Setting: The early part of Origins. The Archdemon has not been defeated, but Loghain's treachery has been exposed.
Clash of Worlds
1. Fallen Angel
Unnatural thunder rolled across the plain. Alistair Theirin felt a cold tendril of apprehension lace up his back, flickering and dancing along his spine. He slashed a final time at the bestial Hurlock he was fighting. Blood arced through the air, splattering against his faceplate and dripping in gory remnants from his armor.
He turned just as a great rolling wave of magic struck him. Blue like the lightning that should have preceded the ominous thundering roar, it boiled over and around him like a crashing tsunami.
For a terrifying instant, he was falling. Then the world was gone, no ground beneath his metal-clad feet, no sky above. The nothingness in which he found himself paralyzed him with abject terror. As if suspended, he hung in the midst of a great black nothing, until suddenly a brilliant vortex of light streamed into view, and sucked him in.
He screamed with inarticulate panic as he plunged with dizzying speed down a brilliant, glittering passage of pure magic. It flayed him, screaming across his nerves with vicious uncaring. He longed for the sweet oblivion of death as terror and pain tore away all coherent thought and left him stripped of all sense of self.
There was only pain and the gripping terror as he plummeted towards something; he knew not what. Through brilliant flashes of light and the roaring agony, he thought he saw Darkspawn, also falling, faces contorted with their own inarticulate agony.
Then it ended with a vicious abruptness that tore his breath away and left him aching in every part of his body. Parts of himself that he didn't even know existed were drenched in mind-blowing pain, awash with a sort of paralyzing, petrifying ache that settled into him more deeply than the worst of battles had ever done.
He groaned and lay still, unable to draw breath or to even move. Time passed, and he drifted in and out of consciousness. At length, he woke to find a woman kneeling over him. For a moment, he thought he'd gone into the Fade, never to awaken. If so, despite the pain, it wasn't so bad here.
Her brown hair was braided, falling forward over her shoulder. Her eyes were blue, a shade he'd rarely seen. Her face, although unremarkable, was nonetheless compelling. He stared at her for a moment, probably only an instant, before the shocking pain of what she was doing registered again.
"Ah!" he shouted, both because of the pain from whatever she was doing, and the agony that blazed through him as he reached for his sword.
The woman's eyes met his, a deeply worried frown entrenched upon her remarkable face. "Shhh," she warned him, making calming, shushing gestures with her hands. He scowled at her, and she pointed into the distance.
He turned, painfully, and stared. A horde of Darkspawn boiled and swirled there, and he realized it was from there that what he thought was thunder was coming. Strange flashes of light accompanied the thunderous, distant roars, and he shivered at the memory of another bright, roaring flash.
Turning back to her, he swallowed hard and attempted to nod. Instead, pain blazed, and he grimaced. A pained grunt left him, but he managed to hold most of it in. Groaning, he let her continue, until he felt the Darkspawn warning tingle through his blood. He reached for his sword and shield before he even registered that he was too injured to use them.
The woman whirled, pulled something metallic from her hip, and a concussive explosion rocked the air. He nearly lost control of himself at the blow of the sound, but watched in surprise as the back of the Genlock's head erupted into a geyser of blood, bone, and brains.
He fought not to wretch. Despite being so accustomed to killing, this was something new, unfamiliar, and somehow profoundly disturbing.
The woman squatted next to him again, then said something he didn't understand. The grim look on her face and her direct gaze warned him, though, and he gritted his teeth. With a sudden, swift lurch, she jerked on him.
Every nerve in his body came to life in an instant, shrieking and protesting with more pain than he'd ever felt before in his life. Darkness fell, swirling around her kind, sympathetic face as he fell once more into the abyss of unconsciousness.
