K.C's notes: So Cole and Vivirrene are on their way to Enavuris to fight Corypheus and free Svetlana, Varric and Cassandra. But there is a big surprise in stall for Vivienne when she gets there! Also, Svetlana is trying to escape with Varric, but oh no! Blackwall could die!
Chapter 5: Broken Hopes
It was hard to walk in the rocky terrain of Enavuris in the Exalted Marshes. Vivienne was not used to such harsh conditions and stumbly all over the place, often falling and scuffing her knees and having to magically procreate new shoes when hers broke. Cole solved the issue by floating as he was a spirit thing and didn't need to walk. He floated over Vivienne's head and glowered inwardly. He had made his heart even larger so that the shade would keep the sun out of his albino eyes and stop him from going temporarily blind and losing his mind.
Upon reaching the crest of a large nearby hill, near the Danish clan, Vivienne pointed into the distance and looked over to Cole,
"Is that where we need to go, you demonic wrong-thing?" She fixed him in a glare and prodded at him menacingly with her staff. Cole was not feeling well after eating the care package Corypheus had sent him before leaving Skyhold...and all of the prodding made him hurl vomit all over Vivienne's staff, disintegrating it. She screeched in alarm!
"Urgh! Disgusting! I knew we should have never let you stay at Skyhold. Svetlana was a fool to think you would be useful you duke-bag. Now I have no weapon to fight Corypheus with!" Cole protested, trying to sound innocent instead of like a Coryphean spy,
"It's not my fault, Lady Vivienne! I've been floating for six days now and it's played hell with my stomach valves! Those varghest-steaks I was sent really disagreed with me." Then he hurled again as if to show that it was a real problem and not just something he was making up. In truth Cole had deliberately put stomach acid on Vivirrene's staff to disarm her, so she would be a weakling in front of Corypheus. He would laugh at her. They rushed on towards their destiny.
Back at Skyhold, Cullen had gone back to his duties and had started taking lyrium again; some people theorised that this is why he had become a really angry pirate of late, but in reality he was just really angry that nobody had cared when he had been injured by the archon. He glared at people a lot and Josephine began to wonder if she sound check him into rehab with the Chantry sisters as well as Blackwall - who had gone missing.
Solas was awake finally after his fated meeting with the archdemon. He had stopped being a delirious fool and was now only screaming occasionally as opposed to all the time. Leliana however had informed everyone that Solas was still going to die. His skin had turned a greyish hue and had begun to show black veins underneath, his face had taken on a dunken appearance and he twitched randomly causing him to throw his drinking water all over the doctors on several occasions. He also drooled a lot, losing more fluids, so he was permanently thirsty...like with rabies. Leliana recognised these symptoms from her time with the Hero of Feral Den during the Fifth Blight. Solas had the darkspawn taint! Soon he would die in shiny or become a darkspawn himself, forced to obey the will of the archeamon! Mother Giselle had been ordered by Josephine to make Dolad as comfortable as possible for his final days...but this was difficult when Leliana was constantly trying to kill him to avoid him indexing anyone else, and it was made even more difficult by Solas's own thrashing and attempted gnawing on the bed posts and anyone's arms.
Twice now Mother Giselle had needed to fend Leliana off with a garden rake for trying to assassinate Solas in his sleep. And the elf had also been rendered too helpless to defend himself after Giselle had tied him to the bed post with a leather thing to avoid any more gnawing and rabid incidents.
Nobody knew where Blackwall was either, which was worrying. Maybe he had defected to join the rest of the banished Grey Wardens, or maybe he had been kidnapped by Corypheus?! Of course it was always possible that he had just fallen into the cess-pit again on one of his drunken adventures, so Josephine ordered Krem and Cullen to go and search the dung pile in case the resident Grey Warden was down there again. They took a bottle of the iced Avvar wine with them in the hopes of luring the drunkard out.
Dorian had his own problems as he had attempted to follow Cole and Vivienne to Enavuris a little while after they'd left. He had grown suspicious of Cole and had found out that the spirit-boy was a treacherous spy after finding some Tevinter foodstuffs in a parcel that had been left open on Cole's bed (this was the care package that Corypheus sent). Not wanting to let Cole harm Vicenté or get away with his treachery, Dorian had set out in his valiant quest. He had not anticipate that controlling the two steeds that were harnessed to his wheelchair would be so difficult. First of all, the nugalope was much slower than the dracolisk and this often led to the Dorian being jerked violently out of his wheelchair and the horse-dragon-thing garrotting itself whenever it tried to run. Secondly and more disgustingly - it was dracolisk mating season and so the ugly dragonhorse kept repeatedly trying to mount the much larger nugalope and would attempt to make love to it...until frustratingly giving up a few moments later and barfing from exhaustion. Dorian had made it to the outskirts of the Exalted Plains when he saw Cole and Vivienne in the distance. They were approaching Corypheus's stronghold which had temporarily been established at Fort Revasan.
The ramparts of Dort Revasan were heavily guarded by Venatori archers, and warriors awaited at the gate. They also had catapults and ballistic missiles. Vivienne bravely approached the front gate, Cole lagging behind as he was still feeling unwell, and stood upon the bridge leading to the main gate. The warriors laughed at her because in the long journey her coat had become shredded and had fallen off her shoulders, leaving her semi naked. She had tied a deep stalker hide sound her chest for modesty. She was also covered in mud, blood from where she had fallen over and Cole's puke. She started to yell and to challenge Corypheus directly,
"Corypheus! You corally fiend! Come and fight me! I am an enchanter of the Orlesian court and my magic is a match for you! I've come to feel my friends!" At this moment the gate swung open and Corypheus himself appeared, flanked by two of his most impotent Venatori, and they also began mocking Vivienne for looking like a bum. She got all enraged and cast an electricity spell - firing bolts of lightning towards Corypheus. It bounced off Jim as he was surrounded by a magical shield that had been created with blood magic. She ran towards him in a crazy attempt to cause him great harm and rescue her friends...but she was doomed to failure. Cole assisted behind her and with a swift move of his wrist he pushed her off of the bridge and into the Fort's moat. Vivienne gasped and cried out for help, but the water went into her mouth and she got a really bad case of gastroenterology as the Venatori had replaced the water with raw sewage instead. She fell unconscious and Corypheus ordered Cole to retrieve her with a large net. He then put her in the cell with Cassandra without washing her so that all of her friends would have the additional surfing of Vivienne's smell.
Svetlana (the Inquisitor) decided the time had come to act; climbing on top of Varric's shoulders she vaulted over the top of the prison cell bars - through the place where one of Corypheus's Venatori would launch her food like a frisbee at her every day. She dropped with cat like stench to the other side of the bars in a daring bid for freedom...and promptly fell awkwardly and broke her foot. Basic hung his head in shame and wondered why he was stuck with such a bunch of idiots for companions; it had never been this bad in Kirkwall with Hawke. A bunch of Venatorit came to haul Svetlana away in disgrace; they took her to the highest and only tower of Fort Revasan and locked her in tiny box full of nightmare demons. She cried in a mixture of pain and terror and prayed to the Maker that someone would come and save her soon.
Dorian had seen Vivirrene's failure and capture by Corypheus and now he was dead sure that Cole was a traitor. He saw the spiritual debauchery perpetrated by Cole and set out at high speed to intercept him on the road back to Skyhold. He urged the dracolisk to stop trying to mate with the nugalope, whipped both steeds with the reigns and rode his wheelchair-chariot into battle! He would catch Cole and KILL HIM before he allowed anyone else to be betrayed with gastroenteritis like Vivienne!
Back at Skyhold there was another problem. Mother Giselle had been so exhausted that she had fallen asleep when she had supposed to be watching over Solas and Iron Bull in the infirmary. In this time Iron Bull had managed to crawl back to the tavern for a drink...before returning to his bed in the infirmary without ever being missed (he's a spy so he's used to sneaking...even with his broken pelvis). But worse yet... Dolad had VANISHED! Something had gnawed through the bindings that were keeping him restrained to the bed posts and he was GONE! Night fell and a feeling of unexplainable dread crept over the keep. Something was happening. Something awful.
K.C's notes: So Blackwall and Solas have both vanished from Skyhold but have not been kidnapped by Coyotes. What will the ever diminishing band of heroes do? Will the group in Fort Revasan be able to use Varric's smarts and Vivienne's magic to escape? Find out SOON! And please review if you like it so far xx