A/N I take what I said about Elisa and Neira getting their asses kicked back. While it is by far the hardest fight that they've faced but they do win, albeit not without repercussions.

On that note I'm going to make a side note of how massive magical exertions in my story will affect the physical appearance of the mage in a manner related to the magic they used

The child was more powerful than he had imagined.

At the last moment before he consumed her utterly, the child resisted. It was too late for the child to block his access into its mortal mind but that did not mean that there was no hope. The child showed a force of will that had not been seen since the rise of Tevinter and fought him. It was beyond the skill of any mortal to force him from a body that he did not wish to leave but that did not mean he could control it. In the moment that he should have gained a mage's body he found himself facing an equal. For the first time he felt his mind laid bare as he laid bare the mind of this child – such a deceptive term – as he had so many before. The demon spiraled out of the fade and into the mortal realm, into the body of the child, meeting this incredible mortal in battle for the control of the body they both prized above all else.

oOo

Elisa sprang into action the moment the black vials left the abomination's hand, drawing Silence and Loss in a blur of motion. The second the first revenant sprang into being she threw Loss towards the creature's head, killing it; she drew Blood in her now-empty right hand and dashed towards the remaining three revenants. Neira launched a mix of hexes and curses that would slow and weaken the revenants before turning her attention to the sloth abomination; she sensed that the creature was gathering its power to curse Elisa and herself as she had done the three revenants. As the abomination launched the curses Neira blocked it before attacking the creature directly. Elisa stood at the center of a circle made by the three revenants, blocking and dodging their attacks with incredible speed as well as making some attacks of her own; she was using a considerable amount of magic, not only to enhance her speed and strength but also to reinforce Blood and Silence and prevent them from breaking under to powerful attacks of the undead.

Elisa was using holding Blood in the center, not only using the edged side but the staff one as well to defend herself from the attacks, essentially giving her weapon for each of the revenants. But the powerful undead were incredibly fast and powerful and were easily blocking her attacks and delivering a brutal amount of their own, with Neira occupied with the abomination they would eventually wear her down and kill her and that was something she could not allow. Elisa reached deeper into herself and gathered more power to bring forth, feeling the exertion as the magic ran along her skin, changing her.

Neira was locked in battle with the abomination, struggling to push the demon back and gain the upper hand, casting and blocking spell after spell. But the abomination had the strength of so many to draw upon and appeared to have possessed a senior enchanter, judging from the robes it wore; Neira found herself faltering, unable to find more mana to draw upon. She quickly took a drink from a lyrium potion she had on her, careful not to distract herself from the spell battle; such a mistake would surely be fatal.

One of the revenants managed to get through her defense enough to give her a minor cut on her arm and Elisa made a split-second decision; surely she could spare a little blood. And anyways the cut proved that she would not be able to last much longer; she would have to turn the tide and soon.

Neira drained the last of her lyrium potions; she was down to her last bit of energy; unless the abomination was more drained than she had thought then it would soon overpower and kill her, then finish Elisa. Neira prepared to make her final push, hoping that she could at least weaken the demon, allowing her friends to escape the demon's trap and carry on without them when she heard to call of the staff in her hand. Neira knew that the staff had power but had been unaware that it had knowledge; maybe it knew something that would allow them to win…

Neira's curses had worn off and the revenants attacked with even greater speed. Elisa knew that if they killed her then Neira and their friends would be next and so reached for her deepest, darkest source of power, giving her the speed and strength she needed but also taking an incalculable risk and plunging the circle into even greater danger; for the first time it was possible that the demons would be able to overpower the Templars and escape.

At first Neira recoiled at the thought of using such power; she had been taught to hate and fear it her whole life and despite what she had said to Elisa it was a very different thing when the idea of her using it came to mind. She glanced over at her friend, not needing to see the demon for the spell she was casting and frowned; while she did not know the combat magic that was Elisa's bread and butter but she knew magic and surely that level of speed augmentation was beyond the power of any mage, no matter how desperate. She did a quick probe and saw where Elisa had gotten this power, saw the apostate's deepest, most hidden secret and above all saw the danger that the circle – all of Ferelden truly – was in now; failure was no longer an option, not by any measure. Placing her arm on the small blade her staff had – obviously made for this very reason – she slit her wrist and the magic came.

One of the reasons dreamers, observers and even spirit healers was so feared was their connection to the fade and what it represented; not only did they face a greater risk from possession, as they were more open to the fade, but also the same affinity they had to the fade made all fade-based magics more powerful and there was no magic more fade-based than blood magic. Neira could have used the power to easily crush the abomination but instead she forced her way into its mind, freeing her friends form its trap before draining it of all its power and blood for her own use. She then turned the magic to the three revenants, slowing and weakening them until they were almost as slow as a regular human, she probably could have gotten them slower had Elisa not killed them all less than a second after she began her attack; such was the power that Elisa could draw on. With their enemies defeated and their friends now in a normal sleep that they could be woken up from Elisa and Neira collapsed to the ground, exhausted beyond measure and in need of a few minutes of rest before facing the next task.

Eventually Neira pulled herself up and turned to ask Elisa what the fuck she had been thinking but was shocked by the sudden change in appearance. Before the battle Elisa had had blonde hair and blue eyes, now her eyes were a piercing violet and her hair…

Her hair defied what Neira knew about the effects of magic on the body; it should have been a pure white, reflecting the use of intense magic. Instead it was raven, as black as the vials that had contained the revenants. Neira blinked; she had thought that she had known what magic Elisa had been doing but this clearly implied that she had been wrong and furthermore she had no idea what could have caused her hair to go pitch black – what kind of magic manifested itself as black?

Catching the look on Neira's face Elisa chuckled "Based on your expression I think we both need to look into the mirror"

Neira groaned "What happened to me?"

"Hair's as white as snow, me?"

"Violet eyes, Raven hair"

"Violet… Red from blood magic mixed with my original blue I guess, but Raven hair? What the…" Elisa's voice trailed off and eyes suddenly went wide as she realized something "Oh fuck" all the blood had drained from her face, leaving her a pale as a sheet; whatever she had realized had scared her. Seeing the woman who had taken on four revenants without blinking get this scared made Neira absolutely terrified.

"What the hell did you do?" she demanded

"Not sure exactly, I have an idea but it's a long story; suffice to say I pushed myself further than I realized and this is the result" Elisa got up off the ground and headed towards a mirror that was suspiciously clean for a room filled with blood. Now that Neira thought about it she realized that there had been far more blood in the room before the battle; now it was almost gone – even the organs that were piled up by the abomination were all but dried up. Catching Neira's look Elisa shrugged "I used blood magic for over an hour; if this place hadn't been so covered in blood I'd be dead"

Neira raised an eyebrow "You can use the blood of those around you?"

"I need my own blood to be shed to get the magic going but once that's done any blood that's been separated from its body works; blood in a living body is a bit trickier, you have to take the person's mind or get their consent first" Elisa was looking at herself in the mirror now, she frowned and muttered "Never been this bad before" before opening a flask containing a lyrium potion and taking a large drink. She muttered something else, too quiet for Neira to hear and then something – if it was magic then it was nothing Neira had ever seen before – rippled along her skin.

Neira gasped, whatever Elisa had done had undone the changes that magic had done to her body, her hair was blonde once more and her eyes were their normal blue and even a little bit lighter than they had been before; there had been a darkness in them that Neira had not noticed while it had been there, but its absence drew her attention to it. What she had done was not without cost however; Elisa was leaning heavily on the pillar next to the mirror, bent over in pain and swearing in half a dozen different languages. "What was that?"

"Mix of a Templar and creation magic; Templar power removes the residue magic that changed the body in the first place and creation spell restores the body to its original state." Elisa gasped "Before you ask, no it can't do it to you and I doubt that I can teach you either; the magic has to come from within or else the traces are protected by your own flesh and Templar abilities are based on a warrior's discipline, even if they are magic" She regained herself enough to take a drink of lyrium potion again, it seemed to help her and she stood up fully, no longer in an apparent distress.

"Wait, you can use Templar power? But you're a mage!"

"Templar power is magic, Neira; did you think that Templars drew their power from the Maker or something? Why do you think they drink lyrium? Because it gives them a buzz?" Elisa walked over to the first revenant had been killed and was taking Loss out of the formerly undead corpse's head "In all fairness however, I can't use a holy smite; magic, whatever its form, is drawn through the body and trying to channel such anti-magic power through a mage's body…" Elisa shuddered "I learned Templar powers to learn to shield against them actually; I nearly got exposed as a mage when a Templar smited a mage I was attacking, the only reason I didn't wind up in a circle after that was I passed the effects off as the result of a spell he cast. So I got an ex-Templar in Kirkwall to teach me their abilities – Samson I think his name was – and learned how to use and – as a result – block Templar tricks. I can teach you blocking if you want but it's tricky; you have to draw all your power into yourself in order to do it – you can't cast any spells when defending against Templar magic"

"You can block Templar tricks? Of course I want to learn! How come no one's ever figured out how to block them before?"

Elisa shrugged "Probably someone has, but they were most likely a life-long apostate since you have to know Templar magic to figure out how to block it and if their children weren't mages then they wouldn't have risked exposure to teach others; I know I haven't" Neira accepted the answer and went to look in the mirror as Elisa started waking their companions.

Neira stared into the mirror; previously her hair had been a dirty blonde that had been going lighter and lighter in recent years as she came into her full power, now it was fully white. She shrugged; it wasn't like this wouldn't have happened eventually as it was and the white hair actually went well with her pale skin and green eyes, she would live and anyways now was not the time to moan about her appearance, they had demons to kill. She went to help Elisa wake the others up.

oOo

"See? Already they succumb to the demons! And these two haven't even been up there yet! You cannot allow corrupted mages to live! You must kill them all!"

Neira massaged her left temple, wishing they could spare the energy it would take to break through Cullen's cage and shut him up. First the Templar had nearly reduced Solona to tears by calling his former lover a monster and now he wouldn't stop ranting about how all mages who had so much as heard about blood magic needed to die, the fact that whatever Uldred was doing up there had caught her and Clara off guard and they needed a second to recover hadn't encouraged him to be quiet. Of course it was probably because they were suffering from the press of demons in their heads. Neira had always been sensitive to demons; her powerful connection to the fade made her a prime target. But now that she had used blood magic it had gotten so much worse, the whisper of demons in her ear that had plagued her since her magic first came to be was now a roar the vibrated her skull. The power of blood and dreams did not come without a price, one that was extracted in the need for constant vigilance; the mixture of powers made her a shining beacon to any demon who would seek her out.

Of course it wasn't all the price of her new power; Uldred was calling every demon in a huge area for whatever he was up to and they were all feeling it. Clara was as bad, if not worse, then she was and even unshakeable Solona was feeling the effects. Only Wynne and Elisa were untouched by the force of the demon's call.

Suddenly Clara lurched to her feet, drawing a knife from her robes and headed down the stairs "I'm going to shut him up" she snarled, heading for Cullen's prison "I'm going break through that prison and I'm going to snap his puritan neck" Neira smiled, that sounded like a good idea. They really should kill the stupid Templar; he was such an arrogant ass, unable to shut up about needing to kill innocents just because they were mages, going on about how they were all corrupted by demons, he'd even made Solona cry. That asshole needed to die. She rose up to join Clara. Wynne moved to go after them but Elisa stopped the old woman with a raised arm, blocking her path.

"What good will that accomplish?" Elisa called out to them

"He doesn't deserve to live!" Neira was not sure which one of them said the words but knew they were both thinking the same thing.

"And what has that to do with anything?" The question had a mild tone to it, as if Elisa was asking an academic question, not whether someone's right to live was relevant "He's not important, he's just a stupid Templar, stuffed with chantry propaganda until there's nothing left in his skull but what the priests say. What is important is proving him wrong; right now you're proving him right, you're showing us how you don't deserve freedom, because all you'll do is be subject to your own desires" Elisa's voice had changed, it now reminded Neira of how Mouse's had sounded when she had observed Solona's harrowing, feeding on their own pride. Blood magic Neira thought in the back of her mind This girl uses blood magic to prove mages can be trusted it's… Glorious. She could barely keep herself from laughter as Elisa continued "You are powerful enough to become grey warden's, you are better than this, so prove it"

As Elisa finished Neira realized that the call was nearly gone, pushed back to the edge of her mind, no longer a threat to her or Clara. Now that they were free Neira was horrified that she had been so ready to give in to the demons in order to kill Cullen, Clara looked similarly horrified. Neira turned to Elisa and Wynne "How did you stand against that so easily?" she asked "Both of you have a powerful connection to the fade; you should have suffered far more than Solona or even Clara. You should have felt the call of the demons almost as strong as I did but you stood untouched, how did you do that?"

Wynne hesitated, as if she was afraid of what conclusion they might come to. Elisa, however just shrugged "Practice" she said simply "I've been practicing this magic for far longer than you have and this is not the first time I've been somewhere where the veil is so thin; it's a skill that will come with practice, I'll teach you when this is done" This was a statement of fact; Neira and Clara would learn how to defend against demons better at the first opportunity "For now stay close to me, I can hold off the call"

Clara looked nervously at Elisa, obviously fearful of what had almost happened "What happens if you go down?"

Without a word Elisa handed her and Neira each a vial of poison before heading up the stairs to face what Uldred had become.

A/N I'd like to think I'm pissing people off with all these cliffhangers b/c that means I'm doing a good job. I actually meant to have the final battle in this chapter but it was getting too long – again – and I had the chance to end it so I did. Also I thought that this way I could switch over to the others perspectives since Elisa and Neira are getting too much stage time, yes Elisa is the main character in this story and Neira's not too far behind but the other characters matter too. Anyways next chapter Alice will reach the tower, Uldred will be defeated and the demon in Connor will be dealt with. Truth be told I actually considered letting them fail and have the guys at Redcliff be forced to kill Connor or Isolde but decided against it – that being said there will be complications, to what extent I'm not sure however.

Secondly I just realized I vanished the dog again – I keep forgetting about him – and will need to revise chapter 9 at some point. Until I do that let's just say that he was at Redcliff but couldn't enter the tunnel which is why he wasn't at the fight in the courtyard, also he stayed there when Alice high-tailed it to the circle – I can't imagine her taking a dog when speed is of such importance.

Thirdly while I've got some ideas about where I want this story to go I find myself frustrated by not having anyone to bounce my ideas off – nobody I know personally likes fan fiction and DA. While I may get a beta at some point if someone wants to listen to my ideas or give me some suggestions of their own then drop a review or a PM and I'll reply

Which reminds me that I owe Nimatar an apology, he was the first person to review me and I never really acknowledged it, sorry about that buddy, I'm really bad with that sort of stuff.

Also a belated thanks to everyone who favorites or follows me; you encourage me to keep writing!

Tldr; Everything from this arc wraps up next chapter or two and thanks for reading, please review