Stories Untold

Chapter Six: Where The Faucets Drip At Night

AN: I honestly could not think of a good name for this chapter, so it ended up being a few lyrics from Rehab's Welcome Home. Oh look, video game references. Just to clear a small matter up if I haven't before, Dragon Age does not exist in Korbin's world. That would be more than a little Mary-Sue.

Updated 3/5/2017

My new family was looking at me like I was insane. I had been humming the Pink Panther theme all morning and only I knew why. Today was the day Hawke and Bethany intended to go to the Amell Estate and clear out the Slavers. Fenris and Varric were supposed to go with them, but I had asked Fenris if I could take his place. We agreed on not telling anyone about the change of plans.

I waited a few moments after they left to follow them. Leandra knew where I was going, so there was no point in telling her. I hid around corners and watched them, sneaking my way along. I planned to show myself once they got to the entrance for Darktown. I continued to hum the Pink Panther theme, which oddly enough morphed into the Lost Woods Dubstep Remix Rap. That's a mouthful.

"Running through the woods and without a map. Listen to the sounds, I found a trap," I muttered before running to the next corner. "Hello world, I'm Korbin Auditore. Master Assassin!" I cackled quietly. I was having entirely too much fun for someone that was about to kill people. Talk about a massive downer. I stopped playing around and took off after my friends as they approached Darktown.

"Hey!" I said cheerfully. "Where ya going without me?"

"I was wondering when you'd show up," Varric said calmly. I gave the Dwarf a flat look.

"That's not fair," I said. "You know me too well. Now I must kill- Wait, why doesn't anyone seem surprised to see me?"

Bethany giggled. "Mother told us you were coming."

I sighed and threw my hands in the air. "All that sneaking around for nothing! Go figure." I turned to Hawke. "Are we ready to go?"

"In a moment," he said slowly. "We need to decide the best course of action. We can't simply run in and start killing everyone."

"But we are expecting that. Right?" I inquired with a raised eyebrow. "I'm not exactly happy about killing people, but these guys have it coming. They enslave people and sell them like they're cows. That is bad, right?"

"Yeah it's bad," Varric answered. "But we have to make sure we don't get ourselves killed in the process. Sometimes I forget that you come from a place where people kill each other for really stupid reasons."

"Yeah," I said slowly. "Let's not talk about home, shall we? I'd really rather forget how long I've been gone and what sort of state my farm is in."

"Got it, Shorty."

"So," I said with a sigh. "What's the plan? Or do we not have one of those?"

"I have a plan," Hawke laughed. "We're going in the back door. I want to catch any slavers that might be inside by surprise. Let's go."

We made our way into Darktown and took a ton of turns before we made it to the cellar door, aka 'The Back Door'. We paused by the door while Hawke unlocked it and peeked inside. He waved us in and I almost stepped right into a trap. I looked at it for a moment before waving Varric over to deal with it. There was no way in hell I taking a crash course in traps today.

The second we turned a corner they were on us. It looked like we hadn't gone unnoticed. I wished like hell they hadn't seen us. I still didn't want to kill anyone... until I saw the bodies of what had to have been slaves in cages. That shit just did not fly with me. I was still a bit outmatched, but in my own clumsy way, I managed to take down a whole two slavers. Korbin's current kill count in this world and her own= 3 people dead. Thinking about that kinda sucked, but I had taken a bit of revenge for the deaths of a few innocent people.

"Now we get to loot the place," Varric informed me as he patted me on the back for a job of staying alive well done. "I promise they won't miss anything."

I grimaced but set about looting the two bastards before me. They reeked of men that never bathed. Ew. Could ya get any grosser? I came across a ring on one of them and a whole sovereign on another. I hadn't seen this much money in all my time here. It was kinda weird holding a gold coin after all this time. I really was broke if this excited me.

I looked around in a few boxes and tried to find something useful to me. There really wasn't much I could use. A few armor pieces that didn't look like they'd fit me and a sword that looked like something Fenris would use was all I found. I guess I could sell the armor and give the sword to Fenris. If he didn't want it I could sell it too. Yep, I'm broke.

"What did you find?" Bethany asked from behind me.

"Eh," I replied. "A sword, some armor, a ring, and a sovereign."

"Good find," she said with joy. "Can I see the ring?" I handed it to her in hopes she might know what I could do with it. It was a simple silver ring. She handed it back to me with a smile. "You should keep that. It's enchanted."

I gawked at her. "Really? With what?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but I believe it could be useful to you," she told me.

"Dagger Mastery," Varric said as he passed by. He'd hardly glanced at it and he knew what it was.

"Cool!" I yelled with glee. "Just what I need! These things are expensive in the market. I thought I'd never get one... even though I don't know how this shit works."

"It's simple," Bethany explained. "The magic in it augments your own skills. It makes you a little better than you were without the enchantment."

I looked at the ring warily. "It didn't seem to do that guy any good against me."

"Was he wearing it?" Hawke asked as he returned to the room we were standing in.

"No," I said. "I found it in his pocket."

"That answers it for you then. Enchantments only work when they come in contact with your skin," Varric explained.

I made an oh sound and slid the ring on different fingers till I found one it fit on. "Well, his loss I guess. Did you find the will?"

"Yes," Hawke smiled. "Let's get out of here before more slavers come."

Leandra insisted that I stay and listen as she read the will. She had it firmly in her mind that I was basically one of her children. After having heard about what happened to Bethany's twin brother Carver, I didn't put up a fight about spending time as a member of her family. In her mind, I had taken the place of her son and it apparently kept her going to have three children again. Granted, she didn't take me in in a sick way. She had simply adopted me since I wasn't going anywhere and we got along pretty well.

The more she read, the higher my eyebrows rose as I looked at Gamlen. It was obvious that this guy had issues, but this was insane. I didn't get myself involved in the ensuing fight, but I had shaken my head at him in disapproval. Her parents had forgiven her and Gamlen had gone and been a bastard to his own sister out of jealousy. It kinda reminded me of my own family and how they'd tried to rip my grandfather's farm out from under me when he passed away.

Later in the day, Hawke ran off to help Aveline with a problem she was having. I was left to wander around Hightown with Bethany until they came back. We'd already been kicked out of the little guard place in the tower for loitering. Such a stupid word for standing around. We sat down on a bench outside and I regaled Bethany with some of my favorite songs.

Right in the middle of a badly sung version of Vitamin-R by Chevelle, Hawke and Aveline showed up. We followed them in to find out how things had gone and what was going to be done about it. There was a lot of yelling from the guard captain's office. Hawke shook his head at what was being said. I grimaced and had to stop myself from going in there and making things worst. I jumped out of my skin when the door almost hit me as it crashed open.

"A lot of yelling for doing him a favor," Hawke said simply.

"We killed a band of highwaymen," Aveline said tersely. "What does it matter who's patrol it was? This isn't the first time he's made me wonder like this. Something is very wrong." She walked away to look at the roster across the room. A woman rushed up and spoke with her. I had no doubt that this would turn into a long chain of events. In the meantime, I had lessons with dear Isabela.

I was pretty late getting to our training ground. Isabela was the only one there for once. I was glad no one would be there to laugh at me as the pirate whooped my ass.

Weeks Later

I hummed as I walked towards the guard barracks. I wasn't afraid to walk on my own anymore. Granted, if I wasn't careful I'd still get my ass beat if I went up against someone bigger than me, but I wasn't as bad off as I had been before. I owed it to the ring I had looted off that dead guy. That thought still made me uncomfortable. I was wearing a dead guy's ring. Ew.

I hadn't had the chance to visit Avaline since she became guard captain with Hawke's help. On the other hand, I hadn't actually had time to talk to Hawke in a while since I spent most of my time with Bethany and Anders doing small jobs here and there. I wanted to buy new armor and blades, but I needed money for quality items that I didn't have. I saved up any money that wasn't needed as my part of rent and food. That's saying a lot since I was never any good at saving extra money.

After stopping by and speaking with my other mother figure I headed up towards the Chantry. I wasn't actually going in the building. Oh no, that was not something I was willing to submit myself to. I was going to the gardens on the side. I missed my grandmother's roses that I'd fought so hard to keep alive back home. The garden here had beautiful roses and one variety looked like my grandma's beloved Blue Girl rose. A rose so damn hard to keep alive it should have died years ago. The flower of the rose was not actually blue, it was a pretty pinkish purple color. The flowers were as big as both my hands, side by side.*

A lot of the roses here reminded me of the ones from back home. If you take care of roses just right in Alabama, or anywhere I guess, they can bloom massive flowers. I had always loved gardening, so it wasn't much of a stretch for me to help the brothers and sisters care for the plants. I knew a few farm tricks for flowering plants that they didn't. I saw Brother Sebastian a few times, but for the most part, he was either inside or gone. It didn't really hurt me any. I didn't exactly have an opinion on the guy.

I like spending an hour in the garden before going about the other crap I'd gotten myself into. I had Shadow Zone on my mind as I walked towards the docks. I tried to spend as little time there as possible, but there was no helping it today. I had overheard some guy talking about a stash in a far corner that no one could see. I thought I'd poke around and see what was in it. It would be just my luck if I found a stash of raw lyrium and got caught by the guardsmen.

It was pretty easy finding it without getting caught. I guess no one saw me as much of a threat. The stash itself was set into the ground near the docks. I had a hard time getting the hatch to open. It didn't look like anyone had come near this thing in years. That or the salty air had rusted it pretty quickly. It came open with a loud shriek that had me darting up to look around in embarrassment. Kinda like farting in a crowded, quiet room. No one was looking at me though and I was able to kneel down and look in.

I found a few enchanted items and a bad ass set of daggers. They were pretty cool looking. Wickedly curved with what amounted to a sort of double blade thing. Translation: they had short blades at the bottom of the hilt. I really liked them. Maybe they'd pass Isabela's inspection. Now that I had looted this hole in the ground I needed to get the hell out of here. Except, nothing is ever that easy.