In a dim chamber composed of cold stone and doors made of iron bars, Mithra found herself standing in ankle-deep water facing two Venatori. Dorian was right beside her, as he had been before that weird rift opened.
Two soldiers screeched to a halt at the other end of the flooded chamber. One exclaimed, "Blood of The Elder One! Where'd they come from?!" They drew their weapons and rushed toward them.
Just as Mithra pulled the daggers from the small of her back, Dorian gently grabbed her arm. "Stand back, Dearest." The two of them jumped back onto solid stone and with a sizzle of electricity in his staff, Dorian jabbed it into the waters.
The two Venatori seized up and trembled violently until blood trickled from the base of their helmets.
Mithra smirked sideways at her companion. "Well, that was effective."
She rubbed her belly and eyed the great cluster of red lyrium sharing their room while Dorian kneeled to search one of the bodies. "Displacement? Interesting! It's probably not what Alexius intended. The rift must have moved us...to what? The closest confluence of arcane energy?" He fondled the key he'd found and handed it up to Mithra.
She plucked it from his fingers and moved toward the door. "The last thing I remember, we were in the castle hall."
As Mithra struggled with the jammed door, Dorian hypothesized, "Let's see. If we're still in the castle, it isn't.. Oh! Of course! It's not simply where - it's when!" He stabbed a finger into his other hand's palm. "Alexius used the amulet as a focus. It moved us through time!"
Mithra pressed against the iron bars and tried turning the key the other way. What the fuck was up with this door?! Was the lock rusted? "Did it move us forward in time or back? And how far?" She jerked the door open at last and looked back at Dorian. "In either case, that doesn't sound good."
With his thumb pointing upward, he swung his finger to point at her. "Those are excellent questions! And it sounds terrible, depending on when we are and what happened while we were away."
He walked toward her at last. "Let's look around, see where the rift took us. Then we can figure out how to get back...if we can. I don't even want to think about what this will do to the fabric of the world. We didn't "travel" through time so much as punch a hole through it and toss it into the privy," he explained with a swing of his hand. "But don't worry. I'm here. I'll protect you."
She grinned and shook her head. Protect her? This guy was cute through and through. "You have a plan to get us back, I hope."
As he moved through the doorway, he smirked at her and said, "I have some thoughts on that. They're lovely thoughts, like little jewels."
~Back in 9:41~
Cullen thrust his sword into the air. "FIRE!"
Trebuchets sent several boulders flying toward the massive steel gates of Redcliffe Castle. The lake crashed and churned as it swallowed sparse rubble and ammunition alike.
"RELOAD!" Cullen barked as he turned to engage a Venatori that charged his way.
Sparks flew as he blocked a cleaving swing with his shield. His enemy fell limp when Cullen skewered him and kicked the corpse's chest to free his blade. Cullen turned to parry a cross-slash and slammed his shield into his enemy's cheekbone, sending the felon stumbling sideways into the dirt. With a quick stab, the Venatori curled, then sprawled into death's embrace.
With his sword aloft, King Alistair and his honor guard bellowed as they charged into the fray. They danced in the red dirt as they parried and blocked attacks from all sides. When arrows rained upon the battlefield, several guards cried out and collapsed at Alistair's feet.
With fletching protruding from his bloodied armor, King Alistair leaned heavily on his sword and took a knee. He spat a mouthful of blood and roared as he raised his shield to block another strike from a Venatori.
Cullen threw all of his rage into a rallying cry as he rushed toward him. He and Mahariel had saved him from the horrors of the Ferelden Circle during the Blight. His king didn't abandon him then. He wouldn't abandon him now.
Anguish lanced his heart as surely as the Venatori blade did the king's.
As Cullen stood over Alistair's warm corpse, three shields pummeled him from each side. He went down hard, dizzy from the blows. He laughed to himself as tears formed in his eyes. They didn't hit quite as hard as Mithra kicked... She was able to knock him out at least.
He felt himself being dragged away as he tried to stand. Cullen struggled to regain his feet and thrashed in their hold. Ropes encircled him tightly and he knew then that he had failed.
Mithra gaped at what was left of Fiona. The lyrium..it was growing out of her. Consuming her.
When Fiona looked to her and choked out, "You're...alive," Mithra jumped. "How? I saw you...disappear...into the rift."
Shocked that the Grand Enchanter still had lungs to speak with, Mithra swallowed her dismay and asked, "Is that red lyrium growing from your body? How? Why?"
Fiona pressed her forehead to the wall. "It's a disease. The longer you're near it..eventually...you become this. Then they mine your corpse for more."
Dorian cut in, "Can you tell us the date? It's very important."
"Harvestmere...nine: forty-two, Dragon."
"Nine: forty-two? Then we've missed an entire year!"
With wide eyes, Mithra looked to him. "We have to get out of here. Go back in time."
"Our only hope is to find the amulet Alexius used to send us here. If it still exists, I can use it to open a rift at the exact spot we left. Maybe."
"Good," Fiona croaked.
Dorian's brow furrowed. "I said maybe. It might also turn us into paste."
Mithra grabbed his wrist and started to leave. "We have to try."
Fiona called, "Your spymaster, Leliana..." When Mithra stopped and looked back, Fiona finished, "She is here. Find her. Quickly... Before the Elder One...learns you're here."
Once they were out of the cellblock and on their way up the stairs, Dorian mused, "If red lyrium is an infection... Maker! Why's it coming out of the walls?!"
"Are you sure you want to find out?"
Through the next door, a warped female voice chanted, "The light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world and into the next. For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water."
Mithra pushed the door open and found a very ill-looking seeker sitting in her cell. The ranger's brow pinched. Oh, Cassandra...
"Is someone there?"
Mithra's head whipped toward the cell the warped, echoing voice had come from. Her eyes stung with the threat of tears. It couldn't be.. Please, no.
Her breath hitched when Solas came to the bars and looked down the corridor. Her face warped with sorrow. Solas had a swirling aura of red and his eyes glowed with the poison in his body. He was infected. How long until Fiona's fate befell him? Was he in pain?
As Mithra stepped into the room, Solas' brow went up in unmasked surprise. "You're alive? We saw you die!"
Cassandra lifted herself from the floor. "You've returned to us! Can it be? Has Andraste given us another chance?" She shook her head. "Maker forgive me! I failed you. I failed everyone. The end truly must be upon us if the dead return to life."
Dorian approached Solas while fishing the key from his pocket. "The spell Alexius cast displaced us in time. We just got here, so to speak."
"Can you reverse the process? You could return and obviate the events of the last year." He stepped out of his cell the moment Dorian opened the door. "It may not be too late."
Cassandra clutched the bars before her. "Go back in time? Then...can you make it so that none of this ever took place?"
Dorian moved to unlock her cell. "If we can reverse the spell, then yes."
When the two stood beside her, Mithra finally squeaked, "You look awful." She looked Cassandra and Solas up and down slowly. This is what would happen if she failed to stop Alexius and his master.
Mithra's eyes sharpened as her face darkened and her blood began to boil. This would not come to pass. Not if she had anything to say about it.
The surprise on Varric's face when she approached was obvious. "Andraste's Sacred Knickers! You're alive! Where were you? How did you escape?"
Mithra shook her head and explained, "We didn't escape. Alexius sent us into the future."
Varric gave her a hard look and briefly gestured to her with both hands. "Everything that happens to you is weird!"
"You may be right about that."
The dwarf smirked. "I'm always right, and when I'm not, I lie about it. So, what are you doing here, or did you come back just to trade quips with me?"
Dorian rolled his eyes. "We get to Alexius, and I may just be able to send us back to our own time. Simple, really."
"You and I have very different definitions of the word "simple." You want to take on Alexius, I'm in. Let's go."
With the gravely-voiced dwarf in hand, they made their way to the upper levels of the castle. Fiona had mentioned Leliana was here somewhere, having failed in her attempted rescue of the three living party members roughly a year ago.
Varric seemed rather cheerful about their situation, despite everything. Mithra supposed he had spit and cussed enough over the last year and finally just accepted shit the way it was. Nothing could be done about it, and being pissed off wouldn't help matters. Staying mad wasn't the dwarf's style, she liked that about him; he was mellow and easygoing where she was quick-tempered.
They came to the mess hall after fighting a small squad of Venatori soldiers on patrol. The ranger dispatched them in a storm of daggers, hating to see her companions so corrupted. Her rage was growing at the thought, blaming herself for failing in the throne room a year ago.
Mithra picked a lock on a door to the right of the room and eased it open, not wishing to alert the voices she had heard within. A Venatori was standing at the back of the room, taunting someone and kicking them while laughing.
She slipped two of her throwing knives out of her hidden pockets on her thigh and threw them with one swift flick of her wrist. One bit deep into the base of her target's head as the other found a vertebra lower in his neck. He fell into a lifeless heap, revealing Cullen chained to a wall.
He looked far worse than her companions - a big angry shard of red lyrium protruded upward from his left shoulder while smaller ones poked through the flesh of his left cheek. His hair was thinning and patchy. His skin pale with the telltale hue of the lyrium beneath it.
The ranger gawked - not believing her eyes - and covered her mouth to suppress a horrified scream.
Cullen looked up a moment after his tormenter fell. "Who...? Leliana?" he guessed halfheartedly. The echo was stronger in him, Mithra could practically feel the vibration in it from where she sat.
She stood slowly and approached him tentatively, walking silently on bare feet.
His eyes lit up when he recognized her and gaped in disbelief. "It can't be! You're alive?! Oh, Maker! Please let it be true."
Mithra picked at her nails as she studied him. "I-I'm alive. Alexius sent Dorian and me a year into the future. If we find him, we can undo it and ensure that this never happens...we hope."
His face twisted with a snarl, "Then free me! I want to see that bastard burn for what he's wrought!"
Mithra's brows shot up in surprise. She had never seen him so alive, yet he was clearly dying. She rather liked the commander's newfound fire.
She rushed to the corpse she had made of the agent, fished in his pockets for the key, and freed Cullen immediately.
She wrapped an arm around him and helped him stand without a second thought. He may have been a Templar, but this was a crisis. She would undo this, and they needed all the help they could muster.
He gasped and groaned when he stood and leaned on Mithra for support, trying to gain his footing and summon the strength to stand on his own.
"Come on, I'll assist. We need to keep moving and find Leliana, she's here somewhere," Mithra said urgently.
Cullen let a small, breathless laugh escape him. "I never thought- I never imagined you would-"
"Now's not the time, Commander. We have a spymaster to locate and Venatori to kill. I'm thirsty for some blood, how about you?"
He steeled himself and tried his best to walk with his small elvhen supporter moving with him. "Parched."
As they moved up the hall, the ranger heard more voices. She could hear someone asking how she had known about the attack on the Temple - which she didn't if she remembered correctly.
Leliana snapped back at her interrogator and Mithra knew she had to move quickly before she was killed for her insolence.
She handed Cullen over to Cassandra, he was getting heavy anyway; and moved silently to the door. She tested it when she heard a sudden slap and a scream. Locked.
She picked it in no time, working as the jailor drilled the spymaster with another question.
Leliana was smart. She was pretending she had the answers so they didn't just kill her... Mithra was impressed. She knew Leliana was slick, but wow.
The door finally gave way, creaking open while he yelled another question in Leliana's face.
The ranger's throwing knife found its mark and he fell lifeless onto his table of torture implements.
"You're alive," Leliana whispered as she was freed.
The Left Hand looked terrible, but she wasn't infected like the others. It looked like they had been skinning her slowly over the past year. It was a gruesome sight, her skin was scarred, pale, and clammy; her eyes sunken, and her usually plush lips were all but gone. Mithra ached to think this was done because of her. "Yes. And I'm so sorry for failing you. Can you walk?"
Leliana nodded and was offered an old bow that had been found along the way.
"If we find Alexius, Dorian and I can return to our rightful time with his amulet," the ranger explained quickly.
The spymaster sneered. "Good. Let's move. We need to reach the Magister to ensure this doesn't happen...again."
By the time they reached the courtyard, the commander was on his own two feet, but he still had trouble with his footing in a fight. Mithra covered him as he fumbled with a few shades, ensuring he came away unscathed.
"You're stealing all my kills!" he growled.
"I'm keeping you alive so you can help kill the bastard that caused this. You're welcome, Grouchy Bear! And your footwork is atrocious," she jabbed back hotly.
Cullen pouted and grumbled something under his breath.
Mithra scrambled up some nearby scaffolding, wanting to see what this had done to the wilder areas.
Her breath caught at the sight of it. Everything was either dead or burning. The Breach seemed to devour the sky for as far as she could see. There was...nothing and that meant no creatures to call on for aid. It made her sick to think about. She was more determined now than ever to see the hole in the sky closed.
They ran into a time rift in the main hall of the castle with Venatori all around.
Mithra felt her fury come alive all at once. These people were as bad as Templars, if not worse, and she would kill them just as mercilessly.
She dashed into a small group of them and attacked before they had time to draw their blades. Blood painted the floor in spurts and arches as she slashed throats, bellies, and femoral arteries in a few practiced motions. Their armor was much easier to get through than templar plate, and she was glad for it, she wanted them dead as fast as possible.
Cullen was visibly surprised to see the bloodlust on her face and how swiftly she ended her enemies. He had never seen her like this, and he honestly kinda enjoyed the sight. He had been impressed with the display in Haven when she sparred with the seeker, but what he saw before him now was a killing machine. He couldn't help but recall Solas' warning about her not being as gentle as he thought. Now he knew the apostate wasn't joking in the least.
The rift popped as the last Venatori fell and it began to do its weird time-altering shit. Mithra found a sped-up section and let arrows scream across the room until all demons lay dead and she sealed the rift above.
They found a strange door that required keystones to open, so they went hunting throughout the castle.
Mithra killed every Venatori that crossed her path in a rage, often leaving her sickly companions far behind. She would kill them all for corrupting her friends, killing her isa'ma'sal, and for obliterating her home: the wild areas of the world. She thought she knew who to blame for the Breach, and couldn't wait to meet him as well.