So I wanted to post this up earlier but I've been dying with the flu, so enjoy and the standard angst warning applies!
They walked through the corridors towards the tower library, bodies of fallen mages and apprentices lay slew across the ground, blood staining the walls and floors. Kallian shuddered at the sight.
Distance cries and groans could be heard echoing in the stone, impossible to tell if they where human or inhuman. They stepped in to the library and were meet with the sight of the most disgusting creature Kallian had ever seen, it appeared to have once been human, though the skin was morphed and swollen in places making the skin look stretched and pulled; as though the creature was too large to be wearing the skin of a human. What remained of mage robe hung loose and in tatter rags around the creature's waist and shoulders, the lasting features of what once was a human face could be seen as well as a small glance of hair that lay limp on top of a balding head.
"Maker!" Kallian exclaimed as the smell of rotted flesh hit her nostrils.
Lyna quickly began to shot arrows at them, the first one lodging in the head of the abomination, though it seemed undeterred by the fact and kept moving forward.
Neria and Wynne casted spells to slow the creatures down and the paralyse them as Ruari slashed and hacked at the creatures keeping them occupied as Kallian snuck around to stab the them in the back and their weak points.
Soon they stood the last one fell as Kallian drove her daggers in to its back, scowling at the fowl stench of its blood that now stained her daggers. "I think that's all of them." She called as she looked around.
"Kallian! Look out!" Neria cried, grabbing the other Elf's arm and pulling her away just as the abomination at her feet exploded with a blast of fire.
"So… they explode." Neria said looking at the black marks left behind by the fire.
"Did you know it would do that?" Killian questioned while she also eyed the black marks.
"Well I felt the magic, so I knew it was going to do something, wasn't expecting it to blow up."
"I am glad I have a bow." Lyna comments as she examined the ground, running her finger through the scorch marks. "Was that an enansal'len?"
"A what?" Ruari asked.
"It the Dalish word for mage," Neria explained "and yes, that's what happens to mages when they are taken over by a demon."
"I've never seen anything like this before, how does it happen?" question Lyna.
"Sometimes a mage is not strong enough to protect themselves from the demons, sometimes they give in because of fear." Wynne spoke from beside Neria.
"Wait, you have never seen this happen to a mage before?" asked Neria.
"No, it- it is not something that has ever happened to a Dalish enansal'len, they are all trained from a young age not to fear but to control their magic."
Neria was slightly dumbfounded by this, the mages in the tower where always told that magic was a powerful force that should be feared, that it invited evil and the hunger for power, that any mage outside the tower was susceptible to demons and blood magic. But Neria did not have time to think any further on the subject as three more abomination turned the corner and began to attack them, they each attacked in turn until all that was left of the creatures was a scorch mark on the ground.
"We should continue on, Maker know what else await us in the tower." Wynne said as they made their way through the rest of the library to the large stone steps that led up to the higher floors.
"Owain's room is near here. I hope he's all right." Wynne stated as the stepped on to the second floor.
"I don't see as many bodies here as there was on the first floor." Kallian spoke as they walked further in to the room.
"That might not be a good thing." Ruari muttered.
"Owain!" Neria hissed out in a loud whisper as she saw the man standing near the entrance of the stock room.
"Creators, what is he doing here?" Lyna exclaimed as they ran to see the man.
"Please, refrain from going into the stockroom. It is a mess and I have not been able to get it into a state fit to be seen." The man said in a dull and lifeless voice, it made Lyna stop in her tracks as observed the man.
"What- what is wrong with him?"
"Owain is one of the tranquil." Wynne stated in a mater-of-fact tone. "Owain what are you doing here?"
"I was trying to tidy up, but there was little I could do." He answered.
"What is 'tranquil'? There was one at Ostagar but I never meet him, he had the same vallas'lin on his forehead." Lyna question as she studied the man completely unnerved by his behaviour.
Neria paused for a moment trying to think of the right words to explain to the Dale what the Right of Tranquillity was; she was beaten to it by Wynne, "It means he has no emotions."
"What? Why?"
"It's something that is done to mages who can't completely the final step in becoming a circle mage, they cut off their connection to the fade, and it leaves that mark on their forehead." Neria could see the understanding on the Dalish Elf's face; she grew pale and looked as though she wanted to be sick.
Lyna turned away from them all and began to speak rapidly in Elvish, her wolf following behind her, Neria only caught the word Shem'len and a few choice words she guessed must be curses, that she had heard utter by the Elf before.
Kallian, Ruari and Neria's eyes followed the Elf as she walked away; Wynne seemed to completely ignore the Elf's outrage and was still listening to Owain as he began to speak again.
"I tried to leave, when things got quiet. That was when I encountered the barrier. Finding no other way out, I returned to work."
"Owain, you should have said something I would have opened the door for you." Wynne said in a kind voice.
"The stockroom is familiar, I prefer to be here. I would also prefer it if the tower returned to the way it was. Perhaps Niall will succeed and save us all."
"Niall? What was he trying to do?" Neria questioned.
"He came here with several others and took the Litany of Adralla."
"What's the Litany of Adralla?" Kallian asked.
"It is a magic that protects someone from mind domination and blood magic." Wynne explained.
"Does that mean there are blood mages here?" Kallian groaned out woefully.
"Niall was in the meet, he would know." Wynne said more to herself than in answer to Kallian.
"Great not only to we have demons and crazed abominations, but not we have to deal with mind controlling nut cases." Neria complained as she left to join Lyna who had not returned. Kallian moved to join them, disturbed by Owain's calmness and vacant eyes. Distantly she heard Wynne telling him to go down to the barrier and ask Petra to let him through.
"We should find Niall, if he has the Litany it will help us against any blood mage we encounter." Wynne informed them as she joined them.
Lyna stopped them as they made to walk through to the next room, her wolf and Hati growling softly as something ahead. "There are people up ahead." Lyna said as she moved forward with soundless steps.
"Who are they? Are they blood mages or?" Neria beseech.
"Shh!" Lyna hushed "Listen." The voices of the mages became clearer as they sneaked into the room.
"We're making sure no one disrupts Uldred's plan. I thought that was quite clear." A man's voice proclaimed.
"But he's not Uldred anymore... I never wanted to go this far." A woman's voice joined in.
"Neither did I, but this is what we're faced with and-" a third spoke but was cut off when the man spoke again.
"Quiet! Both of you! I think I heard something. Keep your eyes open..."
"Shit…" Ruari said under his breath as his armoured boots hit against a raised stone on the ground. The male mage spotted them and began to attack.
They jumped a dodged away from the first blast that was let loose, scattering in all directions. Ruari quickly charge at the first one knocking her down with his shield, while Neria sent a shock of lightening threw the second before he could cut his own are to draw on any blood magic, Lyna shoot the third with an arrow, the mage tried to avoid it, so instead of killing her it imbedded itself in to her left shoulder. Kallian quickly threw a small throwing knife at her, hitting her square in the chest. A loud groan caught their attention as the mage Ruari had knockout began to awaken. She woke up and looked around at the five armed strangers, the Mabari and the wolf.
"Please- please don't kill me." She pleaded.
"Sarah!" Neria gasped as she and Wynne recognised the woman. "What- what have you done?"
"We were just trying to free ourselves. Uldred told us that the Circle would support Loghain and Loghain would help us be free of the Chantry" she stammered out.
"Loghain! Again!" Neria shouted her face filled with fury. "He lied to you! You turned to forbidden magic for a lie!"
"The magic- the magic was a means to an end. It gave us… it gave me the power to fight for what I believed" she continued.
"This!? THIS!? This was nothing more than slaughter!" Neria screamed at the mage "Your friends, your family, my family! people who trusted you, Loved you, dead at your hands!" she turned away, unable to look at her anymore, her eye shinning with tears as she pulled at her hair in distress with both hands.
"Fighting for what you believe is commendable but the ends do not always justify the means." Wynne added her voice cold and distant.
"You don't really believe that, do you, Wynne? Change rarely comes peacefully. Andraste raged war on the Imperium; she didn't write them a strongly worded letter." She remarked, "She reshaped civilization, freed the slaves and gave us the Chantry. But people died for it… We thought… someone always has to take the first step… force a change, no matter the cost."
Not being able to listen anymore, Neria strode towards the woman letting loose a powerful blast of ice, a look of pure rage on her face as her eyes turned an icy blue. The woman screamed for a moment until the ice over took her and she lay dead on the ground completely frozen.
"Neria!" Wynne shouted in shock.
Tear now streamed freely down the mages face and she took deep and greedy gulps of air, her chest heaving. She gave the other mage a hard look before she turned to leave, "Come on, we need to continue." Wynne stayed silently but signed before she began to follow them.
Neria fury seemed to fuel her magic as they continued through the mages quarters; the large amount of magic she was releasing didn't seem to slow her down as they went clear room after room. Her rage only seemed to subside when she found someone she knew hiding in a closet, after leaving Godwin hiding in the closet they fought more abomination and demons.
"There's the First Enchanters study, we might be able to find something that might help us." Neria said as they began to look through the papers in the room. Neria came across a strange book, hidden in the bottom drawer of the First Enchanters desk, she picked the book up and felt and strange but ancient magic seeping through the leather cover. The book felt heavy and old and later, when she found the book in her pack, she would not remember taking it.
They reached the next floor, finding it completely empty of all but demons and abominations; they fought their way through, encountering walking corpses, similar to those they had found in Redcliffe.
"I thought we had left these things behind." Ruari complained as he ran one threw.
"Just kill them!" Kallian called out.
"Yes, less talking more stabbing!" Neria commented.
After killing a few shades they climbed up to the fourth floor of the tower, the whole floor seemed to be covered in a strange flesh like material that gave off a rotten and disgustingly sweet stench, they all tried hard not to think what it might be. A strange silence hung around like a fog, the screams and cries that they had heard in the lowers floors where muffled.
"I do not like this." Ruari muttered.
"Neither do I" Kallian added.
"I'm pretty sure we're not meant to find the décor welcoming." Neria replied sarcastically, "Décor is an Orlesian word for things in the room." Neria added when she saw the confused furrow of Lyna brow.
As they turned the corner to walk through to the corridor they were met with the sight of a templar standing in the middle of a half destroyed room, a glazed and glassy look in his eyes. A creature with the visage of a woman stood in front of him, her skin shades of grey, pink and purple, two horns sprouted up from the front of her head curving round her skull where a flash of purple flames sat in place of hair. Her hands where talons half covered by a long sleeve that hung low of her arm, clad in nothing more than a necklace that sparingly covered her chest and a low sitting skirt that showed off her hips and the top of her thighs, a low and armour tail flicked absentmindedly.
"Everything is just as you wanted, my knight. Our love and our family is more than you hoped for." The demons voice was low and rumbled and echoed deeply off of the walls of the room.
"What in Andraste's name is going on here?" Kallian shouted out in shock.
"Do you hear something, love?" the templar asked completely unaware of the armoured groups presence.
"What is wrong with him?" Ruari questioned.
"It is a desire demon; she has put the templar under her thrall" Wynne explained.
"It is nothing my darling, just the door. I will get it." The demon had yet to take its eyes from the enthralled templar, "The children have finished supper tuck them into bed while I see who it is."
"Don't be long, the children will want to kiss you goodnight."
Kallian nearly gagged at the sick world the demon had created within the man's head, he had no idea the 'perfect' world he was living in was nothing more than a source of amusement for an evil creature.
"Don't be long, the children will want to kiss you goodnight." Kallian shuddered at the words as the demon turned to face them, "You are intruding upon a loving, intimate moment and i dislike disruptions."
"You call this 'loving' and 'intimate'?" Kallian asked not being able to hide her disgust.
"I've given him what he always wanted; a family and a life without loneliness." She retorted sweetly.
"The demon is feeding on him, this is wrong." Wynne stated.
"No one else would have known what was in his heart; I have given him what he desires most." The demon continued with an ugly smirk spreading across her face.
The demon opened its mouth to speak again but instead a loud scream of pain and anger was let odd as throwing knife was imbedded into the right of her chest. They all looked to Kallian as the Demon cried out to the templar, saying that bandit where attacking them. Believe he was protecting his family the templar attacked. The demon summoned walking corpses to fight alongside the templar, while throwing frost and magic at them.
"Ruari! Try and keep the templar busy! Lyna demon; everyone else corpses!" Neria called out as she let loose a blast of lightening. Kallian rolled and sliced at the corpse's arms and backs as Wynne sent conquered fist of stone at them. Hati helped Ruari distract the templar, nipping and bumping into his legs to knock him off balance. The demon kept freezing Lyna's arrows or knocking them aside before they could hit her, but while the demon was concentrating on her, Lyna wolf jumped from behind her, knocking her to the ground. The demon only had time to release one cry before the wolf sunk it's fangs in to her throat, viscously tearing it out.
The templar stopped his attack on Ruari and collapsed onto the group, like a puppet who's strings had been cut. "Is he okay?" Kallian asked as Wynne went to check on him.
"I'm afraid he is dead." She replied sadly. "He had been under the thrall of the demon for too long, when it was broken he died."
"Let's get going, we're near the top of the tower, we can't have much further to go." Neria said as she led them towards another door. The door swung open to show a large circular room. Broken furniture lay scattered about, the remains of tables stacked high in the centre where more of the strange fleshy material stood like a pillar. A monstrous Abomination stood in the middle, looking down on the unmoving body of a man in mage robes. The creature turned to them as the door opened.
"Oh, look Visitors. I'd entertain you but... too much effort involved" it spoke flippantly.
"That's Niall! What have you done to him?" Neria question as she glared at the abomination.
"He's just resting" the demon drawled. "He was so very tired, are you not tired?"
Kallian felt he body become heavy as warmth spread out over her limbs. "Yes you must be exhausted after coming all this way. It is okay to rest now." The voice seemed to glide over her like a blanket, she blinked, but her eyes did not open.
We'll be going in to the dreams and nightmares of our party soon, I've already written them but i don't kno if i should post them all at once or not, let me kno what you think? I also got to play around with writing a bit of horror, you have been warned :P