The mountain path Cassandra and I followed was still basically a dirt path, in front of the bridge gate had been logs with pointy sticks coming off them in every direction, good to roll at enemies but what they were doing so close to people I had no idea, but there was also what I assumed passed for a fence around here at the edge of the path that dropped straight into rocky snowy oblivion, I use the word "fence" lightly, it was a sad little thing, maybe waist high and lilting precariously, really just there for a visual marker I suppose, but even then it was so meager I doubt it could be seen at a distance. While I was busily assessing the safety of the fence like I was some sort of workplace inspector a small group of men passed us.
"Maker, it's the end of the world!" one, semi cried as he went. As far as anyone could tell, yeah he was probably right. I looked up, noting the large braziers atop squat stone columns positioned in intervals so that they would cast sufficient light at night, but less than sufficient warmth ever, but also mildly surprised to find we were closer to the breach than before, much closer, it was massive. We kept up our pace, more at a jog now, past burning carts along the side of the path and few charred bodies among them, on one of the overturned half burning carts was a piece of dark cloth strewn in with the supplies I tugged at it, only slightly charred it was a woven shawl, I shrugged it on starting to feel the cold. The breach thundered again, at this range we could feel the shockwave pass through the ground beneath us and the mark flared again, nerves on fire I gave a wordless cry this time watching it creep an inch more down my wrist green sparks dancing through the bloody rivets. The nails on that hand were starting to turn black, not from burning, but just the pigment was changing. I didn't realize I was on my knees until Cassandra hooked her arms under mine and pulled me to my feet.
She was more gentle this time than she'd been before. She faced me her hands on my shoulders, I was breathing sharply, fingers curled into a fist nails drawing my own blood. "The pulses are coming faster now." She made sure I was righted and could stay on my feet before letting go.
I gave her a weak chuckle. "What, am I in childbirth now?"
She managed to give me a small smirk back before continuing on. "The larger the breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons we face."
"So any idea on how I survived?" I swung my arms around for a couple seconds before continuing down the path, we were approaching another bridge.
"They said you. . . stepped out of the a rift, then fell unconscious." She made her pace even with mine, or as much as she could with me being substantially shorter. " They say a woman was in the rift behind you, no one knows who she was. Everything farther in the valley was laid waste, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes." Where the conclave took place. "I suppose you'll see soon enough." I just nodded my understanding, my hand was still tingling and really needed medical attention with all the bleeding but not much I could do about it now. The entrance to the bridge this time had no door, it was just an archway of four foot thick stone. Overall though, the bridge was the exact same as the previous one. There were some other people, scouts and soldiers near the far gate, the doors of which were open and a handful of soldiers were running through back onto the bridge. However in other more important news I found by randomly running my hands over my dress trying to wipe the blood off, that I had pockets! That lifted my spirits about a half second before the breach spit a green fireball that landed on the bridge right in front of me and exploded. The bridge collapsed, stone flying, both Cassandra and I dropped straight onto the frozen surface of a river. Amid now broken barrels, pieces of wood, random supplies and a handful of now dead people. Two of whom had been crushed. I looked up as a screeching sound seemed to approach us, another careening green baseball of death crashed through the side of a cliff ahead of us before landing in a flurry of ice shards a little upriver from us. The emerald stone of the ball splintered off and seemed to summon a trio of demons, all still dripping with green flame, they were vaguely humanoid with longer limbs and a hood over their faces, I guess even demons can be insecure, bits of scrap cloth draped over them, and gray skin pulled taut over a skeletal frame. Overall not pleasant, but at least they weren't green.
Cassandra sprang up shifting her shield onto her arm and drawing her sword. "Stay behind me!"
"Gladly!" I more or less croaked struggling to my feet, righting my shawl and my headscarf, noticing rather late that the green fire, more like napalm really, had traveled under the ice over in front of me and was in the process of both melting the ice and birthing a monster at the same time. Props for multitasking but sheesh. I scrambled to get around it stumbling over some of the supplies that came down with us in the process. The monster unfolded from the ice and screeched at me. I caught sight of a long stick, probably a staff, with a little ball orb thingy at the end, and proceeded to, once I got to my feet mind you, beat the shit out of the monster. I think it might have been surprised at first getting attacked by a five foot tall girl with a long stick but it soon started to try to hit back. A long arm caught my side, claws ripping through the dress but just grazing me as I sprang away, I'm sure this was a bigger matter but this dress had pockets, I wasn't about to let it get too torn up. I went in for another hit and realized that the two monsters Cassandra had been fighting apparently figured out I was the better target and were heading straight for me. Cassandra had the grace to look properly pissed and proceeded to haggle them the whole way, but to me they came. The staff was getting slick from the blood coming off my burned hand and slipped from my grasp as I smacked another monster across the face, what I assumed was the face, with it. Another one growled and made to stab me with a long fingered, sharp nailed hand. Adrenaline was rushing through my core, my heart pounding in my chest. With a burst I screamed at the monster mentally preparing myself to fight barehanded against them but apparently I didn't need to. That scream sent a wave of energy, the pent up adrenaline lessened a little as it went knocking down everything around me, including Cassandra unfortunately. The monsters struggled feebly before turning to ash. Holy fuck, did I do that? Cassandra shrugged off the effect of whatever I did as I picked up the trusty stick as a precaution.
She glared me and pointed the sword at me as soon as she was on her feet. "Drop your weapon. Now." I immediately dropped the quote on quote "weapon" and it clattered unceremoniously onto the ice.
She watched me for a minute in what must have been mild surprise before sighing and sheathing her sword. "Actually, you may need that. I cannot protect you completely and I cannot expect you to be defenseless."
I looked at the stick. "What am I supposed to do with that though?"
She frowned puzzled, "You're a mage don't you know how to use a staff?"
"I'm a what?!" I stepped back from the staff as if it was a dead body and examined my hands as if they could hold some secret clue as to how this happened, and in hindsight, there was a glaringly obvious one.
"You just used magic, did you not?" She folded her arms watching me, seemingly as confused as I was.
"Magic! I can't use magic! Are you crazy? There's no such. . ." I struggled for some deep breaths. There is an explanation for this, there is always an explanation, maybe something got attached to me when I was in the green portal thingy and that's why I have magic. Yeah, only real explanation I can think of.
"You've never used magic before?" She looked genuinely surprised.
"No." I rubbed my hands and bent to pick up the staff. "There is no magic where I come from."
She raised an eyebrow, "you're not from Thedas?"
I shook my head giving her a blank look that didn't take too much effort since Thedas meant nothing to me.
She raised both her eyebrows in surprise this time. "Really? How are you here then? Where did you come from? Who are you? How can they have elves but no magic where you're from?"
"I don't know, earth I guess, my name's America, and what do you elves, we don't have elves."
She gave me a look as if I'd grown another head. "You, are an elf."
I laughed, "I'm short but I'm not an elf really."
She pointed to my ears. "yes you are. Short even for an elf, I'd say half dwarf as well."
"The hell are you talking about I'm human-" I paled, reaching up and feeling my ears, they were actually unnaturally pointy and a little longer then they were before. "What the fuck?" I would have flipped a table had there been one available but instead all I could do was tug insistently at them feeling them thoroughly, I could still feel the nerves in them, even the pointy ends, did the green thing do this too?
I looked back at Cassandra a little in shock. "I wasn't an elf in my world I swear."
She just watched me for a moment. "Well, you are here. That will take some getting used to on your part I'm afraid." she turned and continued on following the frozen river then stopped. "I should remember you agreed to come willingly." She looked back at me, a little bit of something close to pity in her eyes.
I sighed trying my best to shake out the nerves I frazzled finding out I looked like an elf. "Uh huh, you better."
"So, where are all your soldiers?" I asked as we followed a bend in the river, a small waterfall was frozen over the stone lip above us, the land around the river was peppered with thin pipe-cleaner evergreens on which hung hundreds of delicate glittering icicles that numbered more than the pines on the actual tree. There were also scatterings of thin frozen shrubbery, some tough shrubbery I say, most of which looked normal. Then again, what do I know about botany.
"At the forward camp, or fighting. We're on our own for now." Cassandra waited for me a little upriver, I ran to close the distance.
"Fantastic," I panted. Most of the time while we hiked, I was at a semi jog or fast walk to keep up with her long strides. A sense of urgency had gripped her now and I hoped we were making time.
Apparently not since she snorted, "Don't worry, we'll get there," with a noticeable lack of the word "soon".
As we trudged on over the river, in which some bodies were also laying, literally dead people everywhere, I caught sight of a couple more demon things in our way.
We stopped a few feet out, the demons were busy being demons I guess, pacing or whatever was closest to that effect, back and forth across the river. Cassandra looked at me. "Are you ready?"
I shook my stick at her with a grin. "As I'll ever be. I'll get the hang of it sooner or later."
"Hopefully sooner," she slung her shield down onto her arm again and advanced carefully. I assigned myself as her backup though I doubt she really needed it and followed semi-close behind. Adrenaline was rushing again and I figured maybe what I was labeling as adrenaline was really magic or something, so I mentally started building constraints around it, visualizing it was a river and built a dam first visualized at the base of my throat as the magic streamed from the crown of my head down my spine, before building more constraints to direct it through my hands into the staff. Unsure what would happen, I pointed at one of the monsters and smashed the dam. There was static chill in the air and it suddenly smelled of toasted marshmallows as a lightning bolt, thankfully the normal blue white color, erupted from the top of the staff, electricity raced across my skin and my hair stood on end. It lasted for a good five seconds I'd guess before I finally figured out how to rebuild the dam and the monster was in ashes, a hole bore straight through the ice into the water below, also my poor trusty stick was smoking a little. Cassandra sheathed her sword when the other was dead and came over to me.
"That was good," she patted my shoulder and got a small static shock as a reward.
"Sorry," I picked up some snow to run though the ends of my headscarf that had lingering static on it. "Still a little static-y." I cocked my head looking at the ashes and the hole. "Think that was kind of overkill?"