yells to an approaching scout, hoisting Bianca back onto his harness. "Quick!"
The Inquisitor weakly grabs Bull's beefy wrist. "The..village.." she swallows the blood pooling at the back of her throat. "...Templars...they-" she breaks into a coughing fit, before passing out.
The Ironbull places his free hand over the smaller wound on her chest. "If they don't hurry, the Boss isn't going to make it," he says a little more frantically.
"Don't you dare die on me, Inquisitor." The Dwarf squats down, gently slapping her cheek to bring her back to consciousness. "We don't want the Seeker in charge now, do we?"
"Varric..." The woozy Inquisitor frantically grabs his cuff. "Tell Cullen...and everyone...I'm sorry."
"There she is!"
Her body finally gives out as more people in Inquisition armor huddle around to take her away.