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mumms-the-word · 3 months ago

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Dark Future, Dark Reality

Part 1

Characters: Solas x fem!Lavellan, Varric Tethras, Dorian Pavus, Leliana Summary: When Iren Lavellan is cast into the future via Alexius's spell, she wants to believe everything is just a temporary nightmare. But as she encounters and speaks with Solas, the details of the dark future become all too real to her and she struggles with how much the future has changed her friend. Solas is not the man she has grown to care for in their travels up to this point. Torn between longing for the man she left behind and the man she must leave behind soon, she fights her way through Redcliffe Castle, wrestling with guilt, fear, and a desire to save a man who refuses to be saved. A/N: Did you want Solavellan angst just a week before Veilguard comes out? of course you do. I'm zooming through my new inquisitor's game before the next game comes out but I couldn't let In Hushed Whispers go by without writing a bunch of pining and angst and so on. You know me. Part 2 is here, but the whole thing can be read on AO3 here!

Your spymaster, Leliana. She is here. As are your companions.

Where? Are they all still alive?

I do not know. But you must find them. If you can.

Fiona’s words repeated in Iren’s head as she stepped softly over the cracked flagstones of the Redcliffe Castle dungeons, peering through the gloom. The dungeons were more shadow and frigid water than stone and wood, illuminated only by weak, blue torch flames and the hazy glow of red lyrium. It was difficult to see much of anything, but even so she searched, looking through the bars of every cell she passed. She had to find them. Whether dead or alive, she had to know.

She had dragged Solas, Varric, and several Inquisition soldiers into this mess. Whatever their fates were, they were on her head.

If Dorian and Fiona were to be believed, Alexius’s spell had cast them an entire year into the future, into a world so bleak and broken it was difficult to make sense of. The evidence of catastrophe was all around them, in the red lyrium all over the place, in the way the air felt mutable and wrong, in the heavy, howling emptiness of these dungeons. As though every soul in Thedas had already perished. Each time they passed another cell without any signs of life, the feeling of her and Dorian being the last two people alive in the world increased, pressing down on Iren like a millstone around her neck.

Some cells were empty, their occupants long since dead and disposed of. In others, the dead remained, curled against the floor, their faces cast in darkness, or they stood as twisted, desiccated statues out of which red lyrium grew in abundance. Iren forced herself to study each body, dread churning in her gut, just in case it was someone she recognized. Thus far, Grand Enchanter Fiona and the young elven mage, Lysas, were the only living occupants. Neither were in any state to help. Both were more dead than alive.

She pressed on, stubbornly placing one foot in front of the other to keep searching. More empty cells. More darkness. More silence. Keep searching. Keep looking. Leave no space unchecked. You must find them.

But would she find them dead or alive? Which was worse, in this hellscape?

Keep searching.

She approached yet another room of cages, her cold hands stiff as she pushed the heavy door open. At first, she heard and saw nothing. But then something shifted in the far corner.

“Is someone there?”

Her heart leapt into her throat.

“Solas,” she breathed. She would recognize his mild tenor anywhere. She set a hand on Dorian’s arm as he tried to draw his staff, stopping him. “Wait. That’s Solas.”

“Who?”

But Iren didn’t answer. In the far right corner cell, a pale hand gripped one of the metal bars and then disappeared back into the gloom. She wanted to rush over, but cautious sense prevailed, and she crept forward quietly instead, glancing at the other cells to be sure. All empty.

But she had heard him. She had glimpsed him. There, in the last cell on the right. As she drew even with the bars of his cell, she saw him moving within, his pale form appearing ghostly in the darkness.

“Solas.”

He didn’t hear her. He paced and shifted restlessly in his cramped space, like an animal in a cramped cage. Huge shards of red lyrium grew out of the walls and pointed toward him like dull blades, a constant threat, but he moved around and through them without thought. Dipping a shoulder to pass beneath one large crystal that jutted out at neck level. Turning his head just before a sharp fragment would cut his cheek. Stepping around a cluster of crystals that grew out of the flagstones. Each motion a habit, a series of muscle memory movements that spoke of weeks, months of confinement in this one small space.

How long had he been here?

The heat from the red lyrium seemed to pulse as Iren drew nearer to the bars of the cell, the crystals the only source of warmth, twisted and unnatural, in this freezing cold dungeon. The red haze coming off the corrupted lyrium made the air swim as if she were in a dream, but he was no illusion. This was Solas, in the flesh.

What was left of him.

“Solas,” she said again, softly, taking hold of one of the bars. “Can you hear me?”

He turned at the far wall, dragging his gaze up from the floor, and then jolted to a halt, his eyes widening in shock. For a moment, he couldn’t speak, and then—

“Iren,” he breathed. He took a step closer, lifting an arm as if to take hold of the cell door again, and then halted once more, his arm dropping back to his side with a clenched fist. “You’re alive?”

She nodded, tightening her hold around the bar. His eyes glowed with a strange, sickly red light, but any other detail about him was lost amid the darkness and red lyrium miasma surrounding him. “I’m here, Solas.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “We saw you die.” His voice rang with a strange metallic echo, warped and wrong. “Yet you are no spirit. No illusion. How is this possible?”

“We traveled through time. I can’t explain it. I…”

“Allow me,” Dorian said, producing a key they had plucked off a Venatori jailer’s body. He unlocked the door and pulled it open, speaking as he worked. “In brief, no, we’re not dead. Not yet anyway. The spell Alexius cast displaced us in time. We just got here, so to speak, plucked directly from the throne room one year ago and dumped here. Simple, really.”

As Dorian explained, Solas emerged from the darkness, out into the blue light of the nearby torches. Iren stifled a gasp.

The red haze from the lyrium clung to his body, flickering around a frame that was dangerously thin. Already a slender yet lean man, now his wool shirt hung off him as though he were little more than bone, the knuckles of his hands like sharp peaks, his cheeks sunken in. Beneath his pale skin, turned bone white and ashen in the strange light of the dungeons, his veins stood out stark and bright red. Each beat of his heart sent a crimson glow webbing outward from his core, nearly in time with the pulsing of the red lyrium crystals around them. The blood vessels and pupils of his eyes shone with that same crimson light, and beneath his eyes, his skin had turned gray and black, bruised by exhaustion and months of torment.

He was a dead man walking. A corpse holding onto the barest thread of life.

But his focus was on Dorian. “Displaced in time,” he repeated, as if to himself. His focus sharpened, a sudden, almost frenzied urgency tinging his voice. “Can you reverse the process? You could return and obviate the events of the last year. It may not be too late.”

“That is the plan,” Dorian said. “You catch on quick. Good to know someone understands me around here.”

Solas frowned. “You would think such an understanding would stop me from making such terrible mistakes. You would be wrong.”

Iren was barely listening. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. His body bore the subtle signs and markings of a year’s worth of living as some madman’s prisoner, but the damage ran much deeper than the surface showed. The red lyrium haze, the glow that pulsed in his veins, that shone out from his eyes…it went far beyond any healing spell she knew, beyond any herbal remedy that she had memorized.

“Solas…what happened to you?” she asked quietly.

His ashen lips twisted in a grim, humorless smile. “Red lyrium. It kills, but slowly. I am dying.”

“Dying?”

She didn’t want to believe it, but she had never seen anything like this. He was…changed. Though he carried himself with the same somber gravity that he often adopted back at Haven, when all eyes were on him, he no longer stood as tall as before. The bend of his shoulders and the gauntness in his face spoke volumes. He was exhausted, worn down to nothing. All traces of his subtle humor and gentle kindness had been destroyed, replaced by cold detachment. His mind may be as sharp as ever, but physically, he was no more than a shadow of his former self.

It made her heart ache with a pain deeper and heavier than she dared name.

She reached out a hand to touch him. To do what, she didn’t know. Offer him comfort. Attempt a healing spell. See if he was even real. But he took a step back, out of her reach.

“Do not.” Though warped by the metallic tone, his words were firm and unyielding, almost sharp. “This is not something your healing magic can alter.”

“There must be something I can do. Or something I can try.”

“No. There is nothing. My death is inevitable. And there are more important things at stake.”

There was no room for argument in this tone. As if his death were no more than a minor, immutable fact. The evidence was carved into his body. Bruised deep into his skin. Radiating within his blood. He was dying.

But Iren pressed her lips together. “You’re not dead yet. Maybe I can—”

“No. I do not matter here. You do.”

A familiar exasperation rose up within her. “So there’s nothing I can do? Nothing at all?”

“No.” His jaw hardened and he clasped his hands behind his back, all sharp angles and steely silence. She clenched her hands at her sides, swallowing frustration that was little more than thinly veiled despair, and glared at him. For a moment, they merely gazed at each other, Solas’s usual grim sobriety weighed against her stubborn stare. Neither budged, until at last he sighed softly, relaxing a fraction.

“What you can do is this: return and make sure none of this ever occurs,” he said. “And if—when you succeed in returning to your own time, it’s best that you do not bring anything from this time back with you. This red lyrium is a slow poison without a cure. I cannot let it affect you, too.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “Can the effects of red lyrium spread so quickly? Just by touch?”

“Perhaps. It is better not to risk it.”

“So you don’t actually know.”

A flicker of irritation crossed his features, a ghost of the man she had befriended back in her timeline. It was good to see that that Solas still lived, buried deep within this new corrupted form. That somewhere beneath the unrecognizable frame he now bore, her friend was still within, with all his stubborn pride and ridiculous opinions.

It hurt as much as it comforted. This was no mere dream of the Fade. This was a new reality, a potential future. This Solas, with all his wounds and pain, was real. What he had lived through was real. All of this was real.

And in this timeline, she had abandoned him. He had every right to act coldly toward her.

It was her turn to relent. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. But Solas merely shook his head, silent.

“As charming as all this is,” Dorian interjected, glancing between them, “we should get back to the matter at hand. Alexius? Remember?”

“Alexius is not the one that need concern you,” Solas said. “He serves a master, the Elder One. He reigns now, unchallenged. After you stop Alexius, you must be prepared.”

“Prepared?” Iren asked. “For what?”

“To stop the Elder One.” He focused his glowing gaze on her, more serious than she had ever seen him. “I will tell you all I know. But remember this future, Iren. It may help you prevent it.”

—————

Solas spoke low as they moved through the remainder of the dungeons, checking for other survivors. He spoke of the Elder One assassinating Empress Celene and of the chaos that descended on Orlais. He spoke of an army of demons, pouring out of the rifts that only grew more numerous and more unstable without Iren there to close them. Even more gravely, he spoke of the Inquisition and Ferelden armies attempting assault after assault on Redcliffe Castle, always working separately, only for the Ferelden forces to retreat after three failed attempts. But not the Inquisition. In their final assault, only a few short months ago, they were overwhelmed by the demon armies of the Elder One and slaughtered, down to the last man.

“Even Cassandra?” Iren asked. “Cullen? Our friends?”

Solas shook his head. “I can only assume based on what I have heard, and what little I have seen. I have heard of no other survivors, other than myself, Varric, and Spymaster Leliana. Why they keep us alive now is a mystery. The Elder One has already won.”

“Don’t say that,” she said, sharp. “Anything can be stopped.”

Solas let out a short, rough laugh. “You would not say that if you had experienced these things firsthand. Any hope of stopping this Elder One died when the Veil was torn asunder.”

“You’re talking as if all of this is inevitable, even if I do make it back to my time,” she argued. “I can’t afford to think like that. I have to believe he can be defeated.”

“He can be defeated, but not by fools who ignore the dangers even when they are staring them in the face.”

Iren’s face flushed as her temper rose. “So I’m a fool now?”

“Yes, if you continue to treat this world like some dark fairy tale,” Solas snapped, anger flashing through his words. He stopped to face her. “In this world, the Elder One has already secured his victory, and the world has spiraled into chaos as a result. I am not telling you this to pass the time, Iren. These. Things. Happened.” He paused, searching her face, and then added firmly, “You cannot hope to defeat him if you close your ears to the truth now.”

She clenched her jaw, refusing to back down from his stare. But he was right. As was so often the case, he was right, even when she wanted to argue the finer points with him.

Pretending all of this was a dream would help no one. No matter how much she wished to convince herself that this could all be washed away, the evidence was all around her. Even if she did make it back to her timeline, she would have to carry these memories with her. The more tangibly they lingered in her mind, the better prepared she would be to predict the Elder One’s next moves. It made sense.

Much as she hated it.

Dorian, several paces ahead, turned to look back at the two of them. “I’ll just search the next room alone, then, shall I?”

They both ignored him. He shook his head and disappeared through another door, leaving them to their silent staring.

“All right,” she said quietly, after the silence had stretched on too long. “Then tell me everything. Starting with how I died.”

For the first time, a flicker of genuine pain crossed his face and he looked away. “No. Do not ask me that.”

“Solas, I’m not a child. There is no need to protect me.”

“You misunderstand. And it is of no benefit to you.”

She threw one hand into the air, exasperated. “According to who? You’ve talked of nothing but what has happened to everyone else, to this world—”

“Because it is the world that matters!”

“—but never once have you said how I died or what happened to you and Varric,” she continued, raising her voice over his. “How am I supposed to save you, or save myself, if I don’t know what I’m up against when I get back? How can I guarantee anything if I don’t know what I might face?”

“We do not matter so much as the world at large,” he said, his voice rough.

“You matter to me,” she snapped.

He shook his head again, turning his face away, and fixed his gaze on the far wall, his eyebrows lowered. Light and darkness cast his profile in stark relief, black and white, sharpening the planes and angles of his face. Pools of shadow gathered in the hollow of his cheek, of his throat, darkening the bruises beneath his eyes by contrast. In the flickering blue torchlight, the line of his jaw was honed to a knife’s edge. The only color came from the glow in his eyes, a scarlet shade the color of rage, a rage that was not his own but had been forced upon him, sinking into his blood, consuming him from the inside out.

For a moment, he looked lethal, a predator, ready to bear sharp fangs and lunge for the kill. And then the shadows shifted, and all she saw was the hollow death mask of a dying man running out of time.

This world had changed him. He was all shattered glass and ragged edges now. Sharp, brittle, trying to be strong and resolute but shredded raw by months spent in one small dungeon cell while corrupted lyrium slowly ate away at his body, his mind, his will. This whole time, whenever he spoke, his tone had been steely, almost cruel in its coldness. He was less patient here, more frenetic. No more the mentor or the teacher, the wisdom-giving friend, but a dread harbinger.

But the Solas she knew was still in there somewhere. She had seen him, a glimpse, flickering at the edge. And that faint specter of the man she had grown to care for was what kept her tethered here, grounding her in this reality, even as it wrung out her heart to see this world so horrifically twisted and empty. The Solas she knew would want her to equip herself with as much knowledge as possible to stop this Elder One. Even if it hurt. Perhaps especially if it hurt.

And whether this Solas or that Solas liked it or not, she would use that knowledge to save as many people as she could, starting with him.

She took a step closer to him. He flinched faintly and took a step away. Always keeping her just beyond arm’s reach.

“Please,” she whispered. ��Tell me what happened the day I di—I disappeared.”

At first, he pretended not to hear her. But then he released a breath through his nose, glancing sidelong at her. It only took another second or two for him to cave. “Very well. I had forgotten how stubborn you were.”

She smiled slightly. “Indomitable focus, remember?”

A hint of a smile passed over his lips. The first real smile, however faint, she had seen in this dreadful world, other than Dorian’s cavalier smirks. His eyes softened. “I do.”

It was the hint of encouragement she needed. She took another small step closer, prompting him with a quiet, “So…?”

This time he didn’t step away. But his expression grew somber again as he lowered his gaze to the floor between them. It took him a moment to find his voice.

“The magic Alexius used to transport you to this time appeared to us as a tear in the fabric of reality. It ripped apart your body in seconds before sealing itself closed, leaving behind nothing more than scorch marks and silence. It was…” He swallowed, his throat bobbing. “Swift. Swift and unstoppable. There was nothing I—nothing we could do.”

Iren said nothing, letting the severity of the memory settle over her. She tried to imagine it from his perspective…and failed. He had painted the scene in so few brushstrokes…

A realization washed over her with a cold shiver. His hesitancy, the pain that had crossed his features the first time she had asked, his resistance…it all suddenly made sense. It wasn’t her he was trying to protect from the memory.

It was himself.

“With you gone,” he continued, not noticing her sudden chill, “Alexius unleashed his forces upon us, ensuring that none would escape. Varric and I fought to the point of exhaustion, down to the last crossbow bolt and wisp of magic. But Alexius’s forces were too numerous. They wasted no time chaining us to our cells. There, we have remained. Until now.”

“Solas…I…”

He passed a hand over his eyes as if shielding himself from seeing the past. “Forgive me,” he whispered. “If I had been stronger, more powerful…none of this would have happened.”

“Don’t talk like that,” she chided quietly. Creators, what she wouldn’t give to touch him, red lyrium or not. She felt so useless standing there an arm’s length away while he tore open old wounds to sate her foolish curiosity.

She shouldn’t have asked. She shouldn’t have pushed for answers. Wasn’t that how they ended up in this mess? In every mess? Because she couldn’t leave anything well enough alone? If the blame had to be laid at anyone’s feet for all the horrors of the last year, it should be at hers, not his.

She chanced another step closer. “None of this is your fault, Solas. You can’t blame yourself for what happened in this world.”

He dropped his hand with a mirthless laugh, shaking his head. “You say that with such conviction, but you have no idea what I have—” He cut himself off, turning his face away, his hands clenched at his sides. He took a deep breath. “What I have experienced. You know nothing of this world. It is far worse than you understand. To you, this will be nothing more than a terrible dream. But in this world, an entire year has passed, the people crushed beneath the whims of the Elder One and his armies. If you had seen what I have seen…endured what I have endured…”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and then again, stronger this time, “Solas, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t mean to cause you more pain.”

“No. There is nothing you can do or say to cause me any more pain than I have already endured.” And just like that, his vehemence cooled, leaving behind only weary acceptance. “And you are right. You must know what you are up against.”

He took a slow breath, meeting her gaze once more with careful detachment. She struggled to hide her disappointment and her guilt. Any ground she had gained moments ago was lost. He was back to grave business once again, the Solas she knew buried deep down where he could no longer be hurt.

“Now…I trust your curiosity is now satisfied?” he asked. Without waiting for her answer, he turned toward the door Dorian had disappeared through some time ago. “We must find Varric and a way to reach Alexius. That is all that matters here. We should waste no more time.”

Then he stepped through to the next corridor, leaving her alone in the cold darkness of the dungeon chamber.

She struggled with herself a moment, wrangling guilt and shame and embarrassment into something she could swallow. She was such a fool. Silent, she followed after him, heading past yet another row of cells trying to focus on the tasks ahead.

They found Varric shortly after, safe and sound. Or as safe and sound as one could be after a year spent in a dungeon cell surrounded by red lyrium. Like Solas, he looked gaunt and pale, a dying man’s husk for his normally stocky and well-built body, but he spoke with his usual casual levity. Though it seemed more forced and less vibrant than usual, he acted as though none of this horrific future had actually affected him.

But Varric had always been a very good liar.

“Solas told us everything,” Iren said. “The Elder One, all that he’s done…”

Varric nodded. “Yeah. To say it’s ‘bad’ out here is an understatement. The past year has been a damn nightmare.”

“Are you all right?” she asked. She heard Solas snort quietly behind her and winced. “Right, stupid question.”

But Varric just gave her a crooked grin. “I think I look pretty good for a dead man, honestly. Just saying, the not-dying version of this red lyrium stuff? Worse. Way worse.”

“Were you in there with the red lyrium this whole time?” she asked cautiously. She knew how much Varric hated it. How much it had cost him.

“The red lyrium came later,” Solas answered for him, his face carefully blank. “After the first few methods of torture proved insufficient to produce any new information about you.”

Torture. He said it in a tone so matter-of-fact, she nearly missed it. She stared, speechless with muted horror, but he was already moving on. Already gathering himself up and drawing away toward the door.

Varric grimaced. “Aw, Chuckles, you don’t have to scare her like that.”

“She wants to know,” was Solas’s distant answer.

“You were tortured?” Iren whispered, looking to Varric for an answer. But Varric just shrugged.

“These Venatori don’t appreciate a good story,” he muttered under his breath. Then he followed Solas toward the door.

Iren learned to stop asking questions after that.

—————

Iren caught a glimpse of the torture methods of the Venatori firsthand as they burst in to save Leliana. If anything, she looked worse than the others, her skin mottled and unnaturally gray, her blighted flesh hanging off her bones as though all the strength and vitality had been sucked from her body by some vampiric demon. She bore no traces of red lyrium corruption, but she was dying as surely as the others. Everyone was dying here.

Leliana had even less patience for rehashing the details of the past than Solas, though it was Dorian attempting to ask for details this time.

Enough! This is all pretend to you. Some future you hope will never exist. I suffered. The whole world suffered. It was real.

Iren’s eyes had been on the bloodied and rusted torture elements when Leliana spat those words out to Dorian. Though they lay inert now, all she could see were the brands blazing white hot, inching toward her friends’ bodies, the sharp pokers and tools with which they could cut, slice, stab, tear…

What marks did her friends bear that she couldn’t see? Scars healed by time, or possibly even magic, as Alexius forced them to stay alive in hopes that they would reveal some secret about her, even after she was supposedly dead.

Torture. Red lyrium. Demons. Death.

It was real.

Her words rang in Iren’s head as they made their way, stoic and silent, through the rest of the lower floors, creeping ever upward and forward toward the surface. She was only half-paying attention when Dorian opened the door leading out into the courtyard, only distantly aware of the green-tinted light spilling through the doorway. She heard Dorian swear in Tevene and dragged her gaze up to see what had alarmed him.

She stepped out into the courtyard with a gasp.

“The Breach! It’s…”

“Everywhere,” Dorian finished. He looked shaken for the first time in that dark future.

What had formerly been just one ugly, green-glowing wound in the heavens had spread, the very sky rippling and churning with sickly-looking clouds and ribbons of Fade light. Colossal columns of stone hung suspended in the air while whole chunks of buildings and ruined towers floated over their heads, as though bits of the Black City that hovered just out of sight in the Fade had been brought to bear down upon the mortal, living world. The grass at their feet bent not from the brush of a natural breeze but from hazy washes of magic that swept around them like filmy curtains, thin but tangible even to the naked eye. All around them, flakes of ash and small rocks floated skyward, drawn in by the pull of the Breach, by the gravity of a sky so shattered there was nothing solid left to rely on.

The overall effect was so disorienting, Iren nearly lost her footing simply standing just beyond the doorway. More than anything else she had seen so far, this nearly brought her to her knees. Her mind struggled to make sense of where the world ended and the Fade began, where the Veil was supposed to be, which parts were meant to be mutable Fade structures and which were the hand-hewn stones and walls of Redcliffe Castle. She stared up at the broken head of an Andraste statue, larger than any statue she’d ever seen for any Creator, god, or prophet, as it hung suspended and slowly rocking in the sky. No such carving existed near Redcliffe, of that she was certain.

The world was warped, shifting, neither Fade nor not-Fade but something in between that refused to make sense. The longer she gazed up at the sky, the more she felt as though she would fall into it, her feet lifting from the ground like the small stones around her, the whole world tilting as she was dragged upward into that sea of green and gray.

She staggered, catching herself with her staff, and forced her eyes onto something that wasn’t moving. The flagstones at her feet. “I don’t understand.”

“The Veil is shattered,” Solas said, joining her outside and staring up at the sky. He leaned more heavily on his staff now for support, the shadows beneath his eyes darkening in the eerie green light. “There is no boundary now between the world and the Fade.”

Shattered. There was no Veil here. Nothing keeping the Fade from spilling over and twisting the world, rewriting the rules, and leaving only chaos in its wake. No more Thedas apart from the Fade. No more Fade apart from the world. It was all one and the same.

And it was hell.

She saw Solas’s jaw clench. “It is not supposed to be this way.”

“Understatement of the age, Chuckles,” Varric muttered, but Solas ignored him. He turned to Iren instead, red-glowing eyes intense in the fluid light of the broken sky.

“This world is an abomination,” he said, every word weighted. “It must never come to pass.”

She nodded. Something in his tone spoke of warning beyond the threat of the Elder One, but she couldn’t discern what. And with very little time on their side and the Elder One the most immediate threat, she elected not to ask.

“I’ll do everything I can to keep this from ever happening,” she said solemnly. “Ever again. I swear it.”

“Good,” he murmured.

“Let us put those words to the test, Herald,” Leliana said, drawing her bow and notching an arrow. Iren followed the point of the arrowhead over to the upper level of the courtyard, where several demons prowled, eager for something new to hunt and devour. “There are still many obstacles between us and the throne room where Alexius cowers and hides.”

Iren readied her staff with a nod. Even here, demons could be killed. First them, then Alexius, and eventually, one day, the Elder One. Simple.

For now.

#solavellan #solas x female lavellan #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dai #da fic #my fic #dai fic #solavellan hell #i have worked on this too long #idek what to say about it lmao #solas #my inquisitor #iren lavellan

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merrybandofmurderers · 2 years ago

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like i just. i just need to lay this out. becuz i need to go to bed but i will not be able to stop thinking about this otherwise. okay. so

the tranquil we see in inquisition

Avexis. who was a major player in the events of dawn of the seeker. helped save the day alongside cassandra. was honored by the divine. she's tranquil now. she's minaeve's assistant and we see her around haven but we can't speak to her

overheard dialogue between her and giselle reveals that she has been so horribly abused while tranquil that she wouldn't chose to be cured becuz she doesn't think she could handle dealing with her trauma with all her emotions intact

cassandra, who knew avexis, who tells you the story of saving the divine and mourns how she is celebrated while the mages were forgotton, has absolutely fuck all to say about any of this. if she even knows avexis is in haven

you don't know avexis's significance if you haven't watched dawn of the seeker. we don't see avexis again following in your heart shall burn

Helisma Derrington. becomes your lead of creature research upon your arrival to skyhold. presumably one of minaeve's assistants prior as she is given the position by minaeve if minaeve lives

(minaeve is the only character afaik that you can talk to about the tranquil at any kind of length and who appears to give any kind of shit about them)

you can have conversation with helisma, which i think is great, and she even gives you war table missions if you talk with her enough. it's been too long since i've played and i couldn't find a full video, but you can get SOME of her perspective on being tranquil. it isn't much. her memory doesn't appear to be very good

Clemence. you have one (1) conversation with him which is his recruitment, and that's only if you check out the mages in redcliffe and then bother to talk to ppl after your convo with alexius. his conversation is interesting but brief. i don't know if anyone has taken a fly cam for close ups on everyone wearing robes in redcliffe, but for the average player, he's the only tranquil we know to be there. we do not see him again

Maddox. a tranquil from kirkwall. he was made tranquil for passing love letters. samson was kicked out of the templars for passing them for him. the only thing cullen has to say about it is that meredith made mages tranquil for even lesser "offenses"; he doesn't appear overly bothered by this

you only get to see maddox if you side with the mages. he dies. he kills himself ostensibly to aid samson. he remains loyal to samson to the end. this is arguably the best evidence we have of a tranquil exercising autonomy

(EDIT: forgot to mention Pharamond. you only learn about him by finding an obscure note in a certain cave in the western approach. it doesn't really tell you what he was doing there and you have to intuit that he's an ex-tranquil. you don't know the significance of this unless you've read asunder)

the tranquil are all killed. not all of them obviously, but a lot. the majority. so many are killed that their murderers have trouble finding more to kill. they are killed by the venatori. their skulls are used to make the ocularum that allow you to find the shards. tranquil skulls specifically are needed to make them. we don't know how they find this out

a tranquil must be killed within proximity to shards for the oculara to work. no one knows where that proximity is until the tranquil is killed and the oculara is able to be made. if the oculara doesn't work, they move to a different location and try again. the tranquil must be killed exactly as a demon possesses them. if their death is off even by mere minutes, it won't work. they have to do it again

(take into account how many ocularum there are. take into account that tranquil were among the largest populations in the circles and that the majority of them were killed. remember how many ocularum there are. take into account the failures during discovery and the failures during attempts to make them. estimate a number. remember that so many tranquil were killed, the venatori struggled to find more to kill. double the number)

you only find out what happened to the tranquil, this knowledge about the ocularum, if you enter the shack near the docks in redcliffe. it requires the deft hands fine tools perk. nothing is said about them otherwise

your companions have various dialogue about this. cassandra says she'd wondered what happened to them and that she should have looked harder to find them. solas says he'd wondered what happened, he says their deaths are a waste. vivienne says she'd assumed they were with the rebels and that she shouldn't have. cole says they couldn't call for help, that if he'd heard them he'd have saved them, that he'll avenge them

once you leave, no one says anything more. you can't say anything more. you don't even get a war table mission about it. if this happens prior to promise of destruction you can't bring it up in your post-quest convo with cass. you can't bring it up when you later discuss releasing the truth of the cure with her

the ocularum stay up. you can continue to use them. nothing is mentioned about whether they are ever taken down

people didn't care about the tranquil, if they even noticed they were gone. the people who cared about them didn't look hard enough for them, or they decided someone else must have. no one mentions them to you when you're herald, when you're inquisitor; you aren't given the option to look for them

the loyal templars didn't protect them. the seekers didn't protect them. the rebel mages didn't protect them. no other mage group protected them. minaeve is the only person we know of that makes an effort to protect as many as she can

we never get to talk to any tranquil character about this. we can't tell them about the ocularum. we can't tell them about the cure

the tranquil suffer the worst cruelties the circles have to offer. and then they die. they are killed en masse. off-screen. and they are never mentioned again

no one cares about them. you aren't allowed to care about them. the bioware writers sure as fuck don't care about them

#dragon age #tranquil #da:i #da blabs #criticism #avexis #minaeve #clemence #maddox #ocularum #suicide cw

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dushpshpsh · 3 months ago

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Okay, okay, I took my time to tune into the right wavelength before starting to talk about our campaign here

The biggest block for me has been, and still is, the need to translate my stream of thoughts into English, which inevitably leads to cutting down my vocabulary of a back-alley bydlo. But I’ve come up with a compromise! In cases where I can’t find a sufficiently funny translation for a particular phrase, I’ll leave it in the original language and explain its meaning.

While I’m learning to structure my thoughts into coherent text, you’re learning my Russian curses. Everyone’s going to suffer.

First, let me introduce you to our party in more detail:

Tenurr-la — my character, you already know her. A young Khajiit of the Om-Rat variety. She grew up in the Mages Guild of Leyawiin from an early age, and she doesn't know her parents. Born under the sign of the Serpent, she studies the stars and dreams of entering the University of Magic. She's sharp-tongued and doesn’t filter her speech much, not really caring that her directness might offend someone. In reality, she knows when and what to say and what not to, but she doesn't care to think about her words.

Versed-in-Herbs (shortened to "Otrava") — an @aethismantis 's Argonian from Black Marsh, a talented alchemist who took everything she could from her mentor and went to Cyrodiil to study. A completely logical, mathematical being driven by practicality. Literally a true neutral. Many social rituals that we use are incomprehensible to her, but she’s learning them and refers to us as her "pack" (I’m not crying, I’m not crying)

Mistery Landau — a Dunmer and talented battle mage, Tenurr’s friend from their Guild. His past is shrouded in mystery, even to him, but despite his cold, aristocratic demeanor and destructive power in battle, he's incredibly kind and socially awkward — a sweet boy. Until he was 16, he lived in isolation in his father’s library, who mysteriously disappeared, and only recently began to explore the wider world and learn how to communicate. And his friends are a cat who doesn’t watch her speech and an autistic lizard. The bro was doomed from the start. Recently, we learned that Mistery’s father sold his soul to Vermina in exchange for his own, and that’s why Mistery has been plagued by terrible nightmares all his life. Now his father is dead and abandoned him out of shame. Father of the year, really

Alexius Diero — this is an NPC Imperial who travels with us. A former captain of the Imperial Guard with terrible bad luck in life. Bro has really been through the wringer by the time he hit forty, and he blames the Serpent sign under which he was born, just like Tenurr. Strictly speaking, the dates of his worst streaks of misfortune really did coincide with the nights when the Serpent slithered across the stone near Leyawiin, so Alexius (or as we affectionately call him, Leha) was determined to find a way to change his birth sign. He was, because Tenurr convinced him otherwise, and I’ll make a separate post about it later, hehe Leha is a simple, honest man with a strong sense of duty, but an absolute emotional log, shaped by life. And he’s also Tenurr’s love interest, which is a problem for both of them because they’re both too proud 🤗 And for Tenurr, this is her first crush 💕

#oc #dnd #tes #Cyrodiil campaign #I do not know if anyone will actually read all this #but I will continue to post anyway because LOL why else do I run social networks???#Tenurr-la: tes

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loquaciousquark · 5 days ago

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Adahla Lavellan Stream Archive

Mostly for my own reference. The two playlist links at the top should update automatically; summaries will likely be updated in bursts rather than after every stream.

Master Playlist Desktop Link (hover over DAI top left to change videos)

Master Playlist Mobile Link (scroll down to DAI)

Part 1: Features character creation, the prologue, arriving in Haven, meeting the advisors and Haven NPCs (first flirt with Solas 3:05), exploring the Haven map, reaching the Hinterlands, exploring the southeastern portion of the Hinterlands, getting very stuck on a Fade rift, reaching and clearing the fortress in the west, exploring the central/western portion of the Hinterlands, getting very frustrated with a misplaced map marker for a refugee cache (6:58), returning to have more conversations with advisors and companions (7:15), first war table missions, talking with Varric about Hawke, talking to Solas about the Fade and about himself, talking to Cassandra.

Part 2: Features a renamed PC, more exploration of central/north Hinterlands, first glimpse of the dragon in the northeast, collecting shards, especially one after ten years (0:53), exploring the northern Hinterlands and hitting a leveled rift, making a round of the companions at Haven (Solas at 2:32), exploring and then immediately leaving the Fallow Mire (2:50), exploring and then immediately leaving the Storm Coast, arriving in Val Royeaux for plot (3:10), meeting Sera and Vivienne (3:52), another tour of companions at Haven, war table missions, speaking with Solas about himself (4:57 - 2nd flirt).

Part 3: Features collecting Bull, exploring the Storm Coast, returning to the Hinterlands southwest area (2:30), picking up Blackwall, more clearing of southwestern Hinterlands rifts.

Part 4: Features talking with Blackwall in camp, talking to Krem and Bull, finishing off the southwestern Hinterlands. Immediately continued in Part 5.

Part 5: Features returning to the leveled northern Hinterlands, a lengthy discussion of the portrayal of religion in western RPGs (0:28-1:15), exploring the Deep Roads thaig in the Hinterlands (1:02), discussing change in characters (1:15-1:30), looping convos with companions at Haven, reaching Redcliffe for the first time (2:26), struggling with Lord Woolsley (2:34), In Hushed Whispers, companions at Haven (Solas at 5:29) & discussion of Adahla's changing opinions of Solas, the Fallow Mire, a failed attempt at the Hinterlands dragon, In Your Heart Shall Burn, arriving at Skyhold, my hot DA takes (8:55), beginning and then immediately abandoning a talk with Solas.

Part 6: Features exploring Skyhold, war table missions regarding Lavellan clan, meeting Hawke (1:30), more war table missions, exploring the Emerald Graves, exploring expanded Skyhold (3:30), picking up some companion quests.

Part 7: Features selecting beige clothing replacement, sitting in judgement in Skyhold for the first time, war table missions, another take at the Hinterlands dragon, exploring the northern Emerald Graves, struggling with the haunted villa, doing the first astrarium without Solas (1:50), continuing to explore the Emerald Graves, returning to Skyhold (3:58), war table missions, sitting in judgement of Alexius, Cassandra reading schlock (4:25), Sera's personal quest, the first Quizquisition question, introducing the specializations, the first Fade conversation (and first kiss) with Solas (5:34), some minor upgrades to Skyhold, returning to the Emerald Graves (6:07), arriving at and exploring the Forbidden Oasis (6:11).

Part 8: Features defeating the Emerald Graves dragon, war table missions, arriving at the Emprise du Lion (0:48), discussion of hobbies (1:24), returning to Skyhold for companion conversations & war table missions (2:51), drinking with Bull (2:57), picking up Solas's personal quest (3:13), crafting, war table missions, back to the Emprise (3:51), fighting Imshael (3:06), fighting two dragons (4:35-5:10), Dorian's personal quest.

Part 9: Features wrapping up Dorian's personal quest, then a long, torturous, and eventually fruitless attempt at the Winter Palace, including a discussion of level design at 3:16 and the most tragic realization at 3:50; then backing up to the Exalted Plains at 3:52, Solas's personal quest at 4:08, a loop of conversations at Skyhold, exploring the Exalted Plains, returning the golden halla, and one attempt at the Solas romance lock-in conversation at 5:27.

Part 10: Features exploring the Exalted Plains, the official Solas romance lock-in convo (1:04), the Temple of Dirthamen, fighting the Exalted Plains dragon (3:26), discussing the length of the games (3:53), returning to the Emerald Graves for some wrap-up quests (4:04), conversations at Skyhold including meeting the Chargers (4:10), playing chess with Cullen, committing to the rift mage specialty, war table missions.

Part 11: Features the actual final end of Wicked Hearts, the Solas dance (0:38), replaying to temporarily judge the box that is Florianne (0:51), war table missions, returning to the Storm Coast for small missions for Blackwall and Varric, struggling again with shards in the Forbidden Oasis, war table missions (including the next Lavellan clan stage), landing at the Western Approach.

#quark's streaming tag #quark plays dai #adahla lavellan #quark's streaming archive #solas #solavellan #dragon age inquisition

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daitranscripts · 6 months ago

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Dorian Conversation: Investigate

Have You Seen Alexius?

Dorian Masterpost

PC: Have you gone to see Alexius yet? He’s in the cells.

Dorian: Not yet, no. I saw him before they locked him up. He looked… despondent. Broken. Not the man I remember, nor the one I want to.

Dorian ( in Haven): I suppose the Inquisition will judge him eventually. I wonder if there’s any chance they’ll show him mercy. Dorian (at Skyhold): I realize it’s your job to judge him. All I ask is, if you do… show him mercy.

Dorian: He hardly deserves it, but for Felix’s sake, I can’t help hoping there’s something left of the man I once knew.

—

The PC speaks to Dorian aftyer Alexius's judgement.

Alexius’s Fate:

Execution Dorian: So Alexius is dead. All the good her once stood for, his integrity, his beliefs… he betrayed them all. (Sighs.) I won’t say he didn’t deserve death. I just wish there had been another way. -Dorian disapproves

Forced to research magic arcana for the Inquisition Dorian: I’m told you have Alexius researching magic for you? Research is always what made him happiest. Perhaps I’ll go talk to him, eventually. One word of advice: if he suggest altering time as a way to solve all your problems, give it a pass. +Dorian approves

Made Tranquil Dorian: You made Alexius Tranquil. I wish you’d just killed him. He was a decent man once. He deserved to keep his dignity. I hope I don’t run into him. That… would be more than I could handle. -Dorian greatly disapproves

Forced to work for the Mages Dorian: I ran into Fiona. Seems you have Alexius serving the mages? There’s some justice in that, after what he did to them. Maybe one day he’ll realize it. +Dorian slightly approves

Imprisonment Dorian: Don’t tell me you sent Alexius back into the prisons. Seems a waste to rot away in a cell like that. He was a good man, once. Maybe it will give him time to think. But with Felix gone… I doubt it.

#dragon age inquisition #dai transcripts #dragon age #dragon age transcripts #dragon age dialogue #dai #long post #dai dialogue #dorian #dorian pavus

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rubensmuse · 8 months ago

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"Alexius is part of a cult that's obsessed with me." - my Inquisitor, speaking to her cult that's obsessed with her

#their barbaric cult vs our enlightened army of the faithful #dragon age inquisition #dragon age #just squirrelly things

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broodwolf221 · 1 year ago

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thinking about solas in the hushed whispers questline. specifically what would've happened if he'd gone back in time with the inquisitor and dorian

first off: in that timeline, the veil has been "shattered", the fade and the waking world now existing without separation. it's essentially what he wants to do, his ultimate goal realized. and in game, he's appalled. he's desperate to help the inky change it back

if he went back with them, though, he'd retain his memory. and that means he'd have to live with it. and i just keep thinking about his reaction to it, and about how many different things he'd feel, how much he'd twist himself up about it

putting aside his immediate reaction within the timeline, once he's back and things are safe enough for him to actually think about what he experienced, i imagine he'd be excited. it's possible! it's actually possible! it didn't destroy the world, not in the absolute way he feared it might.

then, over time, doubt would creep in. did it destroy the world? obviously that future was horrible, but that was corypheus, or alexius, or... it couldn't be that the veil was gone. could it?

there were demons everywhere. but surely they'd been twisted by fear and grief and anger... he mourned the spirits who had been so distorted. yet if he drew the veil down, even if all survived, such feelings would still exist. would the spirits suffer his plan as they suffered under corypheus'?

i imagine him really distant. if he's with the inquisitor - or anyone else, for that matter - i think he'd pull away from them. not end the relationship, just keep his distance for the time being, lost in thought and worried, trying to puzzle this through on his own. he'd sleep more, wander the fade more, perhaps speak with his friends, the spirits he knows so well.

in that timeline, the breach expanded. perhaps that's the "wrong" way for the veil to be removed - perhaps he tries to blame the damage on that. however he's going to do it, whatever plan he has, it's clearly the right way. isn't it? well, at least he certainly knows what not to do now, and that information will aid him... won't it?

like, this man is already wracked with guilt and doubt. he wants to be proven wrong. but this is the only path forward he sees - the only way to correct his wrongs, yes, but he's not doing it to atone, he's doing it to repair the catastrophic damage he caused. but when he sees what happens, how it turns out, it's horrible. it's a waking nightmare.

he drew the veil. he changed the world. and it made it worse - it took magic away. yes, he stopped the evanuris, but he also destroyed arlathan, he altered the nature of the entire world.

originally, his fears would have been essentially 1) fail, and the world remains as it is, broken, or; 2) succeed, and the world as it is, those who inhabit it, are destroyed. now there's a third fear: succeed, and make the world worse for everyone and everything.

#broodmeta #solas #been a bit since i've actually used my meta tag :')

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my-dear-anonym · 23 days ago

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Warping the Veil: Chapter 4 Sneak Peek

Warping the Veil Masterpost

Prelude | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2| Chapter 3

Read Full Chapters on Ao3

A Sovellan and Rookanis Story

Time Travel: It's a Bitch

“It never mattered when you arrived,” Dorian says, pacing. “He will have always reversed whatever influence you managed and then set himself up instead, don’t you see? Unless we capture Alexius directly, we will never be able to beat his time travel.”

Lavellan is perched on broken stone in the damp room. How long have they been in this room now? Dorian continuously paces back and forth, working through the implications of time travel to the whole audience of one. Lavellan doesn’t mind. It actually helps her straighten out her own thoughts. He turns on her suddenly. “You know, I’m getting real sick of this.”

“Of what?” she asks tiredly. Hurtling through time is no easy feat, apparently. Leaves a clouded feeling in the brain. All her muscles ache wretchedly. And to top it all off, it leaves the nastiest aftertaste on the tongue. She almost feels like the Breach spat her out all over again.

Dorian gestures broadly to everything around them. “And you!” he points an accusing finger at her. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

“Me? I’m stuck in this situation with you. I can help.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Dorian crosses his arms. “I have a feeling you’re very good at helping. The best, in fact. I could probably set you loose in Tevinter and watch you beat it into submission. It’d be a delight! Except right now you’re looking at me with those big elf eyes filled with all those questions and I don’t have the answers you want.”

Lavellan frowns. “How do you know so much about me?”

Dorian groans, plopping down next to her on her somewhat dry perch and pulling his robes out of the water. They could probably manage to break the door, but it would cause too much noise and there is too much going on to act recklessly. “I…don’t know how to explain it.”

“We have time.”

Dorian snorts at the remark. “When the breach tore open…I’m told I collapsed. Just dropped to the floor like a sack of flour. Very undignified. We didn’t know it at the time, what had happened here in the South. It’s a long way away, you know. Easy to ignore. Especially in the filthy establishments the Freemarches claim to be respectable taverns. But when I woke up, I knew.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“We’re standing in the future and you decide that’s the oddest thing you’ve heard. Remarkable,” Dorian laughs. “Don’t worry, it gets worse. I’d seen you. I remember it. You and I, and a dozen others, discussing the end of the world. Terribly depressing stuff. I shan’t bore you too much with it. I remember using the amulet. The same one Alexius used to send us here. You and I went through and pop! There I was. It’s all very confusing. Gives me a headache just thinking about it. See, most of it is just blank. It’s like I have some snippet of a dream of something I did that I’ve never done. And I know it’s not real because—” he gestures vaguely at her. “—you’re still all in one piece. Great news, by the way, that. We weren’t sure we’d survive the trip.”

Dorian was right. This did make him sound insane. Lavellan isn’t even entirely sure he’s speaking coherent sentences. “What are you trying to say?”

“I think we’ve done all this before,” Dorian says. “This saving the world bit. And we lost.”

“There’s a comforting thought,” Lavellan mutters.

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?” Dorian says. “Now we haven’t. We get to try again.”

“All you remember is casting the spell?” Lavellan asks. “Why not go back before the Breach? Save the Divine? All those people?”

“It doesn’t work,” Dorian says. “The whole time magic bit depends entirely on the Breach to work. It won’t go any further back. It’s likely the only reason Alexius hasn’t made as much progress as he could have.”

Lavellan sits with this information, letting it churn in her mind. On the one hand, Dorian is clearly insane. On the other, it actually makes a bit of sense. It explains why her own mind feels so foreign. It explains why she knows things she shouldn’t. Does that make her just as insane as Dorian? With a soft sigh, she leans against his arm, tired. “Do we know where we went wrong?”

“No idea,” Dorian provides helpfully. “I remembered you. Bits of you. That I needed to find you. We’d agreed to meet in the Redcliffe Chantry. I’d been hoping you had more information than me. Bit disappointed there.”

“Can’t say I blame you,” Lavellan mutters. “How many travelled with us?” she asks. “You said there was a few dozen?” If this is really what’s going on—and Lavellan isn’t completely convinced—then they’ll need to gather everyone that was involved and get as much information as they can.

Dorian shakes his head. “Just you and I, I think. I don’t remember it very clearly, and I don’t think I want to. It was fairly chaotic and I think someone died.

“Alright then. First thing’s first. We stop Alexius. Maybe if we can get out hands on the amulet, we can figure more out.”

Dorian holds up a finger. “I do remember a ball. At the Winter Palace. I don’t know what Josephine dressed you in, but it didn’t do you any favors. And that’s saying something because you’re quite comely.”

Lavellan snorts lightly. “Me? At a ball? Are you sure your head didn’t get scrambled?”

“Oh, it definitely feels scrambled,” he smiles. Their conversation dies out as they hear the approach of clanking armor and idle talk of a couple guards. They both get to their feet, readying their staffs as the sounds draw closer.

“I still don’t understand the purpose of patrolling this place,” one of the guards grunt. “It’s pointless. Who’s left to even attempt—” The complaint falls short when they open the door and find magic exploding in their faces. Dorian and Lavellan set upon the two with unbridled ferocity. Too surprised to put up much of a fight, the two guards drop into the water with a splash.

Dorian crinkles his nose and lightly flicks his fingers at them. “Would you mind being the one to dig through their pockets. I’d rather not touch.”

Lavellan doesn’t blame him. She’d rather not touch them either. They may not look outwardly corrupted, but she can almost feel the cling of red lyrium proximity. She rolls a body over and searches through the pockets, taking any sort of keys and clues about what might be going on in this place. “Let’s go.”

They hurry from the broken room into a similarly broken hallway. Stone crumbling. Décor scattered and decaying. “Still smells like dog,” Dorian says.

Lavellan snorts lightly. “If a blight couldn’t mask the smell the first time around, nothing will.”

“It’s good to confirm we’re still in Redcliffe castle,” Dorian says, his foot kicking at metal shield that still bears the crest, even if the shield is rusted and rotten.

The two of them push through the mess of the castle, taking twists, turns, and stairs, trying to understand where exactly they are in the castle. Lavellan pulls to a halt. “Wait, I know this room.”

Dorian stops next to her and gives a questioning look. “Is it a good room? After all the ones we’ve just been through, it would be nice for a fun one this time.”

#dragon age #dragon age veilguard #dragon age the veilguard #datv #dragon age fandom #dragon age inquisition #dav #dai #Warping the Veil #fanfiction #dragon age fanfiction #sovellan #rookanis #dorian pavus #inquisitor lavellan

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