9:23 - 9:34 Dragon

Chapter 1
The Apostate

Jack Overland had made several misjudgements in his life. It could even be said that his life so far was rife with them. But everything following the blooming of his magical talent seemed to have been nothing but one bad decision after another.

Jack was born in the alienage of the city of Tantervale, by the Minanter River in the Free Marches. Jack was born an elf, and that was one of the few things in his life he's never had misconceptions about. To the main population of his home city, Jack would always be meaningless, invisible. That is, when he wasn't faced with shemlen prejudices, which led to treatment tinged with distrust or downright hate for the species he was born.

Truly, Jack had grown up in an environment that had tried to stomp any spirit out of him, that tried to make him believe himself not worth attention. But Jack had always had enough spirit to spare. Enough spirit to get him into all sorts of trouble, Jack's mother would say. Even if so, Jack had found it within himself to find the things in life worth enjoying, and always tried to do the same for the other children in the alienage.

That was when Jack had found out he had magic in him. Through his early years of life, Jack had always fought to find joy in his average life among average people while being average himself. The discovery of his magic had showed Jack just how mistaken he had been about his very self, how very much not average he was.

The first signs of magic in Jack came out during winter games in the alienage. He'd been playing in the thin layer of snow with the other elven children and hoped for some proper snow, like during winter. And then the amount of snow had increased like magic.

Summoning cold, snow and ice was the first magic Jack learned, but not the last. Still, as a child who'd barely heard of mages before, leave alone seeing one (there was no Circle of the Magi in Tantervale), Jack hadn't been able to grasp the depths of his power. So Jack had thought ice magic was his unique power and that he couldn't do more. That was a misconception that would be corrected a couple of years down the line.

Another misjudgement Jack made was thinking himself invincible thanks to his magic. A yet another one was thinking that because he was so beneath the shems' notice, they would be the least of his worries when it came to practising his magic in the safety of the alienage. As it is with misjudgements, both of Jack's assumptions turned out wrong when one day a group of templars marched right into the alienage, looking for Jack, alerted by some shem who'd perhaps been a bit too interested in a group of children playing on a hot summer afternoon.

Maybe Jack had made a mistake using his ice powers in the summer. But, really, the shemlen had never noticed him before and he knew his elven kin wouldn't turn him in to a human organization. But simply because Jack had not considered it a possibility didn't stop the templars from finding out that there was a mage in the Tantervale alienage.

There was really nothing that could have been done. Jack's family had protested, his sister's voice being the loudest, but they'd been forced into silence with the reminder that the city guard would be there in moments if a fight broke out, even if the three templars were outnumbered in the alienage. Besides, one of the templars had spoken in a manner that was probably meant to sound reassuring, Jack would be comfortable in the Circle in Starkhaven; it was a much better place for a child mage than Kirkwall.

Jack's family had cried when they'd said their goodbyes. Jack had felt like crying too, but his eyes didn't do more than grow moist. The boy had forced a calm upon himself the moment he'd realized what the flaming sword symbol on the men's armor meant. He wouldn't bring his family trouble from the Chantry or its watchdogs. How the detachment from his surging feelings had surprised Jack, and the boy wondered if perhaps his power over cold could temporarily freeze his heart like he'd frozen the ground for the other children to skate on only a day before.

The templars were intimidating in their heavy armor, but they seemed kind enough under it. They'd asked Jack if there was anything he wanted to take along before they left and not one of them treated Jack roughly when they guided him out of the alienage and the city.

That day was the first time Jack had ever seen a templar up close. The three templars were all wearing heavy, concealing armor and their helmets hid their faces from sight. Jack had been a naïve child then, and when he had seen the three templars moving in unison, built similarly and wearing matching armor Jack had thought that templars were some sort of built constructs that were all the same. Needless to say, Jack had learned how wrong he was about that assumption the very same evening when the templars and Jack had stopped to rest and the armored warriors had taken their helmets off to reveal very different faces.

Jack would learn a great deal about templars on his journey to the Circle of Magi in Starkhaven, and even more once he got there. When Jack had noticed the softness in the templars' personalities, he'd entertained some thoughts about escaping, maybe even running back home to his family, even if only to stay goodbye properly before he vanished into the wilderness. However, the first thing Jack learned after the fact that templars were individuals was that templars were also very disciplined, always having someone on watch during the times they stopped for rest on the long journey from Tantervale to Starkhaven. There would be no chances of escape on that trip.

At the Starkhaven Circle, once the long journey, shortened greatly by them travelling part of the way by river, was over, Jack learned more. He learned that while the templars who were sent to ease the transition of becoming mages for children might have had soft and cushy centers, the templars at the Circle were often hardened and as cold as the whitest ice Jack could conjure. The Circle templars were stifling and the years Jack spent as an apprentice at the Circle were mostly unpleasant due to having to constantly avoid the individuals who were aggressive rather than the more easily handled detached wardens of the gilded cage.

Between the systematic denial of his personal freedom, worse than anything he'd encountered for being an elf back in Tantervale, and the harsh words and strict demands of his teachers, it was really no wonder that Jack wanted to get out. He had always been a free spirit, and would go to great lengths to make sure he stayed that way.

So he'd tried to escape. The first time he didn't get far (he didn't even make it out of the city) and got severely scolded by the enchanters for his trouble while the templars had restricted his freedom even further until Jack seemed reasonably cowed in their eyes. Jack had always been impulsive and had misjudged the resources the templars had at their disposal.

That was when Jack found out about the phylacteries. Apparently the templars could track Jack down wherever he ran as long as they had that container of his blood. Jack decided then that he'd stop misjudging his surroundings and studied diligently any and all spells that might help him not only escape the Circle for good, but help him obtain his phylactery as well.

Jack had briefly been the target of a lot of attention after his escape attempt. But the attempt had been so weak, and Jack's skills still so fresh, that Jack had faded back into the obscurity he'd had in the Circle before his romp through the city. No one paid the small youth (slight in frame even for an elf and easily overlooked) much mind as he read book after book in the library. His fellow mages thought he was simply trying to impress the enchanters, to escape his status as 'that one elven apprentice, I can't remember his name right now'. But Jack's goals were very different from those presumed.

It was Jack's turn to help others misjudge him. He had some literal help from the Hex of Misdirection, which helped him obtain the keys to the phylactery chamber along with some sleep spells and pick pocketing skills learned from one of the older boys in the alienage. Jack was good at moving silently, so sneaking his way to the vault was easy. Having the templar guard's mind slip into confusion for half an hour while Jack went in and out of the chamber was even easier.

Back then Jack hadn't thought much on the ease with which he pulled off his caper, sneaking past the befuddled guard and jumping out the nearest window and vanishing into the dark alleys of the city of Starkhaven. Of course Jack had wondered why more mages didn't seem to do what he'd done, but he'd been more focused on disappearing, on reaching the city limits and getting past the gates before the templars realized what had happened to give it more than a single thought.

Later on Jack would learn just why it had been so easy for him to escape, and why the templars would keep attempting to track him down despite the lack of a phylactery making the chase last first for months and then for years and there were certainly more dangerous mages out there than Jack. But that knowledge wouldn't come for years yet and Jack lived an oblivious life in the forests of Wildervale, enjoying his freedom and learning to live in his new home.

Jack found happiness in the wilderness. Oftentimes he missed his home but knew it too risky to return; sometimes he would even think on the Circle fondly, for there he hadn't been alone. But then another band of templars would muscle their way into the deep woods and Jack would remember just why he disliked civilization as he froze steel boots to the ground and made armor joints stiff with a layer of frost before vanishing again.

Jack had learned a great deal of magic at the Circle of Magi, but the magic of ice and cold had been the first kind Jack learned and it continued to be the kind most comfortable to Jack. Whenever he was in danger he would instinctually make the air colder and prepare to ice something over. Jack quickly learned the ways of the templars hunting him, however, and the chase became more a game than a danger and Jack found joy even in being chased and avoiding capture.

Once again the young elf would be proven wrong over his judgement of the situation, when one day the warrior who showed up wasn't a templar at all, but a member of a different order. That day Jack would find out the truth of his power, and would, for possibly the first time ever, yearn for complete anonymity.

To be continued...

Notes: In Dragon Age II, the Circle of Magi in Starkhaven was burned to the ground in 9:31 Dragon. Jack's escape from the Circle happens before this event, possibly in 9:27 Dragon.

Note on the elven: shem/shemlen is a term elves use when referring to humans.