"I never thought I would be glad to see this place again." Ruari commented as they got the first look of the village as they made their way over the hill.
"It's still stands." Lyna added as she walked ahead.
"From what you told me of what's been happening, even I'm surprised." Dylan remarked.
Aeden didn't pause to look over the village; his pace seemed to increase the closer they got to the village, till his was practically running, his Mabari running up behind him followed by Hati, exciting by the presence of another dog to play with.
"Well I know what I'm doing when we get back, bath and then food that has actual flavour other than camp fire burnt." Dylan commented as he followed the others down.
"Ah… that's something I should probably give you a heads up about actually…" Neria twitched nervously. "I told you that the Arl was poisoned, but I didn't tell you who poisoned."
"Why would that matter..? Who was it?" Dylan studied Neria's face through narrowed eyes.
"It's.. emmm, Jowan."
"Ha, yeah right, Jowan" Dylan scoffed, but paused as he saw the continued looks of trepidation, "wait, you're not joking. Jowan poisoned the Arl, Jowan, the man I tried to help who turned out to be a blood mage, who left me to the Templar's to be locked up and nearly starved to death, that Jowan!?" Dylan voice had risen till he was shouting, drawing the attention of the others ahead.
"Well, yes."
Dylan grip of his staff tightened till Neria swore it could snap in half; the air seemed to heat up and crackle as sparks flashed across his skin.
"Dylan, keep calm, we don't need you to setting fire to what's left of the village." Neria said in a lame attempt to calm him.
"I. Am. Calm." Dylan bit out before he stormed ahead, one goal in mind. Get to Jowan.
"Yeah, so calm." Neria muttered under her breath as she speed up to keep pace with her companions.
They could hear the shouts announcing their return coming from the walls of the castle as they got closer; the court yard was a filled with Templars, guards and servants that had returned once the castle had be secured.
"You're back!" they looked up to see Leliana walking to meet them. "And you've collected a few strays? No?" she smiled lightly at the new members, "My name is Leliana, and how is it you came to joins us?"
"Ah, my dear, aren't you a delight?" Zevran smoothed his way in front to take hold of Leliana hand, bowing slightly. "My name is Zevran, and may I say it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Oh my, aren't you the charmer." Leliana blushed.
"Well, he's an assassin who tried to kill us on the road, this is the Lady Cousland's brother that we ran into, and this is a new Grey Warden recruit we took from the circle, also my friend Dylan." Neria pointed at each while introducing.
"Rude to point you know." Dylan muttered as he marched pasted, Neria sighed and rolled her eyes as he went.
"Forgive me, but I would like to see my sister..?" Aeden said, not needing to say the question aloud.
"Ah, of course she was making her way to the great hall." Aeden thanked her before he and Ruari practically ran to the castle.
"We must go see Alistair, do you know where he is?" Lyna asked.
"He's has been in the Arl's study going over maps and the treaties."
"Can you show us where that this? And can you catch us up on what has been happening?"
As they walked through the now busy hallways of the castle towards the study Leliana recounted all that had happened since they left, from the wait for help, Alistair illness and Connor's rescue from the fade by Morrigan.
"He has not rested as much as the healer would have liked, but it has been impossible for him to sit still it seems." Leliana added before she said her goodbyes, to leave the Wardens to talks.
"Alistair?"
"Lyna, Neria, your back? We'd begun to wonder why it was taking you so long to return, Kallian explained what happened at the tower."
"None of the fishermen wanted to give up another day's fishing for us to travel, so we have to walk." Lyna relayed.
"Was sort of a good thing though, managed to pick us an suppose to be dead noble, an assassin and a new recruit." Neria said with a smile.
"Thank we will explain in a moment, what have you found?" Lyna questioned, looking over the notes and map splayed out over the table.
"Ah well, I was looking over the other treaties, if we want to secure the Dwarves support well have to leave soon, the safest route I could find will not be passable when the winter frost sets in." He pulled one of the maps over with the route planned out up into the mountains "although we have run into another problem."
"What else could have happened?" Lyna sighed.
"Arl Eamon is still sick, the healers have done what they could, but they say that unless a cure is found, he will eventually die." Lyna took the time to examine Alistair, seeing the dark circles around his eyes; he was pale with a slight tremble to his hand as he searched through the papers.
"Falon, are you well?"
"What? Oh yes, yes I'm fine." Alistair replied absently as he continued to rummage through the papers. "Ah here it is," he called out as pulled out more papers. "Before we got here Isolde had sent out her knights in search of the Urn of sacred Ashes, supposedly the ashes of Andraste, said to be able to heal any aliment."
"I have a bad feeling about where this is going." Neria whined.
"You should, she wants us to find them and bring them back so we can use them to heal Eamon."
"Oh, well that's a lot worse than I thought it would be, we just have to find an ancient relic that scholar's have been looking for, for centuries before Eamon kicks the bucket and before the darkspawn and Archdemon decide to eat use all." Neria mocked. "Does she at least have an idea where we might find this mythical relic?"
"Her Knights apparently found something out from the Scholar Brother Genitivi, right before they lost contact with them; it's a starting point if anything else. It's a starting point if nothing else." Alistair continued, "Also the trip to Denerim would be helpful to us, there is a Grey Warden cache there, if we have another recruit it would benefit us to go there and find out whatever information there is there about the joining, especially before Loghain finds out about it."
"So the trip to Denerim would not be a complete waste then if this 'lead' on the ashes falls flat." Lyna mused. "Though, if we send the time going after these ashes, will we make it in time to pass through to the mountain before winter has set in?"
"There lies the problem, we would probably make it if we run into no problems, but the way our luck has been it is likely that we will be stuck walking through one of the snow storms that usually plague the mountain during Haring."
"We could always split?" Neria suggested, "We have allies, people who have said they would joins us, Morrigan, Leliana, Sten, and I know Wynne said she wanted to join us before she left to come here, and we have Zevran as well as Dylan."
"I'm assuming one of them is the new recruit and one is the assassin you managed to pick up?" Alistair stated with a raised brow.
"Zevran is the assassin; he was hired by Loghain to kill what was left of the Wardens, but had a change of heart when he was knocked out." Neria smirked, "and Dylan is my best friend from the tower, maker what happened to him there, I couldn't leave him."
"Yes, Killian told me some of what happened to him. I should meet him, and we can talk about how we can arrange this, I don't like the idea of us splitting up, but it may be our only choice."