Keeper Deshanna is a very old woman, with thin, grey hair that looks like it's attached to her head by pure faith. She has small, yet knowing, eyes that follow you wherever you are. She is the kind of woman that could spend all day just watching her people, mentally following their footsteps and silently noting the invisible patterns they left against the dirt. Sometimes Areina and her siblings wondered if she even slept.
It's a legend among the youth of Clan Lavellan, that Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan has been alive since the time of Arlathan. Areina always fancied the idea that her Keeper had been friends with the goddess Mythal in a time before the Evanuris was sealed away by the Dread Wolf so long ago -she did, after all, bear the intricate patterns of the vallaslin of Mythal upon her face. Perhaps she's seen firsthand the horror Fen'harel brought and has been keeping him away from Clan Lavellan ever since. Her parents would always laugh off the theory, but what do adults know, really?
Of course, being the Keeper's First, it eventually fell to Areina to find out the truth, and, well, solving mysteries just happened to be her favorite thing to do. She had been a diligent student, at least at first, but it eventually got harder and harder to pretend to be interested in practicing magic when all Areina really wanted to know was whether or not the Keeper bore an ancient elven secret that she kept hidden from the rest of the clan.
One day, Areina simply asked her point-blank if she had ever personally been acquainted with any of the Evanuris, fully expecting her to brush off the question and continue with her training, but the answer she got instead is one that she will never forget.
"Powerful answers are like powerful magic -and I am much too old and weak to give you the answers you desire, Da'len. But perhaps if you train well, you may find what you're looking for without my help."
It's just like Keeper Deshanna to be cryptic and vague; she's too old (and perhaps a bit senile) to be straightforward. However, it is still an answer that has stuck with Areina, and when she looks at the Breach in the sky and the fade rifts bleeding demons into their world, she finds herself at the center of another mystery. She wonders what Keeper Deshanna would tell her at a time like this.
It's indescribable the raw magic of the Fade, pouring out of the rift and licking at Areina's fingertips. It begs her to give it refuge, just a taste, just a small sip of power. It feels like everything the Keeper has warned her about, and it's both electrifying and terrifying. She grunts, willing the flow of energy to reverse, to go back into the Fade where it belongs. It's easier than it feels like it should be, like she's drawing on the power of something old, something that doesn't belong to her.
It's a marvel to watch Areina lift her hand up to the sky and magic fade rifts out of existence. One moment, the atmosphere is expanding and contracting with the rift at its center, reality itself is rippling like water around a stone, and in the next moment, they can breathe again, the rift is gone, and the sky is blue again.
"Sealed, as before. You are becoming quite proficient at this." Solas remarks with a coy smile on his face.
"Let's hope it works on the big one," Varric says, idly tweaking Bianca.
Cassandra grabs the forearm of one of the scouts who had fallen in the battle and lifts the woman to her feet.
"Thank the Maker you finally arrived, Lady Cassandra. I don't think we could have held out much longer." the scout tells her, a grateful smile showing through her helmet.
"Thank our prisoner, Lieutenant. She insisted we come this way." Cassandra replies, eyeing Areina, who is leaning against her staff and trying to catch her breath. She can't help but smile upon hearing this; it's clear that Cassandra still suspects her, but that she's willing to lend her the benefit of the doubt gives her no small measure of comfort.
"The prisoner? Then you…?"
"I'm glad you're alright," Areina says, extending a friendly hand. "I'm Areina."
The Lieutenant glances hesitantly at her, almost as if to make sure that the hand she's got out is the one without the mark, but then the reluctance eases and she envelops Areina's hand in both of hers, nodding gratefully. "I'm Deanne and that's Squigs, Janan, and Leith." Deanne nods in the direction of each of her companions: another human woman, furiously cleaning off her daggers, an elven archer fiddling with their bow, and a human man with an injured leg, using his greatsword for support. "You have my sincere gratitude."
Areina feels herself swell up with pride. While she can't honestly say she deserves this praise, it still warms her heart that her decision has managed to save these people's lives. It's almost fair to say that in the few hours she'd been travelling with Cassandra, Solas, and Varric, she has managed to save more lives than she has in the other twenty-five years of her life. Granted, this is only true if she wasn't the one who blew up the conclave. She wants to believe that she isn't guilty, but she can't remember anything from before her interrogation, and that damning scar on her hand only makes her doubts louder.
"The way into the valley behind us is clear for the moment. Go, while you still can." she orders the soldiers, who straighten up immediately and follow her command at once. Squigs and Janan dash off towards the mine while Deanne half carries the limping Leith along with her.
Squigs, a human woman clad in bloodied leathers with a long dirty braid going down her shoulder, turns around and waves at Areina's group. "We owe you a drink, yeah?" she hollers from up on the hill. She's got a huge smirk on her dirty face and Areina can't help but giggle at the sight and give her a wave. She's never really had a drink, but perhaps now isn't the time to argue that.
"So… holes in the fade don't just accidentally happen right?" Varric asks Solas as the group stumbles down the steep pathway towards the Temple of Sacred Ashes.
Solas, who is using his staff as a walking stick to keep his balance, replies thoughtfully, "If enough magic is brought to bear, it is possible."
"But there are easier ways to make things explode."
"That is true."
"We will consider how this happened once the immediate danger is past." Cassandra chimes in, placing a supportive hand on Areina's back to usher her forward.
At the end of the path is a large step. Cassandra can already smell death and ashes in the air, and she doesn't need to look far to find the source of the scent. The casualties of the conclave explosion stand before her, some still kneeling as though they had been begging for mercy just moments before their deaths. Some still wear the same horrified faces they had when they were alive. That they still can't find Justinia's charred corpse is both a tragedy and perhaps even a mercy.
She leaps down into the ruins of the temple courtyard. The snow beneath her boots is stained black with soot and ashes. She fights to still her heart. The corpses before her are mutilated beyond recognition, and still, she tries examining the faces, trying to match them with the faces she knew -the faces of her friends and loved ones.
"The Temple of Sacred Ashes." Solas remarks as he also drops into the ruins, with Varric right behind him.
"What's left of it."
She turns towards Areina and finds her hesitant, standing at the top of the step and staring wide eyed at the carnage, almost like she's trying to burn the sight into her memory. With a soft sigh, Cassandra lends her a hand to help get her down, which Areina takes graciously. "That is where you walked out the Fade and our soldiers found you. They said a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was."
Areina takes a few careful steps forward, her eyes glued to the ground. "I'm sorry, Cassandra. I wish I could tell you what happened here; I wish I could remember." Her voice breaks near the end and she inhales deeply through her nose, gagging at the strong stench that fills her nostrils.
Before Cassandra can reply, Varric speaks up. "Don't beat yourself up over it, kid." He sounds reverent, and much less glib than he had been earlier.
The atmosphere is suffocating. Cassandra is no mage, but even she can sense the the essence of the fade strongly around them. The air feels ever so much colder against her skin as they enter the temple. It seeps through her clothes and taunts the tense muscles beneath.
"If you are innocent, then I will find the one who is really responsible for this." she promises, stomping past them and towards the temple.
The crater left behind by the blast is enormous. It gives the sense that the entire historical structure was simply swallowed by the void. Again, Cassandra can't help but think about how the blast managed to consume Justinia whole, without a shred of her remaining. Only the Divine and the Maker know what truly happened here.
This area is dark, almost as though the tragedy that had occurred has cast a shadow over the temple. There is a sealed rift just below them, but it looks to be leaking the fade into their world. Thankfully, it's not unstable enough to let demons through -at least for the moment.
"The Breach is a long way up…" Varric mumbles, his eyes glued to the sky.
As if prompted by Varric's statement, the group finds Leliana and several of her soldiers behind them. She wears a relieved expression under her hood as she addresses Cassandra. Areina notes that Leliana is actually quite a lovely woman and looks to only be a few years older than Areina herself.
While Leliana and Cassandra strategize, Areina finds herself stepping further into the temple, standing at a ledge that overlooks the entire black crater. This place must be where the explosion originated. Even here, there are corpses watching her with sad, hollow eyes. It's completely impossible to tell whether they're human, elven, dwarven, or otherwise; any distinguishing features have been totally singed off.
"How did I survive this ?" she asks nobody in particular, feeling her knees weaken. Did Eirwa survive this? If she did, then she must be looking for Areina. They'll find each other; they always do.
She jumps when she hears a soft clink against the stone ground, and she senses Solas's benign presence beside her. "Whatever placed that mark on your hand also physically sent you into the Fade. Perhaps it was there that you avoided the blast that destroyed the temple." His face is impassive, his distant blue eyes appear to be studying her facial features, running over her vallaslin like words on a page.
"Do you think it's possible for anyone else to have survived the blast?" she asks, looking up at the sky.
The question catches Solas off-guard, and his voice gets lodged in his throat. "I… I don't -"
Cassandra comes to his rescue, however, asserting her presence between the two elves. "Areina," she calls out, bringing the young elf's attention back to the present. "This is your chance to end this. Are you ready?"
"If you know how to get me up there , I'm all ears," Areina says, slowly blinking away the fatigue in her eyes. She hopes Cassandra hasn't noticed.
"No. This rift was the first and is the key. Seal it, and perhaps we seal the Breach." Solas tells them with a curt shake of his head.
"Then let's find a way down. And be careful." Cassandra says, leading the way down the ruined steps.
It's a struggle for Areina to keep her balance as she descends and she's grateful for Solas and Varric who make great efforts to keep her on her feet the entire time. She can't help the way her knees wobble every time she looks over the ledge at the rift.
"Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice."
Her heart stops in her chest when she hears it -a deep and guttural voice that doesn't in any way resemble her companions that comes from within the rift itself. Something about it sends shockwaves through her body and causes her heart to drop to the bottom of her gut.
Areina vaguely hears Cassandra ask, "What are we hearing?"
Solas's reply comes promptly after. "At a guess: The person who created the Breach."
Passing by a pair of Leliana's archers, Areina hears Varric and Solas discussing the lyrium growing out of the crumbling stone walls. It's as red as blood and reminds her of a carving she had once seen on the walls of an ancient Tevinter ruin that she had explored with her sisters. Eirwa had told her that the carvings reminded her of Fen'harel's many eyes, and perhaps she's right; this so-called red lyrium carries a similar sinisterness.
"Keep the sacrifice still."
"Someone help me!"
That voice again. It makes her head boil, like something that should be there is inexplicably missing. She wonders if this could be related to her missing memories and the scar on her hand that continues to throb as the Breach grows.
"That is Divine Justinia's voice!" Cassandra cries out just as they reach the bottom of the path. She almost frantically looks around for the source of the voice, but her efforts yield nothing.
Solas lends Areina a hand to help her jump down to the lower level of the temple and she accepts the assistance with a courteous nod. Just as she approaches the rift, a surge of pain runs from the scar on her hand to the tips of her fingers and all the way up her arm. She nearly loses control of her entire body, lurching forward and grabbing her left arm with her right hand in some effort to keep it from shaking.
"Someone help me!"
"What's going on here?"
"That was your voice. Most Holy called out to you. But…" Cassandra trails off, at a total loss for words, and Areina can't blame her; she hadn't expected to hear her own voice either. There are many layers to this mystery and she isn't even sure if she wants to solve this one.
The veil is so thin here that she can feel the fade rubbing against her skin, causing a chill to run down her spine. Her eyes are glued to the sealed rift above as two foggy figures materialize above, blinking in and out of existence like spirits. She recognizes neither of them, but can only assume that the one in the Chantry robe is Divine Justinia, the woman Areina has been accused of murdering. She's being held up by a strange yet undoubtedly magical force. It twines around her arms like vines and squeezes them in a way that must be painful. The other figure is like the shadow of a shadow -a distant and vague shape almost purposefully obscuring itself from their vision.
A third spectre appears. Areina sees herself, all legs and no finesse, stumbling into view with that curious expression she always has on her face.
"What's going on here?"
Justinia's head turns abruptly to face Areina's spectre, her eyes wide and bloodshot. She has the look of a woman who knows she's about to die, and yet her body can't help but jitter involuntarily, whether out of fear or whether her body simply hadn't caught up with her mind, it's difficult to surmise the thoughts of a ghost.
"Run while you can! Warn them!"
"We have an intruder. Slay the elf."
There's a stern sense of finality to the shrouded figure's threat and, despite knowing that she did indeed survive that encounter, Areina can't help but worry about the spectral version of her. With that, however, the vision ends in a flash of blinding light that causes everyone close to it to recoil.
Cassandra is quick to shoot questions at Areina, her voice getting more and more desperate with each new inquiry. "You were there! Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?"
All Areina can do is gape at the sky where the spirits had once been standing. She lets out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding and replies. "I don't remember…" And it's true -she tries to remember what the Areina in the vision had been doing at the temple, but she can't. She knows she and Eirwa had been sent by the clan to spy on the conclave, but she doesn't remember actually entering the temple at all and she doesn't remember where Eiry has gone either.
"Echoes of what happened here. The Fade bleeds into this place." Solas explains, taking a few steps forward to stand by Areina's side. She watches him inquisitively as he speaks. "This rift is not sealed, but it is closed… albeit temporarily. I believe with the mark, the rift can be opened and then sealed properly and safely. However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side." She instinctively looks down at her hand again.
Cassandra immediately calls out to Leliana and her men. "That means demons. Stand ready!"
With a deep breath, Areina tries to ground herself in the moment and remove all her doubts from her mind, a difficult task all things considered. There's still so much she doesn't understand and in this moment, she feels very much like Keeper Deshanna, sitting squarely in the center of a convoluted mystery. Perhaps the Keeper had been right in saying that powerful answers are like powerful magic… or maybe she only said that to get Areina to stop asking ridiculous questions and actually practice her casting. Either way, Areina could use some of that senile wisdom of hers right about now.