Chapter 78) Warden's Keep
Aiden POV
"And when the man tugged the ribbon off his love's head, her head fell off!" Shianni cackled at how everyone gasped in horror. "The end!" she declared with a cheerful grin. It was scary-story night in the Alienage, and Shianni was retelling one Mom had told her. "Oh, come on, you guys know something like that can't happen, right? Stop shaking."
"People also know ghosts don't exist, but that doesn't stop them from being scared of ghost stories," I pointed out, mostly to defend the others. They were shaking. "I guess I'm next, though."
"What? No, yours are always the scariest."
"It is just a simple ghost story." I grinned at her scowl. "So, once upon the time, there was a king and queen…"
Levi led us through the tunnels easily, just as he said he would. So easily that I was a little surprised. Even going off memory, shouldn't we have had a couple of missed turns? But no, we just walked forward, and it was not long at all before we were looking at the Keep. Soldier's Peak, ancestral fortress of the Wardens. Why had no one used it since, though?
"This place was simply abandoned?" Sten asked as we walked up the slope. "Wasteful." It was incredibly wasteful, and weird. This was a good, strong fortress, even when half-ruined. You could train soldiers here.
"It is not the only abandoned fortress in Fereldan," Lady Elspeth explained. Her eyes darted to the side, frowning slightly. "There is also Therinfall Redoubt, a former Seeker training facility." …Seeker? Did I know that term? I wasn't recalling it. "The reason is because legally speaking, neither fortress is 'owned' by Fereldan, and it would violate sacred oaths to simply take them."
"So, they lay here to rot and fall apart."
"You also have the mentions of ghosts running about in Soldier's Peak, written down by scholars who came to investigate. People tend to not like where the dead walk about."
"Ghosts? Like the afterimages in the Thaigs?"
"It is possible," Morrigan murmured. Surprisingly, she wasn't pressed against Cleon, but rather kept close to Elspeth. "The Veil here is very thin." She held up her hand, magic flickering at her fingertips. "Very thin indeed. Terribly powerful blood magic was once used here. I imagine it was the Wardens. They are 'allowed' to use it."
"You know; a single blood mage could probably just rip the blood out of everyone in an army," Zevran mused. I gave him a look in reply. "What? It's true. Imagine someone as strong as Layla doing it."
"Layla will cry and make you feel horrendously guilty if you even make the suggestion around her. And then Nuada will jump you."
"Honestly, I think Cleon would beat him to it." Cleon's only response was to grin. "Yes, Cleon will beat the boyfriend to it. Lover. Courter. Elspeth, what is the proper term?"
"Lover sounds more poetic," Leliana sighed dreamily when Lady Elspeth didn't reply. I just rolled my eyes, and shrugged when Levi gave me an incredulous look. Yes, we were weird. No, we didn't care. "Mmm, mmm, mmm~ With eyes of the moon and sky, he gazes upon the world~. But never did he see a more lovely sight than his love of fire hair and sunny smile~"
"Did you just compose a song about my brother and lover on the spot?" Lady Elspeth asked incredulously, glancing back in shock. I had to admit. I hadn't been expecting that either. "Or have you been working on it?"
"On the spot, but I think it will be a fun thing!" Leliana laughed, clapping her hands. "I'll compose songs about all of us!" What. "Come hither, come hither, and listen to my song~. Listen to my song of the heroes of age~. Warrior of arcane might, hero of the mages~." Layla? "Hero of the Dales, the assassin of the shadows~." That one had to be Cleon. He was giving me an incredulous look and I threw up my hands to tell him 'I don't even know anymore'. "Hero of the downtrodden, the silent force of justice~." …Was that supposed to be me? "And the noble champion, the hero of the north~." Um… Lord Nuada? What was this? "Mmm, it's a little clunky, but I do like those lines, so if I tweak it a bit…"
Before any of us could really even think of a reply to that, we made it to the courtyard and for some reason, there was a flash of light. When it cleared, we… suddenly were in a rather filled courtyard? Though, everyone look a little… transparent…
Oh, freaking hell, ghosts actually existed? Yeah, there had been the things in the thaigs, but this was very, very different! Why was this a thing, and why did we have to walk straight into it?
"Fall back! Fall back, everyone!" A man wearing old, old armor shouted orders. "Damn Wardens. Ignoring the chance to die with honor and instead hole up like rats. We'll starve them out."
"Sir?" A single soldier spoke up. "The Peak has literally months of supplies."
"Then we wait. And when they are too weak to hold up their weapons, we will send them to their final judgment."
The air flickered again, and then everything was gone. Well, that was a… that was a thing. That was a thing, and we had officially made the list of 'weirdest shit I have seen'.
"What was that?" Levi asked. He looked pale and he glanced about. "I feel a little woozy."
"As I mentioned, the Veil is thin here," Morrigan noted. She seemed rather unimpressed. "The Fade 'remembers' all that happens in the living world. When emotions run high, and spirits crowd the area to see through, the Fade creates an impression of the place, which may be viewed by any who walk through it."
"So, basically, the Veil is so thin here that the Fade is leaking through?" I asked. When she nodded, I sighed. "Yeah, we're definitely in weird shit. Again."
"Should you not be used to it by now?" That didn't mean I had to like it. "Oh, look. Skeletons coming to kill us."
…I couldn't even pretend to be annoyed. "Crush them and head inside."
The dead were dispatched easily. After going about and making certain they were all in pieces, and not about to attack us from behind, we entered the fortress itself. To be greeted by a bunch of ghosts standing around looking morose.
I know we wanted to come here for information, but that was supposed to be information on the Blight. I didn't care about this rebellion, and I definitely didn't care enough to watch some damn ghosts talk. I had assumed Levi would find what he was looking for in some books, not from ghosts!
"Morale is at an all time low, Sophia." A man in mage robes spoke to a woman in rather pretty, if old, armor. "My spells are no use in this."
"There is more to leading people than sorcery, Avernus." The woman seemed… confident. Not quite to the point of smugness, but close enough that you could see why she might be called that by some. "I will remind them they are Wardens." She walked into the center of the room, a shifting to her shoulders ensuring she caught the attention of everyone in the room. "I won't lie to you all. The situation is grim. Our forces are outnumbered, our bellies are empty, and our hearts are sagging." She punched her palm, a clear sign of psyching herself up. "But, my friends, my family, we are Wardens! Darkspawn flee when they hear our horns! Archdemons tremble when we take up out blades!" The crowd of ghosts started grinning and nodding, fire in their eyes. "So, a human despot and his pack of dogs think we are going to bend knee to them? What are they, compared to the Taint? NOTHING!" There was a great cheer. "They just want us to surrender to there's a show on the gallows. But we will show them that good men and women fought and lived here. We will defy him until the end. Death before dishonor. Death before submission. In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice!"
The cheers echoed on, even as they all disappeared. Well, I suppose I learned how to whip people into a frenzy? Not sure how that would be useful, mind, but…
"They were all so brave," Levi breathed. He had a smile on his face. "And she stood with them until the end."
'It would have been smarter for them to have figured out a way to leave,' Cleon signed. None of us verbally translated, but he didn't seem to mind. 'Let them freak out over an armed fortress that had no one inside. Or just send a damn assassin on the king. Why was that not done?'
'Fereldan is traditionally isolationist,' Elspeth signed back. She chose to not speak her words. 'And all the good assassins are foreign.'
'Idiots.'
"Um… should I step away?" Levi asked. He looked a bit uncomfortable. "I can understand secrets, don't get me wrong, but you can just poke me, instead of signing around me."
"It is less a 'secret' and more of 'we decided to not translate for tact's sake' and no one stopped to get things tactful again," I deadpanned. The others smiled sheepishly. "So, what's the plan?"
"Well, truthfully, I had expected old moldy books, not… whatever this is." He shrugged. "I'll leave the plans of exploration to you, though. I showed you the way, yes, but if there's anything dangerous around, I'm about as useful as water during a flood." Did that even make sense? I didn't know, and I didn't care.
"All right, then we split up. You just… actually, stick with Leliana. She's the least likely to make a dark humor comment in this place." I didn't know if it was a good thing or bad thing that no one got offended. "Let's just pick directions and go from there."
It ended up that Leliana and Levi went one way, Cleon and Morrigan went another, Sten and Zevran went a third, and Lady Elspeth and I went a fourth. And, as luck would have it, Lady Elspeth and I happened to run right into the old library.
"It looks like quite a few records were removed," Lady Elspeth noted, poking at the shelves. "Perhaps when some of the Wardens fled, they took the more secret things with them, to prevent outsiders from reading them."
"Want to bet that if that's the case, the knowledge we came here looking for was among them?" I sighed. Her wry look told me she wasn't going to take the bet. "So, ghosts. We saw them in the thaigs, sure, but this just feels different."
"I am a bit surprised we could understand them."
"Why?"
"Languages evolve, Aiden. They evolve constantly, changing every day." She shrugged. "It has been two-hundred years. Language changes a lot during that time. While we could probably still understand pieces, there should be phrases and terms that we have no context for."
"You have a theory?"
"My theory is that we aren't seeing these by chance." She looked right at me. "Someone, or something, is here, showing us the past for whatever reason. Someone is trying to use us."
"Wow, excuse me while I pretend to be shocked." She laughed a little at that. "Use us for what?"
"Maybe to fix something? I honestly don't know. I never looked much into the history here. I only know the basics." She sighed heavily. "I wish I knew more now."
"Well, we're all going to learn together, and probably kick something in the face."
"An axe-kick to the shoulder would be better. The dislocation is painful and you can use the opening in the guard to inflict much more damage." Axe-kick? "I will show you later, Aiden. I'm not sure if you're flexible enough to get a good one off, but it would be a good trick to keep as a back-up."
"I'll look forward to it, if you take up longsword lessons so I stop panicking when someone gets too close to you." …She made a face. She actually made a face! "Even Layla knows close-combat now, you know."
"Oh, very well, Aiden." Hahaha! "Let's take a look around instead of talking."
"Sounds good." Of course, there wasn't a lot to see around here. Entire shelves were missing, and half of what remained was molded, ink running to make pretty pictures, but a big mess of words.
I stepped over to the side, noticing there was one book just tossed haphazardly on a desk, a dried up ink well and pen next to it. It was badly burnt, though. I could make out a word or two here or there, but…
The room flashed white, and I found myself looking at ghosts again. I was so done with this.
"The door won't hold, archivist," someone murmured. I could hear thumps and thuds, and the sound of wood splintering.
"Almost done," another replied. I glanced over and saw them 'writing' in the very book I had been trying to read. "The truth must be known."
"What does it matter? We're dead."
"Our grand rebellion, so close…" They sighed, shaking their head. And to die a stillborn." Well, that was a lovely mental image.
"We never should have done this!" The other sounded desperate and angry. "Wardens are supposed to keep out of politics! We don't oppose kings and princes!" …Um… ahaha… ha… oh, wow, Lord Nuada was right. If we failed, we were going to be in a lot of trouble, and not just Blight related trouble.
"But how could we, sworn to protect the people from the darkness, stand idly by while-!"
I heard the door crash open. I heard the echoing screams. But I saw nothing, because the room flashed white again, and then I was back in the old library, with a badly burnt book that supposedly had 'the truth'. But was destroyed.
That seemed so darkly fitting that I couldn't help but laugh and laugh.
After hunting through the ruined library, Lady Elspeth and I found out a lot about the history of the place, and possibly the location of some secret weapon, but nothing substantial, so we returned to the others. And they, apparently, had really only found traces of old letters and some walking skeletons trying to bite their faces off. Nothing interesting. Well, that weapon might be, but that was something for another day.
So, we made our way up to the second floor and, to the surprise of absolutely no one, as soon as got there, the room flashed white again. I was a little tired of flashbacks, especially since these flashbacks didn't help with the currently dilemma of the Blight. If anything, I was just getting pissed off. If these people had been smarter about their rebellion, then maybe we wouldn't have been in this situation!
"Make them pay for every step!" Oh, look, there was Sophia again. We were in the middle of a ghost-battle. This was lovely. Ghosts were cold. Literally. They felt cold as they ran through you. "Hold the flank!" I had to admit, though. The Wardens could fight. It made me wonder how skilled they would've been if they'd had food and weren't so tired. "Avernus!"
There was… murmuring. Mumbling. I couldn't make out the words, but they made the air hum, and I couldn't help but shake as I saw something crimson spiral along the stone floor. And out from the spirals came demons.
I… think we just discovered why the Veil was so thin. The Wardens, in an attempt to win, had ripped it open and dragged demons through.
"More, Avernus! Whatever it takes!" …If I ever became a leader that thought, without irony, that the end justified the means, I was going to jump off a damn cliff. I would not be a leader like her. This was wrong.
More demons appeared, ripping the soldiers to shreds, and Sofia kept encouraging it, shouting orders left at right. Avernus, wherever he was, kept at it, summoning more and more.
And then the demons started attacking the Wardens. Well, looked like we got to see why they lost. They wanted to win by whatever means, and it destroyed them along with the soldiers. Fitting.
The room flashed, and we were back in the present. And, in the corner, you could see the remnants of the ritual.
"Well, it seems I was correct," Morrigan noted. Surprisingly, she didn't sound smug about it at all. Just resigned. "What fools." If they were going to go that far, they should have just used the blood mage to control the enemy commander. It wasn't that much different and it probably had less… okay, no, I was going to stop that thought there, because I was not going to be that sort of leader.
Assassins. Assassins were so much better. I'd send Cleon to deal with them. That was dark enough, thank you.
"Does anyone want to poke around the room here or should we just move on?" I asked. No one said a word. "Levi?" I glanced at him and noticed he looked a bit uncomfortable. "Want to back out?"
"Even if I did, it's not like there's a safe place for me to wait," he pointed out. I nodded, accepting that. "Besides, even if the truth is uncomfortable, isn't it better than living an uncertain lie? The truth helps you move forward, or so I've heard." Well, that… was one way to look at it. "Lead on. I'm just along for the ride, and being thoroughly creeped out." Ha!
With a shrug, I led the way out of the room and into the hall. And immediately, I noticed something off. There was a barrier over one door, shimmering and writhing. Morrigan's wide eyes confirmed it was powerful, and likely not something that could just 'linger'. Well, if there weren't already suspicions we weren't alone here, we just had it confirmed.
But since it was there, we really only had one place we could go, the door to the left. Slowly, I pushed it open, waiting for some sort of trap to spring. When nothing came, though, we cautiously crept into what looked to be an old study, and found… something odd. A person, in old armor. In the armor I could have sworn Sophia had been wearing in the flasbacks?
"Step no further, Wardens." The person turned, and I found myself face to face with a partially rotted, dead-eyed Sophia. "This one would speak to you."
…I was so done with everything.
Author's Note: So, this is the other non-companion, non-expansion DLC of Origins, The Warden's Keep. While Return to Ostagar delves into a more personal past of the Warden (that is, the prologue), this DLC delves into the distant past to give more information on just why the Warden is alone. Fun from a player perspective, but Aiden is a little done with weird shit.
Leliana is a bard, so composing songs, sure? It's more that I wanted to show them having fun, and that kinda just… happened. The titles and 'hero of' things appeared actually in the very beginning of the story. Each one of the origins, and intro POVs, started with something like 'Origin of the Arcane Warrior, Hero of the Mages'. Decided to bring them in for fun.
Next Chapter – Nuada at Ostagar
