37. Too Close for Comfort
Their return to the Deep Roads wasn't as imminent as Miri made it sound when she pounded on Jowan's door. They had to wait for Vincent to get the supplies he'd requested, wait for Ashe to convince both an infirmary full of healers and her brother that she was healed enough to return to duty and not be a liability, and by that point, it was late enough in the day Vincent just decided to wait until morning.
"Why's it matter?" Ashe asked impatiently. "If we're underground, it doesn't 'zactly matter what time of day it is, does it?"
"We'll be better rested if we wait for morning, have more energy and be able to get farther before we have to make camp, "Vincent explained. "I know you're anxious to get back in there, Ashe-"
"You bet I am! The bloody darkspawn'll have taken back all the ground we covered last time at this rate!" Utter frustration filled her eyes as Ashe laced her fingers together and cracked her knuckles.
"So we'll fight them back again. It goes with the job description, Ashe. You're being irrational. It's not worth the risk."
"Fine. See you in the morning," the warrior muttered before storming off to her room.
"She's always cranky when she's tired," Vincent muttered to the two mages. "Get some sleep. We'll probably end up leaving rather early tomorrow."
"Warning noted, " Miri chuckled, shooting Jowan a knowing look. "If we can get you to wake up," she whispered as they headed for their rooms.
"I'm sure you'll figure something out," he shot back, fighting a grin.
"Yeah. Probably just have Vincent drag you out of bed."
"That would work better than bouncing on my bed and repeating my name until I throw my pillow at you."
"Aw, c'mon, that was fun," Miri teased. "For me, at least."
Jowan glared at her, or tried to. "You're impossible."
"You're the one who wanted to be my friend. You have no one to blame but yourself," she pointed out sweetly.
"What was I thinking?" Jowan teased. Miri shot him a dirty look and playfully slugged his arm. "Ow."
"You were never such a brat at the tower," she muttered, giggling. "That was my job. Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?"
He laughed. "Being told repeatedly I need to lighten up finally sunk in, I guess."
One of Miri's eyebrows quirked. "Rahna's work again?"
Jowan shook his head. "Mir, now now. I'm not in the mood for another round about that."
"Fine, but it's gonna happen eventually. My questions were not answered to my satisfaction," Miri smirked.
He sighed. "You're too persistant for your own good sometimes, you know that?" They reached his room and his hand curled around the knob in case he needed a quick escape from the chatty, stubborn elf walking with him.
"I know. But persistence pays off more than it causes problems, so I doubt I'll change." She grinned.
"Warning noted. I need to get to bed."
"Fine, fine. G'night." The elf shot him a parting grin and sauntered off down the hall toward the stairs that led up to her room.
" 'Night, Mir." Jowan shook his head, fighting a smile as he watched her go. After she'd rounded the corner, he ducked into his room and shut the door. The last traces of the sunset were still fading from the sky, indicating it was earlier than he would usually go to bed, but if Vincent was serious about leaving early tomorrow, it was probably a good idea to get to sleep now. Miri had only sounded half-joking about having the warrior drag him out of bed.
Jowan pulled off his shirt and tossed it over the back of the chair, figuring he could wear it the next day as well. It wasn't until he turned toward the bed that he noticed the loosely wrapped bundle sitting squarely in the middle of his pillow, a note pinned to the top. The mage sighed as he reached for it. He had a feeling he already knew exactly what was in the bundle. And who had left it there. One glance at the thin, near-perfect handwriting of the note confirmed one suspicion, and the note itself did a pretty good job confirming the other.
Jowan~
These are for you. They're enchanted with enough extras to make a magister jealous, including armor and a health bonus. And if you're not wearing them tomorrow, I will subject you to another round of interrogation regarding a certain elven rogue currently in Amaranthine.
~Miri
He sighed as he sat down on the bed and tugged at the loosely tied string that held the whole thing together. That little... The robes were light blue, similar in style to the ones Miri wore, only sized for a human rather than an elf.
"Miri, I'm gonna kill you," he muttered, rubbing his thumb against the blue material. It was just like her to try to force his hand with something like this. Their conversation earlier may have started on Rahna, but Miri had found a way to work it around so she could badger him about his preference for regular clothes over robes, too. She probably figured giving him an ultimatum like that was win-win for her; either she got to pester him about Rahna some more, or he'd wear the robes.
As he looked at the wording again, Jowan smirked. The note was conspicuously lacking a promise she'd leave him alone regarding Rahna if he caved and wore the blasted robes. Gotcha, Mir. He wasn't sure if the absence was intentional or not, but long as that loophole existed, he could-and would-take just as much advantage of it as Miri.
For now, however, the robes were deposited on top the trunk at the foot of the bed so he could go to sleep.
oOo
Despite the fact Jowan didn't wear the robes the next day-which she had a feeling was very much on purpose-Miri had trouble figuring out how to resume her interrogation. Mostly because they left for the Deep Roads so bloody early she wasn't entirely sure Jowan was truly awake for the first few hours. It was hard to interrogate someone who was still at least half asleep.
And by the time he seemed more awake, the four Wardens had made it far enough into the Deep Roads to make a startling and somewhat unsettling discovery. The tunnels Ashe had been so worried about the darkspawn reclaiming were still as empty as they'd been left. Rocks, fungus, and a few darkspawn corpses were all the Wardens found.
"This... this is wrong," Ashe mumbled, a deep frown creasing her forehead. "Vince, I can't even sense any close by."
"Me, neither," her brother agreed before turning to the mages. "What about you two?"
Miri looked over at Jowan. "Not nearby, no. I can sense some, but they seem far away. You?"
"Same," he nodded.
"They should have been all over these tunnels by now." The warrior frowned. "Something's not right here. Come on, we need to keep going. Where do you sense them the strongest?" he asked Miri.
"That way." She pointed down the left side of the fork in the tunnels ahead. "There's a lot in that direction."
Vincent frowned. "That's... toward the channel."
"What channel?" Miri asked. She couldn't remember hearing anything about a channel in this part of the Deep Roads.
"The channel where the Waking Sea separates the Free Marches from Ferelden," Vincent explained.
"I thought those tunnels were all blocked off or collapsed," Ashe pointed out, leaning against a clean patch of wall.
"So did I. Why would the darkspawn be that way?"
"I can't read their minds," Miri muttered, "just sense their presence."
"I know, sorry." Vincent sighed. "I guess we're going left, then. Let's go."
As they fell in step behind the two warriors, Miri looked over at Jowan. "I was so sure you'd wear the robes."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Why?"
She shrugged. " 'Cause you got all uncomfortable when I int- asked you about Rahna before. I figured you'd want to avoid that again."
"There was nothing in your note promising you wouldn't ask about her if I wore them," Jowan returned. "Figured it wasn't worth the risk. I like these clothes, Mir."
"Drat, I was hoping you'd miss that..."
"So it was absent on purpose?" Jowan smirked. "I thought so."
"When'd you get so damned cynical?" Miri teased.
"About the point I spent my fifth week in a row sleeping in a ditch," he shot back, then winced, rubbing the back of his neck in chagrin. "Maker... sorry, Miri. I didn't mean for it to come out like that."
" 'S'alright. I don't know why it's so easy for me to forget what you went through, but it is." She offered an apologetic smile.
"Still..." Jowan shook his head. "I'm not in the greatest mood, but I shouldn't take that out on you."
"Wanna just say it's both our faults and get on with life?" Miri offered.
He chuckled. "Sounds good to me."
"So, about Rahna..."
"Miri..."
"Hey, I warned you," she reminded him with a grin.
"That's true, you did."
oOo
"You're not going to volunteer anything, are you?" Miri laughed.
"No, 'cause there's nothing to volunteer," Jowan replied, fighting a smile.
"Oh, come on, Jowan. You like her," the elf insisted.
"Yeah, I do."
Miri's eye widened. "I kn-"
"As a friend, Miri Surana." He grinned. It may have earned him the evil eye, but baiting her like this was too much fun. "Same way I like you."
She socked him in the arm for that. "You rat."
"You're the one who asked to be my friend," he reminded her.
"That's 'cause you were a scrawny little kid with these huge, sad blue eyes who looked like you needed a friend just as bad as I did."
"You felt sorry for me, in other words."
"Well, yeah, a little, I guess," she admitted. "That didn't last long. And nice redirect, by the way. I believe we were discussing your relationship with Rahna?"
"Which doesn't go beyond friendship," he insisted for what felt like the hundredth time.
"Bull. When are you gonna quit lying to me, Jowan?" She quirked an eyebrow at him.
Jowan sighed in exasperation and raked his hand through his hair, stopping just before he reached his ponytail. "By all that's holy, Mir, why are you so sure I'm lying?" He was perfectly willing to answer her questions, but it was getting a tad annoying that she was so convinced he wasn't telling the truth.
"Aside from the way you're always talking about her? Try the fact her opinion seems to matter to you more than anyone else's, even mine. Or-"
"Shh!" Vincent held up a hand, warning them to silence.
Even as the question of what their leader had seen or sensed formed in Jowan's mind, it was answered. From the strong pull of the darkspawn presence that swamped his senses, the mage was pretty sure they were about to run into an emissary. And a pretty powerful one at that, he added mentally, looking over at Miri. She nodded, wincing as the sensation grew stronger. She could tell, too. Somehow, knowing it wasn't just him getting the sense that this emissary was especially bad news made Jowan feel just a little bit better.
Of course, knowing they would have to fight said emissary scared him half to death if he was honest.
"What is it, Vince?" Ashe whispered, her axes already in hand.
"Darkspawn emissary. I think it's a genlock, but I can't be sure," her brother whispered back.
"It is," Miri chipped in. "A very strong one, too."
"It definitely has to die, then," Ashe muttered, edging forward.
"Hang on, Ashe." Vincent grabbed her arm. "You charge out there, it'll just take you down. We need to work together."
She huffed out an impatient sigh. "Fine. But until we know where it is, what it can do, we're not gonna know how to beat it."
oOo
She had a point, Miri had to admit. There was just one problem: "And how are you proposing we find all that out?"
Ashe grinned at her. "Simple. I'm pretty sneaky for a warrior. I can get closer. Maybe I won't find out all we need to know, but I can get us enough to go on."
"Hurry back," Vincent whispered; a roundabout way of giving his permission.
"I will," Ashe promised. And she was. In fact, it seemed she'd barely rounded the corner before she hastily retreated. "It's a sodding necromancer," she hissed, blowing a wisp of dark hair out of her eyes.
"Well, this'll be fun, then," Miri muttered sardonically, shifting her grip on her staff. "It has to have sensed us by now; and hiding around the corner's not going to kill the blasted thing."
"Very true," Vincent chuckled, settling his shield firmly on his arm. " We just need to get close enough to take off its head or something. Ready?"
"As I'll ever be," Miri heard Jowan mutter as she and Ashe nodded.
"Then let's get to it." Their charge around the corner brought them face to face with a pair of lurching, dead-eyed hurlocks, reanimated corpses that only slowed them for the space of a breath before Vincent and Ashe cut them down.
That breath proved to be a costly one, however, as it gave the necromancer time to summon a chain lightning spell. Vincent was the closest and took the brunt of the shock, letting out a loud grunt as the lightning jumped from him to Ashe to Jowan to Miri.
Miri gritted her teeth, her knuckles turning white as she used her grip on her staff to help keep her from passing out. She heard Jowan pull in a sharp breath, and felt bad for being grateful the spell had lost so much of its power by the time it hit her.
Ashe's berserker fire seemed to give her an inhuman resistance to pain, for the warrior's only reaction was to glare at the darkspawn and growl, "This again?" as she threw herself forward down the long, straight section of tunnel between her and the darkspawn. Vincent and Jowan weren't far behind her, but Miri hung back, rest one hand against the wall as she fought off the lingering effects of the lightning spell.
"Ashe, wait-" Jowan's warning came too late. The necromancer hurled a fist-sized chunk of stone at Ashe, the projectile shattering against her armor as it threw her back. The berserker bounced off the tunnel wall before tumbling to the ground. Even as she made it back to her knees, the beginnings of another spell formed around the genlock's hands.
"Get back!" Miri screamed at the top of her lungs. She recognized that spell. From the look in his eyes, so did Jowan. Too close, you're all too close!
Given the close confines of the tunnel, there was simply nowhere to go. Vincent grabbed Ashe's arm and dragged her along as he and Jowan backed up, but they were still too close for comfort when the fireball came blazing toward them.
Miri's arms flew up instinctively to protect her face. "Jowan!"
A/N: I swear, I did not intend to make this a cliffhanger when I started. Cross my heart and hope to die. Rahna is no longer the only character who will say "Never mind your plan; I wanna go THAT way!". I blame Jowan and Miri. Mostly Miri. The fight was unexpected to begin with, and it wasn't until I checked the chapter length that I realized I'm at my cut-off point... so, sorry. You'll probably hate me extra for this, but the rough outline I have includes going back to Rahna and Co. for two chapters before this gets resolved. I'll try to negotiate with the muses, though. Because that much cruelty is almost inhuman, and I'm not really THAT mean. I think. =D