Chapter XVI: The Harvest
(Lost in Dreams Part 4 of 4)
I rose once more from what felt like I was being washed over by ten thousand black feathers. When the world went dark, it felt ethereal, just heavy enough for me to tell it was not air. Ten thousand black feathers that quickly became a blanket that blocked out even light itself. But this was nothing new, and now, I guessed, the demon in charge would want an audience with me, the dreaded saboteur of his little intricate cages.
I arrived, if that was the right term, at what seemed to be his chosen location. It appeared to be nothing unordinary, at least for the Fade. It was raw, like the intermediary passages between the other chambers of this place, and there he stood, looking almost… human. Certainly, a mutated, extremely overweight human but nonetheless…
He turned to face me, slowly, and I drew my sword, expecting… well expecting that absolutely anything and everything could go sideways.
I thought the demon known only to me as Sloth was ugly, but then it started talking. "What do we have here? A rebellious minion? An escaped slave?" The creature chuckled, an impressive feat considering it sounded like its jaw was riveted together. The loose skin below its chin quaking with every word. "My, my, but you do have some gall. But playtime is over. You all have to go back now."
Alistair had appeared before me once more, just as I'd hoped, looking curiously down at his hands and body, completely oblivious to the current situation. "Oh, here I am! And there you are! You just disappeared. Well, no matter!"
I heard a hissing from behind me, and turned to see the rest of my companions stepping out of a bank of mist. "You made a dangerous enemy, demon, by toying with my mind," Morrigan declared, pointing at Sloth.
"You will not hold us, demon. We found each other in this place and you cannot stand against us!" Wynne proclaimed with more warlike fervor than I'd yet heard from her.
"You tried to keep us apart. You led us from each other because you fear us. Don't you?" Leliana surmised, notching an arrow into her bow.
One last hiss of magical mist formed, and out of it came Adrian, still looking a fair few years younger than his normal self, immediately pointing a finger at his foe. "Beroul, you piss-guzzling fool! Even with the majority of your power focused on me you still couldn't craft an illusion worth a squirrel's shit."
The demon before us smiled widely at the sight of the enflamed Adrian.
"Ah, if it isn't Adrian Konstantyne Amell. My boy, how long's it been? A few years I suppose. How's life been treating you since… well, since Elaine?" He paused for a moment, but not long enough to receive an actual answer. "Actually, don't answer that, I already know—quite shite from what my sources tell me." He laughed to himself, grabbing his stomach. "And as for you little twits—stay out of it." He said, putting up a barrier between the rest of us and Adrian.
Adrian didn't look in the least bit concerned, but turned to look at us, though I couldn't imagine he was able to hear us, for when we Leliana called for him, there was no visible answer.
#
"Good, now we may talk in private… I was growing tired of the little mammals' squeaking." Said the fat demon before me.
"Where is he?" I asked Beroul, and he simply chuckled to himself.
"Come now, Adrian, you're going to have to be a bit clearer—you've got quite the extensive shit-list these days."
"Don't try that with me, Beroul. You're an information broker, I know you know where he is."
"Nergal? Yes… I'd guess his exploits would be quite fresh in that human mind of yours. Seeing as he murdered and possessed that poor little Elaine. I have conflicting sources on his whereabouts, perhaps you could better divine his location than me. However, before I answer anything I must ask you something."
I thought for a moment, going over all the possible angles he could take his questioning, and I allowed it.
"One question."
"Ah, glad to see you're still as diplomatic as ever…" he trailed, as he prepared for his next line of questioning. "Why are you helping these people?"
I thought for a moment before I answered, no doubt he would pick apart my every syllable for weakness were I to answer. He needed to exploit me if he was to truly separate me from my companions before that barrier fell.
"You were right…" I began, and he seemed slightly surprised that I admitted so soon. "My life's been about as good as a finch in a tarpit. Going from one place to the next in search of… something—purpose, maybe? But soul-searching doesn't pay well, so I joined-up with this lot for some free food and shelter from the Blight."
He stayed silent, processing my confession. And then he smiled wider than I'd ever seen him do—and it actually made me a twinge of fear.
"You lie." He retorted, and I swallowed hard. "You're a clever rat, Amell, but not enough to fool me. You're not one to confess… ever, so it almost threw me off for a moment, there. But you wouldn't come back here, to the Tower of all places just for some free food. You can swindle just about anyone out of anything if you put your mind to it, Adrian—but not me. I've known you too damn long for that."
"You're a right bastard, Beroul." I replied in defiance.
"So I've been told…" He conjured a table and chairs before me, and gestured for me to sit down. "I won't ask your true purpose with that little band of yours. Because, frankly, I couldn't give a flying rat's dick one way or another." He stopped short, and took what could only be described as a breath in, that sounded far more like a boar about to charge. "Let me make this as clear as I can: I need you and your little friends out of the Tower. I've got a particularly lucrative agreement with some mad human by the name of Uldred bent on tearing the whole of it asunder"
At this point, I was entirely unsurprised by his involvement in this. I just needed to keep him talking a bit longer. "Lucrative?" I questioned not entirely certain of what he meant, but I had some grim suspicions.
"Oh, sure. Souls are quite valuable in the Fade. I thought you'd have known that, seeing as you bargain with your own every other month."
"I understand that, Beroul—I'm not stupid. I meant why the Circle, and why now?" I asked, prying him for more information.
"See, son, the Circle, and places like it, are akin to a house of cards. Uldred, the madman he is, decided to assault them from the inside, kept the Templars that otherwise would have slaughtered me and mine easily, otherwise occupied. In other words, Uldred is the naked jester in the royal court, and I keep knocking down the house of cards while the templars are constantly scrambling just to pick up the pieces."
#
"Wynne, how much longer before that barrier is down?!" I asked, fearing the worst. The barrier had sprung up almost as soon as we had all arrived. We couldn't hear a thing inside. We could see the two interacting, but were unable to hear their words. There was no way of knowing, and that made it all the more pressing that we burst through as quickly as we could manage.
The old enchanter strained against the magic, trying to disassemble the spell as quickly as she could, but the complexity of the task was beginning to take its toll on her mind. "Its… sturdy. This demon's magic is exceptionally powerful. But it shouldn't be but a minute or two longer."
"Good. I have a mind to flay it from the inside out, and I rather do so sooner than later." Morrigan added, wrenching her hands around her wooden staff in anticipation.
#
"And if I refuse?" I responded, as Beroul leaned up from his relaxed position in the chair and set his elbows upon the table, looking at me with a most crucial stare.
"Then I will lift this barrier and kill you and your human meat bag friends right here and now." He admitted, rising from his seated position. "I'm sorry, Adrian, but I can't have you sodding this up for me. So those are my terms. But I'd advise that you think on them quickly, those meat bag comrades of yours are making exceptional time in cracking my barrier, and I don't imagine they will be too understanding of the terms."
I thought for a few moments that felt like an eternity had gone by the time I was finished. I had come to my decision. "Alright, I have my answer."
"And?" Beroul asked, turning back to face me.
I walked to him silently, he towered above me. He was slovenly, but far taller than my younger body. At least eight inches my superior. But that wouldn't stop me. "And… I think you're a rat bastard, Beroul!" I said, manifesting two black metal knuckles on my hands and punched as hard as I could, my hand meeting the side of Beroul's head, solidly. And even with all of that, the demon only stepped back… once. He rubbed where I'd hit him, and then quickly jabbed at my stomach, which felt like someone had dropped a brick on me from atop the Circle Tower. I dropped to my knees, cradling my stomach that felt like it was going to both explode and cave-in at the same time. He then lifted his fat leg and kicked me across at least twenty feet, I rolled for ten of those, and probably would have kept on had the barrier not stopped me.
"Seems the girl isn't the only one around here with some gall…" He approached once more, caressing his fists, readying to hit me once more—Beroul was always one to play with his food…
But I wouldn't just sit down and take it. I lunged forward, ignoring the horrible pain in my ribs and abdomen, metal knuckles still on. I made contact once again, and foolishly went for a second follow-up strike to his ribs, only for my fist to be stopped mid-way by his fleshy forearm. I received another harsh strike to my exposed ribs and immediately felt a few cracks. I screamed out instinctively, before Beroul once again lifted his leg and merely pushed my weak body to the ground with it. "In the past, I let you win, boy." He paused. "Now? I won't hold back."
I rolled aside as he stomped his foot where my head had been just moments ago. I focused my mind once more and repurposed the shadows on my fingers into my sword, Umbra, and even though it was a bit heavy for my thin arms, I gripped it with two hands, swinging with as much ferocity and accuracy as I could muster. I made contact with the skin under his arm, and again on his leg leaving deep gashes that even made him let out a cry of pain. In a moment of oversight, he grabbed my arm, and knowing he couldn't wield the blade himself, Beroul fashioned a cruel idea. He twisted my wrist until he heard a snap and my yell of pain. And all in one motion, he drove the blade through my thigh. I cried out the loudest I had since the fight began, and I wondered in that moment if they could even hear me… and how much longer they would be.
#
The barrier's solid form turned into a mist and quickly flowed away. We had seen everything that had taken place through the clear nature of the barrier, though we could not hear. They seemed to talk for some time, the demon even electing to summon a table set as if they were about to sit down and discuss over a fine supper. But soon, it escalated, and Adrian surely bit more off than he could chew. By the time Wynne destroyed the barrier, Adrian was on the floor, his own sword through his thigh, and a pool of blood gathering around him.
"Ah! Good to see we're all here, now. Was getting a bit bored with my old favorite, here…" The demon greeted, gesturing to Adrian's weakening body.
"You're Sloth?" I asked, making sure I knew the name of my enemy… before I slew him.
"Yes—and not only… I am so much more than that. My name is Beroul. Charmed." He began pacing as he continued on. "As I was just telling the young Amell, I have quite the stable of harvestable livestock of souls in this tower, and I'd very much enjoy it if you turned right back on your heels and left me to my work."
"You're brutalizing and murdering innocent people, and harvesting their souls for Maker knows what purpose, and you want us to just walk out of here like nothing happened?" Alistair repeated, still trying to make himself believe the gall of the demon's proposal.
The demon nodded, and the flesh below its chin that was doubled-up under it compressed with every movement. "Call it a favor."
"That's not going to happen." I said, gritting my teeth for what was to come—at least it was better than hearing him babble on.
"You wish to battle me? Oh, fine, if you're all just suicidal you should have just said as much. Could've saved us all some time." A flash of light, and an ogre roared at them before it charged, only for Morrigan and Wynne to hit it with blasts of frost. Myself and Alistair set away to hacking at its limbs as Leliana drilled arrow after arrow into its body, and after a few minutes, the beast collapsed, only to burst into a new form – a rage demon. "Hatred! Burning! It feeds me!" More ice, and the amorphous form exploded again, an abomination uncurling from the remains. Morrigan snorted disdainfully, hitting it with a Mana Clash withing mere moments of its rise.
"That hurt… I'll have those pretty little eyes of yours in my next stew!" The abomination declared at Morrigan.
Morrigan shouted back, slamming a lump of conjured stone into the abomination's gut, folding it in half. Alistair's sword came in from the side, carving deep into the creature's side as Leliana's arrows caught it in the forehead. The abomination smacked Alistair aside, only for my sword to lop off its hand at the wrist. Demonic ichor spilled to the ground, and the beast roared in pain, loosing another shockwave that knocked the party off their feet and shifted form to that of a shade.
"It seems the little mammals have claws—sharp ones. But what is a claw to a claymore?!" Beroul declared, flinching as Alistair clocked it in the skull with the pommel of his sword, before slamming the blade down into its body. Morrigan landed another Mana Clash, and the creature shrieked in pain, before unleashing a blast of mental energy that stunned the warriors. I stumbled back, caught in the blast, and fell to the ground, my vision blurring.
An incendiary blast struck against the shade's flank, and Morrigan re-entered the battle. Alistair's templar training allowed him to shake off the mental assault first, his sword slamming down next to the shade as the demon dodged to one side, only for me to see Adrian staggering to his feet and begin limping toward the demon with something I didn't recognize in his hand. Focusing, Morrigan readied another Mana Clash, only for the spell to fizzle as the demon changed forms again after Alistair's assault on its back proved effective.
The Sloth demon's true form – resembling the horrors they had faced before – drew itself to its full height, and Wynne could feel power pulsing from it through the Fade. "No more games! Time to die!"
"Last call, asshole," Adrian hissed, gaining Beroul's furious attention as the demon turned to face him. Adrian held up what looked like a large silver coin and it glowed a bright blue, "Everyone down!" He yelled out with as much power as he could muster. Wynne quickly created a concave barrier out of ice to which we all dove behind without hesitation. The object soon released a ray that was brighter than just about anything I'd ever seen for only a second. When we all figured it safe, we peeked over the shield of ice to see a gravely weak Adrian stumble back and down onto his knee. Placing the object back into his satchel. Leliana ran over to the visibly younger-looking Adrian to look him over for injuries.
"What—what was that?" I asked, still unclear on what had just happened.
"A talisman…" He groaned as Leliana accidentially touched a tender spot. "It needed time to charge off the latent energies of the Fade. I wanted to use it before you broke though, I just… couldn't stall him any longer."
"So… is he destroyed?" I questioned.
"No. But he has been reduced to a mere fraction of what he was. It will be some time before he is able to reconstitute himself."
"Now what?" Alistair asked, scuffing his boot on the ground where the demon had once been only a few moments earlier. "How do we get out?"
"Patience," Adrian rasped, hearing the crackling noise as the constructed section of the Fade began to collapse in on itself. "and you might just get what you wish for, Alistair."
My eyes opened slowly, and I scrubbed my face with the sleeves of my forearm, feeling gummy residue of the floor smearing away. Sitting up, I spotted the others rousing themselves, coughing and groaning from various aches and pains as they awoke. In that moment, I am sad to say I wanted nothing more than a drink of water. Adrian, gripping his forehead, stood and stumbled over to Niall's corpse, kicking the Sloth demon's body in the head on the way over.
"What are you looking for?" Alistair asked, standing and reclaiming his dropped sword. "And who was that?"
Fishing out the Litany of Adralla, Adrian held it up. "This is the Litany of Adralla. This mage is –
"Niall. I met him in the Fade. Beroul used him to build the Fade realm we were all in." I broke in, as Adrian nodded somberly and gently closed Niall's eyes.
"Sorry I wasn't there, old chap, wish I could've been. Wish I could've done a lot of things…" Scanning the text, he quickly committed it to memory, passing it around to us to do the same.
#
"All that's left is the Harrowing Chamber," Wynne said. "If Irving still lives, he will be there."
The others nodded, recognizing the new objective—moving on surprisingly well from recent events. But not me… and that was… new. Normally, I'd just shake the bad shit off like rain on a cloak. Tell myself it was the way of the world—as it was always meant to be. That there was no way to change it no matter how much I willed it so, so why worry at all. This was crippling… and it hurt my mind, and my body… I gently supported myself on a wall in the chamber and pulled out my flask and took a long swig, letting the bitter taste shake me from my thoughts for a moment. Like a kid biting their tongue to keep from crying.
The others moved, but Leliana lingered a moment. "...I...are you all right, Adrian?"
I scuffed my boot on the floor and didn't answer immediately, Leliana's eyes widened, seeing… tears, just as I felt the warm droplets flow on my cheeks. Damn it all, should've just bit my tongue, I thought. But too little, too late, now I supposed. "No. No, I'm really not. Just about everyone I knew is dead, or possessed, or just plain missing. That corruption you've seen spread around the tower? I've recognized faces in it. Too many faces…" My voice remained level, even as I felt my face twist in pain and anger. "Faces of people I knew and…" I stopped short. Changing my tone, lest I become melancholy. "The only thing that's keeping me from sitting down, curling up, and sobbing like a damn child until the Blight rolls over us is rage." I paused, and realized this must've been the most intense I'd ever appeared to her. "You once told me I was sad—but that was wrong. I'm angry—always. The emotionlessness is a defense mechanism. For demons and people. But now, here I am, coming apart at the seams, and I have never been more susceptible to possession than I am right now, but I haven't heard so much as a single whisper from a demon. Perhaps they know better, perhaps they're too scared."
My voice dropped lower, growing cold. She looked to my hands, and I imagined she spotted my knuckles turning white. "Uldred… The man's always been a hard-ass but I'd have never thought him capable of… this. So… I'm going to destroy him. And then, after that, I may just kill that prat, Greagoir, for letting things get this bad. Bastard had a full contingent of Templars at his command, and they retreated in the face of a force we've essentially routed in less than a day!"
Leliana stepped forth towards me, lifting her hand to lay on my shoulder. "Adrian..."
I shook my head, the mask firmly back in place, at least until the business was done. "Please, let's just move along. I want out of this place… sooner as opposed to later."