Khari sighed heavily, pressing her forehead to the vertical bar in front of her. As she tended to end up doing whenever she was on a boat, she was dangling her feet over the side, braced on the rails, and trying not to lose what little was left in her stomach.
The first part hadn't been so bad. In fact, she'd been well enough that she'd thought she might finally be getting used to sea travel. But apparently she'd only acclimated herself enough to make it out into open ocean after they'd crossed the Waking Sea in the Riptide, at which point she'd promptly become ill and miserable again all the way to Afsaana. She'd have appreciated a few more hours landbound to recover, but there hadn't been time for it, and so she'd reluctantly boarded the Jezabelle, which didn't even have the benefit of being Zee's ship and steered by Zee's navigator Nixium, which made it about a hundred times worse in Khari's expert opinion.
Stel had sat with her for large portions of the trip, others rotating their company too, because they were good like that, and the distraction of conversation had almost made the hot sun and salt breeze nice instead of terrible. She'd even managed to laugh pretty heartily at Leon's inescapable sunburn before she regretted it, the vigor of the merriment churning her lunch right out of her guts. She couldn't spend more than a few hours below at a time without it getting worse, so she napped sporadically and then dozed here on the deck.
And then they'd stopped right between Antiva and Tevinter, to drop off Stel, Cy, the equally ill-looking Ves, Harellan, and Astraia. Not that Ves's illness had much of anything to do with the water. She really hoped they found what they were looking for in that forest. It'd sure spooked the captain and crew enough to have to drop anchor nearby. Arlathan ran basically all the way up to the coast, and there were some pretty intense superstitions about its danger, apparently. Days more after that had passed in kind of a blur, but she figured they had to be getting close to Minrathous now. If she squinted, she swore she could make out a city on the horizon, but at this point it might just as well have been wishful thinking on her part.
But as the minutes passed, the shape of it turned out not to be an illusion. Rom joined her, looking out at it with a strange mix of emotions. Apprehension, certainly, but also a kind of excitement. Perhaps just the weight of expectation he'd piled onto this place after so long away, and so long at sea.
"Home," he said. "Once."
Minrathous was built on a massive, rocky island not far from the shore of the mainland, accessible by land only by crossing a single, wide bridge. By sea there were many more ways in; the city boasted the largest array of ports and shipyards in the world, a harbor which was not as well used for trade as it could be. The journey was both far, and perilous, with the constant threat of conflict lingering in northern waters.
The city rose in the center and shrank as it approached the water, with the impressive towers of the Minrathous Circle of Magi dominating everything else below. The buildings near the water, and in the lower parts of the city, were ramshackle and quite obviously falling apart. Even from a distance Minrathous had an aura of decay to it, a city slowly losing a battle against time. Despite that, its life and activity were obvious, with smoke rising from the buildings, lights in every corner, the undeniable taste of magic on the air. The city was rife with it.
They blended well into the masses of ships coming and going, pulling up their sails and rowing the rest of the way into the docks. The crew seemed to know how to navigate it somehow, even though after a short time every dock, every shipyard started to look the same. When they finally pulled into one, it was in a lightly used section, a shipyard sparsely occupied only by those who appeared to be the poorest and most meager of traders.
As the boat was tied to the dock, they passed into the shadow of one of the Circle towers. It seemed obvious that much of the city was cast in shadow by the structures towering over it. This seemed to be one of those places. It was quiet, but not too quiet. If there was an ambush waiting for them here, it was a damn good one.
The elf impatiently waiting for them to disembark didn't look capable of pulling off any kind of ambush. He was short, maybe an inch or two taller than Khari, with shaggy light brown hair and hazel green eyes. Very boyish in his appearance, though if this was the elf Rom had briefly described, he was in his mid twenties by now. Dressed in drab and worn linens of muted colors, he looked every bit the slave, right down to the flapping sandals that barely clung to his feet.
They didn't stop him from jogging out to greet the Inquisition, who were led forward by Rom onto the dock, their supplies for the operation gathered in their packs. The boat had been instructed to wait for them to complete their task before ferrying them back to Afsaana, but that didn't mean they needed to trust them to hang on to any of their things.
"Look at you!" the elf grinned broadly as he stopped in front of them, having eyes only for the Inquisitor. "I didn't believe the stories. My best friend, leading an Inquisition in the south of Thedas. I'm gonna be honest, I don't even know what that is." He looked up at Leon, seemingly undaunted by the man's size. "What are you? Some kind of special army?"
Leon shrugged, in the process of smearing some kind of ointment on his nose, which had seen the worst of the sunburn, as though he were any other sailor disembarking a ship for no special reason. "In a manner of speaking. An army with a very specific aim." He glanced about, then up at one of the spires. "I suppose information about us would be scarcer here than elsewhere—little of our business has yet reached so far north." Not none of it, though—that was why they were here in the first place.
He offered the elf a small smile then. "Forgive me. We were told you'd be meeting us here, but not your name. I'm Leonhardt—Leon, if you don't mind."
"I'm Brand. Slave to Magister Bastian Catus. More importantly, old friend of Rom's."
"Partner," Rom corrected, narrowing his eyes at the elf. "Friend is debatable."
"You forget how many doors I opened for you? Not all of them with lockpicks, either." He shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. "Guess you are still Rom, aren't you? So who are your new friends?"
He started on his right, working around behind him. "This is Zee, Asala, Ithilian, Amalia, and Khari." The elf's eyes lingered on the last to be introduced, widening slightly. He was certainly impressed with something.
"I like your sword."
Khari grinned. She was wearing a heavy zweihänder for the trip, the blade in total almost as tall as she was. It was no Intercessor, but she'd gotten used to it over time. “Thanks." She had a feeling they'd get along just fine, especially if he was an old partner-maybe-friend of Rom's. “Used to have a bigger one, but then I broke it on a demon."
Zahra inclined her head when her introduction came, grinning wide. It appeared she found something funny the way she was elbowing Leon’s side, waggling her eyebrows. All shades of inappropriate. She glanced over to Khari before swinging her gaze back to the small elf. “You wouldn’t believe me, but we’ve already met,” she allowed a theatrical pause to stretch between them and leaned slightly forward, “in my dreams.”
Her smile hadn’t tempered herself at all. If anything she seemed delighted by the acquaintance, though it was clear she wouldn’t have ever met him before. “You mentioned the sword bit too. And wrestling. And tender, sexy times. It was a riot.” As always, she didn’t seem the slightest bothered by any possible misunderstandings her words may have caused. Knowing Zee, she would have jumped at any opportunity to rattle and tease. This appeared to be one of those times; even if she hadn’t properly explained herself. The effect was probably intentional. “It’s nice to actually meet you.”
"Zee... for fuck's sake..."
Rom's hand had found his face partway through Zee's mentioning of whatever the hell that was. Something else Rom had never told her about, though from the contents it sounded a lot stranger, and probably a lot less important than other things.
A stifled giggle slipped between the fingers covering Asala's mouth. Of course, she then quickly averted her glance and pretended that it had belonged to anyone else.
Brand was a mix of lost, amused, and still slightly in awe of Khari, but he managed a laugh, albeit an awkward one. "Here I thought I was going to be the strange one in this meeting. You'll, uh... you'll have to explain that one to me."
"Later, please, or preferably not at all. We have Chryseis and Decius with us, they should be..." He turned, to see Chryseis leading the captive Decius from the boat, his hands still bound behind his back. His shoulders were sure to be incredibly sore by now, but they weren't especially concerned with his comfort, given his allegiances.
"Ah." Brand offered an awkward wave in between the taller Inquisition members. "Hey C. Hey D." Chryseis did not stop at the gathering, leading Decius around the others and past Brand.
"If you're all done socializing, there's work to do." She made eye contact with Brand only when she needed to speak with him. "I'm assuming we're getting our feet wet?"
"Unless you wanna walk the streets with a Qunari and a Venatori prisoner." She took that as answer enough, and walked onward. Brand turned back to the others. "She hasn't changed a bit, has she? Come on, we can talk on the way." He glanced down at their feet, looking for something. "Hope none of you are wearing nice boots."
Khari wrinkled her nose. “We're going into the sewers, aren't we?" It had to be what the 'feet wet' thing meant, plus it would be way less obvious than traveling at street level. Cloak and dagger wasn't really her thing, but she could see the need for it here. “And... to the Catus place?" That, she asked as they started walking, falling in just half a step behind Brand. She remembered Chryseis mentioning something like that maybe, even if she hadn't exactly been in a thoughtful state of mind at the time. She thought it was kind of odd that Rom's friend got away with calling that same woman by her initial alone when she'd always been domina to Rom back then, but maybe it was a difference Khari didn't understand, something to do with who supposedly owned whom. In any case she didn't know exactly how to ask about it, and she didn't want to do what she usually did and risk eating her own foot as a result.
"It's not sewers all the way, at least," Brand offered, as though that was indeed valuable consolation. "In some places it'll pass into the catacombs. Long dead things smell better than recently shat things. And B will make sure you all get a chance to bathe if you want. Before doing your thing."
"How considerate." The words came from near the rear of the group, where the other Dalish in their party, Ithilian, lingered with his partner Amalia. He was about as quiet as Rom had been back when Khari first met him, but maybe that was because he was in mostly unfamiliar company, having not been with the Inquisition nearly as long. When he did open his scarred mouth, it tended to be grouchy, like that.
Brand paid it no mind, undoubtedly used to comments like it from working with Rom and Chryseis in the past, if indeed he always spoke to her as he had on the docks. They soon left them behind, but hadn't quite reached the city proper before they found Chryseis paused at the nearest entrance into the subterranean section of the city, a thin doorway Leon would be lucky to make it through without turning, leading to a stairwell that ran down into the sewers. Brand found a torch at the bottom of the stairs, almost picking it up, but then he thought better of it, turning back to Chryseis.
"Magic light fends off the rats better." It was an effective argument, and Chryseis had soon cast a magelight spell that hovered out in front of the group as they walked, casting long tendrils of shadow out behind them. The sewer walkways were narrow and damp at all times, and the smell was about as putrid as expected for such a large city. Still, all the natives of the city seemed to know just where they were going, and they made good time underneath the city, which could often be heard humming with activity above their heads.
"Where are we going, exactly?" Amalia spoke up from the rear of the procession, apparently entirely unbothered by the stench of their surroundings. She seemed like the kind of woman who'd been through much worse, for whom minor inconveniences such as these were downright trivial. "I do not know how this city is organized. I assume the nobles are clustered together?"
"Yep." Brand took a left, leading them up a short flight of stairs and finally to an area not damp from near constant running fluids. "No room to build out on an island, so the city mostly goes up. Circle of Magi's the tallest place, that's the towers you probably saw sailing in. Ivory District isn't far, that's where the nobles are, and where we're headed. To the estate of my dominus, Bastian Catus."
They began to pass several rows of what could only be sarcophagi, but by their lack of ornament they carried bodies of lesser importance. No great mages of Tevinter buried down here, next to the sewers. Brand didn't seem concerned that they would run into anyone. "The poor are kept literally beneath the rest here. Better a slave than a refugee, I say. I don't have to steal for my meals." He pointed in a direction, though it wasn't really clear how he still knew which direction he was going down here. "West is the Proving Arena, jewel of the city. There's games tomorrow, I hear, might be a good idea to time whatever you're doing with those."
"You don't know why we're here?" Rom asked.
Brand shrugged. "Don't need to. B said to meet you at the docks, bring you all to him. If I need to get you somewhere else, I'll do that too. Way you're all dressed I'd guess you're expecting to kill some people here. That's not really my thing."
"The people are Venatori, I'll tell you that much," Rom offered. It seemed they were steadily leaving the sewers behind, as the smell faded to just what they now carried with them. More stairs followed, too narrow to take more than one at a time.
"That much I'd figured out." Brand scratched behind his pointed right ear. "Can't go a day anymore without hearing something about the Venatori."
They came to the base of a very long ladder, running up the wall almost far enough to pass into darkness before it reached a closed hatch. Brand turned and paused. "Wait here a second, I'll get it open. Probably best to go one at a time after that, this ladder's used to just holding little me up." Indeed, it didn't look like the sturdiest construction, nor the youngest. The elf ascended it swiftly, pausing to twist the dials of some kind of combination lock at the top. A few moments later it clicked, and he pushed the hatch open, climbing up inside. "Okay, come on up!" he called down to them.
One by one they made their way up the ladder, and when Khari's turn came she found herself climbing into what appeared to be a pantry. They were surrounded by shelves of wrapped and preserved foods, and the only door led out into a kitchen. Brand walked by a rotund elven woman in an apron, busy chopping slices of meat on a table. "Sorry about the smell, Fee," Brand apologized. "Few more guests than usual."
"And they had to come through the trap door?" she glanced suspiciously at them, but then turned with a start upon seeing Chryseis and Decius. "Magister Chryseis, Master Decius, forgive me, I didn't know you were coming."
"Would seem I'm no one's master anymore," the Venatori among them said in a low voice. Chryseis shoved him forward, ignoring the flustered elven woman.
"B's still upstairs?" Brand asked over his shoulder. Fee whipped her head back around.
"Your dominus is, yes." She turned back to her work, grumbling. "Boy never learned respect."
Rom seemed to have seen this type of exchange a time or two, as he didn't make anything in particular of it, instead gesturing for the others to follow him after Brand, Decius, and Chryseis. They left the kitchen behind as the cook wished them a pleasant stay, and promised a hot meal after they'd been given an opportunity to clean up.
Another staircase leading up deposited them in what appeared to be the living area of the magister's household, an expansive area that looked capable of seating half the Magisterium with the sheer numbers of couches, chairs, stools, rugs, and tables. It seemed they'd ascended a decent distance, as out the window they could see a view that managed to pierce through taller buildings around them and out to the sea beyond. Not the highest place in the city, but far from the underbelly, that was for sure.
By the time Khari had reached where the front of the group stood, she found their host already in conversation with the front of the pack. Bastian Catus was a well-groomed man, his hair kept short cut, a shade darker than his son's and accented by a touch of gray indicative of his age. His beard wasn't full as Decius's was, but rather shaved to leave an immaculately trimmed mustache and pointed goatee.
"You're a fool, and lucky to be alive," he was saying, to his son. Decius seemed resolved to keep his head lowered, and endure it, as there wasn't any denying it. "If you live through the coming days, perhaps you'll thank the Inquisition someday for their mercy." He nodded to Chryseis, and turned to look upon his guests. "I, at least, will thank you right now. You are free to use my house as your own for the day. Brand will show you to your rooms when you are ready, and baths have been prepared. I would not recommend setting foot outside until you are ready. The city has eyes, and they will find the sight of any of you most intriguing."
Leon nodded, glancing over the group as if he'd thought something similar himself. "You have our thanks for the use of your home, Magister Catus. We will do our best not to bring you trouble for it." It wasn't a hard guess that if their association became too widely-known, there would be repercussions. Maybe if they could topple the Venatori, people would say Bastian had been astute in seizing an unconventional opportunity. But they certainly wouldn't say that now.
"That would be most beneficial," Bastian agreed.
The first part hadn't been so bad. In fact, she'd been well enough that she'd thought she might finally be getting used to sea travel. But apparently she'd only acclimated herself enough to make it out into open ocean after they'd crossed the Waking Sea in the Riptide, at which point she'd promptly become ill and miserable again all the way to Afsaana. She'd have appreciated a few more hours landbound to recover, but there hadn't been time for it, and so she'd reluctantly boarded the Jezabelle, which didn't even have the benefit of being Zee's ship and steered by Zee's navigator Nixium, which made it about a hundred times worse in Khari's expert opinion.
Stel had sat with her for large portions of the trip, others rotating their company too, because they were good like that, and the distraction of conversation had almost made the hot sun and salt breeze nice instead of terrible. She'd even managed to laugh pretty heartily at Leon's inescapable sunburn before she regretted it, the vigor of the merriment churning her lunch right out of her guts. She couldn't spend more than a few hours below at a time without it getting worse, so she napped sporadically and then dozed here on the deck.
And then they'd stopped right between Antiva and Tevinter, to drop off Stel, Cy, the equally ill-looking Ves, Harellan, and Astraia. Not that Ves's illness had much of anything to do with the water. She really hoped they found what they were looking for in that forest. It'd sure spooked the captain and crew enough to have to drop anchor nearby. Arlathan ran basically all the way up to the coast, and there were some pretty intense superstitions about its danger, apparently. Days more after that had passed in kind of a blur, but she figured they had to be getting close to Minrathous now. If she squinted, she swore she could make out a city on the horizon, but at this point it might just as well have been wishful thinking on her part.
But as the minutes passed, the shape of it turned out not to be an illusion. Rom joined her, looking out at it with a strange mix of emotions. Apprehension, certainly, but also a kind of excitement. Perhaps just the weight of expectation he'd piled onto this place after so long away, and so long at sea.
"Home," he said. "Once."
Minrathous was built on a massive, rocky island not far from the shore of the mainland, accessible by land only by crossing a single, wide bridge. By sea there were many more ways in; the city boasted the largest array of ports and shipyards in the world, a harbor which was not as well used for trade as it could be. The journey was both far, and perilous, with the constant threat of conflict lingering in northern waters.
The city rose in the center and shrank as it approached the water, with the impressive towers of the Minrathous Circle of Magi dominating everything else below. The buildings near the water, and in the lower parts of the city, were ramshackle and quite obviously falling apart. Even from a distance Minrathous had an aura of decay to it, a city slowly losing a battle against time. Despite that, its life and activity were obvious, with smoke rising from the buildings, lights in every corner, the undeniable taste of magic on the air. The city was rife with it.
They blended well into the masses of ships coming and going, pulling up their sails and rowing the rest of the way into the docks. The crew seemed to know how to navigate it somehow, even though after a short time every dock, every shipyard started to look the same. When they finally pulled into one, it was in a lightly used section, a shipyard sparsely occupied only by those who appeared to be the poorest and most meager of traders.
As the boat was tied to the dock, they passed into the shadow of one of the Circle towers. It seemed obvious that much of the city was cast in shadow by the structures towering over it. This seemed to be one of those places. It was quiet, but not too quiet. If there was an ambush waiting for them here, it was a damn good one.
The elf impatiently waiting for them to disembark didn't look capable of pulling off any kind of ambush. He was short, maybe an inch or two taller than Khari, with shaggy light brown hair and hazel green eyes. Very boyish in his appearance, though if this was the elf Rom had briefly described, he was in his mid twenties by now. Dressed in drab and worn linens of muted colors, he looked every bit the slave, right down to the flapping sandals that barely clung to his feet.
They didn't stop him from jogging out to greet the Inquisition, who were led forward by Rom onto the dock, their supplies for the operation gathered in their packs. The boat had been instructed to wait for them to complete their task before ferrying them back to Afsaana, but that didn't mean they needed to trust them to hang on to any of their things.
"Look at you!" the elf grinned broadly as he stopped in front of them, having eyes only for the Inquisitor. "I didn't believe the stories. My best friend, leading an Inquisition in the south of Thedas. I'm gonna be honest, I don't even know what that is." He looked up at Leon, seemingly undaunted by the man's size. "What are you? Some kind of special army?"
Leon shrugged, in the process of smearing some kind of ointment on his nose, which had seen the worst of the sunburn, as though he were any other sailor disembarking a ship for no special reason. "In a manner of speaking. An army with a very specific aim." He glanced about, then up at one of the spires. "I suppose information about us would be scarcer here than elsewhere—little of our business has yet reached so far north." Not none of it, though—that was why they were here in the first place.
He offered the elf a small smile then. "Forgive me. We were told you'd be meeting us here, but not your name. I'm Leonhardt—Leon, if you don't mind."
"I'm Brand. Slave to Magister Bastian Catus. More importantly, old friend of Rom's."
"Partner," Rom corrected, narrowing his eyes at the elf. "Friend is debatable."
"You forget how many doors I opened for you? Not all of them with lockpicks, either." He shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. "Guess you are still Rom, aren't you? So who are your new friends?"
He started on his right, working around behind him. "This is Zee, Asala, Ithilian, Amalia, and Khari." The elf's eyes lingered on the last to be introduced, widening slightly. He was certainly impressed with something.
"I like your sword."
Khari grinned. She was wearing a heavy zweihänder for the trip, the blade in total almost as tall as she was. It was no Intercessor, but she'd gotten used to it over time. “Thanks." She had a feeling they'd get along just fine, especially if he was an old partner-maybe-friend of Rom's. “Used to have a bigger one, but then I broke it on a demon."
Zahra inclined her head when her introduction came, grinning wide. It appeared she found something funny the way she was elbowing Leon’s side, waggling her eyebrows. All shades of inappropriate. She glanced over to Khari before swinging her gaze back to the small elf. “You wouldn’t believe me, but we’ve already met,” she allowed a theatrical pause to stretch between them and leaned slightly forward, “in my dreams.”
Her smile hadn’t tempered herself at all. If anything she seemed delighted by the acquaintance, though it was clear she wouldn’t have ever met him before. “You mentioned the sword bit too. And wrestling. And tender, sexy times. It was a riot.” As always, she didn’t seem the slightest bothered by any possible misunderstandings her words may have caused. Knowing Zee, she would have jumped at any opportunity to rattle and tease. This appeared to be one of those times; even if she hadn’t properly explained herself. The effect was probably intentional. “It’s nice to actually meet you.”
"Zee... for fuck's sake..."
Rom's hand had found his face partway through Zee's mentioning of whatever the hell that was. Something else Rom had never told her about, though from the contents it sounded a lot stranger, and probably a lot less important than other things.
A stifled giggle slipped between the fingers covering Asala's mouth. Of course, she then quickly averted her glance and pretended that it had belonged to anyone else.
Brand was a mix of lost, amused, and still slightly in awe of Khari, but he managed a laugh, albeit an awkward one. "Here I thought I was going to be the strange one in this meeting. You'll, uh... you'll have to explain that one to me."
"Later, please, or preferably not at all. We have Chryseis and Decius with us, they should be..." He turned, to see Chryseis leading the captive Decius from the boat, his hands still bound behind his back. His shoulders were sure to be incredibly sore by now, but they weren't especially concerned with his comfort, given his allegiances.
"Ah." Brand offered an awkward wave in between the taller Inquisition members. "Hey C. Hey D." Chryseis did not stop at the gathering, leading Decius around the others and past Brand.
"If you're all done socializing, there's work to do." She made eye contact with Brand only when she needed to speak with him. "I'm assuming we're getting our feet wet?"
"Unless you wanna walk the streets with a Qunari and a Venatori prisoner." She took that as answer enough, and walked onward. Brand turned back to the others. "She hasn't changed a bit, has she? Come on, we can talk on the way." He glanced down at their feet, looking for something. "Hope none of you are wearing nice boots."
Khari wrinkled her nose. “We're going into the sewers, aren't we?" It had to be what the 'feet wet' thing meant, plus it would be way less obvious than traveling at street level. Cloak and dagger wasn't really her thing, but she could see the need for it here. “And... to the Catus place?" That, she asked as they started walking, falling in just half a step behind Brand. She remembered Chryseis mentioning something like that maybe, even if she hadn't exactly been in a thoughtful state of mind at the time. She thought it was kind of odd that Rom's friend got away with calling that same woman by her initial alone when she'd always been domina to Rom back then, but maybe it was a difference Khari didn't understand, something to do with who supposedly owned whom. In any case she didn't know exactly how to ask about it, and she didn't want to do what she usually did and risk eating her own foot as a result.
"It's not sewers all the way, at least," Brand offered, as though that was indeed valuable consolation. "In some places it'll pass into the catacombs. Long dead things smell better than recently shat things. And B will make sure you all get a chance to bathe if you want. Before doing your thing."
"How considerate." The words came from near the rear of the group, where the other Dalish in their party, Ithilian, lingered with his partner Amalia. He was about as quiet as Rom had been back when Khari first met him, but maybe that was because he was in mostly unfamiliar company, having not been with the Inquisition nearly as long. When he did open his scarred mouth, it tended to be grouchy, like that.
Brand paid it no mind, undoubtedly used to comments like it from working with Rom and Chryseis in the past, if indeed he always spoke to her as he had on the docks. They soon left them behind, but hadn't quite reached the city proper before they found Chryseis paused at the nearest entrance into the subterranean section of the city, a thin doorway Leon would be lucky to make it through without turning, leading to a stairwell that ran down into the sewers. Brand found a torch at the bottom of the stairs, almost picking it up, but then he thought better of it, turning back to Chryseis.
"Magic light fends off the rats better." It was an effective argument, and Chryseis had soon cast a magelight spell that hovered out in front of the group as they walked, casting long tendrils of shadow out behind them. The sewer walkways were narrow and damp at all times, and the smell was about as putrid as expected for such a large city. Still, all the natives of the city seemed to know just where they were going, and they made good time underneath the city, which could often be heard humming with activity above their heads.
"Where are we going, exactly?" Amalia spoke up from the rear of the procession, apparently entirely unbothered by the stench of their surroundings. She seemed like the kind of woman who'd been through much worse, for whom minor inconveniences such as these were downright trivial. "I do not know how this city is organized. I assume the nobles are clustered together?"
"Yep." Brand took a left, leading them up a short flight of stairs and finally to an area not damp from near constant running fluids. "No room to build out on an island, so the city mostly goes up. Circle of Magi's the tallest place, that's the towers you probably saw sailing in. Ivory District isn't far, that's where the nobles are, and where we're headed. To the estate of my dominus, Bastian Catus."
They began to pass several rows of what could only be sarcophagi, but by their lack of ornament they carried bodies of lesser importance. No great mages of Tevinter buried down here, next to the sewers. Brand didn't seem concerned that they would run into anyone. "The poor are kept literally beneath the rest here. Better a slave than a refugee, I say. I don't have to steal for my meals." He pointed in a direction, though it wasn't really clear how he still knew which direction he was going down here. "West is the Proving Arena, jewel of the city. There's games tomorrow, I hear, might be a good idea to time whatever you're doing with those."
"You don't know why we're here?" Rom asked.
Brand shrugged. "Don't need to. B said to meet you at the docks, bring you all to him. If I need to get you somewhere else, I'll do that too. Way you're all dressed I'd guess you're expecting to kill some people here. That's not really my thing."
"The people are Venatori, I'll tell you that much," Rom offered. It seemed they were steadily leaving the sewers behind, as the smell faded to just what they now carried with them. More stairs followed, too narrow to take more than one at a time.
"That much I'd figured out." Brand scratched behind his pointed right ear. "Can't go a day anymore without hearing something about the Venatori."
They came to the base of a very long ladder, running up the wall almost far enough to pass into darkness before it reached a closed hatch. Brand turned and paused. "Wait here a second, I'll get it open. Probably best to go one at a time after that, this ladder's used to just holding little me up." Indeed, it didn't look like the sturdiest construction, nor the youngest. The elf ascended it swiftly, pausing to twist the dials of some kind of combination lock at the top. A few moments later it clicked, and he pushed the hatch open, climbing up inside. "Okay, come on up!" he called down to them.
One by one they made their way up the ladder, and when Khari's turn came she found herself climbing into what appeared to be a pantry. They were surrounded by shelves of wrapped and preserved foods, and the only door led out into a kitchen. Brand walked by a rotund elven woman in an apron, busy chopping slices of meat on a table. "Sorry about the smell, Fee," Brand apologized. "Few more guests than usual."
"And they had to come through the trap door?" she glanced suspiciously at them, but then turned with a start upon seeing Chryseis and Decius. "Magister Chryseis, Master Decius, forgive me, I didn't know you were coming."
"Would seem I'm no one's master anymore," the Venatori among them said in a low voice. Chryseis shoved him forward, ignoring the flustered elven woman.
"B's still upstairs?" Brand asked over his shoulder. Fee whipped her head back around.
"Your dominus is, yes." She turned back to her work, grumbling. "Boy never learned respect."
Rom seemed to have seen this type of exchange a time or two, as he didn't make anything in particular of it, instead gesturing for the others to follow him after Brand, Decius, and Chryseis. They left the kitchen behind as the cook wished them a pleasant stay, and promised a hot meal after they'd been given an opportunity to clean up.
Another staircase leading up deposited them in what appeared to be the living area of the magister's household, an expansive area that looked capable of seating half the Magisterium with the sheer numbers of couches, chairs, stools, rugs, and tables. It seemed they'd ascended a decent distance, as out the window they could see a view that managed to pierce through taller buildings around them and out to the sea beyond. Not the highest place in the city, but far from the underbelly, that was for sure.
By the time Khari had reached where the front of the group stood, she found their host already in conversation with the front of the pack. Bastian Catus was a well-groomed man, his hair kept short cut, a shade darker than his son's and accented by a touch of gray indicative of his age. His beard wasn't full as Decius's was, but rather shaved to leave an immaculately trimmed mustache and pointed goatee.
"You're a fool, and lucky to be alive," he was saying, to his son. Decius seemed resolved to keep his head lowered, and endure it, as there wasn't any denying it. "If you live through the coming days, perhaps you'll thank the Inquisition someday for their mercy." He nodded to Chryseis, and turned to look upon his guests. "I, at least, will thank you right now. You are free to use my house as your own for the day. Brand will show you to your rooms when you are ready, and baths have been prepared. I would not recommend setting foot outside until you are ready. The city has eyes, and they will find the sight of any of you most intriguing."
Leon nodded, glancing over the group as if he'd thought something similar himself. "You have our thanks for the use of your home, Magister Catus. We will do our best not to bring you trouble for it." It wasn't a hard guess that if their association became too widely-known, there would be repercussions. Maybe if they could topple the Venatori, people would say Bastian had been astute in seizing an unconventional opportunity. But they certainly wouldn't say that now.
"That would be most beneficial," Bastian agreed.