Mud.

Wet mud.

Sticking to her face.

To her body.

Muttering a curse that was as much a groan Velanna opened her eyes, finding her face half submerged in wet mud, brownish puddles of water in her still swimming vision rippling as small drops of a hazy rain landed upon them. Great.

She coughed, suddenly feeling the cold water that had trickled into her lungs, the icy liquid burning within her chest. Just great.

Getting up was harder then she'd thought, the wet mud clung to her, pulling her down, as if it was some living thing desiring to swallow her whole. Velanna had to grudgingly admit part of the problem was her feeling awfully weary as well, maintaining the concentration of her work in the fade had drained her...

Pushing down with her arms she finally freed herself from the clammy mud, gasping slightly at the sensation of the cold air against her freed body. Leaning back she came to rest upon her haunches and pulled, freeing her staff from the mud as well, momentarily clutching it to her chest, feeling the reality of the wood against her, steadying herself.

"Great..." She murmured the word, feeling a headache sneaking up on her. A quick reach to her belt and she put a tiny flask of lyrium to her lips.

Tingly...For a moment Velanna didn't feel the rain lightly patter against her skin, her nerves feeling as if a small bolt of lightning was coursing through her.

It was over all too soon.

But the headache was gone, her weariness gone, her mind clear.

She put the butt of her staff against the mud and pushed, her legs struggling for a moment, still asleep after their imprisonment in the fade...yet she came to her feet, swaying slightly before steadying herself.

Turning she found the others struggling to get up as well. Sigrun and Lynn were already on their feet, the Commander with her helmet on, head bowed for some reason, the dwarf jumping slightly where she stood, taking deep breaths, clearly enjoying the clear and real air. Mhairi on the other hand was still on one knee, her hand resting on her drawn sword as she struggled to get up, the woman looking awfully dizzy as she swayed from side to side.

A grunt and Nathaniel stood beside her, his armour and face covered in mud that even as she watched was being washed away by the drizzle. His eyes were weary, but he stood straight, though only professional sentimentality for his weapon seemed to keep him from resting against his bow that he so carefully held above the muddy ground with his right hand.

He inclined his head ever so slightly to look down at her, a careful smile on his lips. "Are you...well?"

There was more in that question then was being spoken.

Velanna smiled back, what weariness remaining in her disappearing, replaced by fresh vigour. "I am well..." She arched an eyebrow at the man, smirking slightly. "...you?"

"Very well..." The man replied, voice low as he inched closer.

Velanna's eyebrow remained raised, her smirk enduring even as she felt her breath hitch, she found her voice shaking: "S-ser?"

Nathaniel's sudden smirk matched her own as his free hand moved down, finding her chin, then jaw...and finally her hair. "...my lady." It was a whisper, sending a shiver down Velanna's spine even as she let him tilt her head back.

Her eyes closed...

Her lips carefully parted...

Warm breath brushed against her mouth...

"Wh-what is this?"

Velanna groaned in frustration even as she inwardly grinned at the muttered curse escaping Nathaniel as the two parted before they could close. A quick glance told her Nathaniel's face was flushed, as much as her own she suspected, though she found herself not minding, only smiling as she forced herself to focus.

It wasn't easy.

The moving corpse helped though.

Jumping back with an oath Velanna raised her staff, watching the body they had found before the mansion jerk as it struggled to rise. The others had jumped back as well, unanimously drawing their weapons into readiness, all but Lynn...who watched the rising creature through the slits of her helmet with an uncaring borne out of weariness.

The creature came to its feet.

Yet Velanna held back, as did the others. There was something...odd about how it moved. Its movements were too jerky, too uncertain, as if it didn't know how to properly move. Everyone in the group had faced undead after all. At times Velanna couldn't help but wonder if the darkspawn kept them as pets, or perhaps as a moving food-supply...but she ignored such thoughts...the important part was that the undead so far had all moved smoothly, with an innate knowledge of their animated husks.

This one was not so. Perhaps it was simply that the body was so fresh, or that it had just been awoken...but Velanna found herself fascinated rather then revolted or threatened as she watched the leg of the creature kick out against nothing while it struggled to steady itself. The gaunt face jerked left and right, pale eyes staring at the surroundings with a mix of confusion and...fear?

It doesn't understand. Velanna frowned, confused.

Lynn was apparently equally confused as she cocked her head to the side while regarding the undead creature. "Kristoff?" Her voice actually held a shred of interest, though fading.

The creature jerked, blinked, eyes darting to regard the elf before him, as if only now realising it wasn't alone. "Y-no..." A gasp, uttered from dried lips, the creature taking a step back, gauntleted hands coming up to touch torn cheeks. "Kristoff..." It shook its head. "No...I...he's...me..." It shook its head, violently. "This is...wrong!" Even more, harder. "Wrong!"

"Who are you?" Lynn's voice held a tiny mote of a threat.

The creature's head jerked up to regard the elf once more, if due to the question or the unspoken threat Velanna couldn't tell. "I am..." It grimaced. "...Justice." What!? "This is..." It looked about, eyes wide, mouth twisting into a grimace of disgust. "I'm...not a demon...yet I'm here..." A growl. "She has trapped me here against my will, in this...dead man..." The growl grew in volume, the creature's hands balling into fists as the wide eyes narrowed into fury. "She has desecrated a dead man's flesh and committed an atrocity against myself! Does her cruelty know no bounds!"

"An abomination." Mhairi growled, taking a step forth, her sword levelled at the creature.

The creature turned its head, glaring at the woman...and she took a step back. "Do not call me that mortal. I am a victim, as is the flesh of this poor man." The anger seemed to calm the creature, its back straightening, the worried crease on its face replaced by a snarl of righteousness. "But Justice will prevail! I will find the foul woman who did this and bring judgement upon her! If it so takes me an eternity!"

"You will not have to wait an eternity." The familiar voice made them all whirl about, just in time to find the gate to the wall of the mansion swing open, only to crash to the ground as the rusty hinges broke.

And before them the baroness stood, proud and haughty...and in the flesh.

That doesn't...she was in the fade...how did she...? Velanna licked her lips. Whatever magic had been at work it had been powerful...and that meant dangerous.

Sigrun chuckled: "Oh goodie, I've been itching to kill something."

Next to her Mhairi grunted in agreement, teeth bared into a snarl.

The baroness ignored them all, calm eyes focused on the creature calling itself Justice. "Here I am spirit, and there you are, a bit early for my plans...but I don't mind." She took a deep breath, gaze darting to the dark surroundings, a smile on her lips. "It is good to be back...I will of course have to get new servants as well." The eyes turned wicked as they focused on the small group before her: "You will do."

"I am the lord of these lands." Lynn replied evenly, her weapons all of a sudden in her hands as she crouched into a fighting stance. "We have enough problems here without a delusional demon running about."

"Demon?" The baroness grinned, her lips suddenly far too wide for her head, her voice turning low and rumbling. Demon... "Why yes I am a demon by now...you'd be wise stand aside."

"Bet that'll happen." Sigrun snorted, drawing a chuckle out of Nathaniel.

Justice took a step forth though, placing himself between the baroness and Lynn as he jabbed a gauntleted finger in the demon's direction: "You will not prey upon any more innocent!" Velanna almost snorted. Innocent indeed... "No more servants, no more cruelty, no more injustice!" He growled the last, hand moving to free a shield with the warden's heraldry from its back. "Tell me where the villagers are and I will make your end swift! A mercy you do not deserve!"

"Still the concern for those pitiful shredded remains that is their souls?" The baroness scoffed, her arms distending...her back becoming hunched even as she grew...voice dark...skin mottling and turning black. "Then come, help them."

There was a shuffle behind them, making the group whirl about, finding the debris and broken ruins shift as smashed skeletons reformed, bones cracking into place even as they pushed themselves to their feet, dark sockets regarding the group with unreal hatred. The villagers...Velanna found her throat turning dry.

"Save them."

Velanna once more whirled about...and found herself taking a step back in fright at the sight.

The baroness was gone, in her stead stood a massive monster, black as the sky above, completely covered in matt scales its bulk dwarfed even that of an ogre. Its arms were thick and ended in five black claws, almost like that of a human hand...yet very much not so. Three eyes on each side of its dragon-like skull, a seventh in the centre of its forehead, all glowing with a pale green light. Beneath them its snout opened into a two sets of thick rows of white fangs, reminding Velanna of a wolf.

Pride demon...She swallowed, in the fade one thing was certain for any mage, you avoided pride demons at all costs. Yet now she stood in front of it, so close that a mere dozen steps would carry her to it...it was enough to make her shake.

"Save your precious villagers." Velanna found her chest shaking with the volume of the creature's voice, the mocking tone tearing at her, making her shiver.

Hisses...and the skeletons reached down, pulling up pitchforks, broken hatchets, clubs and even old hoes...before advancing upon the stunned group.

Surrounded. Velanna's head whipped left and right, unsure what to do. Her instructions as a mage told her to run, her heart to fight, her duty...she wasn't sure.

Lynn made the choice for her: "Velanna, Nathaniel, Sigrun and Mhairi, take on the skeletons."

Nathaniel's bow instantly answered the order, an arrow smashing into the neck of the closest skeleton in an explosion of bone, its head dropping off a moment later.

"Justice-" The beginning of an order was swept away by the defiant roar of the corpse-spirit as it launched itself at the pride demon.

A crash and the demon's fist smashed into the raised shield of Justice, but even though the creature's back bent in an unnatural angle at the force of the impact he continued the charge, his drawn sword smashing into the leg of the pride demon in an explosion of purple ichor, drawing a chuckle out of it.

Lynn was right behind Justice though, blade and axe nearly singing as they cleaved through air and scales when the elf spun mid-flight, both weapons ripping into the right shoulder of the demon and spraying the elf with even more ichor as she deftly landed behind it, moving as if the plate armour she wore weighted nothing at all. Still can't believe it...

"Velanna!" Nathaniel's bark forced her back to her own fight though, the Dalish growling in defiance as she focused, hated, channelled...rage.

Fire flowed from her fingertips, hot and hateful as it engulfed three skeletons almost on top of her. The closest instantly dropped its hatchet, the heat turning the creature into ash within moments. The second stumbled, then fell, its empty eyes sockets burning even as its limbs crumpled into stumps. The third continued, shoulders and head still afire, its levelled pitchfork dropping lower and lower even as it came at her...

Velanna stepped to the side and watched the skeleton blindly stumble past her, the pitchfork slamming into the mud and stopping its charge as its body thundered into the stuck weapon, shattering the already weakened bones into scorched slivers.

Ahead of her Mhairi steadily broke her enemies apart. Her shield tore the head off from a skeleton, her following backhanded swing with her sword tearing a second one in two by the spine. A third slammed its club into her shoulder, only for the weapon to bounce off before she slammed her shield into its knee and then chest.

A moment later it broke apart.

Sigrun was nothing but a heedless charge. Laughing, the dwarf slammed her helmeted head into the chest of a skeleton, shattering its ribcage and making it stumble back...only for it to fall as the dwarf crushed its right knee with a brutal stomp of her foot. A second one fell with a clatter, both its arms cut apart by twin axes.

Velanna wanted to throw a fireball to support them, but the two women were too far ahead, she would hit them, instead she channelled disdain, disgust...order. A raised staff and cold enveloped one of the skeletons closing in on Sigrun, slowing its movements and making it easy prey to a casual swing from the dwarf.

And behind them the demon roared, half in pain, half laughing, making Velanna cringe. I can't even look back... She jabbed her staff forth, hard, forceful. The arch of lightning swept past Sigrun as the dwarf spun atop a felled skeleton, her swinging foot crushing the face of another skeleton and sweeping axes tearing the chest of a third one apart...while a fourth exploded with the force of Velanna's spell striking it.

All the while Nathaniel's bow spoke death.

Atop a small boulder the man's gaze was steady as he stood straight and sent arrow after arrow into creatures struggling to reach the main battle, felling skeleton after skeleton as they climbed and pushed their way through the broken ruins from whence they had come. He looks so...calm...calculating...steady. Velanna smiled at the sight, despite the fighting around her.

Even as she watched the man changed his aim to where Mhairi stood, the woman's elbow caving in the skull of a skeleton trying to sneak up behind her as she shifted her shield to let a thrusting rusty sword miss it. The sword missed her body as well, instead hitting nothing but air beneath the woman's armpit...and was instantly trapped as Mhairi clamped her arm down on it. A moment later she smashed her blade into the chest of the skeleton and ripped her shield-arm back, crushing its ribcage even as she ripped its arm off.

She didn't even notice the arrow whizzing past her head and into the eye socket of another skeleton charging at her, the creature's neck giving way with a dry crack as it fell onto its back, never to get up.

No!

Velanna thought the thought even before she had fully registered the skeleton breaking through the ruins to Nathaniel's left, its pitchfork levelled like a spear as it charged...at the man who with a concentrated frown aimed down his arrow at something ahead of the still fighting Mhairi.

"Nathaniel!" She ran, moving her staff in beginning of a spell, only to realise the man was in the way...and that she had suddenly forgotten every spell she knew!

He didn't react, eyes narrowing...then relaxing as he released his arrow, the missile thudding into something with a crash Velanna was only half aware of.

And Velanna ran.

The skeleton rushed forth even as Nathaniel turned, his bow swinging in a desperate attempt to shield himself.

Velanna was faster, sweeping past the man she swung her staff close to her body in a parry, forcing the thrusting pitchfork down and to the si-

Pain!

She gasped, her leg suddenly afire as the pitchfork drew a wound across the outer side of her left thigh.

Her staff moved back-

Pain!

Her head snapped to the right, her vision swimming as she felt the hard impact of bone against her temple.

No...

She pushed forward, trying to force the creature back away from her.

It didn't budge.

Have to-

Pain!

She grunted, her head snapping to the left, white lights flashing before her vision.

Just a moment and he'll-

A scream, hers or Nathaniel's she couldn't tell, all was so...distant...

Pain!

Her stomach burning, her head swimming, fire running down her forehead...

She fell.

The fire, gone.

Cold.

No pain...?

Darkness.

Everything falling.

Everything spinning.

Everything fading.

And a distant light...

8

8

8

Thanks to Abydos Jackson for stomaching me.