Laughter.
That was the first sound I heard upon awakening, groggily I tried to make out my surroundings to no avail. Everything had a blurry gleam to it, It seemed I was in some sort of sandy area with high hills and floating purple islands…
Wait a second…
Oh I'm still dreaming never mind, everyone has had this happen to them at least once in their life. Thought they work up to discover they hadn't quite made it yet.
"Hahaha, another one falls to Pride! That makes my total of 14 harrowed mages this year Rage, hahahah!" Oh great I was dreaming of Dragon Age again, the downside of immersing yourself in the gaming experience was that depending on how much time you spent in the game the more likely elements of it would follow you into your dreams.
The laughing was getting a little irritating though so I asked the Demons to shut up and stop gloating as it was annoying me. Ah, utter silence.
Well till the screams started.
Okay it might have been my fault, but how was I supposed to know that I was playing the role of Solana Amell in my dream and that the Pride demon had just possessed and consumed said soul of said mage. Therefore it might have come as a bit of a shock to said Demons when said Mage had spoken from Pride's own possessed mouth and told the gloaters to shut up and let me get some quite.
Turns out Demons don't like their possessed bodies answering back when they've already had said souls torn out.
Still after the screams of shock wore out and Pride desperately tried to throw himself out of the body he'd just possessed, Sloth the only calm one there lumbered up to see what all the noise was about. While Pride or 'Mouse' as he liked to introduce himself (to seem harmless) ran away screaming about the Makers Wrath, Sloth and I started up a nice chat about Riddles, and how many different puns we knew that could be used to annoy people.
Still after a while my headache got a heck of a lot worse and then I felt myself waking up – again – hopefully for real this time, as though the dream had been amusing there is no way I'd want to be stuck somewhere without toilets or hygiene regulations or environmental health officers (rat catchers).
So I must say I was a bit miffed when I heard the words "Average speed for a Harrowing, Irving – I honestly don't see what you see in this Mage."
Well can I kindly just say 'fuck you, fuck you and the Dragon you road on.'
Of course as indicated by the thought marks I didn't actually come out and say that, cause as much as I'm moaning I am enjoying parts of this dream, everyone enjoys a good fic once in a while that shows the character pointing out minor flaws that with a little correction would make everyone's lives easier (but spoil the plot and destroy the point in playing the game). But I'm not planning on being here that long (this being a dream and all), heh. So if I make a few minor tweaks to the direction the stories been taking who could deny me that, BWHHHAHAHAHAHA! Errrmm..ehem.
Still I pretended to be asleep on the way down from the big ass chamber near the roof of the tower as I was pretty certain all the mages were asleep when they return from meeting, Mouse, Valor, Sloth, Rage a few weird spirit wolves and floating balls of cotton-candy. The Magic Knight carrying me – er sorry 'Templar' – was Cullen, at least I hope it was Cullen because my new breasts got felt up twice and the body I was being held against was definitely male.
I really don't want to imagine the Knight Commander of this Tower touching me up, just eww!
I did manage to get some sleep in the end after being deposited on my bed, well Amell's bed, in the pre-apprentice quarters. The Magic Knight took one last grope and I took a peak as he left, slightly happy to notice it was Ser Rylock the Magic Knight Anders seduced to escape the tower on his final successful attempt, guess it wasn't so hard for him if she's one of the Magic Knights who 'likes' mages.
My wonderful sleep was interrupted twice by Jowan desperately wanting to know the What, Where and how of the Harrowing, so to have some fun with him – and hopefully start up some rumours – I started turning over and groping at my pillow. Mumbling "Oh right there, yes Ser Rylock, punish me." or something to that extent.
Needless to say when Jowan finally got me awake, the dorm room was suspiciously full of nearly every mage in the tower all looking at me with wide eyes, huge blushes and a few with gigantic grins. Thank god Irving isn't here I think I might have died of embarrassment, Jowan was supposed to spread the rumours that and the two chatty mages you see in the dorms every time you enter. Well except when the tower is under siege by Demons but I didn't count that.
"What?" I tried to plaster a totally puzzled expression on my face, I think it worked from the amount of giggling I received in reply. Well that and as I left the room the "Cullen's going to be so disappointed, Rylock got there first." And the whispered reply, "Well at least that means he's probably going to be available now right?" Gee thanks girls.
Still with my rumour successfully started I set out to go move to my new quarters, Jowan rushed to me and obviously flustered by recent events blurted out "What was the harrowing like," figuring it couldn't hurt and I was planning to escape anyway over the course of the next hour my reply was less than tactful. "I had to get sent into the fade to have sex with a Desire Demon and resist letting them possess me afterwards when I was exhausted from the Orgasms."
His gob smacked face was hilarious, not to mention the other apprentices going red (obviously their harrowing's had been nothing of the sort, or they were alarmed I was just stating what I thought I was expected to do on my harrowing in front of so many witnesses.
"I'll admit it nearly had me in the end when it changed into Ser Rylo- er a person I know, and told me it needed to 'cum inside me' or something like that.." There was a thump, apparently Godwin had just fainted from shock, hope he doesn't get possessed in his laxity.
Jowan cornered me pretty quickly after having a frantic chat with Lily who refused to let him take his harrowing and demanded they escape together as they was no way she was letting 'her man' have sex with anyone else except her, let alone a Demon. No offence intended to me apparently.
While I was meant to be getting hold of a rod off fire I found an empty book with a tree on in, and a book with a picture of a past Arch-Demon filled to the brim with a language I couldn't read, so after borrowing a bit of flour and milk from the kitchens I set about making myself some glue. Learning how to make glue (properly – the way they used to make it, before it was decided that it was too dangerous having glue that actually stuck to things, as people could sniff it and get high) was the most useful thing my Secondary Schools Science Teacher taught us, Thank you again Mrs Reynolds.
So after adding a bit of Lyrium to the mixture for luck I dubbed my 'Magic Glue' quite literally over the covers to re-seal them after I swapped the contents of the books over. If I'm going to have a Journal then 'it's not having a sodding tree' on its cover as good old Oghren would say.
I was meant to be getting a rod of fire, but since I know it doesn't work I just picked up an ordinary broom snapped its end off and walked down to see the forbidden couple. Honestly they hadn't moved from the Chantry, and I'd been gone for hours. If someone didn't suspect their relationship before now well they probably do now. We descended into the vault and low and behold we couldn't get through the second door, so I stood to the side where I remembered their being just wall and through a stone fist spell at the wall with all my might.
The explosion of stone probably alerted the tower to what we were up to but as I knew from history or is it foreknowledge? Meh, never mind, anyway as I knew the Magic Knights and our beloved First Enchanter were waiting outside, a bit of noise it didn't really matter. Still Lilly spent a few minutes moaning about how evil magic was, before consoling Jowan that she still loved him 'even though, he was a Mage.'
He dropped his vial to the ground, (the defences hadn't been set off because technically we entered from the entrance) I set about implementing the next stage of my plan, "Jowan are you sure that was your Phylactery, I mean without blood magic how can you tell?" He really did look caught off guard, Lilly looked horrified, the blood mage (who we all know gets faint at the sight of blood) started blubbering before I leapt in and saved him, "Your just guessing that's the most recent, right, since it's on the table?"
I was afraid his head would fall off with all the frantic nodding he was doing; his really loyal lover stopped backing away from him and started inching subtly closer again as if she had never left. "Er, yes that's exactly it!" With an evil grin now on my – er Sol's – face I nodded to the pair, "It's okay Jowan, I've got a solution." With that I held up my hand and grinning broadly started summoning an area-burst-fireball.
I'm guessing from his expression and widening eyes he caught on pretty quickly, as he grabbed Lilly and ran at full tilt down the stairs and up out of the chamber, not even bothering to stay and watch the show. With a shrug I lobbed the fireball at the shelves before letting off a torrent of fire from my hands as I backed away before running to escape the explosion of glass as the Phylactery chamber disappeared under wave upon wave of fire.
When I reached the stairs back up to the landing Jowan was giving me an incredulous look and his little lover was glaring at me in a mixture of terror and anger. Luckily for me I had gotten good at blotting out moaning from my days at Private School (lots of rich kids moan when they don't get their way, actually not just kids) so the next major event we come to was the hissy fit from the leader of this Circles Magic Knights.
After the conversation went on for a bit, Lily started backing away and Jowan stabbed himself and then thrust his blood out in a paralysing spell, to this day I'm not sure if he just fucked up a blood magic haemorrhaging spell or he really did invent a harmless blood magic stunning spell.
Still instead of standing there like a ninny I raced after Jowan and arrived just as he'd finished clobbering the Magic Knights on duty into submission, taking a moment to giggle, I pushed him out the doors and onto the dock where one of the spare boats was tied up. The rope was quickly cut with Jowan's knife and with a fire torrent launched from my hands under the water our vessel sped motor boat style away from the tower.
We stopped briefly at the tavern where Jowan took the time with the little coin he had to drink himself stupid, he really doesn't think these things through. I had no intention of sticking around with his inept arse so I wrote him a note and then scarpered for the Ammmer's-something Coast. Luckily I ran across quite a few bandits on route, so I was rich enough to afford the voyage to Kirkwall by the time I got to the Docks.
Since the Kings Army hadn't been destroyed yet the prices for travel hadn't risen so I got a good deal. I was a bit miffed to find my good deal was because I'd gotten on a Tevinter Slave Vessel, and they expected to enslave the passengers before heading back to their homeland to sell us. Pity for them I was on board, more's the pity that a fair deal of them couldn't seem to swim, and those that could quickly found it is possible to be set on fire while desperately treading salty water, trying to stay afloat.
Still the now rescued passengers needed to get where they were going so in exchange for freeing them they agreed to crew the ship for me to get me to Kirkwall before heading to their various locations the Tevinter's had lied and promised to get them too. I settled down and began to record all or this in my Journal which I thus forth christen, The Chronicles of the Dragon Lord! Hah that sounds totally awesome.
Now I know referring to myself as a Dragon may seem a mite condescending, but know that this Journal will give you all a fair account of my travels through the Dragon Age verse and I promise not to embellish or exaggerate my activities fear not. Anyway, bar escaping from the tower and setting the Phylactery chamber on fire (no more ways to track non-apprentice mages through blood magic, until the Magic Knights make a new collection).
No Grey Warden turned up to collect me and since Amell was going to die in her harrowing anyway it's pretty obvious the Hero of Ferelden is from another part of the country so I'm doing the sensible thing. Fuck waiting around to fight the Blight and get turned into a Grey Warden, I'm getting out of here and going to Kirkwall to get an in with Merrill who will hopefully be receptive of my knowledge regarding Eluvians' and more inclined to later introduce me to Hawke.
I mean why would I want to stay somewhere that I could get attacked by Darkspawn at any minute when I could go somewhere I'd only have to kill ordinary weak people for a year and a bit at most?
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