Corrupted: The Lost Mysteries of the Ancients
Down they went, deep into the foreign ruins of their civilization, and when their descent surcease at the end of the stairway, their astonishment was limitless as they attempted to perceive their surroundings.
They sought a cave; they found an ancient tomb. An assemblage of dilapidated underground ruins of what the Dalish once had: knowledge, honor, and permanent lodgings.
Bones of their clansmen from centuries long forgotten were scattered far and wide. And several abandoned cocoons hung eerily above the cracking walls. Torches crafted and nailed into the cracking walls of these ancient halls long ago seemed to look much younger than their actual age as their flames performed their dance. How they remained lit after all this time baffled Lyna and Tamlen.
Another fear was arousing in Lyna besides old fires and wolves: the presence of spiders. And by the looks of it, giant ones. The cocoons were large human of any human or elf to be put into.
"It...looks like the shem was telling the truth, but these ruins look more human than elven."
"Something doesn't sit right with me..." Lyna admitted. The air was cold, and dust was more resident than visitor in this once-hallowed place. Her long dead kin offered her no solace.
"What, you believe that demons reside here, lethallan?" Tamlen joked.
Lyna was not amused. "This isn't the time for humor, Tamlen."
"I wasn't trying to be -"
She pointed to a cocoon in which its host was long voided of its flesh. "Do you see that? We are in a nest of spiders here, lethallan. We cannot be careless here. We should turn back now."
Tamlen only shook his head. "For Andruil's sake, woman, calm down. I'm sorry for trying to lighten up the mood. It was a bad joke, and I apologize. These cocoons seem long abandoned, though. They're probably long -"
Flickers of unnatural tappings discontinued his rebuttal. Lyna swiftly turned around, bow armed. "No, they are not."
Insectile hissing reverberated the crumbling halls. Tamlen knotted twin assans into his bowstring, ready to strike at anything that moved. Lyna was also more than prepared.
Preparation was insufficient with this creatures of the night. Especially those no longer on the 'normal' plane of natural existence.
Three unusually large spiders webbed down in front of the horrified duo.
Two resembled what regular spiders normally look like except these examples were enlarged greatly, which made them all the more hideous and vile. The third was different. While the other two were colored in shades of ugly brown, this outcast was a dark red. Its legs and size were thinner then its brethren. Its fangs not large but definitely sharper, even with its unholy pus and drool. Its unnatural appearance in comparison to the others made Lyna vomit inside. She would find out later in her life was made such a being exist, for this was not just a giant spider; it was a corrupted spider. Twice as hideous. Twice as powerful.
Killing the spiders took no small amount of courage, nor any short period of time. The corrupted one proved the most difficult of the trio to dispatch of. Even after overcame their initial fear and dispatching them with blade and arrow, the presence of such fiends in this once-hallowed halls, if they ever were, did not bode proud or robust tidings.
"I hate spiders!" Lyna declared just moments after the corrupted spider fell under eleven arrow piercings. She looked over her shoulder to see her quiver; 6 assans remained.
Tamlen smiled as his withdrew his Dar'Misu of a spider's corpse. "Good to know." Tamlen repeated her action and found only 4 left of his.
She caught his smirk right before he shifted it to a neutral expression. "You find my fear funny?"
"No, of course not. I'd never -"
She walked to him, wagging her finger. "Your approach at humor is unwarranted, Tamlen. If this little side venture you persuaded me to go with you exposes greater danger than what we have seen, there will be a reprimand on you for this, I promise you." She walked away, blades draw.
"You know, all I was trying to do was to be optimis - oh, just forget it."
"Forgotten."
She still couldn't take her mind not just off this blasted 'quest', but that one, fiendish, corrupted spider...what could such a thing to turn a monster so much more monstrous? Her theories were hardly reassuring.
Giant spiders tend to appear in old ruins and other places where the Veil has become thin because of magical disturbances or a great number of deaths. In such places, spirits and demons pass into the world of the living and attempt to take control over living beings, spiders among them. Not all scholars accept this explanation for the presence of these beasts, however. Some claim that the thinning Veil allows magic to "leak" from the Fade, tainting such creatures as these spiders to transform into larger and more potent creatures than they ever would become naturally. While such spiders are known to possess powerful poisons and the ability to fling their webs at opponents in combat, studies of them have been few and the full range of their abilities are unknown.
Corrupted spiders are giant arachnids which grow in the depths of the Deep Roads, and feed on numerous species of large bats. When the Deep Roads were lost to the darkspawn, they started feeding on genlocks, and their numbers began to grow exponentially. Some moved up to make their lairs in surface forests, but most remain underground, close to their blight-tainted meals which make them larger and fiercer than they have ever been.
The ruins themselves had many traps, twists and turns, though the majority of the fighting involved more nests of giant and poisonous spiders. The horrors aside from those arachnids were the numerous skeletons of elves long before the hunter's grandfathers were even born, along with carvings and fragmented sculptures of lost elven lore. There was a statue at the far west end of the ruins that bore translatable text:
This statue commemorates the emergence of - and short-lived trading with - dwarves who dug too high and too frugal and struck elves.
"Curious...I don't recall Hahren Paivel recounting tales that told of the Dalish having any relations with dwarves. Short lived or not." Tamlen commented.
"Maybe there wasn't much to tell."
"Maybe...let's keep looking." Tamlen's persistent insistence was, all the more, driving Lyna's perplexed meter higher and higher.
Their exploration came to a halt as Tamlen ran down a path, just after his head turned into the hallway's direction, and stopped right in front of another statue.
A statue dedicated to Falon'Din, the elven God of Death and Fortune, no less. The one who guides to departed People into the Beyond.
"I can't believe this. You recognize this statue, don't you?"
A chord in Lyna's memory was strung, but no note was played. "It's worn, but it looks vaguely familiar..."
Tamlen explained, elated. "Back when our people lived in Arlathan, statues like these honored the Creators. When the shems enslaved us, much of that lore was lost. He took a more thorough look at his surroundings. "Something's off here...This...This looks like human architecture...with a statue of our people. Can - Can these ruins date back to the time of Arlathan?"
Lyna shook her head and crossed her arms, not interested in knowledge as much as getting out of this place. Mythal, I pray, stop him if I cannot. "We're nowhere near Arlathan, and this proves nothing."
"We must have lived in other places, too. Even if elves didn't live here, its architects knew of our gods." Tamlen rebutted.
"I...cannot deny this statue does resemble the Guide, Tamlen." Her admittance turned her stomach; she did not wish to present Tamlen with more reason to stay.
Even if she left this place, he would not.
Curiosity was his master now, not reason.
As she took to the only unopened door in the ruins, Tamlen said, "You know, with everything that is in these ruins, from the spiders to the skeletons to lost lore of the Elvhen...I have to say, lethallin: this place makes me nervous."
Lyna spun around, hair whipping, and gave Tamlen the oddest of stares. NOW you're nervous? She said, in spite of her conscious, "So talk, if that will calm you down."
"I suppose so...hey, weren't you suppose to be assisting Master Varathorn today? How did you end up coming with me?"
Lyna blinked; she hadn't completely forgotten that Varathorn, the clan's smith, needed assistance with gathering ironbark today. When she heard Tamlen was going hunting, though, she asked their Keeper, Marethari, if she could shadow him, as was his tendency to walk straight into mayhem. She obliged and explained to Varathorn as Lyna left that the huntress would be 'preoccupied with matters of the clan.' Varathorn wasn't fooled and chuckled; Tamlen exploits was never lost to gossip.
There was also the fact, known but rarely spoken due to rudeness, that Lyna liked being around Tamlen. A lot, in that more than friendly company could equate to. They always were friends, but as the years past like the wind, the attraction was less congenial and more, to a point, mature and unabridged. When she remembered her first meeting Tamlen years to the day, she thought of his as a funny, cute, and sincere sort of elf. Those qualities remained, and others grew like bad weeds, but she had come to find a kindred soul in him. She respected her race's past and history and had the unanimous disdain for shemlen, but she, though never admitting it, was one who sought adventure, too, like Tamlen. The daily life of a Dalish could get so uneventful, throwing pebbles across a pond was the highlight of a day.
Seeking danger sometimes did indeed lighten up her mood, but telling Tamlen how she felt was out of the question. He did get them into trouble more times than accounted for. Bears, wolves, shemlen poachers; sometimes it was fun. Half of the time, they were lucky to be out of their predicament in one piece.
She noticed two things at that moment: one, Tamlen's eyebrow arched, his face nonplussed, and two: she ever did answer his question, and she was thinking deeply, as an allotted time of one minute or more had come and gone without her realizing it.
"Are you okay, Lyna?" He asked, his tone manner sounding like the question was persisted several times already.
Her face seemed to resemble that of bewilderment, like a great feast was planned and she came to the venue without knowledge of the event or anything of nutrition to gorge. She could lie, but in moments like these, Tamlen was far from muddle-headed.
So she chose an answer she thought she would have said ever, at camp or in dark, monster-infested ruins.
"I wanted to be with you, of course." she responded, pulling strands of her raven hair over a pointed ear ambiguously.
Tamlen's cheeks changed into the brightest shards of red, its opacity higher than the base that was his tan skin. "I...I...I thought that was the case. I'm... glad." His nervous nature remained, but the reasoning morphed from fear of the ruins to fear of the heart.
Now Lyna acquired the state of bewilderment. "Are you blushing?"
"What? N-No. No. Of course not. I just-wasn't expecting - it's not like - oh, Creators. Will you stop pestering me like a mere child with your questions?"
Lyna's arms crossed, and a high level of bemused occupied her face. "I only asked you one question, lethallin."
The stuttering Tamlen nearly tripped over. "You - you did. You're right. Yes. Right. I'm - I'm just - I want to say - that I am not blushing! That would be utterly ridiculous! Even preposterous!"
"So the reason then for those rose-colored cheeks on your face is...what then?" was Lyna's query, directly pointing at him.
Tamlen uttered a pray to the Creators before responding more firmly now, "Lyna, I am not in - this is not the time to -" His sudden resolve was taken away like a flood to homes on the riverbed. "Uh...right. Can we talk about this another time? Perhaps where our present environment is more appropriate."
"Like at camp?"
"...As long as know no can hear -" He stopped right before the end, blinked, then groaned. "They all know, don't they? About us?"
Lyna looked around like she was expecting somebody to come around the corner. "What about us?"
"Lethallan, you just admitted your - I can be ignorant, but not that ignorant." Tamlen clearly expressed, this time his heart carrying the weight of the statement, not his brain. He did care for her very much, and he knew the clan was not unaware for this...the elders more than the da'len.
The female huntress was taken aback sharply. "So - this means you feel -"
Tamlen said nary a word, but his eyes-his clear-watered eyes-showed Lyna was she expected but never truly confirmed.
Comprehending this by running fingers through her hair might not have been the least ideal way, but the action just became automatic.
"I don't wish to discuss this here anymore, Lyna. Later, we can...talk, okay?"
Lyna found herself nodding without the action ever actually being considered in her mind. Probably to avoid making eye contact again with a frustrated Tamlen.
Tamlen got back to his original question after the 'awkward deep attraction' secret was revealed in a unconventional way. "Alright...so was that the only reason you came with me?"
Taking a deep breath and temporarily relieving herself of emotions she didn't want to feel at this time, particularly because the confession was 'told' in the most inhospitable of places, and got back on track with Tamlen. "You know me. I get away from camp whenever I can." That was not a lie, but far from the real reason.
"I know. Still, I've never known one so eager to wander. I bet you'll end up a flat-ear someday, living in the cities like a shem."
Lyna was not appreciative of the reference to their kin residing in the filth-ridden human cities. "I prefer to hunt."
"Me, too, if you are a better hunter than I am."
It was Lyna's turn to arch an eyebrow. "Is that a shot, lethallin?"
Tamlen smiled. "Not at all. It was merely a simple observation, lethallan."
"Uh-huh."
"Don't take it personally."
"I'm not."
"Your cheeks disagree with your words."
"What? D-Don't be ridiculous." She wasn't aware that a trade of blushed cheeks had occurred.
"Well, then, who's blushing now?"
Now she knew. "I am not - just -you - oh, would you please shut up!"
Tamlen's head just shook with overlapping amusement. "And that is all the proof I require. Ma serannas, lethallan."
"You - you - arrrggh! Men!" she yelled.
"What?" The male elf mockingly joked.
The fact that she was in the position Tamlen was in earlier, confounded by finding words unavailable, was not lost on her. "Just - you - arrrggh! Males! Forget it!"
Tamlen figured it was safer to move on lest her rage cause unnecessary harm. "At any rate, I wasn't expecting this place to...feel quite like this. Maybe this wasn't the best idea..."
"Finally, you actually acquire some sense! We should probably leave! Why did you want to come here so badly?"
His quick change from agitation to inquisitiveness utterly aggravated her mind and body. "Aren't you curious? We could be discovery our history. The lost mysteries of the ancients could be solved by all this. Minstrels will write songs about us."
She nearly lost it there. "Yes, I could see it now. 'The tale of Tamlen the Curious, who sought much but always got himself in danger and his good friend Lyna always had to get him out of trouble before it escalated.' It will be a classic among many da'len."
in his unmovable state, all the elf could reply with was the word "Ouch."
Her hands went to her hips. "You aren't fooling me, Tamlen!"
Tamlen regained his composure and attempted to clam Lyna down. "Okay, then. All 'foolishness' aside, if I were to bring back some ancestral artifact to the keeper, she might forgive me for, well...you know." In a matter if minutes, he phased from discomfort to panic and now to shame.
She knew too well what he was alluding to. She frowned. "You get into far too much trouble, Tamlen."
"And you get into far too little...except when you with me. Which is probably why the keeper sent you with me."
Lyna blinked. "I never said -"
"No, you didn't, but I figured it out. Of course you want to be with me, and I know you like to leave camp when you can, but would you really be here without the Keeper's approval?"
"I...Tamlen, it's not -"
A raised hand permitted no further attempts at explanations. "It's alright, lethallan. I understand the Keeper's concerns, though I'm not sharing them. For what it's worth, I'm glad the Keeper sent you with me...I feel safer with you than I do with any of the other hunters."
"I...thank you, Tamlen." She said, smiling.
He accepted the gesture most kindly. "Of course, Lyna."
Her attention went back to the ruins. "So, what do you think of all this? Truly?"
"I'm...not sure. This looks like a very old human place. Why did they build this? And why would elvhen artifacts be here?" Tamlen's tone was worrisome, but only one with an exceptional sense of perception, like Lyna was, could detect the smallest hint of exhilaration unabated. "Maybe some of our ancestors lived here, in caves like the dwarves. I'll stick to roaming the land, myself."
This place a home to our people? Right, and my mother mated a dwarf. "This doesn't feel like anyone's home, Tamlen."
"I don't know. I have this...odd sensation that we've...disturbed something. Like we just walked into a dragon's lair."
"I hope not. A spider's nest is one thing, and I'd rather take that than a dragon any day."
"Remember the keeper's words, Lyna: 'What you wish not to occur -'"
"'- will happen sometime down the road.' I remember. Thank you very much for reeducating me, lethallin."
"Always here to help."
"Help us get into danger, yes." Lyna retorted.
"What's wrong with a little adventure now and then, lethallan? It can get pretty boring at the camp, you know. You did admit that just now."
"That's not the point, Tamlen, and you know it." She snapped.
The elf sighed, slouching his shoulders. "I know."
"As for this danger - this place - I fell that if elves were here, it would stand to say that more than likely those elves were slaves." Lyna gritted her teeth; the stories passed down about when their ancestors served magisters under chain and lock was never a pleasant discussion topic.
"The keeper said it took a long time for slavery to erase our ancestor's history. Maybe whoever lived here still wrote and spoke elven."
"Do you really think the keeper will want to come here?"
Tamlen thought on his answer for a moment. "She takes any opportunity to gather elven lore. When the clans come together, they exchange whatever they find."
"I remember the last clan gathering. It is nice to see our brethren from afar come together for a time, short as it is."
"Indeed. If the keeper did come here, though, it wouldn't be without hunters to guard her. The air here feels so...sinister." The feeling was mutual; though it could not be seen, an aura of dread blanketing the ruins, the smell of unknown dangers...and lost terrors of the night. Tamlen's immediate continuance disrupted Lyna's thoughts."Well, whatever it is, it...it won't stop me. A Dalish hunter fears nothing!"
And he's boasting now. Magnificent. She then remembered a comment he made and asked. "How did you know all that about that statue?"
He didn't delve deep into his memory for the answer. "I saw a picture of it in one of those old books the keeper never lets anyone touch. If I recall correctly, it was one of the old gods. The keeper called him a...what was it now...oh, right! A 'friend of the dead'."
Tamlen's explanation what not abundant of assurance for Lyna. "I have no intention of being its friend, or being its friend in death."
"Well, there's no danger in that. It's a statue; it can't do any harm to us."
"Besides making us nervous due to its form and also where it happens to be?" She indicated to the ancient walls around here, housing many manners of death and decay.
Tamlen's hand rubbed against the back of his neck. "Well, I suppose..."
She continued her candid assessment of the statue by pointing at it and saying, "If that's a 'friend of the dead', then it confirms this place is a tomb. Look at all the skeletons and remains of old warriors we found."
"Yes, but an elven tomb built by shems? I doubt it."
"Why?"
"It's said that the old ones never truly died; they just went somewhere and...slept forever. And this god would come to guide their spirits away. But he wasn't an evil god, not like Fen'Harel- the Great Wolf. It doesn't seem right that a place so...wrong...would be his."
An faint crack of movement stop the conversation, and both elves drew weapons. "What was that?" Tamlen asked. "More spiders?"
"It didn't sound like a spider's legs." Lyna analyzed.
Indeed, the new foes were not spiders at all.
Right before their eyes, two elven skeletons rose up, armed to the bone, barring the lone unopened door. One wielded a greatsword, the other twin daggers. They weren't Dar'Misues, though. They charged.
"Andruil be with us, are those - walking dead?!" Tamlen howled.
"Less thinking, more fighting. Now!" Lyna commanded.
Tamlen took the twin dagger wielding skeleton, Lyna the greatsword wielding one.
For beings that had been dead for so long, the skeletons moved as nimble as the hunters, parry after parry, strike after strike. Every angle the elves undertook to deliver a fatal blow, primordial swords obstructed the would be-killing blows.
After a near full two minutes of intense hostilities, the skeletons were triumphed over when their craniums found themselves dismembered from their cervical vertebraes in a spectacular fashion on the hunters part.
The victory cost Lyna one of her Dar'Misues. It shattered at where the blade met the hilt when the skeleton went for a pulverizing blow.
Tamlen could barely believe what they had to fight. Their foes were actually dead now, but even still, what dark magic could raise the dead? "Were those walking corpses? This place is haunted!"
Lyna was of the same mind. "How could walking corpses be here?"
"Hahren Paivel once said that in places where many people died, it can become setheneran- a land of waking dreams. The Veil became weak and spirits slip into our world. Then they possess corpses and walk around." The young hunter shuddered at the notion of the rising dead on this earth, even with proof at his feet.
"Maybe this is the 'demon' the humans saw, wouldn't you think? Or perhaps they only only saw something made by a Era'harel?" His counterpart inquired.
"It's not impossible... yet it's hard to imagine anything else could live here with these...creatures. Still...worse things may be ahead." He took another look at the ruins all around him, now greatly doubting his desire to come here, but still not enough to even dare think of leaving. His back was to Lyna. "This place reeks of something..wrong. Can you feel it?"
Lyna wasn't paying attention; her sharp eyes noticed something odd and she bent over, rolled her recent attacker over, and picked up one of the ancient corpse's weapon: a Dar'Misaan, the primary hand weapon of the elves, ancient and the wanderers.
Unlike human or dwarven swords and daggers, the Dalish blades were forged into a long curve with no fuller or rain guard. This sacrificed strength for greater flexibility. Due to limited resources, the elves use metal for human traders (begrudgingly, of course) to craft their blades and assan heads.
The odd thing was that this Dar'Misaan bore a crest above the shoulder of the weapon, where the hilt meets the blade. The crest was very worn out, but she could make out what the remnants of the crest shaped to be: a halla over a shield, which happened to be the heraldy of her and Tamlen's clan, the Sabrae clan. Evlish word were inscribed on the blade, and though she could not make out most of it, the Dalish were taught some written words by the Hahrens and Keeper, and so Lyna used that knowledge to put some of the latter text together. When she did, she lost all the breath in her throat.
Sa shem'nan. Elvhenan sulahn abelas. Elvhenan suledin nadas. Sa ghilana da'len mir Bellanaris, Harrith Mahariel.
Our revenge is swift. Our hearts sing sorrow. Our hearts must endure. Guide our children into eternity, Harrith Mahariel.
"Lyna..." Tamlen asked, now noticing Lyna did not hear him the first time.
Lyna turned and placed the Dar'Misaan in his hands. After a jolt of surprise and intrigue, he gasped, finally grasping what she saw, and met her somber and distraught eyes.
"This is...this symbol..."
"Yes...he...it...was of our clan...or it wielded a weapon crafted by our clansmen. long ago."
His breath shortened when he finished reading the blade's inscription. Vaguely, though. "Lyna...your family name is on here."
"I know." He stated.
"I didn't even know your family line was so long."
"Neither did I. We lost so much when Elvhenan and the Dales fell..."
Tamlen nodded, smiled, and handed the blade back to her. "...Well, since you are of the Mahariel bloodline, you should keep it. It is yours."
Lyna took a single gaze at the sword in her hands. So much history of what she was, what the elves were, what it meant to be a child of Elvhenan, was gone like the summer wind. To possess just a piece of it...words were insufficient to describe her innermost and overwhelming feelings. Lacking a proper scabbard, she slid the blade under her belt.
Ancient Dar'Misaan: Longsword - Tier 2 - Grey Iron - A primordial blade seemingly made in the time of Arlathan's reign. It bears the crest of a halla, a scared animal to the elvhen, over a shield. An inscription is written on the blade, though most of its words are barely visible.
"Maybe this venture will indeed answer some questions of our lost lore." She admitted.
"I hope so...then again, I don't wish to fight beings of the Veil."
Lyna's thought track was interrupted as she was thinking still about the sword when Tamlen mentioned the 'veil' word. "I'm sorry. You said something about a veil?"
Tamlen crossed his arms. "I'm no storyteller. All I remember of the hahren's tales is that a veil separates our world from the spirit world. He said that spirits are jealous of us, and always try to steal our souls. They want to be like us so badly they'll possess our dead, which drives them insane. but for them to enter out world, the Veil must be weak. Is this why this place feels so strange?"
Lyna frowned, the heartwarming moment vanishing quickly when the notion of spirits and demons was expressed. "I don't like that idea."
"Neither do I. Let's press on...I want to know how our people were involved in this."
"To know why they were?"
"That, and how to avoid their fate here. This place feels too much like death. I'd rather know more so we are prepared if something should happen."
Tamlen's reasons were valid, even though Lyna felt they should leave now to warn them. Still, if they did find something that explained all this..."Agreed." She said, albeit her true emotions of trepidation spoke only the language of silence. She went to the last unopened door in the ruins' vicinity, put the dusty key in, turned it counterclockwise, unlocking the door, and pushed it forward.
Not even as the door was fully half-way opened, two giant red eyes fell upon her and Tamlen. A set of forty-two grizzly teeth, the canine measuring half a foot long, accompanied the stare. The Dalish hunters did not move; both male and female facial expression were mixed into a combination of dread, extreme fear, and coincidentally, above all these, dismay.
To the untrained eye, this was a monster of great strength. To an experienced mage, even a Dalish keeper, the correct classification would call of this fiend to be called a bereskarn, a bear under the influence of the Taint.
Bereskarn are bears corrupted by the blight. They have lost their sentience and became ghouls, much like the blight wolves and corrupted spiders who fall prey to the Taint. Bereskarn are slothful creatures when left alone, but fierce and unyielding when they attack. They are often enraged and prodded into battle by the darkspawn.
Tainted bears grow larger and sprout enormous bony spikes that protrude from their fur, causing severe wounds. The blood constantly seeps from these wounds, giving bereskarn a terrifying appearance and a nauseating smell.
The creature was a true abomination. Its snarling mouth was brimming with pus and blood.
"What in the Creators is -" She was cut off as the beast charged, running faster than any wolf or halla she'd had seen. Had she not dodged its rampage at the last possible moment, her body who have been crushed flat under its sheer size. Tamlen dodged to the other side. The beast slide another four feet before it was able to turn around and launch another charge.
She quickly kipped up, drew her bow, and struck three assans at the beast's side, aiming for its ribcage. The arrows bounced out the bereskarn's hide like twigs hitting a stone wall. She had to move out of the way again before striking up another volley. The result was the same as before.
Tamlen fared no better. All three of his quick shots missed their mark as well. His second round was less promising.
"Andruil preserve us! Arrows aren't working!" shouted Tamlen.
"I doubt Dar'Misues will work! We need a plan!" cried the huntress.
Tamlen barely got out of the way in time of the bereskarn's third charge, this time inadvertently crashing into another wall. More rubble fell down. A few more and the chamber might actually collapse on itself. Lyna knew that the collapse would most likely kill this thing, but it would kill them, too. They had a short respite before the beast regained its senses and momentum.
"I'm open to suggestions!" Tamlen shouted, exhausted. "By Mythal, this thing reeks!"
She had to conjure a plan and fast.
Brute force won't work; we cannot get near it. Divide and conquer might...no; if the tips of elven arrows can't pierce its hide, will our hand blades fare any better? We'll die either by it or be crushed under these Falon'Din-blasted, crumbling -
- walls. An idea presented itself in a most uncommon style. She temporarily focused her sight on the old stone walls around her and Tamlen, the pillars looking like they could fall down with even the tightest push. The walls..."Tamlen, the walls!"
"Yeah, I know. Debris's falling all around us!"
"No, you fool! If our weapons cannot harm it, we'll use a different tactic!" She barked.
Tamlen caught one the minute the bereskarn prepared another charge. "You're joking!" It was obvious he was not on board with this plan of action.
"We can't fight it like if it were a wolf or a human or a walking corpse! The beast blindly charges, and cannot stop its momentum even when its quarry dodges it."
She halted her explanation as she pushed Tamlen to the right and she flung herself to the left, avoiding another attempt of being plowed down by a demon-bear, crashing itself into another unstable pillar.
"We can use that against it!" She continued.
"Okay, one problem: wouldn't we get crushed under the weight of the falling ceiling with it?!"
"It's not the best course of action, but that's what I got! Do you have a far superior course?"
Tamlen's facial dejection answered her question, well before he vocally replied, "No."
"Well, then." She had enough time to dodge another charge even before Tamlen warned her. The beast was not only getting tired physically, but getting extremely pissed at missing its mark every time he plunged forward full speed.
Lyna was able to observe it's emotions well. "One more time should do it."
Tamlen came next to her. "If we do survive this, I want to say - this is by far the worst idea you ever had!"
"Agreed. Ready?"
The bereskarn howled in rage and positioned itself for more more charge. If it was tired of charging, its prey had to been tired or fleeing. Now they were standing there, ready to accept defeat.
Or so it foolishly thought.
It regretted its charge too late.
Not even as it was a good four feet away for ramming them into fleshly pulp, Lyna screamed, "NOW!"
The elves folded away like a flower blooming in fast-time, and the beast just went straight forward. Its head broke a pillar a its core, and the damn thing came down upon it a harbinger of doom. 500 tons of ancient rock fell upon the beast, crushing it under it gargantuan weight.
The elves, shockingly surprised the structure remained as intact as it was, approached the fatally wounded beast cautiously, bow and blade drawn.
When the dust clear, the bereskarn still breathed, but it was fatally wounded, its body compressed tremendously under rock and stone.
After one roar of defiant terror from the beast, Lyna with all her strength drove her new Dar'Missan into the bereskarns' forehead, impaling the brain. It growled in pain for a time then growled no more.
"By the Creators! What - What was that - thing?!" Tamlen inquired, terrorized to the bone, even with the monster dead.
"I...I don't know...be thankful Elgar'nan favored us in this." Lyna replied, sheathing her Dar'Misaan.
The elf just stood over the husk of this demon-beast. It did look like a bear, but she still couldn't fathom how such a creature could exist. Or be turned into a monstrous form, for that matter.
"This place is cursed. Tamlen, let us go...We have seen enough..." Lyna walked to the open hallway, but she heard no footsteps behind her, or any vocal agreement.
"Tamlen?"
When she turned around to insist again for departure, Tamlen wasn't looking at the bear-thing anymore. He wasn't even near where it fell.
He was looking at what would become the lynchpin of all that would change her destiny: the mirror. The object that lay smack dab at the center of the chamber.
She only noticed it now. She would one day wish that the bereskarn should have rammed into that thing and destroyed it during their fight.
What the Blight does not destroy, it corrupts.
Any creature infected with the darkspawn taint that does not have the good fortune to die outright becomes a ghoul: a twisted shadow of itself.
The name originally comes from men—whether human, dwarven, or elven—who became tainted, usually while being held as a captive food source by the darkspawn. They would turn cannibal, preying on other captives, slaves to the will of the archdemon, driven mad by pain.
During a Blight, the corruption of the darkspawn spreads through the wilder areas of Thedas and infects the animals found there. This produces grotesque, enraged bears called bereskarn as well as blight wolves.
Fortunately, ghouls rarely survive their corruption for long.
The behemoth mirror stood tall between two stone guardians, armed with carved depictions of ancient elven blades. "It's...beautiful, isn't it? I wonder what the writings says." They was a tone in Tamlen's voice that Lyna was immediately disliking. He sounded, though she tried to think otherwise...possessed.
"The keeper might be able to translate it." She said, trying to steer him off his present course.
"Maybe, but she's not here to help us. Odd that this isn't broken like everything else, especially with that bear lumbering around in here." He pointed out, his focus still on the mirror. Unnaturally, too.
She did notice that was he said was true; everything in the room, let alone in the ruins' entirety, was either smashed, cracked, broken, or damaged without a pray to repair, save this one object. This one, strange object, unlike anything she and Tamlen had ever seen before...
"I wonder what this writing is for? Maybe this isn't - hey, did you see that?" He suddenly asked.
Lya blinked, then looked around, seeing nothing but themselves as the only residents of this dark place. "See what?"
"I...I think something moved inside the mirror." He said, an unfamiliar chord in his voice. Fear? Interest? Lyna couldn't pick which one was the more accurate.
Lyna looked between her clan brother and the artifact. We should never had come here..."Get away from it, Tamlen." She ordered, grabbing his arm.
He pushed hers off. "Hold on. I just want to see what it is."
"Tamlen, your eyes are being tricked. There is nothing there." She said, meaning her words.
Tamlen looked at the mirror again, then - "Don't you see it? There it is again!" He pointed.
"Tamlen, I see nothing." Lyna said, concern blossoming into paranoia.
"Can you feel it? I think it knows we're here." Tamlen was sounding more and more possessed.
"Tamlen -"
"Would you relax? I just need to take a closer look." His voice was somehow alternating between his own and something not of his usual being.
"Tamlen, what are -" Lyna's pleas were useless a this stage.
Her clan brother was already halfway up the stairway, his movement seemingly not his own, before she could even form a fourth word. She couldn't stop him. Not now.
This was the third mistake she made that day, but the error was not entirely hers.
His face froze as he touched the mirror. His fate was sealed the very moment his fingers made contact with the glass.
"It's...showing me places. I can see...some kind of city...underground? And...there's a great blackness."
What IS this thing? she thought.
Before another awful though was sculpted, Tamlen's pupils dilated. His voice shuttered. His resolve broken. "It...It saw me. Help! I can't look away!"
"Tamlen!" Lyna cried frantically.
Nothing could be done. Such is the will of fate.
A blinding light sparked from the mirror that launched Lyna away, nearly knocking her unconscious before being barely able to see something with Tamlen...grasping Tamlen...then total darkness took over mind and body, and she knew no more.
Scarcely able to cope with what her opening eyes last saw, her state of being was drifting between life and death. A nightmare immortal was all see saw, all she could walk through. Horrible visions of pain, remorse, loss. Every recollection comprehensible was directed at one event: Tamlen touching the mirror, and all occuring after going to hell. Realization was trying to kick the door down and denial was barring it. She couldn't decided if she was dreaming all of this in limbo, or what happened was, in actuality, the scariest realty of all things she had ever known to exist.
When her eyes had just enough strength to open, she could have swore, for just a very brief instant, she was back in the forest, right outside the tomb, right outside where-
"She's suffering! Badly! We need to get her to safety!" She heard a male voice declare, his speech soundly like he was at most half a mile away.
Another voice, older than the previous, replied, "Her clan's camp shouldn't be far. How did she make it out here?"
Her head turned to see a man next to her. Two men, actually. A heavily armored man kneeling over here, maybe at the halfway point of his life, with a longsword over his back. The other was an elf; his ears gave it away, but for her fading visibility, Lyna couldn't not identify him as one of her clansman. She could barely hear the human speak to her.
"You're going to be alright!" the elf tried to assure her.
"Can you hear me? I am...very sorry." said the man. His words. too, seemed to echo from a faraway place.
Her head tilted back, and again, she fell into darkness's embrace, seeing only memories - horrible, horrible and so vivid memories...
-~-0-~-
Author's Note: There is no corrupted spider when you enter the ruins the first time; only two giant spiders attack you. Still, it felt...boring to have just two spiders 'greet' you, right? Sometimes, you have to add a new flavor here and there, right?
The line "...lost mysteries of the ancients..." and chapter title is a direct reference to the only plot quest for the Dalish Elf Origin. Corny, I know. Couldn't help myself.
The battle with the bereskarn was inspired by the fight Hariko had with Roach in Heavenly Sword (good game; one hell of a performance by Andy Serkis)
And if you haven't noticed, I try not to leave out as much necessary dialogue from the game as possible; you never know if you will miss something important. I know it seems tedious, maybe even pointless, but as I said, you never know when 'filler' dialogue actually proves valuable...
-~0~-
"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity." - Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States
"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance." - George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist