This week I hacked my stupid ADHD brain with word sprints and have gotten so much done. Even better, nice people from the Fen'Harem often do them with me, so it's peer pressure and deadlines all rolled into one delicious piece of candy for broken brains.

Assault on Adamant

The trek to Adamant took three days and was largely uneventful. Any Venatori that might have remained between us and the fortress wisely scurried away when they saw the size of our force, along with any Wardens who had been tasked with watching the road.

There had at least been sufficient scouts to the east to carry word of our approach. Hawke, Stroud, and Harding rejoined us midway through the second day, having caught one of those scouts returning to Adamant with news that the Inquisition's army was nearing the fortress. We took an extended rest for lunch, and Leliana had my tent put up so that the five of us - plus Cullen - could speak in private. It also gave me a suitably non-public place to hug both Hawke and Harding. After Leliana's words about the decorum a commander was supposed to show, I supposed it wouldn't be acceptable for me to throw my arms around them in front of everyone else.

Stroud believed that our confrontation with Erimond had moved up Warden-Commander Clarel's timeline somewhat. He estimated there were some seven or eight hundred Wardens in Orlais, and that no more than half had so far arrived at Adamant. "We see small groups of stragglers nearly every day," he reported, "but the fortress is large and they don't have enough personnel for full guard rotations. The are making do with three rotations rather than the four we usually prefer. There are also the Fereldan Wardens to consider, though their numbers are are smaller. I don't expect any have made it this far west."

"Then, at the least, we have succeeded in reducing the size of the army Corypheus would command, were he to complete the ritual," Leliana said thoughtfully.

"I would rather we didn't let him complete it," Cullen muttered.

"Of course," Leliana agreed, "but even small victories can add up, Commander. We don't necessarily have to change everything to change the ultimate outcome."

Cullen and Stroud began discussing options for the siege, with Hawke and Harding assisting the Warden in sketching out the topography of the land surrounding Adamant. When we returned to our march an hour later, Cullen had tentative plans for placing his siege engines.

For two nights, Solas visited my dreams, though he didn't invite me into his. The part of the Fade corresponding to the territory we crossed in the waking world wasn't especially pleasant, but that didn't mean it wasn't interesting. Solas found many memories for us to experience together, some from as far back as before the Second Blight. He showed me what the land had once been - a green plain carved into prosperous farms and vinyards. We listened to words spoken in a dialect of Orlesian that no longer existed, and tasted wines made from varieties of grape that had disappeared over eight hundred years before.

We watched many of the great battles of the Second Blight, too - saw Adamant rise, and watched the iron towers erected by Orlais show weary travelers to its gates. And then we watched them fall into disrepair, the wind and sand and darkspawn incursions taking their inevitable toll. Adamant was abandoned.

"It's a sad history," I said.

"Much history is," Solas replied.

When I realized he wasn't going to invite me into his dreams, I decided to see if he would give ground on some other point. "I didn't think anyone trained Dreamers anymore," I told him our second night as we wandered the Fade, moving on from a memory of a long-forgotten harvesters' song and toward one from the Blight.

"Some are born with the talent, and must either learn to master it or perish," he replied.

"And is that what happened to you?" I prodded, noting that his statement was broad rather than personal.

"Yes," he answered, giving me a glance that said he knew exactly what I was doing. "I have always had an affinity for the Fade - but I believe it a discipline you could learn, if you wanted to," he added unexpectedly.

"Are…you offering to teach me?" I asked, surprised.

"If you would like," he replied. "It seems a good excuse to spend our nights together, anyway."

"But then I could enter your dreams without an invitation," I reminded him, too shocked to remember that I was avoiding the subject.

"You could," he agreed, reaching out to comb his fingers through my hair, "but you wouldn't."

True - so true it was unfair. He had, after all, entered my dreams without invitation.

We reached Adamant late on the afternoon of the third day and spent the evening setting camp and maneuvering our siege engines into position. None of it had anything to do with me, so I called together everyone from my inner circle who didn't already have other orders: Solas, Cassandra, Varric, Sera, Bull, and Cole.

I dealt with Cole first: "I don't want you anywhere near where they are binding spirits," I told him. "But you could run messages for the healers, and protect them, if it were to come to that. Would that suit you?"

"He always held that modesty was not wisdom, and yet the two are more closely related than he supposed," Cole replied in his accustomed cryptic manner, though something about his words tugged at a fragmented memory I had - perhaps from a dream? Modesty is so much easier to bring to heel than wisdom. Who had said it? "That will suit me, thank you."

I gave up trying to remember, hoping it would come to me if I let it be, and turned my attention to the others. "You can all come with me if you would like to."

"Friggin' right," Sera grumbled. "Not leaving me behind again!"

"Well, you usually end up wherever things are the most interesting, Boss, so I'm not gonna complain," Bull added.

"Just like Hawke," Varric agreed. "That means I'll be following both of you, I guess."

Cassandra was close enough to bend a little nearer, letting me see her expression. As though there was ever any question , it said. I replied with a grateful half-smile. I didn't bother pressing Solas, either - I didn't need our bond to tell me that he preferred following me to literally any other possibility, but it was a nice confirmation.

He hung back when the others left my tent. "Tomorrow will be dangerous," he told me unnecessarily.

"Just like most days of my life now," I replied without any heat.

Guilt flashed across our bond, and was gone just as quickly. "We won't meet in the Fade tonight - there are too many demons. If you wish for rest, I would advise you to avoid the Fade with the aid of a sleeping draught."

I nodded, unsurprised. There was something that seemed to hover on the edges of my vision, and had since midday. Something familiar, though I was having trouble placing it. It resided beyond the Veil - of that much I was certain. Some instinct told me that I didn't want to meet it.

Solas kissed me before leaving, long and slow and heated. It made me eager to share a tent again…but it also made me wonder what he was withholding information about this time. I dropped my head into my hands when he was gone, wondering how long I could go on blindly trusting him.

Our siege began before dawn the next morning. My tent - as well as those of Leliana and Cullen - were all well away from the front lines, behind even the siege engines. It meant we had a fairly long walk to the gates, but we couldn't advance until gates had been thrown open anyway. I took my time choosing my gear and restocking my kit, as did the others coming with me. Varric, it turned out, had saved a few Venatori bows for Sera to look over. She was so pleased that she forgot to antagonize him for a full half hour.

We left a little before midmorning, marching with Cullen behind troops carrying ladders meant to allow them access to the top of the walls, and behind the slower battering ram, which would move into position while the defenders were otherwise occupied by the ladder-climbers. I caught a taste of Dorian's magic - smelling of lightning and fierce summer heat - off to my left somewhere as we came within range of Adamant's archers. The mages he had been given command of were tasked with keeping as many barriers on our troops as possible while they assaulted the walls. I put up a barrier of my own, and felt Solas readying another to take over when mine drained away.

There was a shadow growing in my mind as we approached the fortress, and I found myself turning my head sharply as movement snaked through the peripheral vision I didn't have. "There's a spirit here," I told my companions. "A demon," I corrected myself in a lower voice, shivering for reasons I didn't understand.

"Fear," Solas told me helpfully.

All at once I remembered the Temple of Sacred Ashes. "Fear," I agreed. "We have its attention, this time."

"Lucky us," Varric muttered.

"I don't know why you bother expecting anything else, at this point," Hawke told him.

"What can I say? I'm known for chest hair and boundless optimism," Varric replied in the same tone.

"And for talking too much," Sera growled from my other side, though I thought she was more upset about the demon than Varric.

We stopped a stone's throw back from the gates as the battering ram rolled into position. A few arrows sailed our way, but most were concentrated on our soldiers scaling the walls and those manning the ram, and the ones that did come toward us pinged harmlessly off the barriers that Solas and I took turns putting up.

The battering ram swung. Once. Twice. On the third hit, the gates buckled with a groan, and the soldiers manning the ram fell back, shields raised above their heads, to give us additional cover as we dashed for the door. I cast another barrier on all of us, though it was a strain. Solas stopped beside me to long enough give me a mildly exasperated look, letting me know that he disapproved of my overexertion, but I glared right back at him. These were my people, soldiers risking - and too often sacrificing - their lives in my name. I owed them every scrap of protection I could offer.

From within the walls, we heard the order to fall back, and Cullen directed our party in moving forward. We stopped just inside the gates, in a sheltered area that no one seemed to be bothering to defend anymore now that the gates had been breached. "All right, Inquisitor," he told me. "You have your way in. Best make use of it. We'll keep the main host of demons occupied for as long as we can."

"I'll be fine," I insisted. "Keep the men safe, and try not to kill any more Grey Wardens than you must. It would be nice if there were something left worth salvaging at the end of this madness."

Cullen wasn't especially pleased by those orders. "We'll do what we have to, Inquisitor."

"I know," I told him. "I'm just giving you a list of priorities."

He softened a little. "If you have a chance, clearing out some of the resistance on the walls would make a big difference. Our ladders can't get a foothold at the moment."

"I'll see what I can do to help, Commander," I promised.

He gave me a brief salute, hand over heart, and then turned around to rejoin his soldiers.

"Let's get to work," I told my party.

Bull let out a whoop of bloodthirsty glee. I wished I could share the sentiment, but I didn't generally enjoy killing - and in this place, the fear demon lurking beyond the Veil colored everything in shades of dread.

We didn't know where we were going, not at first - "into the fortress" was as specific as our directions came. Our first enemies were demons, and often the mages who had summoned them, though we soon ran into Warden archers more intent on shooting us than talking. "Try to incapacitate them," I told my companions with a shrug before moving everyone into position - mostly behind the archers. Bull hit one too hard and killed her, but the rest we knocked out, breaking their bows after Sera had given the weapons a quick look to see if she wanted to keep one.

Further on, we came across a group of Wardens under attack by some of their own enthralled mages. After dealing with the attackers, Cassandra and I convinced the others to keep their heads down and stay out of the fight, and told them where we had left the unconscious archers in case the chance came to mount a rescue. They helpfully directed us toward where Warden-Commander Clarel was attempting the ritual, and gave us directions for how to get there quickly.

I ignored the voice that had started whispering in the back of my mind, claiming that they were only waiting to fall on us from behind. They were not, and the directions they gave us proved useful.

We easily found the staircase we had been directed toward, and it, in turn, led helpfully to the walls. There were no real choices about what to do with the Wardens we faced there - it was too chaotic to bother with knocking anyone out, and I wished I had asked Dagna for more identifying runes. Besides Solas, Varric and Bull were my easiest companions to find quickly, and there were so many Wardens that I hesitated to attack any of them, afraid I might mistake Stroud for one of them. Instead I contented myself with positioning my companions where they were most needed and casting barriers. Lots of barriers.

Our assault had the initial benefit of drawing attention from the Inquisition soldiers still swarming up ladders, and the added effect of thinning out the available opponents somewhat, even though we didn't stop to engage anyone beyond the reach of my Fade-shift ability. Finding Clarel was still the most urgent task.

I ignored the voice in the back of my mind telling me that this was all taking too long, and that caring for my soldiers would cost us the victory.

Another stair led us back down a level, our path weaving in and out of the keep and along walls that had to face the Abyss, seeing as there was no attack or siege occurring along them. I was already disoriented, and soon felt slightly dizzy with all the abrupt changes in direction. And then, beyond a parapet - a familiar, sickening aura. "Corypheus - or at least his archdemon - is here," I warned the others. The miasma of red lyrium was so strong that I could sense it even at a considerable distance - or at least I could now that I knew what to look for, and wasn't being confounded by an entire horde of red templars.

I ignored the voice, no longer contained to the back of my mind, howling with laughter over the memory of my defeat in Haven. It urged me to flee, and my hand tightened briefly on Solas's arm. He placed his free hand over it, reassuring me wordlessly that I wasn't alone.

"Corypheus no doubt prefers to take direct control of the demons that he believes Livius Erimond is about to hand him," Cassandra said.

"I sure wouldn't trust Erimond," Bull rumbled. "Guy looks like a weasel - even for a Vint."

"Are you allowed to call them that now that you're sleeping with one?" Sera wondered.

"Truly a question for the ages," Hawke told them impatiently, "but I think we have more important things to think about?"

She was right - the courtyard ahead stank of blood magic and already swarmed with demons. We had found the site of the ritual.