Ch. 6 In Which Demons are Annoying

They fought their way up a couple more floors until they reached the penultimate level of the tower. As soon as they had reached the top of the stairs, however, a wave of sleepiness washed over them. A demon loomed up ahead. "Well, well, what's this," it said in a slow voice. "Four new victims? And one of you looks so much tastier than any of the others in this tower. You look exhausted. Why don't you take a break? The world will go on without you."

Olivia's first instinct was to point out that since they were the only Grey Wardens around and there was a Blight going on, it actually probably wouldn't, really, but she was just too tired. Her eyes slid closed and she collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

Olivia opened her eyes to a tall blond man shaking his fingers in front of her face. "Olivia? You in there?" He looked and sounded a bit like a younger version of her father. "We're going to be late."

Olivia frowned. Her head felt cloudy. "Late for what?"

"The party. You know, the one commemorating the tenth anniversary of how you stopped the Blight and abolished the Templar Order, freeing our people? The one that you've been talking about for months now? That party?"

Olivia frowned again. Shouldn't she remember that? It certainly seemed like something that she'd remember. "Um, what?" She rubbed her eyes. For some reason her vision was so blurry. "When did that happen?"

"Ten years ago. As evidenced by the whole 'tenth anniversary' bit."

"Who are you, anyway?"

The man looked extremely concerned. "I'm your brother. Alen. Are you feeling all right? Do you have amnesia or something?"

That couldn't be right. "You're dead. The Templars killed you."

"Oh, come on. You didn't get a chance to look at the body, did you?"

"No!" The blurriness of her surroundings suddenly made a whole lot more sense. "This is the Fade! You aren't Alen!"

His voice deepened. "Does it matter? This is everything you want, so, so badly. You can have it here, in the Fade."

"I'd rather make my dreams reality, thanks," snapped Olivia, sending a blast of fire at the fake Alen, who twisted into a demonic shape and fell, a huge hole in its chest. "Besides," she added over the dead demon's body. "No creepy demon impersonates my big brother and gets away with it!"

A strange, circular podium sprung up from the ground where the demon had fallen. Olivia examined it. It was covered by strange-looking symbols, two of which were glowing faintly. She poked the center symbol, one of the ones which were glowing, and the world shifted.

"I see you got out of that trap."

Olivia looked up at the speaker. "Niall? What happened?"

"The sloth demon trapped us here. I got out of the dream it trapped me in, too, but this is as far as I got. This place is like being in a maze with no way out- there's always some sort of barrier in the way- doors that only demons can use, holes only big enough for mice…"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Niall, this is the Fade. Dreams are controlled by the mind. Reality here is only what we think it is. For example-" Olivia concentrated on the air in front of her, thinking of Alistair and imagining a door, which slowly shimmered into existence. "My friend should be through there." Olivia put her hand on the doorknob and stepped through.

Behind her, she could hear Niall muttering. "How does she do that? That is not normal."

On the other side of the door, Alistair was standing and talking to a woman who looked a bit like him, while several children played around them. He looked up as Olivia entered. "Olivia!" he exclaimed happily. "It's so good to see you. I want you to meet my sister. Olivia, Goldanna, Goldanna, Olivia."

He sounded so enthusiastic. "Alistair. It's time to go."

"But you just got here!"

Olivia sighed. "Alistair, what were we just doing?"

This stumped him. "Um…"

"It involved the Circle of Magi…" Olivia prompted.

Alistair rubbed his eyes. "We were… in a tower? That doesn't make sense."

"It does in the sense that you've fallen asleep in said tower. This is the Fade."

Alistair's eyes widened. "There was a demon!"

The fake Goldanna looked at Alistair. "Nonsense!"

He glared at her. "You aren't real!"

'Goldanna's' body twisted and shifted into the form of a demon. "You will stay with us!"

"No!" A sword appeared in Alistair's hand and he instinctively ran the demon through. Alistair blinked at the sword. "Where did that come from?"

"It's a dream. It came from your mind."

"So… we've been trapped in dreams by that demon?"

Olivia nodded. "We need to find Leliana and Wynne." Concentrating on thinking about Leliana, she imagined a second door, which shimmered into existence much as the first had.

Alistair stared at the door. "They didn't teach me too much about the Fade in Templar training, but I'm pretty sure people aren't supposed to be able to do that."

Olivia rolled her eyes once more and grabbed his hand. "Come on."

On the other side of the door, Leliana was kneeling beside an altar, praying. Something that looked like a woman in Chantry robes stood next to her. "Leliana?" Olivia called out.

She looked up, seeming confused. "When did you get here?"

"We need to go now."

"But…"

"You promised to help us defeat the Blight, remember?" Leliana frowned. She seemed to be remembering.

The demon next to her glared at them. "Why do you disturb her peace?"

"Because it's a trap? Because you're a demon. Pick one."

Leliana stood up, frowning. "We were in a tower, weren't we?" She began to walk toward Olivia and Alistair.

"No!" The demon shrieked, twisting into its true form and lunging for Leliana, who swung smoothly around and stabbed it with a knife that appeared out of thin air.

Olivia blinked. "Wow. Good reflexes. Seriously, where did you learn that?" Leliana looked a bit awkward.

Olivia materialized a third door in the air before them, thinking of Wynne. She pushed it open, ignoring Leliana's confused comment of "is that normal?" and walked through.

Wynne stood in the midst of a group of fallen demons, glowing with a faint violet light. "Um, Wynne?" Olivia asked tentatively. That was certainly not normal.

Wynne jumped. "I can explain everything!" That didn't sound very good. "It's not a demon, okay? It's a spirit of Faith. There are good spirits in the Fade, too. I needed help protecting the children and it came to help me."

This day was just getting better and better. Olivia rubbed her forehead. She was pretty sure she was getting a headache. In the Fade. She wasn't sure that was even possible. "You know what? I don't want to know. Don't go on any murderous rampages and we'll pretend that none of this ever happened. Let us never speak of this again."

Olivia concentrated on creating another doorway, this time focusing on the sloth demon that had trapped them here.

The demon looked up as they walked towards it. "What do we have here?" It questioned. "A rebellious minion? An escaped slave?" It laughed, the sound echoing. "My, my, but you do have some gall. Playtime is over. You have to go back now."

Olivia folded her arms. Wynne glared at the demon. "You cannot hold us here, demon! We found each other in this place, and you cannot stand against us!" Despite her vow to never think of it again, Olivia found herself musing that she could see why the Faith spirit had been drawn to Wynne.

The sloth demon didn't think much of Wynne's announcement. "If you go back quietly, I'll do better this time. I'll make you much happier."

"I think I'll make my own happiness, thanks," said Olivia. "What I want can only make me happy by being real, not a dream. I suppose that's where your mistake was."

"Can't you think about someone other than yourself?" asked the demon patronizingly. "I'm so hurt by your selfishness."

"Thinking about people other than myself is exactly what I'm doing," said Olivia calmly. "Unless the other person is you, in which case I don't care."

"So be it," snarled the demon, lunging at Olivia with claws extended. She leapt out of the way, causing the demon's attack to overbalance and it to land on the ground. Olivia smirked and sent a fireball flying at the demon, which was only slightly scorched. She frowned.

Alistair, Leliana, and Wynne snapped to attention and began attacking the demon as well, their combined attack driving it backward until Alistair finally landed a fatal blow.

"So…" he said, looking around. "What now?"

"Now we wake up," said Olivia. "Somehow."

"Yes, but…"

"You did it!" Niall appeared a little bit away from them. "I didn't think anyone could defeat the sloth demon."

"That's probably why you weren't able to," pointed out Olivia. "Believing is pretty important in the Fade."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure you're just weird," said Niall. He shook himself. "That's not the point. When you wake up, you need to take the Litany of Adralla from me and use it to defeat Uldred and the other blood mages."

"And you can't take it yourself because…?"

"I've been here too long," said Niall. "My body is dead by now. You need to take the Litany and stop the blood mages. Promise me."

Olivia felt sick. She walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "I promise."

Niall smiled tearfully. "I just wasn't cut out to be a hero, I guess."

"You are a hero, though. Because you tried to help."

Niall smiled. "That's nice of you. Remember, take the Litany off my..." he choked. "My body. Stop the blood mages."

"I will," promised Olivia.

The Fade began to dissolve around her and she woke up on the hard, cold stone floor of the tower, Alistair, Leliana, and Wynne beginning to stir around her. Olivia struggled to her feet, feeling bleary and stumbled over to Niall's body. She pulled the parchment with the Litany out of his pocket. "Bye, Niall," she whispered.

The quartet finally reached the room containing the staircase to the Harrowing chamber at the top of the tower. "I have to say," commented Olivia, "hiding out on the top floor of the tower is a really good deterrent for anyone coming up here to stop these people. At the very least any enemies would be exhausted from climbing all those stairs."

"Oh, no…not this again!" Everyone turned to stare at the corner, where a Templar was kneeling behind a magical barrier.

Olivia stared. "Is that Cullen? He's still alive and apparently not possessed? He's a lot tougher than I thought. He always seemed like a really nervous, stutterey person."

"Go away demons!" shouted Cullen. "I won't listen to anything you say! Why did it have to be her? Using my shameful desire against me…"

Olivia blinked at him. "Wait, what?"

He closed his eyes. "Go away! You're not real! Not real! Not real!" He opened his eyes. "You're still here? But…"

"This is awkward," muttered Alistair.

Olivia frowned at Cullen. "Hold on… do you have a crush on me or something? Because that would be incredibly inappropriate. Considering, you know, the power differential present between mages and Templars, which would totally not lead to a healthy relationship, especially considering the fact that I would never be able to respect your life choices since they involve becoming a Templar."

Cullen stared at her. "This is new. Normally you demons try to seduce me, not make big speeches about healthy relationship choices."

Olivia groaned. "This is officially the worst day I have ever had. It has finally beaten out the time Jowan ran off and left me to take the rap for him. That actually turned out pretty well in the end, considering I got to become a Grey Warden." She glared at Cullen. "All right. Not hallucinations. Not demons. Actually here. Going to go kill the demons and blood mages and save everyone, now."

"You can't save them!" exclaimed Cullen. "If even one blood mage gets by they'll start all over again!"

"Not killing innocent people, either!" Olivia stomped up to the door to the Harrowing chamber and stormed through the door, dragging her companions behind her.

Uldred stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a trio of abominations. "Okay," said Olivia loudly. "Whose bright idea was it to try and use my face to seduce a Templar to your cause?"

"That was me," said Uldred cheerfully.

Olivia glared at him. "Now it's personal." She lobbed a fireball at his head. Uldred had a moment to look surprised that she would just attack before the overpowered, rage-fueled fireball exploded, taking his head with it. The abominations leapt at Olivia and her companions, one of them managing to slash a hole through the arm of Pandora's old linen shirt before Olivia managed to freeze it and Alistair cut its head off and Leliana stabbed the remaining two abominations in the backs. "Worst. Day. Ever." Olivia repeated, pulling out a handkerchief and pressing it to the bloody gash on her arm.

"Here." Wynne sent a healing spell at Olivia and the wound closed.

Olivia smiled gratefully. "Thanks." She walked over to Irving and the two younger mages who were lying next to the wall. "Hey Irving, Surana, and blond guy I don't know, somehow."

"That's 'cause he's never here," said Surana helpfully as Olivia helped him and Irving stand and the blond got to his feet on his own. "He's kind of an escape artist."

"It's true," said the blond cheerfully. "In fact…" He attached a rope to one of the windows and began to rappel down the outside of the tower.

"Huh," said Olivia. "Where'd the rope come from?"

"Uldred," explained Surana. "For some reason."

Olivia shrugged. "Well, I guess we should go tell Gregoir not to kill anyone now."

After climbing back down the half-dozen sets of stairs and collecting the apprentices who had been with Wynne, as well as Cullen, Owain, and a few mages who had managed to hide or barricade themselves in rooms- including a mage who had been hiding in a closet the entire time- he wasn't going to live down the to the requisite jokes about that anytime son- they got back to the panic doors and Irving convinced Gregoir to let them through. "I told you not everyone was dead," Olivia said triumphantly.

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Gregoir. "Listen, how about you don't tell anyone we left them all to die and were going to kill them all if they managed to survive long enough for the Right of Annulment to get here and we help you fight the darkspawn."

"It'll get out anyway and you're legally obliged to help me fight the darkspawn, but I'm pressed for time, so, sure, whatever," said Olivia.

"Anders has probably told half the town by now, anyway," muttered Surana.

Olivia hit him on the back of the head. "Way to rat the man out, Surana."

"He escaped again, didn't he?" asked Gregoir tiredly.

"Yes," answered Irving.

Olivia glared at him. "Narc. Now I'm glad I ransacked your office and took anything valuable, interesting, or pretty."

"What?"

"I mean, the blood mages ransacked your office. And took anything valuable, interesting, or pretty. The blood mages. Time to go." She grabbed Alistair and Leliana's collars and darted out the door, Dusty following on their heels.

Wynne sighed. "I should probably go with them. They seem to need someone sane." She hurried out the door surprisingly quickly, likely worried that someone might try to stop her.

They found Morrigan and Bethany at the docks. "Where have you been?" complained Morrigan. "She's been dragging me around doing good deeds for this mages' collective organization."

"I'd think you'd at least be glad they're paying us," said Bethany. "It's not like I haven't been splitting the money with you."

"There was an uprising," explained Olivia. "It's kind of a long story. Oh, Morrigan." Olivia pulled out a thick black book that she had found in Irving's office. "Here. I think this is your mother's. The inside cover says 'this book belongs to Flemeth'."

Morrigan looked delighted. "Mother's grimoire! I can't wait to find out everything she's been hiding from me!" She snatched the book and immediately began to read, despite the fact that they were walking.

"Can we go to Redcliffe next?" asked Alistair hopefully, while Morrigan was too distracted to argue.