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Dorian and I slipped into the private section of the saloon and went to the table our group had unofficially claimed as ours whenever we were here, which was most nights. Over in one corner, Maryden stood crooning into a mic, looking stunning in a canary yellow silk sheath of a dress. Behind her, a piano, drums and a buzzing saxophone completed the musical ensemble. A blue haze of smoke filled the room, swirling around us as we made our way to the table.
Tonight, we were the first to arrive, and we more dropped into our seats than sat. The waitress brought us over our normal drinks. I sipped at mine absently. Dorian, for his part, was doing much the same, we were both balled up. We didn't look at each other a whole lot, what could we say? We'd both experienced the same thing.
"You two's look like ya need stronger. Whadja see? A ghost or sumfin?" I gave a start as Sera plopped down, turning her chair backwards and resting her arms on the back of the chair. She looked between the two of us like she was watching a tennis match and the score was 15-Love. Dorian muttered something as he took a swig of his drink. The paleness of our earlier shock giving his normally dark skin a sickly pallor.
"When will the others be here?" I asked her, attempting for some sort of normality. She gave me a queer look, so I was pretty sure I hadn't succeeded, but she answered me anyways.
"Vivy is stuck at the hoity-toity place until late. Varric was right behind me. Bull and Blackwall were helping Cullen check something out. Solas should be about done at the art shop soon. Lili and Josie will be here when the office closes." she sipped her drink and checked out the chassis of the waitress working one of the other tables. I gave her a nod and glanced at Dorian. He was still pale and staring at his giggle juice, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone yet. At a loss for anything else to do, I took a sip of my own booze.
We sat like that, the three of us, quiet as church-mice and deep in our own heads. Well, maybe not Sera, but she quietly contemplated the people around us as Dorian and I sat and reflecting on what had happened. Maryden's crooning and the hazy smoke continued to encircle us. It was kind of an odd, insulating feeling as if the music were dampening the conversations around us and the haze gave us anonymity. Slowly, the others started to show up. Cassandra arrived first, sitting down with a small noise, her navy blue serge jacket and pencil skirt still looking crisp and classy with the creamy off-white silky blouse she wore. Not for the first time, I couldn't help but wonder how she kept herself looking so fresh all day.
Solas and Varric were next and having run into each other on the way in, they were already discussing the finer qualities of a couple of their favorite authors. This was a common topic between the two of them and the normality of this was heartening. Josephine and Leliana came in a few minutes later, arm in arm, black and red curls touching as they whispered together before glancing back at the more public area of the speakeasy. Someone must have caught their eye as they turned back to each other again and giggled.
Blackwall, Iron Bull and Cullen arrived together, as Sera had predicted. Bull and Blackwall strode in together, discussing something, their burred baritones circling around and through the rest of the ambient conversations. It was fun to watch them, as they made quiet the pair, both handsome and where Bull commanded attention just by breathing, Blackwall's quiet intensity was just as compelling.
It was Cullen though, that I watched as he lithely followed Bull and Blackwall through the room towards us. The trench coat that he wore open did nothing to hide his height or the broadness of his shoulders. He caught me watching him and the corners of his lips turned up slightly and in the shadow of his fedora’s brim, his eyes seemed to glow with a gentle smolder. I swallowed reflexively as he seemed to suddenly be more languid and graceful. The smokey haze hid nothing, instead highlighting his dirty blonde hair, scruffy chin, and smooth, tempting lips. The only imperfection being the scar, and even that, on him, enhanced rather than detracted. He reached the table last, greeting everyone with a warm smile as he sat down, taking his fedora off with one hand and reaching up to run his fingers through his hair with the other.
As he broke eye contact, I self-consciously glanced around the table, catching a few knowing grins from a few of our friends. I could feel myself my cheeks reddening and tried to hide behind my drink glass, glad for the low light in the joint. With everyone sitting down, we bumped gums for a bit, getting our salutations out of the way and catching up on everyone's days. The latest arrivals gave their orders to the waitress and the three of us who'd finished off our first drinks, ordered our second round.
"Wanna tell us what's got the two of yous lookin' pale as Perdition, or we playing Guess and Go Seek?" Sera asked again once drinks had arrived and everyone had settled down. They looked from her to Dorian and I curiously. I had seen the glances as we'd all caught up. They had noticed the two of us were quieter than normal, but hadn't asked anything yet. I glanced at Dorian and he gave me a nod. Right, my show.
"Well, Dorian and I went to talk to Gereon Alexus today, to see if we could talk him into letting us use some of the new workers he's hired." Alexus was a spliv who was gathering up the some of the solo 'people of power', like Grand Enchanter Fiona. Word on the street had it that he was trying to get them to unionized. We thinking that they had skills that could help us search down where the Red was coming from. "He wasn't too keen on the idea, but I still think they are our best bet. Neither one of us could agree on terms, so after a bit of back and forth and getting nowhere, we called it a day before either of us could do something rash.
"As we were walking back, we were talking about, well, pretty much anything except the meeting that we'd just had." I glanced over to Cullen from under my lashes. He was slowly turning his drink tumbler around in his long fingers and watching me thoughtfully. He and I didn't see eye to eye on whom we should hire. I was all for using people like Fiona. He, understandably, wanted more rent-a-cops and P.I.s like himself. People with skills and thought-processes he understood. He took a sip of his drink and I was mesmerized, watching his adam's apple move down and up again as he swallowed. He looked up from setting his tumbler down again and caught my gaze. Time seemed to stand still as I became enveloped in his smoldering tawny blinkers. The sound of someone clearing their throat quietly brought me back.
"We happened to see a sign for one of those psychics - Grand Enchanter Fiona - and we decided why not." I glanced at Dorian. He gave me a little smirk and I could feel my cheeks warming. We had been talking about Cullen and when we saw the sign for the palm reader, Dorian had teased me about using her to see if my carrying the torch for Cullen would amount to anything.
"She didn't give us our 'Happy Ever After', however." Dorian prompted me. I shook my head, agreeing with him.
"I am not sure what sort of stuff she was smoking in her house, but by the time we left, we had shared the most intense ... well, dream is the best word I have for it."
"Only it wasn't a dream." Dorian muttered.
"Come again, Boss?" Bull asked quizzically.
"She said it was a vision." I answered quietly. The table went silent. I was pretty sure the wouldn't believe us, but I had to try. "One minute we are sitting at a round table, the three of us making a triangle around it, her crystal ball in the center. The next, we're outside of a building." I stopped a moment, taking a breath, steeling myself for what was coming next.
"I'm sorry, a vision?" Blackwall asked skeptically, using my break to question us. Can't say that I blame him. I wouldn't have believed it either.
"It's been known to happen." Solas interjected smoothly, putting his wine glass gently onto the table. "True visions, of course, are more rare than what most would call a 'vision'. Those are more like lucid dreams." He seemed to be getting into full-on lecture mode when Cassandra cut him off.
"Let Evelyn and Dorian tell us what happened. Then we can decide if we believe it or not." I shot her a grateful smile when she continued. "I do know this Grand Enchanter Fiona and while I've not heard of her giving visions, she does know her stuff when it comes to the Occult."
I glanced at Dorian, not sure if that statement helped our case. He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, but didn't say anything. Taking a deep breath, I started again.
Dorian and I stood looking at an abandoned warehouse in the port district. Fog swirled around us, not quite obscuring our view, but not making it easy to see either. The rhythmic sound of water slapping against retaining walls was punctuated randomly by the horns of ships passing in the night. The warehouse itself was dark. The light from the outdoor lighting flickered from time to time. What light they did give off was diffused by the fog, not much but just enough for us to see the boarded up windows, graffiti and the single red door, dark against the corrugated metal walls.
We shared a bewildered glance before I stepped forward and reached out to see if the door was open. It swung open and the slightest touch. Beyond it was a dark hallway. A cautious glance at Dorian and I lead the way inside, carefully, feeling my way down the hallway. The wall was alternatively rough and slightly smoother. The smooth parts weren’t big, an inch wide or two at the most, but random. No pattern that I could tell. After about twenty or thirty steps, I wasn’t really counting, the wall ended and we were looking at … I wasn’t sure what we had found.
There was a red glow that seemed to come from everywhere, but it was still a subtle light, enough that we could see shapes and a walkway here or there. It outlined walls and openings, a subtle addition to the flickering gas lights that didn’t light up even half of what we could see. Rooms had been built with plywood and two-by-fours. There was no rhyme or reason to the rooms, just anywhere and everywhere they could put one. Walkways, barely safe to walk on, meandered between the rooms with no purpose. There were no real doors to any of these rooms. There were blankets hung in some of the openings. Dirty, ragged things, some were more hole than blanket. The graffiti that had been almost tasteful on the outside was everywhere here. Whatever they used to paint with was dark and some of it had run. Some of it was dry and flaked off when I gently touched it. I decided I didn’t really want to touch it. We heard the noise now. I’m not sure how we couldn’t hear it before, it was like there was a barrier that the sound couldn’t get through. Inside the barrier, though, it bounced back in on itself. There was so much screaming, it was hard to think, to concentrate. Underneath all of the wailing and crying, there was an echo of the waves from outside, something dripping, steady, metronomic. We turned, looking at the hallway behind us, wanting to know we had an exit route, but it was gone. We had no choice but to move forward, to see if we could find anything useful. Before we made it two steps though, two goons came at us with swords, snarling and slobbering and eyes glowing red. We had to take them down, they didn’t give us a choice. Fortunately, it was quick.
After that, we tried to make our way through the maze of plywood rooms. The floor was wet and slick. Our feet made squelching sounds while we were on the ground floor, on the walkways, it was harder to keep our footing when we’d hit a wet patch. A couple times I almost fell, grabbing onto the railing kept me on my feet. And the smells! Unwashed bodies, human waste, vomit, rotting food and the blood. The coppery tang of blood seemed to be everywhere, overpowering, sticking to the back of my throat. I covered my nose and face with my sleeve, and I could see Dorian doing the same, but that still didn’t keep it all out. It was slow going. Where it wasn’t the slick spots, it was the bodies, er people, Red-junkies. They were everywhere, their eyes glowed red, screaming and beating … something; their heads against walls, fists, others. Others were whimpering in corners, curled into protective balls. Some were, well, they were engaged in … er … more … physical activities. All of them were bleeding somehow, or had bled. No one acknowledged us, so it wasn’t like we needed to sneak. With all the noise, we didn’t have to be quiet either.
It tooks us a few times through the first few levels, but we eventually found a couple rooms that had people that recognized us. It was … At first, I was thrilled. Maybe we could get some answers. We knew now that it was a Red-barrel house, but beyond that, we were in the dark. Who was the boss of this operation? Where were we, exactly? Why were there so many Red-junkies? We have all been searching and come across junkies before and even some pushers, but we haven’t seen anything on this scale. Yet.
First, we found Cassandra in one of the random rooms, kneeling on the floor, praying over and over again. We thought maybe she hadn’t been addicted yet, but when she looked up at us, her eyes glowed red, just like the others. She looked starved, like she hadn’t eaten for weeks and her wrists had rope burns. When she spoke, her voice, it had this weird quality to it, like there was two of her speaking. She seemed surprised to see us, like she was seeing a ghost. She was also the first one to react to us.
She told us that there was a night, about a year past, Dorian and I had gone to talk to Alexus to try and get his help, or at least the help of some of his people. No one saw us after that. She said that everyone looked for us, but could never find anything. After time though, officials gave us up for dead. A few kept looking for us, not wanting to believe that we were gone, but time passed with no clues, no bodies, nothing. Eventually even the most hopeful couldn’t argue that we were gone. She continued, saying that Mayor Celene was murdered and in the resulting chaos in Orlais, an army of triggermen swept through Southern Thedas. All of you tried to stop ‘The First’, tried to pull together enough people to make a stand, but in the end, you all failed.
It was nuts! Dorian and I had gone to Alexus that very morning, and neither of us remembered disappearing. Looking at her there, red eyes watching us so intently, we couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe she was right. We told her that we were were looking around, seeing what we could find and looking for a way out. We were getting pretty done with this place. She came with us, following as we started through the maze again. It felt good to have someone else with us. We took some of the rags from her room, wrapped them around a loose bit of two-by-four, used one of the gas lamps to light it, making a torch of sorts. It helped a little bit, but didn’t last long.
Next, we found Solas. He looked so very sick, his eyes glowing red like everyone else we had seen so far. He said he were dying and, honestly, I believed him. It was crazy, he had the same double-voice as Cassandra when he spoke. Which made it harder to understand when he spoke Elvhen, which he slipped into a lot. He verified Cassandra’s story about Celene and the triggerman. He came with us as well. Neither seemed to expect to leave the barrel house alive, but seemed determined to help us escape. I … I didn’t know why anyone would want to stay. It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but I figured we would deal with that when we found our way out.
We searched for more, but couldn’t find anyone else. We decided to try moving up another level or two to see what we could find.
The walls were free of graffiti and the walkways seemed a little more … or rather less bloody. The rooms looked more purposeful, less chaotic. They also had doors. Real doors, not the hanging rags that passed for doors down below. The sounds from the lower level seemed muffled here, but there were still screams. Not as many, though, so I guess that was something. A few of the rooms were empty, but then we found one that wasn’t.
Before we opened the door, we could hear someone talking and a rasping noise, like metal on metal. When we opened the door, Lelianna was being hung by her wrists and one of the Alexus’ toughs was torturing her, asking where I was. Apparently, Alexus was the last one to believe Dorian and I weren’t dead. She looked … she looked like Death. She was nothing but skin and bones, but there had to be muscle in there somewhere, because when she saw us behind the tough, she used her legs to crush his throat.
We cut her down, and it was heartening to see her eyes were normal, or rather at least they weren’t glowing red. They did, however burn with a singular hatred. For the first time since I have known her, Lelianna detested people who had extra powers. I didn’t know what to do, what to say to convey how sorry I was that things had gone so wrong. She didn’t care. She ignored any platitudes, any explanation and just urged us to find Alexus.
There was only one other person that we found, and I wish to the Maker that we hadn’t. In the last room on that level, we found Cullen. He was addicted to Red, but he was not incapacitated by it. Instead he was addicting others. Thugs brought in people off the streets and, from what we saw, he seemed to take perverse pleasure in force-feeding them Red until they became addicted. He had three people in the room we found him in. They were bound at their wrists and hanging from the rafters and they all had multiple puncture wounds. Needles were all over one of the tables in the room. We watched from the shadows of the doorway as he took one of the needles and approached one of the women hanging there. He leaned in slowly, lightly caressing her cheek with a knuckle. She was so frightened, she whimpered. He gave the most malicious chuckle and then injected her with Red. She and the others had more puncture wounds, this wasn’t the first time they had been shot up. We could see his eyes glowed red, just like the others, but the Red had turned him cruel and vicious. We left quietly, before he could see us. I … I couldn’t watch him doing that. I knew it wasn’t Cullen, not the real version of him, but it hurt to see even what little we had.
We quietly continued looking for Alexus. I don’t remember how we got to his level, but we were there finally. Lelianna had said he stayed in the main office, behind locked doors. So we had to go looking for the key. It wasn’t easy. The light here was still intermittent and none too steady. We could still hear the dripping noise, but at least the screams from below were muted. Odd, as we weren’t that far away and the building wasn’t that well made as to be soundproof, but maybe the sound barrier that we had penetrated earlier only covered the lower levels, keeping their sounds contained. No one knew, but we didn’t have the time to worry about it over-much.
This level had a handful of rooms, better quality than the ones on the lower levels, and looked like maybe they performed double-duty as office and sleeping quarters. The gas lights were still unreliable lighting, but the glow of the Red was stronger, brighter. We could almost make out some of the artwork that had been put up on some of the office walls.
We did find the main office, a thin band of yellow light surrounded the door, but it wouldn’t open. Alexus had locked himself in. Someone had to bring him food though, so someone outside had to have a key to get in. Maybe we could find that someone. We found one of Alexus’ aides in one of the empty rooms and Dorian managed to get the key from him. Lelianna stayed behind a few moments after we left and we made no comment on the small thump that we heard before she joined us. No one spoke now, I don’t think we had a whole lot to say. I know I didn’t. The whole place was so surreal, and yet so real.
We opened the door to Alexus’ office. Someone else was there as well. Twisted and bent in double, he crouched by the fireplace. Flesh seemed to be slowly melting off of him and his eyes were so bruised and sunken that they barely reflected the firelight. His clothes were torn and tattered, held on him by a belt of rope. He was bone-thin and it was easy to see the knotted and mutated muscles beneath his skin. He looked up as the door open and turned this face towards us and then Alexus, who stood in front of the fireplace, staring down into the flames.
He didn’t turn around until we were about halfway through the room. At a strangled noise from the mangled creature beside him, he turned around and I was stunned. The tailored suit that had fit him like a glove when we saw him that morning hung around him like a gunny sack. It was threadbare and frayed, as if he’d worn it the entire year that had passed between this morning and now. His slicked back hair was now clumpy and matted. There were deep lines on his face, as if gouged by a knife instead of time and age. There was no blood though. In this one room, there was no blood.
“Alexus?” I almost whispered, afraid to break the silence in the room.
“I knew you would come. I knew you were still out there.” He replied, subdued.
“Was it worth it?” Dorian asked quietly, “Everything that you did to the world, to yourself?”
“It doesn’t matter now.” came the dejected reply. “All we can do is wait for the end.”
“It does matter. I will undo this.” I answered him, putting some determination into my voice, wanting to believe that it did, that I could.
“How many times have I tried? The past can not be undone. All that I fought for, all that I betrayed, and what have I wrought? Ruin and death. There is nothing else. The Elder One comes for me, for you … for us all.” He was broken, holding on, going through the motions until ‘The First’ came to take the reins from him.
A noise stopped us and we all turned to look at the side of the fireplace where the misshapen creature had been. Lelianna had a hold of the poor creature, holding him stretched upright, a knife at his throat.
“Felix!” Alexus breathed, suddenly showing a spark of life and fear.
“Maker’s breath, that’s Felix?” Dorian was aghast. “What have you done, Alexus?”
“He would have died, Dorian. I saved him! Please,” Alexus pleaded with Lelianna, “Don’t hurt my son. I’ll do anything you ask!”
“Tell us how to prevent this and we will let him live. “ I tried to bargain with him, tried to maintain some control over what was happening.
“Let him go and I swear, I’ll give you anything you want.” He stepped forward, reaching out to his son.
“I want the world back.” Lelianna croaked as she drew the knife across Felix’s throat.
Alexus cried out and, with a blast of power, pushed her across the room and into a wall. Blinded by grief, he lashed out at the rest of us as well. It didn’t take long for us to subdue him. He wanted revenge for his son, but he had little will to live. “He wanted to die, didn’t he?” Dorian asked, grieving for his lost friend and mentor. “All the lies, the justifications. He lost Felix long ago. He just didn’t notice.”
“Maybe we can still talk to our Alexus, Dorian.” I tried hopefully, wanting to comfort him. “This Alexus was too far gone, but maybe, if we can get back.”
“It will take us at least an hour to get back to the entrance.” He closed Alexus’ eyes and stood up. The building started to shake and faint screams could be heard from below.
“We don’t have an hour! He’s here! You two have to go now!” Lelianna protested.
“Us?” I turned to her, confused. “I won’t leave you to die.”
“Look at us.” She spat. “We are already dead. The only way to save us is if this never happens.”
Behind her, Solas and Cassandra traded glances, nodding to each other.
“Go. We will try to hold them off.” Cassandra said in her weird dual-voice. “Lelianna, you will be our last line of defense.” She and Solas headed out of the office and almost immediately, we could hear the sounds of battle. Too soon, the door burst open and demons poured in and Lelianna started shooting them.
“Go!” She commanded.
Dorian and I looked around for another door, a window, something, but there were no windows and the only door had demons still coming through it. They advanced, pushing Lelianna back, step by step. We moved back as well, not sure what to do. She faltered. A demon reached her, grabbed her throat and lifted her above the ground. I reached for Dorian’s hand and gripped it tight as we watched the demon choking the life from her. Others moved around the one that held Lelianna, coming towards us. One reached out, it’s hand inches away …
"That's when we woke up. We were back around Fiona's table and she said what we saw was going to happen, unless we changed it." I stopped talking, took a swig of my booze. Maybe if I got bent, it would make the images go away.
"Alexus said 'The First' was building an army." I said, almost whispering into the quiet around our table. "They were planning on using the red-eyed wet socks as foot soldiers. In the ... vision ... Lelianna, you also told us that he killed Mayor Celene, giving him a foothold in Orlais."
Raising my gaze from the table, I looked at each of them slowly in turn, ending with Cullen. "We know what he's got planned now, and we have a time frame."