The Wrath of Heaven 1: The Beginning
A voice whispers on the wind: "Good Hunter Andras…"
The world is swirling, a storm writhing against the laws of the universe. Something is wrong. It is never as such. Unnatural. Perverted. A man wakes amid the chaos. He's older, his long, scholarly face scarred and cragged. Spiders with a hundred eyes rise from nothing, birthed by this strange storm. Their intent – he cannot fathom, but they pursue him yet.
"Hunter Andras," the voice whispers again.
The man, Andras, grits his teeth and rises to run. The world swells, and a staircase forms from rocks. It shouldn't have been, but it is. At the top stands a figure. Female in form, she opens her arms, reaching out to draw the man closer to her.
"Andras!" she calls again.
Salvation. With renewed purpose, the man gives one last burst of speed. As he reaches her form, the world burns away.
There is a feeling of loss.
And then, nothing.
Andras awakens from that nightmare in a dark, dank area. The ambience almost feels familiar. Almost. The area is wet and moist. Definitely not comfortable. He can hear a slow drip of water, plinking in long, irregular intervals.
He looks down with a queer expression, almost a realization that he has hands. And then, the realization deepens further as he realizes those hands are bound together by manacles. He is a prisoner.
Why?
More comprehension dawns on him as he hears the sleek ting of metal brushing against metal. There are four guards, each with a sword drawn. Four guards surrounding him. Guarding him. He is a danger to them.
Why?
Suddenly, his arms flairs to life with a green glow, pain cutting deep. He grunts, his face contorting in pain. This… mark – it is not his. It is foreign. He wants to debride it from himself, excise this cancer. It is painful, and as he curls in on himself, cradling the pained limb, a part of him is aware that the guards are spooked by this light. They are nervous, their swords ready to descend upon him at the slightest reason.
"N-no!" he mutters, his voice rough and cracking from disuse, while he tries to maneuver his hands in a placative gesture, instead only flailing them up and down.
Suddenly, the door opens and two women enter. The guards and the man turn their attention to these new figures, the man from curiosity, while the guards from respect.
The first woman is shorter and stern, her hair a stern, spartan coiffure. She is dressed in plate and mail and some scars mar her face. A black tabard with a flaming eye is draped over her armor. In short: military.
The other woman wears mail and robes, her face obscured by both hood and shadows.
"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now. The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you," the stern woman says.
Andras sits in silence. He hardly knows where he is, never mind anything else. Conclave? Deaths? Death is no foreign concept to the man, but there's an itching in the back of his mind, of something locked away. He is unfamiliar with how this woman is throwing about the term "Conclave," but his voice is too hoarse to warrant a full rebuttal.
"You – the sole survivor, and no one can place your identity. Neither Chantry nor Circle, nor any of the mercenaries hired," she continues, after giving a small pause for Andras to speak.
His silence, though, only appears to further aggravate the woman. She turns on him, grabbing his hands. The man weakly protests, but the woman continues.
"Explain this!" she says, forcing his sparking hand in front of his face. He grimaces as it flares again.
Shaking his head, his voice is rough as he replies. "I… can't."
"What do you mean, you can't?"
Andras takes a breath. What can he say? He hardly even knows how he got here, wherever that is, in the first place. "I don't know what that is or how it got there."
"You're lying!"
"No! Honest – please!" he says, flinching as the woman gears up to strike him.
The other woman steps from the shadows and stops the arm from striking. Shaking her head, she speaks in a light voice. "We need him, Cassandra."
"Whatever you think I did, I'm innocent," Andras replies, drawing his hands closer to himself. He casts a look between the two women.
The other woman turns her attention to him. He is no longer so sure he wants it. Really, he just wants to be anywhere but here.
"Do you remember what happened? How this began?"
The man's lips tighten, and he closes his peculiar eyes as he forces the memory – any memory, really – to the forefront of his thoughts. "I… remember running. Things chasing me. And then… at the summit – a woman?" he almost smiles as the memory dances in the forefront of his mind. The woman whom he can barely remember – she's a comfort – a friend. He knows it in his soul. But her memory is lost to him.
"A woman?"
He nods his head, encouraging the memory as much as it tries to dance away. "She reached out to me, she sought me to come, but…" he shakes his head. "The rest I cannot remember."
What did happen to her? This woman, this friend? Was she alright?
"Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take him to the rift," Cassandra says.
The other woman, Leliana, leaves quietly.
"What did happen?" Andras asks.
"You truly don't know?" Cassandra replies.
Andras nods. Cassandra pulls him to his feet. Using deft motions, she produces a rope, which she promptly ties around your hands before removing the manacles.
She shakes her head. "It will be easier to show you. Come."
She leads him up and out from the bowels of the dungeon. Cassandra doesn't even need to point. As he looks to the sky, he sees the desecration of the world. The sky is torn asunder, a deep green swirling abyss in the place of sky. Green energy pulses within the rift, steady like a heartbeat, and Andras feels his own mark throb a painful echo.
"We call it the Breach," Cassandra says. "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."
Andras continues observing the Breach, its unnatural lights mesmerizing. Almost like a memory. He tears his eyes away from the hole in the sky to look at Cassandra. "An explosion can do that?"
"This one did. Unless we act, the breach may grow until it swallows the world."
As if on cue, there's a swell of energy. The Breach pulses, stronger this time. Green energy arcs out from the center, and Andras feels his mark bite deeper into himself. No, not bite. That is not a strong enough word. Neither is burn. It sears his very soul, and he collapses, his being fighting against the pain and the force of… whatever his mark is.
Cassandra looks down upon him impassively. "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."
Andras looks at her incredulously. "You still think I did this? To myself? You said yourself it's killing me."
"Not intentionally. Something clearly went wrong."
"And if I'm not responsible? What will you do then?"
"Someone is, and you are our only suspect," Cassandra remarked harshly. "You wish to prove your innocence? This is the only way."
Andras frowned. "You say it may be "the key." To doing what?"
"Closing the Breach. Whether that's possible is something we shall discover shortly. It is our only chance, however. And yours."
"So, I don't really have a choice about this."
Cassandra scowls at him. "None of us has a choice."
Andras holds his tied hands up. Cassandra continues scowling, though it softens just a little as she bends down and pulls Andras back to his feet.
"…Thank you," Andras mutters.
Cassandra doesn't respond.
She leads their way through the town. Gossip spreads like fire, and Andras can hear the scowling people whispering hateful things amongst themselves. They are hostile, and likely Cassandra's presence is the only thing holding them back from rending him to pulp.
"They have decided your guilt. They need it," Cassandra says. Andras sees someone spit in his direction. It falls short, but the sentiment is felt. "The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between mages and templars. She brought their leaders together. Now, they are dead."
By now, they've reached the town's gate. Armed soldiers – again in plate and mail – open the heavy wooden doors at Cassandra's approach. She pays them no mind.
"We lash out, like the sky. But we must think beyond ourselves, as she did. Until the breach is sealed."
She stops, and you both stand there on the frozen road. Interminable seconds pass as she reaches into the small sheath on her belt. The small dagger glints maliciously in the frozen light.
Andras' heart beats faster in his chest.
"There will be a trial. I can promise no more," Cassandra says. Then, with quickly, fluid movements, the dagger is moving. Andras doesn't even have time to flinch before it tears through the rope around his wrists.
Andras casts her an odd look.
"Come. It is not far."
"You've released me?"
"I can't be dragging you along behind me. There is a road, but I can't be picking you up every time you trip over a rock."
"Where are you taking me?"
"Your mark must be tested on something smaller than the Breach."
"Why not just use it on the Breach if you think it's the key?"
"And what? Perhaps that was the plan all along. At best, it kills you. At worse, it makes the Breach worse."
"Is that even possible?"
Cassandra scowls. "I don't know. But there are many things we don't know about rifts in the sky or strange people walking out of explosions."
"Touché."
A/N: I'm still alive, and I have not forgotten about Weather the Storm. I'm just taking a hiatus while I work out some plot points. Gotta make sure what's written will make sense!
In the meanwhile, here's the start of another fic, a happy little cross-over of Bloodborne and Dragon Age: Inquisition.
-Pappenheimer