Dragon Age: The Hereafter

Chapter One: The Rift

Blood streamed through the streets of Kirkwall, silent and unseen in the foggy night. It sank into the cracks of stone stairs, seeping through the slits. It snaked along the tiles, flowing between buildings. A ribbon of red ran from Darktown to Lowtown like a rampant river, its movements in accordance with the hands of a mage. Dark flares emanated from the opened cuts in his arms, and pain pressed upon him like hot irons on his back. The pressure blurred his vision as he traversed the darkened maze of the city-state. But as long as the blood flowed, the path was clear. With clouded eyes and shaken nerves, the mage walked a clear path. The blood gave direction. It gave purpose.

The clacks of hurried steps behind him rung in his ears and made his veins pulsate with panic. There were three men and one woman following him. The woman marched alongside the blood mage and the ground quaked around her. She shot the mage a dark and judgmental glare. Wanting to charge ahead but knowing she'd be lost his magic, she gave him a look to let him know he was being watched carefully. He gulped and swiped the sweat from his forehead. He knew that she was leading, that she was in control. He was only making a path for her and her companions. The other three men-another mage, a strange looking elf, and a priest, of all things-were following her, not him.

The blood ritual spread its dripping trail into the ends of Lowtown, where a desolate foundry building overlooked a fogged glass sea.

"I think this is it," said the blood mage as he ran ahead of the group to reach the door first.

"The killer is in that building?" said the woman in armor. Stress tinged her normally steady voice, as though she were trying to keep her footing on a ship being swallowed by a storm. "With my mother?"

"It should be, but... blast it."

"What? What is it?"

The blood mage waved his hands over the door and hissed in annoyance. "I suppose it was too much to hope he would get sloppy in his rush. He sealed the door."

"Then stand back," the woman announced, assuming a combative stance. "I'll break it down."

"No," he cried. "He sealed it with magic. I can undo it, just give me a moment."

"We don't have a...!" The armored woman stopped herself, lips clamped. She steadied herself with a rattling exhale and reduced her voice to a wisp. "Please, just do it quickly."

While the blood mage busied himself with the door, the three men watched their leader. She closed her fists and kept them to her sides. She kept her head down with uneasy breaths sliding through the tiny space between her lips. Her body was stiff and unmoving. In full clad armor, she looked like a statue, yet the twitches of her mouth and eyes made it seem like she would crack and crumble at any moment. The men exchanged tense, uncomfortable glances with one another, until one of them spoke.

"Hawke, please," It was the priest, a man in blinding white armor with gilded lining. He broke away from the other two men and walked next to the her. The blood mage shuddered at his indignant tone; prideful righteousness wrapped in the rolls of his words. "Please don't do this. You must know this is wrong. You're better than this."

"It's already done," the woman replied. She did not look at him, her eyes were fixed on the ground. "You've already made your argument, I've already decided to ignore it. We're already here, Sebastian, he's already completed the ritual."

"But it's not too late. We can still walk away from this and rescue your mother without resorting to blood magic. That templar, Ser Moira..."

"Is in the Gallows, a good two hours trip. We're here right now, and you want me to just walk away?" Hawke's fists began to shake. Uneasy breaths wormed into her words, threading every sentence with her rising panic. "What's wrong with you? Don't you understand? My mother is the prisoner of a killer as we speak. I have no idea what he might be doing to her. I don't like this. I'm not happy to do this. But this is the only way."

"No, it's not. You've always found a way before. You must know, if you deal with this maleficarum, there will be dire consequences. It may very well be your mother that pays the price."

"I'll worry about the ethical ramifications later. When my mother is safe. Gascard," she turned to growl at the blood mage. "Is that seal undone yet?"

"Nearly there," he replied. The dryness of his words made Hawke scowl.

"Damn it. Damn it, damn it..."

"Hawke, I'm begging you," Sebastian persisted, though trembling hands and shaking voice slowly whittled at his proud tone. "You will regret this."

"Enough," inserted the elven man with snowy hair and markings etched along his lanky limbs. His voice was harsh and heavy. "It's as Hawke said, the deed is already done."

"How can you say that, Fenris?" said Sebastian, eyes wide. "How are you not trying to stop her too? You know the evils of blood magic better than anyone. And you," he shot his focus at the apostate, a man with feathered cloak and thin, sullen face. "Is this not what you detest most of other mages, Anders? Is this not what you're trying to combat? How am I the only one trying to make Hawke see reason?"

"It's not a matter of reason," said Anders. "We don't like this anymore than you do, and I don't think Hawke likes it either. But this is... a difficult situation."

"She has made her decision, Sebastian," said Fenris. "I do not trust this is the right measure to take, and I do not trust that man or what he's doing. But I do trust Hawke and that she will deal with it."

"Any moment now," said Gascard with a shrug, to distance himself from the uncomfortable conversation.

Sebastian swallowed and backed away from Hawke to steady his composure and prepare for one last plea. He took Hawke's hands in his own, and it compelled her to look directly at him. He countered her with begging eyes of a shade of blue that burned through the dreary night mist. "I don't want you to do this. Not just because it's wrong, not even because of the consequence, but because... you will get hurt, and I don't want that to happen. Not ever. I care about you. If something were to happen to you, I couldn't... Please, Judith..."

Hawke was silent and still for a moment, the priest's impassioned words and pained expression stilled her quaking anger. She allowed herself to feel that way for a moment before sharpening her gaze and wriggling out of his gentle hold. "Do not 'Judith' me. You don't care about me or my mother."

"Of course I do! I..."

"No, you don't. You only care about being right. Like a good, priestly man should be. Well, I'm sorry I can't be that all the time. Follow every rule just so for every waking hour of my life. We don't live in a world where you can live and judge by such antiquated rules. I've been trying to show you that for a long time, but you don't want to see. If it were Grand Cleric Elthina that he had kidnapped, would you be holding back? Would you want me stopping you from rescuing her?"

The priest flinched, the mention of his mentor clogged his throat. "That, that's not fair, Hawke. We have no reason to trust this man. We saw proof of his foul magic, and you still went along with it, Maker knows why. You even saw the way he treated that poor woman, Alessa. I've never seen you act so irrationally. You know better. This isn't like you at all."

"How dare you look down on me like that, like I'm some foolhardy child. Gascard is the only one who knew anything of the killer. He was, had always been, my best chance at finding him. The guards didn't care, the Templars couldn't be bothered, the only one that tried was ignored and now he's dead. You said yourself this was a worthy cause. Has it stopped being so because it hasn't gone your way? Why don't you just say it, Sebastian? You'd rather risk my mother dying than risk dirtying your hands."

"I never said anything like that."

"You didn't need to." There was a finality in her voice that stilled the night winds and made the earth shake. There was a rumble rooted in her throat like shuddering thunder before the lightning strike. Even Gascard felt the resonance of her anger in the distance, a violent shiver up his spine as he worked. Anders tensed up and Fenris looked away. Sebastian gulped. In that moment, he wished Hawke were the sort to lose her temper more easily; screaming and yelling would have been easier to handle. He had never seen her so angry, and it was for all the wrong reason.s "You disagreed with a lot of what I've done and not once have you had the courage to say it to my face. Make your broad claims and hand-waves as much as you like, it makes no difference. I am doing this. And I will deal with what comes."

"It's open," said Gascard, foundry door flying open before him.

Hawke's ears perked at the creak of the door. She watched the blood mage hurry inside, her two other companions after. She turned to walk away when she snapped back, a stony glare at the priest.

"If you won't help me," she snarled, "now when I really need you, then leave. Run back to the Chantry, throw yourself into Elthina's arms. Never make a hard decision for the rest of your life."

She did not wait for him to react. With the last boiling word steaming off her lips, she headed for the foundry.

His meager, "Please don't leave me," was left unanswered.

Sebastian remained, helpless as he watched his companions follow the blood mage into the decrepit building. He stared into the open door, pondering its unknown horrors, fighting the sudden heaviness in his hands and feet. The night was still, winds halted, bitter cold frosted his trembling lips.

"Let's hope we find more than a sack of bones," he heard Anders say. His words were followed by the disapproving growl of Fenris.

"My spell indicates Alessa is here somewhere," said Gascard, distance muffling his voice. "We're in the right place."

"More blood," said Hawke, her voice crumbling bit by bit. "They're in here, somewhere."

Their rushed footsteps traveled further away from him, until all he could hear were faint walks and whispers in the night. He swallowed hard. His thick brow furrowed and protruding nose crinkled against the cold grip of falling night.

His friends had wandered into a killer's den, and he watched them do it. They chose to follow the guidance of a blood mage over his own. If a priest could not sway people to walk from such clear danger, how could he ever hope to do the Maker's work? Yet there was also injustice in this lair. An innocent woman in the clutches of a dangerous killer. Worse yet, it was Hawke's mother; a woman he knew, a woman he saw in the Chantry often. A woman who did not deserve such cruelty. No woman deserved this. It was a trail of vial magic that led them here, but would abandoning the trail and leaving Leandra's fate to chance be any less cruel? Would being right give him any comfort if something happened to Hawke?

Sebastian clasped his hands together and muttered the Chant under his breath. He shut his eyes tight, sealed off his sense from the rest of the world. He flipped through pages of memory and traced along the words he searched for. The verse passed through him as easily as breathing.

"Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost."

When his senses returned and he found himself back into the harsh world of the living, he drew new breath and huffed up his chest. "I have to do this," he said sternly to himself. "For her." He pooled his strength into one heel and pressed it against the ground. He curled his foot until his toes hit and he reached a step towards the entrance. Then he did it again and again until one foot was in the opening, then the other. He soon gathered enough momentum and was through the door.

Inside the old building he found no one. Just rattling wooden paneling, crusted metal rails, and a dust-ridden floor. His heart thumped with a force that shook his whole body.

"Looks like your killer might be under the foundry," said Fenris, his voice coming from the lower level. The sudden sound of another made Sebastian hop in his skin, and he forced himself through the fear and down the stairs.

"This wasn't here before," he heard Hawke say from the other side of the wall.

"There's a whole network of tunnels, ins-and-outs, within and underneath Kirkwall," said Anders, "maybe the killer never stayed in one place and recently moved here?"

When Sebastian caught up with the group, he found Hawke ripping a small wooden panel off the floor, revealing a new passageway. "Mother must be down there. With him. Be on your guard, there is something very sinister beneath us."

"Wait," the priest gasped. He hunched down, hands on his thighs, puffs of bitter air bursting from his shaken lungs. The others gave little notice to his awkward return. Seeing Hawke halfway through the opening, Sebastian straightened his spine and forced out a meager, "I... I just..."

"It's fine," said Hawke as she leapt through the passage. Fenris inserted himself to the front so that he was not far behind Hawke in the descent. Gascard the blood mage went down the passage next, then Anders. Watching them go, Sebastian gulped in a ball of air and pushed it down his throat, so that it might loosen the knots and coils in his gut. "O Maker, hear my cry: guide me through the blackest nights. Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked..." When he released it, he followed.

The narrow stairs opened wide to a dank and dirty cellar, rotted furniture tossed about and a winding hall across the way. The thud of Hawke's armored feet against the floor summoned clouds of long-rested dust that stirred in the air.

By the time Sebastian reached the bottom floor with the others, Hawke was raising her sword from her baldric. His fingers brushed the arc of his bow. As he reached for an arrow, gobs of ooze and fire rose from the storm of smoke and crack of flames. As he lined a shot, the demons pulled themselves from under the earth with twisted, twitching fingers. Their bodies were lumps of grey meat strewn together by strings of black nerves and tattered cloths. Their deep, booming moans shook the foundry walls as they swept in on clouds of dust, floating towards their leader.

Hawke stood in the center of the room. The creatures of the Fade encircled her; the shades groaned, and the demons cackled. A ring of fog and fire formed around her. Demonic powers took form in hazy, clouding gray. It spread through the room and made the men cough and wheeze, but Hawke was steady in her breathing and movements as the monsters drew closer to her.

She closed her eyes, took the handle of her sword, and plunged it into the ground. A surge of energy streamed up the blade and across her chest. She opened her eyes, her brown irises soaked in white. She exhaled, and light exuded her body. Her mortal shell became a flash-grenade of piercing rays. Ribbons of light cut through the murky dark as clear as any sword. They sliced at the sides of the demons, turned their moans into hollers, and blasted the smaller, weaker shades into a fine powder.

Hawke's smiting light faded, quick as it had come. The creatures that remained were stunned, teetering in a daze. Anders drew glyphs with a wave of his staff. Like fishnets, the patterns of glowing magic trapped the lesser demons where they stood, leaving them open for Fenris's hammer and Sebastian's arrows.

As the shades fell, a demon-a being of blubbering boils and liquid fire-gave a gargling roar. It thrashed its arms and spilled embers across the cellar. Hawke angled her sword as she charged in. She ducked the demon's attack, rushed in, and cut through the blob of a body. Steam screamed against her steel as she drove it deep inside the demon until it erupted into ash. Every fire extinguished at once with its demise, the soot sank into the ground.

"It would seem the killer is also a mage," said Fenris, shooting Gascard a blazing glare of green as he tightened the grip on his hammer. "You were aware of this, I assume."

"Y-yes," the blood mage gulped, "the man who killed my sister and has Hawke's mother is a mage, and a powerful one. That's why I had to turn to blood magic. It was the only way I could ever hope to take him. I did tell you to be ready for a fight on the way here, did I not?"

"And you should prepare for another when this is over."

"Fenris," said Hawke, "now is not the time."

"You." Gascard turned to Hawke, the very look of her stiff, stony visage making him shiver. "You have Templar abilities."

"I had exposure to lyrium when I was young, and some informal training." Hawke did not bother to look at him as she spoke matter-of-factly. She was walking towards the hall when her eyes flashed with shock. "Mother!" she cried, dashing to the side of the room, to an old canopy. Within there was a woman with short platinum blonde hair, lying on her side. Hawke grabbed the woman's shoulder and turned her over to behold a young but lifeless face. "Alessa..." she said backing away from the corpse of a woman she barely knew.

Anders shuddered. "Hawke, that woman doesn't look anything like your mother. Why would you...?"

"The killer must have gotten to her before she could reach the guards. Damn it, this didn't need to happen. I could have, I should have..."

"Hawke?" said Anders.

"Let's keep going. Hurry, we've wasted enough time."

The priest caught a glimpse of Alessa before the group left the room. The corpse was without feet, cut clean from her ankles. "Oh Maker," he said under his breath, making a quick gesture in prayer as he walked. "Guide that poor woman's soul to your side... but what is happening in this vile place?"

He noticed Fenris keeping close to Hawke as she hurried. Even as they carved their way out of a room filled with walking dead-a collection of rotted bones with blackened muscle between the joints-he was careful not to stray too far from her side. Or perhaps, the priest thought, careful to keep the other men at a distance.

Sebastian stayed in the rear as they walked. Through another hall, passed another corner. The deeper they went, the closer the walls inched to them. Scrapings of wood peeled away, splatters of dried blood and bile cracked in the corners. "Maker's breath, that smell," Hawke coughed. He could hear the dread in her voice, slowly swallowing her resolve like a serpent devouring its prey.

Hawke made a sudden stop, then rushed to a nearby glint in a pile of rubble. She tossed aside rocks and clumps of dirt to fish out a pale silver necklace, the shine of it suggesting it had been in good care until recently. "I know this locket. This belongs to Mother." The chain clinked as she jammed it in her pouch and continued, muttering, "Blessed Andraste... please, please don't take her from me, too."

Anders shrugged, mumbling, "She's losing her composure. Scary to see her like this."

Though it seemed like the mage was talking more to himself, Sebastian agreed with him, which was a rare thing. Ever since he had known her, Hawke had always been a steadfast woman, as firm in her temperament as in her sense of duty. He searched through memories of her, as many as he could while focused on the task at hand. They had crossed paths several times over the past few years, while he was struggling in retaking Starkhaven. They had not been anything resembling friends until a year ago, but a lot had happened since then.

In those past few months, he found himself constantly at her side. To the point where standing beside her was as natural-as easy and welcome-as the flex of his fingers against a bowstring, or breathing in incense and peace in the Chantry halls. But the space between them was now cold, and growing. Fenris had been her friend much longer; clearly he knew what he was doing when he wedged himself between Hawke and the other men. Sebastian could only watch them go further away, and trail at the ends of her shadow.

He watched her run down the stairs and rip through another gathering of corpses like their bones were made of paper. He watched her warm olive tones flush from her face with gritted teeth. He watched fear and fury take over. He watched the woman he had come to idolize disappear.

The archer had fired a single arrow into a hollow skull before the fight was done. When the dust settled, the group realized they were in a makeshift bedroom. Ratted, worn out, mismatched household items splayed on the basement floor.

"Is he living here?" asked Hawke, examining the moldy bedspread of hole-strewn sheets.

The two mages walked towards the shelves. Of all the objects within the space, the books packed inside were in the best condition.

"This is quite a collection," Anders said frankly as he picked one at random and flipped through it pages, then another. "Blood magic, necromancy. Where did he get all these?" The more Anders looked, the more compelled he was to dig through each shelf. He reached for more, studying every scribble he could fit in his arms. "Where did he get all these?"

"Why would he have these?" said Hawke. "What's he planning?"

She began to walk away from the mess when a glance pulled her back in. The four men followed her, old papers crunching under their feet. Beside a mess of crumbled notes and warped wooden chairs, there was a chest that acted as a pedestal for a portrait. It was the single clean and cared for object in the room, petals of fresh white lillies brushed tenderly against the carved frame. The streaks of paint were precise. Drops of oil swirled lovingly on the canvas to make warm brown skin and jet black hair; a noble and winsome visage with full lips, a broad nose, and high cheekbones.

"The woman in the painting," Hawke gasped, "she, she almost looks just like mother."

"A shrine dedicated to a wife?" said Anders. "A sister?"

Hawke chomped down on her trembling lip, and marched away from the shrine. "I need to find her. Now."