Sophia, or what passed for her anyway, did not go down easily. Even in death, she was still a fierce warrior and was able to take Gudrun and Alistair at once while the others were busy with her minions demons and corpses.
There was a fire in Alistair, however, that Gudrun hadn't seen since the Tower of Ishal; he swiped and kicked at Sophia like he wanted her to fall in shame, and he probably did. This rage didn't cloud his judgement in battle, though. He was calm, he never left her side alone, he never traded pain for precision.
Sophia went down, and so did the demons. The candles flickered as a draft came through the room. Wind had avoided the place before, when the demon had still been possessing the body, now it flowed freely. There was no odor, as they had expected. The warden's body seemed to have been mummified somehow, and now it had crumbled on the ground, as if it had always been there, undisturbed, having died an honorable death.
"Is it... is it over?" Levi whispered, leaning over the remains of his ancestor, trembling like he expected her to rise again.
"We still have to close the tear..."
Someone clicked their tongue, "About that..." Iola. Gudrun turned to her, eyebrows raised.
"Sophia, that is, the demon, sorry. She-it said something about... about having enough with 'him', there might be another one..."
Right, somewhere in their speech the demon had referenced someone else, but Gudrun's ears didn't pick up on that, tired of demons as she was. Nobody seemed to be upset abut the outcome, however. She massaged her temples, the blasted Fade and its inhabitants always made her head hurt, another mission like this and she'd be missing the Deep Roads in no time.
"Whatever it is, I hope they are less fucking chatty, no offense Dryden."
"None taken, my lady."
At that, Miach cackled loudly. Wynne and Zevran were still not used to it and winced in surprise, but the rest of the group didn't bat an eye. Iola elbowed him on the ribs playfully and that only seemed to tickle him.
Gudrun rolled her eyes at them but without bitterness, and moved out in front.
"Arainai, you stay with me. Leliana can take care of Dryden."
"Devi avermi sempre a vista?" He said, smiling, as he walked past Morrigan and up to her.
Gudrun shot him a deadly glance. She didn't know what that meant exactly but he sure was messing with her. Childish maybe, but it wasn't time to judge him for that yet.
The corridor took them out to a wide stone bridge that connected the two main towers of the castle. There were what seemed to be a few undead still patrolling it, and arrows started flying in their direction almost immediately.
Zevran was lucky enough to flick one away with his knife. Gudrun stared at him in disbelief and he returned a shocked grin, but was pushed aside by Alistair before he could gloat. He raised his shield and Gudrun did the same.
"We can't stay like this, we gotta take out the archers."
Iola tapped her shoulder, "If I lift up a shield, maybe Morrigan and Wynne could take out the nearest archers."
"You guys do that, then we can run in... we'd still need cover. There's at least 2 more archers in the back."
Miach whistled, "That's not a problem, the sister's bow is better than any undead's. She'll reach farther."
She gave him a curious look, it was rare enough to hear the dalish elf praise the sister, but he must know quality when saw it. Maybe through sheer competence Leliana was clawing her way to his good side.
"Very well. Sten! Stay with Wynne at all times."
"I am not defenseless, warden..."
"Wynne, if they shoot me, you patch me up in 2 seconds. Iola takes a minute to do the same job. If someone shoots you, you better not bleed out in less than a minute."
Gudrun was starting to realize that healer or no, Wynne was not the type of person to shy away from a fight. Just as well, they all needed to be up to the challenge.
"Alright then, whenever you're ready, Iola."
The mage squeezed in between her and Alistair, fought off a slight blush and raised her hands to the air to invoke a thick blue bubble of magic above them, "It's ready!"
It was a wonder to watch; Morrigan and Wynne reacted in unison, stepping forward and moving their hands in different shapes. If she hadn't known better, Gudrun would've thought they had it planned. Their spells -a blast of purple lightning from Morrigan and a fist of fire from Wynne- fell upon the two skeletal archers incinerating them instantly.
"Now!"
Gudrun, Alistair and Zevran rushed forward in a blur. Morrigan and Iola followed closely behind them, while Leliana calculated her distance to take down the archers on the far end. She ran up almost to the middle of the bridge, then, in the midst of the battle, planted her feet firmly on the ground and waited. She tensed her bow, slowly, seeing without watching the movements of Miach and Iola around her. The bow was good, and she'd shot worse opponents, so when she let the arrow loose, it travelled surely through the air to knock down the skull of one of her opponents.
"Good shot!"
"One more..." the sister bit her lip, taking another arrow and knocking it back. One of the corpses got dangerously close to her, it even got so far as to raise his sword to hit her, but Leliana didn't move. She didn't need to; Iola and Miach got in between them and fought it back.
Gudrun didn't see her take the shot, but she saw the second enemy archer fall out of nowhere, and with that, she roared at them to charge across the bridge. Her knee failed her on the last few meters, she tripped, almost fell, but kept going. That damn knee... sooner or later it was going to cost her.
Finally, the last of the undead fell. Quite literally too, kicked off the bridge by Zevran.
Alistair gave an approving chuckle, "Huh, why didn't I think of that?"
"Ah see? You and I, amico, have been in very different fights up until now."
The gate at the other side of the bridge was glowing in light blue, a sign of protective magic, according to the witches, but it didn't seem to mind their passing. It opened up to a narrow corridor. A flight of stairs leading down could be see on the right, to the left there was a door which opened into a small study. The place seemed undisturbed; a thin layer of dust covered every surface, and it was untouched by the demons or the undead. It was full of books, parchments and notes, scrambled all over the place.
"There has to be something useful in here..." Gudrun muttered, "Have a look around."
Morrigan had already approached the shelves around the room and was flicking through thick tomes at a remarkable speed. Eventually, her eyes fell on a thick wooden table in the far side of the room. There were a couple of empty bottles, some books, a dark flask full of something sticky and what seemed to be a journal, open at the middle.
She started reading out loud without warning, startling them. Gudrun was sure she got a kick out of that.
"Day 32. The subject is not responding to the stimuli. Testing the pain threshold has uncovered nothing. Only three subjects are left. Well this looks promising..."
"What... is that?"
"Morrigan, please go on."
They all approached, slowly encircling her, as she continued reading the entries, "Day 82. If only I could reproduce last night's outstanding success. Electricity is only a catalyst... blood is the key," she paused and looked around, "at the top it says 'Avernus'. I don't think it's wrong to assume Sophia wasn't the only one whose been haunting these halls beyond her years..."
"Another demon?"
"This looks... like a research journal. He goes on about it, the subjects, the procedure. It's thorough." She didn't elaborate, and although there was no judgement in her voice, Gudrun gathered she might be sparing them the details. She wanted to see it for herself though, ans stretched her neck to look at the notes.
"No more subjects, huh? No fucking wonder this place cursed."
"Indeed."
Whoever that Avernus was or had been, he had a lot of explaining to do, and as always they could only move on to find out.
The study had another door that led into what looked like a space for prayer, a chantry maybe. A human sized of a woman wiz a sword received them, but her serene expression was dampened by the five cages next to it, one of them still had a skeleton inside.
On the other side of the big room, using the alter as a table, there was an old man. He was dressed in plain, old fashioned and moth-ridden robes. He was sloching over something on the table but upon their arrival, he seemed to wince, although he didn't look towards them.
"A moment, just... a moment."
His voice was so leveled and so calm that they didn't dare speak, and when Gudrun was able to remember herself, the old man had already turned around and crossed the distance between them with the long strides of a younger man.
"Ah, faces, haven't seen another human... or dwarf or elf in... well so long. I suppose I have to thank you for the momentary respite."
"The-?"
"Demons tirelessly replenish their army of corpses. I suppose you have also seen Sophia, their leader. Well... she might walk and talk like Sophia, but believe me, she is not her."
"I take it you and the demon were not on the best terms."
"You could say that. The creature possessed my commander, Sophia Dryden. I am Avernus, a grey warden. And you... you are too."
"Funny that, how did you know?"
"Just as we can sense the darkspawn, we can sense each other," Alistair volunteered. Then his voice turned serious, cold even, "although I am not sure what the order would think of what you have done here."
"Oh? Is this an official visit? Has the order finally remembered their long lost brother, Avernus the mage? Or did you stumble upon this ruin by accident, trying to ransack it?"
Gudrun's mouth twitched, but she didn't reply immediately, "Ladies, is this man a demon?"
There was a silence, then slowly, Iola spoke, "There really is only one way to be sure..."
Avernus laughed, "I see. You think I am like her? Why, what did you do to the creature?"
"We killed it," Gudrun spat. She said no more, explaining herself now wouldn't do any good.
"I am... relieved." And he sounded genuine, "Very well, if you must test me, I suppose your mages know what to do. Go ahead."
Morrigan shrugged, but Iola whispered something in her ear, and then on Wynne's. Gudrun barely saw it, and she supposed no one else did, but the mage's eyes eyes caught Alistair's gaze and a current of understanding passed between them.
Morrigan prepared a ball of glowing lightning in her hands, and when she was about to throw it, Alistair unsheathed his sword and swiped at the old man, far enough not to touch it, close enough that the man instinctively put up a magic barrier. This seemed to satisfy them all.
"There... Maker, warden. There was no need to startle me like that... but, let's put that behind us. Now that you know I am not a demon and I know you've killed the one who really was, I wonder. Why are you here?"
"A Blight is starting. We came upon the location of the castle thanks to some old maps the Dryden's had stored and figured it was time to take it back. We didn't expect your..." she gestured at the cages against the wall, "well, that. Saw some interesting memories down in the other tower too."
"Memories?"
"The Veil is torn," Iola chimed in, "the past is bleeding in. We need to close it."
"We were hoping to find the help for that here, but maybe what we've found its the cause."
"You don't understand. What I accomplished... for moths I prepared the summoning circles, the incantations... and when the time came they came to me. They came to me! Half a dozen of them or more, no one had ever attempted..."
"Why? Why did you do it? All this?"
The old man smiled to himself, almost chuckled, "It seems the kingdom has forgotten both king Arland's exploits and our rebellion to it, how we opposed his despotic rule. In the end... it doesn't matter."
"And the experiments? We took a look at your notes... is that how you've managed to... stay like this?"
"My life... yes, but only as a means to an end. There was so much left to uncover, so much yet to test. I couldn't just die and leave it unfinished!"
Morrigan snorted audibly and Gudrun shot her a murderous glance.
"What? You can't fault the man for lack of dedication."
"No, but yes for the horrors he has inflicted here."
She heard Miach spit, "Ogron shem. Demons have more mercy than you"
"He's right Avernus... what you've done here..."
The man seemed disturbed, he turned his eyes away for a moment and for a few seconds there he looked frail, ancient. His lips moved silently, mouthing words they could not hear. He looked up, "Maker knows I've been alone for too long... warden, I suppose you are my commander now. Allow me to assist you sealing the rift. After that I... well, judge wisely."
.