davycrockett100

Thank you.

Selias

Nah its okay the Dragon Cult isn't in the area just yet. They won't appear until after Conner is cured.

I do love my Lovecraftian horrors.

dragon matt blue

Glad you're enjoying the story.

Warden Gothic - The Spoiled Princess Inn

"The Spoiled Princess does have some delicious food" Wynn was saying as the tired group and I made our way towards the building.

Everyone turned to look at the old Mage for a moment.

"I have been out of the Tower far more times than most" she explained "I've spent many a night at this inn. Clean rooms, good food and a lovely selection of fine wines".

That sounded rather nice, and it would make a nice change from making camp in the wilderness. I imagined the two dwarves that followed us around would welcome the stop as it gave them a chance for further trade.

"At least we have enough for rooms" I said, while tightly holding onto the gold that the Templars had given me.

In fact we had more than enough for rooms and even better we would have hot food that Alistair hadn't prepared. He wasn't a bad cook, but not everyone on the team liked eating so much stew. I myself would like some variety.

If the Innkeeper was glad to have us stay for the night he made no sign of it. Though he probably wondered as to why we were all covered in many different fluids. He looked between the four of us, well five if you counted my dog and sighed. To calm him I put down a few coins.

"I will have my usual room" Wynne said

"Sure, Wynn" the man replied "do you want your normal order as well?"

"I do. Thank you" was Wynn's reply.

Clearly they knew each other well.

"I only have two more rooms" the owner of the place told me "but they both have two beds".

"Alistair and I can share one room, and Lee can take the other" I decided.

It was a little soon to ask the red head to share a room with me. Well she might go for it, but I wasn't in the mood to share in any case.

"There is only one bath so you will have to take turns" the man behind the bar informed us "I'll send Felsi up to put on your bedding".

Felsi was a dwarf women who I knew was of interest to Oghren. But since I hadn't met him yet I said nothing to the half sized lady.

A nice hot bath was sounding pretty good at this point, but I was a gentlemen, well some of the time, so I told the females of the group to take theirs first. Besides I didn't actually have anything clean to wear so I'd have to buy something and also clean my armour. Really I needed a blacksmith, but if there was one around then he wouldn't be working at this time of night.

As it turned out there was a whole settlement at Lake Calenhad Docks, that existed to support the Circle Mages, and therefore plenty of people around who were willing to work hard for a mere five copper pieces, so I paid a whole silver to get all my equipment cleaned and fixed up as best as the locals could.

That went down rather well as apparently people around here didn't get to see much coin. They had a more of a cottage industry in these parts. The lower classes tended to just trade things with each other rather than use money.

Which left me in nothing more than my socks, boxer shorts and a t-shirt, and I soon lost the socks as some woman offered do darn and clean them for two copper coins. Apparently that was a rip off as others offered to do it for one copper piece, but it was a pittance to me as I kept being rewarded with bags of gold.

Then another middle aged woman, who had no doubt been drawn to inn in the hopes of making a few coins offered to clean the rest of my clothes, and they did need cleaning but that would leave me butt naked.

Which might have been the intent of lady folk around here as the war had taken most of the men away. They didn't seem the types to cheat but rarely is there much harm in just looking, and I was pretty well toned these days.

Thankfully I still had my jeans packed away so I didn't end up flashing anyone my junk.

Since it takes a long time to heat up bath water when you don't have gas-powered boilers I had plenty of time to kill before my soak. So I decided to bother the locals some more and by something that would cover up my chest. For something in black cotton I'd have to shop where the toffs did, which meant one of the larger cities or maybe even Redcliffe as that was a well off town. Still I was able to get something that wasn't offensive to wear.

I then found my room and tossed my gear upon the floor before throwing myself upon the freshly made bed.

At some point I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew someone was banging on the door and saying.

"Wynne wants you to know that your bath is waiting"

"Thank you" I replied as I started to get up.

No sooner had I left the room than Lee came to me in order ask something.

"Can we talk?"

"How about after I'm clean?" I offered "I need something to eat after that, so we chat then".

We did have a lot to talk about, but first I really did need a bath. My body hadn't gotten too dirty but there was still a bad smell clinging to my body.

When I got into the bath I realised that people in my home land really did have the good life. We had hot showers and running water for baths. It had been so easy to keep clean, and I'd always been able to wash my own clothes.

I used what was left of Wynne's soaps and found the soft lavender smell to be very relaxing. It was a little feminine for me, but they didn't really have male body wash in this reality. Overall it had a calming effect and I almost went back to sleep, so all to soon I forced myself out of the water and started to dry off, taking in the fact I was covered in bruises and that I even had a few new scars.

"Been through the wars" I muttered to myself.

Apparently while the Spirit of Leadership did aid me in staying alive, it seemed to have its limits when it came to helping me heal. Still I wasn't ungrateful. I should have been sore all over at the very least. Yet as tired as I was I didn't feel any pain at all.

It also confirmed that I was in fact mortal. I didn't get my injuries fixed any better than anyone else otherwise I wouldn't be scaring. The wounds were just easier to ignore, and faster to heal than they use to.

Despite the fact I was dripping wet now, I didn't at all mind. Cold at least didn't seem to bother me much. Not that it ever had. England was a lot like Felderan weather wise. In fact it did look a lot like what I imagined medieval Britain must have been like, only all the bad guys had been human and they'd not had any real magic users. Well maybe they had, as there were lots of stories about wizards and witches.

As soon as I had managed to dry myself off I got back into my jeans just in time to hear a knock upon the door. I nearly jumped out of my skin. For a second I worried about that dragon cult, but there was no reason for them to come after me and the innkeeper had seemed perfectly at ease. Well he hadn't at first, but the money had seemed to remove any concerns he had.

I went to the door and opened it. Once more it was Lee only this time she carried food and was wearing far less than before. The outfit wasn't any less modest than her armour but the dress she now wore was far less bulky than that what she normally wore, and doubtless it was a lot easier to take off as well.

She awkwardly stood there holding a tray of food. It wasn't quite like turning up naked with beer but I was rather hungry so I invited her in.

"I wanted to talk about what happened in the Fade" the bard said.

Before I answered I took the tray and started to eat. Wardens seemed to need a lot of food. Holding back the Taint, either within ourselves or more directly by fighting the Darkspawn, took a lot out of a person. Plus there were the physical changes. I was pretty sure that my increasing strength and stamina wasn't all down the Spirit of Leadership.

"So let's talk about it" I said while patting a spot on the bed next to where I was now sitting.

This was either about the kiss or the glowing thing.

"Did you really kiss me?" the woman asked as she sat down beside me.

Ah so the kiss then.

"Yes" I answered.

No sense beating around the bush.

She had no follow up question, so I went with the assumption that she would like some sort of explanation.

"The Sloth Demon was trying to make you give up. It wanted you to forget about anything that would make you want to question that dream. When I found you I could tell that you were completely passionless about what you were doing. So I decided to do something drastic, to snap you out of the trance you seemed to be in. A kiss can be pretty intense, and it did save your life so I didn't think you'd mind".

"I see" she said while standing up "if that was the only reason then, thank you".

At this point I wanted to say more, but I couldn't figure out how to handle this. We had some attraction to each other, and that could grow but I didn't have time. I couldn't start a relationship with someone who wanted a long term commitment.

Morrigan was actually a better choice in some respects, because she knew that there was a good chance that I would die and had a plan to get around that. There was no need to worry about lying to her, and while she was lying to me about things I knew most of her secrets anyway.

"It has to be nothing else" I said to Lee, as she headed for the door "I'm not going to survive the Blight".

The Bard turned to face me, she said nothing but I knew that she needed to hear more.

"There's a reason why the Grey Wardens are the only ones who can end a Blight. You see when a Warden slays the Arch-demon, the soul of the old god moves to inhabit the body of the closest being who bears the Taint so that it can cheat death. The rest of the Darkspawn have no souls. However Wardens have the Taint and they have a soul. The Grey Warden dies because the spirit of the Arch-demon cannot take a body that has a soul. They are both destroyed. That is what it takes to end a Blight".

She was naturally shocked, but I had to tell her everything.

"Alistair doesn't know" I told her "he must not find out. I can't let him die. He has a family, and he's also heir to the throne so he might be king one day. My family is on another world. I'll never see them again. So when the time comes I will slay the dragon, be the hero and die".

It sounded very simple when said out loud. But I had to wonder if I would still feel the same way when the time came for me to die.

"No!" Leliana said with anger "You can just let yourself die".

That didn't sound like something I would go and do. But the simply fact was this: My life wasn't worth more than everyone else's lives.

Sure it sucked but letting Alistair do the deed wouldn't really save this nation. This country needed a king or would destroy itself in a civil war even if the Spawn didn't kill everyone.

"If I don't then everyone will die. Including you, and I won't let that happen. I've already made up my mind".

Sure there was a way out of it, but having a child with the soul of an old god just seemed very dangerous. Plus I had no idea if a newly convinced baby had a soul or not. The spirit of the old god might destroy a new soul or push it out. Then there was the risk that the child would be some sort of dragon in human form. It could be very evil if it wasn't a Darkspawn.

I didn't think my Spirit ally could save me either, because if it could I was sure it would have said something to the subject when I was in the Fade. It had shown me the true nature of the Darkspawn and allowed me to understand that more than a single nation was at stake. I had little motivation to try and cheat death now.

My only other chance to was the older Warden, the one locked up, he might be able to slay the Arch-demon as things could work out that way, but that wasn't likely.

So while overall there was a small chance that things could work out in a way that would led me to becoming the Warden-Commander and eventually finding a way to destroy all the Spawn. I wasn't willing to string Lee along with the idea that we could be together

"I can't offer you any sort of commitment" I told Lee.

That was when she started to hug me, which turned into holding. And then we were in bed, but it didn't go further than that because she'd started crying.

(Line Break)

When the morning came, I found myself alone bed with my cover returned to me. Why did women always hog the bedding anyway?

At some point Lee had left and Alistair had gone to bed. I knew that because his bed had been slept in, I wondered why he hadn't just used Lelina's room. Perhaps she had left after I'd fallen asleep and he didn't even know that she had been in here.

I up and dressed within a few minutes. I was still little tired from over sleeping but there was time to wake up slowly.

Then I left my room and headed down the stairs to the main part of the Inn. As I did I could hear laughter coming from Wynne and Alistair. They were probably discussing something I knew nothing about, and I didn't care to find out either.

At least they seemed to be hitting it off, which was good I supposed as Alistair needed someone who could look after him. As for Wynn she did seem to like taking care of people.

"Good morning," Lee said from her table.

She barely even looked at me. I wondered if I had done something wrong. Should I have had sex with her? Was I suppose to have tried at least? Weeping women don't really do it for me, even if they are in my bed. She could of taken her clothes off or something to make it clear. Given that she hadn't I thought not making a move had been the wise thing to do.

"The hour is late so we'll have to eat on the road" Alistair said "I've already packed us some food"

A nice warm breakfast would have been very welcome, but we had to reach Redcliffe as soon as possible, that was the important thing. Conner needed to be saved so that the Arl would support after I got those ashes.

The mission mattered. Nothing else.

(End Chapter)

Author Note

Okay voting time folks. Who should Gothic end up with.

Morrigan or Leliana?

Either is still an option. Leliana can decide that 'Tis better to have loved and lost: Than never to have loved at all.

(Which is apparently a Tennyson quote not Shakespeare one as I first thought)

On the other hand she can purposely distance herself from Warden Gothic an action that gives Morrigan a chance to be all seductive. We know what her long-term plan is, and she could change Warden Gothic's mind on the idea of having a child to save his own life. She more of a dark side choice were as Leliana would be a light side influence.

Either way Warden Gothic will survive slaying the Arch-demon so don't worry about that.

VOTE NOW!