Okay, the easy way out was a bust, but he still had a new power to try out.
He shot up and acquired an almost skeletal thinness instead of his usual stocky frame, muscle stretched tight over bone and covered in a cloth wrap that was uncomfortably similar to a dress. And he felt… wrinkled, somehow. So okay, he wouldn't be winning any beauty pageants, but could it fight?
He felt around metaphysically, trying to figure out what felt right. He had some nasty claws, maybe that was it. He floated one way, then the other. Whatever he was now, it was certainly not built for speed.
Then he rounded a corner and there was a Hurlock bearing down on him, sharp hunk of metal held ready at shoulder height to cleave him in two. He instinctively froze it into a solid block of ice with pure will.
"What? That was amazing!" he cheered. He poked the Hurlock ice sculpture with one long claw and it shattered.
But he wasn't done yet; he was quickly getting the hang of what this Spirit form could do. There was an archer who had stood back and was busily trying to fill him with arrows. He pointed at the Genlock archer, who stopped moving. Frozen in time, like a bug trapped in amber.
He discovered that his new magic could also be turned to healing him, and within seconds he was as good as new.
Then the archer fell over, dead.
"Fantastic. Is this what being a mage is like? I really got the short end of the race stick."
It took him a bit longer to get to the next pedestal since he had to float leisurely along, but it beat the hell out of the alternatives. He might just live in this form from now on.
After a scene change by way of pedestal, he opened the door in front of him and flaming dogs leaped for his throat. And they had fiery Templar backup for some reason.
"Well," he was forced to admit as he narrowly avoided fire-wreathed jaws, "I was complaining about the sameness a minute ago. I probably deserve this. You'd think I'd learn to stop tempting the gods by now." He wasn't sure he believed in Andraste and the humans' Creator, but he figured there had to be someone out there raining shit on him. And his Ancestors probably wouldn't screw with him like this.
Following this conversation with himself was a whole lot of animal abuse, but they were probably evil animals or dream animals or figments of his imagination or something so they probably didn't count. He slashed them apart with his claws, destroyed them with his magics.
Just to be on the safe side, he decided not to mention this part to Leliana or Alistair when he saw them again. They'd just give him disappointed looks again. Morrigan might enjoy the story, though.
Fire was everywhere, and the fiery animals were too, but liberal use of ice magic saw him through the gauntlet. Round and round he went, seeking a way out. A vacation home this was not.
After a thankfully short trip through the fiery tower, he encountered a single Templar who didn't seem to be immediately hostile.
He was talking to himself, though. "Must... control… anger.. But it burns! It burns so!"
"Uh… on second thought, I don't think I want to get to know you after all," Aedan decided, taking a step back. "I think I'm just going to go around-"
The Templar caught fire like everything else here did. In retrospect, Aedan supposed he should have been able to call that one.
Hindsight. Bah.
The fiery Templar hurled himself at Aedan. He was very swift on his feet, and probably quite deadly. A few Ice Grasp spells sorted him out.
"Anger… fading. Madness… gone. Self-narration… ending. I am free!" the Templar cheered.
"That's… that's good," Aedan acknowledged. He wanted the crazy man to leave. Most Templars were crazy to one extent or another, he'd found, but at least most of them didn't wear their crazy on their sleeve like this guy.
"Take Rhagos' power. Burn him! Burn them all! Burn it all to the ground! Hehehehehe…"
Aedan took a long step backward.
"Find other dreamers, other powers. Find Sloth, and end him!" And like the first dreamer, the fiery Templar vanished.
Weirdo. "That pyromaniac is right, Sloth," the Aeducan swore. "You will be very sorry you made me go through all this. Oh yes… very sorry indeed. But first, let's see what this new form does."
He activated the Burning Man form, sliding the form on like an old, slightly uncomfortable suit, eagerly anticipating discovering his new powers. He, also rather predictably, caught fire.
"Eyagh! I'm burning, burning forever, yet I can't die! Who thought this was a good idea? I mean, what's the point? Am I supposed to give out flaming hugs, or what?"
He got out of that form in a hurry. You just don't appreciate what it feels like to not be on fire, until you are. "I'll just stick to the one with phenomenal magical powers, thanks."
The next section of the Fade - Aedan briefly wondered if this was an insidious plot on the demon's part to bore him into submission - seemed to contain priests, golems and maddened mages in equal measure, with a few abominations and other assorted monsters for spice. Though luckily the mages seemed more intent on murdering each other than him.
He wasn't sure why the priests of Andraste were as bloodthirsty as everything else here, but it wasn't like the mystical dream world had to make sense or anything. Maybe it was a metaphor for something.
A man who looked a bit like Niall, Aedan discovered, was another of the dreamers. "It is time for this dream to come to an end!" he announced melodramatically. "I give you my power; free us all from this nightmare!"
Where the others had vanished, presumably waking up from the dream, the robed human merely turned around and walked off.
"Are you sure you don't want to help me free us all, end the nightmare, etcetera -" he called, but the human was gone.
Aedan grumbled, "What, do I smell or something? Who does no one ever want to join my group?"
Well, there was still his band back in proper reality. Six of them with murderous impulses to one degree or another, three with religious manias and daddy issues, all on a doomed quest to save Ferelden, the surface of which he didn't care for and containing a large variety of people who annoyed the hell out of him or wanted him dead. His dog was okay, though. And they were still a better bunch than remaining here, that was for sure.
He activated the new form. He grew in size and stature with dizzying speed until he reached heights usually reserved for Qunari and golems. Strength poured into his limbs. Rock armored him. He was big, and he was mean, and he was protected from everything that might harm him by a rocky shell. He felt like he could run forever, tear trees from the earth and crush his enemies beneath his big stompy feet like ants. He was a dwarf-run juggernaut! He began to move in an easy lope. Whatever got in his way - doors, enemies - got crushed under hurled rocks or rocky fists.
No wonder Shale was always in such a good mood after a battle, he reflected. When you were this size, everything was just so damn crushable.
Before he knew it, he had bashed his way to an exit. Some inner sense told him that he was nearing the end. Find his allies, stomp on that Sloth demon's head, and get back to ... whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. He'd been in here so long he was having a hard time remembering. Whatever, crush first, he'd figure it out later.
A/N: Two months for a bare 1500 words. Ah well. One more chapter to go, the first half of which is already written.