A Brothel, the Blooming Rose. Nero was unnerved by how close it was to where he was staying; they were so close, and I had no idea.
"Well aren't they classy?" Isabela had laughed, "you know, the difference between whores and courtesans is...well, they have nicer shoes."
"I don't think anyone's looking at their shoes" Hawke pointed out, "they should be dealt with as soon as possible. Do you wish to confront them, Nero?"
"I wish only for their death."
And so, here we are. Isabella, Anders and Nero knelt on the roof of the Blooming Rose, above the rooms they were informed that the five hunters were using. This shouldn't have come as a surprise for him, Nero thought, Tevinter mages were not often greeted well when visiting places outside of the Imperium, and brothels didn't often ask very many questions of their clients.
Hawke and Fenris were inside, since their weapons were far too large to smoothly enter the rooms through the windows. They were being backed up by Hawke's sister, another apostate mage. Bethany and Anders were to focus on taking down the Tevinter mages, or to at least distract them long enough for one of the others to end it for them.
A sound plan, but they rarely ever work out well do they? Nero sighed "lets do this then."
Unsheathing his daggers Nero held them in the palm of his hand as he lowered himself over the edge of the roof with his fingers. As silently as possible he put his feet against the glass and pushed off, propelling himself in the opposite direction. Just before he hit the glass again he let go of the roof and turned to break into the room with his shoulder. Before Nero even had a chance to stand he was grabbed by a mercenary and slammed into a wall, dropping his daggers with the impact. The mercenary's hand was around his throat, a disturbing smile on his face as he squeezed.
Thankfully, before he had enough time to crush Nero's throat, Isabela jumped into the room and her dagger nearly decapitated the man. His blood hit Nero in the face and he was momentarily blinded as he tried to wipe the blood from his eyes.
Spitting blood out of his mouth, Nero heard muttering from across the room, close to the door. He glanced up just as the magister finished casting his cage spell and both he and Isabela were thrown to the floor. It was the first time a cage spell had been cast on Nero and he was momentarily stunned by the invisible weight that was pushing on him, clearly the spell was not meant to kill as it could have crushed his rib cage and lungs in a moment. As it was he barely had enough room to expand his chest to breathe.
Anders stepped between Isabela and Nero, casting a lightening spell at the mage, which glanced off an invisible barrier and shot around the room before dissolving. Anders cursed and began muttering what Nero could only assume was a spell that would break the magisters shield.
"Atticus! Grab the mercenaries and aid me!" the magister yelled as he cut open his arm with a large knife.
The sounds of fighting erupted outside of the door, where Hawke and Fenris had engaged the other two mercenaries, leaving Bethany to face the Tevinter mage alone. Like the magister in the room, Bethany had erected a shield around herself and was shooting ice spells at the other magister as he did the same to her.
Fog began to descend upon the room Nero, Isabela, and Anders were in, and as it did the two rogues felt the spell holding them down weakening. Two shades and a fire demon materialized across the room and Nero put forth new effort to free himself, watching as the magister fled the room. When the mage was gone the spell holding down Isabela and Nero completely dissipated.
Nero grabbed the daggers resting beside him and shot to his feet. Anders, close enough to still see the ex-slave in the fog, said "follow the magister, we've got this"
Nero furrowed his brow in a moment of hesitation "Are you sure?"
"Yes!" he snapped as he shot off more lightening into the foggy room, "go now or this will have been a waste of time!"
Nero nodded even though Anders was no longer paying attention and ran through the door, to stand on a large balcony that stood above a bar, patrons screaming and pushing to get to the front door and escape. Fenris and Hawke had finished off the mercenaries, their bodies in gory pieces on the floor, and had thrown themselves on the mage fighting Bethany. Said mage called forth six shades of his own. The shades demanded the immediate attention of the three companions, giving the two magisters the opportunity to escape. They ran down the stairs and Nero aimed to follow them when a shade materialized in front of him.
He growled as he sunk one blade in its chest and forced the other blade through its neck, effectively decapitating it. The head didn't even reach the floor before the entire creature turned into smoke and faded away. Nero shot through the smoke and ran down the stairs, seeing the front door to the Blooming Rose swinging shut and quickly followed.
Anders and Isabela had made quick work of the shades in the room and emerged to assist the others as Nero was running down the stairs. Fenris spotted Nero weaving through terrified people towards the exit and chose to follow, knowing the others could take care of the remaining shades.
As Nero emerged from the Blooming Rose he saw the mages were quite far away, and knew he could not reach them and hope to subdue them both. Swearing, Nero knelt down on one knee, shoving his fingers in the ground, calling for help from the tree roots he knew were there and asked that they bound the fleeing mages. Looking up he watched as roots erupted from the ground, pulling the mage's staffs out of their grasps, grabbing them by the ankles, wrists and chests and covering their mouths, stifling their yells of alarm.
The screams of fear from the crowd escaping the Blooming Rose dwindled out, the patrons having made their escapes, and in the remaining silence Nero heard the door to the Rose shut and risked a glance behind himself, seeing a wide eyed Fenris, sword tip resting on the ground in front of him. Nero ignored his shock as he returned his gaze to the magisters and quickly approached them, waving a hand over one of them to coax the roots into uncovering his mouth.
"Who knows you are here?" Nero demanded, his voice low and cold, "does anyone in the Imperium know where you have trailed me to?"
"As far as they know we could still be in Ansburg...but..." he chokes as Nero's anger flares, enticing the roots holding him to tighten.
"But what?" Nero snaps.
"We gave a letter to a man traveling to Tevinter, but he's not scheduled to leave till the morning."
"Where can he be found?"
He seemed hesitant to answer so Nero willed the roots to tighten even more around his chest, he winced in pain before answering "his name is Daveth, he trades in silks in the gallows and should be found there."
Nero smiled darkly as he allowed the roots to re-wrap themselves around the mages mouth and then continue to tighten around the two men, crushing their bodies into a bloody mangled mess. Before Nero had the opportunity to turn around to head back to the Rose to ask how to get to the Gallows he found himself thrown against a wall, again. He sputtered through a groan as air was pushed from his lungs for the second time that night.
Nero barely had time to register that it was Fenris holding him there by the neck when he felt an intense, sharp pain in his chest. Through the white fogging his vision he looked down to see that Fenris' arm disappeared into the inside of his body. Lifting his head to look at the white-haired elf he noticed that he was glowing, brightly, his face twisted into a disgusted sneer. The blue light emanating from his tattoos dimmed and Fenris loosened his grip on Nero's neck just enough that he could breath and speak, but the expression remained.
"What the fuck is that?" Nero shrieked after he gulped in enough air to do so.
Fenris snarled, "why did you not tell us you were a mage?"
"Because I'm not!" Nero spit at him, "what the fuck are you? Andraste's tits, your fucking hand is in my fucking chest! Your fucking glowing! What the nug-humping fuck?"
His eyes narrowed as Nero yelled at him but, thankfully, he slowly pulled his hand from the other man's chest and cautiously let go of his neck.
As the sharp pain receded Nero found himself sliding down the wall to sit on the ground, his legs too shaky to support his weight. Nero pulled apart his shirt to get a look at his chest, feeling around to make sure there wasn't some huge hole there that he just couldn't see. When he decided he was still whole Nero let his head fall back and sighed with relief.
His relief was short-lived, however as he felt the sharp gauntlets grab him by the shirt and haul him to his feet, the look of disdain was still on Fenris' face but all Nero could think about was how thankful he was that the elf didn't put his hand back in his body.
'What are you?' Fenris demanded.
Nero said nothing for a long time, his brain still too rattled to think. When he finally settled down he shook his head and tried to pull Fenris' hand off of his shirt 'I don't have time for this, I need to go to the gallows, I-'
"Maker's breath Fenris, let the man go." Hawke's voice drifted over to them suddenly, and the rest of the group strode over to the two ex-slaves, no-one seeming the worse for wear despite the mess that was surely inside.
"Hawke-" Fenris began before being cut off.
Hawke's voice adopted a commanding tone, "let him go Fenris." With a nearly silent growl Fenris let go of Nero's shirt and stepped away.
Isabella strode up to him and inspected his shirt, tsking as she did so "You tore his shirt and put holes in it Fenris, I think that means you have to buy him a new one." she laughed, "you might need help with shopping though."
Nero grumbled, "The shirt is fine, I can patch it up." She pulled his shirt towards her and looked inside at his chest, "Hey now, just because my shirt is torn doesn't mean you get a glimpse of the goods." Nero said as he slapped her hands away.
She leaned back and smirked "How could I not? you are a damn fine specimen."
Ignoring her Nero turned to Hawke "how does one get to the gallows?"
After explaining why he needed to go there, right now, Hawke gave him some directions that made him furrow his brows in confusion, as he didn't understand where half the landmarks the man mentioned were. Hawke sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Well," he began, " maybe someone should go with you, to show you the way."
Fenris spoke up for the first time since he let Nero go, "I'll go. Nero and I need to have a talk."
"Woow," Anders laughed, "Fenris is doing something helpful."
"Shut up, mage." Fenris grumbled.
Isabella leaned towards Anders and whispered "You do know what they mean by talk, don't you?" she giggled.
"Makers breath Isabela, do you ever stop thinking about sex?" he asked.
She frowned, "No, I don't think so, even when i'm sailing my ship its still flitting around in my head."