Dragon Age: The Amulet of False Gods
Draconus' eyes opened slowly. He was disoriented. His surroundings seemed unfamiliar to him. 'Not again…' he thought to himself. His head was pounding, and as he tried to push his arms underneath him to right himself his muscles screamed out in opposition.
Draconus mustered what seemed like all of his will and finally his palms were pressed flat against the ground and he began to push. All at once the acrid smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils as he took a deep breath in, and he was lost in a fit of coughing. He tried to keep pushing himself up but the strength was not coming to him.
Near him he could hear what seemed like faint screams at first, but as his senses began returning they seemed to be getting closer and closer.
"Run! What are you doing lying there?" The voice was frantic, somewhere past urgency and fear, and deep in the primal desire to survive. "Run!"
Draconus felt hands pulling him up by his cloak, "Maker please, help me… I can't get you up on my own. He's coming!"
"Who's… coming?" Draconus could only manage to spit out words between guttural coughs. The smell was getting worse now, and it was so overwhelming that he could feel the nausea turning his stomach in circles.
The man's eyes went wide as he pulled Draconus up from the ground, and realization slowly washed over his face, "Y-You… you a-a-are…" The man screamed in terror and began to run.
He righted his cloak and soot fell off of it in a thick black sheet. Judging from the man's voice he was somewhere in Ferelden, a small village on the outskirts of The Coastlands. He was close to his destination. Lake Callenhad and the Circle Tower couldn't be more than a day or two away if he hurried. As he watched the villager flee, he felt a surge in his chest, and instinctively his hand reached for the amulet he wore around his neck. It was the shape of a small sealing rune with a vial in the center, and it was made of a metal that had long ago lost its sheen from a powerful magic. If you saw it in daylight it would look like nothing special, but here clasped around his neck it seemed to have a deep red glow.
When he touched the amulet he found that his hand was repelled, as it always had been since it had appeared. It had been the cause of all this destruction, and Draconus had tried to remove it several times, but a powerful and arcane magic bound it to him and now they were one and the same. The amulet surged a power that occupied his very soul. Not even the Maker could keep him safe now, and the amulet spoke to him. "Kill him…" The voice was deep and steeped in hate.
Maker knew he didn't want to kill him, but it was as if his body wasn't his own and he watched as his hand was raised and he could feel the surge of fire pulse through him and just as he was about to release it he was thrown to the ground and a great pain welled up in him. It started at his nose, and pulsated out to the farthest reaches of his face. He instinctively grabbed his nose, and yelped in pain. The blood that trickled out of it was warm, and strangely inviting. He felt as though he wanted to rub it all over his face. The taste of it dripping into his mouth sent a chill down his spine.
"Serves you sodding right," the voice was gruff and it groveled so deep it seemed as if it was coming from under the earth itself.
Draconus was surprised by the voice. He hadn't noticed anyone approaching, but that wasn't surprising considering the sound of wood crackling from the village burning behind him was so deafening, he barely heard the man approaching him earlier. When he looked up he saw a dwarven man holding his gauntleted hand in a fist, the faintest hint of blood was trickling down the fingers.
"Who… who are you?" Draconus said. His voice came out meeker than he had intended, but he was afraid.
Another man spoke, but his voice carried a much softer tone, "Stand down Dhargen, I'll handle this." The dwarf scowled, but reluctantly acquiesced to the request and moved aside.
The man moved in near Draconus. He recognized his armor almost immediately. It carried the crest of the Grey Wardens and it bore the depiction of a Griffon on the breastplate.
"My name is Nathaniel Howe; I'm a Grey Warden from Vigil's Keep. I have been tracking you for quite some time Draconus. It seems you are causing quite an upheaval, leaving a bloody wake trekking your way here from Tevinter." He steadied himself, and the amulet caught his eye immediately.
"Please…" Draconus' voice bleated from under his surely broken nose. Blood sprayed out on Nathaniel's arm and he pulled it away. "Save yourselves… I can't stop it." Even as he spoke the words he felt the surge from the amulet swath through his body.
Nathaniel too felt the pull of the amulet. It sang to him the same way the taint sang to him in his dreams. It was strong. "I need the amulet Draconus. That thing belongs sealed within the Deep Roads where it came from."
"… Where it came from." The words hung in the air. It seemed like only yesterday Draconus had seen the amulet for the first time in the Fade; since the first time it had spoken to him.
Draconus was a scientist who studied arcane rituals for the Magisters in Tevinter. He had been working on a project for them after some mysterious tablets had returned from a Deep Roads expedition. The tablets dated to sometime around 3:26 Towers near the end of the 3rd Blight. They spoke of a dark ritual that occurred after the destruction of the Archdemon Toth, in which a single drop of the mighty Old God's blood was sealed in an amulet using blood magic. It was an attempt to connect the Grey Wardens with the remaining Old Gods who still slumbered so that they may foretell of any future corruption and the coming of a Blight.
The tablets went on to describe the great power the amulet bestowed, claiming that any mage who wielded it was able to channel great magic, bestowed by the soul of an Old God. They also foretold a warning to any who attempted to wield the amulet that mortals were not able to control the amulet. Some accounts even suggested that the amulet was able to channel Toth directly into the wearer. After an incident chronicled by Adenas Grout, a Grey Warden historian, as one of the bloodiest massacre's of its time period, the amulet was dubbed The Amulet of False Gods and was quickly sealed away in the Deep Roads and bound there by powerful magic. The tablets also suggested that some mage's reported seeing the amulet in their dreams, but as time passed these reports grew in their infrequency, and soon stopped.
They stopped until six months ago when Draconus was working in his laboratory in an isolated area near the silent plains. The Veil was thin here, and necessarily so. Some of his experiments required that they be able to access the fade frequently, and in areas where the Veil was thinnest it was much easier to do. During one of his expeditions he began hearing a strange voice calling to him, one that he would later come to know quite well. This voice called to Draconus softly at first, and with increasing intensity, until finally it began manifesting itself in his dreams. He awoke many nights in a sweat, remembering his dreams from the Fade, which was very rare indeed.
One night he dreamt vividly of the Deep Roads. It was a place he had never been, yet it felt as real as anything he had ever experienced. He found himself in a long tunnel, and suddenly the voice began speaking to him, beckoning him to come closer. He did so pensively. As he approached he could feel his skin tingle as magic started coursing through his body. As he rounded a bend, he came across an altar and there sat the source of his dreams. The amulet was shimmering, and it spoke to him. It beckoned him to come close, and when Draconus did the amulet began to sing the most beautiful melody, accept he didn't hear it with his ears, he felt it in his soul. It was as if the Maker was channeling directly into him.
Draconus reached out with his hand to touch the amulet, and the song grew stronger. When he finally made contact with it, the song overwhelmed him, and in an instant he felt peace, and then horrible pain. He awoke screaming and clutching at his chest. He was horrified to find the amulet now hung around his neck, somehow pulled from the Fade into reality and now here.
Soon after this the blackouts began. He awoke in strange places with blood on his hands, and vague gruesome visions of something, not him, carving a gruesome path through the countryside. It was searching for something, but he did not know what. When he slept, if at all, he had horrible visions of a great dragon screaming out at him, and he awoke yelling to the heavens.
He had decided that he would try to make his way to the Circle of Mages in Ferelden at Lake Callenhad where he heard that they had done considerable research on possession, especially when Wynne had been there. Now here he was, so close to his goal, yet so far away, and surrounded by Grey Wardens. He wasn't sure if they meant to kill him or help him, but in a way maybe doing one would be accomplishing the other.
"Soterios! He is slipping away, I need you to come and perform the ritual!" Nathaniel was barking out orders now. Draconus heard the urgency in Nathaniel's voice and it snapped him back to reality.
A pale mage with short red hair and a great red beard approached staff in hand, wearing the chainmail of a Grey Warden battle mage. He slammed his staff down on the ground and pulled a wooden box from a sack he had been carrying on his back. The box looked ornate, and it was covered in sealing runes that were so powerful that even in his current state Draconus could feel them pulsing.
He saw the mage begin speaking the words of a ritual he had never heard before, and his staff began to glow a brilliant white. He felt someone else reaching for the nape of his neck. They had a hold of the necklace, but it was too late, Draconus felt himself slipping away.
Nathaniel had the necklace in his hand, and then it happened. Like a great explosion he and Soterios were thrown back. Dhargen managed to remain on his feet but he was shaken and pushed back nearly 30 feet by the blast. The trails of his large feet were dug deep in the mud in front of him. Nathaniel and Soterios scurried quickly to their feet, and as they did their eyes went wide at the scene that was playing out.
Draconus' body rose as if it was lighter than air, and his feet hovered off the ground. His face was distorted, and he had gone through some kind of transformation. His mouth jutted out, and his brow was set deep, and his skin appeared almost reptilian. "I do not seek council with the likes of you. I seek a commune with the Old Gods." The voice was booming and Soterios felt as though he could hear it inside his mind, rather than audibly. "If you wardens can lead me to the Deep Roads I shall spare your lives and allow you to serve me. If not then you shall die like the countless others who have stood before me."
Nathaniel drew his bow from his back, and pulled an arrow from its quiver. "Demon, you know I cannot allow you to leave this place. You have fooled many into thinking you are the soul of Toth, but the Wardens know the truth. You are just a demon that served him during the third Blight. All you want is power, but you will find only death here. Release this man, and we will end this."
The demon laughed, "So the Wardens know the truth. The people of this realm are pitiful in their existence and will need to see only my power to believe the truth that I tell them. I will feed on their fear."
Nathaniel looked at Dhargen, whose great axe was already drawn, and nodded. Nathaniel notched an arrow and let it fly, and at the same moment Dhargen charged in with his axe at the ready. He arrived just as the arrow did. The demons head moved only an inch, and the arrow missed its mark, but Dhargen delivered his hardest of cleaves. Surely the demon was slain, but Dhargen's eyes went wide as he saw the blade of his axe stopped just short of Draconus' neck. Some form of protective magic was stopping it from striking the necklace.
"Foolish Wardens, you should know I am more powerful than you could possibly imagine." With that the demon let forth a concussive blast from his hand that sent Dhargen flying back, landing flush on the ground. However Nathaniel was undeterred.
"NOW ELEHREN" Nathaniel yelled.
A spry elf, who had gone previously unnoticed, appeared from behind a nearby thicket, and the demon spun, but it was too late. The dagger he had thrown pierced the body of the demon near the heart, and it fell to the ground.
Soterios quickly approached, box in hand, and began the ritual. Nathaniel followed quickly behind him. When he looked down at the body, he felt a pang of sadness as he no longer saw a demon but the painful expression of a mage locked in eternal horror.
As Soterios finished the last words of the ritual, the necklace exploded with light and he reached down and yanked it off Draconus' neck, and quickly closed it in the box. The box hummed with magic and then sealed itself, hopefully to never be opened again. "I'm sorry…" His voice was sullen. He looked up at Nathaniel, "it is done."
Nathaniel nodded, "Good work. Gather this body. He deserves to be returned to his homeland." He took one last look at Draconus. "We need to make haste back to Vigil's Keep and make sure this amulet is sealed away where it can harm no one else."