Romulus found it difficult to just set foot back in Redcliffe, in the time that he remembered, after seeing what he had, and living in it. It felt not unlike a horrid dream, despite it having been entirely real, and only erased by the skill Cyrus had in magic. The thought that he could've been trapped there haunted him. As did the fact that a similar future could await them still.
His normal stony demeanor was replaced by a bit of a daze as they cleared out from Redcliffe castle, which stood empty awaiting the arrival of the Arl back into his domain. The Inquisition would be clearing out soon, but since they were now directly responsible for the mages taking shelter here, it would take a bit of time to organize. Time that was sorely needed for many of them to rest. And while none needed it more than Cyrus, Romulus was plenty exhausted himself.
He was only allowed a few hours, however, before Leon's man Reed arrived to summon him, letting him know that the commander required him for a debriefing. With Cyrus out of commission, and Chryseis still ultimately remaining a third party, it seemed the duty of relaying what had happened fell to the slave. Ignoring the soreness already setting into his limbs, he forced himself up from his cot.
He was allowed an opportunity to scarf down some food quickly, and fully planned to return for more when this was done. A few of the soldiers looked at him as though he were a ghost, and he wondered if he might actually be. He'd simply been erased from time for some of them, those that had been watching, before he reappeared. Romulus did not claim to understand how magic like that even began to work, but he could at least understand why the others might look at him differently. It was the second time he'd walked out of a place no man had a right to return from.
Reed opened the flap of the command tent for Romulus, and he proceeded inside, finding the Inquisition's military, diplomatic, and espionage leaders all assembled and awaiting him. Folding his hands together behind his back, he bowed his head in greeting, and left his eyes gazing down towards the table. Some things would not be changed, even by time-traveling.
The tent was quite a large one, with space for all three of its occupants to have clear working room of their own, plus a smaller version of Haven’s map table for each of them to use when necessary. Rilien was currently standing at that, quite intently focused on something or another there, while Lady Marceline was at a desk, shuffling through a stack of parchments, a quill and inkwell at the ready beside her. Leon, on the other hand, was sitting in a chair, on one side of low table, which was covered with what looked like some kind of food service for the three of them, it was hard to say exactly. Mostly it was all very mobile pickings, nuts and fruit, that sort of thing. There were a few other spartan chairs arranged around the space, and when Romulus entered, the commander stood, offering him one with a gesture.
“If you wouldn’t mind sitting, Romulus, I’m not sure how long we’re going to be here, and I expect you’re rather tired, if our resident magical expert’s condition is any indication of what you’ve been through. You’re also welcome to eat, if you like.” The Seeker himself resumed his own seat thereafter, ignoring the food in front of him and smiling mildly.
“I do apologize for how soon this is, but I’ve always found that memory is best committed to paper as soon as possible, lest some details get scrambled in the intervening time. If you’re up to it, I would like to hear from you what happened today.” Nothing he said was phrased as a command, nor even delivered with the tone of one.
Romulus sank into the offered chair, his posture perhaps not the best, and despite the rest, he still seemed, and felt, quite tired, the kind of tired that a simple night's sleep would not cure. As for Leon's prompting... he was almost tempted to laugh, as the commander couldn't possibly know what he was asking him to describe. Romulus shifted an elbow onto one of the chair's armrests, propping his head briefly upon his hand, before he seemed to think better of it. He still stared somewhere beneath the table they worked at.
"Cassius aimed a spell for Estella and I, meant to remove us from time. If Lord Cyrus and my domina had not confirmed it as such, I'd have thought I was under the effect of some nightmarish horror spell. We determined ourselves to be roughly one and a half years into the future, at which point the Inquisition had nearly been crushed, by the forces of something the Venatori called the 'Elder One.'" He narrowed his eyes at the thought, half-wishing they'd interrogated those they'd found in the future about the Elder One, to learn more of what exactly that was.
Finally, he looked up at the three before him. "Is there anything in particular you wish to know? We escaped from that future, and now a different one will come to pass instead."
There was a moment of silence at that; perhaps the three others simply needed time to digest the information. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing one commonly encountered after all. In the end, Rilien spoke first, looking up from what he was doing to meet Romulus’s eyes. “If that is so… were you able to ascertain a narrative of what happened? It is possible that whatever this Elder One accomplished early on in that future is identical with what it plans for ours. Were we to know these things, we would be better prepared to face them.”
Romulus shrugged. "Perhaps." Sitting up a little higher in the chair, he exhaled heavily, raking through his mind for the information they'd picked up. The words were so much less memorable than the images, in all but a few cases. "The Inquisition suffered a crippling loss, with one Herald presumed dead, and the other captured. We acquired no allies, and lost our ability to close Fade rifts. The Venatori revealed their full strength, and allowed the Inquisition no victories. Cassius did not lead them, someone else did. We didn't get a name." It hadn't even occurred to them to care about most of these details that suddenly appeared important. None of it would have mattered if they couldn't get back at all.
His eyes shifted to Marceline, taking notes. "You escaped from the ambush, but were assassinated some time later, along with a great many others from Orlais. The Elder One apparently established a puppet, dethroning the most powerful nation in Thedas without being revealed." He looked to the spymaster next. "Many others were killed or captured in an attempt to rescue Estella from the Venatori. You were among them, Ser Rilien. You... were shot down trying to free Estella from... her pyre." His eyes could no longer remain on them, and fell to the ground again.
"The Inquisition still existed, when we arrived from the spell, but it was little more than a desperate resistance led by Commander Leon. The Breach had split across the sky. There... wasn't much of a world left to save."
Lady Marceline's quill quit its scratching for a moment as she looked up to Romulus. A coy smile then spread across her lips as she shook her head. "Assassinated, you say? I can not say I am terribly surprised. It is suitably... Orlesian, wouldn't you say, Ser Rilien?" She asked, glancing at Rilien.
"Fortunately, we still have you and Lady Estella, and with the mages, we have grown in strength as well," she said, returning to the notes she had been writing. "I shall send letters to prominent Orlesian nobility to warn them of such a possibility, and keep an ear open for any opportunistic occasion for assassins to strike." She then frowned again as she continued to stare at the notes laid out in front of her. "Did you discover which nobles were assassinated in particular? she asked.
"Those of greatest importance to stability," Romulus declared, somewhat simply. They were among the few names of dead people in the future that he had no connection with, but he remembered the titles. "The Lord-General, the Crown Prince, and the Empress herself." He swallowed. "I heard this from Khari, after we freed her. She'd been captured in the attempt to rescue Estella."
Leonhardt folded his hands together underneath his chin, his elbows propped on the armrests of his chair. He regarded Romulus less keenly than the other two did; it was clear they were thinking tactics in this very moment, but it would seem that, beyond the initial summons, he was not especially inclined that way himself. He looked vaguely troubled by what he was hearing, but had thus far been silent, apparently content to let the others do the questioning. Now, though, he did speak up.
“You met some of us, then, in this future. How was it that you were able to return? As I’ve heard it told, barely a minute passed as those in the throne room perceived it.”
How long had it been? An hour, perhaps two? Maybe less, Romulus supposed. Every moment in that hell had been agonizingly drawn out. Marceline seemed to find it amusing, though he could hardly read a woman like her, that she'd been murdered. She and the Tranquil were thinking tactically of this, or coldly, as it felt to Romulus. Leon was the one that Romulus at least felt slightly able to relate to. It was real, what had happened, as difficult as it was to imagine. In fact, what they were experiencing now was probably less real than the things he'd missed... but Romulus had no desire to think on any of that.
"We recovered Vesryn, Khari, Zahra, and Asala from the dungeons of the castle. The Venatori were using it as a base. The others were... tortured. I will not describe the details. They aren't important." Perhaps Vesryn had some secret he was hiding from the group, but Romulus would not be the one to force it out of him. If there was anything he'd demonstrated in that future, it was that he was willing to give his life for their cause. Cyrus could pry answers out of him later if he so chose to.
"Together we reached the throne room, and Cyrus killed Cassius there. He then prepared the spell that would transport us back. It was never certain if we would be able to return. The Elder One arrived with some kind of creature, though we never laid eyes on the threat. Venatori advanced ahead, and since the others could not be allowed to return with us, they held them off to give Cyrus enough time. I watched all of them die." He'd seen, and done, more than his share of terrible things, and many of them refused to leave him, but somehow he suspected visiting that future only briefly would outlast them all.
“I’m sorry,” Leon said quietly, though it didn’t seem to be as much an apology as an expression of honest sympathy. He sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair. “I’m sure the details of the magic involved will go over my head, but I’ll ask Cyrus about it at a later date anyway, to see if it’s anything we still need to be worried about. For now…” He paused, apparently searching for the words he wanted, pursing his lips and shaking his head faintly.
“For now I also wanted to ask something else. I admit I don’t really have a grasp of the details, but… Lady Chryseis is still present, and as I understand it, she was of help in… what happened. We have no cause or grounds to interfere with her if she wishes to leave and return to the Imperium. But from what you have said, it appears painfully obvious to me that the Inquisition needs its Heralds—"
"Both Heralds," Lady Marceline clarified.
“—and that the world needs the Inquisition. What do you want to do from here, Romulus? I want you to know that you have our support, should you be inclined to make use of it for any reason.”
Romulus was silent for a long period after that, threading his fingers together in front of him and placing his chin upon his knuckles. In the end, the immediate course of his life seemed obvious, and when he spoke, it was for once with confidence. "I want to close the Breach. Whatever that takes. I believe, after what we went through, my domina understands the importance of that as well. I believe she will keep our arrangement as is." Despite everything that had happened, nothing had really changed. Chryseis had even admitted she'd come to Redcliffe for her father, to protect the world from him, and perhaps to try to protect him from himself.
"After the Breach is closed... I still intend to do as she commands. If that means returning to Minrathous, and disappearing, so be it. I won't ask you to understand. If that puts the Inquisition at risk... then I'm sorry." His relationship with Chryseis was not something that was at all easy to comprehend. Despite the things he'd done for her, and as a result the things he'd done to himself, he did not, and could not resent her for any of it. For he knew that since her husband had been killed, no other person understood her quite the way he did.
Leon smiled a little wider. “I don’t understand, but it doesn’t matter, if it’s what you want. So long as we close the Breach, I’ll not complain.” He glanced to the other two briefly. “Unless Rilien or Lady Marceline has a further question, I believe we can conclude here. Please, enjoy some well-earned rest.” Rilien shook his head in the negative.
"None," Marceline agreed.
"Thank you," Romulus said, rising from the chair. After nodding briefly, he turned and exited the tent, forcing himself to think only of a large meal, and a long sleep to follow.
His normal stony demeanor was replaced by a bit of a daze as they cleared out from Redcliffe castle, which stood empty awaiting the arrival of the Arl back into his domain. The Inquisition would be clearing out soon, but since they were now directly responsible for the mages taking shelter here, it would take a bit of time to organize. Time that was sorely needed for many of them to rest. And while none needed it more than Cyrus, Romulus was plenty exhausted himself.
He was only allowed a few hours, however, before Leon's man Reed arrived to summon him, letting him know that the commander required him for a debriefing. With Cyrus out of commission, and Chryseis still ultimately remaining a third party, it seemed the duty of relaying what had happened fell to the slave. Ignoring the soreness already setting into his limbs, he forced himself up from his cot.
He was allowed an opportunity to scarf down some food quickly, and fully planned to return for more when this was done. A few of the soldiers looked at him as though he were a ghost, and he wondered if he might actually be. He'd simply been erased from time for some of them, those that had been watching, before he reappeared. Romulus did not claim to understand how magic like that even began to work, but he could at least understand why the others might look at him differently. It was the second time he'd walked out of a place no man had a right to return from.
Reed opened the flap of the command tent for Romulus, and he proceeded inside, finding the Inquisition's military, diplomatic, and espionage leaders all assembled and awaiting him. Folding his hands together behind his back, he bowed his head in greeting, and left his eyes gazing down towards the table. Some things would not be changed, even by time-traveling.
The tent was quite a large one, with space for all three of its occupants to have clear working room of their own, plus a smaller version of Haven’s map table for each of them to use when necessary. Rilien was currently standing at that, quite intently focused on something or another there, while Lady Marceline was at a desk, shuffling through a stack of parchments, a quill and inkwell at the ready beside her. Leon, on the other hand, was sitting in a chair, on one side of low table, which was covered with what looked like some kind of food service for the three of them, it was hard to say exactly. Mostly it was all very mobile pickings, nuts and fruit, that sort of thing. There were a few other spartan chairs arranged around the space, and when Romulus entered, the commander stood, offering him one with a gesture.
“If you wouldn’t mind sitting, Romulus, I’m not sure how long we’re going to be here, and I expect you’re rather tired, if our resident magical expert’s condition is any indication of what you’ve been through. You’re also welcome to eat, if you like.” The Seeker himself resumed his own seat thereafter, ignoring the food in front of him and smiling mildly.
“I do apologize for how soon this is, but I’ve always found that memory is best committed to paper as soon as possible, lest some details get scrambled in the intervening time. If you’re up to it, I would like to hear from you what happened today.” Nothing he said was phrased as a command, nor even delivered with the tone of one.
Romulus sank into the offered chair, his posture perhaps not the best, and despite the rest, he still seemed, and felt, quite tired, the kind of tired that a simple night's sleep would not cure. As for Leon's prompting... he was almost tempted to laugh, as the commander couldn't possibly know what he was asking him to describe. Romulus shifted an elbow onto one of the chair's armrests, propping his head briefly upon his hand, before he seemed to think better of it. He still stared somewhere beneath the table they worked at.
"Cassius aimed a spell for Estella and I, meant to remove us from time. If Lord Cyrus and my domina had not confirmed it as such, I'd have thought I was under the effect of some nightmarish horror spell. We determined ourselves to be roughly one and a half years into the future, at which point the Inquisition had nearly been crushed, by the forces of something the Venatori called the 'Elder One.'" He narrowed his eyes at the thought, half-wishing they'd interrogated those they'd found in the future about the Elder One, to learn more of what exactly that was.
Finally, he looked up at the three before him. "Is there anything in particular you wish to know? We escaped from that future, and now a different one will come to pass instead."
There was a moment of silence at that; perhaps the three others simply needed time to digest the information. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing one commonly encountered after all. In the end, Rilien spoke first, looking up from what he was doing to meet Romulus’s eyes. “If that is so… were you able to ascertain a narrative of what happened? It is possible that whatever this Elder One accomplished early on in that future is identical with what it plans for ours. Were we to know these things, we would be better prepared to face them.”
Romulus shrugged. "Perhaps." Sitting up a little higher in the chair, he exhaled heavily, raking through his mind for the information they'd picked up. The words were so much less memorable than the images, in all but a few cases. "The Inquisition suffered a crippling loss, with one Herald presumed dead, and the other captured. We acquired no allies, and lost our ability to close Fade rifts. The Venatori revealed their full strength, and allowed the Inquisition no victories. Cassius did not lead them, someone else did. We didn't get a name." It hadn't even occurred to them to care about most of these details that suddenly appeared important. None of it would have mattered if they couldn't get back at all.
His eyes shifted to Marceline, taking notes. "You escaped from the ambush, but were assassinated some time later, along with a great many others from Orlais. The Elder One apparently established a puppet, dethroning the most powerful nation in Thedas without being revealed." He looked to the spymaster next. "Many others were killed or captured in an attempt to rescue Estella from the Venatori. You were among them, Ser Rilien. You... were shot down trying to free Estella from... her pyre." His eyes could no longer remain on them, and fell to the ground again.
"The Inquisition still existed, when we arrived from the spell, but it was little more than a desperate resistance led by Commander Leon. The Breach had split across the sky. There... wasn't much of a world left to save."
Lady Marceline's quill quit its scratching for a moment as she looked up to Romulus. A coy smile then spread across her lips as she shook her head. "Assassinated, you say? I can not say I am terribly surprised. It is suitably... Orlesian, wouldn't you say, Ser Rilien?" She asked, glancing at Rilien.
"Fortunately, we still have you and Lady Estella, and with the mages, we have grown in strength as well," she said, returning to the notes she had been writing. "I shall send letters to prominent Orlesian nobility to warn them of such a possibility, and keep an ear open for any opportunistic occasion for assassins to strike." She then frowned again as she continued to stare at the notes laid out in front of her. "Did you discover which nobles were assassinated in particular? she asked.
"Those of greatest importance to stability," Romulus declared, somewhat simply. They were among the few names of dead people in the future that he had no connection with, but he remembered the titles. "The Lord-General, the Crown Prince, and the Empress herself." He swallowed. "I heard this from Khari, after we freed her. She'd been captured in the attempt to rescue Estella."
Leonhardt folded his hands together underneath his chin, his elbows propped on the armrests of his chair. He regarded Romulus less keenly than the other two did; it was clear they were thinking tactics in this very moment, but it would seem that, beyond the initial summons, he was not especially inclined that way himself. He looked vaguely troubled by what he was hearing, but had thus far been silent, apparently content to let the others do the questioning. Now, though, he did speak up.
“You met some of us, then, in this future. How was it that you were able to return? As I’ve heard it told, barely a minute passed as those in the throne room perceived it.”
How long had it been? An hour, perhaps two? Maybe less, Romulus supposed. Every moment in that hell had been agonizingly drawn out. Marceline seemed to find it amusing, though he could hardly read a woman like her, that she'd been murdered. She and the Tranquil were thinking tactically of this, or coldly, as it felt to Romulus. Leon was the one that Romulus at least felt slightly able to relate to. It was real, what had happened, as difficult as it was to imagine. In fact, what they were experiencing now was probably less real than the things he'd missed... but Romulus had no desire to think on any of that.
"We recovered Vesryn, Khari, Zahra, and Asala from the dungeons of the castle. The Venatori were using it as a base. The others were... tortured. I will not describe the details. They aren't important." Perhaps Vesryn had some secret he was hiding from the group, but Romulus would not be the one to force it out of him. If there was anything he'd demonstrated in that future, it was that he was willing to give his life for their cause. Cyrus could pry answers out of him later if he so chose to.
"Together we reached the throne room, and Cyrus killed Cassius there. He then prepared the spell that would transport us back. It was never certain if we would be able to return. The Elder One arrived with some kind of creature, though we never laid eyes on the threat. Venatori advanced ahead, and since the others could not be allowed to return with us, they held them off to give Cyrus enough time. I watched all of them die." He'd seen, and done, more than his share of terrible things, and many of them refused to leave him, but somehow he suspected visiting that future only briefly would outlast them all.
“I’m sorry,” Leon said quietly, though it didn’t seem to be as much an apology as an expression of honest sympathy. He sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair. “I’m sure the details of the magic involved will go over my head, but I’ll ask Cyrus about it at a later date anyway, to see if it’s anything we still need to be worried about. For now…” He paused, apparently searching for the words he wanted, pursing his lips and shaking his head faintly.
“For now I also wanted to ask something else. I admit I don’t really have a grasp of the details, but… Lady Chryseis is still present, and as I understand it, she was of help in… what happened. We have no cause or grounds to interfere with her if she wishes to leave and return to the Imperium. But from what you have said, it appears painfully obvious to me that the Inquisition needs its Heralds—"
"Both Heralds," Lady Marceline clarified.
“—and that the world needs the Inquisition. What do you want to do from here, Romulus? I want you to know that you have our support, should you be inclined to make use of it for any reason.”
Romulus was silent for a long period after that, threading his fingers together in front of him and placing his chin upon his knuckles. In the end, the immediate course of his life seemed obvious, and when he spoke, it was for once with confidence. "I want to close the Breach. Whatever that takes. I believe, after what we went through, my domina understands the importance of that as well. I believe she will keep our arrangement as is." Despite everything that had happened, nothing had really changed. Chryseis had even admitted she'd come to Redcliffe for her father, to protect the world from him, and perhaps to try to protect him from himself.
"After the Breach is closed... I still intend to do as she commands. If that means returning to Minrathous, and disappearing, so be it. I won't ask you to understand. If that puts the Inquisition at risk... then I'm sorry." His relationship with Chryseis was not something that was at all easy to comprehend. Despite the things he'd done for her, and as a result the things he'd done to himself, he did not, and could not resent her for any of it. For he knew that since her husband had been killed, no other person understood her quite the way he did.
Leon smiled a little wider. “I don’t understand, but it doesn’t matter, if it’s what you want. So long as we close the Breach, I’ll not complain.” He glanced to the other two briefly. “Unless Rilien or Lady Marceline has a further question, I believe we can conclude here. Please, enjoy some well-earned rest.” Rilien shook his head in the negative.
"None," Marceline agreed.
"Thank you," Romulus said, rising from the chair. After nodding briefly, he turned and exited the tent, forcing himself to think only of a large meal, and a long sleep to follow.