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Rook looked around her in wonder. No one she knew had ever been inside the Grand Necropolis. She had never imagined she would find herself there, but now that she was, she found it all fascinating.
She followed Bellara, hurrying, but wishing she could stop and look around her. Much as she found her current circumstances overwhelming, she very much enjoyed being able to see all these corners of Thedas.
A tall, slender figure stood at an altar, its back to the two of them. Bellara clutched Rook's arm, pulling her to a stop, and they watched as a skeleton rose from the altar, reanimated, picked up a pickaxe, and walked past them, getting to work attacking the rocks along the walls. It joined several other skeletons busy at the same task.
The figure turned to them, and immediately Bellara rushed toward him, introducing herself and gushing over their correspondence.
Professor Emmrich Volkarin, Fade expert, was somehow older than Rook had expected, but he wore it well, and he seemed genuinely delighted to meet Bellara. Rook cleared her throat, stepping into the conversation, which was becoming increasingly technical and looked like it would go on all day if she let it.
"I'm Rook," she announced, feeling rather awkward about it.
Professor Voikarin smiled. "Charmed."
She gestured at the skeleton, now nearly indistinguishable from its fellows. "Neat trick."
"I forget it can be startling if you're not used to it. Please don't be put off by our workforce."
"Never." That was a bit of a stretch, but Rook was nothing if not practical.
Before Professor Volkarin could express his obvious relief, a scream sounded in the distance, thin and wavery and haunting. "Oh, dear. There is something that needs my attention. If the two of you wouldn't mind accompanying me while I take care of it, we can discuss your concerns when we are finished?"
Rook refrained from the sigh that wanted to be sighed. Could no one just … agree to help save the world without needing something done for them first? Apparently not. "Of course, Professor. Lead the way."
The Necropolis was huge. How big was impossible to determine, given the fog that shrouded everything. Rook kept expecting something to leap from the mists out at her as she hurried after the Professor and Bellara, who kept up a running conversation even as they moved. She caught words here and there, but Rook had always been more of a fighter than a scholar, and most of it went over her head.
She found herself wishing she knew more, that she could hold her own in the conversation. How could someone clearly as educated and intelligent as the professor agree to follow her, if she could barely understand half of what he had to say?
Fortunately, there appeared to be more than enough demons in the Shrouded Halls to keep Rook's bow and blades fully occupied. She was pleased to note that the professor could more than hold his own in a fight as well. She had wondered, looking at his tall, elegant figure, if he knew how to get his hands dirty, but after the first fight she no longer worried. He would fit right in, his magic supporting their front-line fighters.
Emmrich led the two young ladies through the halls of the Necropolis, thinking how different they were—Bellara carried on an eager conversation, as though she didn't want to waste a moment when she could be learning, while Rook glided through the halls as silent as one of the very dead.
When they went into a fight, however, both became very different people. Bellara focused and sure of herself and her magic; Rook swift and almost playful, dancing in and out of range of her opponent, blades flashing. He found it energizing, fighting at the side of two such young people, and was pleased that he was able to keep up with them, taking out his share of the demons and mindless dead they encountered.
He enjoyed Bellara's running commentary, and the technical details she was so avid about, but he kept looking at Rook, wanting to hear her voice with its faint lilt again, trying to hang back and let her catch up and ask her questions. Her eyes were everywhere, watching the corners, focusing on the unfamiliar territory, and her answers were brief. Perhaps later there would be time to find out more about her. The spirits had whispered about her, this young woman who was standing up to something unimaginable, but only the barest details.
Both Bellara and Rook paid close attention as he woke the dead and pulled from the body the answers he needed. Bellara leaning forward eagerly, restraining herself from asking her own questions with obvious effort. Rook stood back, arms folded, but her clear brown eyes missed nothing.
In the final fight, as she kept the spirits off him while he reawakened the bell, Emmrich could see that Rook didn't spare herself for a moment, dodging blows where she could and shaking them off where she couldn't. He admired her spirit and her concern for her companion, jumping in to protect Bellara wherever she could, but he worried, as well. He had spoken to enough of the dead to know that putting yourself in front constantly was wearying, and often led to distraction at the wrong times.
Even as the bell tolled and the despair cleared, Emmrich knew that his decision had been made. He would follow this brave young woman and be the Fade expert she and her team were looking for.
The news that two of the elven gods were trying to blight the world was an added incentive, but he hadn't needed it.
And if he'd had any concerns at all, the willingness with which both Rook and Bellara took tea from Manfred's tray, Rook even thanking his skeletal companion, told Emmrich his decision was the right one. He would follow her to her Lighthouse in the Fade, and he would do his best to help her survive not just the battles, but the war.