Blight-Queller

by lepolemicist

Grand Inquisitor, you accuse me of committing an atrocity, unrivalled in depravity since the Magi stormed the Golden City! I say that I stole the secrets of blood magic from the demons of the fade; I scaled the Tower of Ishal to grasp victory against the darkspawn at Ostagar; I slew the Archdemon with my magic to quell the blight itself. What need have I to defend myself?

5. Chapter 3 - Blight-Queller III

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Blight-Queller
Chapter 3
Blight-Queller

-(=DAO=)-

I poured myself another tumbler of Orlesian cream whiskey.

I don't really like alcohol, but I made the exception for this particular brand of poison. The taste is fantastic – like an alcoholic cow ejaculating into your mouth.

Loghain and I were relaxing in the small solar that led out to the grand balcony. As we drank, we spoke of everything and nothing. About the war, about history, about our lives.

It was... agreeable. Even my cynical heart marvelled at the small miracle of old enemies commiserating with each other.

I sipped at my drink, while telling a joke about how I killed some Antivan crows who had waylaid me and my companions.

The fact that it was Loghain who had sent them didn't at all detract from the joke – if anything, it made it even funnier.

And then my joke, along with the comfortable atmosphere, was shattered by the entrance of an actual crow.

With the flutter of dark wings, Morrigan's crow morph swooped into the room through the open balcony, before materializing into the witch herself.

She looked haggard. Prolonged transformation took its toll, especially after sustained activity as tiring as flying.

She didn't stop to catch her breath.

"The horde is here."

It took my tired mind some moments to process her words. But when I comprehended them, it was as if a sword within me was drawn. It cut away the fatigue and laziness, and left me sharp and hard and cold. I asked for clarification, my words biting,

"Explain."

She took a deep breath, and launched into her explanation.

"I flew south, as you asked. I scouted out the blightlands, as you asked. And as you asked, I tracked down the Horde."

She pinned me with a look.

"And the horde, a million strong, is here. Less than an hour from Denerim."

"That's impossible."

My denial was as swift and certain as the logic that underlay it.

"It is at least a week's march from the Korcari wilds to Denerim. Any significant group of darkspawn, let alone the whole horde, would have been seen and reported ages ago, if not by our agents then by the refugees fleeing in terror. How can the darkspawn horde, let alone one a million strong, appear so suddenly and unannounced?"

My reasoning was impeccable, but Morrigan merely shook her head.

"Haste. A mass Haste spell, cast by the horde's emissaries. At the speed they were going... they would have covered in a day what would ordinarily have required a week. And at such speeds, no messenger would have been able to outrun them, to warn us of their coming. So now the horde, biggest in recorded history, is here, and we are woefully unprepared."

Morrigan's answer only created more questions.

"Haste? At such speeds? For a million darkspawn? Maintained for the better part of a day? That itself is as close to being impossible as anything can be."

At my words, Morrigan merely snorted in derision.

"For a mage, Amell, you certainly have such little faith in the power of magic. There are a hundred darkspawn emissaries in the horde. A hundred. Working in tandem, and drawing on the power of the taint, they're well up to the task of casting a spell of that magnitude, wouldn't you say?"

I was silent. Even the continent-spanning Circle of Magi would not have been capable of fielding that many combat-capable mages. A hundred darkspawn emissaries? How could we beat a hundred? Easier to wrestle with the demons of the fade, than fight that many emissaries.

Morrigan continued.

"That's not the worst of it. Amongst the emissaries number a dozen or so Omegas. Even flying high above them in my crow morph, I could feel their hideous strength. They will prove to be most problematic."

Quite the understatement. Emissary Omegas are terrifyingly powerful mages, each the equal of a Tevinter Magister Lord. And since the Magister Lords themselves collectively make up the greater part of the Imperium's military strength, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that duelling a dozen Omegas would be like going to war against Tevinter itself. The sheer world-eating power of the Archdemons; the massed armies of the Chantry's Exalted Marches; the sophisticated war machines of the Qunari; all have tried and failed to destroy Minrathous, capital of the Tevinter Imperium. Their rage hammered the Undying City, and each time the Undying City shrugged them off like so much sea spray, because in each and every instance the might of the Magister Lords could not be overcome. And that was the kind of peerless power these elite emissaries wielded. Easier to fight the darkspawn horde alone and unarmed, than cut down that many Omegas.

Not to mention the Archdemon –

"And the dragon himself? Do you know where he is?"

Morrigan's eyes narrowed even further, her tension and worry palpable.

"Flying above the horde, but some way behind, because he seems to be taking his time to torch all the towns and villages that the hasted horde is leaving untouched. Given the number of settlements between Denerim and where he was when I last saw him, I would estimate that the dragon will be here in perhaps... three hours."

Left unsaid, of course, was the fact that innumerable lives would be lost to immolating dragonfire.

And when the Dragon got here? Could we hope to best one of the Seven? Could I match the power of an Old God? Truly? Easier to cut the sky in two, than commit deicide.

No. That wasn't true, was it? Of course I could best the Archdemon. It was just a matter of paying the appropriate price.

I closed my eyes, and saw. The bright shining line that led from here to victory. The path to take, the end of which would see the Archdemon lie dead and broken at my feet. The road, fraught and perilous, that would nonetheless end with the blight quelled.

And against that? Some small sacrifices? What was that in comparison?

Not for the first time and not for the last, I weighed the greater good and the lesser evil, and made the only choice I could.

At the edges of my consciousness I could make out Loghain asking what on earth I was doing, and Morrigan shushing him.

I opened my eyes.

I looked at my companions.

Loghain was frowning, and Morrigan looked more on edge than ever.

It was refreshing, in a way, that death had come to our doorstep. No more webs of lies and gold. No more constraining chains of politics and propriety. No. We would decide this matter as things have been decided since the Old Time – with blood and death, fire and steel, magic and might.

I gave my orders.

"Morrigan, go to the Alienage, bring the elves to the Grand Chamber in Fort Drakon, and cast a Sleep. The Volodos variant, if possible – for the best effect. Then I need you to head out of the city and return to tracking the Archdemon.

"Loghain, locate Leliana and tell her to rouse the City Guard, after which she should wait for me at the gates.

"Come to the Denerim City Gates yourself once you've found Leliana and passed on my orders."

Today, we went to war.

-(=DAO=)-

My head throbbed with the pressure of the Blood Sense. The darkness outside Denerim had faded away into insignificance, the spell giving me preternatural awareness of my surroundings. I could detect every sentient creature a mile around, their relative position to me, and their magical strength. Using the spell was much like opening your eyes after a lifetime of being blind.

The shriek, silent and deadly, leaped for my back, its daggers out and ready to skewer me.

It would have worked, too, if I did not have my magic.

But magic was the one thing I did not lack.

I half-turned, and brought my right hand up in a casual backswing.

The invisible and impossibly sharp Telekinetic Blade I summoned bisected the shriek, separating its head from its body.

That was the signal for the rest of the darkspawn vanguards to attack.

To my left, a hurlock broke cover from the tree he was hiding behind, and went for my head with his wicked looking sword.

I blocked his vicious attempt to split my head with a Force Field, his sword bouncing off the impenetrable wall I erected.

Then, taking great care not to damage his armour, I brought my right hand up and thrust a telekinetic blade into his neck. The large hurlock gurgled, and dropped.

I spun around, my left hand flicking out with another telekinetic blade to divert a genlock's attempt to impale my kidneys.

I didn't need to be careful for the genlock – it was far too small for my purposes.

My Mind Blast exploded out with violent force. Heedless of the shield the darkspawn brought up in a futile attempt to defend himself, the spell smashed into him, crushing him against the ground and killing him.

I turned to face the last member of this little darkspawn group.

The ogre loomed, giant and menacing, yet impossibly silent. His footfalls were imperceptible, the ogre taking care to land on the balls of his feet rather than stomp around as his kind was wont to.

Oh? This one was truly dangerous, then. An ogre with not just strength but also subtlety and skill?

I decided to take no chances.

I brought my right hand up, as if caressing a lover's face.

The Crushing Prison materialized, a dozen invisible bars, each harder than fire-forged dragonbone.

I grasped my hand into a fist, and in sympathetic tandem, the bars closed into a vice, crushing the great ogre into a fountain of blood and body parts.

The first little skirmish of the war was over.

I bent down beside the dead hurlock to inspect his armour.

Yes, it would do nicely. But still...

Only one set. Not enough for what we were about to do.

Well, this was quite the quandary.

Dimly, I was aware of Loghain hurrying from the City Gate's sally port to where I was. I didn't bother acknowledging his presence, busy as I was with thinking. The ogre didn't wear armour, and the genlock's was too small, and crushed beyond recognition anyway. The shriek? Its armour was of the correct size for me, but it didn't come with a hemlet. We didn't have the time to find and waylay another pack of darkspawn, either. What to do...

Ah. The answer came to me, insane but practical in its own morbid way.

I used a small telekinetic blade to fully cut off the dead genlock's head, and then instructed Loghain to start stripping the corpses of their armour.

I hefted the genlock's head, his blood streaming down my palms, and considered it.

With slow and deliberate micro-telekinesis, I started skinning it, and cutting the face out from the skull, all the while explaining my plan to Loghain.

I had to take extra care around the eyes and orifices, to make sure that the skin didn't tear.

In a minute, I had the flayed face of a dead darkspawn. It was strangely heavy, and annoyingly slippery with blood.

I turned to find that Loghain had, with admirable efficiency, removed the armour from the hurlock and the shriek.

He looked at me with some trepidation, and with an eyebrow raised, asked,

"Are you really going to wear that?"

"Of course. A better disguise than any armour. We don't have much choice in the matter anyway, since this bunch –"

I swept a careless hand towards the corpses around us.

"– weren't considerate enough to equip themselves with enough helmet. We only have that genlock's, which you'll wear. And I don't mind wearing this –"

I jiggled the genlock's face for emphasis, and it flapped around like a macabre parody of an Orlesian mask.

"Unless, of course, you'll rather have the face and give me the helmet."

Loghain's own face told me otherwise.

"Thought not."

He started putting on the stolen darkspawn armour, while I saw to my own disguise.

I pulled the stinking flesh mask over my own face. The darkspawn blood stung me, even with my Warden's resistance. I pulled at and adjusted the mask, mainly to ensure that the eyeholes aligned with my own ocular organs.

Well. Not bad, all things considered, if you ignored how nauseating it was.

I had a strong stomach, though. I would have to, to have done half of the things I did.

"How do I look?"

Loghain had finished putting on the genlock's armour, helmet and all. He looked the image of a menacing darkspawn.

"Like a darkspawn whose face was savaged by wolves."

"Excellent. Help me put this on."

With Loghain's aid, I slipped into the Shriek's light leather armour – taking care not to disturb my mask.

With my borrowed face, our stolen armour, and the taint in our blood confusing the darkspawn's senses, we were truly indistinguishable from actual darkspawn. Theoretically, at least.

We began our soiree into darkness. Loghain and I headed into the woods surrounding Denerim, and made for where the horde was gathering.

We walked in silence.

Soon enough, Loghain spoke, voicing his doubts about what we were about to attempt.

"Are you certain that this will work, Warden? This seems enormously risky. There is no guarantee that the darkspawn will be fooled. Nordbotten was a very long time ago. We cannot count on the taint to mislead our enemy."

I resisted the urge to scratch at my face, and considered Loghain's words.

It was a fair point.

I gave my answer, albeit in a roundabout way. There was plenty of time before we reached the horde.

"Back in the Circle Tower, there was a particular Senior Enchanter – Wynne – that I didn't like. One day I decided that it would be funny to disrupt her class – she was the tutor responsible for Introductory Healing – so I stole the key to her classroom.

"Because that particular session of Introductory Healing was supposed to have been a laboratory practical, and all our materials – like the test animals we were going to practice our healing on – were inside the classroom, the lesson couldn't be held. Wynne searched high and low for the key, and eventually we students were roped into the search as well, but of course it was nowhere to be found, being safe and sound in my pocket.

"No one knew that I was the thief, of course. The key, as well the Tower's master key to all classrooms, were kept in the tutors' common room. I went there myself often enough, and knew which drawer to pilfer them from. I put my plan into action late at night. Wynne would always work late, and would be the last to leave the room, so when she was the only tutor left, I got my friend Jowan to run in and distract Wynne. He told her a story I had cooked up – about how he suspected that an apprentice mage was at that very moment trying to set up a Glyph of Vision in the female apprentice showers. Naturally, Wynne, with her strong sense of duty and ever the busybody, couldn't let such a thing slide. She hurriedly left with Jowan to apprehend the fictitious pervert, and I snuck into the unlocked common room and liberated the keys. No one saw me – I was too clever, and too careful for that.

"The next day, it was pretty amusing to watch a frantic Wynne run about like a headless chicken. I didn't plan to let it go on forever, of course. Even I wasn't that much of a dick. I had planned to be the one to "find" the key, and then return it.

"Unfortunately... well, I was careless with my mouth. I kept complaining, loudly, about how Wynne was running us ragged trying to find a key she had lost, and how it was so pointless, given that the key was going to turn up later in the day anyway."

I laughed.

"I can still remember that moment when Wynne turned around, and fixed me with that deadly glare of hers. "What do you mean, the key is "going to turn up later in the day," Amell?", she snarled. All the pieces fell into place for her – my slip of the tongue, the fact that Jowan had led her away on a wild goose chase the night before; her general distrust of me – and she ordered me to turn out my pockets.

"And thus I was caught red handed with the stolen keys. I was given a month's worth of detention with Wynne. I spent the next few weeks making smelly health poultices and scrubbing out cauldrons."

I finished my story.

Loghain looked at me.

"What the hell does that have to do with the darkspawn?"

Oh, right.

"The point, Loghain, is that my plans are beautifully constructed works of art. Everything will go well, so long as no one makes a careless mistake. Like I did in regards to the stolen keys. As long as we follow the plan carefully, our mission will go smoothly."

Loghain shook his head, disbelievingly.

"That is quite possibly the most atrocious parable I have ever heard in my entire life, Warden. And I've sat through some of the Grand Cleric's sermons. I suppose it should be some comfort to me that you're a much better fighter than you are a storyteller – if that prank of yours is any indication of how your latest plan will turn out, we had better be prepared to fight our way through the horde."

"Ha."

And with that bit of brevity over, we lapsed back into silence, and continue our walk through the dark forest.

It took us the better part of half an hour to do so, but finally we reached the darkspawn camp.

How to describe it?

Loghain and I were standing upon a small hill, and from it we could look out upon the darkspawn encampment sprawling before us.

I once described the horde at Ostagar, a hundred thousand strong, as a veritable sea of torches, as uncountable and as innumerable as the stars in the night sky, with each torch marking one darkspawn.

Here...

Words failed me. The power of metaphor could not capture the sheer size of an army so massive it outnumbered the population of the city it was conquering. Poetry could not give form to the unfathomable colossality of a horde of a million darkspawn.

Let us just say that the torches stretched from one horizon to the next.

Yes. Let us just say that.

Perhaps that gives the truest sense of the scale of the evil we had to fight.

It would have been easy for anyone to give in to despair, there and then. But too much was riding on us, and the success of our mission.

We headed down the hill, and into the darkspawn camp.

There were no guards. Of course there were no guards. Who on earth would even think of infiltrating a darkspawn camp? No one sane, that's for sure.

So we two of questionable sanity, made our way through the camp. Our disguises made us look like darkspawn, but it was the taint that really fooled the darkspawn around us into thinking that we were truly one of them. I had never been so appreciative of the taint, as I was then – it was essentially all that stood between us and our brutal deaths and the hands of a infinity of darkspawn.

My Blood Sense was still active, despite the pounding headache it was giving me, and it allowed me to locate the emissaries. Compared to normal darkspawn, which Blood Sense registered as pinpricks of starlight within my mental landscape, the emissaries stood out, their immense magical power burning bright. They were impossible to mistake, impossible to miss.

So Loghain and I headed in their direction. And all around us, there was nothing but darkspawn.

It was unnerving. It was nothing like being around humans, or any other race. Not a single darkspawn in the camp was eating, or drinking, or sleeping, or whatever else normal things a person might be expected to do. They were all just... there. They might sharpen their swords or adjust their armour, but otherwise they just stared ahead, their eyes empty. The most disquieting thing was the fact that very few even spoke – or grunted, for that was what their speech sounded like. Perhaps that made sense. What would soulless tools that the Archdemon used for murder, have to say to each other?

It was then that I realized more fully than I ever had before, the fact that darkspawn weren't people. They were weapons. A sword that hung over the collective necks of all life in Thedas.

And to defeat this enemy, I too would have to be the perfect weapon –without conscience or hesitance.

My eyes narrowed, as I clenched my teeth.

I knew what I had to do.

We had closed in onto the emissaries' position. I could not see them directly, but I could tell quite distinctly that they were in various tents in an encampment set somewhat apart from the rest of the camp – like an island set above the ocean waves. Likely, the emissaries were resting from the casting of that thrice-damned Haste spell. We would never find them in a more vulnerable position.

I whispered to Loghain,

"Move closer to those tents over there, and wait for my signal."

I made a discreet motion with my right hand, and Loghain replied with an almost imperceptible nod.

He closed the distance to the emissaries' tents, and I remained where I was, perhaps a hundred meters away, while still having a good line of sight of both Loghain and the tents.

I exhaled.

Now or never.

I activated Spell Might, and drew forcibly drew more power into myself from the Fade.

Then I triggered my Mana Clash – seizing control of the emissaries' mana, and unleashing it as a destructive conflagration.

Blue light flared, and in that instance dozens of tents collapsed, and a hundred emissaries died, immolated from within by their own prodigious power.

One tent remained standing though – within it were the Emissary Omegas, their powers so vast that even I could not hope to wrest control of their mana from them.

No matter. I had never expected to be able to assassinate them in such a way – I had set aside other plans for them, and they would meet their own end in good time.

Right now, I had other concerns.

Every head in camp turned towards the tents and the source of the blinding blue light.

I could feel, via the taint, the darkspawns' surprise, which was almost immediately boiling over into hostile suspicion.

Already, the darkspawn were swivelling around, looking for anything suspicious, and already, eyes were being drawn to me, my bloody face, and the awkwardly fitting armour. If I did nothing, I was going to be discovered – and if that occurred, death would be the best I could hope for.

I had a choice to make. I could see the bright clear line to the end we sought, and the sacrifice that would bring us one step closer to ending the blight. So in that split second, I chose, and as always, I chose the greater good.

So I twitched one finger, and performed a small bit of telekinesis.

As if yanked off by an invisible hand, Loghain's stolen helmet was pulled off his head, and clattered to the ground.

The uproar was tremendous.

From every darkspawn, in every direction, there came a terrifying, animalistic howl. There is nothing so bowel-loosening frightening, believe me, as that sound of a million incensed darkspawn out to kill you – and the knowledge that they will certainly succeed.

Loghain, to his credit, wasn't paralyzed by fear. He drew his sword and shield, and gave off a fearsome war cry of his own.

It was quite the sight. The Hero of Ferelden, alone and surrounded by the entire darkspawn horde, yet still willing to fight to the death. His courage was almost inspirational.

But futile.

As I stepped back, away from the epicentre of the coming melee, the darkspawn surged around me, heading in the opposite direction, towards Loghain himself. They utterly ignored me, for they had eyes only for Loghain – the hated enemy, in the very centre of their camp? Intolerable.

The obsessive, one-track nature of the darkspawn was what made them both terrifying and easy to manipulate. I had used it against them – drawn their attention away from myself, at the cost of Loghain's life.

And in the ruckus, I slipped away. Flowing and dodging around the distracted darkspawn, I was unopposed in my attempt to escape the camp.

I could have looked back, but didn't.

-(=DAO=)-

Denerim burnt. By moonlight and starlight, in the streets and back alleys, through the long hours of the night, it burnt. Fire and shadow was consuming the city, and there was no one capable of saving it.

I twisted, brought my right fist out, and punched. The ground exploded, and stones the size of a man's head were ripped out, and sent flying towards the darkspawn rushing at me in the dark alley.

My Stonefists caught the incoming darkspawn, smashing into them, and crushing heads and torsos and abdomens.

Leliana beside me, we ran.

To the left!

Darkspawn leapt out of a shadowy alley, weapons drawn and teeth bared.

I barely had time to turn my head, before the first one was on me, his sword slicing down to cleave my head in twain.

With a burst of concentration, and barely in time, I used the Winter's Grasp, freezing the darkspawn solid from the inside out. One moment, he was about to kill me, and the other, he was an immobile statue of frozen flesh.

My eyes flicked to the other darkspawn behind him, and quick succession, I did to them what I did to the first darkspawn.

As their insides were injected with the absolute cold of winter, petal-like icicles emerged from the bodies of the attacking darkspawn.

It was almost beautiful – like flowers blooming in spring.

We ran further down the alley. I did my best to use the taint to anticipate any possible ambush, but it wasn't really possible – what with the massive amount of darkspawn flooding the city, I couldn't pick out any specific information from the taint – just the overwhelming presence of the darkspawn. We would just have to be on our guard as best as possible.

To the right, another alley stretched out, with another group of darkspawn some distance down.

This, at least, would be easy.

I brought my right hand up, and sent a Flame Blast down the narrow alleyway, against the compact group of darkspawn.

Reflexively, they cowered behind their shields, but to no avail. The scorching stream of fire consumed them, blackening their armour and roasting their flesh from within. Within seconds, there was nothing but charred corpses left.

It's funny, how all burnt bodies look alike, and smell alike.

But onwards we ran.

We could see the end of the alley in sight – the dim light from burning fires marking the exit.

A humongous shadow loomed.

An ogre.

It roared, its giant maw opening as it screamed its rage.

Pointless.

I slipped into a forward stance – bending my right knee to a right angle, and shifting all my weight onto it, as my left foot extended back for balance.

I thrust my right hand out, two fingers jabbing at thin air.

As I closed my eyes, the roar of thunder exploded within the narrow alleyway, and Lightning blasted out from my fingertips, taking the ogre in the chest, and blowing a hole in it.

This was not a spell meant for electrocution – this was a spell meant for destruction.

As the ogre whose chest was blown out fell to the ground, Leliana slipped out from beside me, swift and sure.

As the rest of the darkspawn supporting the ogre were still blinded by the lightning, and disoriented by the accompanying thunderclap, Leliana slipped into their ranks, and dispatched them.

She tripped the first darkspawn, and its own weight pushed its neck down into Leliana's waiting dagger.

Another darkspawn, quicker on the uptake than its peers, swung its sword in a clumsy and futile attempt to stop the rogue. With almost contemptuous ease, Leliana evaded the attack, and then opened the monster's throat.

Yet another darkspawn, still disoriented from my spell – darkspawn have very good night vision, which worked against them here – had brought his shield up over his face. Leliana didn't even bother battering it aside – she made a lethal strike, sticking a dagger under the darkspawn's armpits, where its armour failed to protect it.

But at this point, the last darkspawn had fully recovered his vision, and slashed once, twice, thrice with his sword. Leliana dodged and weaved, and with an elegant manoeuvre, slipped past the darkspawn, under its guard, and then stuck a knife into its back.

I would have helped her, but I was busy myself.

Darkspawn was flooding the alley from where we ourselves had just come.

I took no chances.

I chained a series of Winter Grasps, each freezing the advancing darkspawn on the spot, and then raised my hands, directing Stonefists from the ground against each frozen monster. Brittle as they were, the resulting impacts shattered them, scattering bits of ice and frozen body parts onto the ground.

The fight was over.

But of course, this was war, and there was always a next fight. There was hardly even the time to feel exhausted.

It had been perhaps half an hour since the darkspawn flooded Denerim.

The Emissary Omegas, performing long forgotten magic, simply obliterated the front gates and the thick stone walls around it. Our best hope had been to hold out with the advantage of our fortified position, and that hope had been crushed along with the gates.

The Hammer of the Gods.

Used by the Tevinters themselves, thousands of years ago, to sink Arlathan, the capital of Elvhenan, in that long-ago war between man and elf.

To think that it would be used today, albeit at a far more modest scale.

One moment, the Gates and surrounding walls were there, and another, they were simply gone – smashed into the ground, as if smited by a vengeful god. Riordan, and many others, perished in that singular instance.

It was the first, and briefest taste of the Emissary Omegas' power. Even there, in a stinking back-alley, I could feel their might. Despite them being some distance outside the city, their ghastly strength was quite distinctive, quite unmistakeable. It made it clearer than ever that I could not hope to take them in a head on fight. I made sure always to keep track of where they were; we could not afford to fight them – not now. Fortunately, they were far too arrogant to bother suppressing their magical signature, as I was doing – theirs could be felt from miles away. As long as we kept our distance, they should pose no real threat to us.

Leliana and I stepped out of the alley, and found ourselves on the main boulevard, leading from the now-gone Gates, to the Market District.

Though our soldiers had put up a valiant fight, the sheer numbers of the darkspawn meant that we had been overrun.

If there was one thing that favoured us in this fight, it was that the emissaries were dead, and that the Omegas had not deigned to take to the field themselves.

Which left me and my magic unopposed, at least for the time being.

The closest darkspawn to me, I used Petrify on – transmuted to stone, just as the legendary sorceress Medusa did to her enemies.

Then I swept my left hand out, and summoned the strongest Cone of Cold I could.

Winds of absolute coldness howled out from my palm, and exploded outwards to cover a huge area, immediately freezing the darkspawn it caught.

The first and most important rule of combat for a mage – protect yourself first, before thinking of harming the enemy.

Maintaining the spell for as long as possible, I swung my arm around, to maximize the area covered, and to neutralize all visible darkspawn on the boulevard.

When I stopped, the entire street was frozen – just giant blocks of ice where the darkspawn once stood; icicles sticking out from various buildings; the ground itself shiny and slippery with a coat of ice.

But this was but a temporary victory.

In the distance, I could already see more darkspawn head this way.

I conjured a Fireball, and made it burn hot enough to melt even steel.

Then, closing my right hand into a fist, I punched out, and sent my favourite spell arcing into the sky, towards the horde of darkspawn still flooding down the boulevard, eastwards, towards us.

Even before the Fireball landed, I materialized another one, and sent it flying.

And another. And another. And another.

In the distance, my fireballs exploded, consuming the darkspawn in a burning conflagration of heat and light.

How many did I kill? I don't know – an uncountable amount, perhaps, but still, it wasn't enough.

There were a million of them out there, and the deaths we were inflicting upon them bordered on the realm of the insignificant.

Still we fought.

As I dealt with the darkspawn horde approaching from the west, Leliana was fending off the darkspawn coming in from the east.

She fired off arrow after arrow, each one killing or maiming the darkspawn it hit.

One arrow caught a darkspawn in the leg, and, as if a heavy weight had suddenly pinned it down, it tumbled over itself. Another struck a darkspawn on its hip, crippling it and causing it to stumble onto the ground. Yet another hit a darkspawn in the chest, dealing a critical wound. A final arrow lodged itself in the face of a darkspawn, through its helmet's visor slit – slaying it immediately.

But the darkspawn were closing in. Leliana shot off arrows as rapidly as she could, slowing their advance. One arrow punched right through a darkspawn's armour, and it keeled over. Another arrow was sent against the opposite alleyway, where a darkspawn was hiding behind some sacks of grain – the arrow lodged itself into the sack, but did its job of suppression – forcing the darkspawn to shelter behind cover, rather than charging us. And then Leliana turned, and in the greatest feat of archery I have ever seen, fired her last arrow at one of the two darkspawn charging us with naked steel. The arrow hit one on its helmet, knocking it back, while the arrow itself was deflected into the second darkspawn's chest.

But enough was enough.

I brought my right hand up, and lightning sparked. I materialized a Shock, a cone of lightning that electrocuted the nearest darkspawn, before arcing away to slay groups further away, and then finally bouncing to the ogre that was emerging from an alleyway to murder it as well.

I could feel the tinge of ozone on my fingers as I released the spell.

For the time being, we had stemmed the flood of darkspawn. But once again, it was nought but temporary. Once again we were stemming a flood with our fingers. We could not do this forever. Even then I was tiring – the mana available to a mage isn't unlimited, no matter appearances to the contrary – no more than the arrows an archer had were unlimited.

So we retreated eastwards, towards the Denerim Market District. Any darkspawn we met, we slaughtered. But as we ran, something niggled at the back of my mind.

We had been fighting at the 50th street – and if memory served me right, just that very morning I had ordered extra guards to be posted there. Why –

Ah.

The warehouse. Containing barrels of oil imported from the Free Marches. I was concerned with the possibility of riots, and arson, and the catastrophic fire that might have ensued.

Well, if anything, Denerim would improved by a catastrophic fire right about now.

Once we were a significant distance away from the warehouse and where we were previously fighting, I called a halt.

I generated a Fireball, and judging the distance between us and the target location, I launched it westwards.

Even now I could see the darkspawn swarming around the area.

Excellent.

My Fireball crashed into the warehouse, and then the sky lit up for a split-second as hundreds of barrels of oil simultaneously combusted.

Even hundreds of meters away, the explosion hurt my ears, and I could feel the heatwave as it washed over us.

The darkspawn would have it worse, of course. Any of the creatures who didn't die from the initial immolating explosion, would even now be covered in burning oil. It is an excruciating experience – so painful, it's like... being doused in burning oil. If you think that's a poor analogy, then it's because you've never been doused in burning oil yourself.

Regardless, the grease fire would even now be consuming a large part of the boulevard – making it impassable, and hopefully delaying a further darkspawn advance.

Another fight, another victory. But plenty more battles awaited us in this unending war.

It had been a brutal night. With the fall of the Gates of Denerim, darkspawn had simply swarmed into the city through the massive hole in the north-western part of the City Walls.

As part of our desperate, rear-guard action, Leliana and I had headed into the alleyways – instead of defending the main boulevard with what remained of our troops – to destroy the two bridges that forded the Drakon River near the Gates.

With the bridges destroyed, there would be no easy way for the darkspawn to cross the river from the northern part of the city to the southern part – not in great numbers, at least. The only other bridges were near the Denerim Market District – which we would secure in good time.

All the fighting that we were doing now was just to delay the inevitable – to buy as much time as we could, so as to protect Fort Drakon until the Archdemon arrived.

Things did not always go as planned, however.

When we arrived, the Denerim market district was already overrun. Ogres were wandering all over the place. Corpses littered the ground. Pools of blood were everywhere – you couldn't quite go anywhere without stepping in one.

I would have to dig deep into my well of magic for this particular fight.

At my signal, Leliana began singing – a high pitched, unignorable song. She was a bard, and her musical talents unrivalled. But in this case, all I needed was a crude distraction to draw the darkspawn's attention towards us – and into my trap.

As the darkspawn advanced on us, swords flashing and ready to disembowel us, I clapped my hands together, and called upon the earth itself to swallow my enemies.

The Earthquake I summoned was vicious. The earth shook, and all around darkspawn fell to the ground, unable to maintain their balance.

Under the tremendous pressure exerted by the seismic waves I was directing into it, the ground split and buckled – giant cracks and fissures opened up, swallowing darkspawn whole.

And then, the buildings around us crumbled, in a roar of stone and wood and mortar. The alleyways, infested with darkspawn, were buried under a torrent of rubble.

Which still left the massive group of darkspawn in the market proper, armed to the teeth and ready to kill us.

Moving swiftly, and not giving the darkspawn time to pull themselves together, I evoked a Blizzard, freezing the darkspawn nearest to us, and sealing off the main exit from the market. A wall of ice, a meter thick and as tall as the City Walls themselves, formed in front of us – keeping the darkspawn at bay.

This bought me the time I needed as I went through the complex forms needed for the invocation of an Inferno.

Within the sealed-off market district, an unearthly howl arose. Fire swirled, heat pulsed, and light flared, as the firestorm I called emerged. It burnt, hotter and hotter, and everything – even stone and metal – melted in the face of its indescribable heat. The raging fire expanded, spreading from the centre of the market outwards, consuming the darkspawn at the edges of the district. I maintained the fiery tempest as long as I could, counting the seconds away – every second I maintained it for, was another darkspawn dead and burnt, incapable of harming anyone else again. But such a spell could not be maintained for any length of time, and slowly I could feel it slipping, fading. The howling, burning winds died down – leaving me panting with exertion.

But it would be foolish to assume that the battle was over. No matter how epic the magic you bring to bear against the enemy, with a foe as innumerable as the darkspawn, you could never let your guard down.

Despite my efforts, there were still many of them left in and around the area – those hidden in alleyways further back were untouched by my Inferno, and were now swarming towards us for an attack.

It seemed as if another spell would be needed.

I called up my remaining strength, and materialized a Tempest.

Lightning burst out, as a storm of electricity formed, striking all within its range. Bolts of electricity streaked out, guided by my will, and put down darkspawn after darkspawn. An ogre which emerged from a back-alley managed to howl in rage, right before a lightning strike took his head off. The Tempest was not as powerful as a Blizzard or an Inferno, but controlled and weaponized like this, it was just as deadly.

And then things went horribly, horribly wrong.

A cold wind started blowing, and, too late, I realized what was happening.

The Omegas!

Finally, they had made their move. I had been overconfident – I couldn't sense them anywhere remotely close by, and hence assumed that they would be no threat. Had I forgotten the kind of magic they were capable of, even at great distances?

All around us, the lightning I had called forth was now out of my grasp, wrestled from my control by my fearsome magical opponents. They had hijacked it, boosted it with dangerous amounts of raw mana, and shaped it into the form of a whirlwind.

In short, they had summoned a Storm of the Century, a raging hurricane of death-dealing thunderbolts.

But where a Tempest is controlled and directed, the Storm of the Century is utterly uncontrolled – or perhaps it would be better to say that it is uncontrollable – no one can really claim to be able to direct a spell of such overwhelmingly power.

It took all my prodigious skill, and all my remaining power, to deflect the lightning bolts from striking Leliana and I. We hugged each other close, as we ran for our lives. Lightning struck all around us, reducing rubble further to dust. With the freezing wind howling into our faces, we could barely keep our eyes open. My head throbbed with the sheer pressure of keeping the wrath of nature itself at bay. We ran, and ran, as all around us the world was shattered into nothingness.

-(=DAO=)-

I leant my aching back into the chair and took another sip of the lyrium potion. It helped replenished my depleted mana levels, but taking too much, too quickly, was dangerous.

Have you ever tasted lyrium before, Grand Inquisitor?

Of course you have. There is nothing quite like it, is there?

It has a different taste for everyone, and what we taste is what reminds us of what we love the most.

Me? Heh. It has changed over time, of course. The last time I had lyrium... let us just say that it was the smell of the Korcari wilds.

Leliana, sitting across from me, was drinking lyrium potion as well – and in far greater amounts than I was.

Dangerous, especially for a non-mage, but also necessary, for what came next.

"How does it taste like?"

To my question, Leliana gave a half-smile.

"Like love."

To any other question, it would have been a fatuous answer, but to this particular question, it was a pretty witty reply.

"Drink up, then."

We were resting in a small room within the Alienage – after escaping the vicious Storm of the Century, Leliana and I had crossed the last remaining bridge linking the north side of the city to its southern part.

The Alienage was located at the southern end of the bridge, and it was here where our remaining forces had gathered, to make a last stand against the gigantic darkspawn horde that had completely overrun the entire northern part of Denerim.

The Omegas were still keeping their distance – I could feel them within the city, but far from where we were.

Good. I was in no shape to fight one, let alone all ten of them.

And my plan to deal with them was still not primed. I needed more time.

"You have no questions about what you have to do?"

Leliana shook her head, her short red hair bouncing about.

"Good."

We lapsed into silence. This was... exhausted silence. The silence of people who have nothing to say, because they are at the point where even mustering the strength to make words tire them out.

We had been fighting for an interminable amount of time. And the end was nowhere in sight. The break we were having now was precious – and unlikely to be repeated.

I downed the last of my lyrium, and then stood up.

"Once you're done with the lyrium, you should leave immediately for the palace district."

Leliana inclined her head in acknowledgement.

There was more that I wanted to say, but couldn't. So instead –

"Good luck."

I left the ramshackle house, and headed out into the Alienage.

There were no elves left, of course. They had all been... evacuated to Fort Drakon.

The Alienage was now a military encampment. There were soldiers, and nothing but soldiers. Archers on the roofs; heavily armed warriors guarding the bridge and wooden ramparts protecting the alienage; messengers ferrying orders from point to point.

I made my way to what used to be the hospice – it had been commandeered, and turned into a war room.

The guards at the door nodded to me in deference, as I entered our makeshift commander centre.

We were a diminished lot.

There were less than half of us remaining from the war council we held that very afternoon. How strange, to think that it had occurred but hours past – subjectively, it seemed like an eternity ago. When Morrigan delivered the news of the horde at our doorstep, I had immediately sent Alistair and Anora away, on the first ship to Amarinthine. Loghain was dead, of course, as was Riordan. This left myself, Arl Eamon, and Ser Cauthrien, in command of whatever troops we had not yet lost.

Things were not going well – Cauthrien and the Arl were locked in an argument.

"... obviously be destroying the bridge –"

"– with respect, my lord, the Warden left express instructions –"

They both stopped talking as I entered.

"Warden. It good to see you well."

Eamon greeted me, and Cauthrien inclined her head to acknowledge me.

I slumped into the chair between them. I was tired – so tired. The events of the day had already run me ragged, and now the war was putting unimaginable pressure on me. Even now, my body rested, but my mind could not – there was strategy to discuss, and a war to prosecute.

"Cauthrien's right, Eamon. It would be foolish to destroy the bridge at this stage."

I dragged my fingers through my hair, as I tried to put words together, to best convey my reasons.

"The darkspawn are stupid, Eamon. Mindless. Obsessive, if that's the right word. Give them an obvious target, and they will swarm towards it, no matter how well-defended the target is, and no matter how many losses they will incur.

"By leaving the bridge be, the darkspawn will attack. Here. Nowhere else. They will charge across the bridge, and we will massacre them. It will be a meat grinder, except we'll be doing the grinding, and the darkspawn will play the role of the minced meat.

"Destroy the bridge, however, and deny them an easy and obvious target – well, then they'll start looking for something else to attack, something else to do. They can be cunning when they have to be – as we found out to our cost, at Ostagar. They might even attempt to ford the river elsewhere, and we don't have the men to defend all along the south bank of the Drakon River. This is something that we have to avoid at all costs."

Eamon didn't look completely convinced, but it wasn't his choice to make. Cauthrien, though, seemed to see the logic of my words.

I drummed the table with my fingers, perhaps betraying my anxiety.

Would the Omegas take the bait?

A soldier entered the room, interrupting my reverie and the lull in the discussion.

He handed me a piece of paper, and said, with evident trepidation,

"Sir, a darkspawn envoy passed this to us."

I frowned, and I could see my expression mirrored by the disbelief in Eamon's and Cauthrien's faces.

I questioned the soldier.

"Did the envoy say anything?"

"No sir. He didn't speak at all – just crossed the bridge holding a white flag, and left this at the southern foot of the bridge, before beating a retreat."

That at least was a relief. Only emissaries should be able to speak – if there was a speaking darkspawn about, then it would have to be an emissary I failed to kill earlier on – or worse, an Omega.

We would be in deep trouble if the Omegas were bothering to suppress their magical signatures. If I weren't able to detect them, and to keep track of where they were... the damage they would inflict upon us would be hideous. But thankfully, it seemed that they thought such a thing as hiding their power to be far beneath them. So much the worse for them, then.

I spread the piece of paper out.

It took me some time to read it, and even more time after to decipher it.

When I was done, I pushed it away and rubbed at my eyes.

Eamon tried to make sense of it himself, but evidently couldn't make heads or tails of it. Cauthrien too was frowning

"Warden, what is this?"

On the paper was a crude drawing of a pair of hands, and a few short sentences.

A boast. It was a boast.

I sighed.

"Shall we play a game?"

I extended my left hand, palms spread out, towards Cauthrien.

"Ser Cauthrien, could you do the same, and extend your own left hand?"

Despite her obvious bemusement, she complied.

Our two open palms were side by side, fingers arrayed in a row of ten. I explained,

"This is a game. The rules are simple. There are two players. The players take turns to fold the fingers on the two hands. Each turn, a player can fold one, or two, fingers, starting from the left-most finger –"

I wriggled my smallest digit.

"– and working our way rightwards. The goal is to be the one who folds the tenth and final finger – your own small finger, in this case.

"Now – the real question is, do you want to go first?"

Despite everything, there was a part of me that loved these little games, that loved revelling in my own cleverness – I was almost enjoying this.

Cauthrien's frowned deepened, as she answered.

"I... I would want to go first, wouldn't it?"

I smiled.

"Why?"

Cauthrien's voice became firmer with certainty as she answered.

"Because you can fold only up to two fingers at a time. And if the goal is to fold the tenth and final finger, then you would want to fold the seventh – so regardless of what your opponent does – whether he folds the eighth or both the eighth and ninth – you would be guaranteed to fold the tenth.

"And the same reasoning applies further back. If you want to fold the seventh, you need to fold the fourth. And if you want to fold the fourth, you have to fold the first finger.

"So whoever starts the game will win, if the player has sense enough."

My smile deepened.

Cauthrien was certainly quite formidable. She was not just a brilliant swordsman, then, but also very clever in her own right. Loghain couldn't have picked a better lieutenant.

"A very succinct analysis of the game. Shall we play, then? You can go first."

The little finger game proceeded as Cauthrien predicted.

She folded the first finger, and then I folded the next two – my ring and middle fingers. She proceeded to fold the fourth – my index finger – and then I folded both my thumb and Cauthrien's own. Then Cauthrien closed her own index finger – the seventh finger in the game, and at that point pure logic made her victory seem inevitable.

Or not.

"It seems, at this point, that it's my loss, no? I can fold either the eight, or the eight and ninth fingers. Regardless, you will be able to fold the ninth and tenth, or the tenth straight away. It would seem that your victory is assured."

But life was not so simple.

I sighed – a deep and weary sigh.

"But what if I did this –"

Very gently, and very slowly. I began folding Cauthrien's eight finger, her middle finger – but backwards.

"What if I folded your finger – the wrong way? What if I broke your index finger, and for that matter, your ring finger as well?"

And hence the moral of the story – the taunt being sent to us by the Omegas – and I was certain that it was them; who else in the horde could have been intelligent enough to come up with this convoluted, pretentious threat?

"If I broke both of your fingers, would you still have the strength to fold your last and final finger to win the game?"

I released her finger.

Eamon seemed lost at my words, but Cauthrien's eyes were thoughtful.

I sighed again – or grunted, rather – more out of exhaustion than at anything else.

"The point of this little game is to show that, ultimately, it is strength that matters. It matters not how clever you are – in the final accounting, it is might that triumphs. The only real kind of power, in the end, is the physical kind – the power of inflicting pain and injury and death.

"Our darkspawn friends are taunting us, of course. We might have the better position, having only to defend this bridge – but they have the overwhelming numbers, and no matter how we struggle, and no matter what clever strategies we come up with, they will almost certainly come out victorious in the end.

"They are boasting that things will be settled as they have been settled since the world was young – with the shedding of blood, with the song of steel, and with magic that is deadlier than any sword.

Silence met my proclamation.

Movement in the corner of my mind.

I twitched. I could sense the Omegas moving, far to the west.

It seemed as if they really had taken the bait. I had to make haste.

I stood.

"I apologize, but I have to head to the Palace District. I leave this place to your capable command, Ser Cauthrien"

If this little sessions proved anything, it was that Cauthrien was cleverer than the Arl was. And whoever held the Alienage needed to be really clever indeed – to hold off the rising darkspawn tide, for any length of time.

Arl Eamon didn't seem happy at my announcing my departure, though.

"You're leaving, Warden? Are you abandoning us to the darkspawn right at the very moment we need you the most? We need your magic here to be able to fend off –"

"I'm glad that you hold my abilities in such high esteem, Eamon, but I'm not abandoning you to the darkspawn. On the contrary, I'm off to kill the Omegas. Believe me, they are the real threat. Between them they have the power to level Denerim – all those darkspawn to the north –"

I nodded in the general direction of the bridge.

"– are mere distractions, compared to those ten. Besides,"

Here I gave a smile that was only half-mocking.

"You have the greatest swordsman in all Thedas here. I'm sure Ser Cauthrien should be able to hold the bridge alone, if nothing else."

I took my leave.

The Omegas were right, you know. In an actual battle, it would be might that decided the victor. Always had it been so, and always will it be. As it is, if I fought them, I would lose – with certainty.

But why fight, when you can stab someone in the back?

-(=DAO=)-

The man ran.

His legs trembled. His breath came hard and fast. His head was dizzy.

He was exhausted. He wanted nothing more in the world than to stop.

Except there was a monster behind him. Fear pushed him on.

He ran.

And slipped.

The ground was trembling, and shaking, and grinding beneath him. It felt as if the world was coming apart around him.

He used a hand to push himself back up, and continued running.

His lungs were burning.

He slipped again.

And got up again, and continued running.

Now his knees were pulsing with pain.

But it did not matter.

What mattered was that he could still feel the monster chasing him.

A desperate gasp escaped his throat.

He slipped once more, and this time his fall twisted his ankle. Pain lanced up his leg.

He would have cried, but fear left no room for that.

For the third time he pushed himself up, and for the third time he continued running. His ankle screamed in agony at every step, but he ignored it.

The monster was closing in.

He came to a stop in front of the door to his apartment.

He slipped the key to it out of his pocket, and put it into the lock.

Or at least he tried to.

His fingers were trembling so badly that he could not even fit the key into the small hole of the lock.

The frustration of it only caused his terror to mount.

He used his left hand to grip his right, and together he managed to jam the key into the lock, and turned it.

He ripped the door open, and almost fell into the room.

But at least he managed to shut the door, and lock it. Whether it was from the last semblance of a presence of mind, or if it was from long habit – he could not say.

He half crawled, half stumbled his way to the back of the room.

A loud bang resounded throughout the small back alley apartment.

Someone was smashing at the door.

The monster was here.

His terror spiked.

Something warm on his thigh.

If he had the least shred of something resembling sanity, he would have realized that he had just pissed himself.

But he did not even realize that, for there was no space in his mind left except for raw, unadulterated, overwhelming fear.

Another loud boom.

He had trapped himself.

And with a last crash, the door was smashed open.

The silhouette of a monster filled the doorway.

The face of evil presented itself. Skin like rotted leather. A gaping maw. Bulging eyes.

The monster raised its sword.

He did not even have the strength to scream as –

–

The monster's blade arced through the neck of the Enemy.

Blood splattered the ceiling, the walls, the floor. It covered the serrated edge of its sword. It dripped.

Its hatred for the Enemy was satiated.

For all of a fraction of a second.

And then it turned, and strode out of the door, in search for more to slay.

God's will thrummed through its veins. It knew what it had to do; what must be done; what would inevitably come.

It would kill. And kill. And kill again.

Until all was death. Until the world was purged of all life. Until the curse of living was eradicated.

Until then it fought.

Out in the main street, more of the Enemy flooded north, in droves, driven forth by Their might.

Its sword flashed, and cut down the nearest one. The next one had its head taken off with an horizontal slash. The one after that was split down the middle with a heavy blow.

It roared.

Let them know terror. Let them know the futility of living. Let them welcome death.

God's voice was in its head, urging it on.

It ran, chasing after those who fled.

The Enemy was scampering away, trying to escape the inescapable.

It would show them the Truth.

It reached the closest one, the slowest runner, and hacked it down.

Without stopping, it lunged out and cut deeply into the side of another, the force of the strike causing its limp body to spin away.

Yet another had tripped over itself, and was on the ground.

That one it stabbed through the back, with a swift downward thrust.

God's power infused his spirit.

And God would not be denied.

A door across the street slammed shut.

Futile. Futile. All completely futile.

They did not understand.

So it would make them understand.

It bounded across the street.

With a kick, it shattered the door into timbers.

It entered the dwelling.

The Enemy cowered before him.

It opened the first one from groin to neck with an upwards backhanded stroke.

Its guts fell out, and blood pooled onto the floor.

Someone screamed.

Then it screamed no more, as it stuck its sword into that ugly mouth.

The last of the Enemy was the weakest of them all – mere spawn.

That one it gripped by the head. It squeezed, and the spawn's head was crushed upon itself.

It turned, to head out, and saw the glint of flashing steel –

–

The soldier withdrew his sword from the head of the hurlock.

It was too late for the poor family though. They were all dead.

He tried not to look too long or too hard at the small, headless corpse.

He had been running a message from the Alienage to Fort Drakon, and was on his way back when he ran into a tide of fleeing civilians.

And soon after the fleeing civilians came the darkspawn.

Fear gripped him. Fear gripped him so badly that it was a physical pain felt deep in his guts. Fear took hold of him and made him want to run.

But he did not.

For it was his job to defend the city, defend those who could not defend themselves.

Besides, there was nowhere to flee to.

They had thought that the river would keep the darkspawn at bay, but clearly it had failed to do so. The southern part of the city was being overrun just as its northern part had been.

All that was left was to fight. To kill the darkspawn if he could. To die fighting, if it came to it.

A darkspawn came for him.

It was fast. Much faster than he was.

He barely managed to scramble backwards as the darkspawn's sword cut through where he had been a second ago.

The next swing he caught on his shield, and the strength of the blow almost knocked him over.

But he stood his ground.

With a roar, he turned the sword aside, and stabbed out.

The darkspawn caught his thrusted blade on its own shield, but this only caused his sword to be deflected upwards and into the darkspawn's own face.

His sword cut deep, gorging out an eye and shaving off part of the darkspawn's face.

Still it snarled. Still it was alive. Truly these things were monsters.

He knew he was an average swordsman at best. He was no Ser Cauthrien. But he knew how to take an opening when it was offered.

He pushed forward, and twisting his blade he slashed across the darkspawn's head, the only unarmoured part of it.

His sword sunk deep and satisfyingly into the monster's flesh.

This time, his blow managed to fell the monster.

He stepped back, and gave a gasp of relief.

The relief did not last long, however.

Another darkspawn, much larger than the others, advanced towards him.

This one was armoured from head to toe.

Its armour was almost ornate, and lined with spikes. Its own helmet was massive, and crowned with twisting horns. Its sword was gigantic – the biggest he had even seen, bigger even than the legendary Summer Sword itself.

With speed almost unbefitting a monster of such size, the darkspawn brought its greatsword down in a blur of dull grey.

He managed to bring his shield up.

Then his shield was no longer there.

Nor was his arm, for that matter.

The darkspawn had cleaved through him, and taken his limb right off.

He could only stare blankly at the stump.

The shock of it was so great that it was only instinct that made him bring his sword up to parry the next blow.

It did not matter, though.

His other arm was taken off clean at the shoulder.

He didn't even notice, as the darkspawn swung once again, and –

–

The Alpha lowered his sword, as the Enemy before him fell into two clean pieces, his torso separated from the rest of its body.

It roared out to the rest of the darkspawn, reminding them to keep good order.

Killing was good.

But there had to be order to the killing.

It made it all the more effective, after all.

The other darkspawn, mindless fools that they were, were overcome by their bloodlust, and had wandered off on their own to chase Enemy stragglers.

Mighty as They were, even They could be ambushed and killed by the cowardly enemy.

As those last two fools proved – felled by the weakling before him.

He kicked out in hatred at the torso of the dead Enemy.

The body part was launched a short distance, and smacked into a wall.

A lung fell out.

Snorting, he turned away, and roared more orders at its underlings.

God was speaking to him, reminding him of his role to play. Set above the mindless others with a mind of his own, he was made to rule his fellow darkspawn. It was his job and purpose to guide them forward, to accomplish God's great design.

Backed by two of his fellows, he entered one of the Enemy's buildings.

Some were huddled by a bed.

They were his.

A swing of his sword cut one down.

The second one had its head split against the wall.

Upwards and onwards.

They ascended a flight a stairs, to the next level of the building.

More prey awaited.

He was indeed privileged. God himself had touched his soul, and elevated him beyond the rest.

He would repay God's favour a thousand times over, with sacrifices piled a thousand high.

Another room, another set of Enemy to be slain.

He swung his sword in an arc, and took off the head of one cleanly.

Another gave a strangled scream, before he brought his sword around in another revolution and silenced it.

He turned to the steps once again, and once again they ascended.

The next and final room at the top of the building was packed with the Enemy.

It seemed that today God had blessed him. He would have the honour of massacring the Enemy wholesale.

Cut. Bash. Thrust. Slash.

They fell.

Lacerate one. Bring sword around to open a huge gash in another. Smash the head of yet another open. Whirl around to fold another one over with a chop.

They slumped to the ground.

Turn around and behead this one with a flick. Spring around, extend, knife that one. Drive another one into the wall and slit its throat. Batter this one in the mouth with the pommel of his sword, then stick him clean through.

Bodies everywhere.

With a leftwards swipe, kill one of the two cowering on the ground. A follow-up rightwards twist ripped open the face of the other one.

The spawn they were cowering over in a futile attempt to protect it, he skewered.

Then, with a dismissive shake, it shook the Enemy spawn off his sword, and out the window.

Outside, fire roared. It seemed as if the Prophets were enjoying themselves.

The Enemy all dead, They left the building.

The street was chaotic. In his absence, order amongst his troops had broken down. He roared again, to try to –

–

The apostate panted, with lightning trailing from his fingers, as he released the spell that had destroyed the Hurlock Alpha and the two other darkspawn.

He was a coward. He knew that better than anyone else.

He regretted that. More than anything else.

If only he had been braver, cleverer, stronger, he could have saved her – the woman he loved.

But he wasn't.

He had destroyed his phylactery, with her help, and they had fled the Circle Tower together. The Templars tracked them down. He killed them, in the end, with rage and blood magic on his side, but by that time it was too late. She had died. Died, because he couldn't protect her.

And if he couldn't protect her, how could he protect these innocent people against the darkspawn?

All he was left with was regret. Regret, at least, he did not lack. Oh no – it, along with self-loathing, was something he had in excess.

His old friend used to tell him that the best life one could live was the life with no regrets.

On that count, then, he was a complete and utter failure.

His old friend – another one of his regrets.

He still remembered the last time he saw him – his dishevelled clothes, his panicked expression, his rushed words.

His friend had pressed a key, and a note scribbled with instructions into his hand.

"They will come for you, because of what I did. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. Read this, use the key, and run."

Then he had left with the bearded man in the silver armour.

He never saw his friend again.

There was so much that he had wanted to say, to do. Thank him for the help, for one. He had feared being made Tranquil, and his friend's gift and instructions had helped him escape that ghastly fate. He also wanted to apologize – for not even daring to help his friend when his friend had gotten into trouble – though he had no doubt that had it been him who had been imprisoned for the illegal use of blood magic, his friend would have killed all the Templars in the tower just to save him. But ultimately, what he wanted was to clasp his friend's hand, look him in the eyes and tell him with all earnestness how much their friendship meant to him.

He had hoped to meet his friend in this city, but as usual his hopes amounted to nothing.

He was alone, with regret his only companion.

But no more. No more.

For the first time in his life, he would do the right thing. He would not be a coward. He would not run away.

He stood in the middle of the street, in the face of the incoming tide of darkspawn.

He breathed in, and then out.

He pulled more magical power in from the Fade – this was a skill that he had struggled long and hard to achieve; he still remembered those long months and his frustrated grunts and his friend's amused snorts as he tried and failed and tried again to get this spell right.

But under his friend's persistent tutelage, he had.

He would put it to good use.

The first darkspawn he froze from the inside out.

Then he released a blast of cold wind to cover the whole street and incapacitate the onrushing darkspawn.

He could hear his friend's voice as he lectured on about proper combat procedures.

Protect yourself first, before thinking of harming the enemy.

He transitioned to his next spell, inundating the road with roaring flames, killing the still advancing darkspawn.

Then, he formed a ball of fire – and hurled it.

His friend's favourite spell, this was – he used to say that all problems could be solved with sufficient fireballs.

The resulting explosion shook the street, and immolated whatever monsters that still stood before him.

But more came.

Maker, there were so many of them!

It seemed as if he had no choice.

His head pounded as he used blood magic to pull greater and greater amounts of magic in from the fade.

Then he reached out to the front ranks of the attacking darkspawn, and ripped at their minds, using them as conduits for further channelling of raw magic.

As his sacrifices stumbled to the ground, blood streaming from their eyes, he used his trump, his strongest spell.

The gigantic mob of darkspawn collapsed before his power, writhing about in pain.

It was a terrifyingly powerful spell indeed – but so too did it put a terrifying strain on his body and mind.

A touch to his face confirmed that he had gotten a nosebleed. Not uncommon, for blood mages –

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

He collapsed to the ground, and jerked and flailed and writhed about as pain, agonizing and complete and unrelenting, filled him.

The assault of electricity that was surging through him was moments away from killing him.

And in those last moments, his regrets bubbled up again. What he would give to see Lily again, as well as –

–

The Omega, nimbus of lightning whirling around him, glanced down at the dead Enemy mage.

Its memories flowed into him, as did the memories of the others who had recently died in the area.

Conventional magical theory would hold this to be impossible, but truly nothing was impossible with Their peerless mastery of blood magic.

It was joyous – watching the chain of death as human and darkspawn killed each other in turn.

Killer and killed. Murderer and victim. Slayer and slayed.

It filled him with an indescribable pleasure, to witness death from the first-person point of view. They never see it coming. Even when they think they're ready for the Eternal Silence, they are not – no one is.

He stood there, on the rooftop, looking down at the world of men.

They were so small, so weak, so insignificant.

Like ants.

And ants were meant to be crushed.

From the halo of electricity around him, bolts arced out, simultaneously striking down a dozen or so targets.

Too easy.

Of course it was.

God's power infused his very being. Unlike the millions of ordinary darkspawn, he and his companions alone wielded the divine power.

He was Fourth amongst the Ten – one of the greatest weapons that God had forged to cleanse the world of the Enemy.

He was a Prophet – when he spoke it was God's own inviolable commands that boomed forth.

He was Omega – envoy of the end for all life.

More lightning arced out, and again more than a dozen lives were snuffed out instantly.

He and his nine companions had finally found him.

Amell the Genocide.

They would repay him for Ostagar, many times over.

Lightning struck again, and once again a dozen lives and one were ended.

With some reluctance, he released the spell.

The First had warned them not to waste too much magic before their great battle. They had to conserve their strength for fighting the Genocide. As it was, he had probably played around too much.

But there was no need for concern. The First worried far too much.

The Genocide might have been strong, but each of the Ten was mighty indeed, second in power to only God himself. Together? They would break the world in two.

The ten of them were spread out in formation, and using magic to boost their physical abilities, they leapt from rooftop to rooftop, converging on the palace district in the distance.

The magical signature that they were closing in on was unmistakably the Genocide's. Staggeringly massive, its presence dwarfed everything else in the city save for the Omegas.

The Genocide had been suppressing his magical signature originally, which made him hard to track. They had to resort to long range harassment to flush him out.

But it seemed that he had given up on subterfuge. He was confident of fighting all ten of them at once?

Arrogant mortal.

With a final burst of magic, the ten of them cleared the final stretch.

They landed on the stone battlements, in a perfect circle, surrounding the cloaked figure standing out in the open.

The First leapt down to the ground gracefully, and walked up towards the hooded figure.

Their leader spoke, his musical voice lilting and otherworldly,

"Are you afraid to show your face, Genocide?"

The First twitched a finger, and wind howled across the palace district.

For all his talk of caution, the First certainly had a flair for the theatrical.

The dramatic wind blew the hood of the Genocide's cloak back, and red hair caught the breeze like a candle flame in the wind.

A women smiled back at the First.

Then there was darkness.

Then there was pain.

And then was nothing –

–

I trembled with the effort of the casting of the Blood Wound.

My limbs felt weak. My vision was blurring. My mind screamed with pain.

I had no one else to blame. Flemeth did warn me, after she saved Alistair and I at Ostagar, that my overuse of Blood Magic had left me permanently... scarred.

She had healed me as much as she could, but something in my mind had been broken, and could not be fixed.

Use Blood Magic to any significant extent again, as I had just done, and I may well die.

But it worked. My plan worked.

Get Leliana to injest copious amounts of lyrium, and simulate a powerful magical signature – fooling the Omegas and drawing them into a trap.

A trap which I closed with my Blood Wound.

I had reached into their minds, shut off their senses, and then proceeded to stimulate every pain receptor in their body to the most extreme extent, which triggered cardiac arrest, which of course led to certain death.

The deadliest spell in the world, and utterly impossible to defend against.

The Omegas, for all their might, were slain. I could no longer sense them. Their magical power, once so oppressively suffocating, was completely gone.

But something had gone wrong.

The spell had taken more out of me than I had expected. My old injury had flared up. The pain in my mind was unbearable, damn it.

I staggered out of the building I had been hiding in.

But more than the aggravation of my old injury – there were... foreign memories in my mind.

They were swirling around, so utterly, disgustingly alien. I wanted to claw my brains out.

Had there been a backlash? Was one of the Omegas using blood magic of its own, and when I entered his mind, did I receive a parting gift?

I groaned in pain.

And then stopped, and with sheer effort of will, forced myself to stand upright.

In front of me stood an Omega.

He had his huge arm around Leliana's neck.

And a knife pointing right into her jugular.

Impossible. Impossible. Impossible.

The Omega spoke, his voice musical yet dripping with poison,

"Stop right there."

He didn't need to speak his threat. It was plain from the knife to my friend's throat as to what was being threatened.

How on earth...

Blood Wound was unstoppable, and fatal.

My spell had worked, as attested to by the fact that the corpses of the other Omegas littered the ground all around us.

And why was the Omega's magical signature gone? He hadn't bothered suppressing it before –

Ah. Ah.

The truth dawned on me.

The moment the Omega had felt the tendrils of my power reaching into his mind, and shutting off his senses, he had reacted. With admirable ruthlessness, no less.

He must have destroyed his own connection to the Fade, severing my control and protecting himself from the second, fatal part of the spell.

Of course, this left him powerless, reduced to wielding knifes and taking hostages.

I laughed, despite the fact that laughing caused my head to hurt even more than it did.

Oh, this was farcical.

An Omega, master of magic and scourge of the living, made himself a magical cripple, and now had to resort to hostage-taking to fend off another effective cripple – me.

You must admit, it was really funny, in a macabre way.

The situation was dire, though.

I had little strength left, and the Omega, though stripped of his powers, was far stronger and bigger and faster than any human – far too strong for Leliana to fight off, at any rate.

He didn't know that I myself was barely capable of walking, though.

I could use that to my advantage.

Or not.

The last of my strength gave out, and I dropped to my knees.

A choice presented itself in that single fateful second. I could still see the path to victory, and the sacrifice that if made would bring us another step closer to ending the blight. So in that split second, I chose, and as always, I chose the greater good.

As I fell, I gathered the last of my power, and jabbed out.

Lightning lit the darkness for the last time that night.

In the stone-cobbled square, three people fell.

I lay face down on the ground.

I didn't even try to look at the other two bodies.

I knew what I had done.

I lay there, unmoving and empty.

Was this the end?

Somehow it didn't bother me that much.

I had failed to achieve what I had set out to do.

It had been a fair try, though. Taking down the Omegas was no mean feat. It would at least clear the way for the Grey Wardens attached to the Orlesian forces to make an attempt on the –

A dragon's roar split the sky.

Despite myself, I trembled.

The Fifth of the Pantheon of Seven was here, to finish what the other Archdemons could not.

I craned my neck as much as I could.

God himself was descending over Denerim.

My magical abilities ruined beyond belief, I could still feel its overwhelming, incomprehensible, infinite power, radiating out over the City like the sun itself.

It felt like the air itself was choking you. It felt like drowning in an abyssal ocean. It felt like a mountain was crushing you into the ground.

So this was the power of the an Old God.

It almost made me glad that I was going to die there in the dirt.

How great my hubris was, to think that I could match that.

The darkness was creeping over me, and I didn't resist.

-(=DAO=)-

Someone was grabbing my head.

I wished that they would stop that. It hurt.

Warmth infused me. The pain disappeared, and through the corners of my blurry vision I could see cool green light.

Someone using the Heal spell on me.

I could literally feel my injuries disappear.

The healing was working.

I was being pulled back from the brink of death.

Then the green light faded, and she helped me to a sitting position.

I gave Morrigan a weak smile, and said in a hoarse voice,

"Thanks. What would I do without you?"

"Die, while drooling blood into the dirt? Now keep quiet. Tis' not done."

A bright golden glow from her hands.

A Rejuvenate Spell, to help my depleted mind restore its mana level.

I had come close to death. So close. Not just from the physical toll extracted by blood magic, but also from mana exhaustion.

I could feel my strength return, as Morrigan transferred her own mana into me, lending her strength to mine.

"Mana transfer? In the Circle Tower, that was a euphemism for –"

I was blathering, and I knew it. Because if I didn't I would have to think about –

"Amell, could you please shut your mouth for a few seconds? I'm trying to save you from dying from your own stupidity. Mana depletion? What kind of a third-rate mage makes such an elementary mistake?"

"A careless one."

Then I kept my silence, and let Morrigan work her magic. Once she had brought my mana up to less dangerous levels, she let the golden light fade.

"Your injuries are not fully healed. Nor is your mana anywhere close to the levels you'll need for combat. Yet –

She glanced up, a frown marring her pretty face.

"we haven't the time for any healing more comprehensive than this."

Indeed not. The Archdemon was here. The final part of the plan had to be executed.

"Tis the only way, then."

Blue light lit her hands, and she infused me with the Regeneration spell. It would heal me over time – it was much less efficient than a direct healing spell, but it did its work without needing the caster's continued attention.

And finally, Morrigan used the Mass Rejuvenation, bathing both of us in harsh white light, and increasing the rate at which our minds drew mana in from the fade. My mana, depleted by combat, and Morrigan's, depleted from healing me from the brink of death, would recover soon enough, given sufficient time.

Morrigan stood, and helped me up onto my feet. Leaning on Morrigan somewhat, and with blue sparks of healing still dancing over my body, we headed for Fort Drakon.

As we left the square, I assiduously tried not to look back at the two corpses.

Morrigan was a fantastic healer. But she couldn't revive the dead. And what my final lightning bolt did to the Omega, it did also to...

It did not bear thinking about. The past was past, and regrets could only weigh you down and prevent you from doing what was needed.

I focused on considering what came next.

With my strength somewhat restored, the Archdemon's power no longer felt so immensely suffocating. Even so...

I glanced upwards. The Archdemon was still doing nothing, as yet, beyond blanketing Denerim with his ghastly presence of his power.

He was absolutely confident in his victory, then.

We would show him how wrong he was. We would defeat him. We would quell the blight.

I stumbled, and only Morrigan's support prevented me from having my face planted into the dirt for the second time that day.

...

Perhaps I should take things one step at a time, for now. Try to walk under my own power before trying to kill God.

We crossed cobblestone streets and climbed sets upon sets of stairs.

Ordinarily, the place would have been populated with soldiers. But everyone capable of fighting had been sent to the Alienage, and whoever remained was shut up inside Fort Drakon itself.

Finally we came to the outer gates of the Fort.

As the soldiers who manned the gates raised the portcullis to let us in, Morrigan finally broke the silence that had lingered over us. Her voice quiet, she asked the question that she had been wanting to ask since she saved me in that stone-cobbled square.

"Amell, what happened back there?"

I closed my eyes, and struggled to find the words for my answer.

"We set a trap for the Omegas, and they fell for it. I killed nine of the ten, but one survived. I managed to slay it too, eventually, but not without... casualties."

Casualties. What a nice, euphemistic way of putting it. Put like that, killing a friend to get to the enemy seemed terribly reasonable.

"And Loghain? I notice that he isn't here with us, after accompanying you out of the City for your little soiree. Did he fall in battle?"

Technically, he did. But it would be a lie. A lie via omission, but a lie nonetheless.

"Our assassination attempt didn't go completely as planned. I escaped... while Loghain acted the distraction."

Distraction. Another euphemism. Framed like that, deliberately letting a comrade die appeared quite easily justifiable.

For long seconds, Morrigan said nothing. Then, she briefly leaned her head against mine, and said,

"I am glad that you are safe. Tis all that matters to me. Nothing else does."

A warmth crept into my chest. Despite everything, I still had her. Amidst the world coming apart, there were still the two of us.

We crossed the courtyard, going up ramps and passing by statues of long-dead heroes.

The great steel doors loomed in front of us.

This was strange. They should have been open.

But they weren't.

Nor, even after a minute of waiting, were there signs that the doors were about to be opened.

Very strange. The guards on the walls knew that we were here, and word should have reached the fort proper that the doors should be opened.

"Something's wrong."

I frowned.

Morrigan tilted her head, as she considered this latest problem, and then suggested,

"I could enter the Fort with my Crow morph, and see what might be happening inside."

Ordinarily, we would do that, but...

"No time for that."

I raised a fist and gathered my magic to blow the great doors apart –

Morrigan's hand shot out and caught mine before I could do anything else.

"Wait!"

The urgency and panic in her voice stopped me.

"Amell, are you blind?"

Her anger was apparent as she pointed at the door. I myself was a mix of annoyance and confusion in the face of her sudden, incomprehensible anger.

"What is it, Morrigan?"

Her anger deepened along with her frown, as she gestured towards the door again.

"Don't you see?"

"I have no idea what you're –"

She slapped me.

"Amell, your carelessness is going to be the death of you. How many times have I told you? Don't just touch – feel. Don't just hear – listen. Don't just look – see.

"Very poetic, Morrigan, but that makes absolutely no sense –"

She slapped me again.

"Would you stop –"

She slapped me again.

Evidently not.

Before I could say another word, Morrigan put a finger onto the great tower door, and pushed mana into it.

A complex web of runes lit up.

"Ah..."

I saw.

And I remembered.

Before this tower was Fort Drakon, it had a different name. Before this tower was Fort Drakon, it had a different purpose. Before this tower was Fort Drakon, it was the Shard of Urthemiel, a temple built by the Tevinter Imperium in honour of the Old God of Beauty.

And of course a structure built by the Tevinters would have magical defences commensurate to its importance.

And of course a temple to Urthemiel was very, very important indeed.

Ironic, then, or perhaps apposite, that we would kill God from within his own temple.

I examined the softly glowing blue runes, and the magic they were sustaining.

In response to any magic directed against the door, a Mana Clash would be triggered. Nasty. Truly nasty.

If it weren't for Morrigan...

Which reminded me.

I turned to her.

"Thank you, Morrigan. For saving me. Again."

Morrigan shook her head. Her anger had not dissipated.

"Do you enjoy this? Doing this to me? Do you know how I felt when I saw how you were about to trigger the trap? Or when I saw lying on the ground unmoving? Or when you ran off trying to infiltrate the horde without me, heedless of the danger, and then almost dying?"

Her voice was tight.

"Being with you – being like this... it's like watching your heart running around inside someone else's body..."

She struggled to get the appropriate words out.

"Please. I wish you would care for your own well-being as much as I care for it; as much as any sane person would look after themselves. Tis not too much to ask, is it?"

There was nothing I could say, or do, but apologize.

"I'm sorry."

The words sounded feeble, and were feeble, even as I spoke them.

Morrigan shook her head again. In despair? In dismissal? Who knows.

She changed the topic. We weren't the sort comfortable with our own feelings. Talking about them at length – not our idea of a good time.

"Can you read the runes? What exactly do they say?"

I looked back at the door.

The runes were Old Tevene. And as it happened, I was literate in the language, and could read the runes – albeit very slowly, and with great difficulty.

I took my time to take in the words, and understand them, before I attempted to explain them to Morrigan.

"It's a puzzle, of a sort."

I gestured to the cluster of runes located highest up the door.

"Those are the core runes, which support the main part of the spell – if someone attempts to magically assault the door, they will trigger a Mana Clash against the offending mage."

Then I gestured to the paragraph of runes located below the topmost cluster.

"These are non-magical runes. They're don't support the spell. They're literally just words – here to tell us what we need to do to open the door."

I read the runes aloud.

"Seeker, you face three paths. There is the Path to Urthemiel, which is laid with truth. Then there is the Path to Oblivion, which is laid with lies. Then there is the Path of Man, laid with both. The Path to Urthemiel is the only path forward, for all other paths lead to death."

I pointed to three cluster of runes – left, centre and right – that were located at around eye level for us, and read then out as well.

The leftmost one was titled "The 1st Path", and read "The 2nd Path is the Path of Man, and leads to death in the end."

The centre one was titled "The 2nd Path", and read "Beware the 3rd Path, for it is the Path to Oblivion, and will bring you nought but sorrow."

The rightmost one was titled "The 3rd Path", and read "Rejoice, for the 1st Path is the Path to Urthemiel, and by taking it you shall know eternal joy."

I elaborated.

"Essentially, we have three choices. The so-called Path to Urthemiel is the correct one, and choosing it will cause the door to open magically. Choose wrongly, and... well, we eat Mana Clash."

Morrigan snorted.

"Tis what you Tower mages come up with in your spare time? Word games?"

I smiled.

"You don't sound very impressed. Which would you say is the correct answer, then?"

"Is that a challenge, Amell?"

"If you feel up to it. Just don't hurt your brain thinking too hard about it."

"Oh? Big words from the man who almost got killed by a door."

"Heh. Touche."

"Regardless, tis really simple, no?"

She extended one pale finger to point at the leftmost rune cluster.

"This one – the 1st Path – let us assume that it is the Path to Urthemiel. Then it would be "laid with truth", would it not? The statement it makes must be true. And since it says that the 2nd Path – the centre cluster – is the Path of Man, then by elimination the 3rd Path – the rightmost one – must be the Path to Oblivion. Yet the Path to Oblivion is supposed to be "laid with lies", no? So when the 3rd Path says that the 1st is the Path to Urthemiel, it must be lying – so the 1st Path cannot be the Path to Urthemiel. A contradiction arises if we assume that the 1st Path is the Path to Urthemiel; hence it cannot be so."

Brilliantly deduced.

Morrigan continued.

"And how about the 3rd Path? What if we assume that tis the Path to Urthemiel? Then what it says must be true – but what it says is that the 1st path is the Path to Urthemiel. Once again a contradiction arises; if we assume that the 3rd Path is the Path to Urthemiel, then it cannot be the Path to Urthemiel."

The Liar's Paradox, or at least a variant thereof.

Which left us with...

"All that remains is the 2nd path. If it is the Path to Urthemiel, then when it says that the 3rd path is the Path to Oblivion, it's telling the truth. And if the 3rd path is the Path to Oblivion and thus lying, then of course the 1st Path is not the Path to Urthemiel, as the 3rd path claims; rather, the 1st path is the Path of Man, whose statement may or may not be true. In the end, we see, clear as day, that necessarily the 2nd path is the Path to Urthemiel; nothing else is possible."

I clapped.

"Do you want to do the honours?"

Morrigan shrugged.

She put her one hand on the large circular glyph inside the centre cluster.

With an injection of mana, the whole door glowed in response, and started opening inwards of its own accord.

Morrigan and I shared a smile, and then we headed into Fort Drakon, taking one step closer to the end we sought.

-(=DAO=)-

We did not expect this.

I'm not sure what we were expecting.

But it wasn't this.

A company of templars, one hundred strong, heavily armoured and heavily armed.

They stood before us in battle array.

No, we certainly weren't expecting this.

Then again, as we mages liked to say, no one really expects the templars to come for you, until they actually do.

A massive spike of magic behind me.

I spun around, and looked out of the entrance.

Fort Drakon sat on a hill, and from here we had a good view of the city.

I had turned just in time to see a brilliant blue-white wave of light as it exploded outwards from the Archdemon, aloft above the Alienage.

Dread gripped me.

The wave of magic intercepted the hundreds of ballistae bolts that were arching towards the dragon.

And froze them in mid-air.

But the wave didn't stop there.

Even as the frozen ballistae bolts fell from the sky, the wave washed over perhaps a kilometer-square wide area.

And for that kilometer-square – a perfect circle around the Archdemon – everything was frozen.

One moment, everything was normal; the next instance, an impossibly large area was entombed in ice.

I gritted my teeth.

If I wanted to stop what I just saw from happening again, I would have to succeed.

I turned my attention back to the templars.

I stepped forward, and spoke, my voice cold and flat,

"What is the meaning of this."

The lead templar – Knight-Commander Tavish, who else – did not seem too shaken by the Archdemon's feat of magic; or at least he did not let it show. He responded to me, his own voice hard and terrible.

"We saw what was inside the Grand Chamber. We know what you're planning to do. Warden, I did not think that even you would be so mad as to try something like this."

Ah. So they knew.

This was most troublesome. The Archdemon already here; the destruction of the city imminent; the window of opportunity to stop the Blight for once and all, closing shut.

I would make one last attempt to persuade Tavish and his templars to step aside. But if they refused...

"Knight-Commander Tavish, I am not proud of what I plan to do. But there is no other way. This will allow us to kill the Archdemon, and end the Blight. Here. Now. We will save the world from a infinity of suffering."

Tavish's horror and disgust was apparent.

"Warden, this... is... wrong. Evil. Forbidden both by Maker and by mortal law. No matter what, this is utterly impermissible. How can you possibly think to do this to innocents?"

My impatience grew. I snapped back at the Knight-Commander.

"Tavish. Listen to me. If you give two shits about the lives of innocents, then surely you must see that this is justified. Some people die here, so that many more – innumerably more – can live. How are their deaths any different from sending men into battle against the darkspawn, when their consequences turn out the same?"

His face hard with revulsion, the Knight-Commander shook his head.

"Maker help you. Is there nothing you will not do? At long last, Warden, at long last –have you no shame, no decency? Are there no depths of depravity that you will not plumb? If you cannot see that this is wrong, then you are lost."

We stood there, at an impasse. I made one final attempt to resolve the situation peacefully.

"Knight-Commander Tavish. I ask you one last time. Please, let us pass."

The Knight-Commander closed his eyes, and gave his answer.

"No."

I sighed.

So be it.

My eyes caught Morrigan's.

It began.

She stepped out in front of me, and whispered,

"Stay close."

Of course. I didn't have to be told. I had no intention of being caught up in the magic that she was about to unleash.

I couldn't see the invisible, gaseous poisons that Morrigan had summoned, but they were there. Swirling around us, utterly lethal. As the templars would soon discover.

The Knight-Commander collapsed, his sense of balance removed by a Disorient.

His second-in-command barely managed to step forward before he gasped, and started choking on Horror-induced fear.

Then the air around us exploded outwards, and those templars closest to us were hit with Sleep, and fell – unconscious even before they hit the ground.

Some templars tried to flank us from the left, and these Morrigan caught within a Waking Nightmare – once again sleep was forcibly induced, except this time the victims' unconscious minds were subjected to their greatest, darkest fears. Even when they awoke they would not be capable of combat. If they were still sane, that is.

The remaining templars had backed off – which was smart of them, considering that all around Morrigan and I were various poisonous gases which would fell a person who took in even a single breath.

But distance would not protect them. Not from magic such as this. Not from a mage such as Morrigan.

She flicked one lazy finger at the templar that was trying to flank us from the right – brave of him; he must have seen what had happened to his compatriots who tried the very same thing.

For his courage, he was rewarded by being subject to a Life Drain – he screamed an inchoate scream as his body broke down under necrosis – his flesh blackening and dying with unnatural speed.

But it seemed that even his ghastly death only served to spur his fellows on. I guess that was what you got from militant religious fanatics. No matter how futile their efforts, and how hopeless their situation, they would run at death with open arms with no regrets.

And in this case Morrigan was only too happy to play to role of Death.

Yet another templar, braver and stupider than his peers, tried to charge right through at us.

Morrigan stopped him dead with a Curse of Mortality – quite literally – and the templar went down in a spasm, clawing at his chest as he suffered cardiac arrest.

"Morrigan, perhaps you should stop playing around."

This battle would have ended the very second it began, if Morrigan had been even half-way serious about it.

Incredibly, she pouted in response to my chide, and then quipped,

"Yet you seemed eager enough for the playing around to continue when we spent those nights together."

Unbelievable. To make such a joke, as the Archdemon wrecked the city, and as we killed a hundred men whose only real fault was a misguided sense of duty.

"Just end this."

She smiled a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"As you wish."

She casually held one hand aloft.

A globe of clear, colourless liquid formed.

Reaper's Breath. Morrigan's own invention – she once boasted to me that it was the deadliest poison in the world – wolfsbane; viper venom; even the Tevinter-manufactured methylphosphate Invisible Death could not compare. There wasn't much that you needed, or wanted, to know about it, beyond the fact that the slightest touch of it on even skin would kill you instantly.

Morrigan let the globe explode into gas, and a Death Cloud flooded the room.

The templars died – when the gas reached them, each and every one of them immediately collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.

As Morrigan worked to banish the poison mists from the air around us, so that we could cross the entrance hall and head up the tower, I mused aloud.

"Templars always expect mages to do combat with the elements – calling down fire and lightning, and the like. But..."

I glanced around the room.

"Poison kills just as quickly, and with half the fanfare."

Morrigan completed my half-finished musing for me.

"True."

Our favourite pastime – talking about ways to kill other people with magic. Morrigan and I made quite the couple.

Another massive spike of magic behind me.

I whirled around again, dreading what the Archdemon would do next.

The spell the Old God had cast exceeded even my wildest expectations.

Gigantic pillars of red-white flames, reaching from the heavens to the ground, immolating Denerim at various points.

So this was the dragon's might.

So this was the strength that made the Tevinters bow down in supplication.

The power of God, indeed.

Power I had to match. To exceed.

I was clenching my fists so tightly that my fingers hurt.

Morrigan pulled at my arm.

"Amell, we should go."

I tore my eyes away from the sight of the burning city, and let Morrigan lead me towards the stairs that we would need to take to reach the Grand Chamber at the apex of the tower.

There was no salvation to be had unless I had the strength for what came next.

Despite everything, doubt swirled within me. Did I have strength enough for this one, final task?

I did not know. But we would find out, soon enough.

-(=DAO=)-

I gasped as we finally reached the top floor of Fort Drakon.

My head was pounding with pain again.

Not a good sign.

I staggered, and had to lean against the balustrade for support.

Morrigan was staring at me, and frowning with anxiety. The longer she stared, the deeper her frown.

"Whatever's the matter? Are you still injured? Given my healing spells, tis not ... supposed to..."

She trailed off.

I rubbed at my forehead with my left hand, as my right grasped the balustrade for support.

As I massaged my pain-laced head, I could see, through the gaps between my fingers, as Morrigan's face grew pale – the blood draining from her already snow-white face, making her look ghostly in the very dim light of the antechamber we were in. I could almost see how the pieces in her mind were falling into place.

Her voice was slow and deceptively calm, as she asked,

"Amell. Have you been using blood magic?"

There was no point lying, so I answered truthfully. I muttered,

"Twice tonight. Blood Sense once, to track the emissaries outside Denerim. And then Blood Wound, against the Omegas.

Morrigan blanched.

She was so overcome with anger that for long seconds she was left speechless. Finally, she hissed,

"Twice? Blood Wound? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Do you not recall what Mother told you? What –"

I murmured.

"I had no choice. I had nothing else strong enough to deal with the Omegas."

Morrigan stood there, hooded in darkness.

I watched her face with some trepidation. Her hot anger had faded, to be replaced by a terrible coldness,

"Why did you not tell me? Did you not once say that we were one, that there would be nothing between us. You..."

Because I did not want you to worry. Because it suited my purposes to keep you in the dark. Because despite my promises I am still made of lies – even now.

I leaned back, and without meeting Morrigan's eyes, said,

"After you healed me in the palace district, I felt fine. I didn't expect..."

"You didn't expect your unhealed brain injury to recur despite Mother expressly telling you it would. You astound me, Amell."

She wanted to say more, but she bit back her harsh words. She put her hands onto my head, and her magic infused me as she tried to identify what exactly had gone wrong, and how it could be fixed.

From the way her eyes narrowed even further with tension and worry, I could tell that the diagnosis wasn't good.

"This is... beyond even me. Until we get you a healer skilled enough, such as Mother or that old woman at your Circle Tower, I would advise you not to cast any spells. At all. Especially not blood magic."

I swatted away her hands.

"Unacceptable. Morrigan, the thrice-damned Archdemon is out there. I'm sure you've noticed by now, but I can't beat it to death with my fists. I need my magic. And even ordinary magic won't be enough. To kill an Old God, I need darker medicine. You know what that entails."

Morrigan was quiet, as she looked at me. Looked through me. He voice was utterly devoid of emotion, as she asked,

"Do you really wish to die that very much?"

I looked away.

There it was. That which divided us. No matter how close we were, how intimate we were, how much our hearts touched –

I had to tell her.

My voice barely audible, I said,

"I'll die anyway. You can only kill an Archdemon by having a Warden strike the killing blow. Otherwise, the Archdemon's soul simply escapes to the nearest darkspawn's body, and in time the dragon will respawn. By getting a Warden to deal the fatal blow, the Old God's soul will enter the Warden's body, and the resulting paradox destroys both Warden and dragon. I... am the only Warden left, and the only one with sufficient power – I have to fight – to kill the Archdemon – even if it means I die."

The last word came out as something barely above a whisper. I finished speaking, and waited for Morrigan's reaction.

But she just stood there, frowning.

Huh.

She was taking the news better than I had expected.

I had anticipated more screaming. Perhaps a slap or two. A whole lot of anger, definitely.

But Morrigan simply sighed. She looked uncertain as she finally spoke,

"I..."

She looked to be struggling with something.

When she finally managed to get her words out, they came low and fast.

"No. You needn't sacrifice yourself. There is a... spell... which allows the Archdemon's soul to be destroyed when the killing blow is struck, without the Warden having to die. I have... cast this spell. Whatever happens from here on in, know that tis not necessary that you give up your life."

I blinked.

"Well, that's... welcome news?"

In truth, I had not given much thought to the fact that I would be dying today. I have faced death far too many times, been intimate with it far too often, inflicted it on far too many people, to be overly concerned with my own.

Whatever my innumerable faults, cowardice or fear of death... wasn't one of them.

Still, I wasn't happy that I had to die – all things being equal, I would obviously choose living over dying. And if Morrigan was speaking the truth...

Of course she was. She wouldn't lie to me. Not about this.

But speaking about lies...

"But isn't it rather rich, Morrigan, that you berate me about keeping things from you, when you've kept the truth about the Archdemon from me as well? I only found out today. And not from you."

Morrigan's eyes were distant.

"At first, I didn't tell you for fear that you would shy from your duty. Then... even as I learnt about the man you were, and how you were not the kind to be deterred by such a thing – I still didn't want to add to your already existent worries."

I had no right to complain, perhaps. We were both of us liars. Trying to keep each other ignorant for their own good. Ha...

But back on topic –

"You've cast the spell that will somehow destroy the Archdemon's soul when its body is destroyed?"

Morrigan looked uncomfortable as she answered.

"Yes."

The answer was suspiciously short – she was hiding something from me.

But I did not have the time or the energy to prod her further on it. Besides, something made me feel that I did not want to know any more.

Which left the final issue of contention.

"Morrigan. Look, I'm glad that my death today isn't necessary. Really. I'm not a great fan of dying. But it remains that we have to kill the Archdemon, and that will inevitably require some dangerous magic on my part."

We had wasted enough time, as it was. I lightly brushed Morrigan aside, and started walking away across the antechamber, towards the great double doors which would open into the Grand Chamber itself.

She called out from behind me.

"And if I don't care about killing the Archdemon?"

A chill ran down my spine.

There was a blur of darkness, and suddenly Morrigan was standing in front of me. She stood, barring my way forward.

I did not like where things were heading.

"Morrigan, if we don't slay the Archdemon, and the Blight is left unchecked, millions are going to die."

"And what do I care what happens to the common sheep, Amell? They are not my concern, nor should they be yours."

"Then why have you have helped me thus far?"

She shrugged.

"Because it was your goal. And I wanted to help you achieve it."

Her eyes were hard.

"But not at the cost of your own life."

"There are plenty of things worth more than my life, or the lives of any single person."

"Not yours. Not to me."

I stared at her, and sighed – a long exhalation of exhaustion.

"It is not your choice to make, Morrigan. It's mine. Didn't you tell me earlier today that you can't protect me from my own choices?

"Well, I choose to fight. To kill the Archdemon. To die, if my death were necessary to accomplish my goal."

Morrigan smiled. It was not a pretty smile.

"Tis true that I once thought that I could not protect you from your own bad judgement.

"But I realize now that I was wrong.

"Remember that I once told you that I would build mountains from the corpses of your enemies to protect you?

"And if you turned out to be your own worst enemy? Well...

"I can always break your limbs to stop you from doing anything foolish, and heal you back up again later, can I not?"

She smiled – a smile both terrible and lovely, a smile that haunts me even now.

I realized that I was breathing heavily.

I was scared.

Of what was going to happen. I made one, last, desperate attempt to avoid it.

"Morrigan. I am asking you three times. I am asking for your sake, for I do not want to see you harmed. I am asking for mine own sake as well, for I am sick and tired of hurting the ones I love. But above all I am asking for the sake of the greater good, and for the lives that could be spared if the Blight could be quelled. Three times I ask you, three pleas I make, three reasons I offer. For the love you bear me, hear me – please, step aside."

Her eyes were cool, and dark, and lit with a conviction that burnt hotter than any fire. She gave her answer.

"No, my love."

So it had come to this. We spoke, but did not hear. Our words reached the other's ears, but not their mind, nor their heart. Words had failed, and when words failed, we would have to turn to violence.

We would settle things as things have been settled since the dawn of creation – with the crimson spilling of blood.

I whispered,

"Come, then."

She came.

She disappeared into a swirl of darkness, and suddenly there was a giant spider launching itself at me with inhuman speed.

So I too dodged with preternatural speed of my own.

I triggered Godspeed, and whirled away, my speed and agility elevated to impossible levels. The giant spider passed though where I was but a fraction of a second ago.

The spells of the ancient Arcane Warriors of Elvhenan, stolen from the ruins of the Brecilian forest – powerful, but something I was only just mastering.

I would have preferred not to rely on such untested, unfamiliar magic.

But I had no choice. I could not hope to match Morrigan's shapeshifting magic without using extraordinary magic of my own, and with blood magic not being an option – well, all that was left to me was the strange magic of the Arcane Warriors.

And I was thankful that I had it.

By the dead, Morrigan was so devastatingly fast.

The spider had morphed into a wolf, which leapt for me.

An arcane bolt took it in the face, but it simply slipped into that form of swirling darkness, and what emerged –

A spotted leopard, which continued its charge towards me.

I made the ground underneath it explode, shredding the animal with shrapnel –

But again it simply slipped into that shifting mass of black –

This time it was a jaguar from the jungles of Arlathan.

It was coming in close – too close for comfort.

Invisible telekinetic blades howled into existence, ripping the jaguar apart –

But once again, to my frustration, it dissipated into the liquid nothingness.

A cheetah, a large cat that prowled the plains of the Anderfels, exploded out at me; fast as nothing else was, it burst forward, its jaws extended –

To smack headfirst into a force field.

With a blink, I sent a telekinetic blast rippling outwards, but once again with a shift into that ineffable phantasmic darkness –

The hummingbird that emerged was so fast that it managed to avoid my point blank attack.

My eyes squinted with the effort of concentration as I summoned invisible, telekinetic rods in an attempt to skewer the bird.

Agile though it was, there were limits to how it could move and change directions in mid air.

But –

A monkey emerged, screaming and screeching. With incomprehensible agility and dexterity, it avoided each and every rod, swinging to and fro, dodging and evading – how on earth was it doing it, given that they were invisible?

As if to add insult to injury, by using one of my own summoned weapon as leverage, it swung around at me.

Only to morph promptly into a giant river python.

Shit.

I drew more mana in from the Fade, to boost my own speed, and barely managed to evade the python's attempt to constrict me.

Twitching a finger, I ripped a sword out the grip of one of the suits of armour lining the antechamber.

It flew towards me and I caught it in my right hand

I briefly considered using a Mana Clash, but dismissed the idea almost immediately.

I was not so far gone. I had limits. Yes, even I had lines that I would not cross.

This was one of them. I would not use a fatal spell. Not on her.

Besides, it probably wouldn't even work. Not on a mage of her power. Not on a Witch of the Wilds.

So instead, I sent a current of disruptive magic into the sword – not as deadly as a full-on Mana Clash, but it would serve the purpose of burning up the mana within any enemy it cut, and interfering with its spellcasting.

Hopefully, this would stop her annoying, incessant shapeshifting.

I brought the sword around in a blaze of speed, trying to cut into the python.

Only for it to transform once again.

Into nothing?

No. A fly.

It zipped around, and I was completely incapable of hitting it. Every sword swing, boosted to ungodly speeds, was utterly unable to even touch this pest of an insect.

Then it was an insect no longer.

A gigantic bear reared up in front of me, roaring its rage, before slamming a clawed paw into my chest.

I was rammed into a wall.

Urgh.

The air around me wavered and glimmered.

I had barely managed to bring up the Shimmering Shield – which granted me supernatural durability.

It didn't make me invulnerable, mind you.

The blow still hurt.

Like being punched in the kidneys.

Best not let that happen again.

I brought my sword up, and triggered Combat Magic. I felt inhuman strength enter my muscles. I felt like I could punch through stone.

Probably because I could.

I brought the sword down in a swing, but before it could bisect the bear, the animal disappeared, morphing into a flying swarm.

I reacted immediately, reversing my slash to send out an arc of fire against the mass of insects.

My attack connected, but not on the fire-vulnerable insects – instead, it scratched the hide of a large bronto.

Tch.

I should have made my flames stronger, if only so it couldn't be shrugged off by an animal with a moderately tough hide.

The bronto charged at me, and mid-charge, it suddenly twisted in mid-air to become a deepstalker.

Its wormlike head, with a circular mouth ringed with sharp teeth, snaked out towards me.

I froze it mid-jump, and it stumbled.

Electricity danced on the tip of my sword.

I thrust, and lightning burst out.

But I wasn't quick enough, it seemed

An eel arced out in mid air, and by acrobatically folding over itself – it dodged, with a clumsy efficiency, the bolt of electricity.

Huh.

I recalled Morrigan once telling me that there was a kind of fish that could detect electricity.

And combined with all the intelligence of a human, did it manage to anticipate where I was about to fire my attack, and evade pre-emptively?

Impressive.

But perhaps it was no time to be impressed.

A massive gorilla emerged as my next opponent.

It raised a fist that was bigger than my head, and punched.

I met it with a punch of my own.

But one of stone, not of flesh.

A rock slammed into the gorilla, caving its chest in and propelling it backwards.

Which made me overconfident. I did not expect the gorilla to dissipate and for the next morph – a tiger – to emerge with such speed.

My mistake.

I would not be making it again.

I brought my sword up in a flick, and icy wind howled out in a curved half-moon, stopping the tiger in its track.

Again I swung my sword, this time to launch a ball of fire against the trapped animal.

No matter what it turned into, it would not escape unscathed –

Or perhaps it would.

The giant turtle turned one insolent eye at me as it emerged from its shell, having shrugged off my attack while looking no worse for the wear.

Something was not right.

My attacks were weaker – much weaker than I had primed them to be.

Was maintaining the Arcane Warrior's magic taking a toll on my ability to freely cast other spells?

Let us test that hypothesis.

Lightning lit my sword again, and I sent it arching out again, this time in an indiscriminate stream.

The turtle disappeared into a swirl of darkness, and a giant Par Vollen lizard-dragon emerged, snarling at me.

The stream of lightning hit the lizard –

And it seemed to barely feel it.

Hmm.

Perhaps the Arcane Warrior's magic really was interfering with my normal spellcasting, especially my fire and lightning attacks.

But I couldn't simply stop using the spells that were boosting my physical capabilities.

Without them, I could easily be overwhelmed with speed – and if I took even a single glancing blow, it would be over – not to mention the shapeshifted animals would have no compunction with closing the distance with me if I did not have enhanced strength as a deterrence.

This was quite the quandary.

And attacks were still incoming.

This time it was a horse, racing across me, covering the distance –

I stomped the floor, and a light tremor shook the room.

The horse stumbled.

But the real magic of shapeshifting meant that the caster could never really be caught off-guard.

The stumbling horse turned into a roaring lion.

I tried a bit of complex magic.

With a whisper, I attempted to turn the lion to stone –

And only succeeded in doing so to its huge, admittedly very impressive mane.

The partial transmutation was nonetheless effective. The lion suddenly found a huge stone collar about its neck, and the weight of it caused the animal to crash into the ground.

Time to pull out the stops.

A halo of lightning surrounded me.

I sent bolt after bolt arcing out, striking forth –

But the red-tailed hawk that the lion had shifted into was managing to avoid each of my strikes.

This said less of its speed and agility than it did about my lack of control.

I was struggling to direct the lightning – where ordinarily I would be as an archer, skilfully landing shot after shot, here I was like the village idiot casting stones at a stray dog – and missing.

Perhaps brute force might work where finesse failed.

It seemed that my opponent was thinking the same.

An elephant. It was enormous, with a trunk thicker than my body, and a bulk that dwarfed me. I had never seen a bigger animal – save for the dragons themselves.

And it was charging at me.

It felt less like an animal than a force of nature.

So it would only be appropriate if I called up the forces of nature myself.

Freezing wind howled within the antechamber. It was the poorest approximation to a blizzard I could manage.

Still, by icing over the floor, it caused the monstrous beast to slip. I managed to scramble out of the way as the four-legged monster slid across the frozen floor and crashed into a bunch of suits of armour.

The cold winds faded, as I called up my last, best hope.

Flames licked around me, growing in strength and intensity as I fed them with mana.

As with the blizzard, this inferno I was summoning was a pale imitation of what I had used at Ostagar to destroy the horde.

But it would be enough.

I sent the raging flames against my fallen foe.

I maintained the inferno was long as I could, but my magic being weakened as it was, the firestorm lasted mere seconds.

As it cleared –

I saw a giant, hulking beast simply standing there.

Not as large as the elephant, but it was armoured from head to rear.

Was this a rhinoceros? A distant cousin of the bronto, it was just as huge, but even more heavily armoured, and far, far meaner.

My strongest spell, and it had barely scorched the brute before me.

What now?

Frustration bit at me.

Here I was, exhausting the last of my magic, to no effect.

The real problem was that I was utterly untrained in physical combat – in the way of the sword.

I knew enough to know that the purpose of the exercise was to stick the pointy end into the enemy, while avoiding getting stabbed yourself.

But that wasn't enough. I didn't need to be Ser Cauthrien, but as it was I didn't even have the training of a ten-year old squire.

And without the skills to engage in close combat, my physical augmentations were largely wasted, largely useless.

Morrigan seemed to have come to the same conclusion.

She had reverted to her human form, and was standing there, cool and collected as ever.

Not even a single strand of hair was out of place.

The Terror of the Korcari Wilds. Her reputation was well-earnt.

She smiled, half-mocking, half-playful.

She was toying with me.

I truly couldn't match her – not without blood magic, and not without the skill to use my Arcane magic to the fullness of their potential.

But I had one last trick to play.

I would rather not use it, but then again we don't always get our way in life, do we?

Morrigan walked towards me, slowly and deliberately.

"Is that it, Amell? And I haven't even displayed the full extent of what a Master Shapeshifter can do."

I didn't bother responding.

"Shall I show you?

"I hope you won't object to a bit of... rough frolicking."

Then she blazed forward with speed far surpassing anything else she, or I, had shown thus far.

The world narrowed down to her, me and the shrinking distance between us.

She closed in, in a heartbeat, and a pale fist jabbed out –

And passed right through my stomach.

I glowed with the blue light of the Fade Shroud – by shifting my body into the Fade temporarily, I could effectively turn ethereal when attacks connected, and avoid them.

My trump. Dangerous, for physical objects are corrupted and destroyed by prolonged contact with the raw fade.

But I used it nonetheless, for intangibility was simply too great a combat advantage to pass up.

To Morrigan's credit, it didn't phase her at all.

The momentum of her dash carried her through me, and using that momentum, she spun around, bring her left hand about in a slash at my head.

Which again passed through me.

Which was good, because the power behind that attack could have knocked me across the room.

I counterattacked.

Turning, I flicked my sword out –

And Morrigan caught the edge of my blade with the back of her hand.

What.

Did she have durability to match her speed and strength as well?

I was starting to get the feeling that perhaps the physical augmentations granted me by the Arcane Warriors' magic was not as unique as they had first appeared to be.

Morrigan frowned.

I swung the sword around, once, twice, thrice. Downwards cut, backhanded flick, swing around to try to –

But Morrigan dodged and weaved and evaded all of my slashes with an effortless, insouciant grace.

It was as if she was anticipating all of my attacks in advance.

Tch.

It was impossible to land a blow.

It was like trying to catch a bird in flight. It was like grasping air. Like chasing shadows.

The Queen of Air and Darkness, indeed.

As she danced away from my attacks, Morrigan's frown deepened.

She spoke, all levity in her voice gone.

"Amell, that intangibility... are you jaunting your body into the Fade?"

So she had noticed.

"So what if I am?"

Her eyes narrowed into slits.

"You fool. That's as good as blood magic. Are you trying to kill yourself?"

Not really, no. But it wasn't for a lacking of trying. Already the few jaunts I had made into the raw fade was making my body burn with a sharp pain, like a thousand daggers under the skin.

But even worse than the pain was the frustration. God, this was such a waste. Us fighting each other as the Archdemon burnt the city to the ground.

I had to end this.

An idea came to me, brutal and utterly unscrupulous.

"Morrigan, this wouldn't be happening if –"

I fell to my knees, my left hand barely stretching out in time to stop me from planting face first into the ground. I gave a half-retching, half-choking cough. Blood dripped out of my mouth from where I had bitten my tongue.

"Amell!"

Morrigan's scream ripped through the antechamber, as she saw me fall.

The green glow of a healing spell emanated from her right hand even as she scrambled towards me –

She knelt before me, her hands cradling my head –

And I looked up, and whispered a silent apology, and brought my blade up in a thrust –

Her eyes wide with shock and relief and betrayal and a thousand other conflicting emotions, her left hand shot out to block my attack –

But the intangible blade passed right through her palm –

And buried itself up to the hilt in her abdomen.

"Oh."

Her blood was warm and sticky against my face.

"No. No. No."

Morrigan wrenched the sword out with a viciousness I did not expect.

"Amell, what have you done."

Her words were biting gasps.

Her hands shaking, she directed the flickering green light against the wound.

I was shaking. I was numb. I was –

Empty.

So in the end it turns out that there were no limits to what I was willing to do? Taking advantage of my lover's concern for me – no, not even that was beyond me.

But Morrigan would be fine. It was a minor wound. Her magic could heal her.

"You'll be fine,"

I murmured. Was it to convince her, or me?

Morrigan spat venom at me.

"It is not my wound, you fool. The child –"

My heart went still. Dread as cold as a winter night gripped me. I –

I...

I picked myself up from the ground, and straightened up.

The blade in my hand I gripped tightly.

I had to defeat the Archdemon, enemy of all life.

So I killed my heart.

And banished all emotions.

And left myself cold and empty and without imperfection.

I would be as sharp and flawless and deadly as the blade in my hand.

I would walk the icy road forward.

I would reach the mountaintop of victory, everything else be damned.

I left Morrigan to her desperate attempts at healing.

I crossed the antechamber

I pushed open the doors.

I entered the Grand Chamber.

All around me elves, evacuated from the Denerim Alienage, slumbered in peaceful sleep, courtesy of Morrigan's magic.

Why elves, you might ask?

Simple.

Because elves have a stronger unconscious connection to the Fade than did humans.

I had a choice. The hardest choice I had ever faced in my life. A choice of blood.

But.

I had already crossed all lines, sunk so deep, fallen so far. I had betrayed an ally, and by my machinations let him die. I had abandoned a friend, and by my own hands killed her. I had slit the belly of the woman I loved most in the world, and possibly also killed my unborn child.

Do you truly think that there is nothing I will not do? No line I will not cross? No crime I will not commit? No evil will not effect? No price I will not pay? No burden I will not bear? No sacrifice I will not make?

There is no salvation without sacrifice. No miracles without misery. No happily ever after without first making your offerings at the altar of blood. The road to heaven is paved with corpses. I could save untold millions from the Blight. What did I care if I had to step over a few more bodies to do it?

So.

I chose. I chose as I always did, and always will. I chose the greater good, and killed some so that more may live.

I triggered the Blood Sacrifice.

I broke the minds of the thousand slumbering elves.

And from the pieces I drew upon the infinite power of the Fade.

An unearthly glow lit the room.

Golden light emanated from the eyes of my slumbering sacrifices.

Shining globes of raw mana rose from their bodies, like innumerable fireflies in a silent forest grove.

They converged onto me, and filled me with power.

Power as I have never felt before.

Power enough to slay God.

I strode through the room, my footsteps echoing, and made for the stairs that led up to the rooftop of Fort Drakon.

I ascended.

Each step brought me closer to the end.

Upwards I went, to meet my high and lonely destiny.

The night air was cold.

To the edge I headed.

I climbed atop the battlements, and looked out upon the city.

The Archdemon was flying towards me.

So it had sensed the threat.

A violet glow lit the inside of the dragon's mouth.

A gravity-warping attack of some sort.

Capable of destroying the city.

It should have used that earlier on, but in its arrogance it failed to do so.

I looked at the dragon.

It was so small. So insignificant. Where once its magical strength felt so vast as to be as the sun itself, now I couldn't even feel a thing.

Come.

Come, Dragon.

Come, Archdemon in the Pantheon of Seven.

Come, Old God of Beauty.

Come to me.

Come and die.

Come and drown in the sea of blood that I have spilled just for you!

I infused the sword I had in hand with all my power, all my might. I poured everything I had into the blade. I forced every last bit of magic into the edge that would cut God.

A golden brilliance lit the night sky.

Urthemiel roared, and the world-eating torrent of violet light spilled forth from his massive jaws.

But where the Archdemon's spell was fuelled only by his own puny strength –

Mine was cast from a thousand broken bodies and a sacrifice that would not be denied.

I brought the sword down in a slash.

Violet luster and golden radiance clashed.

The evil of the blight met the darkness of the human heart.

Humanity won, of course. For the evil of the blight was always but a pale shadow cast by the true darkness within us.

The heavens split asunder.

And the dragon disappeared, consumed by the burning light of victory.

And the ground below me collapsed in a waterfall of rock and rubble.

The dragon was vanquished, and the dragon-slayer fell.

As the world was reduced into nothingness around me, I felt no elation. No joy. No triumph. I felt nothing. I was nothing. My strength spent, my heart

breaks. My mind

fractures. And my soul

shatters.

-(=DAO=)-

What happened after that I need not tell you; you found me, lying in the ruins; you healed me, so that I could be brought to trial, and so that you could learn the truth – and you have – for now you know how I earned my third and final epithet – Blight-Queller – which even in the prison you are holding me in I can hear being whispered by the sympathetic guards. Heroism, even the ruthless sort, is easily admired. Sacrifices are easy to swallow, when you're not the one called upon to make them.

And that is the story of how I slew the Archdemon with my magic to quell the blight itself – at a price paid in blood.

And there you have it. The truth, in all its naked glory. Why you had to dig the corpses of a thousand elves out from the rubble of Fort Drakon. Why there is a rift in the Veil that divides the world above from the world below. Why the Black City itself is even now visible in the skies above Denerim. I confess. It was me. All me. And I regret it not one bit.

-(=DAO=)-

Grand Inquisitor, you accuse me of effecting an enormity, as evil as nothing else in history ever was! I say that I sneaked into the heart of the horde to assassinate a hundred darkspawn emissaries; I matched the mighty Omegas in magical combat and came out victorious; I slew the Archdemon with my magic to quell the blight itself. By what right does this sanctimonious congregation of cowards judge me for doing what I had to do?

-(=DAO=)-

There is a city, dead and broken and shattered by blight and blood magic.

In the city, there is a room, vast and dark and silent.

In the room, there is a man who welcomes the blissful release of death.

-(=DAO=)-

A/N (15-12-2014):

5. Finally done, with the third and final part. Much later than promised, but what can you do – life is hard. I hope you guys enjoy it, because I don't think I'll ever write anything better. And if I learnt one thing about myself, it's that I'm a far, far better writer of politics and battles of wit than of combat.

6. Epilogue will be out sometime this week – it'll be pretty important, as the setup for a potential sequel. And truthfully I think that the epilogue will be far superior to many parts of this story – it was one of the first scenes I came up with, and aside from a few parts (the Fade; the Escape; the Chantry; the Rooftop; the Meetings) for which I felt truly inspired while writing, I think the epilogue will be better than the rest of the actual story.

7. Aside from an epilogue, I'll also be compiling and publishing my notes on the story. Anyone with questions is welcome to ask them, and I'll try to include answers in my notes, to tie up all loose ends. Just make a review, either on DLP or on FFNet.