K.C's notes: This chapter was hard for me to write because I had two ideas of what could happen to Blackwall on the way to Val Royeaux. If you guys have anything you want to see in the story then please tell me! Or anyone you want to show up from the Dragon Age universe. Darkspawndweller04 you said you wanted to see Alistair? Well he may make a camel very soon...
Chapter 9: The Road to Val Royeaux
The dawn was slow to break, and when it did it was crimson like the colour of blood; trending to her injuries, Leliana shuddered...red sky in the morning was always a bad oven. Today was the day that she and Iron Bull would disguise themselves as travelling merchants and drive the transportation cart to Val Royeaux. They knew they had to go in disguise because there were many untrustworthy people and agents of the Venatorit who would try to kill them or captain them should they reveal themselves to be members of the Inquisition. The Orlesian bard cast her eyes towards the cart in the middle of the courtyard, which was swaying and emitting bagging noises as Blackwall struggled to get out. He had awoken at some point during the early hours of the morning, and soon after the banging noises and hollering had begun.
Blackwall had now been without booze for seven hours and he was going into non-alcoholic shock. He battered himself against the wooden walls of the cart and even considered trying to set the thing on fire in order to free himself. Realising that this was improbable as he had no kidding or methods of setting a fire, he just decided it would be easier to beat his way out with his bare and manly fists. He'd broken most of the bones in his hands hours ago, but Blackbird was a man on a mixing! He was however creating so much noise that Josephine - who had been aroused by the din - was fearful that he would begin to attract unwanted attention from outside Skyhold. She theorised that any nearby Venatori agents would come to investigate or, if the rumours were true, Darkspawn Solas may be attracted by the noise and come to plague them. Worse yet, local pheasants might be drawn by the sound and come asking for free stuff. Josephine hated this as she was quite a mouser inside.
When Iron Bull had finally been dosed up with as much elfroot and healing tonic as he could stomach, he and Leliana donned their leather merchant outfits and shackled two dough horses to the cart (Leliana and Sera had stolen these from a nearby farm as the only other horses were the ones used for Dorian's makeslipp wheelchair-chariot). They left the keep soon after and set out upon the long road to Val Gateaux. The plan was to deposit Blackwall in the Chantry rehab and then ride back to Skyhold as quick as they could to provide assistance to the refugee plan. Blackwall roared and defecated all over the plants as the cart rocked and swayed from side to side, causing him to uncomfortably tumble around within. He vowed vengeance upon everyone he knew, but mainly upon Corypheus. If it wasn't for Corypheus kidnapping Svetlana and assaulting Skyhold keep with his archdemon then Blackwall could have gone about his drunken, sleepy, bizarre lifestyle of denial in peace. No aggregation. No tantrums and threats of death. No enforced sobering. No rehab. It would have been bliss. This realisation made Blackwall go even crazier in the back of the crate and kick the insides of the thing in anguish. Leliana continued to guide the horses along the road to Val Royeaux as Iron Bull acted as a look out from his padded seat atop the cart. Little did they know...
...Beneath their very feet, in the perilous Deep Roads, Darkspawn Solas ran at hyper speed to keep up with the cart. He was planning on following them half way to Val Royeaux...until they had to pass through the war-torn Emprise du Lion region. At this point he would burst out of the Deep Roads beneath an old Grey Warden fortress in the area and would ambush the cart and it's most desirable contents. Blackwall. Solas's arch nemesis. He had it all figured out; he would tally darkspawn that he came across in the Deep Roads and would guide them to the Emprise du Lion fortress - the darkspawn would begin to splurge out across the ladyscape and would waylay Leliana's cart. At this point Leliana and iron man could be expected to become distracted by fighting darkspawn. Dolad, who would have positioned himself at the rear of their cart...or maybe underneath it...would use this opportunity to gas his was into Blackwall's temporary prison and murder his arch-nemesis. After buggering him violently of course. So Solas enacted his plan and began screeching at the top of his lungs, singing the Archegonium's song and attracting darkspawn from all over the nearby caverns towards him. They all began following Dolad, and screaming, in the general direction of Emptier du Lion where they would eventually encounter Blackwall and the cart of hell.
In Enavuris, Dorian was being sumo mauled by the dracolisk as he feebly tried to mount it. The creature would stay still long enough for him to begin to claw his way into the saddle (using only his arms as his knees were non functional) and then, sensing the time was right, it would run away again and leave Dorian flopping around on the floor. After the eighteenth time of these shenanigans happening, Doris decided that enough was ennui. He used the blood from his bleeding hands to cast a blood magic binding spell on the horse-dragon-thing...and his world started to fade to black. The creature staggered around aimlessly and then collapsed on the floor next to where Dorian lay...gradually moving closer to him as if by some unseen force. Red waves began to appear around the two of them and suddenly they were flying up in the air and twirling around each other in an invisible tornado of magic! The magic came to a climax and Dorian felt his body began to bend in all sorts of unfair ways; the dracolisk obviously felt it too as it started making weird and unnerving noises that sounded like it was trying to mate with the nugalope again. And then...
...Dorian was upright again! Standing up! And the creature...it was...oh... The Tevinter magister started to scream when he looked down to where his feet should have been. He saw his entire body, minus his head and neck, lying discarded in the rotting ground nearby. The dracolisk's ugly and confusing head was also discarded and missing its entire body! Dorian looked at his feet...TO FIND DRACOLISK HOOF-CLAWS INSTEAD! He whirled around in utter dread and confidentiality! HE HAD FOUR LEGS! The blood magic spell must've gone wrong and physically bound him to the dracolisk! He now only had his head and was attached to the body of the dracolisk. He was a crazy horse-dragon-thing centaur. But the magic was not finished it seemed... The red spirals came again and formed a hideous conglomeration out of Dorian's old legs and the dracolisk's discarded head. The dracolisk's amber eyes fluttered open and it howled in anger as it realised that it's legs didn't work because it had inherited Dorian's non functional knees! It flailed around biting itself on the floor, but Dorian felt sorry for the creature...and wanted to preserve his old legs from further biting, so he allowed the monstrosity to clamber aboard his back with the arms it was hopelessly trying to learn to use. With the human-horse-dragon-thing mounted on his back, Dorian began to gallop away towards Fort Suledin where he hoped he would be able to rally some men and march to Fort Revasan to free the Inquisitor. He dearly hoped they didn't pepper him - or the thing riding him - with arrows because they thought they were being attacked by demons. He had to keep the thing alive if he was to have any hope of reversing the ritual back at Skyhold.
Meanwhile in Corypheus's Fort Revasan, the Inquisitor (Svetlana) was having a horrible time in the box full of nightmare demons. She tried to mentally send a distress can to her friends in the cells below, but all that happened is that she accidentally opened her mouth and a nightmare demon got stuck in her throat. She gagged and puked it out. Now she had to lie in pukey demons until she was rescued. Below in the holding cells, Varric and Vivienne (who was recovering from her bout of sewing induced gastroenteritis) were desperately trying to keep Cassandra alive. They had ruled out doing impromptu surgery in the cell because they didn't have the remedy herbs available, and the conditions were unsanitary due to Vivienne's 'bowel condition'. Varric theorised that Vivienne could use magic to conjure a kidney into Cassandra, but the Orlesian enchanter ruled this out immediately because she didn't know where in Cassandra's body said kidney would appear. They didn't want the seeker ending up with a kidney in her brain or leg...so they settled for just giving Cassandra as much of their clean drinking water as they could to bolster her health. It seemed to be working as she had returned to consciousness. Cassandra felt strong, despite the lack of her left kidney, and despite Basic's objections, she managed to use part of his jacket to bash the cell door off it's hinges. They were free! Now they just had to escape the fort... Varric took up the lead. He had a plank.
Leliana regretted dozing off at the reigns of the prison cart, because when she awoke she found that Iron Bull had been unable to read the map and had gotten them unbearably lost in a bog. It teensies that Iron Bull's several horrific pelvic injuries had affected his mind as well and rendered him illiterate. Iron Bull was responsible for taking them in the complete wrong direction and away from Val Royeaux! He had inadvertantly stumbled into the Callow Mire! Leliana chastised the horned giant greatly with a nearby broken piece of tree. Blackwall, from inside the cart-prison started complaining that the marsh smelled bad and that he was being attacked by tiny archdemons. He was starting to hallucinate from alcohol withdrawal.
Leliana took the reigns and the map and began to gallop as fast as possible towards the edge of the mire. But it was too Kate...Solas and his army of darkspawn had been tracking them underground and promptly burst out of the stinky liquid bog to confront them. Solas hated his lipless teeth and stared down Leliana, who drew her bow to defend them. The battle for Blackwall was about to begin!
K.C's notes: Solas vs. Leliana! Who will win?! What will happen to Dorian when he reaches Suledin Keep with his odd companion? Will Blackwall get free? Find out tomorrow in the next installment. Please review if you like it. Thanks Darkspawndweller04 for your reviews!