NOTE: playing with the order of things a bit. :D
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I stood outside when the roof gave in
You called from the wreckage you were lying in
You were out of reach and were out of time
But I took it all and towed that line
You held my hand and pulled me down with you
~ Les Friction, Torture
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"Three ahead," Meredith said softly, creeping back to the others to where they were waited outside the Still Ruin. "One big guy with a zweihander and a couple of mages. No one else at the entrance. From what they said? We're going to need the Inquisitor here before this is done - they keep saying something about the rift inside the ruins being 'frozen'."
"That's ... odd," Melori commented. "But we should be able to get inside to look around, at least. If there are only three."
"We can try," Hugh agreed.
"There are others inside, but not many. One of the mages was complaining that they'd not been given enough people, though ... it sounded like someone important might be inside." Meredith wrinkled her nose, "Didn't like the sound of that. Important people from Tevinter tend to be mages."
"True, but we've got to see what they're after so the Inquisitor can decide what to do about it," Melori said. "We'll just have to go quick and quiet, right?"
"Right," Clery answered, nodding. "The scouts know to call for help if they see the blue flares. Harding gave me a couple for each of us. Now that the Inquisitor has the Keep, we'll get backup if we ask for it."
"Good, okay," Melori waited till everyone had stowed their flares and then looked to Hugh. "After you, Ser Knight."
Using a blade on a magical barrier was difficult to explain, but Meredith and Clery seemed to accept Hugh's explanation that the blade was runed and spelled, though he had trouble keeping a straight face about it. Neither really cared, most likely, as long as they could get inside without too much trouble. The three Venatori beyond the barrier at the door to the Ruin went down quickly, not suspecting they were under attack until the Templar knocked them into the walls with burst of white light. What followed was messy, but quickly done and soon they were had levered the door open and slipped inside.
Guards immediately inside the entrance met them with bared steel, though Meredith's quick thinking took two of them down, arrow shafts embedded in their throats. The other two sprang forward and Hugh met them with his shield and blade, Clery and Melori wading in after he stunned one with a shield to the face and spit the other on his balde. It was brief and brutal, and, they hoped, not too loud.
"Creator save us," Melori whispered as she wiped her blade clean on one of the dead men's trousers, her eyes flicking around the room. "What ... is this?"
Everything in the Still Ruin seemed caught in a moment in time. A rift stood out dead center in the room, and scattered all around it were demons of various kinds. Frozen Mages and armored men were locked in fighting poses with many of them. Overhead, it appeared that the roof was caving in, blocks halted in midair "This," Melori said as she looked upward, "Is beyond odd."
"Should we call for the Inquisitor, given the Rift here?" Clery asked. "We're still at the door, I can tell the scouts to send a message."
"Probably ought to," Hugh nodded. "Whatever is holding this all in place could give at any moment. If that rift opens, we're not prepared to fight it."
So they waited, Melori going around the room with her notebook and sketching designs and making notes, one ear listening for any sign of other visitors. Since her dream the night before, she'd had time to calm down, to focus. Hugh was watching her carefully, however. She could feel his eyes on her as she moved from space to space, and found it comforting.
"This would have taken an immense amount of power," she said, her nose wrinkling as she looked further into the building. "And likely a lot of murdered slaves. Typical."
She walked into the middle of the room, circling the trapped rift and wondering how on earth anyone had managed to freeze such a thing. She sketched quickly, reaching out tentatively with her own magic, gently, gently ... but it nothing she did affected it. While it was physically present, and both powerful and strange - a wrongness in the world on the brink of eruption, it was somehow locked out of time. Flipping another page, Melori began to sketch and write, missing Caro's skill with images as her pencil flew over the page. Hugh paced along behind her, not quite willing to cross so near to the rift, and Meredith crouched at the entrance, waiting for Clery to return.
A sound of something moving further in the ruins echoed and they all startled, turning. Melori shoved her journal back into her belt and darted away from the Rift to Hugh's side, the two of them ducking behind a pillar. But whatever it was did not come closer. Clery found them there, his own footsteps light on the tiles.
"Message sent, though we can't be sure how long it will take her," he said softly. "Further in?"
Hugh nodded and they moved on. Some of the doors they encountered were locked, but Meredith took care of those while the other waited, ringed around her. Armor or weapons, magical objects - all were left for the Inquisitor, but the books were collected into a bag, the remnants of information tucked into Melori's journal or written swiftly down. She noted the layout of the building, the indications of blood magery in the areas beneath the walkways, and the fact that the original inhabitants had been experimenting on something dangerous, volatile - they'd wanted to tap directly into the Fade, to siphon it's power for their own use.
"Right, well," she muttered to herself. "They managed something. That rift in the entry isn't from the Breach, but what's stopping it?"
"Melori?" Hugh said, watching her from the door.
"Nothing, it's just ... for once, I'm with Varric. How does he write about this? I can barely wrap my head around it."
He smiled, shaking his head, "It's that strange?"
"They were playing with forces they couldn't contain," she answered. "Oh no! We caused the Black City and the Blights! We're just going to keep nudging things we have no business nudging. Nevermind us."
They heard voices in one of the side rooms, so they headed through the large double doors at the center rear of the building instead. More frozen demons and Tevinter mages were arrayed around the courtyard. They edged around them, crossing into the sandy space and heading up to the gate at the back. It was sealed by magic, she could feel it beneath her fingers when she touched the metal. "There's got to be a way to get inside," Melori muttered, looking around.
"Do we have time for this?" Hugh asked, "They may come this way at any moment."
"The reason we're here is behind this gate," she answered. "We need to find out what it is, at the least."
Clery took watch by the gate, crouching to the side and ready to give the warning if any of the enemy wandered too near. Meredith hid behind one of the broken pieces of wall on the stair, and Hugh followed Melori as she ran from room to room. She found the first piece in one of the side rooms, sitting on a desk and gleaming with wisps of a spell. It whispered and hissed with magical energy, making her shiver as she picked it up. She spun on her heel, looking at Hugh, "This is what we need. There should be more nearby ... similar to this one."
They'd passed other peices, unknowingly, having not thought to look at the Mages locked in eternal battle with the Fade Demons. Meredith found one near her hiding place, just lying in the sand where someone must have dropped it a very long time ago. The others were more difficult, but the spell came together once they had them all and stood in front of the locked gate. Power ran along channels in the door and the entire structure lifted into the walls, revealing a dark, room beyond. They entered and Clery put his back to the inside of the door, watching through the courtyard, while the others stared at the staff standing at the center of a dais at the back of the room, a noxious sphere of blood magic turning above it in a sickening, dizzying whirl of power.
"Th-that's definitely it," Melori said, trying not to look as green as she felt. A body lay across the foot of the platform into which the staff stood, dried blood splattered around him. It had been his blood that fueled the spell, drawn by his own hand from the looks of it. She knelt and carefully drew a scroll from the man's hand, frozen in the moment of his dying so that he had never decayed. "They did open the rift in the entry. And he died to keep it from spreading or opening further."
"No wonder Corypheus wants this thing," Hugh said, looking as uncomfortable as she felt.
"We have a problem," Clery said form the doors. "Venatori approaching and one of them's the important one, I think."
"If we remove this," Melori said, nodding to the staff. "I think the spell will stop and time will resume for the demons and mages in battle everywhere. That could distract them ... "
"It could also rip open the rift and send us all hurtling into Maker knows what," Hugh said, giving her a look.
"Well, we'll have to open it anyway so that the Inquisitor can seal the rift in the front room, and she's on her way." Melori looked back at the staff, "Believe me, I don't want to touch this thing."
"Please decide quick," Clery said. "They're across from us now. Haven't noticed us yet, though."
"Do it," Hugh told her, shifting his shield on his arm and turning to face the door. Melori gritted her teeth, bent her head to the side, and grabbed hold of the staff, lifting it from its base.
The explosion of power as the sphere released its energy knocked Melori to the floor, the staff gripped tight in her hand. Half the ceiling fell or continued to fall from where it had been frozen, one large chunk missing her head by a breath. Something clicked and muttered just outside the door and Meredith began to loose her arrows at the demon. Shouting could be heard in the courtyard, along with the eruptive force of powerful spells. Hugh dragged her to her feet as the demon died, and they ran out into the light to see the Tevinter magister and the other Venatori battling the demons to the right of the doors. Beyond, they could hear the crackling energy of the Rift.
"Hurry," Hugh yelled, gripping his sword and starting forward, intent on running past the Venatori and toward the mass of demons beyond. "Stay with me!"
Spell fire struck the doors ahead of them and they ran into one another as they four skidded inelegantly to a halt. Melori twisted around, staff in hand, fear racing and she felt herself shifting stances, her eyes finding the Venatori magister standing as his men killed the last of the courtyard demons, his eyes on them, fire dripping off his hands like blood. Hugh moved forward, shield lifting, and she heard him as he passed, the Chant of Light falling from his lips, power beginning to well, and her heart lifted. Demons behind them and Venatori before them ... it was not a fight they could win without help. She knelt, laid the staff on the ground, and drew her sword, energy flickering down the blade. They would have to try anyway.
"Maker, my enemies are abundant.
Many are those who rise up against me.
But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion,
Should they set themselves against me..."
"Watch the ox with the great sword!" Clery called out, and Melori saw a flicker of blue smoke rising into the air when Meredith tossed one of their lit emergency flares into the sand before nocking an arrow and letting it loose into the enemy gathered below.
The Fade, broken and tattered here, bled power and Melori used it, pulling her shields tight around her before flinging herself into the fray. Hugh shouted and the magister staggered, interrupting the sickly red miasma rolling out from around the man's feet. But she did not have time to watch what the magister was doing. Melori turned as the brute with the great sword came at her, the metal a glittering arc in the air. She lifted her hands and summoned power, and a bombardment of energy flew from her hands in a wave of shock and force, staggering him back and away from her.
She heard Clery curse next to her, surprised, and Meredith's arrow took out the thief to Melori's right. He gave a startled gasp and collapsed, choking on his own blood.
"Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,
I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm.
I shall endure... "
Hugh's voice rose, the Chant lifting them along with it. Clery took a blow to the hip from a flanking blade and went down on one knee, gasping. Melori turned, power flowing as she threaded power into her blade, lightning hitting the ground in a circle around her, and several of the Venatori staggered, the wounded falling. But there were more than they had anticipated, and two of them were heavily armored, one with a polearm. Clery and Melori stood back to back, moving toward Hugh together.
"Though all before me is shadow,
Yet shall the Maker be my guide.
Hugh lifted his sword, but before he could summon his power ... they all staggered, gasping in sudden, unbelievable pain, twitching and jerking as the magister laughed. He, too, was chanting, though it was not the Chant of Light. His words were wrong, his eyes gleaming with reddish light, and the shadows beneath him seemed to twist and curl. As he moved forward, holding them with the power of his blood magic, the armored Venatori closed on them.
"I think that will be all from you," the magister said, walking toward Hugh, his men flanking the party. The only way out was up the stairs and toward the demons. Hugh stepped backward, holding blade and shield up, deliberately placing himself between the enemy and the others. He had blood sliding down from his nose and his gait was unsteady, having taken the brunt of the magister's magical attack, but none of them were doing well, sickened and weakened from whatever the mage had cast.
One of Meredith's arrows thudded against the mage's shields, falling uselessly to the ground, and she cursed, trying to nock another, but her fingers were fumbling. The magister watched the arrow fall, then canted his head to the side, a slow, sick smile curling his mouth. Melori could feel him twisting the veil, could feel the way his energy flexed - he was using the power from the rift, too, on top of everything else. His gaze left them, found the archer, who was sighting along her arrow, and he made a small gesture with his hand. Meredith jerked and then screamed, her bow falling from her hands as she spasmed and fell down the stair, her eyes staring sightlessly.
"Now now," the mage said, backing up onto the steps, "I hear your friends in the hall. I wonder what they'll think when they find you dead? Is it worth the risk?"
Hugh was quoting the Chant again, holding his shield high as he backed slowly up the stairs, Melori on his heels, paused only to grab the staff from the top of the stair and tried not to stare at Meredith's still body. Clery was limping and hissing with pain. In the hall beyond they could hear shouting, bursts of magic crashing into stone, and feel the shock of it beneath their feet. Their friends were nearby, fighting to break the rift. So close ...
"Take the Templar down," The magister said, setting his staff against the ground. "We have the other way out, and I do not wish for these to follow us."
The two armored men surged forward metal biting against metal as the two groups converged. That was her only true power against a man in full armor, to bring her magic to bear, using staff instead of sword and managing to knock them back. But neither Hugh nor Clery were holding their own well and they found themselves fight on the edge of the rail over one of the lower floors. It didn't help that the magister kept sending surges of fear and terror at them, boiling across the floor in black waves. Hugh's chant was fumbling, and Melori saw one of the warriors strike forward, knocking Clery over the ledge into space behind them with a cry.
The other slammed his pole arm into Hugh's side, the sound of armor splitting beneath the blade making a sickening sound. Hugh gave a gasp and fell to his knees, carrying the polearm with him as he fell. It had punctured through his side and out the back, and Melori stared in horror as his sword clattered to the ground and skidded across the tiles. Everything seemed to slow down in that moment and she turned, feeling the Rift surge behind her as the Inquisitor began her task.
Somewhere in the distance she heard someone shouting her name, but she had gone numb. She stepped forward toward the warrior and the magister, and into that heart beat of silence between the first pop of the closing rift and the last, she reached for all the power she could handle and slammed the staff into the ground.