Somehow, Rom had yet to come face to face with many Red Templars at all.
He'd encountered a few of them at Haven alongside the Venatori, but the events of that night were such a blur of chaos and death that he hardly could remember the details. It had been Estella that first encountered them with the others at Therinfal before that, and her again in the Emerald Graves. What he learned from traveling through the Vimmarks was that description of them rarely did them justice.
Lia and a few hand picked scouts led them towards Kasos from where they left Zee and her crew in Cumberland, on horses that Rilien's agents provided. Sturdy Fereldan mounts, good for climbing and the forging ahead over difficult terrain, if lacking in outright speed. There was no use for speed, as they had to slow and even change courses several times to avoid Red Templar patrols that Signy or one of the other forward scouts spotted ahead of them.
Even the most human-looking of them were horrifying to look upon, with growths of the scarlet-shaded crystals sprouting from their skin at odd angles, their armor molding with their flesh as their bodies were twisted out of shape by the corrupted lyrium. They exuded strength in equal measure to their horror. Being caught by any of them would mean a hard fight.
Thankfully they managed to avoid being seen, and the travel itself was not overly difficult given it was summertime and the mountains were not cloaked in snow. In fact it seemed likely that these peaks didn't see that much snow even in winter, as the forested areas that decorated their slopes were almost tropical in nature. Any farther north and the heat would've begun to become oppressive.
"We're getting close," Lia said, pulling her horse to a stop. "We should go on foot from here."
They did so, dismounting and using their last chance to gear up before they would make their approach. Lighter armor was the order of the day, and preferably nothing that would catch and reflect the sunlight. Any steel was best kept covered by leather or cloth until they could get inside. Séverine had armed herself with a short sword in addition to her flail, the smaller weapon being preferable for the tight quarters they might find themselves in. Her armor was templar gear of a lighter issue, consisting mostly of scale mail and smaller segmented plates over more exposed areas, though she carried her kite shield upon her back still. Khari wore a suit of chainmail between her ordinary clothing and a loose shirt she was using for camouflage. There wasn't much helping the fact that her preferred weapon was too large for closer quarters, but there was also a long, curved knife on her right hip, which she no doubt intended to use to make do if necessary.
Lia took her bow in hand, a deft hand adeptly twirling an arrow in the other. "The tunnel's going to be your way in. I don't think they wanted to draw any attention to it. It may not even be guarded, but you should still be ready for anything on the inside." Rom could agree with that much. Sometimes the entrances that appeared most vulnerable could prove to be the deadliest, to the unwary.
"If you need to make a retreat, we'll try to cover you as best we can," Lia continued, "but I can't promise much until you're outside of the walls. And even then, Red Templars often ignore arrows that would stop a normal fighter in their tracks."
"I understand." Leon smiled mildly and gave a short nod. Neither he nor the woman he'd introduced as his teacher, Ophelia, needed to worry about how close the quarters would be, unless of course one of them needed to duck—Ophelia was quite tall herself. Like Séverine and Khari, they'd worn somewhat less armor than usual, disguised under cloaks. "Go ahead and take your positions. We'll make our way to the passage. With any luck, we'll be out in an hour." He paused. "If we haven't returned in three, assume we've been captured and get word back to Skyhold."
"Understood," Lia responded. "Good luck in there."
With that, the five of them broke off from the small scout party. They were still a ways out, and no doubt patrols would be denser this close to Kasos itself. Leon dropped back to the rear, glancing once at Rom. "Can you take point?"
He nodded wordlessly, and led the way steadily forward. The foliage was dense here, trees and bushes and tall grass in abundance. It made for good visual cover, but it was hard to move quietly, so they were sure to take things slow. That said, Rom liked to think that no patrol of hulking Red Templars could be quieter than they were, so he hoped they would hear any enemies coming before they themselves were detected.
"That's it there," Séverine pointed out, looking through the trees in the distance ahead of them. What they could mostly see was one of the walls, dark grey stone similar in color to the cliffs that rose behind. A few small towers jutted upwards over the upper crenelations, but the castle had not been built to stand out much from its surroundings. Probably why it had survived so long and been repurposed as some sort of repository for artifacts for a group that specialized in secrets.
The captain was about to start forward when Rom's hand seized her shoulder and kept her back. He touched his ear, indicating she should listen. Indeed, when they focused they could hear heavy steps and the soft crunching of grass, twigs, and dirt underneath some hefty boot. Rom pointed down next, and they sank low, concealing themselves behind trees, rocks, and bushes thick enough to obscure them.
The Red Templar patrol proved to be a group of three. One was a knight, one of the brawnier varieties, ballooned in size by the effects of the red lyrium, their armor horrifically sinking into their very skin. The second was a newer-looking member of the order, judging by the lack of progress the corruption had made. She carried a bow in her hands, and attempted to hide her face under a cowl. The third was a shadow, a lithe and lighter killer, with spikes of the red lyrium growing out of his arms long enough to become proper blades. He seemed the most watchful of the three.
Their patrol route brought them perilously close in front of the five of them, enough that Rom could begin feeling the effects of the corruption that wafted off of them. Simply sitting in it was slightly dizzying, and he could feel his stomach slowly starting to turn. He couldn't even imagine what the effect felt like on mages. Perhaps the absence of his potions was making matters worse. Regardless, if they could just keep quiet for a moment, the patrol would hopefully pass them by.
The first two moved past, the rhythmic thuds of their footsteps indication of an almost automatic approach to patrol. They didn't even look around much. The last was out of step, pausing often to listen before hastening to catch up. It was during one such erratic pause that one of the people behind him—probably Khari—shifted at the wrong moment, rustling the detritus that carpeted the forest floor beneath them.
The noise ceased, but the damage had been done. The shadow paused, his head whipping in their direction. They were close enough to see his eyes, red like the lyrium, faintly aglow in the dim light that made it through the canopy of trees. He raked them over the underbrush, searching for the source of the sound, but whoever had made it did not make the error a second time, and though he took half a step in Rom's direction, parting the fronds of the closest fern, the fading thuds of his fellows' treads alerted him to their continued departure, and he hesitated only a moment more before hurrying after them.
By unspoken consensus, they waited a bit longer than strictly necessary after he'd disappeared before emerging from their hiding spots. From there, it was nearly a straight shot to the tunnel's entrance, which wasn't more than a moderately-sized crack in a short cliff-face. It was obscured by moss and the thick, ropy vines of some plant that hugged most of the rock shelf, making it almost impossible to see if one wasn't looking for it specifically.
Ophelia took one look at it and grimaced. "Better not get any tighter than that inside," she muttered. She'd fit well enough, but it was a genuine question whether it would accommodate someone of Leon's dimensions. If he'd been in full plate, he'd have definitely needed to remove it. "I'll check."
Pushing away a few of the biggest vines, she turned sideways to fit inside, footsteps shuffling for a moment before she disappeared entirely. Fortunately, it didn't take her long to reappear; she just put a hand far enough back out to gesture them forward, and they filed in.
The tunnel itself was only big enough for a single-file line, and Leon had to remain half-turned to the side, head and shoulders ducked awkwardly, but they could move through it well enough otherwise. The walls and floor were smooth, evidence of the deliberate nature of the construction, but it definitely didn't seem like a supply tunnel. Most likely, it had served instead as an emergency escape route for the most important of the castle's one-time residents; such things were not uncommon in old castles, or even particularly-elaborate new manor homes. Disuse was evident in the cracks, though—in a few places, tree roots had penetrated the stone slabs and slithered across the floor, making it more perilous to navigate than its makers had intended. The passage seemed to run along the cliff-face, for a while, angling down eventually and escaping even the roots until the only peril was the occasional trickle of groundwater. The air smelled stale, and a little earthy; nothing unexpected.
Rom was not uncomfortable with tight spaces. He was not a particularly small man in any of his dimensions, but he was used to being cramped, confined, so much so that he often did it to himself. There was some comfort to living underneath Skyhold's keep, not within it. Thus the passageway didn't bother him in the least, though he imagined pretty much everyone else was not as pleased with the situation. Séverine's breathing had become noticeably more measured and forced. Khari was, for once, fortunate to be short, and the shape of her weapon was more ungainly than she was in here, the tip of it occasionally touching the side walls with a soft scrape of metal on rock.
Eventually the ground began to slope upwards again, and Rom could sense they were getting closer, if only because the passageway began to subtly widen a foot or so when they approached the exit. When it suddenly came to a halt, they were faced with a sheer rock wall that could be ascended by way of a set of old, rusty iron rungs fastened into the wall. Rom found himself glad he wasn't the first to test them. Rearranging their order wasn't really possible in a space this tight, so it was Ophelia who went up first, Leon second, and Rom after him. Khari followed shortly behind him, with Séverine bringing up the rear.
At the top Rom clambered up into what appeared to be a storage area of some sort, though it didn't look like it was being used for anything. Probably since the outpost wasn't commonly occupied by anyone. More alarming was the fact that there didn't seem to be a way out. Even with their eyes adjusted by now, it was extremely dark, and there was no obviously visible door. Immediately Séverine began to breathe as though she were running, when in fact the climbing up here had been the most physical activity they'd done all day.
"Check the walls," Ophelia advised. "Might be a lever or switch. This room was probably designed to be undetectable from the other side, but there's probably another passage out." The rustle of her cloak was the only indication that she'd moved to follow her own advice.
"Shouldn't be much longer," Leon added quietly, most likely for Séverine's benefit. "We're looking for anything that feels or sounds irregular." That, he added for the group at large.
Khari shuffled a lot more than the others did, a dull thud sounding as she ran into something. It sounded like the wall. “Fuck. That was my finger." A breath hissed in between her teeth, but then she fell quiet, feeling along the wall with the rest of them. The room wasn't very large; it only took her another few moments before she spoke up again. “Uh... I don't really know what I'm doing, but there's something weird about this wall. The mortar's all chalky and it doesn't seem... right?"
"Let me see," Rom said, following the sound of her voice to the wall she was on. He reached out, his hand accidentally finding Khari's head and hair before the wall. "Er, sorry." Once he was finally touching the wall, he could see why she thought it was strange. Compared to the others he'd touched, which were smooth and well-finished, this one was poorly done. A hasty job, meaning that wherever it had been sealed off from was likely another room, not just the solid rock wall that served as foundation.
"There should be something on the other side of this wall, if we can get through." He wasn't going to bash it open himself, though. He supposed he could use his mark, but he preferred not to create a violent blast of brick pieces in a confined space with his friends. Best to let the many physical powerhouses with him figure something out.
"Are we hitting something?" Séverine asked, obviously still working to control herself. "I wouldn't mind hitting something right now."
"By all means, then," Leon replied. "I don't... anticipate anyone being down here if they believe it is blocked off so thoroughly, but everyone should remain ready just in case."
"Alright, then." Séverine pulled her shield from her back and slid her arm into it, rolling her shoulder a few times. "Everyone get to the back wall. Don't want to break anyone's nose on accident."
When she had enough room to swing, she did so with a grunt of effort, ramming the rim of her shield into the wall. As loud as the clangs were, Rom knew the crack of his mark's bursts were quite a bit louder, like a clap of thunder from a few feet away. After a few strikes Séverine had created a small gap through which light was filtering into the room from whatever lay beyond. It encouraged the captain, and she smashed at the wall until it was starting to crumble.
Stepping back a few paces, Séverine charged forward and rammed it behind the face of her shield, busting through the wall enough that she tipped over and fell into the next room amidst the wall's rubble. Quickly she got back to her feet and put her back to a wall on the other side, what looked like a more proper storage room, and one still in use. Torchlight on the wall illuminated the way out into a corridor. They had to shield their eyes from it for a moment in order to adjust.
"Much better," Séverine said between breaths.
"Agreed." Ophelia stepped over the rubble next, casting her eyes around the room. She must not have seen anything of interest in the crates and boxes arranged neatly in the space, stacked against the far wall. The floor was bare, too, and so the group of them picked their way to the door, pausing to listen for any reaction to the noise they'd made. When there wasn't any, Leon opened it, putting them out in the corridor.
From the absence of windows, it was clearly a basement or at least a level built underground. The most immediate sensation, however, was the smell. Rom recognized it easily: blood and decay. The stench of rotting corpses and living people probably halfway there. There was also a faint hint of sickness on the air, the taint of red lyrium, but it wasn't yet enough to cause any of them any real nausea. Not like when the patrol had passed by.
Leon's jaw clenched. "Looks like we're going up."
He'd encountered a few of them at Haven alongside the Venatori, but the events of that night were such a blur of chaos and death that he hardly could remember the details. It had been Estella that first encountered them with the others at Therinfal before that, and her again in the Emerald Graves. What he learned from traveling through the Vimmarks was that description of them rarely did them justice.
Lia and a few hand picked scouts led them towards Kasos from where they left Zee and her crew in Cumberland, on horses that Rilien's agents provided. Sturdy Fereldan mounts, good for climbing and the forging ahead over difficult terrain, if lacking in outright speed. There was no use for speed, as they had to slow and even change courses several times to avoid Red Templar patrols that Signy or one of the other forward scouts spotted ahead of them.
Even the most human-looking of them were horrifying to look upon, with growths of the scarlet-shaded crystals sprouting from their skin at odd angles, their armor molding with their flesh as their bodies were twisted out of shape by the corrupted lyrium. They exuded strength in equal measure to their horror. Being caught by any of them would mean a hard fight.
Thankfully they managed to avoid being seen, and the travel itself was not overly difficult given it was summertime and the mountains were not cloaked in snow. In fact it seemed likely that these peaks didn't see that much snow even in winter, as the forested areas that decorated their slopes were almost tropical in nature. Any farther north and the heat would've begun to become oppressive.
"We're getting close," Lia said, pulling her horse to a stop. "We should go on foot from here."
They did so, dismounting and using their last chance to gear up before they would make their approach. Lighter armor was the order of the day, and preferably nothing that would catch and reflect the sunlight. Any steel was best kept covered by leather or cloth until they could get inside. Séverine had armed herself with a short sword in addition to her flail, the smaller weapon being preferable for the tight quarters they might find themselves in. Her armor was templar gear of a lighter issue, consisting mostly of scale mail and smaller segmented plates over more exposed areas, though she carried her kite shield upon her back still. Khari wore a suit of chainmail between her ordinary clothing and a loose shirt she was using for camouflage. There wasn't much helping the fact that her preferred weapon was too large for closer quarters, but there was also a long, curved knife on her right hip, which she no doubt intended to use to make do if necessary.
Lia took her bow in hand, a deft hand adeptly twirling an arrow in the other. "The tunnel's going to be your way in. I don't think they wanted to draw any attention to it. It may not even be guarded, but you should still be ready for anything on the inside." Rom could agree with that much. Sometimes the entrances that appeared most vulnerable could prove to be the deadliest, to the unwary.
"If you need to make a retreat, we'll try to cover you as best we can," Lia continued, "but I can't promise much until you're outside of the walls. And even then, Red Templars often ignore arrows that would stop a normal fighter in their tracks."
"I understand." Leon smiled mildly and gave a short nod. Neither he nor the woman he'd introduced as his teacher, Ophelia, needed to worry about how close the quarters would be, unless of course one of them needed to duck—Ophelia was quite tall herself. Like Séverine and Khari, they'd worn somewhat less armor than usual, disguised under cloaks. "Go ahead and take your positions. We'll make our way to the passage. With any luck, we'll be out in an hour." He paused. "If we haven't returned in three, assume we've been captured and get word back to Skyhold."
"Understood," Lia responded. "Good luck in there."
With that, the five of them broke off from the small scout party. They were still a ways out, and no doubt patrols would be denser this close to Kasos itself. Leon dropped back to the rear, glancing once at Rom. "Can you take point?"
He nodded wordlessly, and led the way steadily forward. The foliage was dense here, trees and bushes and tall grass in abundance. It made for good visual cover, but it was hard to move quietly, so they were sure to take things slow. That said, Rom liked to think that no patrol of hulking Red Templars could be quieter than they were, so he hoped they would hear any enemies coming before they themselves were detected.
"That's it there," Séverine pointed out, looking through the trees in the distance ahead of them. What they could mostly see was one of the walls, dark grey stone similar in color to the cliffs that rose behind. A few small towers jutted upwards over the upper crenelations, but the castle had not been built to stand out much from its surroundings. Probably why it had survived so long and been repurposed as some sort of repository for artifacts for a group that specialized in secrets.
The captain was about to start forward when Rom's hand seized her shoulder and kept her back. He touched his ear, indicating she should listen. Indeed, when they focused they could hear heavy steps and the soft crunching of grass, twigs, and dirt underneath some hefty boot. Rom pointed down next, and they sank low, concealing themselves behind trees, rocks, and bushes thick enough to obscure them.
The Red Templar patrol proved to be a group of three. One was a knight, one of the brawnier varieties, ballooned in size by the effects of the red lyrium, their armor horrifically sinking into their very skin. The second was a newer-looking member of the order, judging by the lack of progress the corruption had made. She carried a bow in her hands, and attempted to hide her face under a cowl. The third was a shadow, a lithe and lighter killer, with spikes of the red lyrium growing out of his arms long enough to become proper blades. He seemed the most watchful of the three.
Their patrol route brought them perilously close in front of the five of them, enough that Rom could begin feeling the effects of the corruption that wafted off of them. Simply sitting in it was slightly dizzying, and he could feel his stomach slowly starting to turn. He couldn't even imagine what the effect felt like on mages. Perhaps the absence of his potions was making matters worse. Regardless, if they could just keep quiet for a moment, the patrol would hopefully pass them by.
The first two moved past, the rhythmic thuds of their footsteps indication of an almost automatic approach to patrol. They didn't even look around much. The last was out of step, pausing often to listen before hastening to catch up. It was during one such erratic pause that one of the people behind him—probably Khari—shifted at the wrong moment, rustling the detritus that carpeted the forest floor beneath them.
The noise ceased, but the damage had been done. The shadow paused, his head whipping in their direction. They were close enough to see his eyes, red like the lyrium, faintly aglow in the dim light that made it through the canopy of trees. He raked them over the underbrush, searching for the source of the sound, but whoever had made it did not make the error a second time, and though he took half a step in Rom's direction, parting the fronds of the closest fern, the fading thuds of his fellows' treads alerted him to their continued departure, and he hesitated only a moment more before hurrying after them.
By unspoken consensus, they waited a bit longer than strictly necessary after he'd disappeared before emerging from their hiding spots. From there, it was nearly a straight shot to the tunnel's entrance, which wasn't more than a moderately-sized crack in a short cliff-face. It was obscured by moss and the thick, ropy vines of some plant that hugged most of the rock shelf, making it almost impossible to see if one wasn't looking for it specifically.
Ophelia took one look at it and grimaced. "Better not get any tighter than that inside," she muttered. She'd fit well enough, but it was a genuine question whether it would accommodate someone of Leon's dimensions. If he'd been in full plate, he'd have definitely needed to remove it. "I'll check."
Pushing away a few of the biggest vines, she turned sideways to fit inside, footsteps shuffling for a moment before she disappeared entirely. Fortunately, it didn't take her long to reappear; she just put a hand far enough back out to gesture them forward, and they filed in.
The tunnel itself was only big enough for a single-file line, and Leon had to remain half-turned to the side, head and shoulders ducked awkwardly, but they could move through it well enough otherwise. The walls and floor were smooth, evidence of the deliberate nature of the construction, but it definitely didn't seem like a supply tunnel. Most likely, it had served instead as an emergency escape route for the most important of the castle's one-time residents; such things were not uncommon in old castles, or even particularly-elaborate new manor homes. Disuse was evident in the cracks, though—in a few places, tree roots had penetrated the stone slabs and slithered across the floor, making it more perilous to navigate than its makers had intended. The passage seemed to run along the cliff-face, for a while, angling down eventually and escaping even the roots until the only peril was the occasional trickle of groundwater. The air smelled stale, and a little earthy; nothing unexpected.
Rom was not uncomfortable with tight spaces. He was not a particularly small man in any of his dimensions, but he was used to being cramped, confined, so much so that he often did it to himself. There was some comfort to living underneath Skyhold's keep, not within it. Thus the passageway didn't bother him in the least, though he imagined pretty much everyone else was not as pleased with the situation. Séverine's breathing had become noticeably more measured and forced. Khari was, for once, fortunate to be short, and the shape of her weapon was more ungainly than she was in here, the tip of it occasionally touching the side walls with a soft scrape of metal on rock.
Eventually the ground began to slope upwards again, and Rom could sense they were getting closer, if only because the passageway began to subtly widen a foot or so when they approached the exit. When it suddenly came to a halt, they were faced with a sheer rock wall that could be ascended by way of a set of old, rusty iron rungs fastened into the wall. Rom found himself glad he wasn't the first to test them. Rearranging their order wasn't really possible in a space this tight, so it was Ophelia who went up first, Leon second, and Rom after him. Khari followed shortly behind him, with Séverine bringing up the rear.
At the top Rom clambered up into what appeared to be a storage area of some sort, though it didn't look like it was being used for anything. Probably since the outpost wasn't commonly occupied by anyone. More alarming was the fact that there didn't seem to be a way out. Even with their eyes adjusted by now, it was extremely dark, and there was no obviously visible door. Immediately Séverine began to breathe as though she were running, when in fact the climbing up here had been the most physical activity they'd done all day.
"Check the walls," Ophelia advised. "Might be a lever or switch. This room was probably designed to be undetectable from the other side, but there's probably another passage out." The rustle of her cloak was the only indication that she'd moved to follow her own advice.
"Shouldn't be much longer," Leon added quietly, most likely for Séverine's benefit. "We're looking for anything that feels or sounds irregular." That, he added for the group at large.
Khari shuffled a lot more than the others did, a dull thud sounding as she ran into something. It sounded like the wall. “Fuck. That was my finger." A breath hissed in between her teeth, but then she fell quiet, feeling along the wall with the rest of them. The room wasn't very large; it only took her another few moments before she spoke up again. “Uh... I don't really know what I'm doing, but there's something weird about this wall. The mortar's all chalky and it doesn't seem... right?"
"Let me see," Rom said, following the sound of her voice to the wall she was on. He reached out, his hand accidentally finding Khari's head and hair before the wall. "Er, sorry." Once he was finally touching the wall, he could see why she thought it was strange. Compared to the others he'd touched, which were smooth and well-finished, this one was poorly done. A hasty job, meaning that wherever it had been sealed off from was likely another room, not just the solid rock wall that served as foundation.
"There should be something on the other side of this wall, if we can get through." He wasn't going to bash it open himself, though. He supposed he could use his mark, but he preferred not to create a violent blast of brick pieces in a confined space with his friends. Best to let the many physical powerhouses with him figure something out.
"Are we hitting something?" Séverine asked, obviously still working to control herself. "I wouldn't mind hitting something right now."
"By all means, then," Leon replied. "I don't... anticipate anyone being down here if they believe it is blocked off so thoroughly, but everyone should remain ready just in case."
"Alright, then." Séverine pulled her shield from her back and slid her arm into it, rolling her shoulder a few times. "Everyone get to the back wall. Don't want to break anyone's nose on accident."
When she had enough room to swing, she did so with a grunt of effort, ramming the rim of her shield into the wall. As loud as the clangs were, Rom knew the crack of his mark's bursts were quite a bit louder, like a clap of thunder from a few feet away. After a few strikes Séverine had created a small gap through which light was filtering into the room from whatever lay beyond. It encouraged the captain, and she smashed at the wall until it was starting to crumble.
Stepping back a few paces, Séverine charged forward and rammed it behind the face of her shield, busting through the wall enough that she tipped over and fell into the next room amidst the wall's rubble. Quickly she got back to her feet and put her back to a wall on the other side, what looked like a more proper storage room, and one still in use. Torchlight on the wall illuminated the way out into a corridor. They had to shield their eyes from it for a moment in order to adjust.
"Much better," Séverine said between breaths.
"Agreed." Ophelia stepped over the rubble next, casting her eyes around the room. She must not have seen anything of interest in the crates and boxes arranged neatly in the space, stacked against the far wall. The floor was bare, too, and so the group of them picked their way to the door, pausing to listen for any reaction to the noise they'd made. When there wasn't any, Leon opened it, putting them out in the corridor.
From the absence of windows, it was clearly a basement or at least a level built underground. The most immediate sensation, however, was the smell. Rom recognized it easily: blood and decay. The stench of rotting corpses and living people probably halfway there. There was also a faint hint of sickness on the air, the taint of red lyrium, but it wasn't yet enough to cause any of them any real nausea. Not like when the patrol had passed by.
Leon's jaw clenched. "Looks like we're going up."