Hrnghh" the sound of the last remaining Howe guard gurgled as he dropped to the floor, his heavy armour would've made a loud clanking noise were it not for the solid block of freezing cold ice that encased his body who hadn't been able to put up much of a fight in the enclosed space of the Nord Dragonborn's chamber's, a crossbow wasn't exactly the ideal weapon to use against a foe wielding two axe's made of dragonbone and a greatsword that had a chance to freeze an opponent solid and leave them defensless in mere seconds.
Fridya raised the enchanted greatsword above her head before swinging it down at the frozen Howe guard resulting in the guards body shattering into tiny shards of ice, nothing remaining of him except a puddle f blood where his body used to be. A grim and violent death for anyone.
"AAAAHH!" a bloodcurdling scream could be heard coming from outside Fridya's room causing the Nord to step out and saw a man run out of a room adjacent to hers, judging by his armor it looked identical to the one who she had just put down except instead of receiving a quick death, the heavily armoured Howe guard was encased in a ball of flames and the flesh on his face was rapidly beginning to burn away as he tried in desperation to extinguish the fire with his gauntlet's.
"Just hurry up and die, already!" Fridya heard the exasperated voice of the Warden recruit, Daylen as the young mage walked out of his room and cast his fingers outwards and bombarded the enflamed guard with sparks of electricity until finally the guard dropped to the floor. His screams falling silent.
"You too huh?" Daylen asked as he turned to Fridya and leant to the side slightly to see no dead bodies but large pool's of blood and shards of ice scattered across the ground and with Fridya alive and seemingly unhurt it didn't take a scholar to put two and two together. "You seen Duncan?"
Fridya shook her head "no, you?" only to receive the same shake of the head. "What in oblivion is going on?" screams could be heard throughout the Cousland's estate and the sounds of battle, something that Fridya was all too familiar with.
"Nope, I'm just as lost as you" Daylen replied, a little confused. He'd been getting ready for bed only for the guard he had just finished burning to a crisp to barge into his room and attempt to kill him. Clearly the guard hadn't expected to be facing a mage. "I'd say we should probably look for Duncan, he might know" Daylen said rather unsure, he'd barely spent much time out of the Circle and so he had no idea how a lot of the outside world worked.
"That...could work" Fridya said, stroking her chin. "You search those room's, I'll do the same here" Fridya pointed to the other room's to which she received a nod and both she and Daylen began searching each of the room's to which they were completely empty and as they got to the final one's on each side Duncan was in neither of them.
"No luck?!" Daylen called over to Fridya as she finished scanning the last room for any signs of the elder Grey Warden. None to be found. It was as if he barely spent any time in his room. Just what he could be doing in the Cousland's castle she didn't know but it was certainly getting rather late and as the scream's and sounds of battle permeated through the castle she had to wonder where he had gotten to?
"For Arl Howe!" Fridya and Daylen turned their attention to a large group of the traitororous Teyrn's soldier's who charged at them from the end of the corridor of the guest wing. Putting their search for Duncan on hold, the young mage and Nord warrior faced the group which consisted of three men dressed in the standard splintmail armour attire for guard's and armed with sword's shield's and two knights who were encased in heavy grey iron suits of armour with one of them wielding a large warhammer and the other wielding a greatsword.
Fridya casted a sidelong glance at Daylen who had already begun preparing a spell and smirked at the young mage and the group of Howe's men soon found themselves facing a fireball sailing towards them at high speed. Mage's were incredibly dangerous and the three men in standard armour jumped out of the way to avoid being incinerated, the two knights simply shrugged off the incendiary attack as if it was nothing.
Fridya knew she needed to act fast and stop the guard's from getting in close to Daylen, he'd be cut to ribbon's if they did. She let out a war cry and charged towards the group of Howe's men fully intent on taking out the three of Howe's lowly grunts before moving onto the two knights who thanks to their heavy armor she would have a much easier job of predicting their moves.
Fridya was soon in the thick of it and as one of the three splintmail-armored guard's was getting up after throwing himself off to the side to avoid the fireball he was unable to get back on his feet on account of a light blue blade impaling him, penetrating his armour like it was nothing. Suffering the same fate as his comrade before he soon found his body encased head to toe in a block of ice after Fridya's enchanted greatsword cut his exposed arm only to be turned into multiple shards of ice and a large pool of his blood quickly splattered the ground as the blade soon impaled him upon it.
With the combined might of the Nordic warrior and young mage, the two made short work of Howe's men as they proceeded through Castle Coousland in an attempt to locate the source of this madness and if possible find Duncan. Something that was easier said than done as they made their way through the large castle of one of Fereldan's most influential noble families. It seemed everywhere they entered, Daylen and Fridya would find themselves coming across more bedroom's. Fridya was surprised at the lack of reactions from the young mage as he saw her greatsword reduce the incoming guards into blocks of ice but then again he was a mage and she imagined enchanted weapons were not exactly new to him. She had no knowledge of enchantments but she certainly wouldnt turn an enchanted weapon away after getting her hands on one. Though none of the enchanted weapons she had in her possesion prior to the Ice Blade of the Monarch matched up to the enchanted blade seemingly made out of pure ice.
"Oh maker!" the noblewoman Lady Landra gasped in pleasure as she felt the young Aedan Cousland's manhood exploded inside her womb. The young charming noble hadn't needed to say much in order to get her into bed. His roguish charm and well-toned muscular body was too much for Landra to ignore who had quickly joined Aedan in his bedchamber to make good on all that drunken flirting she had inflicted on him.
"Hnngh, fuck" Aedan groaned as he felt the older woman's inner muscle's clamp down around his spasming manhood. The well-travelled spear between Aedan's leg's had finally claimed Lady Landra, the wife of Bann Loren as its latest; of which there were many sexual conquest's. Each time it throbbed it sent more of his release into Landra's womb. For a woman of her age she was surprisingly tight. Clealy Bann Loren hadn't been paying as much attention to his wife as he should of been.
Landra, out of breath soon landed on Aedan's toned naked chest. "Maker, why haven't we done this sooner?" she questioned. Aedan had made her feel at least twenty year's younger after their heated passionate coupling.
"Better late than never, eh?" Aedan chuckled softly as Landra's head rest in the crook of his neck.
"Woof woof! Woo.." Aedan heard the sound of his mabari barking outside his room. Rather frantically if he might add.
"Maker's breath!" what's he making all that racket for?" Landra asked as she got off Aedan's naked form and wrapped the bedsheets around her nude body as she walked towards the door. Aedan's mabari had suddenly stopped its barking. It was rather late at night and Aedan had sent his mabari out to wait in the hallway as he and the older noblewoman got down to business.
Suddenly the door to Aedan's room was barged open and before Landra could react she suddenly found a duo of crossbow bolts lodged into her stomach. That was it for the noblewoman and the silver haired Landra dropped to the floor, the life in her eyes gone.
Aedan had to act quickly to which he did indeed and reached under his bed pillow to quickly grab his longsword and charged at the crossbow-wielding guard as he hurriedly attempted to reload the device in an attempt to take out the rapidly approaching naked Cousland.
He wasn't able to reload in time as Aedan's muscular frame barrelled into him, the guard's leather armor softening the blow to the nude angry Cousland and acting quickly, Aedan quickly brought his longsword up and slashed it across the guard's throat causing him to clutch at his throat in an attempt to halt the rapidly escaping blood but ultimately failing.
"I'm so sorry, Landra" Aedan said, sorrowfully as a deep patch of crimson could be seen through Landra's thinly covered form. The life had long left her and Aedan hoped she was resting peacefully with the Maker now, if he was even real.
One thing was for sure, he could hear screams and the sounds of battle echoing through his family's home. He needed to find his parents and find out what in the Maker's name was going on?
With his finely crafted silverite massive heavy armour equipped; crafted by the most skilled blacksmith Highever had to offer along with his kite shield with the Cousland family heraldry engraved upon the tough gleaming silver metal surface Aedan was ready to discover who was causing this unprovoked attack on his family?
But first he needed to check something and looking around outside his room's door he found his answer in that of a slumped down mabari warhound, unmoving. "No, no, no" Aedan babbled hopelessly as he ran over to his fallen mabari warhound Dane. The canine creature had three crossbow bolt's sticking out of its flank and deep cuts and gashes could be seen pockmarked all over the furry creature. Mabari were tough but with the amount of wounds Dane had suffered there was no way he could survive this. Aedan clenched his fist in anger, why? Why did he have to choose to bed Lady Landra and doom his beloved pet?
"Son, thank the Maker you're all right" Aedan snapped his head up to see his mother; equipped in her armor, longbow strapped to her back along with a full quiver of arrows running towards her grieving son as he held his deceased mabari in his arms "Aedan, I'm so sorry" the elder Cousland said sympathetically as she saw tear's begin to well up in her sons eye's "we need to find your father!" she urged.
"He isn't with you?" Aedan said, confused as he looked up from his deceased mabari.
Eleanor shook her head "no, he never came to bed" she looked around, the hallway she and her son were in were littered by the bodies of the Cousland estate's guard's and Howe's men, the ones instigating the unprovoked attack. "Did you see their shields? Those are Howe's men!"
Aedan finally began taking notice of his surroundings and noticed the many bodies of his family's guards and the slain bodies many of which had guard's with shields that were emblazoned with the sigil of a brown bear foreground and yellow and white shielded background. "I knew it, he plans to attack us while most of our forces are at Ostagar!" Aedan declared. There was always something fishy he found about Rendon Howe. Betrayal, he wouldn't put it past him.
"Y..you don't think his men were delayed, on purpose?" Eleanor wondered "that bastard!" she sneered "I'll cut his lying tongue out myself!" he never saw his mother angry that much but the look in her eyes made Aedan sure that his mother was imagining a few less than savoury deaths for who used to be considered their family's old friend.
"What about that Grey Warden, Duncan was it? And the others?" Aedan questioned, Duncan had come to recruit Ser Gilmore into the Grey Warden order but this unprovoked attack, where was the bearded Grey Warden amongst this?
"You don't, don't think he's working with Howe do you?" Aedan's mother pondered.
"No, no I don't actually" Aedan said, shaking his head "Grey Wardens don't involve themselves in politics, right?"
Eleanor still looked a little unsure "hmm, I guess" she relented before her eye's shot up "what if Howe's men got into your brother's room first?" she was already up on her feet and running towards her eldest son's room, fearful of the worst with Aedan quickly following behind her, reluctantly leaving his deceased mabari.
Son and mother quickly made their way to Fergus's room, a few Howe guards accosted them on the way but with the combined effort of Aedan keeping the guards busy at close range while his mother dispatched them at range, easily finding weak spots in their armour causing the dup to cut through Howe's men with ease on the way to Fergus's room. Fergus had no doubt left for Ostagar by now and as a result Oriana and Oren would be defensless.
Aedan roughly pushed the door to his brother's room open only to be greeted with the sight he was dreading. Both Oriana and Oren; a little wooden sword in his hand lay dead on the floor, a significant trail of blood streaked across the room as it gushed out of the young child and Antivan woman.
"No!" Eleanor cried in despair as she dropped to her knees alongside her son's deceased wife and son "what manner of fiend slaughters innocents?" the silver haired Cousland said, aghast.
Rage filled Aedan as he looked at the bodies of his brother's most cherished loved ones "I'm going to rip Howe's head off and piss on his corpse" he growled through clenched teeth. Weak and pathetic, killing defenceless women and children proed that Howe and his ilk were complete and utter tyrannical coward's.
"Howe isn't even taking hostages!" Eleanor noted "he means to kill all of us!" the elder Cousland reached forward and closed Oren and Oriana's eye's "let's go, I don't want to see this" Aedan could tell his mother was trying to hold in her tear's.
"We need to find father!" Aedan said, hurriedly. If Oriana and Oren were dead then he needed to get to him before Howe did. Hopefully they would run into Howe before reaching his father and Aedan could show the scumbag exactly what he did to those who betrayed his family.
"Can you hear the fighting? Howe's men must be everywhere" Eleanor said to her youngest son as she finally worked up the willpower to put aside her grief of Oren and Oriana's demise and replaced it with sheer determination. Screams and the sounds of steel clashing against steel echoed throughout Castle Cousland. "The servants passage leads out from the larger, but we must find your father first"
"Where, though?" Aedan asked, confused.
Eleanor scratched her chin in contemplation "the front gates. That's where your father must be."
"What about that Grey Warden, Duncan and the two companions of his?" Aedan asked, curiously "could they help us? Where are they?"
"Maybe" Eleanor thought "I believe your father set them up with room's further up in the guest quarters"
"Perhaps we could go see if we can get them to help us?" Aedan suggested, he hoped they weren't in on Howe's attack too, then again Grey Warden's were supposed to remain neutral in political affairs so they probably didn't.
"It shouldn't be too far ahead" Eleanor nodded as she and Aedan made their way up the adjacent corridor towards the guest quarters.
Upon entering the guest quarters, Aedan and his mother already saw the corridor outside the guest rooms were filled with many dead bodies of Howe's men; some were simply lying motionless on the ground, others were lying on the ground with their entire bodied charred and blackened with what looked like the results of being engulfed in flames and then there were those who had varying limb's such as their arm's head's or leg's cut off along with large pools of blood with shard's of ice lying amongst the crimson pools of blood.
Standing amongst them Aedan saw the two companions that he saw accompanying the Grey Warden, Duncan earlier in the day. The female who was currently wiping a significant amount of blood off her greatsword blade on the leather armour of a fallen Howe soldier. No doubt she was the one responsible for the varying limbless Howe guards. Maybe the mage was responsible for the random shards of ice lying amongst the pools of blood.
And then there was the young Circle mage who was just finished burning the final Howe guard alive which was accentuated by the Howe guard screaming in pain as his flesh burned by a steady stream of flame escaping Daylen's fingertips. It confirmed Aedan's suspicions that he was the one who turned the Howe soldiers into heavily burned and charred corpses.
"Hey, whats going on here?, err..." the young mage asked as his gaze came into contact with Aedan and Eleanor. "I was rather enjoying my rest" he huffed.
"Howe betrayed my family!" Aedan growled as the greatsword-wielding female warrior finished wiping the blood off her blade "remind me who you two were again? You were with Duncan, right? Where is he?"
"Daylen; of the Fereldan Circle Tower prison" Daylen said, a slight tone of hatred as he mentioned the Circle, the prison that he was trapped in the majority of his life.
"Fridya, an Avvar" the armoured greatsword-wielding woman simply grunted, simply causing Aedan to raise a brow, surprised. Rather intrigued due to neer meeting one of the Frostback Mountain-dwelling folks.
"Where is Ser Duncan" Eleanor asked
"That's what we're trying to figure out" Daylen said. "He's not in his room"
"Great" Aedan groaned "any chance you two can help me and my mother get to my father? Safety in numbers, right?"
Fridya shrugged "might as well. Not exactly like we're doing much now anyway"
As the four fighters made easy work cutting through Howe's men Fridya couldn't help but marvel at how easily the young Aedan Cousland's mother dropped Howe's men with her bow; it was almost as if she was looking into the future as to what Aela would be like when she began getting on in year's. The bow and crossbow wielding invading soldier's found themselves unable to stand against Eleanor's almost eagle-like gaze. Despite her age Eleanor found weaknesses in Howe's men's armor as easily as someone half her age and just as easily as Aela could.
"The Treasury!" Aedan exclaimed "we can't let Howe get his hands on our wealth!" he had no doubt going after his family's wealth was a major reason he decided to attack. Howe was an ambitious and jealous man, adding his family's wealth to his own would no doubt be one of the first things the traitorous bastard intended on doing.
"I've got the key" Eleanor informed "hopefully we'll need it and Howe's men haven't got through" Aedan's mother said, hopefully. The cynical part of her had the sneaking suspicion that Howe's men would already be pillaging her family's riches. Something that she refused to allow happening.
Aedan, Eleanor, Daylen and Fridya fought through Howe's men as they made their way towards the Cousland family's treasury, Aedan seemed to be fighting a little more aggressively and furiously as he led the way, he never did like Howe in all honesty and the idea of him getting access to wealth that didn't belong to him in the first place filled him with rage. He had no idea how large the Howe family's wealth was but there was no way he had any intention of allowing Rendon Howe to add to his own wealth with the Cousland family's wealth.
"Fuck!" Aedan cursed as he saw the door leading into the Cousland family's treasury was already opened. Thankfully however as the four entered into the room that led to the treasury there was a heavily armoured Howe knight with a helmet covering his entire face attempting to smash the large reinforced metal door down with a large warhammer as two Howe guard's wielding sword's and shields stood either side of the heavily armoured knight showing that Howe's men hadn't reached the inside of the Cousland treasury yet.
"Get the fuck away from there!" Aedan snarled, surprising the three of Howe's men as he charged at one of the two guard's standing next to the knight and slammed his shield into the guard using the whole force of his body slamming into the guard to knock him back into the wall. The guard's helmet protected his head from being cracked open as it hit the wall which was enough for the other guard and the knight to retaliate. The Howe family knight halted his assault on the treasury door and turned to Eleanor, Daylen and Fridya as the guard who had been attacked by Aedan was busy engaging the agitated young noble in a fight.
"I can handle the tin can" Daylen smirked and brought his hand's up and a swirling ball of flaming hot energy appeared in the Circle mage's hand's which quickly evolved into two large fireball's and with outstretched hand's he directed the two flaming projectiles at the heavily armed warhammer-wielding knight which caused him to attempt to dive out of the way of the conjured fireball's and while he narrowly avoided being struck by one of them which flew past his helmeted head and impacted harmlessly on the reinforced treasury door, however he wasn't lucky enough with the second one as the flame projectile slammed into his left pauldron and began slowly singing its way through the armour and into his flesh.
Fridya readied the Ice Blade and charged at the Howe guard who wasn't currently engaged in combat and the enchanted blade, cut through the Howe guard's armour like butter and impaled him through the chest causing blood to splutter out of his mouth and when Fridya removed her blade from the Howe guard's it caused his body to slump to the floor. His instant death was quick which caused the Ice Blade's enchantment to not take effect and he was one of the lucky few to not have his body reduced to tiny shards of ice.
Eleanor meanwhile was helping the young mage by peppering the heavily armoured warhammer wielding knight currently engaging in combat with Daylen, trying to find weaknesses in the knight's armor which was rather difficult, however with his heavy armour and large warhammer caused the knight to be rather slow which allowed both Eleanor and Daylen to use his slow speed to their advantage. Daylen threw a great many fireball's in the knight's direction in an attempt to eventually burn the knights armor away or possibly make it fuse into his skin and cause a catastrophic amount of pain.
Eventually the four were victorious and the Howe family knight and two guards were slumped down on the floor dead, the knight's heavy armour was practically burned into his scarred flesh thanks to the flurry of fireball's that had never stopped assaulting his slow and lumbering form. No matter how heavy the armour it still failed under duress when unable to dodge projectile fireballs.
Eleanor walked up to the door to the Cousland treasury and unlocked it with the key and Fridya saw the look of relief creep onto the silver-haired and young Cousland's face's. The Cousland treasury looked relatively untouched, the heavy door leading to the family's wealth did a well enough job to keep the thousands of sovereign's all kept safely secured in locked chests away from the traitorous Howe's hand's.
"It's all here by the looks of it" Eleanor said as she crouched down and inserted the armoury key into one of the locks on the chest and sure enough she saw the numerous amounts of golden coin's arranged into multiple row's of stack's of sovereign's reaching up to the roof of the chest.
"Are we seriously going to leave it all here for Howe to take, mother?" Aedan questioned as he looked around the room that held his family's wealth "I mean I know these chests are pretty securely locked but do you honestly think that it'll stop that bastard from finding a way to get his greedy hands on our coin?" Aedan was wracking his brain trying to figure out how it would be possible to get all of the chests of sovreign's out and away from Howe's hands. He was strong, yes but even he knew that he wouldn't be strong enough to carry every chest away with his mother and father to keep it from Howe.
"I believe I could help with that" Fridya spoke up as she watched the two Cousland's worrying over their families wealth. She usually hated people who placed gold and materialistic things above other things such as honour and tradition or family much like that irritating Nazzem who she had lost count of how many times she wanted to punch or those pathetic excuses of a Nord, Olfrid Battle-Born and the ex-Jarl of Falreath, Siddgeir but after witnessing how quickly Howe, a person she hadn't had much interaction with since arriving at Castle Cousland was willing to betray the Cousland family she was willing to give Aedan's family the benefit of the doubt.
"How?" Eleanor asked both curiously and slightly suspiciously "furthermore, why? You've barely been here for more than a day"
"Does it matter?" Fridya shrugged. "I can get all of your wealth out of here and store it in a safe place until you choose to retrieve it again. The question is do you trust me enough to go through with this?"
Aedan and Eleanor both looked at each other, unsure of whether to trust the young warrior or not?
