The sound of the doors closing reverberates down the hall. Marian takes a shaky, tremulous breath and turns to Alistair and Leliana. "I'm sorry," she says, looking them each in the eyes. "If we can't save Irving, we're stuck here until they come back with the Right of Annulment. I should have asked you both if you were willing."
Alistair raises his eyebrows at her. "You're kidding, right?" He pulls down his shield and fits it to his arm, nodding at her when he's done, ready for anything.
"Marian," Leliana says gently, and when she looks over Leliana smiles. "We are right behind you."
She smiles back at them, lopsided and grateful, and then has no more excuses; she turns back to the main hall, which is silent and still and shadowed in a way she's never seen before. A tower of mages has no need for penny-pinching in their use of mage lights or enchanted dweomers. Either the magical lanterns have started to fail and there is no one to replace them, or someone is putting them out apurpose.
Neither possibility is particularly comforting.
Marian takes down her staff, just to be ready, and paces up the hall toward the girl's side dorms, but she stops dead when she notices the bodies on the ground before the door. One's a templar, nameless in full plate and helm, but the other is Elodie, a younger apprentice whose bed lies against the opposite wall from her own. Marian doesn't need to check for a pulse; the spray of dried, old blood extends for three feet past her slashed wrists.
The templar doesn't have a mark on him, and neither does he have a weapon.
"Blood magic," Marian says. Her voice is unexpectedly loud in the silence.
"If there's one, there's probably more," Alistair says, uneasy. "Like cockroaches."
Marian's been keeping herself from thinking that very thing by dint of sheer will. Thanks, Alistair.
Her first step into the girl's side is cautious, wary. It's empty, the furniture pushed into half-formed barricades, bodies here and there that Marian can't stop herself from checking. She knows they're dead; it's clearly been days since anyone living was in this room. But she has to check.
None of them are anything more to her than nodding acquaintances. She blows out a heavy breath, glancing at the empty bed that had once been hers, and takes them into the boy's side, which is also empty of the living.
Here she finds the thing she feared she would.
Jervais lays against the wall on the far side of the room, his eyes empty. His throat has been cut, a lengthy wound that starts clean and ends ragged and torn, and there is not enough blood around him to account for his whole body's weight. Blood magic, then. Either way, she hadn't been fast enough.
I'm sorry I didn't come here first, Marian tells him to the background music of Leliana softly singing the requiem. I'm sorry I didn't swallow my pride and make up. And I'm so, so sorry I failed you.
Marian closes his eyes, says a short, silent prayer, and stands, passing her thumb over her chest in the Maker's Circle. "Maker take you to his side," she says to him, to his corpse, and walks back out into the hall. Alistair and Leliana trail silently behind her. She wants to weep, and she can't, and so she stalks down the hall, tears ripping at her throat as she flings open the door to the next room.
She's greeted by roaring and fire, a rage demon threatening the smallest apprentices across the room, and the words of a spell are already on her lips, her hand tight on her staff –
Wynne steps in front of the demon, drawing the Fade around her like a cloak, and freezes it with one spell, turning her back on it afterward like it's nothing, like what she just did was nothing. Perhaps to her it was.
And then Wynne turns to her, and pins her with a look like she's been a badly-behaved apprentice. Oh, she remembers that look. "Marian," Wynne says, with surprise quickly shifting into naked suspicion. "What are you doing here? Why did the templars let you through?"
"I told Greagoir I would find out what's happening," Marian says, and then she spots Petra, hovering over Wynne's shoulder. Marian smiles at her, and she knows it's shaky around the edges, but it's real. Andraste, thank you. Petra smiles back, paler and thinner than she ought to be, and Marian aches to hug her. But Wynne is still on edge, and business comes before anything she wants. "Do you know?"
"I do," Wynne says, regarding her steadily. "But first: the doors are barred. The templars will only open them if they intend to attack us. Are they coming?"
"They're waiting for the Right of Annulment and reinforcements from Denerim," Alistair says, so neutrally that she knows he's unhappy about it. Marian hadn't wanted to say it, hadn't even been able to think about what her reply should be, and she's thankful she didn't have to.
"We came ahead to save who we could," Marian says instead.
Wynne sighs and turns her face away, closing her eyes. "So," she says, and it sounds like something Marian never expected to hear from Wynne: resignation. "Greagoir thinks the Circle beyond hope. He probably assumes we are all dead."
"He said it was too painful to hope any were alive," Marian says, still stewing over Greagoir's curious idea of friendship.
Wynne looks back at Marian. "And so they abandoned us to our fate. But even trapped as we are, we have survived," she says fiercely. "If they invoke the Right, however, we will not be able to stand against them."
She's right. Every templar in Ferelden is probably on their way here right now, and the only hope of saving anyone is for Marian and her friends to find Irving before something happens to him. That's assuming he's still alive, of course, which isn't likely in itself; Marian looks around the chamber, counting four young apprentices, two older ones, including Petra, and one other mage besides Wynne. There had been near seventy mages living here when she left.
"But Wynne, what happened?" Marian asks, bewildered. She hadn't thought that the Circle, of all places, could fall into chaos so easily, and so quickly. It had seemed like a bastion to her, a tower of strength that she could never escape, and even when she choked on it she'd respected its strength.
"Let it suffice to say that we had something of a revolt on our hands, led by a mage named Uldred," Wynne says, with an almost bitter twist to her mouth. Marian knows the name, though she's never met the man; some of the senior enchanters are too busy or too important – or too self-important – to teach the apprentices. "When he returned from the battle at Ostagar, he tried to take over the Circle." She indicates the Tower around her with one hand, as eloquent a gesture as any cutting words. "As you can see, it didn't work out as he had planned." She sighs. "I don't know what became of Uldred, but I am certain all this is his doing. I will not lose the Circle to one man's pride and stupidity."
"Then what are we going to do?" Marian demands.
Wynne rewards her for that with a smile, a real one. "I erected a barrier over the door leading to the rest of the tower, so nothing from inside could attack the children," she says, gesturing at the bright, glowing field covering the doorway behind her. "You will not be able to enter the tower as long as the barrier holds, but I will dispel it if you join with me to save this Circle."
Hasn't she already said as much? Why does no one listen? "Then what are you waiting for?" Marian asks, with an impatient gesture toward the door. "If you're coming, then let's go."
Wynne stares at her for a moment, surprised, and then laughs. "I must admit, I had not expected to find you so eager," she says. "But it's a most welcome surprise." She sobers then, amusement fading down to concern. "Once Greagoir sees that we have made the tower safe, I trust he will tell his men to back down. He is not unreasonable."
That is not Marian's experience, biased though it might be, but she's still hoping to find Irving alive. And... even after everything, she still holds some affection for him, as angry as she is and as frustrated by his politicking, his lack of concern for the very real dangers he seems to be blind to. He's still her mentor, who taught her so much and agreed, laughing, when she asked for more.
"Greagoir will only hear it from Irving," Marian warns her.
"Then that is what we must achieve," Wynne says, calm now, and determined.
She hasn't found Lissette, or Rashmi. There have to be more survivors than just these here.
"Petra, Kinnon..." Wynne says, looking at Petra and the man she doesn't know. "Look after the others. I will be back soon."
Wynne strides forward to deal with the barrier, but Marian detours slightly, waving the others after Wynne, and yanks Petra into a hug. "I've never been so scared as when I heard what was happening," she whispers into Petra's ear, leaning back to look at her. "Are you all right?"
Petra laughs, though it almost sounds like a sob, or like she's been crying, and she's far too pale. "I am now," she says. "Wynne saved me from a demon. I was on my way down to the library when I heard screaming, and a demon came around the corner, and then Wynne was there, in front of me, shielding me. It was light and fire, blood and chaos..."
"Petra," Marian groans, all too used to her flights of fancy.
"You asked!" Petra says in irritation, pinching her. "Listen, Marian. When it was... over, the demon was dead but Wynne wasn't moving either." She swallows. "I was so afraid she was... gone. But as I moved to help her, she stirred and coughed."
"Then she's all right, isn't she?" Marian asks, glancing over to Wynne, who is impatiently waiting for her with Alistair and Leliana. Cú is by her side, as always. It doesn't sound like anything she needs to be concerned about – Wynne was probably just knocked out. Right?
"I don't know," Petra confesses. "She might be completely fine, but then again, maybe she didn't come away from that totally unharmed. Just... look after her, all right?"
"Of course I will," Marian says, and hugs her again, reluctantly pulling away afterward. "I have to go. Keep yourself safe, all right?"
"You too," Petra says, worry in her eyes. Marian smiles and steps away, her hand on Cú's head.
Wynne takes down the barrier with all the effort of falling off a log, and they proceed into the library, Alistair in the lead.
The library's always been her sanctuary, and it's where the majority of her apprentice lessons had taken place, but this is not the comforting refuge she remembers. Most of the lights are gone, or glowing only dimly, and what is usually a neat, orderly area is now knocked-over piles of books, broken chairs, scorch marks on the floor, and the smell of cooking meat.
She swallows, her nostrils flaring wide, and decides not to think about that last one too much.
They have to fight their way for every inch through rage demons and twisted, grotesque abominations, but Wynne more than makes up for it; she slides into place in their group seamlessly, handling healing and support far better than Marian ever did, leaving her to concentrate on what she does best.
They fight their way through the three sections of the library and up the stairs to the mage quarters, briefly stopping to reassure Owain and deal with three blood mages. She doesn't know any of them, thank Andraste and the Maker. Still, that they were here and alive and unmolested must mean that they have some manner of control over the abominations. Marian doesn't quite know all the ramifications of that and doesn't have the time to think it over, but it leaves a heavy feeling in her stomach and a bad taste in her mouth and drives her forward, ever forward, to find her friends and Irving.
The last blood mage begged for mercy. She'd been persuasive, even eloquent. But Marian is finding that she has precious little mercy for those who would take the short path, the easy path, who would twist another's mind and turn them into monsters.
She has none for those who would hurt her friends.
What does that say about her? Would her father even recognize her now?
My magic will serve what is best in me, she reminds herself, and the grief that surfaces then is now an old friend.
Here, like downstairs, someone has made a shambles of the library, ripping down books, throwing furniture around, and leaving bodies to rot where they dropped. She'll never be able to remember this place any other way, now, and that makes her sad in a distant, hollow way she can't explain.
The first room in the circle past the library is the guest room she'd escorted Duncan to the first time they met. The second is the junior mage quarters, where she'd almost had a room of her own for the very first time. In the third is another pair of blood mages and an abomination, and the fourth is the Circle Chantry. The last room before the stairs is Irving's office.
Here she pauses their head-long rush, looking around. She hasn't forgotten Morrigan's request, and her best guess is that Flemeth's book is here, in Irving's office, where it will never be out of his sight. Something so powerful demands that sort of treatment.
She starts rifling the bookshelves and cupboards, explaining what she's looking for as she does, and Leliana and Alistair start on the other side of the room. To her surprise, Wynne says nothing, only folds her arms and waits, a little impatient but silent all the same.
"Here," Leliana says, kneeling before a trunk in the corner. "I think this is it."
Marian takes one look at the book and puts her hands behind her back. There is some very powerful magic floating around the grimoire that she doesn't even want to touch, much less carry on her person, and once again she wonders what exactly Flemeth is, and what she might be capable of. "Do you have room in your pack?" she asks Leliana, who nods and stows it away.
They move up to the next level, going quietly in order to avoid bringing the whole tower down on them, and there's nothing waiting for them in the large chamber at the top of the stairs. It's colder here, and though the temperature itself feels good to a body grown warm through hard work, she wonders what might be up here to cause it.
"Do you get the feeling things are just getting worse as we go up?" Alistair asks, in the tone of one who isn't really expecting an answer.
The next room holds the enemies she was expecting in the first room, and she groans when she realizes that it's undead, again, and exactly how many there are. Alistair takes the brunt of them, using his shield to batter them away in short, heavy strokes while he cuts the skeletons apart, one by one. Cú circles around the back and thins the ranks as Leliana puts away her bow and draws her daggers, guarding Alistair's flank. Wynne is kept busy healing Alistair and her mabari, but Marian catches a glimpse of the horror on the other side of the room and flings a force field around it, buying them a precious moment to clear out the skeletons before they deal with that thing.
It takes everything they've got to bring it down and in the end, only Wynne is left without injury. "I'm so glad you're here," Marian says, gasping, as Wynne lays a cool trail of healing magic over a deep burn on her neck.
"You were never too interested in healing, as I recall," Wynne says, but there's a wry tilt to her mouth that says perhaps she didn't mind Marian's inattention too much. "I'm surprised you've made it this far."
"It turns out that healing potions come in handy," Alistair says. Marian narrows her eyes at him and he shrugs, a smirk growing from the corner of his mouth; she wonders exactly how much effort it would take to train Cú to eat his socks.
It's a brief moment of levity that fades too quickly. There are more abominations and rage demons next door, and she's so deep in her spell chain that she doesn't dodge quickly enough when an abomination takes a swipe at her face. If Leliana hadn't pulled her away at the last moment, she would have lost an eye, and even then it takes Wynne far longer than it should to heal her wound. They're growing tired and less effective; she's starting to make stupid mistakes, and Wynne is clearly struggling. Marian calls for a rest.
It only takes fifteen minutes or so for Wynne to look much better and then she urges them on. It's here that she meets her first possessed templar. A chill runs right down her spine. She'd thought that perhaps the templars would be more resistant to blood magic, or at least able to kill the blood mages, but it appears she was wrong, and now she has to fight something that can strip her of her powers with a moment's thought.
It's only then that she realizes that Alistair has changed the way he fights; now he keeps himself between her and Wynne and the possessed templars, checks on them over his shoulder as often as he can get away with. She needs to remember to do something nice for him later.
They clear this floor without incident; only a long, involved fight with a desire demon and its attendant pack of templars gives them anything to be concerned about until they reach the central room, which looks to have been the templars' mess hall and is now host to an abomination and demons and undead. They've done something to the room, grown something huge and sprawling and horribly organic, which Marian can swear she sees moving out of the corner of her eye. It looks uncannily like innards.
Marian shivers and hangs well back until the undead are defeated and they can carefully thread their way through to the stairs to the next floor, which is covered here and there in lumps of the flesh growing down from the ceilings. These really do move, subtly swelling and shrinking, like they're breathing.
She doesn't know for sure what this stuff is, but she has some suspicions, and it has to do with all the people that should be here and are nowhere to be found. She takes special care not to touch the things after that thought.
When they try to clear the first room on this floor, they find a desire demon and her pet templar. Marian readies herself for another battle, but the demon speaks and appeals to her, asking simply to be left alone with her meal.
There had been desire demons on the last floor, but none of them had affected her the way this one does. Marian finds herself drifting, mellow, increasingly convinced that the demon in front of her is offering her a logical choice, that Marian's intruding on something meant to be private. The templar had asked for this, hadn't he? And if it's true that he'll die if they kill the woman...
The desire demon, something inside of her whispers.
She takes a short, startled breath and holds it, forcing herself to think as clearly as she can. The sheer want that she feels, the urge to leave this room and these people to their fate, is all that she needs to convince her that the demon is far too dangerous to live.
When it's done, she kneels and crosses the templar's hands over his stomach and closes his eyes. Even a weak man doesn't deserve what happened to him, and who doesn't have unacknowledged desires in their heart?
They clear the rest of the floor as quickly as they can and proceed into the central room. There's a demon there, contemplating an unconscious mage's body, which lies in front of a huge sculpture overgrown with the corrupted flesh eggs. This demon doesn't attack on sight, either. She can't immediately identify what kind of demon it is, and that worries her. Marian prepares herself to resist whatever temptation this particular demon has in mind – not that it helped much with the desire demon, she reminds herself – and approaches it.
It turns then, and she's met with the horrible, mutilated face and chest, the overgrown flesh forming a crude sort of collar that it's decorated with small golden hoops here and there. "Oh, look," it says, in a drawling, gravelly voice that scrapes at her ears. "Visitors." It looks them over, taking its time to examine each of them in turn, and sighs. "I'd entertain you, but... too much effort involved."
"What are you doing to that man?" Marian demands, her staff in her hand.
"He's just resting, poor lad. He was so very, very weary," the thing says, and it coincides with a swelling surge of returning exhaustion. It's been such a long day, and they've fought their way through four floors of the worst things Marian's ever seen. Perhaps it's time for a rest, after they've finished off this demon; surely the rest will agree.
It studies her. "You want to join us, don't you?" it says, and she can't deny that she does. She traps a yawn with her hand, and it only strikes her afterward how strange of a thing that was. An approaching fight always sets fire to her blood and quickens her breath. She's never felt like she could drop off on her feet before.
But it just keeps talking, rumbling in her ear, lulling her thoughts and tugging her mind down into the darkness behind her eyes. "Wouldn't you like to just lay down and... forget about all this?" it asks. "Leave it all behind?"
She's so sleepy. Her head nods once, twice; each time she catches herself just on the brink of sleep, and she can hear her friends trying to rouse each other behind her, caught in the same web. "We musn't," she says, but it doesn't come out loud enough for anyone to hear.
"Shhh," it says, soothing and friendly, and now it begins to come to her, one step at a time. "Why do you fight? You deserve more... You deserve a rest. The world will go on without you."
She can't keep her eyes open any longer. A tiny part of her mind cries out in terror, but the rest of her welcomes the silent, soothing comfort of sleep...