Warden Gothic
Part 16
Haven
"I really hope this is the place" Alistair said as we began treking up the path towards yet another village.
We had already wandered through three other settlement just to get here, but I knew this was the right area at least because there was a big sodding mountain here. It was a matter of finding the right village.
"What business do you have in Haven?" a guard asked us before we even got too close to the place.
Rather than say anything I was just screaming for joy inside my own head. I had feared we'd gotten lost and somehow ended up wandering around the wrong mountain.
"So, this is Haven" said Alistair happily.
The guard nodded before replying.
"Yes" he verbally confirmed "However outsiders aren't welcome in Haven. If you really must stay, go see Father Eirik in the Chantry. Otherwise, you may restock at the store, but then we want you gone"
The guard then turned and started to ignore us so we walked past him and headed for the settlement.
"I thought Mothers were in charge of the chantries not Fathers?" I asked my girlfriend.
She nodded in reply.
"It is strange" my fellow Warden remarked.
There were few people outside of the buildinga, but they glared at us as we passed through.
Alistair then asked someone for directions to the Chantry. All he got was a hand gesture in reply but at least the person had pointed at the church rather do something very rude.
We stopped off at the store and resupplied as planned, there wasn't much on offer and we got ripped off when it came to price, but I knew there would be plenty of loot up in the mountain so I didn't worry about it.
After we left the store we kept walking and it wasn't long before we reached a tall, spike archway that led up a tall hill which had the chapel we were looking for. The path leading up was lit by a series of torches that barely gave off any light and the shadows added to the gloominess of the whole place.
"This seems like a horrible place for Andraste's remains to be kept" Leliana whispered to me.
It was worse than she imagined.
"Well I'm not an Andrastian and never have been, so I really couldn't judge what we would be suitable" was all I said on the matter.
The Chantry itself was a masterpiece of construction, especially considering this town almost certainly had no real architects and they must have only limited building materials. Even from the outside I could see that there were stained glass windows chronicling the life of Andraste, and ending with some confusing pictures of a dragon rising from her ashes. This was heresy to the locals.
I went to the door, opened it and then walked in knowing that the rest of my party would follow me. Inside the building were two dozen people listening to an older man speaking. He was speaking about some reward that was waiting for the people of Haven for guarding the remains of Andraste for so long. My attention however was more focused on the armed guards that were stationed
Father Eirik, who was the man speaking, looked up and saw our group. When he did he immediately stopped speaking which soon meant we soon became the centre of attention.
"That is enough for today, I will see you all tomorrow" the false holy man said to his flock.
Not everyone was happy about that.
"But we haven't performed the sacraments" a woman stated to say "or sung the invocation, or…"
Judging by her words they did a lot of worshipping in these parts.
"We need not perform the sacraments today," the priest, told the woman gently "Now I must see to our visitors".
The woman nodded sadly and the people exited the building. The priest then looked over at us.
"It is generally considered rude to intrude on such gatherings he" pointed out.
"You need not have ended your sermon on our account. We were willing to wait." Leliana said
Everyone would have obviously disagreed as we in a rush, but they didn't want to be rude.
"No, it is better this way. The villagers are uncomfortable in the presence of strangers" the 'father' then said "They come and Haven is changed. We cannot let that happen. Brothers, do what must be done".
The guards started moving almost immediately, but Leliana and I were faster. Before the first could even draw his sword, my romantic partner had thrown a dagger into his throat. As the first guard fell my axe lodged itself into the chest of another solider.
The others were moving now, Morrigan killed one guard after she finished transforming into a wolf. Another tried to match his sword against Alistair, but that was a foolish move as the Warden was a much better fighter. Sten simply bashed the fifth local with the hilt of weapon and the man dropped to the floor. As for the final guard tried to flee, but Leliana whirled as he did so and threw one of her daggers into his back.
Alistair meanwhile brought his sword up so it was pressing against Eirik's neck and was when the old man proved he was in fact a mage by trying to blast the bastard prince with his staff.
However before he could do that Alistair used his Templar training, to turn the magic against the priest, them he stabbed low and Eirik let out a gasp as Alistair's sword caught him in the lower stomach.
That was when I noticed that Shale hadn't even entered the building and that Oggy was outside too, only he was taking a leek.
"Okay then, that was disturbing" Lee remarked.
Given that she was religious I could understand why she would find it upsetting to spill blood on what was holy ground.
"We still need to search this place" I then said "The Urn isn't here but there might be a map or something that points the way".
I knew exactly where it was, however it wasn't as if I come out and admit the truth, my comrades were getting use to me being weird and Lee was aware that I had knowledge I shouldn't but I had no way of explaining how I knew so much.
"Where is the Urn?" Alistair then asked me.
I froze on the spot then.
"You knew we needed to come here" my fellow Warden then said "And we all know you're being guided by the Maker only knows what so tell us what to do now".
As it turned out I didn't need to explain after all they just seemed to trust that I knew what to do. I couldn't figure when that had happened but I didn't question it.
"In the Mountain, but we're going to need Genitivi to unlock the doorway for us. He should be somewhere in this Chantry, oh and we're going to need the amulet that Father Eirik wears. It's the key" I told them.
Everyone just of gawked at me and I figured that this time I had said too much for it to be passed off as some sort of guidance from on high.
"Okay fine" I said after deciding to give in and tell them something feasible "I've been having visions. That's how I knew we needed to come here and how to find Sten's sword, and it's now I knew that Shale would work with us".
That took them all a moment to process.
"Well either your a nice demon or the Maker is giving us a helping hand" remarked Alistair "Either way I'll follow you, but only because I'd just get us all killed".
Now I was the one who needed a moment to figure things out. I knew the Spirit of Leadership made it easier for me to get people to follow me, but I didn't know much trust it could help me inspire. So far everyone had been willing to accept that I was different but I hadn't expected them to keep having faith in me if I told them that I knew far more than I should.
"So you don't think I'm crazy or an abomination trying to trick you?" I asked everyone who was inside the building.
They all replied in the negative.
"The Maker works in mysterious ways" Wynn then said.
Well everything was in the open now so there was no sense not being direct about thing.
"Leliana, get the amulet. The rest of you, find Genitivi" I ordered "He'll be in hidden room so find the switch that'll open it".
Several minutes passed in a methodical search of the building until finally someone found something.
"Come look at this!" Alistair called out.
The bastard prince was standing in front of a wall that had an archway in the middle, but there was no opening. A moment of searching revealed a lever that let us slide the wall away. Inside was a man lying on the ground, unable to sit up. Alistair knelt down besides the dying man
"Are you Brother Genitivi?"
The man opened his eyes and smiled when he saw us
"You're… you're not one of them… thank the Maker" he said, with obvious relief in his voice,
"Are you alright?" Alistair asked calmly.
Genitivi snorted before replying
"What do you think? Weeks of scant food, little water, lots of torture… oh, I've never felt better"
I liked this guy already. He was a tough old goat.
"Wynne, can you do something?" I requested of the group's healer.
She leaned down and placed one hand on Genitivi's leg which glowed slightly as the mage cast a healing spell. Genitivi then slowly pulled himself up and tested how well his limbs carried his weight.
"Thank you. I don't have time to rest now though. I'm so close. The Urn is just up the mountain" he said.
Since that was also our goal there was no reason why we couldn't work together.
"We need to find the Ashes too" I explained "It's Arl Emmon's only hope and without him we'll never be able to stop the Darkspawn, or bring an end to the civil war.
Genitivi needed a moment as I what I had just said must have been a little overwhemling.
"Well, I guess we could go together" he decided "If you can get me the Father's medallion I can open the door".
We already had the amulet so at least that wasn't a problem, and Lee passed the medallion to the man so he could inspect it.
"This is it" he confirmed "Now follow me. We need to move quickly. The villagers will have warned the guardians of the mountain by now. If we don't get moving then we'll have to fight them".
He stood a little unsteadily and started toward the door, only while Wynn had healed his leg he hadn't had time to recover from the mistreatment he'd suffered at the hands of the Dragon Cult.
"You're still in no condition to climb a mountain on your own" Alistair said "You'll have to lean on me for support".
The man we'd saved nodded gratefully and let the illegitimate heir to the throne help him out the door.
"This way" Genitivi said while showing us the correct path.
The climb seemed to take hours, and we had to several rest breaks in between, as none of us were exactly fresh and it was a steep path. The just as the sun was setting we finally made it. Genitivi pointed towards a hidden doorway in the rockface.
There was a staircase cut into the stone and a door and a door. Genitivi took out the amulet and fiddled with it until it unfolded, then he inserted it into a slot in the doorway and carefully opened the door.
"I saw open the amulet several times, but I wasn't entirely sure if I could do it myself" Genitivi explained.
Without commented we walked inside and the sight that greeted us was magnificent. There was a massive hall cut into the mountain itself. Pillars and statues lined the entire room, but as impressive as it we all knew that this was just a shadow of it's former glory.
Once it would have been unmatched as a feat of human ingenuity and design, but now it was dilapidated and looked on the verge of collapse.
There was evidence of some maintenance, but not on the scale required to keep a monument like this intact for much longer. Snow was piled up inside, covering some of the smaller statues and coating pillars.
"Leave me. I'm in no condition to go fighting through this place. Just find the Urn" Genitivi insisted.
I felt the urge to assure the elderly gentlemen.
"Don't worry we will" I said to him before addressing the rest of the group "Shale, Sten stay here and guard our friend. The rest of us go on".
We would need to sneak past the dragon, and those two were about as subtle as a nuclear strike.
"Follow me" I then said the rest.
It didn't take long for someone to start asking question.
"Okay. What exactly are we up against?" Alistair inquired.
For me it was going to take time to get use to the fact that everyone now knew how much I knew. Granted they all thought it was visions, but that was a lot believable than this all being a video game because they didn't know what video games were.
"A lot of crazy cultists, some drakes, mages, and there's a High Dragon on the peak" I listed.
Alistair was not happy to hear about that, and after looking around it became clear to me that no one else was either.
"And you didn't think this worth mentioning?" he asked.
Now I was annoyed. Nothing was ever enough for these people. I was giving them knowledge of the future and all Alistair could do was complain.
"I'm not a god" I said "I am not all knowing, and I've just seen some stuff that you haven't".
Which was actually the truth.
"Then is there any way to avoid our certain deaths oh great prophet?" the witch then inquired.
I thought about it for a moments before saying anything else, and then a spent some more time hoping that people didn't start to think of me as a seer because I didn't want to attract the attention of the church.
"If we go forward, up the stairs and then go right I think it will lead us to a back way out, but it will be locked".
In a video game a players movements are limited by what is called railroading, this is why in games you only ever find the shortcut out of the dungeon after you've beaten the boss, but in real life those shortcuts can be found at the start of the dungeon.
"Good. Let's do that then" Alistair said "Hopefully we can avoid any swooping dragons, because that would be bad".
Indeed it would be.
"Okay people, time to get moving"
Almost everyone started following me, but before we could really get going I had to spend a few seconds convincing Leliana and Wynne to stop looking at every little thing.
"Ladies we can sightsee after we get the ashes" I assured "we can't climb down the mountain in the dark so we will be here till morning".
When they finally decided to follow, we passed a bonfire in the middle of the room and started up the staircase. That was when the first Reavers came at us. There were five of them, and three more archers behind them.
Morrigan leapt at one, transforming into a wolf as she did so. Her jaws closed around the man's neck and crushed his throat between her teeth. Alistair slammed his shield into another cultists face and finished him with a stab to the upper chest. An archer lined up a shot on Alistair, only to be caught in the throat by an arrow from Leliana who was using her bow.
Another Reaver charged at me, and I lost track of the fight so I could focus on what I was doing. My mace met his axe and the weapon was swatted aside. Then I used my axe to end his life.
That was when another Reaver came at me with his axe. I barely managed to get out of the way, he slipped and fell because of the icy floor and ended up in the bonfire. Thankfully his suffering didn't last long as Lee put him out of his misery.
"Well, I think we should get moving before the noise attracts any undo attention" Wynne advised.
No one argued and I led everyone up the stairs. At the top were three doors, one forward, and one to the left and another to the right.
"So we go right?" Alistair asked.
Now I wasn't so sure.
"I think so" was my reply.
He was not happy about me saying that.
"You think or know?" was his next question.
Now I was getting frustrated again.
"It's not like the Maker speaks to me" I told him "I just see things in my head. It's like I have memories of things that haven't happened yet, and I don't recall everything perfectly, because I'm not perfect".
That was when Lee decided to speak.
"Gothic hasn't led us astray so far" she pointed out.
After I decided to go with what felt right I opened a door and stepped inside. The room on the other side was frozen for the most part there were even icicles hanging from the roof, and a large pile of snow too, but what go my attention was a wall of ice blocking the hallway.
"I think I can see daylight on the other side. Can anyone melt their way through?" I inquired.
Morrigan raised her staff and a wall of flames blasted out from the end of it. The wall began to melt under the fury of her power and a few minutes later, she had destroyed the entire wall. As I had hoped it did led to the outside which would save us a lot of time and avoid a lot of bloodshed.
Then there came a roar from overhead which made Oggy bark and try to get us all back inside, but everyone was just looking up to the sky and soon I was doing the same.
Above us was the largest animal I'd ever seen. It was a massive lizard with wings big enough to block out the light of the moon. It was a fully-grown and mature High Dragon. This was the most feared creature in this entire world, not counting an Arch-Demon
It flew for a few seconds before settling onto a small raised portion of the plain ahead of us, then it curled up, and began to sleep. Clearly it was the dragon's bed time.
"Okay everyone" I whispered "We are going to very softly tip toe past that sodding big dragon, so we can enter the nice temple".
Unsurprisingly no one felt the urge to go first.