Hawke had gravitated toward the doorway she knew led to the artifact room, as if she could hope to sense something about what was going on simply by being nearby. After a somewhat long dance session, she and Sebastian had been forced to endure more crushing small talk. Hawke had been surprised, if not pleased, to see Anders's date hanging onto a tall, dashingly handsome new man, and the pair had since disappeared. At least she wouldn't be around to question where Anders had been for the last hour.
Currently, Sebastian was forcing food down her, claiming she should try and 'sop up' some of the wine. She wasn't drunk, for Maker's sake. These people were just so insufferable.
There was a sudden commotion as she turned to see someone burst through the doorway nearby. Hawke had to do a double take, the elf was almost unrecognizable, enormous tome in tow. Merrill gaped into the ballroom with half-feigned shock, as if she'd had no idea there'd be a throng of people on the other side of the doorway.
Hawke saw Anders appear through another doorway farther down the wall. He dashed up to a table nearby, though the other onlookers were likely too distracted by Merrill to have noticed. He leaned casually against the wall, sipping a glass of wine as if he'd been there the whole time. Hawke gave him an uncertain look, then turned her confusion back to Merrill, who gasped and ran back through the doorway and toward the artifact room.
"She's stolen something!" Anders yelled suddenly, and gasps of shock went up throughout the ballroom. Hawke groaned, this was definitely not part of either plan. At this point, she would just have to roll with it.
Hawke dashed through the doorway after Merrill, with Sebastian and Anders close behind. The elf had crossed through a vestibule and into the adjoining room which acted as a foyer to the artifact room. She now stood in front of one of many sets of windows that lined the opposite wall - a dead end. Hawke gave her a questioning look, and Merrill looked apologetic briefly before contorting her face into an evil grimace. A menagerie of nobility dashed in behind Hawke, and she heard a medley of comments rise up amongst the onlookers, "A mage!" "It's an apostate!" "Oh my!" "A maleficar!"
Hawke tried to quickly take in the scenario her companions had set up, realizing it was just a bastardized version of plan B. She could work with this. Just as Hawke was thinking Merrill looked a little silly carrying the enormous, heavy tome that was half her height in length, the elf tossed the book to the ground with a loud thump, revealing a dark, purple aura glowing out from within it.
"Stay back!" Merrill yelled, taking her quarterstaff in both hands and thrusting it outward, pointing it threateningly at the crowd that had gathered. Many of the onlookers fled back into the ballroom, but some remained, gaping dramatically, clustering together tighter, as if it would somehow protect them. With disgust, Hawke realized one woman fainted. She noticed Lord Maeston among the remaining onlookers, a step in front of his guests, standing in line with her and Sebastian. Anders had made his way inside the room, also standing near the front of the crowd, but off to the side.
"Call the guard!" Hawke announced generally, though if they were still at least somewhat on-plan, either Varric or Fenris should already be on their way to alert Donnic.
Suddenly, Merrill cast something dark and forked out of the end of her staff and toward Hawke. Though she knew it harmless, a trick of light and air, she reacted on instinct, ducking and rolling away. She was surprised at her own agility despite the tightness of the corset, but less than pleased by the lash of pain that accompanied it. As she rolled up and out of the maneuver, she slid the sword out of a gaping guardsman's belt, flourishing it toward Merrill menacingly.
Onlookers gasped at the deft action and Hawke found herself surprised at how many had remained to watch the confrontation. However, after having spent more than a single moment with these people, she knew why. Despite threat of death, they would stay because of the boasting rights being present would surely grant them. She figured she might as well give them a show.
Hawke quickly slipped out of her vile shoes, then dashed toward Merrill, who put up a quick magical shield of air, deflecting Hawke's blade to one side as she struck down toward her. They'd sparred together enough over the last few months that they'd both felt comfortable not practicing this part of plan B. They knew each other's strengths and weaknesses well, and a careful, but unchoreographed fight would look more realistic, even to an untrained eye.
Merrill spun her staff toward Hawke, who raised her sword to parry the attack, then shoved away, spinning and swinging toward Merrill's open flank. The mage cast a quick, violet swirling ball toward the blade of the sword, pushing it down and away from her, taking Hawke's grip with it. She almost stumbled as she unknowingly resisted the abrupt pull. Merrill spun the staff in one hand, striking toward Hawke's head with the heavy, carved top.
Hawke ducked the swing, causing the force of the anticipated impact to throw Merrill off balance. In an actual fight, that would have been all the opening Hawke would have needed to end it, slicing cleaning through Merrill's now exposed midsection. Instead, she pushed away to spin back and out of the reach of Merrill's staff, as if to recover and regain her balance.
Suddenly, Donnic entered, followed closely by another guardsman Hawke didn't recognize. Merrill conjured and cast a bolt of magic in Donnic's direction. The guardsman didn't miss a beat, he took the 'spell' in his leg, falling hard to one knee and grabbing it in faux pain.
"Subdue her!" Donnic yelled. His partner hesitated briefly, then went to step forward. Hawke and Sebastian had beat him to it, however, having snuck behind Merrill while she was distracted by the guardsmen. Sebastian disarmed the elf as Hawke grabbed hold of her, pinning her back to her chest with one arm across her neck, the other weaved between her elbows and back so she couldn't escape her grasp. Merrill thrashed around a bit, looking like she was struggling to let a spell loose. Mages of course didn't need their hands free in order to be dangerous, but Hawke was fairly certain no one in this lot would know any better.
"Thank you, Champion," Donnic said, looking pained as he regained his footing, "We'll see she's properly taken care of, Lord Maeston." Donnic stepped toward them, unhooking a set of metal cuffs from around his belt.
Donnic's partner spoke up suddenly, "Ser, she's clearly an apostate. Should we not summon the templars?"
Hawke froze and Donnic showed his first sign of wavering as his eyes grew wider. Now, why had they not thought of that? It had seemed so simple when they'd planned it, just have the guards come take her away. Now it seemed glaringly, painfully obvious. Why would they not summon the templars?
Donnic recovered quickly, "We can see her taken to them, straightaway."
"The Champion barely has the knife-ear restrained, what makes you think we'll make it five feet with her?" he argued, Hawke tried not to glare at the man for his gruff use of the racial slur. Donnic looked to Hawke pleadingly, as if he wished she would just shout across the room what the best course of action was. It was all Hawke could do to not just shrug at the guardsman, who looked on, at once apologetic and panicked. Merrill was doing an equally poor job of hiding her shock, though it supplied her ruse with some authenticity.
Hawke knew she'd have to act fast in order to maintain control over the situation. She had studied the estate and grounds maps long and hard, all she could do now was trust her sense of direction. She quickly calculated the number of stairs she'd both climbed and descended in order to reach their current height, and prayed she remembered correctly.
Hawke cried out in faux pain, throwing Merrill away from her and into Sebastian as if the mage had somehow brutally attacked her. Sebastian, genuinely confused, caught Merrill awkwardly, stumbling backward and closer to the window behind him.
She held her hands to her torso in pain, lifting them as if to check underneath for how badly she was bleeding. As she did, she turned to look Anders in the eye, it was all the hint she could afford to give. She looked back up to Sebastian, who somehow, by the mercy of Andraste herself, seemed to understand what she was trying to accomplish.
"Maker, no!" he yelled suddenly, then fell to the ground, grabbing at his chest dramatically, thrashing and convulsing about on the floor, as if the mage had inflicted some kind of vicious spell upon him. Merrill just stood there, gaping down at Sebastian.
"Fiend!" Hawke yelled, directing her ire at Merrill. She hiked up the skirt of her dress, took a step to spin into the kick, then beseeched the Maker. She felt the familiar resistance of magical cushioning before her foot came into full contact with Merrill's chest. She was grateful Anders had understood, though it may have just been his instinct, or even Merrill's for that matter. It didn't slow the impact, but acted as padding so she wouldn't break the poor elf's sternum. Hawke tried to mask her guilt as she caught Merrill's eyes gape open in fright as she flew away from her and out the window behind her.
The glass broke just a half breath too early, flying outward and away just slightly too far. Hawke could only tell because she knew of the involvement of magic, to the nearby onlookers it would have looked completely natural. The elf disappeared below the ledge of the window, and Hawke grimaced as her still aching torso cried out in reaction to her movements. She cursed her outfit yet again as the crowd scurried forward and looked out the window.
"She's gone!" one of them yelled, and Hawke hoped the relief on her face wasn't too obvious.
"The fountain, she landed in the fountain below!" a woman chimed in.
"There must be footprints, follow the foot prints!" another yelled. Hawke's heart skipped a beat and she turned to give Donnic a pointed look, but the man had already dashed back toward the exit, his lackey in tow.
"We'll pursue on foot!" he yelled as he disappeared back into the ballroom. Hawke caught a glimpse of Anders, who had stepped up to an unbroken window a few meters down along with a handful of nobles.
"There aren't any footprints, she's disappeared!" someone managed to yell above the din of shock and amazement that started rising as even more guests entered from the ballroom now that the danger had appeared to subside. Anders looked up to meet Hawke's eye, and though it wasn't a significant look, she knew it meant that he'd managed to cover Merrill's escape. It was all she could do not to award him a grateful hug, or at least a high-five. Additional guests trickled toward the windows, peering out and recounting the tale in hushed, scandalized remarks.
"What is it with this bloody tome?" Hawke heard Lord Maeston say almost under his breath. She turned to find him standing near the book, looking down on it as evil-looking tendrils of harmless magical energy spun around it.
"What do you mean, Lord Maeston?" Hawke asked, stepping toward him.
"It was stolen once before," he said.
"Really? But you recovered it? Who stole it?" she asked, thinking it a believable train of thought for the Champion, but also genuinely intrigued. If the tome contained the kind of information they thought it did, anyone who had previous access to it could be involved in the scheme they'd hoped to uncover.
"We don't know," he said, looking up to meet her eye, "It just returned one day. Right back on its pedestal, as if it'd never moved an inch."
Hawke didn't have to feign her reaction as her brow creased in speculation.
"I've had security increased since then - some of these artifacts we've collected are very dangerous," he said, giving the tome an apprehensive look again.
"Careful, my Lord," Sebastian said as he limped toward them, "It looks like the witch may have cursed it."
"I'm afraid you're right," he said concernedly.
"My companions and I will do our best to track your thief, Lord Maeston," Hawke said.
He looked at her, somewhat surprised, "Thank you Champion. Though, I suppose it's not strictly necessary, she didn't make it away with anything."
"She may try again," Sebastian pointed out.
"That's true," Lord Maeston said contemplatively, "If you're able to track her, I would be most appreciative. I know how valuable your time is, so please don't make it a priority. I'll triple my guard for the time being."
"The curse on the tome still holds," Hawke added, "If you'd like, I'd be happy to take it to First Enchanter Orsino and see about having the curse lifted."
Lord Maeston did a poor job of hiding his trepidation, then said, "The origins of the tome are… quite unique. The First Enchanter may see reason to have it confiscated."
Hawke gave him a small but knowing grin, "I am positive the First Enchanter would look the other way."
"Oh yes," he nodded gratefully, "For you, I suppose that's true."
"That being said, if the curse isn't able to be lifted, we may need to have it destroyed," Hawke said. Lord Maeston looked disappointed, but ultimately accepting.
"Of course Champion," he said gratefully, "How can I begin to thank you?"
"It's no trouble," she said. She felt a pang of guilt suddenly as she realized exactly what it was they'd just done. They'd used Kirkwall's expectation of what she was against them. They'd distracted them with the spectacle of the Champion so they could steal something right in front of them - so they could literally walk out with the bloody thing, with the lord's consent and blessing.
The man seemed amiable enough, could they have simply asked Lord Maeston to have a look at it? She sighed to herself, knowing it wouldn't have been that simple. He would have had questions, or at least would have required a favor in order to look the other way. The last thing Hawke wanted was to owe any of these people anything.
"You have done Kirkwall more than your fair share of service in the past, you must allow me to reward you in some way," he said, and before Hawke could respectfully decline, he announced, "I'll throw a feast, in your honor!"
The other nobles around the room gasped with delight. She cursed the Maker, then Andraste, then the Maker again, knowing this was her punishment for kicking Merrill out a window.