Re: Dragon Age - A man of few words (Part 4 uploaded)
Well, here it is. Pretty long chapter this time, and the very ending is a tad bit rushed, but I couldn't wait to get this up on the site. The new character will get his back story in a epilogue-esque chapter.
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DISCLAIMER: This is a Dragon Age: Origins fanfiction, set several months after the end of the main game. Spoilers are present. The expansion pack Awakening is not included here. I have not played DA:O in English and as such, some terms may be translated wrong.
I don't own DA:O and I'm not looking to make a profit out of it.
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The secrets of Whitestone, Part 2: The Engineer
We slowly work ourselves deeper into the hospital. The atmosphere is downright eerie – somewhere in the distance I think I can hear somebody cackling madly, and the dark air is old, stuffy and richly filled with the stench of rotten meat. Most of the rooms – former sickrooms, I guess - are empty, save for a few more War Machines. They're just standing around all over Whitestone until somebody pops into their room... and then they go fucking nuts until you bash their brains in. Now and then we stumble over bodies that haven't been transformed yet: some Templars, mercenaries and peasants. None of them can be here for more than a few days – whoever crafts the War Machines is working quickly. Nylenn's been torching the bodies... it felt wrong at first, but somehow I can't see a flaw in his logic. For one, they can't rise again, and second, they can't be used to create War Machines. Still the stench of grilled flesh is nauseating... and it makes my stomach rumble.
After a bit we come to a halt in the middle of a massive hall. The locked door and the signs all around show that this room was once used for all the extremely dangerous patients – quarantine, I think, is what Zevran called it. Whatever was in it once has been removed, leaving a barren hall. A complicated pattern of creases has been carved into the ground, which slopes slightly downwards towards a massive gate with some kind of magic lock. At least it's something I couldn't crack open in a lifetime. Before the door, a sigil or a rune of some kind is caved into the ground, and all the creases lead up to it. A sinking feeling in my gut sets in, only moments before Nylenn speaks up. “Blood,” he calmly states. “This is the Tevinter rune for blood, but it looks to have been carved recently.” His freakishly bald forehead wrinkles as he ponders. “Surely it would take all the blood of an average human to fill that rune up... Any volunteers?” He turns his head to look at me. Little freak. I twitch and take a step backwards, a hand on the hilt of my mace.
“Hey, what does this do?” “Oghren, don't- for FUCK'S sake!” Something starts rattling in the darkness above us. I can see the damn dwarf quickly stepping away from that lever he just pulled out of the corner of my eye. And then an earth-shattering roar... and terror. And disgust. What is lowered out of the darkness is nothing else but a live god-damn ogre. An ogre hanging from chains. Without arms. Or legs. Or eyes.
Zevran gags somewhere behind me, and Nylenn whispers, “By the Maker, it's alive. It's still alive!” The ogre hears him. He swings forward in his chains and growls in his direction... it's a pathetic sound, akin to the whining of a deathly injured dog. I didn't think I would ever have pity for any darkspawn – I was wrong. The recently healed scars of cuts on the ogre's body identify it as the key to the door, but I hesitate. Even for the darkspawn this is unnecessarily cruel. Whoever did this has no sympathy for them, and yet they are undoubtedly evil...
A hand on my wrist shakes me out of my thoughts. Oghren stands behind me. “You know that ogres heal fast, don't ya? Just cut 'im open, he'll make it,” he explains with a point towards the bulky, heaving form. “You're not having pity with him, do ya?” Quietly – as I tend to be – I shake my head and unsheathe my dagger. Pity, no. As I walk up to him, the ogre roars into my face. Foul stench and vile spit hits me... and with a scowl I ram my dagger into his neck. Mercy, yes. Up- and forwards, towards the spine.
His roar dies, suddenly, even as its black blood sprays forth and hits both me and the rune below. With a grunt I tear the blade downwards to widen the wound before stepping aside, out of the way of the bloodstream. I barely register the door opening or the ogre's carcass retreating into the darkness, carried off by some devious mechanism. My knuckles turn white as I grip the dagger so hard I can feel the leather wrappings nearly cutting into the skin of my hand. If it takes my sight and my hearing, I will find the evil behind this all, and may the Maker have mercy on its soul.
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“AH! You haf arrifed! Ja, just like ze Blood King has foretold!” This is... disappointing. This hunchback is supposed to be creator of all those abominations? His once colorful robe hangs in shreds and tatters off his body, and his black hair seems to actively flee from his head in strands. I turn my attention away from the misfigured man on the gallery and take in the room we ran into after opening the door. This is the center of the carnage we faced, no doubt about it. Cages everywhere, and most of them are filled with the dead or those near it. All of them, except... “You will pay for this, VILE CREATURE!” Yep, this one is still pretty alive. “Your EVIL DEEDS will not go UNPUNISHED!” Alive and loud. The cripple spins around and returns the yelling.
“SILENCE! You vill be my masterpiece! I vill find ze shtrongest demon of zem all and bind it to your corpse! I vill clad you in ze zickest arrmor and apply ze sharpest swords, and you vill lead ze armies of ze Blood King to VICKTORY! Eferybody will know ZE ENGINEER!” Wow, that lisp of his is pretty bad. But then again... “NEVER!” That other guy surely has enough pride to attract a demon, for once.
“AHEM!” Oghren finally decides that we are kinda getting overshadowed here and speaks up. “So are we just gonna bash your head in now or-” “You vill DIE NOW, Warrden scum!” “Of course,” the dwarf sighs and hefts his maul. With a triumphant cackle ze – I'm sorry – THE Engineer raises his hands before slamming them the hell down on something in front of him – presumably a button of some sorts.
I don't know HOW he managed to build all this (magic, I assume), but the entire wall underneath his balcony retreats to present a gaping chasm. At the same time, magic barriers activate to block the stairway up to the balcony The Engineer resides on. Something can be heard screeching... I notice Oghren and Zevran paling noticably and readying their weapons. I'm quick to follow their example.
Then, a motherfucking Dragon War Machine shoots out of the funnel below.
I have seen The Archdemon once, during its attack on Denerim. Luckily this beast here is not nearly its size... Still, as it (she, I assume) spreads its wings it spans almost the entire room. Zevran fires a quick arrow, but it shatters on the primitive, yet effective armor it wears. Fuck me, we're going to die.
The beast lands. The battle begins.
Nylenn barely has time to fire an Arcane Bolt before a swipe of the beast's tail takes his leg out from underneath him. The projectile barely fazes her. I've seen it burning a War Machine's face off- She faces me. Crap. With a sudden pounce she catapults herself into my direction, and only a quick roll forward saves me from being mauled. I end up underneath her and use the moment to try and break her leg, but the mace does little to no damage. Crap! Suddenly she stomps a rear leg on me, nearly crushing my ribcage, and slides me out from below her with a backwards kick. By the time I'm back up she has headbutted Zevran just as he was about to put a dagger into her eye. She rears up over his prone form and sends a blast of flames down onto him... but they're not quite reaching him. I can see Nylenn from the corner of my eyes, lowering his arms after casting the Force Field.
Oghren attacks, and that crazy god damn dwarf does nothing less than jumping at the beast, the hammer raised high above his head. The War Machine turns her head – and gets a maul right between the eyes. Score one for us. She tumbles backwards and shakes off the effects of that mighty blow, and I use my chance to get in range and deliver a low blow against one of her shins. She roars, and I believe she is limping, but still there's enough power in that leg to kick me into the air and against a wall. Somewhere, I hear The Engineer laughing. Son of a bitch. I think at this point I've gone unconscious for a moment, because the next thing I remember is Nylenn's face above me, and cries of battle behind me.
“Thorval! Are you alright?” I wave the elf off and get back up, even though my back hurts like hell. The dragon is currently trampling all over Oghren, and I run up to her to distract her before he's turned into pulp. With a grunt I bash her over the head with the mace, and she turns her attention towards me. Suddenly, Zevran is there – the Force Field must have lost its power. His dagger plunges downward, tearing into the rotting skin of the War Machine's wing. As she screeches, he throws himself backwards, tearing a big hole into the wing. With an angry hiss she turns her neck around and snaps at him, and only the elf's quick reflexes prevent him from losing an arm. With a curse in his funny accent he rams the dagger forward again and manages to lodge it straight into her nostril. Predictably, she is pissed off. She rears up, dagger still in her face and Zevran still on the dagger. She looks like she's about to fry him alive – and Maker, I do kinda like him. So I take a few steps back and burst into a run, launching myself at the dragon.
Once more this feeling arises – like moving through syrup. Everything slows down, and I can recognize every scale on her belly, every wrinkle in Zev's armor, every lice in Oghren's beard. And then the dagger strikes true, and I hear her undead roars of agony as I slowly slide downwards on her flailing body, opening up her torso. I hold back my disgust as her rotten organs spill forth... and then she starts to fall over backwards. Luckily – I didn't want to get crushed again. As she hits the ground Zevran rolls away from her thrashing head... which suddenly rears up and shoots towards me. Out of the corner of my eye, however, a maul arrives – and this time her skull caves in, battered and bruised as it already was.
Oghren stands right next to me, breathing heavily before belching. Of course. “MINE! MY KILL! I call it, I killed her!” He looks around, his maul slowly pointing at each of us – as if anybody would dare to challenge him over this kill.
~~~
“No! NO! Zis is all rong – how... DAMN YOU!” The Engineer frantically hammers around on a plate full of runes, trying to release some other ungodly horror onto us. Instead a hum ceases – which I didn't realize was there until it's gone – and the hunchback spins around, a look of horror on his face. “Vat? NO! I didn't – I wasn't...” “Fiend! Grave robber! ABOMINATION!” Oh, that guy. We can't really see him from our position. What we can see is The Engineer getting lifted of his feet and high into the air, held up by a pair of muscled arms. “No, please! I beg you, let-” The arms drop him suddenly, out of our view, and a gruesome crunch is heard. The magic barriers drop, and we make haste up the stairs.
Unsurprisingly, we find The Engineer dead, his already crippled back now broken to boot. Over him towers one of the biggest humans I have ever seen in my life. This guy is as tall as a Qunari, I kid you not. There are streaks of silver both at his temples and in his thick beard, but the rest of his hair is black as the night. In a similar manner, while his face shows some wrinkles, his body is still very much in top condition – easily visible, because he does not wear more than a ragged pair of short pants. A scar parts his face from the jaw well into the hairline, looking very much like somebody tried to kill the man with an axe to the skull and failed, even though he hit him.
Never have I wanted a man more... to fight on my side.
