Chapter Ten: The Loathsome Sister Petrice
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.
The group was just getting back form attempting to track down Feynriel (apparently he was being sold or something. That should probably be looked into at some point) when they saw a woman in Chantry robes trying not to look too out of place as she was loudly requesting some help. In Lowtown. At night.
"It looks like those ladies of the night are getting creative," Isabela said approvingly. "Varric, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"We should throw this in the book?" Varric guessed.
Isabela grinned. "Absolutely. We can have a whole little subplot and, if that's successful, a spin-off! Only we should make her really a member of the Chantry and finds herself torn between the pleasures of the flesh and a higher calling. She can donate the money she earns to orphans or something."
"You are an absolute goldmine of ideas," Varric complimented her, taking out some paper and scribbling furiously on it.
"So…you need some help, huh?" one of the most clearly sleazy and up-to-no-good thugs that they'd ever seen asked with a smirk as he approached the woman.
"Yes, if you know the underground well then I would be willing to pay you highly for your efforts," the woman said seriously.
"How about we step into this dark alley where nobody can hear you scream while you show me that money?" the man suggested.
"I see no reason not to do just that," the woman agreed and led him into one such alley.
"And so natural selection strikes again," Emma said, shaking her head in disbelief of this woman's blatant idiocy.
"Emma! We can't just leave her there," Bethany protested. "We have to help her."
"But she is clearly too stupid to live," Emma argued. "And this really isn't any of our business."
"I disagree," Aveline said flatly. "I am the captain of the guards and there is someone who my guards are not protecting. Therefore this is absolutely my business."
"Well have fun with that," Emma said disinterestedly. "In the meantime, I'm going to head over to the Hanged Man and-"
"We have to help her!" Merrill objected. "She might get really hurt."
"Yes, but she's not a victim so much as an absolute moron," Emma insisted.
"And she's a member of the Chantry so she clearly deserves whatever happens to her," Anders agreed.
"Emma, come on. She could be assaulted before she's murdered," Carver pointed out.
Emma winced. "Well…I don't condone that so I guess we can go save her. Even if she doesn't deserve it."
"Mages are truly horrible people," Fenris said, shaking his head in disgust.
"Does the fact that half of the mages in this group were in favor of helping her mean nothing?" Bethany demanded.
"Not in the slightest," Fenris replied. "I always judge all mages by the worst representatives I can find. Why?"
They followed the pair into the dark alley where they came across a good dozen or so thugs who had not yet touched the Chantry woman but who immediately came after their group. Unskilled warriors were never much of a problem, however, and so they were soon dealt with.
"Thanks for that," the Chantry woman said when they were finished. "I'm afraid I don't know much about Lowtown."
"You don't have to to realize that coming here at night and then going into a dark alley where, and I quote, 'no one can hear you scream' is a stupid idea," Emma said unsympathetically.
"But I had to do that so that I could find someone with both amazing skill and integrity. Someone who might leap to the rescue of a stranger," the woman explained.
Carver rolled his eyes. "Are you seriously telling me that you set yourself up to probably be killed just so that might walk by and save you? Did you even know we were walking by? And if so, how did you know we'd help you? Were you just putting your life on the line for a hope?"
"The Maker will protect me," the woman said stubbornly. "I am Sister Petrice. Besides, I wasn't alone." She jerked her head to the side and indicated a lone templar guarding her.
"That wouldn't have saved you from that many of them," Varric said flatly. "You Chantry types never have any common sense, do you?"
"I find myself in need of strong help. I have a charge who needs safe passage from the city," Petrice explained.
"Is it a mage?" Fenris demanded angrily. "Because mages are the only ones I can think of who might need to escape the city and as a Chantry Sister you should really know better!"
"It's…sort of…complicated," Petrice told him.
"I think that this is a worthwhile venture and we should help out where we can," Anders, predictably, was in favor of aiding her cause now that it might involve mages.
"Besides," Petrice said snootily, "you're from Lowtown which must mean that you don't have much money and would do literally anything for coin."
"Says the woman dressing up as a Chantry Sister to better attract customers," Isabela scoffed.
"I'm pretty sure she's legitimate," Varric told her.
Isabela shrugged. "You believe what you want to believe and I'll do the same."
"Meet me at my safe house," Petrice instructed, handing them a scrap with the address of said safe house on it. "I'll explain there." With that, she turned and began to walk away.
"Why can't we just go there now?" Merrill asked, confused.
"That's actually a good idea," Emma said, surprised. "I guess even idiot blood mages dead-set on bringing a demon into this world to kill us all can have good ideas sometime."
"Be nice, Emma," Carver said tiredly.
"I am," she claimed. "Let's follow her there right now. This way we can make sure we don't get lost, too, and stop her from getting herself killed on the way home."
Petrice and her templar protector had literally just closed the door to their slum safe house when Emma decided to forgo knocking in favor of just outright barging in.
The templar was immediately on his guard and held up his sword as if preparing to attack her.
"I know you're a templar and everything but we did meet just ten minutes ago," Emma reminded him.
"Yes, and while normally the fact that you're all alone like this and a templar would mean that we were probably going to kill you, there is a mage's fate at stake here and so I'm sure we can curb our bloodthirsty impulses long enough to hear the details," Anders assured them. "No promises afterwards, however."
"And this is yet another reason that mages are not to be trusted," Fenris announced.
"I could probably get better help through other methods," Petrice began, "but I need someone not important enough to attract attention to do this."
"You sure have a strange way of asking for help," Carver bristled.
"I'm not really asking so much as informing," Petrice countered. "You will help him. Your conscience will not let you do otherwise."
"My conscience is actually rather flexible," Emma countered coolly. "And I don't like being forced to do anything."
"See for yourself," Petrice said, clapping her hands.
Immediately, a giant ogre-like creature who was completely bound, had his horns removed, and his mouth stitched shut lumbered over to them.
"As you can see, this is a somewhat…delicate issue," Petrice said, proving that she had a remarkable gift for understatement. "Would even a templar have bound a mage so cruelly and completely?"
"Are you looking for an honest answer here?" Anders asked rhetorically.
"Hey, what do you mean 'even a templar'?" Petrice's own templar guard demanded.
"Nothing, don't worry about it, I'm just trying to manipulate them," Petrice assured him. "Now where were we?"
"At the part where you were admitting you were trying to manipulate us, I think," Varric reminded her.
Petrice laughed, loudly and falsely. "I don't know what you mean."
"I had always suspected that being in the Chantry made you stupid," Anders declared triumphantly. "Although perhaps it's just that the Chantry attracts the stupid. It could really go either way."
"He's a survivor of infighting between them and their Tal-Vashoth outcasts," Petrice explained. "I call him 'Ketojin', a bridge between worlds."
"I don't know about you but if I came to a different place and I were unable to introduce myself – or even if I was – then I would take offence if somebody just up and decided to give me a new name," Merrill told her.
"I agree," Bethany said, nodding. "It's kind of pretentious and condescending."
"Well it's not like we can ask him his name, now can we?" Petrice asked rhetorically.
"He is Saarebas," Fenris informed them.
"Okay, how do you even know that?" Isabela demanded. "It's kind of hot that you do, though."
"He is a qunari mage and thus Saarebas," Fenris explained.
"That's not his name then, it's his title," Aveline pointed out.
"Qunari don't have names as such," Fenris informed them. "They are always referred to by their occupation – in his case, as a mage – and any individual 'name' as we would think of them are solely for breeding purposes."
"See! It's inhuman!" Petrice cried out, seizing on this foreign concept with a vengeance.
"Well qunari are not human so it stands to reason," Fenris said coolly. "Neither am I, for that matter."
"You don't seem to like the qunari very much," Carver noted. "Why do you want to help one so badly?"
"And it wouldn't even be helping them as this Saarebas wouldn't want to escape," Fenris pointed out.
"I may not like or even really understand the Qun but that doesn't mean that I have to just stand back and allow someone who I'm sure wants no part of that monstrous Qun either to suffer," Petrice declared grandly. "Look, just take him outside of the city and let him go and we'll be good."
"I don't want to," Emma said, crossing her arms.
"That's too bad because you have no choice," Petrice said contemptuously.
"I don't see how you figure that," Carver replied. "After all, we don't HAVE to leave the city and even if you command this…Saarebas to follow us and he does it would only put him in danger."
Petrice looked pointedly at Anders.
"Of course we must save this poor mage from the horrible oppression that the qunari subject them to!" Anders cried out.
"Well, I suppose that if he wants to go back after we lead him out he should at least have some way of doing so," Merrill reasoned. "And it will be much safer than Lowtown."
Carver sighed, defeated. "I see your point. Fenris, try not to accidentally murder him on our way, will you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Fenris said coldly. "I would never cowardly strike down a proud qunari warrior."
"Do you ever get the feeling he'd be a lot happier if he'd been born a qunari?" Bethany wondered.
It had been easy enough to get outside the city. There was one minor incident with a mob that had been stupid enough to attack them but the Saarebas had quickly dealt with them before anyone else had a chance to do anything. They walked outside…and literally right into a camped group of qunari. They'd been walking so long that the sun had apparently risen and was high in the sky by the time they made it outside.
"You will hold, basra vashedan. I am Arvaarad, and I claim possession of Saarebas at your heel," one of them declared.
"My 'I am being insulted in a language I do not understand' senses are tingling," Emma complained.
"Arvaarad is 'One Who Holds Back Evil' and is in charge of keeping track of their mages and hunting them down when necessary," Fenris translated.
"And that other part?" Emma pressed.
"Basra means 'thing'," Fenris translated reluctantly. "It's how anyone who isn't a follower of the Qun is referred to. "Vashedan means 'trash.'"
"So he's demanding that I do something for him while also calling me foreign trash?" Emma asked, her eye twitching. "Your people have no diplomacy, do they?"
"Diplomacy is for the weak," Arvaarad said derisively. "His karataam were killed by Tal-Vashoth but their disposal leads only here, to Saarebas and you."
"I knew that I hated Petrice for a reason," Anders growled. "I bet she didn't even want to help Saarebas."
"A Saarebas may not survive without his Arvaarad," Arvaarad told them. "I don't know how you came to hold his leash but you are no Arvaarad. Turn him over so that I may kill him and this crime may be cleansed."
"You can't just find him a new Arvaarad?" Bethany inquired hopefully.
"That is not the way of the Qun," Arvaarad said flatly. "Do not presume to question it."
"What if he doesn't want to go back?" Anders challenged.
"Saarebas, show that your will is still bound to the Qun," Arvaarad ordered.
Immediately, Saarebas fell to his knees.
"I trust that I made my point," Arvaarad said smugly.
Emma shrugged. "Well, it is his choice, I guess."
"Emma!" Carver was scandalized. "They'll kill him!"
"It's his choice," Emma countered. "The only way to avoid these qunari killing him is to kill them ourselves and then Saarebas will just go find more qunari to kill him. And I didn't even want to do this anyway."
"That is a good point," Carver reluctantly admitted.
"Excellent," the Arvaarad said, not sounding as if this were particularly excellent.
Saarebas climbed to his feet and went over to the Arvaarad.
"Well…if you're sure then we can do this here," Arvaarad agreed. "You are very lucky, basra. He does you great honor." He waved his arms and the stitches that had been covering Saarebas' mouth were gone.
"Okay, that is most definitely magic," Fenris said, appalled. "Is there no one we can trust not to secretly be a mage?"
"I'm not even sure if this is legal or not," Aveline complained.
"You should follow the Qun," Saarebas told them seriously.
Arvaarad promptly killed him.
"So…are we done then?" Emma asked curiously.
"Not quite yet," Arvaarad said grimly. "You see, you have heard words spoken from a Saarebas when you are not an Arvaarad. As such, you must die."
"…Come again?" Varric requested.
"Who knows what kind of demons could have been in those words?" Arvaarad asked calmly.
"He told us to follow the Qun which, presumably, you want for us as well," Carver pointed out. "How in the world do you expect there to be a hidden message in there?"
"Do not judge us," Arvaarad snapped.
"Since you're trying to kill us over this, I think we have the right," Carver countered. "And if you were planning on killing us for the high crime of hearing a Saarebas speak then why in the world did you let him speak to us in the first place?"
"It's a great honor!" Arvaarad insisted.
"Which we would have turned down," Carver replied. "This is so beyond the scope of anything reasonable or sane that there are no words."
"I do not have to listen to this!" Arvaarad shouted and attacked them. A fatal mistake.
"You're still alive," Petrice said, amazed, as she stepped out of the shadow. "I hadn't expected that. I suppose this means I should pay you."
"Yes, you should," Emma said, practically snatching the sovereigns out of Petrice's hand. "Now why in the world did you just set us up?"
"I was actually trying to start a war to get the qunari kicked out of Kirkwall," Petrice explained. "Whether anything happened to you was completely irrelevant to me."
"I seriously hate you," Emma complained. "One day, I will kill you and it will be amazing."
"Whatever you say, low-life," Petrice sniffed before turning and walking away.
"Why aren't we killing her now?" Fenris demanded.
"I don't know," Carver admitted. "But I guess we're not."
"Hey!" Sebastian cried out suddenly as he raced up to them.
Everyone groaned.
"You forgot to tell me that we were coming here today," Sebastian informed them. "Fortunately, I managed to work it out all on my own."
"Did it ever occur to you that we didn't tell you because we don't want you here?" Anders inquired.
Sebastian blinked and drew back. "As a matter of fact, it didn't. Why wouldn't you want me here?"
"Because you are really annoying," Aveline said bluntly.
"And you're so indecisive," Bethany added.
"And you keep telling me all about your grand exploits from the past but you're never willing to do anything now," Isabela complained.
"Can't you just go away?" Emma practically begged.
Sebastian shook his head. "Sorry, no can do. You killed some bandits for me once so now you're stuck with me forever."
"I think I've finally found a non-mage-related reason to hate Fenris," Anders said brightly.
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