Prologue: The Prodigal Son
9:41 Dragon 3 months before the Conclave, Ostwick Circle of Magi
Enchanter Alexander Trevelyan looked up from the text he had been reading at the sound of a knock on the door of his room.
"I'll be just a moment!" he called out.
Quickly, he rose from his reading chair and grabbed the ribbon bookmark his sister had given him on his 9th name day and placed it on the page. He did not approve of people who bent the pages to mark their location. Even such minor damage to books was contemptible to him.
Having done that, he walked over to his door, opening it to reveal his old mentor, Senior Enchanter Isabelle. She was a tall woman with a slender figure, but it was not only his opinion that she was curvy in all the right places. Nearly all of the younger mages had a crush on her, and Alexander was no exception. Of course, he hid this better than most. That was one of the reasons he had ended up as her protégé. He had never been the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve and despite his baser attraction to her, he still didn't think he was ready for any kind of relationship. Also, she was WAY out of his league. There was no way she could love someone like him. At least, that's what he told himself.
She smiled at him.
"Alex, my friend, may I come in?"
Alexander nodded at her, "Of course Senior Enchanter."
She huffed out a little breath.
"How many times do I have to tell you Alex, call me Isabelle." She fumed as she came in and sat in the reading chair. Alex settled himself on the small bed.
He replied the same way he always did when she asked him to use a name that would make him think of her as anything other than a teacher.
"At least one more time." He deadpanned.
She rolled her eyes at him.
"Aaaanyway, did you hear about the announcement of the Conclave?"
"No, I had not. What Conclave would this be?"
"The one Divine Justinia is calling in half a year's time, at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. She intends it to be a peace talk between the Circles and the Order." She replied, her eyes going serious.
"Well, then that explains why I haven't heard anything about this. You know how much I hate politics." He said to her with a scowl.
Isabelle's eyes softened in a way that told him she did not have good news to share.
"All the of the Circles of southern Thedas are sending representatives to speak for them, including Ostwick. First Enchanter Mathew would like you to be part of ours, in the hope that your family connections might help us deal with the chantry"
And there it was.
Alexander was the son and Heir of house Trevelyan, but he hated politics and had no skill for administration or intrigue. He had never wanted to inherit and would prefer to read and study. Acquiring knowledge and understanding the world around him had always been so much more interesting than the mess of lies, masks, and games that were required of his father. The day he had come into his magic and had to be removed from the succession had been the best day of his life. But even here in the circle, one could not escape politics or ignorance. Even if mages were some of the most well educated people in the world, surprisingly few of them really chose to make a study of the very thing that brought them to the circle, preferring to jockey for the attention of senior mages or powerful patrons. Of course, studying magic itself was difficult to do with the templars breathing down their necks about "Maleficarum". He had read enough fiction and history to read between the lines of praise for all the various "good deeds" done by the chantry throughout the ages. While he had nothing but respect for Revered Mother Andrea back home, he didn't think that much of the organization as a whole. Which isn't to say he didn't believe in the Maker just… religion was complicated.
They were all ignorant fools. He preferred his books.
He certainly did not enjoy the idea of leaving his precious library to trek halfway across Thedas to a mountain no one had ever heard of 5 years ago to be a fly on the wall in a room full of arguing zealots. And since this gathering was being organized by Justinia herself, then some of his more… devout… relatives would almost certainly be in attendance. They had not reacted at all pleased when the heir apparent developed magic.
In short, he hated everything about this.
Isabelle read all of this on his face, knowing him as she did.
"I know you would rather stay here and read Alexander, but even if we have remained mostly above the fray over the last few years, this rebellion business is getting worse and worse. People are dying. If we do not end this madness soon, it will swallow us all."
Alex knew she was right. He was sure that including him in the party would not have any effect on the outcome of the conclave, but he also knew there was no way to get out of this. Not if the First Enchanter had approved it. He sighed.
"Very well. At least I'll get to travel outside of the Free Marches."
Alexander was not finding the journey to be as enjoyable as he had hoped. The ship across the Amaranthine strait had been fun, but once they reached Highever, things started to shift. People looked at their group with fear and suspicion. As they crossed paths with a few other groups on their way to the conclave, some of the mages wore ever present expressions of fear and tension that were contagious. The few templars that they encountered looked at his group with barely constrained violence and a zealous rage in their eyes that frightened him. As they crossed through the Bannorn on their way to the Temple of Sacred Ashes it only got worse and worse. Back in Ostwick, with its neutrality, wealthy donors, inhabitants of noble blood, and templars with more reason than zeal, it had been easy to ignore the ugly stories he had heard about the so called "Mage-templar war". None of it had touched Alexander, and even if he did empathize with the rebel mages, he was too busy with his studies to care overmuch about affairs outside of the tower. Out here on the front lines, the conflict was much harder to ignore. In some towns, people even threw garbage at them, calling him and his colleagues "abominations", and wouldn't allow even the healers to come near them. Every night they put down the strongest wards he knew of around their camp site. Every dream he sensed the presence of more and more demons drawn to the nightmares of the human debris from this ongoing disaster. Sometimes, when the villagers stared at him in terror, he saw instead the faces of the templars amongst his relatives, judging him, hating him, calling him a disappointment to his family, and a disgrace to his father. In those moments, he remembered the vow he'd made when he passed his harrowing. The crystallization of his ideology: To use his knowledge and magic to help people and make the world a better place. But, as usual, he could not figure out a way to do it. His so called "family connections" weren't anything like as useful as the First Enchanter might believe, and he was just one mage among many. Still, he would do all he could to stop this madness.
The temple of Sacred ashes was just as magnificent as he had hoped it would be. This was quite fortunate for Alexander, given that the people in said temple were just as unreasonable as he had feared they would be. Especially his family. Not even 5 minutes into his first meeting with Uncle Timon in nearly 8 years, and the man had started making insulting remarks about the marriage prospects of his little sister Emily. So, Alexander punched him in the face.
Needless to say, that the Senior Enchanter immediately had him removed from the talks.
Of ALL of the many sons my family has sent to the templars over the years, they sent UNCLE TIMON to a diplomatic summit? The man is so hostile even HIS OWN BLOOD don't associate with him anymore. I know cousin Maria is here with her grand cleric somewhere, but as much as the divine is trying to mediate, it's clear that neither side of this mess is going to back down and why the hell do I suddenly sound like my mother?
He smirked at the thought, even if he had to admit to himself that his mother's skillset would be useful here. The woman excelled at all forms of verbal combat. She could manipulate people to stop fighting, she could annoy ANYONE into doing her bidding, and she had mastered the art of making you feel like druffalo shit without actually insulting you.
Alexander knew, now that he had calmed down, that Timon had been playing him. The wretch had deliberately baited him, hoping to trump up some kind of bullshit about mages not being able to be trusted to control their power. He got it too. Looking back on the event, he was glad he'd had enough self-control to merely punch the asshole in the face, rather than do anything magical. With all the stressed-out Mages and Templar zealots in the building who could sense magical assault, he could've started a fight big enough to wipe the Temple right off the face of T…
Suddenly his right hand exploded in white hot agony. His vision filled with nothing but clouds of green light, and then there was a feint sound that might have been the voice of a woman, a sensation of falling, then impact, then… nothing.
As Alexander drifted back into consciousness, he was aware of someone…shaking him?
He tried to back away, but something had bound his hands, so he lost his balance and fell over backwards. The pain in his head jerked him to full wakefulness. He was in…some kind of prison? What on earth was he doing in here? He didn't even know the temple of sacred ashes HAD a prison. It was a temple for the maker's sa… his train of thought was abruptly interrupted by an arm reaching out and roughly hauling him onto a stool in the center of the room. The owner of said arm was one of the most intimidating women Alexander had ever seen. She looked like someone had taken all the energy, experience, physical might and sheer menace of a full grown qunari berserker and stuffed it into body to small to contain it properly. She was fucking terrifying.
"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now. The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you." She said, her voice quaking with rage.
"W-w-what? No that's.. but … how … me?" He stammered. His mind had seemingly shut down. The entire temple destroyed? The divine dead, the templars dead, the mages dead? ISABELLE DEAD? It was too much to process.
The woman spoke again.
"Just how do you explain this!" she demanded, grabbing his right hand… which had a roiling, bright green nimbus of lightning in the center of it.
Desperate to stop thinking about what he had just learned, he seized on something else to pay attention to.
"Huh… That certainly wasn't there before." He said.
"What do you mean, it there before?" the woman scoffed.
Alexander, still examining the strange magic on his hand, replied "I mean I have no idea what this is, or how in Andraste's name it got stuck on my hand."
"You're lying!" the woman yelled and rushed forward to strike him. But before her blow landed, another woman appeared from out of the shadows, and grabbed her arm.
"We need him, Cassandra" she said in a voice a voice as delicate and cold as a snowflake.
The mysterious woman was also wearing armor, but unlike the other woman, she managed to look feminine while doing it. Still, she was also intimidating. He had only seen a glimpse of her blue gray eyes for a moment, but there was enough cunning and resolve in those icy depths to make a whole room full of his mother's courtier friends look like naïve peasants. She scared him even more than the other woman, Cassandra, did.
He looked at the mystery woman.
"What happens now?"
She stared at him coolly.
"That depends. Do you remember what happened?
he ran through the events of the last day he could remember.
"I was walking back to my quarters, having been dismissed from the talks after I punched my scumbag uncle in the face for threatening to marry off my sister. I was angry because I figured out that he had just been trying to bait me into doing something rash, so that he could point to me as evidence that mages were unstable. As I was walking, suddenly my vision went green. I remember being afraid, being in pain, then a woman… then falling."
Mystery woman remained aloof.
"A woman?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow at me.
"She reached out to me. She was saying something, but I can't remember what she looked like, or what she said."
Cassandra turned and spoke to mystery woman.
"Go to the forward camp Leliana. I will take him to the rift." Cassandra said, as she bent down and undid his shackles.
Alexander stood up and rubbed his wrists.
"Follow me. If you are truly innocent, then there is something I must show you."
She gestured for him to follow, and they made their way outside. The first thing he saw was that they were in the village of Haven, the small hamlet at the foot of the mountain the Temple of Sacred Ashes were built on. But there was an odd light in the sky over the buildings. Then he saw a small green fireball in the distance, and his eyes automatically traced the things path on their way back up to the Temple.
Where they promptly stopped.
The temple was gone. Completely. In its place was massive vortex of eldritch green light that towered into the sky, leading up into what looked like a hole in the very heavens. He was dimly aware that Cassandra was speaking, but he heard nothing. His mind wantedto be able to deny what he was seeing, but it could not. The temple was gone. Everyone in it was dead. Isabelle was dead. The sky had been torn open, he had no idea what was going on. His thoughts continued to swirl through his mind like a great storm, leaving him speechless.
Then someone stabbed a knife through his hand.
He keeled over, grasping his wrist, trying desperately to stop the blood, only to find that there wasn't any. It was that odd green light on his hand… which was glowing with the same vibrant green power as the hole in the sky.
"I said are you alright?!" Cassandra yelled at him.
He started, as he forcibly reasserted his attention on the world outside his head.
"I am sorry. That…is a lot to take in. I was…processing. Could you repeat yourself? I didn't hear a word you just said." Alexander told her.
Cassandra looked at him intently. "I suppose that is understandable, given the circumstances."
She gestured to the sky hole.
"We call it the Breach. It's a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It's not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the conclave." She told him.
He stared at her. "An explosion can do that?" he asked incredulously.
"This one did. Unless we act, the breach may grow until it swallows the world." She said gravely.
Suddenly, there was another flare of pain in his hand. Alexander grunted, and had to lean against the wall, but he managed to remain standing.
Cassandra glanced at his glowing right hand.
"Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads… and it is killing you. It may be the key to stopping this but there isn't much time." She told him.
Those words echoed in Alexanders thoughts, as something shifted in his mind. He knew he should be afraid, but somehow, where the terror and the grief and confusion had been a second ago, there was now an almost unnatural stillness and clarity to his thoughts. Alexander couldn't truly understand what it felt like to be tranquil, but he figured this was about as close as a feeling person could get. His emotions felt…distant somehow. He could still detect them in his mind, but they were numbed, like medicine on wound.
With this newfound clarity, Alexander considered what he had been told logically.
1: The Temple of Sacred Ashes had been destroyed in some kind of magical cataclysm that had torn a massive fade rift in the sky.
2: Everyone inside had been killed except for him.
3: Though he had no memory of it, he had somehow ended up PHYSICALLY IN THE FADE, which might have been how he survived the explosion.
4: There was an unknown magic permanently attached to his hand which was the same color as the breach.
The only logical conclusion was that the mark was somehow responsible for his survival and related to the explosion. That meant that Cassandra was probably correct. It was very likely that the mark could be the key to somehow fixing this mess.
Alexander was almost certain that were he not in shock, he would have run screaming in the other direction. But in this numbed state, he found that he could only think of one thing.
He had finally found a way to fulfill his vow he made all those years ago.
Shakely, he got to his feet, and looked to Cassandra.
"How can I help?"