Broodmother
"The men they kill, they're merciful."
Lawrien gritted her teeth, and hissed as Wynne's magic slammed into all of them. It soothed over the worst of their wounds, but Lawrien knew that wouldn't last, especially not when Wynne's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she dropped.
Cobian thankfully caught her, despite his leg almost buckling again.
But they didn't have time to rest. Hespith wasn't about to let them.
Lawrien could feel the corruption of the Taint rushing through Hespith, the hands grabbing, pulling, feeding, yanking, touching- Lawrien gritted her teeth and shook her head. She couldn't linger in those feelings. Everything hurt enough.
"But the women, they want. They want to touch, to mould, to change until you are filled with them."
"Fuck..." Torph cursed. He was sitting Narascha up, who was awake again, awake and struggling to her feet slowly. "Easy, Nara... fuck, that was a scare..."
"I'll be fine..." Narascha said hoarsely.
"Suurrrrreeee..." Torph rolled his eyes, but Lawrien felt the fear in him, the pain in Narascha.
Everyone was in pain, and she wanted to let them all rest, but they couldn't. There were more whispers. More darkspawn were coming. Faren was awake again too, even as Zevran helped him wrap his arm in a sling.
"It's going to need more healing, Faren," Zevran said softly.
"It'll do for now..." Faren muttered.
"We have to move," Lawrien said, wincing as her side pulled.
It would hold for now. Wynne's healing would just have to be enough.
"She's right, more darkspawn are coming," Alistair said, wincing as he held Wynne up.
"I... I thought it was all over for a moment..." she mumbled.
"Not just yet..." Lawrien said softly, patting her arm. "Just rest against Alistair for now, Wynne. Thanks for the emergency healing. I know that was a lot for you."
They walked along quietly, following after Hespith's voice, and the thought made Lawrien shiver. She didn't like this. This was bad. This was very bad.
"They took her. They made her eat our friends. She tore off her husband's face and drank his blood."
"I fucking hate this..." Torph whispered.
"And while she eat, she grew."
Lawrien trembled.
No, no, no, no, no.
"She swelled and turned grey, and she smelled like them. They remade her in their image. Then she made more of them."
Ciara inhaled sharply. "No..." she whispered.
Leliana was absolutely terrified.
"Broodmother."
They stepped around the corner, and Lawrien froze. It... Lawrien had no idea what that thing was... except that it had once been Laryn... Lawrien whimpered, feeling more hands touching at her skin, clawing, tearing, ripping her clothes-
.:.
Lawrien vomited, wrapping her arms tight around herself. Ciara reached out, but Lawrien cowered back, shaking her head.
"I can feel the hands, the claws-" Lawrien gasped out. "Tearing clothes, screaming and crying and so much blood and pain, throat aching and burning. Everywhere hurts and disgust grows and then the hunger-"
Lawrien sobbed, and Ciara barely held back a cry of her own.
She felt Laryn's rape.
"I'm so sorry they did that to you, Laryn!" Lawrien choked out.
"Commander..." Oghren was pale. "What are you-"
"Lawrien," Faren called out. His face was carefully blank, but the grip around the pommels of his daggers was crushing, his hands growing white.
"F-Faren-" Lawrien nodded. "I know."
"Then lets cut her throat and be done with it," Faren said, a hard edge to his voice.
Lawrien gritted her teeth and nodded. Ciara readied herself too.
Then the Broodmother roared.
.:.
It was chaos.
The broodmother's screams attracted more darkspawn. They flooded the chamber, as the broodmother's tentacles erupted from the ground, trying to grab each of them. It did grab Zevran and launch him into the air at the ceiling, but one of Lawrien's glyphs thankfully caught him.
Cobian's shield arm was dislocated. He couldn't feel it. And so had dropped it by Morrigan's feet and began swinging his way through darkspawn with his sword. His entire body throbbed but he cut through heads and stabbed armpits and whenever he could when straight for the heart. They were all fighting the swarm of darkspawn off as best as they could while the broodmother puked up burning hot bile over Oghren and swung at him with her tentacles.
Narascha threw herself in between Oghren and a tentacle and was tossed away into a wall for it but that just seemed to make Oghren even more mad whose swings began to grow wilder but more fierce nonetheless.
Cobian yelled when his leg was grabbed by a tentacle, the recently healed one, and screamed when it was snapped again. Morrigan yelled, and he could hear Calenhad's frantic barking, but he felt another tentacle grab his arm and try to yank it the opposite way from his leg. It was only Sten cutting through the tentacles with his sword that saved Cobian from being torn apart.
He hit the ground hard, and Zevran rushed in with Leliana, the pair dragging him back to safety.
.:.
Lawrien flinched and whirled round. Ciara had a sudden resolve to her, dead set and unstoppable, but heavy handed nevertheless. Alistair startled, then relief hit him like a tone of bricks as the darkspawn sneaking up on him slumped the the ground, blade buried in the back of its head.
But there was a darkspawn behind Ciara, swinging already, and Lawrien knew she had no time to dodge or block the blow.
Ciara had known that to.
Alistair's relief turned straight to despair as he screamed.
"CIARA!"
All Ciara could do was move with the blow, and try to take as little damage as possible. But Lawrien saw red when Ciara's blood splattered the ground, and exploded in a magical burst when Ciara screamed, even as Zevran's dagger planted in the darkspawn's eye a second later.
.:.
Lawrien threw a punch and a fist of flames flew from her, crashing right into the Broodmother. Faren rushed past her tentacles, dodging their swipes, and forced himself to climb her back. It was slimy, but he ignored it, he ignored that this was once a dwarven woman just like Narascha. That she was a victim like Shianni. A victim like him.
Faren kept climbing.
.:.
A victim. Laryn was a victim. A victim Faren wanted to put out of her misery. There was nothing of Laryn left, just a body, and they both knew this suffering had to end. Lawrien braced herself. This would be messy. Oghren was reeling, horrified, furious, terrified. Narascha was terrified too. Torph was full of disgust and terror, for Layrn and for Narascha.
Because this could have been Narascha if she hadn't found the Grey Wardens, and the idea made Lawrien's blood boil. She screamed and threw another glyph, her force magic shoving all if Layrn's tentacles down and out of the way. They all needed one good blow. One more to finish this.
Narascha leapt in with another roar, Oghren coming in from the other side. Faren came in from above, bloodied daggers gleaming.
Their blades tore clean through the Broodmother, finishing her off.
It took even longer to finish off the swarm of darkspawn she had called, but once again they did it, and Lawrien collapsed down beside Ciara, who lay still, grimacing as Alistair put pressure on her back wounds.
Her armour had already been torn open by that hurlock Alpha earlier. This had just made her earlier wounds worse.
"That's where they come from..." Hespith said from above them, standing on a ledge of the walls surrounding them. "That's why they hate us, and that's why they need us... That's why they take us... and that's why they feed us..."
Lawrien's stomach rolled, and she had to fight the urge to vomit again.
"But the true abomination... is not that is occurred, but that it was allowed... Branka... my love..." Her voice turned heavy. "The Stone has punished me, dream friend. I am dying of something worse than death."
Tears stung Lawrien's eyes.
"Betrayal."
Hespith turned away and left, just as Epona's breath hitched. They all turned around at that, and saw Epona's journal in her hand.
"They betrayed Mythal... they killed her..." Epona read aloud, her eyes wide. "What?"
There was a faint flutter of relief from Hespith, then silence. Lawrien stiffened when she felt Hespith's life snap out. Everything cut off. All gone.
Hespith was dead.
Had she just...?
Lawrien bit her lip. Dammit. Damn it all.
.:.
"We should go after that poor woman," Leliana said.
"No." Lawrien shook her head. "She's gone..."
"Gone...?" Leliana faltered.
"She jumped."
Narascha closed her eyes and cursed. This was too much. This was all too much and they still hadn't even found Branka yet. Narascha wanted to rest so badly, but the whispers were growing louder again. More fucking darkspawn.
"We could have taken her to Branka with us," Zevran protested. "What is worse than what we have already seen?"
Lawrien whimpered, fingers curled into her hair. Then she gritted her teeth and threw her hand towards the Broodmother, engulfing her corpse in flames.
"I'm not looking forward to finding out," Epona admitted.
"Me neither." Faren scowled. "Because I already want to gut her."
Oghren grimaced. "Fuck... Branka couldn't have let all this happen... she wouldn't..."
"Nara..." Torph called her name, and they all grew silent. Torph sounded like he was in agony, and he was staring at Narascha with wide, horrified eyes.
Narascha's eyes darkened as she stared at the Broodmother's burning body. "Yeah. I know."
"This could have been you..." Torph whispered hoarsely. "Bhelen threw you out here..."
Narascha gritted her teeth, her fists clenched so tightly that they shook. "I know."
"Did he know...?"
"I don't know. I didn't." Narascha shook her head. "I was supposed to be the commander of our armies and I didn't know about Broodmothers..."
Oghren gritted his teeth. "I don't think anybody knew about this. Who the hell ever goes this far into the Deep Roads?"
"I'm not even sure if the Grey Wardens know," Ciara admitted, shakily sitting up now that her back was bandaged. "Perhaps a higher up? I'm not sure, but this is horrifying."
"The darkspawn are coming again," Lawrien said, forcing herself up to her feet. "We need to move."
Morrigan groaned. "This is ridiculous. We're all going to die out here."
Lawrien grimaced. "Not if you all go back to the Legion of the Dead," she said.
Narascha startled. "What?"
"I can continue on alone," Lawrien said.
"Bullshit," Torph scoffed. "We ain't leaving you behind. Let's go get this shit done and over with already, Lawrien."
"I'm the least injured Grey Warden-"
"I am actually," Torph pointed out. "And elfy here too." He jerked his head at Epona. "Because we FUCKING DODGE!"
Lawrien winced.
"Now stop being stupid and lets move our asses," Torph said. "I'm pissed, I'm more than pissed, and if you think we've came all the way down here to have nothing to show for it, then well fuck that shit. Bhelen will get his fucking traitorous ass on the throne, and my nephew and sister will be safe. And so will all of you, because after this we're going back to our damn estate and sleeping!"
Lawrien grinned shakily. "Yes, boss..."
"Let's make camp at the next safest location," Cobian said. "I know we want to get out of here, but we need to rest up. We're all in bad shape."
"I can't heal anymore either..." Wynne said breathlessly. "I'm sorry."
"Let's go. I'll scout ahead," Epona said. "Leliana, watch our backs."