Vesryn had been in many elven ruins, but any ruin of significance never failed to impress him with its beauty. He liked to think he had an eye for such things. Even if some of the beauty of the structures wasn't meant to be, such as the way the foliage encroached on through the stone, he felt he could almost imagine what it would have been like to walk through these halls in all their splendor. He wondered if he wasn't imagining it sometimes, but it was like a feeling of a memory of Saraya's tickled at the back of his mind, giving him the smallest, most delectable taste of the past.
She had no memory of this place, and indeed, the visual difference between this and much older ruins was apparent. For one, it was in better shape. Something about the construction of the oldest ruins had turned against them, Vesryn felt, but this place was built differently. That, and it was a crypt built into the earth, thus rendering it better protected than most places. It was in a similar place in the Brecilian Forest that Vesryn had first found his traveling companion. At least, he'd thought it was similar. For obvious reasons, Saraya had not been intent on lingering there.
They moved with caution as they entered Din'an Hanin, but the Venatori were nowhere to be seen. There was evidence of them, though, and it was recent. Torches burned in their sconces on the walls, small campfires still burned in the darker corners, and bedrolls had been left out. There were signs of fighting, bodies of undead put to rest once more in various places in the tomb. It seemed the Venatori had to fight for their chance to study this place. They'd taken casualties of their own, too, the recency of the corpses placing the fights sometime early this morning by Vesryn's best estimates. He crouched down before a pair of bodies that had fallen near a torch, examining their wounds.
"Blade pierced this one under the chin," he noted, tilting the Venatori's head back a little. "Swift and brutal. And this one..." He looked at the one beside the other, finding no immediate fatal wounds, at least not until he carefully grabbed the man's head. "Ah. Broken neck." He frowned. "Haven't known many kinds of undead to try that. I wonder if the Venatori unearthed something they couldn't handle further in." Wouldn't be the first time. He'd heard the reports of what happened at that ruin in the Western Approach.
He glanced back at Cyrus, keeping his voice low. "Anything stand out about this place? Something the Venatori might want with it, or from it?"
Cyrus had placed his helmet on his head and drawn his hood up around it the moment they entered the ruins, though as of yet, he'd taken hold of no weapons. So when he spoke, it was slightly muffled, escaping through the narrow vertical gap from his nose to his chin. “It's old enough that there might be artifacts of note, though I don't know of anything specific. It also seems to have been built on the bones of something older, so to speak. They could be trying to get underneath, if they think something they want might be there." He lifted his shoulders. It wasn't much to go on, and he was clearly quite aware of that fact.
Khari, masked and already holding a naked blade, drew her brows down over her eyes, tilting her head down at one of the dead Venatori. “Revenant, maybe? Though I think they'd be... worse, if it was that." She turned her gaze back out ahead, squinting down a darkened side passageway as if to search for such a creature. Or maybe just more cultists.
"Agreed." Vesryn donned his own helm at this point, most of his face vanishing behind it. He grabbed his spear and shield and stood up, eyeing the different ways forward. "Keep those barriers ready, Asala. Let's take it slow, and stay tight. If we're attacked before we have time to plan, stay defensive and work as a group. We'll evaluate our options and go from there." As far as he was concerned, Leon had only assigned Khari to guide the group to the ruin, not to act as their leader within it. If he was reading her reaction correctly, she wasn't fond of the idea of leading, and Vesryn had to admit he didn't think it would be for the best either. Berserkers were better off being directed, not doing the directing.
"This way." He guided them more based on a hunch of Saraya's than anything else. They made their way through the ruin's main level, which was often exposed to the sunlight above either by design or by the crumbling of the ruin over time. Vines twisted down from above, ensnaring pillars and working their way through cracked and loose pieces of stonework. The ceiling of the level was designed to imitate the canopy of the forest outside in stone-form, the support pillars styled as the trees. A few statues still remained, depicting graceful men and women armored and bearing ancient elven weapons of stone. Most were destroyed, though, only their feet or legs remaining, their broken bodies crumbled to the ground around them, or carried off to some faraway place as a trophy.
They worked their way into the crypts, descending deeper, and still no Venatori appeared, even as the signs of battle faded and then ceased altogether. Eventually they came upon a grand set of double doors, reaching twice Vesryn's height, with an inscription carved above them. "Here rests Elandrin, Whom We Betrayed." He felt a pang of sorrow for the man, but wondered if it hadn't come from Saraya more than himself. He honestly hadn't expected much of the story Khari told to be true, and maybe it still wasn't. Such things could be heavily diluted over time, and Elandrin's actual role in the matter could've been anything. But here he rested, an elf who apparently died for his love.
One of the doors was cracked open a few inches, offering them the way in. Vesryn hefted his shield to the ready. He looked sideways at Khari a moment. "Know anything about the layout inside?"
She shook her head. “Nope. That door's always been sealed. None of us would have opened it without a really good reason." Implied was that they'd never had anything of the kind. She brought her sword around to a more ready position, though, likely made suspicious by the very same fact. A gentle hissing of steel indicated that Cyrus was arming himself as well. Asala, of course, would have no need.
"Right. Watch my sides, please." Between him and Asala they had quite a bit of defensive staying power, so long as Khari and Cyrus were willing to be patient and remain in formation. If they were separated it would be much more difficult to defend each other, for Asala specifically. Hard to focus magic in multiple directions at once. Of course, all of this could be for nothing and the Venatori and undead could both be gone.
Only one way to find out. Vesryn reached out with his spear, prodding the door open enough for him to slip through, and one by one the group made their way inside the tomb. The air, surprisingly, was not as heavy and stale as Vesryn had expected. The tomb itself was very dark save for the central fixture of the large room, where light from above filtered down onto the statue of a great tree, an armored elf standing at its base. The elf figure clutched what looked to be a letter or some other piece of parchment to his chest, head bent down in sorrow. An arrow had pierced his chest, but from his posture it seemed to be the least of his wounds. From far above the foliage of the forest crept down, almost touching the upper reaches of the tree, but it had yet to make it much farther. Before the statue of the elf was the actual sarcophagus. Even from a distance Vesryn could tell that the lid had been disturbed and then replaced recently.
But he couldn't allow himself to focus his attention on Elandrin's resting site. Vesryn peered into the darkness of the chamber, feeling deeply uneasy. For such a large chamber, it was terribly unlit, which didn't match any of the rest of the ruin, where the Venatori had placed lighting of their own wherever it was needed. It wasn't long before Saraya picked up on the softest clink of armor, and he felt an urge to change the angle of his shield in that direction.
An arrow cracked across the surface of it, bouncing harmlessly away. From deep in the darkness he could hear other movement now, and one glance at the arrow now at his feet told him all he needed to know. The construction of it was far too recent for it to have come from any undead bow.
"I do believe we're being ambushed," he informed the others dryly, keeping his spear leveled. Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind them from an unseen force. He didn't have to try it to know that wouldn't budge. "Let them come to us. Watch for mages." Indeed, he didn't need to wait long, as soon enough a darkly-clad Venatori killer rushed from the shadows, short blade in hand, but Saraya heard his approach, and with an almost unnaturally swift strike Vesryn had impaled him through the chest, puncturing leather armor and the flesh underneath. As quick as the attack came he withdrew it, letting the man fall to the ground. Vesryn got his shield back in front in time to intercept another arrow. Not perfectly on target, but it could've struck one of his companions if he'd allowed it to pass.
Cyrus, Vesryn had observed via practice, fought without magic essentially the same as he fought with it, except that the swords he now wielded were made of metal instead of the Fade, and whistled through space instead of humming. More had been lost than just this, of course—there would be no lightning or fire or sudden crossings of large amounts of distance. But he was doing better than most mages would have been, only recently deprived of what made them viable combatants.
When a lightly-armored Venatori slid from cover to try and knife him in the side, he reacted quickly, parrying with the oddly-curved blade in his left hand and swiftly bringing the one in his right across his body, chopping hard into the woman's leathers and felling her in a stroke. He kept close, using his mobility to stay fluid within a small area instead of ranging too far.
It was a lesson Khari could stand to learn a little better, but then, her weapon was considerably larger, and she needed to swing it quite a bit more than Vesryn needed to do with his spear, for instance. She'd stepped out a fair distance from the group, enough that she had to deal with three at once, but at least her back was protected. Her armor stopped a shortsword; the steel clanged off her gorget with a dull rapport. She used the assailant's recoil effectively—he wasn't wearing any heavy neck protection, and her claymore lodged against his spine before she pulled it free, ducking under another hit and clipping the second Venatori in the hip.
The third, however, turned out to be a mage, and Khari staggered when he did... something. Some sort of disorientation spell, it looked like. Enough to slow her for a few seconds and let his ally try to find something vital with her dagger.
A wave of green light washed over Khari, distinctive of Asala's dispel. The spell undoubtedly sought to rid her of any after effects from whatever disorientation spell that was cast on her her. Another spell followed soon after, this one more of Asala's usual blue barrier. It sprung to life only a short distance away from Khari, intercepting the dagger meant for Khari. It was sudden enough that the wrist that held the dagger let out a sickening pop, followed by a muffled, but pained yelp. The yelp was cut short as the barrier then lurched forward and bashed the Venatori, leaving him stumbling and disoriented instead.
Asala did not continue to assault the man, instead turning her spells onto herself. She pressed her hands together, and with a supernatural thump, a light flashed around her feet. When it vanished, she was left standing with a set of translucent armor, of the same make as the gauntlet she attempted to make the last that Vesryn watched her experiment with her magic. However, this arcane armor fit her snug and she seemed to have worked out the mobility issues, as soon after she was on the move again, keeping distance between herself and the Venatori.
Once the first wave of melee attackers was dealt with, the second didn't immediately come forward, leaving them to block and avoid arrows and dangerous spells as best they were able. The reason for that soon became apparent, as an ominous boom sounded above their heads, along with a rapidly forming cluster of dark swirling cloud, bristling with lightning. A tempest spell, and a strong one too by the looks of it. "Shift right, move!" Vesryn called out clearly. "Khari, clear a path. Asala, give us some light and keep her covered. Cyrus, you have the rear." As they moved, more of the Venatori would undoubtedly try to flank behind them. But the prospect of being flanked was preferable to that of remaining in the lightning storm that soon rained down where they were. They escaped its range not a second too soon.
A lightning bolt was hurled from the back of the room towards Vesryn, who ducked down and angled his shield up just in time to send the magic ricocheting up into the ceiling with a loud crack of stone, little pieces of it crumbling around them. There were more of them than he'd originally thought. That wasn't good.
The words clear a path didn't even seem especially necessary for Khari—it was more or less what she was disposed to do anyway. Still, she took to the task with purpose, swinging into a cultist, then kicking the staggering body, soon to be dead, so that it fell heavily against another, knocking her over as she shot a chain lightning spell into the mix. The bolt glanced past Khari's face, leaving a black mark on her mask but otherwise dissipating harmlessly.
By the time they were clear of the cloud, the density of the cultists was looking to be a considerable challenge for her; she'd stepped well out of range of the rest of them in her drive forward. Behind, Cyrus cleared the cloud last; from the way his armor was smoking, he hadn't been able to completely avoid being struck by the magical storm. His movements were a little jerky for a moment as he recovered, but he seemed less affected than he probably should have been. Perhaps the armor had some sort of protection to it aside from the obvious.
“I believe we need a new plan." The words droned dully from behind his helmet, dry as the sand in the Approach, but loud enough to be heard. “Don't suppose anyone's feeling particularly inspired?"
Asala's didn't say anything in reply. She was too focused in keeping a wall of barriers between them and the Venatori, as well as keeping a magelight active above them. The effort in her actions were clear however, as sweat beaded down her face and and she steadily began to breathe harder. Once, she missed a barrier, and received a lightning bolt for her mistake, though fortunately it struck one of the magical plates she had summoned around herself. The plate vanished along with the lightning, but the only effect she suffered was the force of the blow, which made her recenter her feet beneath her. However, another spell or arrow in that area, and the effect would be much more noticeable.
Vesryn had to admit, the situation wasn't great. The Venatori were obviously very intent on this ambush, probably hoping to catch an Inquisitor in their web, and settling for the group of Irregulars that arrived instead. The front of his shield glistened where an icy spell had smashed across it, weighing it down in front, but nothing too heavy to be unmanageable. He caught a charging Venatori's slash with his shield, punching his spear up through her throat. Before he could shove her away a spell from a Venatori mage in the rear came in for him, a bolt of spirit magic that bludgeoned both the slain Venatori on his weapon and Vesryn himself. He staggered back with a grunt, letting the body in front of him fall.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a pair of figures descend down from the shaft of light above the stone tree statue. He'd barely gotten a glimpse of them before they disappeared into the shadows, enough to make him wonder if he'd seen them at all, but soon enough shouts of alarm erupted from within the ranks of the Venatori assaulting them. A flash of fire erupted in one corner as an archer received a bloody and ignited wound across his chest. Vesryn caught sight of a green-clad figure in the weak light the burning wound provided, but then they were gone.
The Venatori immediately began to panic, shouting in their own tongue among themselves and lessening the strength of their attack on Vesryn and the others. Spells started to fly in every direction, seemingly aimless, but each one cast a momentary picture of chaotic bloodshed as the Venatori tried to pin down the sudden deadly threats carving through them.
“They are quite alarmed." Cyrus ducked under an errant spike of ice; it exploded against the ground several feet back, coating the stone in a pale sheet of frost, but harming no one. “Seems this is a familiar threat, whatever it is." Still, the split in the forces was just that: a split. Another Venatori, the sole white-robed member of the group, stepped within the ring of Asala's light spell, staff raised and crackling with barely-contained fire.
A gloved hand fitted itself over his mouth and nose before the spell could release. The flash of a knife followed, and the man fell to the ground with little more than a muted thud and a deep red line from one ear to the other, gouting blood. The spell guttered out harmlessly, releasing a little curl of smoke and nothing else. His fall exposed his assailant for just a moment—a figure garbed in unreflective black armor of some kind. It was hard to tell in the poor light, but it looked almost like actual reptilian scales. The person wearing it was covered nearly from head to toe, save a small strip of skin around their eyes. One blue and the other almost reddish, stark against the duskiness of their skin.
The eyes narrowed at the group for a split second before the figure melted back into the gloom again. Whatever was going on in the dark, it became clear that the newcomers were maintaining the advantage; the cries and shouts of the Venatori grew more desperate even as their numbers clearly thinned. Almost none tried to assail the Irregulars, too caught up in defending themselves from foes they could scarcely see.
One by one they could be heard dropping in the shadows, until the scent of blood was heavy on the air. Vesryn maintained his position, allowing the newcomers to continue their work while he kept his guard in front of his allies, wary of any Venatori attempted to catch them by surprise. They were plainly more concerned with the threat in the darkness, but it was obvious they'd been caught out of their element. Or at least whatever comfort they had fighting in the dark was nothing compared to those that had slipped into it from above.
Seemingly the last of them stumbled across the edge of Asala's light, clutching a heavily bleeding side and limping on a gouged hamstring. He'd lost hold of his weapons, and seemed intent on making it to the door. He only made it a few more steps, however, before the figure garbed in dark green swept out from the shadows, a slightly curved elven shortsword slashing the other leg. The Venatori fell to his knees with a cry. The warrior that had felled him was an elf, his leather armor of Dalish make, finely made but heavily worn and battered. His back turned, the elf stepping in close, snatching a fistful of the downed's man hair to wrench his head back.
His right hand held a dagger, the blade the unmistakable color of bone, shaped like a Dalish weapon but appearing as nothing Vesryn had seen from any clan. Dull red runes glowed along the blade's length. The elf hacked it through the Venatori's neck, a fire enchantment on the blade burning through flesh and bone easily enough, and the head came clean off. After the body fell, neck wound partially cauterized, the elf tossed the head lightly back into the shadows.
He turned to face them, revealing a gnarled and battered face, missing one eye. The result of whatever had viciously scarred him across the right side of his face. He looked older than Vesryn would've thought, maybe nearing fifty. He sheathed the knife against his chest, but kept a loose and easy grip on his other blade. Vesryn lifted the point of his spear up, not desiring to be threatening. "You have impeccable timing, friend."
The elf exhaled, what might've been the hint of a laugh. "You made for good bait."
“Wait, really?" Khari looked thoroughly confused for several seconds. “There aren't any clans out here besides mine." She held her sword low, end pointed away, but she didn't sheathe it. “Why follow these Venatori all the way out here and set a trap in the first place?"
"Marcus." The second of the fighters stepped up beside the first, pulling down the fabric wrapped about her mouth. Dropping her hood as well, she studied them with a neutral expression. There were no vallaslin on her face, no point to the ear she brushed a stray piece of hair behind. Her appearance indicated quite a bit more youth than that of her companion, and the pale slash of a scar that ran from beneath her left eye to her jaw was subtler. "Unfortunately, he is not here." She bent to clean her knife off on one of the Venatori's robes, then sheathed it behind her back.
“Alesius?" Cyrus's muffled tone conveyed a modicum of surprise. He pushed back his own hood and lifted his helmet off his head, taking a couple of steps forward. He'd already disarmed, apparently. “Some of us ran into him not too long ago. A... friend of mine hit him rather hard with a bolt of lightning." A contemplative look flitted across his face, like he had some sort of idea that he wasn't quite inclined to share.
“...How well do you know him?"
"Too well," the woman replied bluntly, crossing her arms. "Tell your friend they should have hit him harder." She frowned slightly, glancing once at the elf before returning her attention to their group. "And yourselves? To what end do you pursue a Tevinter cult into the heart of an elven forest?"
"To figure out what they wanted with these ruins," Vesryn answered. "Or what they hoped to find. The Venatori are no friends of ours. We're with the Inquisition."
"We know." The grizzled elf sheathed his other weapon. "Your arrival here wasn't as subtle as you thought. The Venatori caught your scent as well." He glanced around at the bodies of the slain, appearing dissatisfied. Vesryn wondered if he didn't just always look like that. "Marcus will be in the wind by now."
"You're hunting him, then?" Vesryn didn't expect the elf was from a nearby clan. Dalish accents weren't as noticeable from place to place as human or city elf ones, but this one's wasn't Orlesian, but Fereldan. He wasn't from around here, and if Vesryn was estimating correctly, their business with Marcus was quite personal.
The elf nodded, grimly. "He still has half of his face left, so... yes."
"And what might your names be? I'm Vesryn. This is Cyrus, Khari, and Asala."
There was a short, but very deliberate pause. As though the couple of seconds went to deciding whether or not to part with the information. After it, though, the woman spoke. "Amalia," she said, faintly inclining her head to them. "This is Ithilian."
Cyrus crossed his arms for a moment, then shrugged. “Why not come with us, then? If you're hunting Marcus, there's a chance something we know might be of help. More likely, it'll be your information and our resources that do the trick, but in any case, cooperation seems to increase the chance of him winding up dead, which I take it is something we all want." He glanced from Amalia to Ithilian, as if unsure which would be more amenable to the idea, if either.
"Worth a trip, at least," Ithilian said, nodding. "Nothing left in this forest but Venatori to kill, and not the one we're looking for."
Vesryn didn't know if he'd ever seen a pair of people so plainly hellbent on a murder. Vengeance was probably the better word for it, considering what he knew of Marcus, but still. Their concern seemed to be rather singular. He wasn't opposed to making use of that, but it wasn't exactly the type of mentality the Inquisition was looking for, or so he thought.
"We'd best get moving, then," he said. "We've a walk ahead of us."
She had no memory of this place, and indeed, the visual difference between this and much older ruins was apparent. For one, it was in better shape. Something about the construction of the oldest ruins had turned against them, Vesryn felt, but this place was built differently. That, and it was a crypt built into the earth, thus rendering it better protected than most places. It was in a similar place in the Brecilian Forest that Vesryn had first found his traveling companion. At least, he'd thought it was similar. For obvious reasons, Saraya had not been intent on lingering there.
They moved with caution as they entered Din'an Hanin, but the Venatori were nowhere to be seen. There was evidence of them, though, and it was recent. Torches burned in their sconces on the walls, small campfires still burned in the darker corners, and bedrolls had been left out. There were signs of fighting, bodies of undead put to rest once more in various places in the tomb. It seemed the Venatori had to fight for their chance to study this place. They'd taken casualties of their own, too, the recency of the corpses placing the fights sometime early this morning by Vesryn's best estimates. He crouched down before a pair of bodies that had fallen near a torch, examining their wounds.
"Blade pierced this one under the chin," he noted, tilting the Venatori's head back a little. "Swift and brutal. And this one..." He looked at the one beside the other, finding no immediate fatal wounds, at least not until he carefully grabbed the man's head. "Ah. Broken neck." He frowned. "Haven't known many kinds of undead to try that. I wonder if the Venatori unearthed something they couldn't handle further in." Wouldn't be the first time. He'd heard the reports of what happened at that ruin in the Western Approach.
He glanced back at Cyrus, keeping his voice low. "Anything stand out about this place? Something the Venatori might want with it, or from it?"
Cyrus had placed his helmet on his head and drawn his hood up around it the moment they entered the ruins, though as of yet, he'd taken hold of no weapons. So when he spoke, it was slightly muffled, escaping through the narrow vertical gap from his nose to his chin. “It's old enough that there might be artifacts of note, though I don't know of anything specific. It also seems to have been built on the bones of something older, so to speak. They could be trying to get underneath, if they think something they want might be there." He lifted his shoulders. It wasn't much to go on, and he was clearly quite aware of that fact.
Khari, masked and already holding a naked blade, drew her brows down over her eyes, tilting her head down at one of the dead Venatori. “Revenant, maybe? Though I think they'd be... worse, if it was that." She turned her gaze back out ahead, squinting down a darkened side passageway as if to search for such a creature. Or maybe just more cultists.
"Agreed." Vesryn donned his own helm at this point, most of his face vanishing behind it. He grabbed his spear and shield and stood up, eyeing the different ways forward. "Keep those barriers ready, Asala. Let's take it slow, and stay tight. If we're attacked before we have time to plan, stay defensive and work as a group. We'll evaluate our options and go from there." As far as he was concerned, Leon had only assigned Khari to guide the group to the ruin, not to act as their leader within it. If he was reading her reaction correctly, she wasn't fond of the idea of leading, and Vesryn had to admit he didn't think it would be for the best either. Berserkers were better off being directed, not doing the directing.
"This way." He guided them more based on a hunch of Saraya's than anything else. They made their way through the ruin's main level, which was often exposed to the sunlight above either by design or by the crumbling of the ruin over time. Vines twisted down from above, ensnaring pillars and working their way through cracked and loose pieces of stonework. The ceiling of the level was designed to imitate the canopy of the forest outside in stone-form, the support pillars styled as the trees. A few statues still remained, depicting graceful men and women armored and bearing ancient elven weapons of stone. Most were destroyed, though, only their feet or legs remaining, their broken bodies crumbled to the ground around them, or carried off to some faraway place as a trophy.
They worked their way into the crypts, descending deeper, and still no Venatori appeared, even as the signs of battle faded and then ceased altogether. Eventually they came upon a grand set of double doors, reaching twice Vesryn's height, with an inscription carved above them. "Here rests Elandrin, Whom We Betrayed." He felt a pang of sorrow for the man, but wondered if it hadn't come from Saraya more than himself. He honestly hadn't expected much of the story Khari told to be true, and maybe it still wasn't. Such things could be heavily diluted over time, and Elandrin's actual role in the matter could've been anything. But here he rested, an elf who apparently died for his love.
One of the doors was cracked open a few inches, offering them the way in. Vesryn hefted his shield to the ready. He looked sideways at Khari a moment. "Know anything about the layout inside?"
She shook her head. “Nope. That door's always been sealed. None of us would have opened it without a really good reason." Implied was that they'd never had anything of the kind. She brought her sword around to a more ready position, though, likely made suspicious by the very same fact. A gentle hissing of steel indicated that Cyrus was arming himself as well. Asala, of course, would have no need.
"Right. Watch my sides, please." Between him and Asala they had quite a bit of defensive staying power, so long as Khari and Cyrus were willing to be patient and remain in formation. If they were separated it would be much more difficult to defend each other, for Asala specifically. Hard to focus magic in multiple directions at once. Of course, all of this could be for nothing and the Venatori and undead could both be gone.
Only one way to find out. Vesryn reached out with his spear, prodding the door open enough for him to slip through, and one by one the group made their way inside the tomb. The air, surprisingly, was not as heavy and stale as Vesryn had expected. The tomb itself was very dark save for the central fixture of the large room, where light from above filtered down onto the statue of a great tree, an armored elf standing at its base. The elf figure clutched what looked to be a letter or some other piece of parchment to his chest, head bent down in sorrow. An arrow had pierced his chest, but from his posture it seemed to be the least of his wounds. From far above the foliage of the forest crept down, almost touching the upper reaches of the tree, but it had yet to make it much farther. Before the statue of the elf was the actual sarcophagus. Even from a distance Vesryn could tell that the lid had been disturbed and then replaced recently.
But he couldn't allow himself to focus his attention on Elandrin's resting site. Vesryn peered into the darkness of the chamber, feeling deeply uneasy. For such a large chamber, it was terribly unlit, which didn't match any of the rest of the ruin, where the Venatori had placed lighting of their own wherever it was needed. It wasn't long before Saraya picked up on the softest clink of armor, and he felt an urge to change the angle of his shield in that direction.
An arrow cracked across the surface of it, bouncing harmlessly away. From deep in the darkness he could hear other movement now, and one glance at the arrow now at his feet told him all he needed to know. The construction of it was far too recent for it to have come from any undead bow.
"I do believe we're being ambushed," he informed the others dryly, keeping his spear leveled. Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind them from an unseen force. He didn't have to try it to know that wouldn't budge. "Let them come to us. Watch for mages." Indeed, he didn't need to wait long, as soon enough a darkly-clad Venatori killer rushed from the shadows, short blade in hand, but Saraya heard his approach, and with an almost unnaturally swift strike Vesryn had impaled him through the chest, puncturing leather armor and the flesh underneath. As quick as the attack came he withdrew it, letting the man fall to the ground. Vesryn got his shield back in front in time to intercept another arrow. Not perfectly on target, but it could've struck one of his companions if he'd allowed it to pass.
Cyrus, Vesryn had observed via practice, fought without magic essentially the same as he fought with it, except that the swords he now wielded were made of metal instead of the Fade, and whistled through space instead of humming. More had been lost than just this, of course—there would be no lightning or fire or sudden crossings of large amounts of distance. But he was doing better than most mages would have been, only recently deprived of what made them viable combatants.
When a lightly-armored Venatori slid from cover to try and knife him in the side, he reacted quickly, parrying with the oddly-curved blade in his left hand and swiftly bringing the one in his right across his body, chopping hard into the woman's leathers and felling her in a stroke. He kept close, using his mobility to stay fluid within a small area instead of ranging too far.
It was a lesson Khari could stand to learn a little better, but then, her weapon was considerably larger, and she needed to swing it quite a bit more than Vesryn needed to do with his spear, for instance. She'd stepped out a fair distance from the group, enough that she had to deal with three at once, but at least her back was protected. Her armor stopped a shortsword; the steel clanged off her gorget with a dull rapport. She used the assailant's recoil effectively—he wasn't wearing any heavy neck protection, and her claymore lodged against his spine before she pulled it free, ducking under another hit and clipping the second Venatori in the hip.
The third, however, turned out to be a mage, and Khari staggered when he did... something. Some sort of disorientation spell, it looked like. Enough to slow her for a few seconds and let his ally try to find something vital with her dagger.
A wave of green light washed over Khari, distinctive of Asala's dispel. The spell undoubtedly sought to rid her of any after effects from whatever disorientation spell that was cast on her her. Another spell followed soon after, this one more of Asala's usual blue barrier. It sprung to life only a short distance away from Khari, intercepting the dagger meant for Khari. It was sudden enough that the wrist that held the dagger let out a sickening pop, followed by a muffled, but pained yelp. The yelp was cut short as the barrier then lurched forward and bashed the Venatori, leaving him stumbling and disoriented instead.
Asala did not continue to assault the man, instead turning her spells onto herself. She pressed her hands together, and with a supernatural thump, a light flashed around her feet. When it vanished, she was left standing with a set of translucent armor, of the same make as the gauntlet she attempted to make the last that Vesryn watched her experiment with her magic. However, this arcane armor fit her snug and she seemed to have worked out the mobility issues, as soon after she was on the move again, keeping distance between herself and the Venatori.
Once the first wave of melee attackers was dealt with, the second didn't immediately come forward, leaving them to block and avoid arrows and dangerous spells as best they were able. The reason for that soon became apparent, as an ominous boom sounded above their heads, along with a rapidly forming cluster of dark swirling cloud, bristling with lightning. A tempest spell, and a strong one too by the looks of it. "Shift right, move!" Vesryn called out clearly. "Khari, clear a path. Asala, give us some light and keep her covered. Cyrus, you have the rear." As they moved, more of the Venatori would undoubtedly try to flank behind them. But the prospect of being flanked was preferable to that of remaining in the lightning storm that soon rained down where they were. They escaped its range not a second too soon.
A lightning bolt was hurled from the back of the room towards Vesryn, who ducked down and angled his shield up just in time to send the magic ricocheting up into the ceiling with a loud crack of stone, little pieces of it crumbling around them. There were more of them than he'd originally thought. That wasn't good.
The words clear a path didn't even seem especially necessary for Khari—it was more or less what she was disposed to do anyway. Still, she took to the task with purpose, swinging into a cultist, then kicking the staggering body, soon to be dead, so that it fell heavily against another, knocking her over as she shot a chain lightning spell into the mix. The bolt glanced past Khari's face, leaving a black mark on her mask but otherwise dissipating harmlessly.
By the time they were clear of the cloud, the density of the cultists was looking to be a considerable challenge for her; she'd stepped well out of range of the rest of them in her drive forward. Behind, Cyrus cleared the cloud last; from the way his armor was smoking, he hadn't been able to completely avoid being struck by the magical storm. His movements were a little jerky for a moment as he recovered, but he seemed less affected than he probably should have been. Perhaps the armor had some sort of protection to it aside from the obvious.
“I believe we need a new plan." The words droned dully from behind his helmet, dry as the sand in the Approach, but loud enough to be heard. “Don't suppose anyone's feeling particularly inspired?"
Asala's didn't say anything in reply. She was too focused in keeping a wall of barriers between them and the Venatori, as well as keeping a magelight active above them. The effort in her actions were clear however, as sweat beaded down her face and and she steadily began to breathe harder. Once, she missed a barrier, and received a lightning bolt for her mistake, though fortunately it struck one of the magical plates she had summoned around herself. The plate vanished along with the lightning, but the only effect she suffered was the force of the blow, which made her recenter her feet beneath her. However, another spell or arrow in that area, and the effect would be much more noticeable.
Vesryn had to admit, the situation wasn't great. The Venatori were obviously very intent on this ambush, probably hoping to catch an Inquisitor in their web, and settling for the group of Irregulars that arrived instead. The front of his shield glistened where an icy spell had smashed across it, weighing it down in front, but nothing too heavy to be unmanageable. He caught a charging Venatori's slash with his shield, punching his spear up through her throat. Before he could shove her away a spell from a Venatori mage in the rear came in for him, a bolt of spirit magic that bludgeoned both the slain Venatori on his weapon and Vesryn himself. He staggered back with a grunt, letting the body in front of him fall.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a pair of figures descend down from the shaft of light above the stone tree statue. He'd barely gotten a glimpse of them before they disappeared into the shadows, enough to make him wonder if he'd seen them at all, but soon enough shouts of alarm erupted from within the ranks of the Venatori assaulting them. A flash of fire erupted in one corner as an archer received a bloody and ignited wound across his chest. Vesryn caught sight of a green-clad figure in the weak light the burning wound provided, but then they were gone.
The Venatori immediately began to panic, shouting in their own tongue among themselves and lessening the strength of their attack on Vesryn and the others. Spells started to fly in every direction, seemingly aimless, but each one cast a momentary picture of chaotic bloodshed as the Venatori tried to pin down the sudden deadly threats carving through them.
“They are quite alarmed." Cyrus ducked under an errant spike of ice; it exploded against the ground several feet back, coating the stone in a pale sheet of frost, but harming no one. “Seems this is a familiar threat, whatever it is." Still, the split in the forces was just that: a split. Another Venatori, the sole white-robed member of the group, stepped within the ring of Asala's light spell, staff raised and crackling with barely-contained fire.
A gloved hand fitted itself over his mouth and nose before the spell could release. The flash of a knife followed, and the man fell to the ground with little more than a muted thud and a deep red line from one ear to the other, gouting blood. The spell guttered out harmlessly, releasing a little curl of smoke and nothing else. His fall exposed his assailant for just a moment—a figure garbed in unreflective black armor of some kind. It was hard to tell in the poor light, but it looked almost like actual reptilian scales. The person wearing it was covered nearly from head to toe, save a small strip of skin around their eyes. One blue and the other almost reddish, stark against the duskiness of their skin.
The eyes narrowed at the group for a split second before the figure melted back into the gloom again. Whatever was going on in the dark, it became clear that the newcomers were maintaining the advantage; the cries and shouts of the Venatori grew more desperate even as their numbers clearly thinned. Almost none tried to assail the Irregulars, too caught up in defending themselves from foes they could scarcely see.
One by one they could be heard dropping in the shadows, until the scent of blood was heavy on the air. Vesryn maintained his position, allowing the newcomers to continue their work while he kept his guard in front of his allies, wary of any Venatori attempted to catch them by surprise. They were plainly more concerned with the threat in the darkness, but it was obvious they'd been caught out of their element. Or at least whatever comfort they had fighting in the dark was nothing compared to those that had slipped into it from above.
Seemingly the last of them stumbled across the edge of Asala's light, clutching a heavily bleeding side and limping on a gouged hamstring. He'd lost hold of his weapons, and seemed intent on making it to the door. He only made it a few more steps, however, before the figure garbed in dark green swept out from the shadows, a slightly curved elven shortsword slashing the other leg. The Venatori fell to his knees with a cry. The warrior that had felled him was an elf, his leather armor of Dalish make, finely made but heavily worn and battered. His back turned, the elf stepping in close, snatching a fistful of the downed's man hair to wrench his head back.
His right hand held a dagger, the blade the unmistakable color of bone, shaped like a Dalish weapon but appearing as nothing Vesryn had seen from any clan. Dull red runes glowed along the blade's length. The elf hacked it through the Venatori's neck, a fire enchantment on the blade burning through flesh and bone easily enough, and the head came clean off. After the body fell, neck wound partially cauterized, the elf tossed the head lightly back into the shadows.
He turned to face them, revealing a gnarled and battered face, missing one eye. The result of whatever had viciously scarred him across the right side of his face. He looked older than Vesryn would've thought, maybe nearing fifty. He sheathed the knife against his chest, but kept a loose and easy grip on his other blade. Vesryn lifted the point of his spear up, not desiring to be threatening. "You have impeccable timing, friend."
The elf exhaled, what might've been the hint of a laugh. "You made for good bait."
“Wait, really?" Khari looked thoroughly confused for several seconds. “There aren't any clans out here besides mine." She held her sword low, end pointed away, but she didn't sheathe it. “Why follow these Venatori all the way out here and set a trap in the first place?"
"Marcus." The second of the fighters stepped up beside the first, pulling down the fabric wrapped about her mouth. Dropping her hood as well, she studied them with a neutral expression. There were no vallaslin on her face, no point to the ear she brushed a stray piece of hair behind. Her appearance indicated quite a bit more youth than that of her companion, and the pale slash of a scar that ran from beneath her left eye to her jaw was subtler. "Unfortunately, he is not here." She bent to clean her knife off on one of the Venatori's robes, then sheathed it behind her back.
“Alesius?" Cyrus's muffled tone conveyed a modicum of surprise. He pushed back his own hood and lifted his helmet off his head, taking a couple of steps forward. He'd already disarmed, apparently. “Some of us ran into him not too long ago. A... friend of mine hit him rather hard with a bolt of lightning." A contemplative look flitted across his face, like he had some sort of idea that he wasn't quite inclined to share.
“...How well do you know him?"
"Too well," the woman replied bluntly, crossing her arms. "Tell your friend they should have hit him harder." She frowned slightly, glancing once at the elf before returning her attention to their group. "And yourselves? To what end do you pursue a Tevinter cult into the heart of an elven forest?"
"To figure out what they wanted with these ruins," Vesryn answered. "Or what they hoped to find. The Venatori are no friends of ours. We're with the Inquisition."
"We know." The grizzled elf sheathed his other weapon. "Your arrival here wasn't as subtle as you thought. The Venatori caught your scent as well." He glanced around at the bodies of the slain, appearing dissatisfied. Vesryn wondered if he didn't just always look like that. "Marcus will be in the wind by now."
"You're hunting him, then?" Vesryn didn't expect the elf was from a nearby clan. Dalish accents weren't as noticeable from place to place as human or city elf ones, but this one's wasn't Orlesian, but Fereldan. He wasn't from around here, and if Vesryn was estimating correctly, their business with Marcus was quite personal.
The elf nodded, grimly. "He still has half of his face left, so... yes."
"And what might your names be? I'm Vesryn. This is Cyrus, Khari, and Asala."
There was a short, but very deliberate pause. As though the couple of seconds went to deciding whether or not to part with the information. After it, though, the woman spoke. "Amalia," she said, faintly inclining her head to them. "This is Ithilian."
Cyrus crossed his arms for a moment, then shrugged. “Why not come with us, then? If you're hunting Marcus, there's a chance something we know might be of help. More likely, it'll be your information and our resources that do the trick, but in any case, cooperation seems to increase the chance of him winding up dead, which I take it is something we all want." He glanced from Amalia to Ithilian, as if unsure which would be more amenable to the idea, if either.
"Worth a trip, at least," Ithilian said, nodding. "Nothing left in this forest but Venatori to kill, and not the one we're looking for."
Vesryn didn't know if he'd ever seen a pair of people so plainly hellbent on a murder. Vengeance was probably the better word for it, considering what he knew of Marcus, but still. Their concern seemed to be rather singular. He wasn't opposed to making use of that, but it wasn't exactly the type of mentality the Inquisition was looking for, or so he thought.
"We'd best get moving, then," he said. "We've a walk ahead of us."