Here's my prompt response...
and it looks like I may hit 1000 sooner rather than later since I've got another marathon reviewer working through the story.
:wizard:
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All He Could WantAnders shivered, wondering why he thought this would be a good idea. Gherlen’s Pass, and his escape from Ferelden, was only a few miles ahead. Unfortunately those miles seemed to be completely vertical, in addition to covered in snow. He had planned to get as far from Ferelden, and his phylactery, as possible. Unfortunately things like boats cost money, money he didn’t have. That left only travel by foot. Through Orlais, into the Free Marshes, Antiva, and, if he was very,
very, lucky, the Tevinter Impreium. Standing in the Frostback Mountains, shivering, the plan seemed far less reasonable than it had when he initially sketched it out one evening in the library.
He had gotten lucky. Only a few weeks out of solitary confinement, Anders had been sitting in the first floor library, reading up on some of the more exotic healing techniques, and trying to determine what spells could be applied… recreationally. He heard a commotion coming from the direction of the front of the tower and, a moment later, a man in an unusual set of armor with an absolutely fantastic haircut ran past him at full speed, followed quickly by every Templar on the first floor. Well, that was all the sign he needed. Book forgotten, Anders bolted deeper into the tower. Past the dorm rooms, he headed into the empty conservatory, and from there the greenhouse for medicinal plants. Slipping behind one of the boxes full of freshly cut elfroot he reached under the glass wall.
There, a catch and the bottom panel of glass slid to one side. Slipping out, he took a breath, glanced around, and, once he was sure no one had seen him, replaced his means of escape.
Walking around the tower he could hear voices, a man and a woman. The man sounded patient, the woman, well, she sounded utterly terrified. Trying to hide it, and doing a horrible job. Glancing in their direction Anders spotted the man with the great haircut standing near the boat. Not far away a black-haired woman in the yellow robes of a very new mage was getting violently ill on the shore.
Well, I don’t think I’ll swim from there, he thought, watching her throw up. Must have been her first time outside in Maker knows how many years. He felt a brief flash of sympathy. Once they had both left in the tiny boat Anders dove into the water, swimming first to the ruins of the old bridge, where he pulled himself up and sat on a hidden ledge and then, once night had fallen, the rest of the way to the shore.
That had been months ago. He’d done all he could to earn a bit of gold since then. Healing here and there, mostly.
It would be my luck, Anders thought,
escaping during a damned Blight, of all things. Of course, as frustrating as it was to constantly be in fear of the darkspawn horde, it was probably the only reason he had been able to stay free for so long. With the entire south being slowly overwhelmed and, from what he knew, the Grey Wardens dead at Ostagar, well… the templars had bigger worries. Like saving their own skins.
He had made it as far as the very outskirts of Orzammar. Stone carvings rose up ahead, indicating the entrance to the dwarves’ famed underground city.
I bet it’s warm in there, Anders thought, wondering if he could charm his way inside.
“That is
it,” came an annoyed voice. Anders sank back, hiding in the shadow of a rock. “The next bandit I see is getting killed immediately. I’m not waiting for them to announce that they want to rob me or are after the bounty on us or anything.”
“How will you know if it’s a bandit?” came an accented voice. Orlesian, if he wasn’t mistaken.
“Well, they usually wave weapons at us. That’s a good sign,” this was a man, young by the sound of it.
“’Tis true, if even Alistair can recognize them, I do not think the rest of us will have any trouble.”
“Hey!”
“Well, I just want to kill
something,” the first voice again.
Anders shook his head. They weren’t templars, they were
lunatics. But perhaps they were lunatics with
food. “Hello?” he called, stepping out of his hiding spot and trying to look as… not bandit like as he could.
“Who’s there?” called a male voice.
“Chantry-raised fool,” came another voice. “Are you suddenly familiar with the whole of the Ferelden populace? What difference will a name make?”
“Well, if he won’t tell us that’s a good sign he’s got bad intentions.”
Anders looked up, they were on a plateau not far from him, arguing. “I don’t have
any intentions!” he called. “Good
or bad. I just… well, I hoped you might have some food.”
Two dark haired women seemed to consult each other, gesturing in his direction. With a nod they headed down the slope. As they drew closer Anders realized it wasn’t a walking stick in each of their hands, it was a
staff. As they came closer he began to sense magical shields. One was a basic circle spell, he knew it himself. The other felt strange and unfamiliar. “Knew it!” the shorter of the pair said when they were within a few feet.
The taller woman nodded. “I had no doubts, who else but a mage would be using spells to keep himself warm?”
“Sure, we’ve got food,” the shorter woman said. Waving her hand, the others quickly joined them and began making a small camp. There was a dwarf among them and, to his shock, a qunari as well. Who
were these people?
“Another mage?” came the male voice. “What, are you two sending out some kind of secret signal? Can you smell each other? Like dogs?” Anders glanced over, it belonged to a young man in heavy chainmail with a short blonde haircut.
“All right,” the shorter mage said. “I’m going to ignore how you just implied we’re animals and not people. Mostly since I know you’re an
idiot and didn’t mean any offense.” With that, she reached up and ruffled his hair, sending him scurrying several feet away while the mage laughed. “I’ll only point out that if I
could send out some kind of secret signal to attract male mages… well, why haven’t I been doing just that since Ostagar? I’d have an entire parade of them following us right now,” she went on, grinning. “One for every day of the week! Or, well, night. Eh, you know what I mean.”
“Sadly, I do,” the young man said, blushing. He barely listened as they bickered among themselves. When the shorter mage shoved a bowl in his hands he didn’t even look up, devouring it immediately. “Woah,” the young man said, sounding amused. “You must be hungry.”
“Sorry,” Anders said, feeling the need to apologize for his absolute lack of table manners. “It’s been… um… two days since I’ve eaten. Three?” He heard a gasp and, seconds later, his bowl was snatched from his hands, quickly refilled and returned.
“You poor dear,” said the Orlesian woman.
“I recognize you,” the shorter mage said. He looked up at her and managed to suppress a gasp of shock when he met her green eyes. He recognized her as well. She had been famous, or perhaps
infamous was more correct, in the tower. Her reputation was… well, it was basically identical to his own, minus the flair for escape attempts. He had accidentally stood her up a couple years earlier, something he’d always regretted. So much that Anders had spent half the morning on the day he escaped trying to convince her best friend to help him get back into her good graces. “Circle, right?” Anders nodded. “Isn’t it great to be free of that ****hole?” she went on. “Maker, I never want to go back there.”
“You
have to go back there,” the young man said to her. “We have a treaty with the mages, and I’m not going alone. You know the first enchanter.”
“He’s mad at me,” was all she said before turning away from him. “Anyways. You got out. I’m guessing not with permission. What’s your plan?”
He stared at her. She had taken to wearing Tevinter cut robes since leaving the tower, and they were very,
very short. “Perhaps he is a mute,” the other mage said, snickering. Anders glanced at her. Her hair was just as dark, but where the circle mage was curvy with green eyes, she was lanky with the most remarkable golden eyes he’d ever seen.
Maker’s breath, Anders, they’re just girls, he admonished himself. “Sorry,” he said quickly, finding his voice. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked to, well,
anyone. My plan was to get out of Ferelden, basically. Put as much room between me and my phylactery as I could. I’m heading for Gherlen’s Pass.”
The redheaded woman shook her head. He turned and looked at her more closely. She had bright blue eyes and wore tight leather armor, a quiver of arrows on her back.
Another one? He thought, looking at her. He’d only seen a handful of girls this pretty in his life. Finding three together on some remote mountain trail, of all places, seemed as unlikely as finding a diamond in a swamp. “The pass is closed,” she went on. “Teyrn Loghain has his men crawling all over the area.”
“To keep out the Grey Wardens of Orlais,” the young man went on. “It’s absurd. That bastard quit the field, left
everyone to die, and blamed the Wardens. Said it was their plot to kill the king.” He made a face. “I don’t see how anyone can even believe it. Why would the Grey Wardens hatch any plot that ended in all of them dying as well? Who would do such a thing? No one, that’s who!” He shook his head, looking sad. “They’re all dead. Every one of them. All but us.”
“And Loghain’s doing his best to fix that,” the shorter mage added. “Ah, still beats that damned tower, though. I mean, I got drunk in Orzammar. How many mages can say that!”
“You threw up all over me in Orzammar,” the young man said. “After whining about how dwarven men think your long limbs are freakish.”
“Well they do,” she said. “Disappointing. I haven’t so much as kissed anyone since before the battle!”
“You really want to be with someone you
just met? Who you would never even see again?”
She stared at him blankly. “I don’t get what the problem is,” the mage finally said. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s just for fun, after all.”
“Maker’s breath,” he muttered before turning his attention on Anders. “So, what will you do now?”
“I’m not really sure,” Anders began. “I might try and get a boa—”
“Can you heal?” the gold-eyed mage broke in.
“Pardon?”
“Can you
heal?” the green-eyed mage repeated.
“Actually, that’s my specialty,” Anders said. The two women looked at each other and grinned.
“Come with us!”
“What?!” the blonde man looked at the shorter mage in horror. “He’s an apostate, he ran away from the tower. You just said so yourself!”
“So?” she replied. “Morrigan’s an apostate. There’s no shame in being an apostate. I may even be one now, since the Wardens are outlawed. That may reverse my being allowed to leave to join them.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Yeah but we
need a bloody healer,” she said, her entire demeanor changing. “We will
die if we continue like this. I cannot heal, Morrigan cannot heal, and sooner or later one of us will get hurt and we will
die. We won’t find the archdemon, we won’t end the blight, we won’t avenge the others, and all because we will be
dead. So what’s worse, Alistair: death, or apostates?”
He physically winced against her verbal assault. “All right,” the man said, backing down.
“So?” the woman turned back to Anders. What was her name? Peggy? Molly? Mary? Something like that. “Come with us?”
“What about the templars?”
She shrugged. “We’ll tell them you’re a Grey Warden.”
“We can’t do that!” the man was horrified.
“I don’t see why not,” she said. “He can always join after the blight. Who would ever know?” He opened his mouth to argue again, but she cut him off, simply repeating “
healer, Alistair.”
“Fine.” Anders got the impression he said that a lot.
“And if the templars give us any trouble we kill them!” she announced cheerfully, to the obvious delight of the other mage. Anders balked. He’d run away dozens of times, but he’d never once actually attempted to
kill the templars. And she discussed it like she was saying they would have pudding for dessert. “So, what do you say? No Circle, no Chantry, and you can shoot lightning at all the darkspawn you want. As well as anyone else trying to kill us.” He wondered what kind of fool would deliberately attack this well-armed group of obviously deranged individuals. “Oh,” she said, almost as an afterthought. “I’m Maggie, this is Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana, the unconscious dwarf is Oghren, and the big quiet one is Sten.”
He looked down at his bowl, and then around the fire. “You may call me Anders, my dear lady,” he said in his most charming voice. “And I would be
honored to join you.” She clapped her hands together, obviously thrilled.
Well, they might get me killed, he thought briefly, glancing around at the group.
But it is better than the tower.
Freedom,
three pretty girls, decent meals,
and the right to shoot lightning at fools? What more could he possibly want?
Modifié par LupusYondergirl, 05 décembre 2010 - 03:24 .
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Loved it!
I've gotten the cameo once and the only spared Loghain ending I have saved is one in which Alistair is king.
. I ALWAYS do DR. I didn't the very first playthrough I did but that playthrough I didn't actually get to know Morrigan AT ALL, so I didn't trust her, just thought she was a biatch. But now I'm totally intrigued by the idea of saving the soul of the Archdemon - it's the curious part of me I suppose. Also after Baldur's Gate I honestly thought the main protagonist for DAII would be the OGB...
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