Chapter 37Dragon 9:34 Umbralis/Firstfall-Cassus/Haring Orzammar [Present]
Alistair was pleased with his farewell, it was touching when people expressed their feelings for you be it as friends or lovers, or a bit of both, and it was something, truth be told, he did not think he would ever get enough of, however long he lived: Affection. He bent down smiling to allow Adal to adjust the scarf round his neck, embraced Oswyn and told him he would be fine and pried off Dean with an friendly clap on the back when he threw himself at him, wondering briefly how many friends Dean must have lost in his years as a Templar, because judging by his emotionality it could be a few.
The dwarves were also dismissed with fondness, Dolgan’s niece casting a meaningful look in Alistair’s direction as she embraced him, which he pretended not to notice.
The only one who seemed to have no-one was Marcus who stood very straight and somewhat apart from the rest of them, fussily inspecting his bow and his arrows and his leather armour, although Alistair knew for sure that it had all already been checked because he had made a point of ensuring everyone had buddied up to do just that.
So they set through the archway down the steps through the gallery that opened up into the Deep Roads. They deviated slightly so Khegst could pick up his bronto. A beautifully ugly hulk of an animal called Mabya who lowed gently when she saw Khegst and started to nuzzle the redheaded, miner caste dwarf in search of lichen while he clapped her cheerfully on the back asking her how she had been.
Although he had been charged several times by enraged brontos in his previous foray into the Deep Roads, not an experience he particularly wanted to repeat, Alistair had never had time to study a bronto from close up. She looked as though she had been born with her own armour, her very tough hide actually seemed to lay at certain points like plates over her bulk, her horn at its root was as thick as a tree trunk, her top lip appeared to be split and she had deep dark brown eyes.
“She’s harmless” Khegst who was beardless assured him finally feeding her some green stuff that he extracted from a pocket, “she’s actually a lovely gentle beast… Aren’t we Mabya, baby?” He exclaimed stroking her ungainly horned nose as she made satisfied chomping noises.
Alistair put his hand out to her palm upwards, and to his surprise Mabya opened her big mouth revealing a long black pointed tongue and licked it. Her tongue was very rough but fortunately for his skin, also very wet. Khegst who was putting a complicated leather harness on Mabya laughed at Alistair’s appalled and surprised expression and then pretended not to watch as Alistair attempted to dry his hand on the cavern wall.
“She does seem charming…”
“She definitely likes you Topsider, what can I say? You must smell good to her or something… She’s making all sorts of noises…”
“Really?” Said Alistair, “I can’t hear any noises…”
“Yes…” Replied Khegst looking up at him puzzled from where he was kneeling to adjust the harness over Mabya’s immense stomach, “She’s making these sort of huffing noises…”
“I don’t…”
“Lay your hand against her throat, Topsider.”
Alistair did and sure enough he could feel some deep rolling vibrations from the creature’s gullet but he still could not hear anything… “How strange…”
“Tell you what, Topsider, this is really interesting, bring the other one, Marcus, here and one of my brothers… Let’s see what they have to say…”
Therefore, Alistair persuaded Volkur and Marcus to have a closer look at Mabya. Marcus looked at her somewhat timorously and kept his distance, whereas Volkur simply went up to her and thumped her on the side.
“For luck,” he explained. Mabya lifted her head and bellowed approvingly at him.
“Well I heard that…” Said Alistair.
“But you don’t hear anything now…” Said Khegst, standing having secured the harness.
“No… Do you hear anything Marcus?”
“Not after that bellow, no…” Said Marcus, his forehead wrinkling…
“Volkur?” asked Khegst.
“Definitely,” Replied the other dwarf, “It is a typical ‘bronto’s song’, a sort of deep rumbling within the rock…”
“But neither of the Topsiders can hear it…” said Khegst “By the stone! That is…” He appeared to be lost for words.
“No wonder the brontos that attacked us last time seemed to me to come out of nowhere, but Oghren was never caught unawares… It just never struck either of us that he was hearing something I couldn’t…”
“Intriguing.” Finished Khegst.
“There seems to be a real stone sense, after all,” Alistair nodded in agreement.
In any event, since Mabya had now been harnessed they began to load her up with such things as potions spare weapons and armour and food supplies.
“She can easily carry far more than your average ox…” Boasted Khegst, “This is as nothing to her… We used to use her for bearing boulders, gems and ore…” and he patted the beast’s vast side.
Mabya was many things but she was not fast so the party found itself adapting to her steady swaying gait as she and Khegst brought up the rear.
“They are very valuable, worth the yearly income of many families, and rare now, unfortunately,” Dolgan murmured to Alistair.
Since Alistair had gotten to know somewhat about Dolgan and Khegst he thought now perhaps, it was Marcus’ turn, so he matched his steps to those of the rogue. “No-one back there to say goodbye to you…” he commented, perhaps he noted as the words left his mouth, a little insensitively.
Marcus did not seem to mind, “Oh,” He replied, “I have folks and no doubt I’ll be seeing them soon,” he looked tired and drawn and had a slight Orlesian accent.
“Good to know.”
“Surprised to meet you here, though…” added Marcus, I would have loved to assist with the Blight but the call never came…”
“So you were one of the Wardens poised to…”
“Indeed I was.”
“I see.”
“You are not as I imagined you would be…,” remarked Marcus.
“And how did you imagine me?”
“Older, more serious, less quirky… More… Tormented. Please don’t take offence.”
“None taken. I am as I am… and I do have my dark days,” Said Alistair smiling.
“Don’t we all,” murmured Marcus, “don’t we all…?”
~~...~~
After saying goodbye to Alistair Oswyn was tempted to go back to the Shaperate but somehow he felt that would be running away from what he had been commissioned to do so instead he turned to Dean and said, “Let’s go back to that hiding place of ours and talk, shall we?”
They sat facing each other across the table, Oswyn had got himself some water, “Alistair was plying me yesterday.” He explained, while Dean helped himself from the cask.
“I need to get a new one soon,” He said.
“So you were hooked on the stuff?” He asked Dean, “What’s that like?”
“Miserable.” Said Dean, “Not at first of course, at first it feels as if your feet have wings and you are the strongest most powerful most intelligent man in Thedas… Mages are nothing to you. Suddenly all those hours of meditation that it takes to master some of the Templar skills seem unnecessary, because on the blue-eyed beauty, it takes you barely a minute. You can almost do a cleanse area, an incredibly powerful spell, at whim. Then the next day you wake up… And you’re just
you again, and being just you is suddenly hard work, harder than before… So then you begin looking forward to the time you can take the stuff again and feel all those positive things and powers flowing through you…”
As he said this Oswyn observed that Dean embraced himself, “Yes,” said Dean noticing he had noticed, “It makes you feel
that good. And you really begin to dread coming down and loosing it all, then you actually start hating you, hating yourself as you are, without the beauty. That’s when you are really getting hooked…”
“What does lyrium taste like?”
“Sweet, sickly sweet, sweeter than anything in creation has a right to be…”
“Bring me one of the bottles that you are certain is lyrium…”
“Alright.”
Dean was gone a few moments, then came back, and put a flask containing a bright crystalline blue liquid on the table between them.
“So how do you know this is lyrium?” Asked Oswyn.
Dean picked up so the light from the sconce fell directly on it and shook it gently, “It shines, see? Great colour, sparkling blue but not too deep, too deep and it’s either not lyrium or it’s turning… No sparkle, it’s not lyrium.”
“How long does lyrium keep?”
“If the bottle is well sealed and properly stored, for about five years”
“And it changes colour when it starts to loose its power, you say?”
“That’s right,” Replied Dean, “It starts going turbid and dull, gets darker…”
“Can it be dangerous like that?”
“It can but it becomes virtually undrinkable, so…”
“Right. Do any of the bottles we have have dates on them?”
“If they do, I’ve never noticed…”
“Okay, so we will just have to judge by the colour…”
“Correct.”
“Tell me about strength…”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I mean the amount of lyrium to water.”
“Well, anything less than a tenth is useless. To me anyway, some say they’re hypersensitive… I really dunno.” Dean shrugged.
“Can it be too strong?”
“Yes, for non-mages anything over half could be risky. It just takes so long to wear off, you become confused rather than in control… You could stay like that. Permanently.”
“And for mages?”
“My understanding is that most of them can tolerate about up to two thirds… It does vary from person to person…”
“And how can you tell the strength?”
“Apart from opening it and trying it? Colour. Not very accurate but it’s all we have to go on. Never buy ‘lyrium’ in anything but a clear flask… It’s not gonna be lyrium… I only bothered to store clear flasks here, the rest I just left…”
“Did you make any record of when and where the lyrium was confiscated?”
Dean shook his head, clearly uncomfortable, “I can read and write, just about, but I’m not a literate man, really, it didn’t occur to me… The flasks are more of less in order of when I and the guards confiscated them, so the oldest, according to that date are in room one.”
Oswyn laced his hands together and stretched them palm outwards, “No problem, Dean, no-one is perfect but it means we’ve got a lot of work in front of us. I suggest we use some flasks against a pale background as a gauge for purity. Therefore, we set them out in a row and can use them as a reference to classify the others. Is it possible for you to…? Ah, we could use a sheet over that old shop counter… So this bottle you brought me here, from its appearance how strong would you say it was?”
~~...~~
For what remained of the first day, they had kept to the main thoroughfare of the Deep Roads and had no real encounters of any significance save for a small group of spiders that they swiftly dispatched and from which they salvaged some venom for possible later use.
After walking for some six hours Dolgan determined that, it was time to set camp and they lit a small fire and prepared to settle down for the night and consume the freshest rations leaving the more austere salted nug meat, fish, and dried fruits for the latter parts of their journey. Not to forget the cheese wheel, though, he was quite looking forward to starting that. Alistair had some bread with a lick of butter, a boiled egg and a few apples he had sent the soldiers to the surface market to buy for him.
He offered one of the apples to Marcus who, distractedly, said
“Merci”, and who when Alistair replied,
“Pas du tout…” suddenly smiled and then looked away.
After their improvised meal, Dolgan summoned Alistair and spread out a parchment map on the dry ground before the fire. Alistair was impressed but Dolgan just grunted and said that Volkur’s Shaperate training had been put to good use. Sitting back on his knees, Volkur smiled happily.
Raising his eyes to him from where he was squatting, Alistair noticed for the first time that neither he nor Khegst were so-called dusters but they both seemed to interact quite amicably with Dolgan who was, and had no problem accepting his authority. Alistair felt that this was a definite plus for the Wardens, that they could bring people together like this. Unexpectedly, he felt a little of the pride he used to have in belonging to the order returning.
“Now, young Surfacer, since you’re somewhat of a late joiner to the team I’ll go over our plans with you. The rest of you might just want to listen in to refresh your knowledge. Anyway, here’s where we are, and here’s where we’re hoping to join up with the legion. That should be no later than around this time the day after tomorrow.” Dolgan pointed at the two locations on the map. Alistair nodded.
“Once we get there our mission’s to assist the Legion in retaking Glogar’s Passage which leads off from Ortan Thaig to the north east. There’s not enough detail on Volkur’s map here, not his fault no-one has taken care to survey it, as far as we know, but, my contact in the Legion informs me that there are three main cavern system branching off from the Passage, two to the left and one to the right as you exit from the Thaig.
The idea’s that once we join with the Legion they’ll split off into four groups, one to guard the entrance to the Passage from the Thaig, the other three to take each of the three branches. We in turn’ll split up into three groups, two of two and one alone, each group of two wardens’ll go with one of two Legion parties, the solitary will be the only Warden in the third party… We’re to act as glorified scouts to alert them of Darkspawn presence and help them flush every last of one of those nug humping sons of a plague-ridden brood mother out…” he growled, “I guess we’ll have further details once we meet up with the Legion. Any questions so far?”
Khegst asked whether Dolgan had determined the pairs yet, Dolgan shook his head. “I haven’t come to any final decisions thus far… I won’t be putting the Surfacers together, I probably won’t pair you with Volkur, and I won’t be in the same group as Alistair, for obvious reasons, but that’s it… I’m open to suggestions.”
Khegst opened his mouth but Dolgan interjected, “As far as Mabya’s concerned we’ll be leaving her with the fourth Legion group where she should be safe.” Khegst nodded satisfied.
Alistair had been allocated the fourth watch so he bundled up his cape to act as a pillow on a dry bit of surface took off his gauntlets, sabatons, and most of his leg and arm armour and tried to settle down for what he had of the night on the hard ground.
~~...~~
Oswyn and Dean spent most of the remainder of the day carting lyrium flasks back and forth. After a good few hours effort they had discarded about two dozen bottles and had established on the sheet a purity reference scale composed five bottles of different lyrium concentrations that they used to classify the flasks they retained into five rough groups.
Oswyn was quite happy with what they had achieved that day because he was sure they had made a solid start even if limping from room to room carrying flasks was very tiring for him and becoming painful. He was also grateful for Dean’s continued good humour and his banter, unsurprisingly, he had a lot of Templar and low life yarns to spin some of them pretty bawdy. Therefore, when evening came he took him to the place where he had previously dined with Alistair and they shared an excellent tasting stuffed nug, garnished with some really savoury mushrooms.
“Ya know,” said Dean between licking his fingers, “You should get a stick. To help you along I mean, help your balance…”
Oswyn looked over at him, “I’ve really been trying to avoid that…,” he said somewhat frigidly.
“Yes, I get what you say but there is no advantage in hobbling, you just get tired more quickly and your overall posture is affected and not in a good way.”
Oswyn thought this over, it made some sense.
“Plus,” added the Templar, “a good stick is not just a stick, it’s a staff, which wielded properly can be a formidable weapon…”
“That’s…”
“Never done any stave fighting? With your upper body strength that could be a winner.” Said Dean looking up at him from his meal, “I could give you the basics and when you get back to Denerim, you could find someone that would help you develop further… I used to know a few names. Chantry types mostly, brothers and sisters… Pretty nifty with a stick some of those.”
“Sounds… Interesting…”
“Oh, I can see you like a challenge, Oswyn, and that’s why he chose you… Me, I’m good at what I do and that’s why he’s using me. Quite a good judge of character, our prince.”
Oswyn was in fact in such a good mood that he later took Dean to Tapsters and drank too much. Although he had been in Orzammar for far longer than Oswyn Dean had never previously ventured into Tapsters,
“Too dwarven, know what I mean?” but he found that drinking created a universal sense of brotherhood and took to the overall atmosphere like a fish to a pond… A pond full of alcohol. Moreover, once he had discovered that they stocked some Surfacer brews, there was no turning back.
And so it was that when someone knocked on the door of their little den the next morning and Oswyn stumbled/limped to open it, almost tripping over the sheet as he went and clutching the flasks so they didn’t break, mumbling rather incoherently “I’m coming, coming…” because Dean was way too far gone in a stupor, it was with much less than his usual clear head.
He was surprised therefore; when he got to the door and finally unlatched it, that nobody appeared to be there. “What the…”
It was then that he felt a tug on his surcoat and thought to look down. Only to see a pretty round face with rosy cheeks and deep blue eyes gazing straight at him from just over waist-height. “Good morning,” said a very wide mouth in the round face, “You must be Oswyn, I’m Zinthal Harrak, Alistair sent me to help you… Pleased to meet you.” And she thrust a little hand up towards him.
~~...~~
The next day they encountered some Darkspawn, who must have thought they were safe wandering along the ancient dwarven thorough fare. Surprisingly the first one to detect them was Mabya who started whinnying and tugging at Khegst in alarm but soon the group of Wardens were flooded with the stifling sensations of Darkspawn proximity and something Alistair seemed not to have felt in a long, long time, righteous rage. It was exhilarating and refreshing, flooding all his senses with scarlet… Suddenly, the small party became a blur of activity.
Marcus started firing his bow to deadly effect. Dolgan gestured to the rest of them, when Alistair approached him he barked, “the emissary, Surfacer, get him…” and Alistair then saw nothing but the rather small genlock with a weird hat standing in a pool of green iridescence. Something in his head clicked smartly into place, and with a deep yell, he made for the creature, blind to anything else.
Most of the Darkspawn party were genlocks, and he found it relatively easy to run them down, knock them out of the way or leap over them if necessary, two however were hurlocks and one seemed to be protecting the emissary. Alistair managed to side step him by seeming heading in one direction and then switching in a matter of seconds to another, just as he had thought he had gained on the emissary however, it let out an agonised howl and an arrow seemed to sprout from its left eye socket,
what the ****…
But the creature wasn’t dead yet was it? Therefore, he swung Starfang in a wild arc and dealt it a fatal blow to the side of the neck, feeling a satisfying thud as the blade bit into its flesh and its blood sprayed over him in a warm shower. The hurlock he had dodged was almost on top of him but he hit out blindly at it with his shield turning quickly and side swiped it so it staggered back. Then he went for it with all the savagery he had been saving for the emissary…
Modifié par Maria13, 19 novembre 2010 - 02:57 .
him in the most heterosexual way possible. I do enjoy how so much of the little things from the game, the impact of their decisions, are being fleshed out and are just not out and out shoved in our faces but rather some of them as Easter Eggs that dawn on the reader. This story is good times.
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I especially love that even female Brontos go for him. LOL classic.
