The Abyss Stares Back

Notes: Sometimes I'm a little disappointed at the 'Here Lies The Abyss' quest. The Inquisitor gets thrown violently into the Fade, the place of dreams, of creativity, of living personifications of human values and traits, and possibly the source of all magic in Thedas. Everything and anything could be here. And it's….green. With some rocks. That's it, that's what you see. So I decided to try my hand at it. (And yes, I injected some Cullen/Trevalyan into the side lines, because that is my current playthrough and I sort of love it like fire).

Goals: To instill a little more personality into the Fade, and horror into the realm of a powerful demon known as The Nightmare.

Warnings: Spoilers for this quest, and some other aspects of DA: I. Also, this is a part of the Fade dominated by an ancient fear demon, so it will be a bit more dark (hopefully). Blood. Some swearing.

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

- Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil", 1886.

1. (I got a girl in the war, man, I wonder what it is we've done)

"Remember, Recruit, that battle is always chaos," the Knight-Lieutenant had told him once, years ago, "and the difference between victory and bloodbath is mostly in how well you impose order on that chaos." Fourteen-year old Knight-Recruit Cullen had been deeply impressed with this insight; thirty-year old Commander Cullen had since learned to value a little flexibility in his thinking.

Which was why he did not order Captain Rylan to march his platoon into the main courtyard of Adamant Fortress, though that had been a big part of his initial plan of attack. Adamant Fortress was as chaotic as it got - all around him, demons shrieked and snarled, soldiers in Inquisition colors shouted, bled, fell, and the clash of claw to metal was deafening. Only the Warden mages were eerily silent, throwing wave after wave of roaring monsters at Cullen's battle lines.

No, sticking to a rigid plan in this bloody mess would only get more of his people - of the Inquisition's forces - killed. So when the green glow of a Fade rift opened in the courtyard, Cullen threw back his head and bellowed across the seething mass of bodies, "Yusaris Company! Fall back to the western battlements! Yusaris to the west!"

A nearby lieutenant took up Cullen's cry, and then someone further down the line echoed it, until at last Cullen saw Rylan flash his shield in acknowledgment and his company retreated up the stairwells to the walls above on the western side of the fort.

Left, something huge and dark - Cullen dropped to one knee to duck the swipe of blood-slicked claws, then pushed himself swiftly to his feet, using the momentum of that push to slam his sword forward and up. The force drove his blade almost completely through the Shade that had tried to decapitate him. The creature shrieked and writhed, trying to rip itself from the blade, but Cullen leaned forward (careful, watch the swinging claws) and twisted. The thing screamed again, a horrible highpitched sound that reverberated through Cullen's skull and down his spine, but the cut was deep and tore the demon's connection to the waking world free. It arched it's lacerated spine back, and dissolved into wet, sickly green chunks at his feet.

The smell was hideous, but there was no time to dwell. Already Cullen could see more monsters coming through the Fade rift - he had not planned for a Fade rift, but plans didn't win battles, strategists did. "De Chevin, take Bloodletter Company to the eastern archway," he shouted, looking now to a nearby officer. "Shields on the lower levels, archers up top, draw the demons into the bottleneck and pick them off!"

"Commander!" The former chevalier managed a brief salute, black gore dripping from his own blade. Cullen had always thought the Orlesian accent sounded too cultured and soft for a battlefield, but there was nothing cultured about de Chevin's voice as he bellowed above the noise, "Bloodletter, to me! For honor! For glory! For the Inquisitor!" And there was nothing soft about the responding roar from the men and women of Bloodletter Company as they charged through the horde towards the east, screaming For the Inquisitor! as they scattered monsters and weirdly-silent Wardens in their wake.

Cullen's attention snapped back to his own position as ice spikes the size of his body suddenly exploded out of the ground to his right. Deftly, he side stepped and lashed out with his shield arm, shattering one of the spikes and sending razor-sharp shards of ice into the side of a flailing rage demon. The mage-ice melted instantly, doing little damage to the monster's fiery hide, but it was enough to distract it from raking its claws across a young soldier's face. The girl didn't hesitate to press her small advantage, and Cullen felt a small flare of pride as she lowered her head, raised her shield, and knocked the demon back - exactly as she'd been drilled.

But there was no time for commendations - "Wintersbreath Company, fall back and regroup, Stormbreak Company, to me!" Cullen shouted instead, raising his sword high and throwing the full power of his voice into the command. Wintersbreath had taken heavy loses and needed to regroup; Stormbreak was the most spread out of his platoons but the had the largest compliment of shield-bearers. He was going to need them. "Reform the line!" he yelled, and the remaning officers of Stormbreak echoed the command even as yet another wave of terror demons launched themselves at the bulk of Cullen's troops. Cullen grit his teeth and braced his shield. "Dual lines," he ordered, "Mirror shields!" Instantly, half of his shield warriors turned and slammed their backs against the other half, guarding both forward and back in a relatively neat line. Not a moment too soon, either, as at least three - no, four - of the Terrors erupted from the cobblestones behind Stormbreak's line.

"Glyphs!" Cullen ordered, bracing his back against a Lieutenant (Carson or Allina? No time to look, didn't matter, human, friendly, trained) and sliced the reaching claw of a Terror before it could grab one of his soldiers. Immediately, Stormbreak's mages threw out their hands from in between the on-guard warriors and brightly glowing fire and ice glyphs sprang into life in front of the raised shields, lined up in interconnecting patterns. Order in the chaos, Cullen thought briefly before his attention sharpened again.

"Holding pattern!" Cullen called. "We must keep the demons boxed in!"

And that was the key, wasn't it? Cullen remembered all too vividly the lessons he had learned at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, when the sky had ripped open and he had spent three days trying to contain the hordes of demons that had literally come raining down in the little valley below the destroyed mountaintop. He'd learned, for example, that imposing order on chaos started with keeping all the chaos from spreading in the first place.

"We need the Inquisitor!" someone nearby yelled desperately, "They'll never stop!"

Cullen opened his mouth to shout something back, later he would never be able to remember what, but from the opposite side someone else screamed, "Up there! She's up there! With the archdemon!"

Cullen's stomach gave a swift, sick twist. Against his own screaming instincts, he turned his head to look (he had to know she was still alive, had to know) and saw the vicious, hulking figure of the corrupted dragon stalking across a crumbling bridge. Several figures were backing away as it closed in, and he recognized the flash of silverite in Cassandra's shield, the blaze of Dorian's staff, and oh, Maker, the faint green glow of Jenna Trevalyan's marked hand as she held it out before her, as if warning the monstrous dragon off.

Something slammed into Cullen's shield, and he turned long enough to slam back, knocking the rage demon away. He stepped forward, blade raised to follow through and strike down the demon, but from the corner of his eye he saw lightening flash, and then a deafening crash as the bridge exploded into splintered stone and freefalling shapes, plunging into the gaping darkness below - no. No.

"The bridge, the Inquisitor!" Someone screamed in his ear, in his heart, and then a flash of green and - "They're gone!"

Gone, she was gone, all of them gone, the falling bridge and tumbling bodies and maybe the last shreds of Cullen's heart too because there was nothing in the torchlit night but screams and the smell of blood.

His blade faltered, and he almost didn't hear the sudden cry of "Commander, look out!" before the rage demon's burning claws raked across his cheek, and then all Cullen saw was fire.

(Extremely Dorky Additional Note: the Companies are named for weapons: 'Yusaris = greatsword from DAO, Bloodletter = dagger from DA2, Winterbreath = shield and Stormbreak = staff from DAI)