Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls.
From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.
Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.
In my arms lies Eternity.
-Andraste 14:11
Iron Bull was a depiction of perfect misery; in fact, had Veldrin not known better, she could have suspected he might even have been blushing.
'Well,' he blurted, 'we could at least have gotten someone nice to oil me up.'
'I am not enjoying this, either, chief,' Krem smirked, shaking his hands of oil in utter disgust. 'But if we had gotten someone nice to oil you, you would have gotten a stiffie – yeah, yeah, don't look at me as if I didn't know what I am talking about! – and then you really wouldn't have fit through that shaft.'
'Oh my, what a compliment…Should this be true to nature, I shall wipe you down once we're through,' Maevaris purred, in open flirt; true to himself, the Qunari grinned wide.
'I'll take that as a promise.' He answered.
'Oooh boy, here we go,' Sera muttered, in mock dismay; she gave Veldrin a wink, and Veldrin smiled in return.
They had already lowered their supplies, and none had been pleasantly surprised by the crevice's actual depth – the granite block rose some thirty feet off the ground, yet the entry point Varric had discovered led a hundred and fifty feet down. Still, with four mages constantly focused on dispelling the crippling aura of the place, the mood was lighter – albeit, only slightly so.
Dorian's advice had gone a long way in easing Sera's mind, and Veldrin was truly grateful for it; the toppled statue had helped too, for Skinner was no longer giving Dorian murderous glances. None knew what awaited below. The small – or, in Bull's case, large – practical niggles had kept them all occupied, however, and it was for the best; Skinner had already made the journey to the depth twice, and assured them that, other than having to file Bull's horns down for a couple of tighter spots, there was no immediate danger. Grim had also gone down and stayed down, to guard the supplies, and he'd not yet tugged on the rope to signal the presence of others.
They had therefore decided to face the greatest obstacle head on, and lower the Iron Bull before any of the mages.
'If he gets stuck, we can jump on 'is head and un-stuck him,' Sera had declared; the Bull had muttered something in Qunlat which none had bothered to translate, but had agreed to the plan for the simple reason that he did not think that the toppled statue would be resistant enough to hold his weight, and thus some serious counter-pulling of the rope would be required.
'You don't weigh that much,' Dorian had reassuringly said. The back and forth banter on how precisely Dorian knew that had made all chuckle knowingly, and had rendered Maevaris surprisingly interested in the warrior. Verily, Vel had told herself, the blonde woman had quite the array of tastes.
Veldrin herself felt as if her shoulders were wrought in iron.
The various cleansing spells had worked wonders on the others, yet Veldrin and Dalish still felt the oppressive nature of the ancient magic. For what was worse, Dorian and Maevaris had made frightfully fast progress on the orb Sera had stolen, and both elven mages could literally taste its energy, even though it had been kept as far away from them as it possibly could have, for the moment. Skinner's excursions down the shaft had brought some comfort, as the city elf swore the aura of the giant sacrifice altar did not extend far underground. All had sadly agreed that both Veldrin and Dalish would have to make contact with Lusacan's Eye soon, so that the human mages, who did not feel its aura as poison, could devise some way to protect them.
'We can't give you a cure until we see the disease, sweetness,' Maevaris had said, attempting to sound reassuring, but only managing to sound apologetic. Dalish had shrugged, forgetting to remind all that she was most definitely not a mage, and Veldrin had nodded.
First things first, she'd told herself. First things first.
The Iron Bull had not even fully disappeared down the shaft before the rope slipped a dangerous eight feet causing him to descend hazardously fast and curse profusely, for Dorian's assessment of his weight proved painfully inaccurate – all eight of the others had to desperately hold on to the rope just to assure the Qunari would not simply tumble down. To one his size, the passage was so narrow that he could not even prop his knees on the opposite wall, for extra support. The first thirty feet of his descent were all fun and giggles; the second thirty, silent grunts, while on the last, there was no hiding that Dorian's hands were bleeding from the friction, and that the rope was getting slippery.
When his feet touched the ground, the eight who were sustaining him literally collapsed, with exhaustion as well as relief.
'Remind me to devise a levitation spell for when he has to come up,' Dorian muttered, as Veldrin saw to his hands and Sera started making her way down. 'My perfection was not designed for this,' the man whined; Vel caressed his cheek, and lifted herself on her toes to give him a peck on the lips.
'I'm…' she began.
'If you say you're sorry one more time, I shall transform you into a newt,' he mockingly menaced, kissing her forehead – and, one by one, raw hands, insecure feet and frozen hearts, they made their way down, into the darkness. Veldrin was down last, and Grim made his way up to guard the entrance to the shaft as soon as she'd reached the bottom.
Maevaris had already dotted the chamber with dull, magical lights, and was sitting down upon a coffer, her nose buried in Varric's book, while, to her sides and once more in their domain of chambers and ladders and tunnels, Sera and Skinner disagreed in hushed whispers on which corridor to explore first.
'Varric writes he went…' Maevaris began to say.
'On the wide path leading west, yes,' Skinner muttered. 'Which is where we should be heading.'
'Suuure,' Sera sneered. ''Cuz we oughta go where the other guy went, an' assume no one knows he went that way and put up some shit defences. Defo an inside the box thinker ya are, Skin. If Varric went down that tunnel,' she added, 'we defo wanna go the other way. All leads to the same, right?'
'Ooooh, Vints,' Skinner breathed out, in utter fury, 'you have so much to answer for with this one!'
By miracle, Maevaris managed to dodge the city elf's hastily whipped out arm, which swished above her head in Sera's general direction. She did not raise her eyes from the book for a single bat of an eyelid.
'Don't make me separate you two,' the Bull warned both elves. 'I still got rope burn in my arm pits, fucking fuck!'
'Actually,' Dalish put in, calmly, 'I agree with Skin.'
'An' how'd I know that?' Sera muttered.
'Well,' Maevaris spoke, 'since all of you for various reasons resisted the Imperium's version of democracy, this is not a question of voting. Dalish,' she prompted, finally looking up from the book. 'You can feel it, can't you?'
The blonde elf mage nodded. 'Yes.' Dalish said. 'Varric did something tremendously stupid at the end of the corridor leading west. He thinned the veil…'
'He shot a maghrallen – that is to say, a somnaborium, or glowy ball of death, if you are inclined to call it that - and catapulted all the company into the fade.' Maevaris corrected. 'Long way of saying tremendously stupid – but the diagrams we are down here for are in the room where he did the stupid thing, and I should like to not spend one minute more down here than I have to.'
'So let's send in the Qunari to fight the defences and the elves to disarm 'em traps cuz you humans wanna be outta here,' Sera said.
Maevaris looked up and smiled a resplendently sad smile. 'Precisely.'
'Also,' Krem said, 'I am human, and I am not leaving the chief's side. So, easy on discovering your roots, now, Sera.'
'I can go with you and cast some protection spells,' Dorian offered; Mae measured him up and down, her glance pointedly settling on his bandaged hands, then slowly shifting to the boxes where the artefacts rested.
'No, sweetness, you can't,' she dryly said. 'We have other things planned.'
'He can cast even with his hands like this,' Veldrin said, softly.
'Indeed, and he will,' Mae said. 'As will I. But we shan't be disarming or detecting traps, that is all on you, Sera and Skin. Bull…'
Veldrin felt small, so, very small and grateful when the Qunari warrior put his arm about her and squeezed her tightly to his chest.
The room they had descended into was large – some sixty by sixty feet, with a twenty-foot-high ceiling – with the altar looming above it, it was perfect for testing the Old God's weapons, yet all that Veldrin wanted was to not be here, not to start what she was starting, not to endanger...
These are selfish thoughts, she told herself. First things first, then second things follow.
'I am scared,' Veldrin whispered into Iron Bull's smelly arm pit; he stank to high heavens and back, and Maevaris had not kept her promise, thus the elf's robes caught whatever was left of the oil.
'If you were not, I'd be scared,' the Qunari gently said, before briskly casting her aside. 'We follow the west corridor,' he ordered. 'Dalish…'
'I am not a screaming mage!' the blonde elf furiously protested.
'Of course you are not,' the Bull agreed. 'But as the mages we leave behind are about to get a bit experimental on them ancient things, I'm leaving you here to keep your dalish bow trained on them. Everyone else who's not a mage and not Dalish, let's go find their channeling scheme things,' he ordered – Sera sighed and went west first, Skin on her trail; Bull carefully tread behind them, westwards, and towards books and diagrams he was unsure he wanted Veldrin to read.
'Promise me one thing, and one thing only,' Dorian said. Vel narrowed her eyes.
'No.' she preemptively said.
'If you feel close to the edge, come back,' Dorian followed. 'Promise me that.'
She was sitting on her knees, at the center of an intricately designed casting circle – Radonis' somnaborium rested in her left hand, while her staff stood a foot off the ground, floating eerily in mid-air; the staff's focus gem was the only light left in the chamber.
Veldrin looked up, and bit her lower lip.
'I won't be using blood this time,' she softly said. 'We are attempting to learn. There should not be any danger of posession.'
'Promise him, sweetness,' Maevaris gently, but firmly put in.
'Just don't lose yourself, wherever you may wander,' Dalish added – she stood outside the circle, and the gem on her bow was not yet in focus. 'You have to look out for me too,' the blonde elf followed. 'That is the entire purpose of trying this – if you go over that edge now, there truly is no hope.'
'Will it genuinely be that bad?' Veldrin asked, seeking Dorian's glance in the semi-obscurity. The man shook his head.
'I…we,' he said, tightly clasping his own weapon, the orb Sera had stolen, and looking over his shoulder to Maevaris, 'don't know. No one has used this device in thousands of years. It may do nothing. It may echo with the altar, and affect everything around it, on the Maker knows what scale; it may…'
Veldrin nodded, interrupting him before he said things she genuinely did not wish to hear.
'If it comes and offers help,' Mae said, 'tell it to go fuck itself, alright, doll?'
'And in what way,' Dorian added, with a chuckle; Veldrin chuckled in return, and felt her shoulders relaxing. It was all, she told herself, a comfortable lie.
'It's a promise,' she said; Dorian nodded, and stepped back, taking a deep breath.
Veldrin's staff flickered out of focus – for a heartbeat, it was dark, and the usage of the artefact became anything but a gentle try run.
The orb in Dorian's hand erupted to screaming light; Dalish was swept aside and flung against the far wall of the chamber as if the magical energy had been the whipping wind of a tornado. Leaves and vines hastily conjured by Maevaris cushioned the blow at the very last moment, and though the blonde elven mage took a long moment to recover, she shakily stood. There was no hiding it now – the gem on her bow came alight too, but a faint shimmer of blue in an endless sea of painful white.
'Fuck,' Dalish whispered. 'Fuck. I can't move. I can't breathe.'
'Literally?' Mae asked, narrowing her eyes in concentration – there was no need for an answer, as the blonde elf's features remained frozen, her lips open; she was not gasping for air, for her chest was not moving at all. 'Try,' Maevaris whispered. 'Try.'
Dalish could not even blink in response.
'Maker,' Maevaris said, casting a hasty and pointless dispell; it allowed Dalish a single breath. 'Tone it down, Dorian,' the Magistra ordered, looking over her shoulder.
'Do you think…' he gasped, in response, 'I fucking can? I'm not controlling this – it is simply channeling though me…Unless I completely close the channel, I cannot moderate or modulate. I am not in control of this, I am…'
No, he's not, not in control of it, the voice said, in Veldrin's thoughts. It's alive and simply channeling though him. Like I shall channel through you. But, unlike him, you will like it. I promise.
A thin rim of red light cut though the white deluge; its power helped, yet rendered the lie less comfortable.
You won't control me. Veldrin said, perhaps out loud; it did not matter. The contours of the circle around her began to glow, red rising with the flares of the orb in her own hand.
Why do we have this argument every single time I save your hiney? We could continue this scrap now, but I see your lathellan over there is drowning on dry land, the voice agreeably said. Do you think we might want to do something about it?
Something was off. Something was terribly, terribly off – it normally did not come or manifest unbidden; the orb in Dorian's hand was thinning the veil all about them, weakening her and empowering it. The aura of the artefact was inescapable, its effects inevitable, and, once she began to use her own focus orb, the gateway to the Fade…
Well, you really are keen on wasting time. I could think of a few productive things to do, it said. I mean, I was around before any of you, during a time when your new toys were actually…new. If you let me in, I'll show you how to make them work. Or stop working? Your choice.
Within her circle, which now was fully alight and projected onto the ceiling, Veldrin felt nothing of what Dalish was feeling. She could hear the humans' voices, yet process none of the emotion in their words – she knew Maevaris was already desperate; she knew Dorian was simply the channel to immense power; she knew that Dalish was dying – yet all was away from her, on a different plane of existence.
Come on, the voice said. You can't be having stage fright at the rehearsal. Do you want to do this, or not? I have all the time in the world, but you sadly don't.
She gritted her teeth; Radonis' somnaborium floated up and out of her hands, hesitantly hanging half way between the floor and the ceiling.
The circle protects me from the weapons of the early Shem mages, Veldrin thought. I need to protect Dalish. How do I…
Oh, you need only ask…
It was once again dark, and she jolted as if she'd been lashed; de-energised, the orb fell to the floor, slipping between her fingers. Veldrin opened her eyes.
'Why did you stop channeling on the orb?' she asked Dorian; her voice sounded eerie, even to herself.
'I was killing Dalish,' he grunted.
'No one dies for not breathing for thirty seconds,' Veldrin acidly replied, before she could stop herself. The man scowled and looked at her…looked at her as if he'd seen her for the first time in his life.
'We were under focus for almost an hour, Veldrin,' Maevaris spoke, sounding exhausted.
'Thirty seconds,' Vel breathed. 'That all felt like thirty seconds, no more.'
'Look,' Mae said, pointing behind her – the elf turned, and covered her mouth with both hands, to keep herself from screaming. Dalish looked as if she had been beaten with a cane – she'd fallen to her hands and knees, gasping for breath. Her lips were grey, and every inch of exposed skin was covered in welts, which kept rising and falling, as if snakes had been crawling through her body.
'Mythal'enaste,' Veldrin whispered, darting to her feet, and all but tripping on the somnaborium.
'No,' Dalish grunted. 'Stay there. Don't come anywhere near me.'
'Dalish, I…' Veldrin stuttered.
The other elf looked up, and improbably smiled through the pain of it all; her vallaslin glowed dully with each breath she took.
'You were just about to find a way to protect me,' Dalish said, softly. 'I know. Let me recover and we'll try again; stay in your circle.'
'You're both insane,' Dorian said, dryly. 'I am not channeling again – Mae can't dispell this, and I am not in an elf killing disposition this morning.'
'Then, switch over,' Dalish said, painstakingly propping herself to her feet, and leaning heavily against the wall behind her. The humans exchanged a confused glance. 'Come on, Vints,' the blonde elf chuckled; her laughter came out as a choked half sound. 'Don't let a woodland apostate erm, hunter tell you how it's done – Dorian,' she said, straightening, 'you're too powerful, and you're channeling a storm Mae can't counter; you've clearly gotten the orb to function, now we need to see to the shield and the swords.'
'I'm not sure I like what you are about to suggest,' Maevaris said, dryly; somehow, Veldrin had expected that the woman would say she was exactly as powerful as Dorian was. She didn't.
'I don't want to touch that thing,' Mae said, instead. 'Maker's breath, I really do not.'
'We don't really have a choice, here,' Veldrin heard herself say.
Of course you do, the voice in her head replied. There is always a choice – you can collect your toys and go home; they are too big for little children like you, after all…Unless, of course, you genuinely come out and play, as you would, with, you know…
Fuck off, Vel grunted, in her thoughts; she knew it would not work even before the voice laughed.
You know it doesn't work that way – they don't, but you do. We made a deal; you made a choice.
'Switch and let's go again,' Dalish said; the healing potion Dorian had handed her was slowly working its magic. Colour had returned to her features, and the snakes under her skin had become still. 'Vel,' she said, tearing the other elf from her inner world and into immediate reality. 'Catch,' she said, throwing something at the dark-haired elf; Veldrin caught it, without even realising she had, or what the object was.
Dorian, however, immediately recognised it.
'No,' he said, swiftly moving to his wife's side, and trying to pry the object from her fingers. 'No – we are still learning here, there is no need to…'
'There is,' the blonde elf said, dryly. 'We're all at our limits here, and this but one of three weapons. We need to push.'
The blade of a daggerglinted as Veldrin moved it out of his grasp; sometimes, she thought, people made choices. At other times, the choices were made for them.
'The circle Veldrin is in is not designed for that,' the Magister stubbornly protested. 'It is focus and protection only, and we have taken it from Radonis' diagrams to the letter…'
'…and you know, for a fact, that Radonis never played with blood magic,' Mae whispered, looking to the side; the other human's shoulders slumped in defeat.
He's such a funny, funny human, the voice merrily said, in Veldrin's thoughts. If only he was not so afraid of me, the fun we could have together… She found the strength to ignore it. She held on to the knife with her dead left hand, and awkwardly placed her right hand on Dorian's shoulder.
'I promised you,' Veldrin said; the words had no meaning to him, and he furiously shook his head. 'I promised you I will come back, and I will.'
That's it, da'len. Lie through your teeth.
'I love you,' the elf said, not lying, and the truth made the Magister yield; Dorian took her hand and pressed it to his lips.
'You'd be hard pressed to find someone more worthy of that notable sentiment,' he said, trying to smile. 'Just…do come back. We don't want to overwhelm poor Lexi with all of my affections now, do we?'
He turned around before she could see the pain in his eyes; she still knew she'd conjured it, because of the way he walked away, the weight of the world on his shoulders. He wordlessly passed the orb to Maevaris, and she braced as if the object had been too heavy to carry. Dalish lifted her bow, its gem coming alight; Veldrin kneeled in her circle, knife in her left hand, orb in her right.
'With feeling, this time,' Dalish ordered.
Then, the world was once again awash with white, painful light.
Well, whew, this one took a bit to get right (we hope we got it right!) and it provoked the mother of all creative differences between the Abstract/Ivi/Maidros/Betas/Supporters/Friends/Relatives/That dude we didn't know in the green sweater who really wanted to join the brawl. But, by Solas' pointy years, it is action :)
Many serious apologies for the delay, we have truly been labouring this for close to a month.
Thank you for reading and commenting!
Up Next - Plenty of hints in the present chapter ;)