2-Lust for Power and a World Ended …
The guy on the news tonight was almost speechless. He was handed a sheet of paper on air and just read it to himself, looked up, read it again, looked up and opened his mouth. "This is a joke, right?" he asked as a photo of the autocratic leader of one of Earth's largest countries came up on the screen.
Evidently, the others in the news studio read copies, as well. In the background, the viewers could hear things being knocked over, doors slamming, loud yelling and running off camera. Finally, the guy read the words as he was standing to leave himself:
"Multiple nuclear missiles have been launched toward key cities across the world …" The feed cut off and the television went to black. No teeth-grinding emergency alert sounds. Just black. They didn't want a panic. That was always the excuse in the movies when the powerful wanted room in their bunkers and didn't care how many surface people died … because the decision-makers were the only people worth saving.
Of course, that's not how they spun it.
Marisia Park had to get it together. Getting angry wasted time.
She lived just outside Washington, D.C. She was likely at ground zero … at least one of them. She was dumbfounded and sat on her couch for too many precious minutes.
She grabbed her phone. The Internet was off. Cell service was off. She saw the SOS … Shit Outta Service … alert where her bars should have been.
She could hear a few people running in the hallway. She looked around her new condo. She had just moved in last week. There were still boxes of stuff that needed to be unpacked. Now filled with all unimportant stuff that would never be unpacked. She looked at her laptop. Her new novel would never be read. She stuffed her laptop into a recently purchased waterproof, hack-proof bag and took it. Maybe it would last through a bomb. That would have been funny if she'd been thinking.
She wasn't thinking.
Mari was a fantasy writer. The proceeds from her last self-published novel helped to pay for the condo. Her inheritance paid for the rest.
Now, all soon to be worthless. Vaporized. Gone.
Her parents had been two of the hundreds of thousands of people who died pre-vaccine in America from a very contagious pandemic. She had given up calling her country the United States of America. The states were hardly united, willfully blind to the consequences of un-uniting. Her parents' will probate lawyer stuff had just been completed and the burial and wake had been over for a long time. She really had no other family. No siblings, aunts or uncles or living grandparents.
Mari caught the sunlight glint off an amulet her father gave her as he was dying. She had hung it on the corner of a large family portrait. "This is your most important inheritance," her father told her over Face Time on a phone a nurse plugged in by his bed. He said it could protect her. It had gone down through his family for centuries he had told her. He wasn't able to tell her anything else, even though it looked like he had a lot more to say. They had to put him on a ventilator. The nurse carefully cleaned the necklace and gave it to her. Colorful woven wires and threads with a shiny stone in the center of a pendant. The wires were tarnished and the threads were faded and thin, but the azure stone in the center never changed. Never cracked. Never lost its polished shine. She was the last of her family. There was no one to pass it down to … yet.
Her father was Anacostan Native American due to the tribe originating around the Anacostia River. Mari's grandmother never told her father his tribal name. As far as she knew, none of the tribe was left anymore. Her father was the last. It was why he stayed in the area of his ancestors. It dawned on Mari that she was now the last of the tribe. Her father had been a high school counselor and her mother was a psychologist. They had instilled in Mari the way of calm and self-reflection. It would help her survive even when they weren't around.
Mari didn't really believe in the amulet's promise of protection, but she put it on anyway. "What could it hurt, right?" she said out loud to no one as she grabbed a smaller family photo. It was a picture of Mari and her parents at the Grand Canyon. Mari was a melding of her parents, even down to height. She was 5'8", right between her mother's 5'2" and her father's 6'2". She got her father's straight black hair and dark brown eye color and her mother's ever-patient smile and chiseled facial features. Again, she was taking too much time! She slipped the photo into a lined metal pocket next to her laptop in her special laptop bag.
After having to help friends with their family crises, Mari was glad for the calmness of her life. Especially now, actually. She could just get the hell out of town without worrying about contacting or picking up anyone. Not that she could call anyone anyway. She hoped her few close friends got away. They were so scattered around the DC area and there was no way she could check on them.
How does someone get away from a nuclear bomb?
No time to think about that. Just get out of town. No standing at the window waiting for the end to come.
She went on auto-pilot, grabbed a backpack already conveniently filled with gear for a hunting trip in a few days, her hand-carved bow that she got at a Renaissance Faire a couple years ago and as many carbon-fiber arrows as she could cram into her quiver. She stuffed her laptop bag into the backpack. Maybe she would find a bomb shelter with electricity.
A freaking bow. Why didn't I learn to shoot a gun with small bullets that came in small boxes? she thought. A fantasy writer would learn a bow, she reasoned to herself. Phil loved that she took up archery. Said it would be easier to make arrows than bullets if the world had a crisis. Yeah, that was Phil. She gave a moment's thought to finding him, but decided it would take her in likely the wrong late to worry about all that now.
She stuffed more nonperishable food into the backpack. All of the MREs that Phil bought for her last Christmas. How did he know she would end up needing them? Of all her friends, she wished she could call him. He would know what to do. She looked at the phone in her hand and then tossed it on the couch. Her old phone's battery was crap. Electronic stuff was about to be useless. That was a guess on her part. No time to look it up … even if she could.
"Why didn't I listen more when Phil went on one of his Mass Extinction scenario prepper tirades?" she thought to herself as she left the condo. She laughed at herself for locking the door. The electricity in the building went out. Emergency lights came on. No elevators. She headed toward stairs to the basement parking garage.
Fortunately, not too many people in the building had heard yet or hadn't thought to run down to their cars yet. Thank the universe I took the time to be prepped for that hunting trip. Phil would be proud, she thought. However, once she jumped into her car and pulled out of the garage and onto the main street, things were starting to get crowded and crazy.
Mari made it out of the downtown area before gridlock hit. Other cars were pulling off the road into a park. For some reason, she felt drawn to follow. She didn't know a lot about the roads in the park. She recalled that it had a beautiful lake in the center. When she was a kid, her Dad took her there for an Anacostal tribal ritual every year. She promised that she would do the ritual after he died. That wouldn't happen this year.
She followed the other cars. It was a dead-end. Everyone was trying to turn around and go back to the road.
Mari tried to turn around, but it was impossible by then. She just got out of the car and slipped on her aluminum-frame backpack with rope and other tools hanging off it, bedroll across the top and covered quiver stuffed full of arrows on her right shoulder. She carried the bow and sheathed some knives in her boots and her thigh sheathes. The backpack was light-weight, but with all the stuff in it, it was heavy. She didn't care. If she didn't make it, it would be a waste of time. If she did make it somewhere, she might need that stuff. She walked away from her old car, left the keys in the ignition and headed into the park.
She found the lake. She knew she was desperate when she considered jumping into the lake and swimming to the bottom, hoping that the blast force wouldn't evaporate the entire lake at detonation. Is that what would happen? She had no idea. She just remembered all those documentary films about the nuclear bomb tests that blew away everything in their paths. Weren't there survivors of Hiroshima? She thought so. But, modern bombs were more powerful. She knew that.
Once she reached the lake, she was surprised that she was alone … so far. She looked up. She heard what she thought was the whistle of the missile overhead. It was heading south toward all the government buildings. Must have come over the North Pole. Then, she actually saw it. It wasn't as big as she thought it would be. She was petrified for more precious moments than she thought she had.
Finally, she just went ahead and jumped into the water and swam to the middle of the lake … and waited for the sound. She was surprised at how calm she was, actually. Her parents' training kicked in. She was very likely going to die, but she wasn't going to take it like in the movies.
She whispered, "Find a way." Her mother's mantra.
That's when she noticed a dim circling light at the bottom of the lake. Was it there as she swam up? It got deathly quiet. Was there an explosion? She took several deep breaths and dove straight for the light. The bow was a pain to swim with, but she might need that, too, so she held it along her arm and swam the best she could.
It turned out to be a freaking fancy mirror some nutcase must have thrown into the lake! But a swirling light filled the reflective mirror part. Was it a secret doorway to an invitation-only bomb shelter? Phil talked about all the secret bunkers the government had all over. Maybe this was one of them?
She heard the water begin to agitate above her. Boiling away? She swam toward the mirror faster. Stupid thought, but she was going to die anyway.
Without a moment's hesitation, she touched the mirror. It was solid for a moment and then swirled open … drawing her through it, dumping her and a small amount of lake water onto the top of … a tower? No mushroom cloud in sight. Maybe they actually did invent transporters like in Star Trek? Was she in some other country? Was someone else coming through the mirror?
A blindingly bright flash from the mirror preceded it beginning to crack as Mari stumbled back a few steps. The glass part of the mirror fell into a small mound of glass sand. Even the frame cracked and broke apart. There was nothing left that remotely looked like a mirror … or doorway, for that matter.
No going back that way.
No going back … at all … ever.
The sum total of her possessions were on her back. Mari sat, leaned against a wall and cried. She gave in to despair, fell on her side and curled into a ball.
Why was she alive? She should have just died along with everyone else.
She had no idea how long she cried. Maybe she passed out. She was completely disconnected to her surroundings.
Was she on some other planet? A secret base? Was the mirror a wormhole? That made her worry more about if they'd blown up the entire planet, but at least that would prevent the lingering death that would come from a nuclear winter.
And, hopefully, it would prevent a stupid human Earth civilization from endangering the rest of the universe.
She had no idea where these thoughts were coming from.
Once she became aware of her surroundings once again, she stood up and looked around a bit more. She knew she'd been non-aware a long time. She was still alone. She was completely dry as was her backpack and everything in it. But the light source hadn't moved in the sky. That's when she noticed there was no light source in the sky. It was just … daylight … with no sun. So, not another planet. It looked like outside, though. Other towers were scattered in the distance in all directions. Fields of waving grass around the base. No roads. There were alcoves similar to the one with the destroyed mirror around the ramparts of the tower but no other mirror doorways on the ramparts. She came to an open archway leading down and inside.
No one else was around … at least no one was around when she came to her senses. "Maybe I died? This might be my afterlife," she said to the wind. She had never believed in that sort of thing, but, of course, that didn't mean it didn't exist.
So, she went down the stairs to a room with six glimmering mirrors. Each one had a golden key hanging on a hook on the side. She briefly touched the surface of each mirror and it 'woke up' showing a small scene. Mari wondered if it was what was on the other side. Her hand could go no farther than the surface of the mirror. She guessed they might also be doorways and that she might have to use the key somehow to open it.
So, the rules for these doorways were different from the mirror at the bottom of the lake.
The first one showed a lush, thick forest. Didn't think she wanted to go there. She wanted someone to talk to, ask questions, if she could. Was that a good idea? She didn't know. She just didn't want to be alone if she could find someone. A large tree walked by?! Strange afterlife. But, she did write fantasy, so maybe it wasn't so strange after all?
Another mirror looked out over a subterranean lake of some kind. It wasn't lit very well. That wouldn't be a first choice either. Spooky. Nope, never liked horror.
Three were in dark areas, two with small flickering lights. She had no idea about those. Basements? Hidden places? Ruins? One looked to be underwater, but it was calm and very unlike the water she'd just come from. Too much unknown through those doorways.
The final doorway was lit with bright orange light. It looked to be underground or in a cave. Maybe this was a bomb shelter? She was about to turn away from it … to think about it for a minute. That's when she saw four or five guys walking up to the doorway on their side. They were dressed in armor … and could have easily been characters in one of her stories. Maybe they were cosplayers? She grabbed the key and simply holding it allowed her to step through.
Of course, they all pulled their weapons. Swords, shields, staff and daggers. Whoa! These guys are hardcore, she thought to herself. At least, they don't have AKs.
"Hey, I'm as surprised to see you as you are to see me," Mari babbled nervously as she threw up her hands. "My name is Marisia Park, Mari to my friends."
That's when she realized that two of them were dwarves! Real dwarves! Not costumes. Just like from Lord of the Rings! One of the two dwarves looked behind Mari and said, "It went dark."
Mari spun around to see that the mirror had, indeed, gone dark. The dwarf continued, "The Shaperate has a book about transportation to some of the old surface outposts when we had dealings with the elves on the surface. They mentioned things like this." His armor was mismatched and filthy. His dark brown hair and beard could use some soap and water.
Dealings with elves? she thought to herself. Elves?! Most importantly, Mari understood what he said. She had never heard of dwarves or elves — as in the races of real dwarves or elves — on Earth. What was a Shaperate?
The odds were turning in favor of this being Mari's afterlife and not salvation from the bomb, but she wasn't quite ready to go down that road yet.
She felt alive.
The dwarf sheathed his sword and slung his shield onto his back. "My name is Dugan and the other dwarf is Makis. I guess you're stuck with us." Makis had black hair and had more stubble than beard. He was quiet and sullen with a rather intricate facial tattoo. That must have hurt, Mari thought to herself.
Even with the key in her hand the mirror stayed dark — really dark. And solid. Then, it disappeared into the stone of the tunnel. All that was left was a stone frame. The key disappeared and then even the stone frame sunk into the wall of the tunnel.
Okay, another one way trip, she thought to herself. Her hands began to shake.
"Where are the other survivors?" Mari asked as she turned back, determined to maintain hope until the last possible moment. As they glanced at each other, she added, "This is a bomb shelter, right? The surface is probably unlivable by now." These guys must think I'm nuts, Mari thought to herself.
A tall, handsome, dark-haired human slipped his long daggers into a back sheathe and — with a sympathetic look — stepped up, put his hands on Mari's upper arms. "My name is Duncan, the Ferelden Commander of the Grey. You are in the Deep Roads under Ferelden, Marisia. There were no bombs and the surface was quite livable the last we saw it several weeks ago. Where did you come from?"
"What?" she whispered. This wasn't Earth. She had truly escaped. Thoughts about her friends left behind brought tears to her eyes again. She felt herself starting to slip away again and just couldn't stop herself. "I thought … I thought that thing might just be a weird secret entrance to a bomb shelter," she whispered as she nodded toward the now unseen doorway. Her knees felt weak as things started to hit her. Duncan helped her to sit on a tumbled portion of some stone wall. "But, I'm not there anymore. Maybe there's not a there anymore." Tears and anger began to mix in equal measure. "Where I came from, prideful men did the unthinkable. 'Everyone keeping nuclear weapons would be a deterrent to their use,' they said. 'It would be worldwide suicide to use them,' they said. 'No one would fire off the first missile for fear of retaliation,' they said. That first mirror I came through just crumbled to a pile of glass beads … wood splinters …" She babbled for an unknown amount of time. When she finally looked around at surprisingly sympathetic faces, Duncan sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulder.
Once she gathered her thoughts, she sat back and Duncan released her. "How 'deep' are these 'deep roads'? Are you sure the surface is clear here?" she asked with a shaky voice.
They looked at each other, obviously confused by this crazy human. Then, Duncan looked to a medium height, broad-shouldered, curly-red-haired human male who pulled out a parchment and rolled it open. Real parchment. Not the patterned paper you could buy at a specialty store that looked like parchment. The area was lit by trenches of lava, but a shoulder-length blond-haired light-skinned elf in robes … yeah, real elf with real pointed ears … said a word and the tip of his staff lit up. Real magic!? He held it closer to the parchment. "If the notes about your earlier escape through these roads years ago were correct, Duncan, we are about a day and a half from the entrance." The human shrugged. "If we don't run into too much trouble, that is. Things have been pretty nasty down here this trip." He smiled at Marisia. "My name is Anton, Marisia. And, the mage is Andwn."
Andwn gave her a sad smile. "I'm very familiar with losing everyone and everything, Mari." He looked around. "We're Grey Wardens. It sort of comes with the job. We've all had to start over at some point."
Grey Wardens?! What was that game all of her friends obsessed about?! Dragon something? I can't remember if they mentioned this Ferelden before. I never took the time to play it. Didn't want to spend the time playing a game when I could be writing my own stories … and now I end up in that freaking game world, none the wiser about where I am, Mari thought as she forced a frown. "I've never heard of Ferelden before. Do you think I come from some other … world?" She looked to Duncan.
This development could mean that this was not her afterlife.
It was looking like this was going to be a new life. A very, very different new life. A thought came to her, I wonder if this world will be close to those in my own stories.
Duncan smiled. "I've also read about those portals before in tomes from the Weisshaupt libraries. Weisshaupt is the world headquarters for the Grey Wardens. It is a fascinating and expansive repository of information gathered over the centuries of our order's existence. From what I read, no one really knows where these portals go, where they come from or how they work. Quite possibly you came from another country outside our known lands."
Mari knew that wasn't true, but she let it go for now. At least, she had never heard of a Ferelden on Earth before. "Would it be possible for me to go to Weisshaupt and read about Ferelden?" she asked.
They smiled and chuckled. Duncan said, "Weisshaupt is a very long journey away, Mari … and you would need to be a Grey Warden to get access. But, there are many repositories of Ferelden histories. We'll be heading to Highever next. Brother Aldous is there and he is a fine teacher. They have a small library that I'm sure they wouldn't mind you perusing."
"Ya got a recruit in this Highever, Duncan?" Makis asked.
"No, not yet," Duncan said with a wink. "I promised someone that I'd be present for his eighteenth name-day. That's the reason I moved up coming to Orzammar. I am sorry our arrival also seemed to move up assassination plans for Trian, Dugan." With a smile, he added, "Anyway, I didn't think you all would mind a couple good meals and a bed for a night or two."
Anton laughed. "Sounds good to me!"
"Don't need to apologize, Duncan. I thought your visit was a good thing since Father also moved up making me a commander," Dugan said with a sad smile but didn't expand on that thought. Mari just filed it away.
"Name day?" Mari asked. "Is that like a birthday? We called it birthday where I come from."
"Probably?" Duncan replied. "If the term birthday refers to the day of one's birth on your world. Sometimes a name-day is delayed a few days after a birth for relatives to arrive." Then he looked back at the map and pointed at a crossroads. "However, for tonight, here's a good place to camp, a couple hours from here. Then, we should make the surface before sunset tomorrow. There's a cave on the other side of the barrier door that seals off this end of the Deep Roads. We should be safe to camp in the cave and head out into the daylight first thing the next day."
They continued on with little talking and Mari was ever so glad of that. It gave her time to calm down. It gave her time to begin to accept her situation. She knew it would take time to fully accept everything, but at least she had started by wisely choosing the portal with these Wardens on the other side. She had no idea if she would be able to stay with them very long, but it seemed she was good until they reached Highever.
Soon, they came upon a crossroads, a big crossroads, sort of like a giant traffic circle, with a perfect camp spot on the center island. Even had a fire pit already laid out. However, there wasn't anything flammable that Mari could see. The walls there were more worked and patterned. Must have been quite grand, once upon a time.
Andwn held his hands out toward the stones of the fire pit and flames shot from the palms. "Wow!" Mari said. "Magic."
"You don't have magic where you come from?" Andwn asked. "Maybe you do come from another world," he added in a whisper.
"Magic only exists in my written stories of fantasy fiction," Mari said with a smile. "To answer your question, no, we have … we had something we called technology, which a wise man once said can sometimes be indistinguishable from magic," Mari replied. She sat on one of the large tumbled stones around the firepit and reached into her backpack and pulled out the laptop bag. Fortunately, the bag performed as advertised and the laptop was dry. "This is a laptop computer."
"Definitely, a different world," Andwn said louder. "This is all so foreign to anything I've ever seen or read about."
Mari didn't miss everyone putting their hands on their weapons. "I shouldn't have done this, shown you all this." Tears welled in her eyes. "I'm alone here and I truly mean no one harm. I'm going to need help. Please, don't tell me I've only made you fear me."
Duncan sighed and sat next to Mari. "Go on with what you were saying and we'll tell you after."
She started to open the lid and stopped. "I could turn it on, but it runs with a power I somehow doubt you have here. There's a battery that stores my world's power, but it's limited. So, I'd rather not right now." She held her backpack out to Duncan. As he took it, he was surprised with how light it was. "The frame is made from a lightweight metal we call aluminum. Don't know if you have access to it. No idea how they process it." As they passed around the laptop and backpack, she added quietly, "Technology. It can destroy a world in the wrong hands." She shook her head and sighed.
Andwn nodded, "Same with magic, really. Read about Tevinter when you get a chance." He looked at the firepit with the warm stones, "It took me a couple of years to figure out that the Circle didn't teach me anything about living in the real world." He smiled at Mari. "I don't know about the others … and this may turn out to be naive in the future … but I don't fear you."
"Thank you, Andwn. How long have you been a Grey Warden?" she asked him as she put away the laptop and untied her bedroll from her backpack. She noticed the frightened warble in her voice and the shaking of her hands had started to abate ever so slightly. She made a mental note to try to keep talking about anything other than where she came from.
"This is my tenth year. I started out in the Free Marches, northeast of here, but requested a transfer after I met Duncan." Andwn smiled at his Commander. "I haven't regretted it once. Although, I'm sorry that my request caused the First Warden — he's the head Warden in Thedas — to limit Duncan's recruits."
Mari looked at Duncan. "Thedas? And, why would the First Warden do that?" she asked.
Duncan just sighed as he pulled a cook pot out of his backpack. "Thedas is our world, Mari. The official reason that the First Warden gave was that we don't want to annoy Ferelden by pulling too many soldiers and field workers away from their homes or recruiting too many mages." He looked at Makis. "Go ahead and cook the deepstalkers we killed earlier today." Dugan was already setting up a spit over the heated stones. "The unofficial reason is that the First Warden is from the country of Orlais and doesn't wish Ferelden to seem more successful than Orlais." He reached over and squeezed Mari's hand. "I do not fear you, either, but we Wardens are a cautious lot." Then, he stood and added, "However, we are also an order who will accept any friendly help we can get."
"Thank you, Duncan." The consequences of the rest of what Duncan had just said escaped the frazzled Mari for the moment. "So, being a Grey Warden is a full-time job? How long is the deployment?" Mari asked.
"It is a lifetime commitment," Duncan said with a small smile.
"Our motto is: In War, Victory; In Peace, Vigilance; In Death, Sacrifice," Anton said. "Yeah, pretty serious. But our duty is pretty serious. Darkspawn are the evil we fight and they never end. May you never see one. I've been a Warden for over twenty years, almost as long as Duncan, and not much time goes by without killing the monsters. So, I kill darkspawn for a living. I don't fear you at all." He looked at Duncan. "We've been seeing more darkspawn on the surface lately, Duncan. Surely, the First Warden can ease up on the limits?"
"Sadly, I do not see that happening for a little longer, anyway," Duncan said.
Mari pursed her lips and her story development brain went into action. It was something else to think about, after all. "Hmmm, sounds to me like you need a place to stash some 'secret' Wardens. If it's getting bad, it sounds stupid to wait too long. Trust me, waiting never works out well," she said quietly as she rolled out her bedroll.
The five Wardens looked at each other and laughed. As he turned the meat on the spit, Dugan said, "I don't fear her. In fact, I think you should conscript her, Duncan, to work around Weisshaupt bureaucracy and, I suspect, the nobles here in Ferelden."
Mari just smiled. "Please don't … at least not right now. I need to find out more about where I am. But, know that I am grateful for your company and forbearance. I can still help, in the meantime. No charge!"
She sighed. "Although, I may need to do some work for payment. I doubt my money will mean anything here." The thought that her $50,000 college loan-shark debt was now gone brought a brief smile to her face. Not something the guys would understand, so she kept it to herself.
"Very well, I'll leave it up to you to decide on joining the order … at least for right now," Duncan replied with a wink. "And, I'm sure that we can work out an arrangement for your support while you're with us, Marisia. Besides, it would be wrong to conscript you if you cannot defend yourself. I assume you can use that bow?"
"I can. I've mostly done target practice, but I have gone hunting with friends …," she sat as tears came to her eyes. "Friends who are likely gone now." She added a smile to the tears. "Maybe not Phil. He was an expert at preparing for the worst to happen. He even had a bomb shelter on his property. Food for months. Air and water filtration and recycling." She wiped her eyes. "I hope he made it in time. I hope it wasn't as bad as I'm imagining it. One city destroyed would be horrible, but the rest of the world could likely survive … and finally get angry enough to get rid of all the stupid leaders. Their lust for power would never stop any other way. Our history is filled with civilizations who stand up to tyranny." She looked at the Wardens' sympathetic looks. "Sorry, if I get too preachy or go off on tangents you guys don't understand, just ask me to shut up."She took a deep breath. "Okay, right now I'm not really hungry. I think I'll just go to sleep, if that's all right."
"If you wish, we could offer some guidance on the topics you may want to avoid here … like about your technology," Andwn said as he nodded to Mari's backpack.
"That is a good idea, Andwn," Duncan agreed. "However, we can discuss that during our upcoming travels. Sleep as well as you can, Mari."
"Thanks … and, yeah, that kind of guidance might serve to keep me from being hung somewhere," she said with a smile.
"No way I could fear a lass with that nice smile. 'Sides, we're kindred spirits, Mari. Me and Dugan ain't seen the surface of Ferelden, either. We'll save ya some deepstalker for tomorrow mornin'," Makis said. He was looking less sullen than he was earlier. "Stone's Balls, what kinds of stuff do you eat up there?" he added quietly.
The quiet conversation became a background buzz for Mari. They spoke about Dugan and Makis joining the order. Apparently, the two dwarves were new recruits from someplace called Orzammar. Two dwarves with very different backgrounds.
They spoke quietly about Mari when they thought she might be asleep. They were surprised at how open they were with her, but explained it as liking her and her own openness. But, then, they did see her come out of that portal with their own eyes. They believed her, especially after seeing that strange metal box and how strange her backpack and clothing looked. That made Mari smile. Surprisingly, her terror and fear and urgency of the past day caught up with her and she found herself going to sleep with a much shorter cry time.
During the night, she had troubling dreams. That didn't really surprise her when she thought about it upon awakening. Her mother had talked her through dream process theories before.
Although, there was one image that stuck with her … was it a dream? A bald elf, looking down at her. All he said was, "Not what I expected." Did he follow her through the portal and, in her confusion, she didn't notice it was him? However, that meant she would have to believe that there were elves somewhere on Earth.
Nope, just more jumbled thinking. Maybe she would mention it to the Wardens. Maybe not.
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AN: So now you've met the characters … oh wait … there are a few more next time. ;)