A/N: Well, you gotta understand, they had to work with completely new mechanics, a story that would allow for any decisions the player took in Origins. Considering they also had to deal with executive meddling, I think they did a decent enough job... Anyhow, I try to keep my stories secluded from the source's plot, as much as possible, not to anger fans when my OCs inevitably either develop a friendship or rivalry with their favourite character.
He held his bow horizontally, an arrow already squeezed between the grip and his index finger. Thirty meters further, through the morning fog, a lone rabbit perked its ears in alarm. It seemed about to bolt, but Gail, who's footsteps made all the ruckus of a feather in the wind, did not stop moving, ducking under some low branches, from where he would have a clear shot. After a moment, however, the bunny lowered its guard and, in search of food, bounded further to the left, out of Cervantes' field of view.
Five days spent eating nothing but mushrooms and roots, five days of frustration and mistakes, had taught him to stay well away from his prey if he could help it. The closer you are, the more things can go wrong, so he carefully let go of his bowstring to drag himself onto a fallen log, still propped against a maple tree.
He had to turn his back to the rabbit as he crept up the log and onto a sturdy branch, but this new vantage point gave him a direct line of sight on the tiny creature, its dirty fur blending in with the dead leafs on the ground.
The bow made no sound at all as Gail readied himself for the shot. He corrected the width of a broad head over his target and…
Andraste's flaming sword, what is that?!
The rabbit fled without so much as seeking the answer. A small wretched creature, clutching a crudely built bow, carefully bowed under the branches, those same ones Gail had just crossed. From up in his tree, Cervantes was out of sight and the small creature hissed in annoyance, looking around for something.
It's tracking me! Gail realized, slowly letting the bow return to its original shape, an act that required a lot of effort to perform silently. The creature looked like a mutilated dwarf, stripped of its nose and lips and given predatory teeth. Its armour, crude iron wrapped in skin, not leather, glided silently as it moved past the fallen log and so close to Gail's tree he could smell the stench of spoiled meat that followed it.
Gail knew about the Darkspawns, but, having never seen one, did not recognize the thing for what it was. He decided to kill it and was about to release an arrow in the back of its head when another virtually identical creature followed the first. Then another, and another, so on until there were seven stocky little corrupted dwarves making their ways through the trees.
Violence is overrated anyway. Cervantes then decided, opting to stay there and wait until the things were well out of earshot to return to Isrill.
Only another four of them, these human sized, but just as disfigured, soon followed and, behind them, a horned monstrosity, looking like a Qunari gone horribly wrong, squeeze through the trees with surprising nimbleness, though its heavy strides shook the ground. The thing was so tall it only had to look up to be face to face with Gail. With that in mind, he took the risk of shifting position to a branch on the other side of the tree, out of sight.
Three days ago, he would have been unable to navigate through the thick foliage without a sound… Maker, ten seconds ago, he likely would not have succeeded either, but adrenaline and sheer terror granted him preternatural strength and agility. He moved with grace, silent as a shadow, and watched what he know knew to be a Darkspawn warband stroll by his tree.
Reaching to the back of his pants and slinging his bow in one fluid motion that left him in danger of being blown off the branch by the slightest gush of wind, Gail pulled out the tailor scissors he'd stolen on his first day with the Dalish. The things were curved like a cat's claw, probably to better cut fabric laid on a flat surface. Carefully, he unscrewed the two parts and earned a pair of curved daggers. He kept one, holding it in a reverse grip, his index finger filling the loop, blade pointing away from his fist, and sheathed the other in one of the shoes on his waist.
A fight with a Darkspawn would not end well for him; with twelve, it would end so fast Gail doubted it'd have any time to start at all, but it felt good not be completely helpless.
"Hey, Gail! Where are you?!" Isrill, less than fifty meters ahead. He could see hints of her in the distance, moving through the trees, calling his name, but the Darkspawns did not. They heard, however, and immediately spread out to surround the lone elf.
One of the things chuckled as it moved under Cervantes' tree and a chill ran up his spine at the pure evil contained in that laugh.
Small ones won't be a problem to a mage, he thought, letting himself drop silently from the branch, at spitting distance behind the now very quiet ogre, But fat boy here needs to take a hike.
Rising fully, he stretched his legs for a moment, sheathed his shiv and drew his bow. That would make for one sodding hard to believe story, one day.
"Isrill!" He roared, causing the ogre to jump slightly in surprise, "Darkspawns!" The Ogre turned around almost lazily, it's ape-like mouth quivering in rage, baring unbelievably sharp teeth, like dozens of daggers had been jammed haphazardly hilt-first into the ogre's gums.
Gail notched an arrow, pulled the string and shot in one fluid motion. The broad head grazed the ogre's forehead and the woobling shaft slapped it in the horns, the whole arrow quickly vanishing into the trees.
Accuracy is like friends, Gail thought, spinning on his heels to dash madly through the foliage, a roaring monstrosity breaking down trees and shaking the earth as it thundered after him, it's right there with you right up until you're staring down a giant sodding oxman!
He hopped between a pair of saplings, joined at the base in a V shape, and glanced back to see the ogre uproot them in a backhand swipe.
That moment of inattention almost caused him to run headfirst into a massive oak. Instead, his adrenaline-fueled muscles sent him spinning sideway and he danced around the tree instead, his back rasping against the bark.
To him, this was an easy motion, but the ogre took almost ten seconds to try and smack the oak away before it realized it had to go around. The fruit never falls far from the tree. That old saying proved true, as many more oak trees grew in this area, thick and bristling with low hanging branches that would provide a skilled climber with quite the playground.
Gail kept running straight for the neared tree, growing close enough to the first for their branches to be intertwined in places. The bark scorched the sole of his feet, ripped skin from his palms, but he climbed well out of reach within seconds and, with a feet and his back on parallel branches, holding himself up, he drew his bow again to release a trio of well-aimed arrows into the ogre.
The arrows smacked into the darkspawn's chest in a neat row, but just stuck there, barely piercing the skin. Cervantes then crept along a branch at his feet and back onto the first oak tree, just as the ogre began ramming itself into his tree.
The thief did a quick inventory, patting himself down for anything useful. Beyond the shivs, bow and arrows, he carried only about forty meters of rope…
The ogre, having looked up, realized its prey was gone and went berserk, snapping branches bigger than Gail's chest like they were twigs, punching dents directly into the oak's trunk and stomping the ground so hard leafs fell from nearby trees. In the morning light, these falling leaves and the fog that still hung over the forest gave the whole scene an unreal feeling, as though it was just a very detailed painting in some merchant's house.
Cervantes remained hidden in the shadows, thinking hard as the ogre stomped around, sniffing the air in search of its victim.
Apart from the oaks, a lot of birch trees dotted the area, their white bark clashing against all the green and brown, yet, at the same time, blending in with the fog. One of these, thirteen meters to the right, stood out in that it was taller and thinner than most other of its kind.
Gail tried to estimate the tree's height, as well as the tensile strength of the wood and its elasticity from what he'd seen in his mother's notes. It was all rough estimations, but it hatched to beginning of a plan in the thief's mind.
He climbed off the oak with care, the ogre roaring at the woods on his left as sounds of battle echoed from that direction. Isrill had not yet disposed of the darkspawns.
Gail crept in the opposite direction, pulling the rolled up rope from around his chest to tie it into a lasso. Once he reached the birch tree, the thief threw the lasso at its top; it took him three tries, but he eventually got the rope solidly wrapped around its trunk.
Unstringing the bow was the trickiest part of this operation; he had to put his feet between the string and limbs, prop the bow between his legs and hold it bent by leaning on it as, with his free hand, he pulled the string free, slowly letting the bow straighten itself and taking great care so it would make no sound in doing so.
Praying to the Maker his calculations would be correct, he then wrapped the rope once around the bow and tied its other end to the trunk of a thick birch, five steps away.
With the rope now hung between the two trees and his bow tangled in it, Gail took a hold of the weapon's limbs and pulled it into a full rotation, wrapping more of the rope and tightening it with every spin. Soon, the thin tree began bending backward, the bow becoming harder and harder to pull. After every successful rotation, Gail would twist it sideway so that one of the limbs, pressed against the rope, kept the bow from uncurling prematurely.
Though it seemed to take forever, Gail had the tree's tip at his feet in less than a minute. The ogre had all not given up by then, however; it shook every tree, crushed bushes and kept its eyes on the canopy at all time, which was the only thing that kept it from noticing Gail as it walked right past him. Of course, he did not remain out in the open, hiding amongst the bent birch's foliage until the monster had moved on.
This close up view turned Gail's bones to cotton and sent a chill down his spine that ended rather painfully in his toes, before climbing back up to drain all blood from his face. The feeling of surrealism was gone now; Gail saw his foe in all its glory and realized how futile his efforts to topple it were. The birch seemed tiny now, insignificant compared to the raw destructive power of the ogre. The thief almost gave up, deciding to use this opportunity to run away… Almost, but then, the ogre looked to the left again, where Isrill still fought off the darkspawns, and it chuckled, just as the disfigured dwarf had.
Blood return to Gail's face in an instant, his bones now more stone than cotton. Fear still clutched his heart, but a more powerful emotion usurped its domination; rage.
Gail counted on his fingers, now able to accurately judge the ogre's height, and took four careful steps along the bent tree. Using the bowstring, which he cut into four strings, the thief attached clusters of arrows in strategic locations.
This is a terrible plan, he warned himself, going back to the bow, there are easier ways to commit suicide…
"Hey, over here!" He barked at the ogre, who'd once again wandered near him. It came from the ideal direction, directly in front of him, and, in its frustration, charged in without pause, in a straight line that would take it directly above the thief's trap.
Yeah, if it makes it over that tree, I won't have time to beat myself over my terrible timing…
His timing was flawless; he cut the rope a bit earlier than he'd intended, but the birch, snapping back to its original position in a blur of white and green, impaled the ogre's neck with a branch two meters higher than expected. It did not slow the beast down, but the birch bounced off and, when it came back, the arrows dug themselves all the way into the ogre's skull through its eyeballs.
The thing's deafening roar echoed through the trees long after it had abruptly stopped and, for a moment, Gail thought his trap had failed, as the ogre still stood, limp and motionless, but on its feet nonetheless.
Only when the thief moved to take a closer look did he see that the birch's branches, stabbed into the darkspawn's skin, from head to toes, were all that held it up.
He tried to think of something witty to say, or something deep, at the very least, like those heroes of legends, but could not think of anything, so he spat on the ground and, leaving his now useless bow behind, headed back toward Isrill and the darkspawns.