CantankerousOgre does not own Mass Effect or any other licensed material. No copyright infringement is intended.
Oh, and Happy Holidays.
Ron was at a loss… Literally and figuratively.
He stood there, perplexed and confused by his sudden circumstance. Not only was he in a place that he should never have to see, but he was also notably missing a few key characteristics of living people. Namely, he didn't have a body, nor did he have a mouth with which to gape in horror.
"What is this?" he thought as he wandered about the area he was in, unable to make any sense of it. There were jagged shapes, towering statues that made no sense, barren landscapes, and random pieces of architecture would occasionally show up. Nothing of it, however, seemed familiar to our hero as he drifted about.
"Where am I?"
"You're in the Fade, of course," a sultry voice startled the wisped boy, causing him to spiral out of control and crash into the nearest demented statue. His vision blurred, but he felt no pain. It was a strange sensation, making Ron feel the need to wretch even though he lacked the ability.
"Oh, goodness…" the voice that had startled him muttered, likely having seen all of Ron's failed maneuvering.
Once he managed to recenter himself, Ron spun what was left of himself around and faced his company. What he saw managed to not only horrify him, but also it caused him to once again lose control of his form and start spazzing around the scape.
"You!" Wisp Ron shouted as he struggled to keep himself from flying off to the four winds. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I think I have every right to be here!" the visitor looked at the hapless wisp with an insulted look on her face. She was a pale young woman with black hair, yellow eyes, and a dark visage. This identified her in Ron's eyes as Morrigan, a fictional character from a game he had played at some time in the past.
"Well… Fine!" Ron blurted, finally managing to keep still. "But what am I doing here?"
"Well," Morrigan looked at him as if he were the stupidest thing every to cross her path, which was funny because she had probably already met Alistair. "As with most that enter the Fade, I'd assume it would be because you're dead."
"DEAD?" Ron exclaimed before, once again, spiraling around the landscape in a panic-induced frenzy. This one was quickly cut short, however, as Morrigan pulled out her rod and placed right into the wisp's path. This stopped the more erratic movements, but Ron was far from able to properly control his movements.
After a few seconds of stumbling dizzily through the air without any aim, Ron finally looked over to Morrigan. However, in the time it had taken him to regain what little sense he had left, the witch had walked off. She couldn't have gotten far, he thought to himself before gliding down the trail that she had most likely taken.
The Fade was, as its bizarre and desolate appearance might suggest, a place of oddity for one whom had never studied it in detail before. Such was the position of Ron, who's only experience with the Fade was through a television screen. He knew the basics. It was where people in the game Dragon Age went when they died, some other things about spirits and demons, but the finer details were beyond his mind. Thus, when he saw Morrigan disappear into a portal up ahead of him, Ron believed that he would be right on her heels if he darted through after her.
He was wrong.
"Where the hell am I now?" Ron whined as he came out into a large sanctum of sorts. It really looked more like a strip mine. There were, after all, large crystals sticking from the ground all over.
"You are in my lair, young one," a large and deep voice came seemingly out of nowhere, once again causing Ron's wisp form to lose control and start flailing about.
"Who are you?" Ron called out, not knowing what else to do as he watched the area around him sway like a pendulum. It was really just an illusion caused by his own swaying, but it gave him vertigo all the same.
"That is not important," the voice claimed as Ron twisted his view back and forth in attempt to find whoever was talking. There was nobody there, though. In fact, aside from Ron and the lyrium crystals, there wasn't anything in the pit at all. Even the portal that had brought him there was gone, it seemed.
"What is important is that there is supposed to be another," the voice noted. "Did you see her by any chance?"
"I saw… someone," Ron attempted to recall his meeting with Morrigan. It had been so quick and shocking that he was unsure if it had even happened at all.
"Then that should be her," said the voice in a relieved tone. This managed to soothe Ron for just a moment, the end of that moment being when he remembered that Morrigan wasn't supposed to be real and that he was dead. This, in turn, caused his form to resume flailing.
"Your lack of motor control comes with your heightened emotional state," the voice told Ron as he started to bounce around the pit in fear of everything that was happening. "If you simply calm down, then you will be able to sit still."
"Calm down?" Ron repeated the phrase in an interrogative form, his emotional state only getting worse. "CALM DOWN? I'm dead! I think I have every right to be panicked and flailing!"
"Suit yourself, then…" the voice just shrugged Ron's superfluous movement off. It didn't seem to care what Ron did, so long as he didn't attempt to actually do anything.
Then, as if to move along the proceedings, a bright flash appeared before Ron's vision. Before he could think to alter his path, he flew into the center of it.
"Ow!" the voice of Morrigan grunted as the wisp impacted her shoulder. As Ron tried to regain his senses, the witch brought up her rod and petulantly whapped him with it. The wisp plunked onto the, thus allowing the voice to get on with what it had wanted to say.
"Ah, so you have arrived," it told Morrigan, whom appeared to be awfully not amused by her surroundings.
"Are you the demon inhabiting the boy, Connor?" the witch of seemingly perpetual aggravation asked as she checked the crater for any sign of a demon.
"Ah…" the voice's tone turned remarkably dour at the mention of Morrigan's mission. "I apologize, but something traumatic is about to occur."
"What?" Morrigan asked, having fully understood the voice's meaning. Then, without further warning, the witch suddenly pitched over. Her body became outlined with a peculiar light.
"Now you're dead, too!" Ron shouted, wanting to get a word in edgewise in some attempt at revenge.
"I… noticed…" Morrigan said slowly as she stood back up. Her face was a myriad of emotions, including shock, hurt, and remorse. It all evolved almost immediately into anger, however, and the witch started glaring up at the Fade's dank sky.
"What have you done, demon?"
"Absolutely nothing," the voice replied in an unoffended tone. "What happened was a squabble back in your waking world. Some Templars believed that you were taking too long, and... Well, you're allies weren't fast enough."
"I… I don't believe it!" the witch's soul shouted at nothing, growing more cross by the second. "You're simply deceiving me, like any demon would."
"I am no demon," claimed the voice, which Ron thought was coming more so from the ground than the sky. "I am simply an agent, and I shall be using the two of you as my tools."
"W-What?" Ron stuttered at the phantom's claim.
"How absurd! An agent of whom?" was Morrigan's less-than-enthusiastic reply.
"It is not for me to say," the agent said as something suddenly started to appear in the center of the crater before the two lost souls. Within seconds, the two were confronted by an imposingly tall figure that appeared to be nothing more than a blob of shadow.
"All that is to be said is that the two of you are to implement in one of the Maker's plans."
This caused Ron's mind to a complete barrel roll. The Maker, he thought, was what they called the deity of Dragon Age's world. Was all of that real? Or was he simply having some wild delusions? No matter what, he certainly wished that he could be less scared. Then he'd be able to protest what was going on.
"I'm not interested in your Maker's plans or whatever it is you want me to do," Morrigan waved the whole things off as if it were just another bother in her time. "Just send me on to the afterlife and leave me be."
"Then, alas, my dead, for this is your afterlife," the agent stated glibly. "Souls who turned away from the Maker are doomed to wander the Fade forever."
"I don't want to wander the Fade forever!" Ron cried out the instant this was brought up to him, his form starting to spaz around again.
"Suck up…" Morrigan grumbled at the wisp's seeming desperation.
"Have no fear, young one, for you shall be granted access to the afterlife no matter what path you take," the agent informed the wisp, thus finally calming him somewhat. "Your world was never informed of the Maker's existence, and thus cannot be denied without first seeing what you've missed for yourself.
"However," the agent interjected before Ron could ask a question that was no doubt forming in his wispy little head. "If you take the path to the afterlife, there is no going back, and my offer will not stand. You can meet your Maker… or you can do something much greater with your life."
These words started a tumultuous thought process within Ron. On one side, he had a pretty much sealed deal into whatever the closest thing to Heaven was. On the other hand, he had an opportunity to get a second crack at life and do "something greater". One was an easy path to paradise, while the other was likely to be filled with hardship and strife. One was eternal happiness, and the other was god-knows-what. Ron had never really been afraid of the unknown—though recent development were showing how well he could cope with startling revelations. Still, it was a conflicting choice, to say the least.
"I'm afraid that time is of the essence," the agent remarked, bringing Ron's attention back to the shadowy mass. "A quick decision is the best."
If Ron still had a bottom lip, he'd have bitten it out of nervousness.
"I'll take the 'something great' choice," the disembodied soul of Ron determined, much to Morrigan's distaste.
"And I am glad to have you," the agent accepted Ron, its highest point actually making some sort of bowing maneuver.
"Well, I think you're an idiot," Morrigan finally thought of the proper sentence to show her displeasure. "You're making a deal with a demon!"
"No I'm not!" Ron shot back. "Demons are more towards playing at our wants and sins. This guy's just asking us if we want to do something better with ourselves."
"And what if I'm perfectly fine with what I've already done with my time?" the stubborn witch of the wilds requested of the wisp, believing it to be a question that would cause him to back off.
"Oh, please," Ron scoffed. "Look at you! You're a fine young woman and I'm sure that you don't want your legacy to be whittled down to 'the apostate mage who got killed by some jumpy Templars because they couldn't hold their blades long enough for you to kill a demon'?"
"Well…" Morrigan took in Ron's question with uncertainty. Then, after a few moments of the witch looking confused, her head popped up with a look of confusion. "Wait. How do you know that I was an apostate?"
"Give me a break. If you came out of the Circle Tower, then I'm the first born daughter of the King of Orzammar."
"…That's not even funny."
"Shut up. I'm too distraught to think of a proper sarcastic saying."
"If you two are done, then we need to get on with this," the agent finally decided to break up the two dead souls' squabble. "There is still much to do, and time continues to tick on while you argue over trivial things."
"Sorry…" Ron apologized, backing away from both the agent and Morrigan.
"This is something of a second chance, then," Morrigan asked a key question to the agent, whom only nodded at the question. "Fine, then. I'll do as you ask, if only because I have nothing better to do with my time anymore."
"Very well, but, before we get started…" the mass addressed Ron. "There is the matter of your body."
This was the first time since his initial arrival in the Fade that Ron had thought about his form. It was true. He was little more than a tiny cloud of astral mist.
"I suppose I'll need it back if I'm to do whatever it is that I'm getting into."
"Correct, but it is not so simple," the agent spoke gravely, instilling a touch of worry into Ron.
"How so?"
"The reason your form was not carried over into the Fade is due to your world's lack of connection to it. You are a foreign object, little more than a soul that carries static," the agent told Ron. "However, it seems that there is no connection left to your physical body. It was… destroyed in whatever caused your untimely death."
Ron was crestfallen at this—or he would be if he had a crest to let fall. He was unsure of what it meant, but it still brought a conclusion to him: if this was real, then he really was dead. There was no going back. This frightened him, and his wisp form started to once again lose control of its motion.
"However, do know that I will be able to bring about a substitute vessel for you," the agent said quickly, hoping to alleviate Ron's growing fear.
"Well… I guess I have nothing to worry about, then," Ron concluded, calming down.
"I wouldn't say that just yet," Morrigan chastised the wisp for making an assumption. She was still distrustful of the agent, in spite of what it was offering her. Her mind was still heavily conflicted by this. This was going against everything she had expected from death, no matter how untimely and sudden hers had been.
"Yes, well… Let's get started. Shall we?" the agent accepted this as the end of the deliberations. It was time for him to do what he had come to do.
"Let's go!" Ron shouted, trying to pump himself up.
"I just know that I'm going to regret this…" was all Morrigan could manage.
Then, in a flash, everything changed.
Two bodies hit the ground with heavy thuds. It took a moment, but Morrigan eventually managed to pry herself up from the grass and shake the dizziness out of her head. She turned herself onto her back, hoping to get some fresh air.
But peace was not to be.
"OH MY GOD!"
==MASS INSANITY==
Okay, I know that there's a lot of Dragon Age, but there won't be anything more than this chapter and maybe a few more characters. The core of the story will still be Mass Effect.
Next chapter, things will heat up. We'll see some action, some explosions, and a lot more use of my pointlessly large (though oddly still limited) vocabulary.
By the way, if you're planning on reviewing, then I thank you.
Hasta luego~