A/N: This story is a direct continutation of "Stormseeker: Blight of Dragons". It's recommended that you read that first, as a fair bit has changed from the canon timeline.
This is based on the video game "Dragon Age II" from BioWare, the "Harry Potter" series by J. K. Rowling, with some occasional mentions of the video game "Geneforge" and the tabletop game "Dungeons and Dragons".
I am Lexen Chelseer, the immortal dimension-hopping time traveler, and I am no longer a Grey Warden.
Summerday dawns beautiful and bright over the Frostback Mountains, the sun's rays bathing the old temple on the mountain in refreshing radiance. We must make preparations to conduct the Ritual of Purification at noon, and cleanse the darkspawn taint from myself, Rispy, and Duncan once and for all.
"Do you really think that this can be done?" Duncan says.
"You would not have waited and come this far with us if you really doubted us," Tom points out.
"Perhaps it is merely an old man's hope," Duncan says with a shrug. "I see no harm in trying. And Lexen and Rispy certainly don't deserve to spend the rest of eternity with the taint."
Tom nods, and looks over the group assembled, clearing his throat. Aside from those that the ritual will be performed upon, we brought seven mages, as light-leaning as we could get except for Tom himself.
"Kirlin will be leading the circle," Tom says.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" I ask. "Should she even be participating at all, with her pregnant as it is?"
Kirlin chuckles. "In fact, a woman's magic is actually stronger while pregnant. I would still be leery about doing dark magic, but as this is light magic, I see no problem with it."
We head into the temple and see the Guardian waiting for us there, eternally waiting for pilgrims to come to pay their respects to Andraste at the Urn of Sacred Ashes. Most of those with us have not previously been through the Gauntlet.
"This is truly where the Urn of Sacred Ashes is being kept?" Wynne says. "It is truly an honor to be here. Thank you for bringing me along."
I chuckle softly and incline my head toward her, and refrain from telling her that we didn't bring her along for her benefit. At least I'm probably not going to wind up killing her this time.
"Alright, everyone," I say. "You've all been told what to expect. In the Gauntlet, you will need to confront your fears, insecurities, whatever issues you might have. And those are frankly none of my business. Let's get to it."
I follow along behind the 'pilgrims' and leave them to it. There's no real danger here, after all, and I'm sure none of them could possibly have as many issues as me.
After passing through the various puzzles and tests, we come to the Urn of Sacred Ashes. Time to prepare for the ceremony. We still have some time left before the hour of noon, when we will optimally need to perform the ritual.
Tom has gone all out on this one. Silver bowls, flowers, and white candles, seven concentric circles of runes... It seems like he's thrown everything he could think of that might boost the available power into this.
He doesn't want this to fail.
He hides his emotions behind a veneer of calm, a cold, calculating mask, but I know that he's afraid. That mask slips whenever I'm threatened with anything that might do permanent damage to me. He was outright angry when he found out about the taint. He rarely tries to tell me what to do, but he downright forbade me to do anything to risk my soul against the archdemon.
When all is ready, the three of us that are being cured take our position in the center of the circle. As the hour of noon strikes, the ceremony begins. I let my eyes slide shut as the seven mages start chanting around me.
Even with my eyes closed, it feels like light is washing around me, through me, penetrating me, cleansing me deep down to my very soul. I think I can even feel it in the place where my missing hand should be. It burns, and I feel Duncan tense beside me at the sensation. But it's a good pain, and I clench my jaw and smile a little at it. This time, after all, there isn't an archdemon interfering with things any longer.
And then, soon enough, it's over, and I open my eyes. Only for a moment, as the light is still blinding, although fading. It feels like a thousand tiny hooks in me have been released. Like a spiderweb that I had become entangled in has been cut away from me, leaving me free. I feel clear and pure, unburdened for the first time in years.
"It is done," Tom says, looking to us with a gaze that pierces into my very soul. He nods in satisfaction, terse and businesslike, but his lips curl into a warm smile.
"I never thought I would be able to live without the taint again," Duncan says. "But the darkspawn no longer call to me. No more corruption in my blood or whispers in my mind."
"Welcome to the first day of your newfound freedom," Rispy says.
As we head out of the temple to make our way back down the mountain, I stop dead in my tracks. There is a figure standing on the windy mountainside before us. She appears to be a human woman, but with beast-like golden eyes, and I recognize her instantly.
Suzcecoz Ilawi. The abomination I'd briefly encountered in Torn Elkandu. How did she even get here?
"Suzcecoz," I say flatly.
"Oh, so formal," the demon says. "Why don't you just call me Suzy?"
"Suzcecoz," I repeat. "What do you want?"
Suzy snorts softly and folds her arms across her chest, casting a glance aside at Tom, who steps to my side protectively. "The amount of magic you were using here today lit a beacon I could sense all the way from Minrathous. So much light magic. A cleansing ritual, if I'm not mistaken?"
"Lexen, who is this woman?" Duncan asks. "Someone you know, I take it?"
"This is Suzcecoz Ilawi," I say. "And she is an abomination."
Suzy tsks. "Such a lovely term the mortals here have come up with to describe those like me."
"Stay back, demon," Wynne says, raising his staff in warning.
"You still haven't answered my question," I say. "Why are you here, and what do you want?"
Suzy shrugs. "It's a perfectly fine question. I'm just here gathering information at the moment. Don't mind me. It's a most fascinating world, and I'm dying to learn more about it." She flashes a feral grin.
I'd love to ask her just how she even got here, given the fact that this should be five hundred years in the past from when I saw her in Torn Elkandu, but I don't dare mention the time travel thing in front of so many who aren't in on the secret. I don't even know the names of some of the mages with me today. I know Kirlin and Tom, of course, Wynne, Tom's sister Bethany, and Anders, but the other two are an elf man and a human woman whom I haven't met before.
"You are an abomination, and for the safety and well-being of everyone in Thedas, we must destroy you!" says one of the aforementioned mages whose name I don't know, the elven man, flames swirling around his staff.
Suzy just rolls her eyes. "Do you really think you can take me? Go on, try, if you wish to die."
"You are quite confident for one who is outnumbered," Duncan says.
"There are only three of you who are the least bit of a threat to me," Suzy says, looking pointedly to me, Tom, and Kirlin. "And they should not dare to cross me."
The elven mage rains a conflagration down upon Suzcecoz, but she hardly seems to notice. I hold up my hand in silent command to my soulmates to stay the fuck out of this. I don't know what she's on about, but I'm not going to take any chances right now.
"You call that fire?" Suzy scoffs, completely unharmed by the blaze. "No, this is fire." She lifts a hand, and black flames whirl around it. "Soulfire."
A streak of fire burns through the air between Suzy and the elf, black as night, black as the Void, engulfing him in the rage of oblivion. He screams for a moment, for one brief moment, and then his voice is forever silenced, still echoing across the mountainside. The hideous black fire gone, his body falls to the ground with a thump.
"Maker's breath," Tom utters, eyes widening with an expression I have never seen on him before. Fear.
"What did you do to him, you monster?" Wynne says. "What manner of demonic spell was that?"
"A little toy of my own invention," Suzy says with a grin. "Soulfire doesn't merely kill. It destroys the soul as well."
"Andraste's mercy," whispers the human woman. "We have to destroy this creature. Who knows what she might do if she's allowed to roam free?"
"Do not engage," I say firmly. "Do not engage."
"Surely you don't mean to allow this abomination the run of Thedas?" Wynne says.
"We aren't equipped to deal with this," I say. "Let's leave the matter to the templars. That's their job, after all."
"Better them than us," Tom mutters bitterly.
"Fine, fine, send the templars after me, I can deal with them too," Suzy says, waving a hand absently. "I really don't care. I'll leave you be for now, however."
She chuckles darkly for a moment, and then simply vanishes. No twisting of the Fade around her, no burst of flames or swirl of mist, not even a crack or pop like Apparation or house-elf teleportation. She's just gone.
"Fuck," I state.
"I'll agree with that assessment," Anders says, scowling at the body. "Poor sod."
"Tom, Kirlin, Rispy, Duncan, we need to discuss this," I say, gesturing away from the group. "The rest of you, take care of the body, would you?" I sigh.
I leave that to them, and gather up the group of those who are in on the secret, waving a hand to put up a privacy spell around us. My heart is pounding and my hand is shaking. If it weren't for how well I've trained at magic, I might have trouble actually casting even such a simple spell at the moment.
"We can't go back to save him, you know," Tom says. "We won't be able to repeat the ritual, and you would wind up tainted again."
"I know," I say. "I wasn't even going to suggest it."
"Who is this woman, Lexen?" Kirlin asks.
"I ran into her in Torn Elkandu," I say. "I have no idea how she got here. Since I encountered her five hundred years into the future! Or at least, I thought it was..."
"Soulfire," Tom spits. "And they call the Killing Curse 'Unforgivable', when it simply kills people."
"I would certainly really rather not mess with anyone who can do something like that," I say.
"I'll forbid you from doing anything that might provoke her," Tom says, scowling deeply.
"We need to warn Gellert," Kirlin says.
"One can hope that she'll have other things to occupy herself with than us, at least," Tom says.
"Optimism, Tom?" Rispy says with a smirk.
"No," Tom says. "I would simply prefer not to have to leave this world because an overpowered demon is harassing us. It would be much preferable if we were able to strike some sort of bargain with her instead."
"Bargaining with demons?" Kirlin says, making a face.
"I wouldn't want to do that unless it were absolutely necessary," I say, sighing.
"This creature came here from your own world?" Duncan says.
I give a nod. "I don't know how, but she must have followed me here. The Nexus does record information on who has used it and their destination. It just seems strange since, to the best of my knowledge, this has never happened before."
"You never wound up five hundred years in the future before, either," Tom says.
"I was so eager to get back here that I didn't even think to stay and figure out what happened there," I say. "Events must have gone radically differently. Sedder never attacked Torn Elkandu. The Dark Elkandu didn't slaughter everyone. And I don't even know how Sardill ties into all of this."
"Regardless, she's here because of you," Duncan says.
I sigh. "I know. Don't think I don't feel any guilt or responsibility because of that. I just never thought that something like this could happen, especially when I've gone to so many other worlds and nobody has ever followed me before. Still, I'm not sure just what I could do about it."
"Nothing," Tom says. "Leave her be. It's too risky. Let the templars handle it if they can, and die if they can't. They're better equipped to deal with mages anyway. And if she can outmatch someone who can drain her mana, I'd rather not risk tangling with her ourselves."
"I don't like this one bit," Rispy says. "This is way out of my league."
"If this Suzcecoz could get here," Kirlin says, "perhaps the Nexus is actually accessible to us now, instead of being locked out after six hours. We should test it out sometime."
"And risk bringing more demons here?" Duncan says.
"They can't all be demons," I say. "If nothing else, we should find out more about what we're dealing with. Once we're back in Kirkwall, I can try Recalling to the Nexus to see if we can use it, and gather some information."
"Good idea," Tom says. "Just be careful. If there's anyone else there that knows how to use soulfire..."
I nod. "You don't even need to say it. I'm not that reckless. I'm not exactly eager to cease existing, myself."
Once the deceased is taken care of, we head off back down the mountain. This was supposed to be a day of freedom and celebration, but now we have heavy thoughts, and new concerns.
"Petra and I will go back to Kinloch Hold and tell them what happened," Wynne says. "Are the rest of you returning to Kirkwall?"
"We are," I say. "I'm sorry about this. I didn't think anything like this would happen..."
Wynne shakes her head. "You could not have predicted something like this. I will warn the templars of Ferelden to keep watch for this Suzcecoz. I'll leave it to you to get word to the knight-commander of Kirkwall."
If Wynne realizes that the rest of us are apostates, she doesn't judge us by it. She and the others had permission to come up to Haven with us. And while Tom and I were protected by the Grey Wardens, whether we were technically members or not, Bethany was never a member of any Circle, and Kirlin and Anders are clearly runaways.
"I'll make sure they're warned," I say. "I don't know what the templars will be able to do if she just went back to Tevinter, but honestly, if she went back there, I don't really care what she does. If she comes back to cause trouble in Ferelden or the Free Marches, that I'm concerned about."
"Indeed," Wynne agrees.
"We should warn Gellert, too," Kirlin says quietly.
"I have the feeling that we haven't seen the last of Suzcecoz," Rispy says.
"I fear you're probably right," I say.
