Just to warn you, updates may be a little slow for the next few weeks. My husband and I are completely redoing our living room by ourselves - paint, wainscoting, trashing hideous carpet, refinishing original hardwood floors. It's...going to be a lot. I may not get a ton of writing done, so just bear with me.
Ramparts
Nothing about the Dirthavaren was easy - certainly not retaking the ramparts. The undead might not have been literally endless, but they were near enough that there was no hope of outlasting them.
"Remember, we have to continue pressing forward!" Solas called out as the first group within the outer palisade turned their attention on us. They immediately shuffled into as much of a charge as their rotted sinews could muster, entirely unconcerned by - well, anything. They were dead, after all.
"There is something else at work here," Dorian muttered beside me as he cast fire spell after fire spell, burning as many of the corpses as he could before they began summoning their fellows. I concentrated on both immolating the still-quiescent dead on the ground and keeping an eye on Cassandra and Bull.
" That much is obvious, darling," Vivienne retorted tightly. "The question is: what ?"
I felt them both glance at me. "All I can say is, something is channeling through them," I said. "These minor demons don't have the strength to come through even a weakened Veil alone. They certainly can't summon their fellows as these are doing."
"Arcane horror?" Vivienne offered.
"A revenant might pull demons such as these through, merely on the power of its hatred," Solas countered.
"Could be a darkspawn emissary!" Dorian added brightly. "What?" he asked in the silence that followed. "I thought we were playing 'what's the worst thing we could find at the center of this death-steeped shithole.'"
"An arcane horror is most likely," Solas allowed, ignoring Dorian entirely.
"I know of arcane horrors, of course," I told them, feeling my cheeks heat with embarrassment over the depths of my inexperience, "but I've never actually faced one. Any advice?"
No one answered immediately as another wave of undead found us, and we mages were all forced to focus on either calling fire or stepping up to use our staves just behind Cassandra and Bull while our mana trickled back. All of us were, by unspoken agreement, working hard to conserve our lyrium supply.
We continued to press forward even as we engaged our enemies, walking as quickly as we could - as quickly as I could - to leave behind our undead attackers. Thankfully, they were still slower than I was, and rounding a corner effectively put us out of their reach for a moment - or sometimes several.
"Facing an arcane horror," Dorian began, sounding slightly winded as we finally gained enough respite to continue the earlier conversation, "is a great deal like facing down a mage - but one who also possesses the abilities of a particularly vicious despair demon."
"They can drain your mana and life force," Vivienne summarized more succinctly. "We will need barriers at all times."
"They are vulnerable to fire and strong against ice," Dorian added, perhaps somewhat competitively, "and also weak to physical attacks."
"And what of revenants?" Solas asked. "Have you faced one? Arcane horror is but the most likely culprit," he reminded the others.
"Once, in a ruin my clan was exploring," I told him, grimacing at the memory. We had been there largely because I wanted to dream, though we had also located a faded fresco for Deshanna to make a copy of. "It very nearly impaled me on its sword." I had been so terrified that I hadn't managed to do much besides put barriers up, and I had neglected one for myself, believing I was safe behind the hunters who had gone along to protect me. I had been wrong. Revenants didn't need to rush at their victims - they could manipulate the Veil to pull their victims to them.
From Solas, I felt an unreasonable surge of alarm considering that the encounter was six or seven years in the past, but when I glanced toward him all he said was, "Then you know to be wary of that particular danger."
"I do," I agreed, somewhat amused in spite of myself.
It faded quickly as another wave of undead appeared around a corner.
"Maker's ass," I heard Varric mutter, "we should have brought the whole camp with us - and made those Imperial soldiers come along, too."
"It wouldn't have helped much," Dorian sighed as he set one of the shambling corpses aflame. "These passages are too narrow for all of us to have engaged them, and we would have been in danger of leaving people behind as we moved."
"Could have used a few more archers," I responded, concentrating my own flames on the most complete corpses littering the ground. They tended to be faster than the ones that were held together almost entirely by magic and malice, and were also the first to rise as the summoned demons sought hosts.
"I'll tell Buttercup we all missed her," Varric panted.
"Better let me," Dorian replied breathlessly. "She actually likes me ."
The verbal jabs fell off - we became too busy fending off physical ones as a few of the undead enemies we had previously left behind rounded the nearest corner. "Fucking done with this!" Bull roared, and I knew he was probably downing one of the phials of dragon's blood he kept at hand.
In the next moment he became a one-man vortex of death - or re-death - smashing through the ranks of undead before us, allowing us passage in the time it took the magic infecting them to painstakingly draw them back together. Cassandra fell back to guard the rear as we managed to begin moving forward again, quickly outpacing any enemies Bull left in his wake.
Just as well, as we were now on something of a countdown. Bull could sustain this blood rage for several minutes, but even if he managed to avoid getting wounded (unlikely), he would be somewhat slowed by fatigue and overexertion at the end of it.
"Do we even know where we're going - or how far away it is?" I asked my companions.
"Defenses like this are built to stymie charges and force enemies into chokepoints," Cassandra answered.
"So - no, we don't," Dorian translated.
"I suspect whatever foul magic is causing this is housed near the center of the complex, at the top of the rise," Cassandra said impatiently. "We already near the third level, and there appears to be only one beyond that. It may be we are drawing close."
"From your lips to the Maker's ear," Vivienne murmured.
There were, somehow, even more undead as we continued struggling toward the apex of the Imperial army's defenses, and, despite our care, we mages began burning through lyrium potions. The stench of burning flesh was appalling. Even the stiffer breeze that blew across the small height we scaled couldn't entirely disperse it. We breathed in the ash that had once been people; it lodged in our hair, our clothes, our eyelashes . Every time I began to think of it, I felt a gagging sensation rise in my throat and had to push the thought forcibly from my mind. There was no time now to be sick.
Bull was beginning to tire by the time we arrived at the site of the ritual that was driving the plague of undead, the steady thump of his swings coming just a little more slowly.
"This will not be easy," Vivienne observed. "It is, as expected , an arcane horror. How many lyrium potions are left?"
We had one each, except for Solas, who had two. He gave one of his to Vivienne, who summoned fire the most easily.
"I saved all my combustion arrows and two flasks of alchemical fire," Varric told us.
"Keep saving them," I advised him, "in case one of us runs out of mana and we need additional help."
"Sure thing, Vanish," he agreed easily.
Then we were within range of the horror. Solas, who was best a barriers, placed one down to cover all of us.
The fight was nothing if not chaotic. Bull and Cassandra kept trying to get close to the horror, but it had a Fade-step-like ability, a mind blast, and was directing the undead, meaning it could force them to focus on our heavily-armored companions to defend it. I could somewhat negate the Fade-step by positioning Cassandra, and it was less taxing than calling fire, but the mind blast was still a problem, and there were so many swarming undead that we didn't dare stop picking them off for long. We were, at least, able to slip in the occasional shot against the arcane horror itself, while it was distracted by our companions chasing it around the field of battle.
At some point it apparently realized, however, who was responsible for the continuous threat Cassandra posed it. I wasn't expecting the attack - it had largely been ignoring all the mages, other than sending waves of undead after us. Even Varric had grabbed its attention more often than those of us casting. I had just finished taking my turn putting a barrier on Cassandra and Bull, and though my own hadn't been neglected, it was beginning to drain away, and it would still be another moment before I could replenish it for myself.
That was when the horror attacked me, first striking with a mana drain that broke my barrier entirely, and then following up with a life drain. The vile magic just had time to caress my skin, whispering the promise of untold agonies, before Solas's barrier fell over me, protecting me as I fell back with a cry and a visceral shudder of pain, only barely managing to stay on my feet. All my muscles were twitching uncontrollably, and my heart hammered a few unsteady beats before finding its rhythm again.
Solas's cry was one of frustration, because his barrier had been meant for Cassandra and Bull. Dorian stepped in, but not before one of the walking corpses managed to leap onto Bull's back, scoring a hit with either a weapon or its unnaturally sharp teeth - I couldn't see, but Bull's roar of pain echoed across both the battlefield and the plain beyond. The rhythm of our magic had been effectively broken; Vivienne might be able to cover the next barrier, but I wouldn't be ready when my turn came again.
At least…my arm brushed the remaining lyrium potion at my belt. Twice, now, I had seen Solas channel his mana into an explosive barrier that briefly covered spaces as well as people, acting almost as a sort of mind blast, but one that impacted elemental effects as well as creatures. It wasn't something I had ever practiced - or ever considered practicing, for that matter - but I thought I understood the principle.
I glanced toward the arcane horror. It was weakening - I knew it had to be, the aura generated by the demon within increasingly losing cohesion as it spent more and more of its attention on holding together the body that housed it. The undead weren't rising as quickly, though there were still more than enough to threaten us as we tired and the wounds we had already sustained began to slow us. If I could stagger the horror and toss the undead away long enough for Bull or Cassandra to get in one or two solid hits…
One of the undead leapt upon Vivienne, who threw it off again only with considerable effort. I saw the arcane blade she conjured to fight with flicker as her mana drained to a critical level in the wake of the mind blast she employed. I didn't know how many potions she might have left, but without a potion, there would be no renewal of the barrier already swiftly draining away from Cassandra and Bull.
I had my own potion unstoppered and pouring down my throat before I had time for further thought.
The world brightened, its smeary highlights taking on a metallic sheen as strength surged through me. Without hesitating, I poured it all into a barrier focused on a single point. It sang a strange, keening note as I fought to keep it contained until the spell was complete - and then I released it all at once, and the spell exploded out, precisely as I had intended.
Or - rather harder than I had intended. I realized instantly that Solas had not poured all his strength into the barrier explosions I had seen him perform previously, as the spell tried to continue draining what I no longer had to give, and then whipped from my metaphorical hands with a stinging snap. My explosion not only threw back the undead, some of the least-composed disintegrated as it impacted, and the arcane horror briefly lost its hold on the magic that kept it steadily hovering a finger's breadth above the ground.
I just had time to notice before weakness washed over me, and my knees buckled. I fell into corpse-strewn dirt, spots dancing before my eyes as I fought to hold on to consciousness.
Solas was beside me in a moment. " Reckless !" he snarled, shoving my head between my knees, his hand on the back of my neck shockingly cold with the magic he conjured. I gasped and felt his vengeful satisfaction at the discomfort it caused me. It took me another moment to realize he was still speaking, lecturing me for being impetuous and irresponsible, but I felt the arcane horror dissipate, leaving behind only the spell that had summoned it in the first place. Within moments that had been dispelled as well, and Dorian brought down fire to cleanse whatever components remained of those that had been used to cast it.
Solas was, of course, still occupying himself by telling me off.
"Oh, let the girl alone, you fussy old miser," Dorian drawled as he approached us slowly. "She got the idea from you , after all."
"And I would have instructed her in the technique, if she had asked to learn it!" Solas snapped at him.
Dorian ignored him. "Are you all right, Inana?"
"Yes - just wasn't prepared for the backlash," I told him, my voice somewhat muffled as it emerged from between my knees. "I should have held some mana in reserve. But it was a momentary weakness - I'm all right now."
"I expect you'll be hungry tonight," the Tevinter mage chuckled. "Let her up , Solas. She's been punished for her overzealousness and will be more cautious should she need to use the technique again in the future."
This time Solas listened and grudgingly removed his hand from the back of my neck.
"I must say - you're a quicker study than I expected, especially for someone so young," Dorian told me, approaching to offer me his hand so I could get out of the disgusting dirt. "You managed to recreate that effect after only seeing it once?"
"Twice," I corrected him. "Solas used it again during the assault on Adamant."
"Oh, well in that case - compliment rescinded," Dorian replied sarcastically, his eye-roll audible. "Anyone can pick up a new technique after seeing it twice ."
"How are Bull and Cassandra? Varric?" I asked before he could go on.
"Minor wounds," Cassandra called. "Bull could use a healer to ensure none of the bites they landed fester, but none hit vital areas."
"Bastards," I heard Bull mutter.
"I have a few cuts," Varric said, "but nothing worth mentioning now."
I attempted a tentative step forward, and found I was steady enough on my feet. "Let's get the hell out of here, shall we?"
No one had any objections.