AN: I was gladly surprised that I had some people reading the story! I was worried that because of the mass amount of stories there are. Well thank you! I'm going to try and answer any questions people ask as well and stick with me because I'm currently doing exams so please just be patient if I don't upload for a while. I also had some issues in the past five days because I had work and then shopping for dresses- eughhh. I would have had it out sooner, apologies.
Alistair279: I would tell you but that will have to wait until the attack on Haven. But don't worry the sudden appearance of a character will be answered. It's actually to do with the story. I plan on following the Lord in the game to point until you beat the game but there will be another event to happen afterwards which links to your question.
Galila Rie: Thank you! Yes, definitely geared towards Mad Max and the Borderlands, I watched the Mad Max movie and all I need now is the game I'll have to stick with Fallout for now. The way that I see it is that franchises advertise the apocalypse as this act of mad grasps for power, evil or nuclear fallout in reality it's so much more likely that the end of the human race's power would be lacklustre. I want to characterise a character that comes from a place where the entire world is struggling like developing countries are today, there is no water, there is a lack of food, the weather is unpredictable and everyone has reverted back into a primal state just to survive. I don't want to spoil anything but she will be having a new foot, I can guarantee that.
Guest comment: I hope that it is interesting! Otherwise I am not doing a particularly good job haha.
PHopefully this chapter isn't as much of a word overload as the first chapter. Don't quote me on that.
EDIT: I swear to God and any entity above that I uploaded this file and read it all on the link itself. What the hell?
The she bear had not been wrong when she said that there would be pain when the healing agents wore off, in fact she was more than just right. Alex woke up in a cold sweat after a nightmare of twisted figures and rags, creatures twisted and malformed encompassing her, smothering her. Darkness consumed her in rotting arms and eyes that seemed to bore down into her skull.
Suddenly she was sitting up in a cold sweat with her lungs trying to cycle oxygen that seemed far too unwelcoming for her body. The thin covers she had been sleeping under were drenched in sweat. The moon that shone through her tents zip with the dark blue sky peering through from behind it seemed too friendly, nothing seemed trust worth. She knew it wasn't real, that the nightmares weren't real, the monsters that had chased her were not real but steering eyes, they seemed too real to be true. Gasping for more breath she suddenly realised she had been reckless in her sleep when the pain from her leg shot straight through her nerves and vibrating through every piece of her own flesh. She felt as if her whole body was betraying her and her entire foot felt like it was on fire. As if she was turning to molten rock she felt spits and hisses of her flesh bubble from her bones. What was happening? Gasping she quickly moved to sit over and out of her sleeping bag when she felt the sudden movement of falling. She hit the ground before she could process it.
Crying out as her leg hit the hard ground and grunting as the rest of her reacted to gravity. She suddenly wasn't bin the desert, there was no tent, she was in this unknown land that had no records in what little books there were. Taking a breath as sickness washed over her she felt the sweat run down her brow and her muscles vibrate as adrenaline ran through her system and into her blood. Her leg still felt hot and sticky with pain, so much so a vicious ringing in her ear deafened her for what seemed like forever. Glancing back she realised the situation she had now.
Moving onto her backside she pulled the now openly bleeding leg forwards. Now she wasn't in a small town but back where she had grown up in, the wilderness. Grabbing the wrapping bandages she had them unravelled, they would provide no use other than an infection now since she had decided to move so violently. She dared to glance down where her foot had been-
"Oh god, oh god. Shit! God…damnit" Alex decided not to look back at it ever again. Including the completely fine foot. It was, a hurried cut. She looked back to the dresser next to her bed and but her lip. The kind woman that had showed her the room had mentioned that there were a few of her items in the drawer, her lighter, the voice recorder and a small multi-use tool. She looked to the candle holder on the top of the cabinet and gulped.
There was a loud clatter as she reached for the required instruments. Her lighter and the bottom of the candle holder. Hurrying she desperately tried to cause a spark with the the flint, her hands were sweaty and she was trying hard not to have a panic attack. She couldn't spare a breath of relief as the flame flickered into existence, not with what she was about to do.
It took a while for the brass metal to turn a deep ember colour with what little flame the lighter had, but soon, it was ready. Alex was not ready for what she was about to do. She'd seen other injured people do this, no, she'd heard other people do this. You never went to look, but the screams still were heard. She gulped, put a book she had found into her mouth and with one quick thrust out the hot curved metal to her bleeding leg.
Agony was the word to describe it. And agony was all that she could feel for minutes on end. She couldn't hear herself screaming or the hiss of the flesh searing itself, her fingers clawed against the textured wood floor and her eyes went blurry with salty tears. In a moment it was over and she threw the carbon scaled metal to the floor. She was hyperventilating now and her head was swimming in circles from the pain, but it was over; the bleeding had stopped.
Pulling herself to the wall of the building she had a chance to take a breath from this madness. She hadn't really analysed her surroundings as the maid showed her to the small cabin on the outskirts she had just saw the ready made bed and collapsed onto it and fell into a dreamless slumber. Still light headed the room was really too swirly to be looked at but still she had let her survival instincts slip in not finding any nooks to hide in or dangers to remove, or even just basic supplies. She saw her first chance at luxury and all sense of survival left her.
The cabin was small, quaint built from wooden planks the walls all raced up just as the roof did but she was pleasantly surprised that the builders had decided to make it more exciting by having the frames of the Windows wrap around. The floor was made out of massive stones and it seemed that someone had made a great effort to keep the flooring level while keeping the stones as close to each other as possible. There was no upstairs she noted, realising that now it would be increasingly hard and frustrating to navigate herself up stairways. There were walls that separated the cosy cabin into small rooms, one being the small bedroom she was in. A sort of living room or study as it had a small desk and chair for writing at - not that it would matter as she could neither read or write, only the lucky could do basic literature and even then that was rare. There was also another room that hosted a fireplace and some bare tabletops, she guessed that this was a kitchen from the pot that hung over the fireplace. There were no toilets she noted but that was no issue for her, she would ask for a bucket later on if she managed to find anyone not willing to run her through from her nave to her chops.
Sighing she rested her head back against the wall in an effort to take everything in. She felt licks, whispers even, of her missing appendage, it buried her in her thoughts for what seemed like minutes. How had this happened to her, all of this…shit. It was as if some being was trying to mock her for no good reason other than humour. She felt like a rook on a chessboard and the King of the others hand had just taken her into their grasp, hot, clammy; intoxicatingly poisonous to her weak, primal mind. Alex had felt useless many times in her life, weak, stupid she could list all the negative emotions she had felt with the remaining population of the earth- little more than a billion- never once in her life had she felt so sunken into darkness. Was this what the echoes felt like when their world fell apart..? Did they feel like they were reaching out to anyone in the hopes that they would spare a glance to one echo. Did they hold their remaining dignity on their smallest finger and let it blow away into the hand of another like dust on a corpse? Did they scream until blood gushed down their throat only to hear their own echoes back as they shouted down the spiralling cave of the apocalypse?
She blacked out. Darkness.
Sleeping on the floor, she realised was not a good idea and she quickly remembered why she always had a sleeping bag. She groaned as the light of the awakening world shone through a thick glass window and concentrated itself right onto her eyes. Sleep still catching itself over her she grimaced as she gasped a breath into the land of the living. Moving suddenly shot an aching pain down her neck and into her spine she moved to rub her neck and work out the knots of sleeping in a 90 degree angle against a wooden wall and a stone floor.
Opening her eyes and squinting as sunlight glared back almost begrudgingly because of her late rising. Looking down she shook her head and went to stand, this was going to be harder than she thought because as usual, falling was so much easier than standing back up again. She looked to the bed and bit her lip as she thought, she could use the bed to get herself up but the real question was where the hell were her crutches? She had last seen them when she fell onto the bed to sleep, she also noticed how just another cover had been placed over her instead of moving her under the actual covers, obviously everyone but her knew her limits. Putting both hands against the springy mattress she took a breath before hauling the rest of her body and eventually her foot into fully standing.
"Agh, ah!" She gasped falling straight into the mattress as her bare feet touched cold stone, bouncing off the mattress she almost ended up with cracking her head onto the floor below, barely catching herself with her hands. She took a breath frustration at her disability rising, she felt less than, useless, and she hated feeling useless. Being useless was terrifying, because that meant death, there was no useless person on earth, because there was no useless person alive. Except for her, of course. She was going to have to find a loophole to this soon, she'd heard of prosthetics but they were resource expensive and she doubted that anyone would make her a prosthetic. Alex wasn't a skilled crafter and she was still impressed with her now missing bow.
This was no place to be having this discussion with herself, laying across her bed with only her hands to stop her from falling and with that she pushed herself into standing. To stop herself from falling over when turning to find her crutches she still leant against the bed. Locating them against the wall on the far side of the bedroom she managed to hop her way over to them, carefully trying not to catch her still throbbing stump against even the dust in the air. Crutches now firmly equipped she felt that she was somewhat prepared for whatever this archaic clan had to offer her, she didn't want to think about the rising idea that this was not earth, it was too good to think of with water and food in mass amounts, harvested for food instead of found rotting. Houses that weren't covered in the stench and theme of an apocalypse and weren't recycled areas for raiders or clans. The idea couldn't be true, wouldn't be true no one was ever that kind to one person.
She walked to the door and almost missed a too much missed object, her backpack. She felt her breath quickening. As she moved towards it with it rested delicately against an end table. There was a note resting upon it with crisp clean handwriting adorning it. She appreciated the lovely handwriting but had no clue as to what any of it said, she stared at it for a moment with her brow furrowing in concentration as she tried to understand the words. Sighing she gave up and shouldered her pack, the only item she had left, fingered the note in one hand and opened the door.
Right in front of the elf she had met yesterday whose hand was inches away from knocking on the door. They stared a teacher other for a moment in confusion, shock, she didn't quite know but it had a light humorous air to it.
"You weren't coming out so I thought you were having trouble." Started the herald slowly as she realised she hadn't let her hand down and rightly did so.
"Sorry, I was just getting used to my surroundings." Alex replied and there was an awkward pause between the two.
"Ah, we are going to have to have a talk about your arrival into Haven today, hopefully you're mo- gods above what happened to your leg!?" Cameron's eyes widened at the state of her leg.
"I lost it, I thought you knew that when you gave me crutches. Oh, I can see what you mean…" Alex looked down to see the remains of her new trousers burnt away and dried with blood, her stump looked like it had been dragged through a fire after being dunked in diesel.
"Great, those were my breeches as well. We didn't have time to find you a new pair so we had to find the closest fit. We didn't want any of the adventurous rookies finding you, we also didn't want any reputation of rookies being castrated." Alex realised as she said this that she was only just taller than the elf. It had seemed reasonable but she did feel bad for having burnt the breeches of the only person not willing to gut her from her nave to the chops.
"Sorry?" She replied nervously her thoughts going wild with how angry the elf must have been.
She just smiled "Don't worry I wouldn't have kept them anyway, yours were irreparable any ways so you needed some and we don't exactly have a tailor at hand here. I see you got my note and your strange pack those locks are incredibly weak" Cameron gestured to the note and the Zips on the backpack.
"Oh yes, sorry but I can't read what it says. Uh, n…not your fault I just can't read or write at all." She closed her eyes as the stutter came back halfway through her sentence almost throwing what she wanted to say off track.
Cameron frowned "you can't read or write? Is it because of where...oh sorry I'm acting like some pompous noble." She laughed nervously and covered her mouth as her ears turned pink.
"It's alright no one can really read or write anymore so it's no problem. I'm guessing because of how peaceful it is here that you have more time for luxuries then? I saw a lot of books yesterday is all, I've never seen that much paper in all my life, most of the libraries are empty because people use them for tinder because of the lack of tools and trees." She replied with her own smile which felt foreign to her, she never really smiled because there was no one to smile to.
"Peace? Thedas is in a whole war remember? But yes there is certainly more of a civilisation here than what your description of your home is like. Are you enjoying it here compared to, you know?" Cameron turned for them to start walking down the dirt road. Alex swore she saw a naked, pink mole rat scamper across the path further down, in this weather?
"It's…wonderful…different. I'm not used to someone actually healing me let alone having more than one person show an action of trust. I know you don't exactly trust me, to be honest I don't exactly trust you, but I'm not here for any purpose and I don't care about anything but survival. Although now that's going to be hard once I go back." They were walking further down now and they were reaching the walled village, the sound of fighting soldiers and blacksmiths bounced energetically across the many boulders and to their ears. She must have been less well than she thought because she was already getting tired.
Cameron paused for a moment thinking about her reply "do you, want to go-"
"No." Alex interrupted her, never in her entire life had she ever thought of that place as home. Alex did not do homes, a wasteland was not a home when you couldn't even build yourself a small house for a week before natural disasters, raiders or just small problems like rain ruined them. She was feeling increasingly tired.
"What about your family, don't you have anyone that will miss you?" The elf seemed unable to wrap her head around the idea.
"I never had family. No one misses anyone ever, missing means that you hope they'll come back, but if they're missing it means they died the day they left. You never meet the same person twice and if you do it's their skeleton. No I do not have a father or a mother, no I have no siblings. There is no one to miss me and I haven't missed anyone yet." Alex replied curtly with her eyes closed in tiredness, pain and the ebbing feeling of her own little lie to herself. It didn't matter if Cameron believed it or not, just as long as she did she would be alright. She thought she saw the earth move from her vision.
"Oh. Sorry, that was insensitive of me. I should have used my common sense, living in a wasteland must be hard for families to exist. I'll, refrain from the subject if it upsets you so. It's hard for me to understand because as a Dalish elf I live in a clan you see, Clan Lavellen and we live as nomads, sort of." She put her hands behind her back in a way that radiated guilt or a subtle sense of the emotion.
They were now reaching the gates of haven and the sounds of the village had come to life. The scavenger had never seen so many happy people in one area before and it stunned her. She stopped for a moment to take in the sight. Out by the right of her was a small camp of eight tents of which were obviously for the soldiers that were outside. They were adorned in full metal gear with green material to keep themselves warm in the cold lands. Some didn't even look old enough to carry their own armour up yet they all held the same faces and the same stance of a proud soldier. Two men on either side of the camp stood between the cluster of rookie soldiers, one she noticed was the blonde haired man from yesterday; the other was a fully armoured knight with a greatsword embedded in their armour.
Walking round pass the tents she heard the clash of metal upon a shield and looked over to find the she bear in the flesh take down one of the training dummy's. In one quick thrust she had impaled her sword through its gut. She seemed to notice the scavenger's stare and placed the blade to the floor to glare at her with an icy countenance. Alex could almost see the warriors mind go wild and suddenly that dummy looked an awful lot like her. She smiled awkwardly and moved on.
In front of her was a small building and courtyard, of which the clangs and bangs of an active blacksmith's were being emitted from. There was little to say about the building other than how many people were lined up outside, hundreds of you, old, male, female people were stood waiting by the entrance of the small area. They all looked like they came from many different ethnic backgrounds and while some seemed more suited towards fighting than others they still wore the same air of a warrior.
The proof was clear, this land certainly was at war as she turned her head to see the mass of people standing miles down the road.
Cameron led her back into the main area of Haven, this time she was more awake to inspect the small village of Haven. The most obvious thing in the village was the massive amounts of snow it seemed to have accumulated, not in a matter of years but in a mere night. Many of the villagers seemed to be hauling packs of snow out of the village and one house was completely barricaded by the snow and had been for a while by the panicked pounding of an angered man inside. Everything was made out of wood, most likely from the very pine trees that survived around the village and the roofs of the cabins were made to hold the snow on the roofs; while the idea of the wood rotting was very real Alex suspected that it was kept there to insulate the heat in the cabins, or just laziness. The roads were older than the houses which suggested that this had once been a destroyed village and for a while by the numerous amounts of moss on the cobbled path. The many sounds of the village seemed foreign to her, the creaking of the buildings and the echoing cries of children running around on the streets while the murmured voices of their parents talked below. Birds flew from the trees, black dots in the sky that shot back and forth with each other, a deathly game of chase. She then noticed the distinct scarring in the sky, it seemed to warp the very air around it and almost as if someone had broken pieces of the glass covering the painting of the sky and never replaced it.
She heard a cough from behind her turned to see Cameron gesturing towards the church like building in front of her. She chuckled nervously before following behind.
They now stood on the other side of the door to the war room, it always struck her as odd that the war room was in a building of peace and belief, or just ironic. Cameron turned to her with an odd expression on her face. The door behind the elf started to open.
"Now, last night the rest of our team came back, there is something rather important that I need to tell you. The man who goes by the name Iron Bull, he's not from anywhere near your world so just don't-" The woman was interrupted half way through as a towering figure stood over the two. All Alex got was a glimpse of dark grey skin and then there were just horns.
In fact, that was all she managed to squeak out before she fell to the floor as a hand the size of her face went towards her.
"...What the fuck? I've seen lots of bowing but never like that before!" A rather southern drawl came out from the horned beast-man. There was now a she-bear and a beast-man, was everyone obsessed with scary animals? Except those were not fake horns from the way that his skin seemed to have grown around them and the colour of his skin was far too grey just for him to be ill. She was staring up at him from her foetal position on the stone floor when one of those face sized hands came and picked her up by the scruff of her top. She felt torso leave the ground steadily, then her feet until she was at eye level with the giant, which meant that she was dangling above the ground.
He squinted at her "Herald, I think your crippled human is broken." He half joked to the woman behind her, Alex could distinctly head muffled snickers from the elf.
Alex merely looked at the horns "Horns."
He rose an eyebrow at her "Yes, those are horns. I thought you couldn't identify her origin herald, I think you're now broken" Oh god he probably thought she was being racist. He was going to squash her.
"No, no, 'Bull she's just never seen anything other than a human before. She did the same thing with me when she woke up. She told me that survival is her main goal and being racist means the opposite, so I doubt she means it, right Alex?" Cameron perked up from behind her looking up at her.
Alex shook her head "No, no, pretty horns; they suit you. Haha..." She grinned nervously at her and almost relaxed into a pile of goo when he chuckled back at her.
"I guess survival also means the ability to charm yourself out of any situation as well?" She chuckled slightly in his response and gave a weak smile back.
He put her down and then walked back into the war room where three other people stood. One was a thin male elf that stood with a regal mix of bullshit-ery and ancient knowledge. He wore rather plain slacks and robes but what struck her was the very bald head, his facial structure seemed that of a playboy apart from his bald head yet it semed to show that some of his past he had left behind. The other was a small man, very small man the only thing big about him was his bear thick chest hair, his shoulders and the giant crossbow strapped to his back; clearly more cared for than her self maple bow that looked broken the first day it was made. He had brown hair that was tied in a small ponytail of sorts and big thick eyebrows that seemed to characterise his already fluid facial features even more. Lastly was another female elf but she seemed to hold herself more like a human, Cameron standing as if she knew she was a part of something that was not the inquisition – her clan – and the other elf standing, no, radiation a pompous knowledge. Her hair was cut very much as she had once cut her hair, by hand and without a mirror except hers were blonde locks instead of her light brown hair. The look on her face was the description of mischievousness and she seemed more or less ready to mess with anyone at any time.
"Now that we're all here, I think that it's time for further more introductions." Of which Cameron waved her hand, inciting everyone to do so.
Alex seemed outnumbered with everyone in the room staring at her like that so she just waved a hand slightly and nearly whispered "Hi, I'm Alex" she almost lost her footing when the female elf jumped over the table and leaned forwards with her nose almost touching Alex's own. She gave a suggestive look and flicked her eyes up and down before stating in a rather obnoxious accent
"Nice bow indeed..." Alex tried to take a step back when she bumped into the other elf who had somehow crept up behind her.
"My name, is Solas, I hear you came from another barren world." She would have taken offense if she hadn't barrelled almost into the dwarf from her own shock.
"Woah there scales, look where you're going. I know that 'the Varric Tethras' is very pleasing to the eye but that's no way to swoon over a man." Came another southern drawl and suddenly she was surrounded by people more crazy than her. She didn't know how to react so she did the first thing that came to her mind: freeze and drop and with that she fell to the floor and covered her head.
"Um, is she alright? She ain't sick is she, because I do not want to catch whatever she has." The other female elf spoke after a while of silence.
More silence.
"Alex? You okay down there?" Cameron called down to her and a foot softly nudged her side.
She felt the same hands that have picked her up before wrap around her ribcage and pick her up before placing her back on her feet, well almost, she wobbled and grasped for the nearest object, a Cameron. In which the poor herald almost fell over.
"Sorry! Sorry!" Alex apologised hurriedly and then paused as a loud laugh came from the female elf.
"She's almost a better one than me! The name's Sera." She snickered and in reply multiple groans followed.
"and mine's Varric, you've already met Tiny and Chuckles." The dwarf continued and she gulped when he winked at her, eyes going instantly to the crossbow.
The sound of the door opening behind her turned her attention to the group inviting themselves in, all the people she had met yesterday were now in the vicinity and were all well equipped for anything, and too equipped for her. The group gathered around the war table and suddenly literally all eyes were on her. She gulped.
Leliana began what was now an interrogation "So, you arrive here out of no where with no explanation to how you got here. You then explain that you come from a place which have violent groups that kill and slaughter of which is the outcome of your entire world being destroyed; how can we tell you're not one of them? Are you a spy of this Elder One? Or are you just a madwoman?" The many threats seemed even worse from the sharpness of her accent.
"No I just woke up here, I...the last I remember was dying from blood loss in a desert. Who's the Elder One?" She replied, one wrong move and someone would run her through.
"And no evidence to prove this? My dear you're not doing very good at this truth charade you have" Vivienne butted in from the side. And suddenly all the stares became a lot more suspicious and the glares became a whole lot more hostile, some had their hands already at their hilt.
"N-no no no! I do have evidence see!" And with that she hurriedly slung her pack onto the wartable trying not to squeak as she heard the sound of a half unsheathed blade. Emptying it of all her contents she then reached down to where a secret compartment kept all of her most delicate supplies and her most valued objects. First she took out a small device, a radio that recorded important feeds from the start of the apocalypse until she left. Then she reached and pulled out a French newspaper – she had realised that one of the languages there was French and that they were written in the same language as well. And finally an old photobook, of which still held high value to her being the only – sort of- heirloom of her family.
"see! Evidence! Now don't kill me please!" She flung the newspaper into the assassin's hands.
There was a brief pause as she read the newspaper.
"So? What does it say?" Cassandra broke the silence with a rather curt tone of voice.
"It says 'Doom comes upon us all' and then further on it says 'A call to arms is cancelled on the up and coming World War Three and the war is brought to a swift end in the form of every country on earth turning on their brothers and sisters and firing every bomb they have in their possession. The list of already destroyed countries and those that have given up their embassy is expanding even more now but is currently recorded as one hundred and twenty two including the recently made official country of...Tai...wan. The casualties are as expected in billions, the estimated amount of people lost are 6.3 billion out of the 9 billion on earth yesterday"
Silence, there was silence in the court.
"That's what it said? I just use it for tinder. There's the radio as well" Alex perked up and moved to turn it on.
"No, I don't think that's needed Alex, we ugh we will study this all in a different time. Instead why don't you go find yourself some reasonable clothing from the blacksmith. You know where it is, yes?" Cameron grabbed her shoulder and shook her hand, as she did so something solid entered her palm.
"Buy yourself something nice. Alright?" Alex nodded in return and exited the war room.
When she looked into her palm, it was her grandmothers tape that they had never returned. If it was out of the recorder then that meant that they had listened to it already. Which meant that they already new that she was telling the truth. Those bastards!
Alex turned around and swung the door open with a snarl.
Those bastards.