Whether she was yet ready for the beginning of the end hardly mattered.
For the first time in months, the Inquisition had received actionable intelligence on the whereabouts of a member of Marcus's cabal, the inner circle of the Venatori. And it wasn't just any member; one of Rilien's spies had in fact spotted his apprentice, Leta. What exactly she was doing in a Deep Roads entrance in the Hinterlands of Ferelden almost didn't matter either: she was there, and they knew about it before she knew of them. Leta could well be the link that broke the chain and allowed the Inquistion to do away with the Venatori. And Amalia to do away with Marcus.
A small, but effective team had been dispatched to deal with Leta and her detachment of mages, as well as whatever else they might find in the caverns. Amalia led it, and with her were Rilien, Lia, and the Lady Inquisitor's brother Cyrus. It seemed he knew Leta better than Amalia did, and she could not object to the addition of a powerful mage to the group. Not when there was bound to be so much magic on the other side of the fight.
By mid-spring, the Hinterlands were primarily green, the grasses threaded through with the amber that never entirely left the region. Pollen was thick enough in the air that it was sometimes visible: a green-gold haze that caught on clothes and in uncovered hair, dusting them all in clinging motes. Aside from the occasional hard exhale to clear it from her nasal cavity, Amalia took little notice of it as anything but a smell. The first light of dawn was already about to touch the landscape; they'd elected to raid with first light on the rationale that it was likely to catch their quarry unprepared, whether she'd been active on a nocturnal or diurnal schedule. It would also likely mean a shift change for her attendants.
Amalia skirted the edge of the small pond; it sat up against a short cliffside, water tumbling over the edge. The spray it sent up glinted in the predawn light, slicking the rocky rim of the waterline and making their passage precarious. Fortunately, the group was well-suited to handle such obstacles, and to do so quietly.
Mist caught her uncovered cheek as she slipped behind the fall; the cavern entrance was marred by red lyrium veins in the ground. Striking, so close to a Deep Roads entrance, but not surprising, considering what the Inquisition believed red lyrium to be. Motioning behind her to the others, she slid into the cavern first, scanning for movement and finding none.
The chamber itself was massive, the ceiling vaulted high over their heads, the pathway in front of them broken and jagged, leading back and down, it seemed, with a network of rickety wooden bridges and pathways carved directly into the stone by whatever dwarves had once dwelled here. Amalia drew two throwing knives, deciding she was more likely to first encounter something worth killing at a distance, and paused for the others to filter in behind.
Lia had left her cloak back at their last camp, short time though they'd spent there. It would help to have somewhere to briefly return to and catch their breath before making the march back to Skyhold. She had an arrow nocked now, as it had been for perhaps the last half hour, bowstring resting near the edge of the dragonhide archer's bracer Amalia had given to her years ago.
Kadan always kept Parshaara sheathed on his chest, but Lia preferred it on her thigh. It was the only small way that Ithilian could be here fighting with them, and he'd long since come to terms with the fact that the knife, and the training he could give his daughter, would be enough.
She kept to the middle of their formation, where she'd be most likely to be able to loose arrows without being attacked. If they were ambushed, it would just as likely come from behind as in front, after all.
Cyrus brought up the rear, placing his feet carefully and watching behind them attentively. Though his missing magic had been restored, he still wore steel, the blades crossed at the small of his back for easy reach and minimal jostling. Unwilling to forgo their potential element of surprise, they'd elected not to light their own way, and instead proceed through the dim caverns only once their eyes had adjusted.
Rilien had already drawn one of his knives, frost billowing noiselessly off the edge and sinking to the ground. He took care to give the occasional red lyrium protrusion a wide berth, but he otherwise floated in the space between Amalia and Lia, covering both flanks more or less simultaneously.
They followed what seemed to be the only recently-used path forward, though whether the scuffs had been put in their places by Venatori or darkspawn was difficult to say even by the experienced trackers in their number. A scrape in the stone or splinter in one of the wooden bridges could be either, and there was not enough soft material for the signs of passage to be any more concrete than that. The air here tasted faintly rotten, the damp of the falls weighting down the air in the cavern and the stench of the Deep Roads below drifting up to add an edge of decay.
They worked their way down slowly—the chasm that yawned below them did not recommend haste. Any fall from this height would mean certain death, and in places, handrails and other protections were missing, the paths narrow and treacherous with loose debris.
It was at something of a landing—a stone shelf at the end of a bridge—that Rilien stilled, his eyes flickering to a smaller cleft in the stone to their left. “Darkspawn."
The word was the only warning they got before the first pale monstrosities burst forth, spilling out from the adjoining cave as though it were a nest of them. Most held weapons, crude and wickedly-sharp, but their strategy was simple: charge, and overwhelm the small group with force and numbers. With an open cliff to their right, a rickety bridge behind, and a narrow, open stone pathway ahead, space to maneuver would be at a premium.
A bolt of lightning streaked forward from behind Amalia, passing so closely by she could almost feel it crackle. Cyrus aimed it for the back of the emerging group, and it struck hard, blasting apart the hurlock it hit directly, chaining between a tangle of his nearest companions and locking up their joints, freezing them momentarily in their places. Rilien did not hesitate to move forward, stepping up to meet the creatures in front so the group would not immediately be pushed to the edge of the landing. His knife flashed, finding a genlock's throat and dropping it to the ground. His next foe lunged, but the tranquil ducked aside, planting his foot to trip the darkspawn and then deliver a solid kick to its back. It pitched forward and tumbled over the side.
An arrow whistled over Amalia's head as well, slightly more arced than the lightning. It struck a hurlock just as it emerged from the cave, piercing through its skull. It stumbled forward several steps unconsciously before its legs gave out and sent it spilling to the ground.
Amalia sprang forward into the melee as well, shoring up Rilien's right side. A genlock came in low, sweeping for her feet with a broadaxe, and she was forced to jump, angling her landing so that the backswing caught her legs much too early to have any hope of dislodging her balance, then slid forward and buried one knife into its eye, hurling the other for a second darkspawn moving in on Cyrus's flank.
The fight was unavoidably noisy, but it was over quickly. Once she'd made sure that everyone was uninjured, she checked the crevice. Empty. Satisfied that the way they were moving was the correct one, she retook point position and led the group further down the chasm. Eventually, the constructions around them took on a different feel. The buildings were carved from older stone, more worn but also sturdier. Ancient dwarven residences, and a sign that they'd reached the deep roads proper. The terrain spread out more before them, now, providing them with more than one place to search for their quarry, but Amalia did not like the idea of any of them facing down a group of Venatori alone, however temporarily that would be.
So their search was slow and systematic instead. A few of the doors were locked; for those whose mechanisms were not completely destroyed, her picks served well enough. For the irreparably rusted or broken, Cyrus's magic did the trick, but so far they had found little. A few signs of recent presence, but that was all. It wasn't until they reached another passage, this one a tunnel leading deeper underground, that she was sure they'd struck at last upon their goal.
Unfortunately, the passage was lined with red lyrium crystals, jutting out at odd angles from the walls, floor and ceiling. Though the way through was broad enough to avoid them, it would be tight quarters in a fight.
Amalia did not know which of them triggered the ward, but there was no fault regardless. It was a complex one, invisible most likely, but when someone's foot found it, the resulting sharp whistle was loud enough to echo back out of the passage and into the cavern itself.
The response was almost immediate. "Fuckin' darkspawn, I swear to—" A Venatori mage rounded the corner, muttering obscenities under his breath, hands already lit with the magical fire no doubt meant for a very different kind of intruder. Their appearance brought him up short; though another knife silenced him, the sound of his spell detonating early would surely draw the rest.
Lia cursed under her breath, just loud enough for Amalia to hear. Her bowstring was tense, already partly drawn back in preparation to loose her first arrow and anyone that came next. She'd have to adjust her aim for Leta, of course; they needed her alive.
"Push forward, fall back, or fight here?" she asked. It went without saying that the tight quarters weren't the best for an archer, but they may not have much choice. Push forward and they could find something worse. Fall back and they could lose their quarry, once they found the body.
The options were more or less denied them; the other Venatori must have been close by. A pair of them, garbed in red and wielding flaming axes, moved first into the corridor, bending around the protruding lyrium like it was none of their concern. Perhaps it wasn't; they appeared not to be mages like many of their companions.
Behind them filed two more, garbed the same. A heavy spike of ice flew down the passage, followed by a barrage of smaller fire projectiles; all of them crashed heavily into the barrier that sprang into existence behind the axe fighters but in front of the mages. From behind her, Cyrus grunted, and the barrier itself shattered, pitching the melee fighters forward and off-balance. Rilien swept in, knifing one of them in the side but barely avoiding the heavy cleave from the one that recovered faster. Dodging pressed his back to the tunnel wall, only a layer of leather between his body and a large spike of tainted lyrium.
“We must push forward—" He was cut off by the need to move again, and rolled away from the first seeping tendrils of a large cloud of entropic magic, the thick smoke of it curling and billowing to fill the passage with a wall of dangerous fumes. The mages continued to fling heavy elemental spells through it, less concerned with accuracy in the narrow tunnel and counting on sheer volume to strike something.
“Leta." Cyrus sucked in a deep breath, already wavering at the edges, then disappeared from sight entirely, blue-tinged afterimages making clear his trajectory: he'd jumped into the cloud itself.
Amalia had little time to consider the wisdom of that. If he couldn't handle himself, he wouldn't be here, and the remaining three of them had serious enough problems of their own to contend with. Barging into a thick spell like that without any means of magically enhancing their speed through it was a risk, one they'd probably have to take anyway, if only to take out the mages still flinging fire and ice in their direction.
The remaining melee fighter took advantage of their distraction to try and reach Lia. Before he could take a swing with the burning axe, Amalia drew the weighted chain from around her waist and swung it hastily, flinging it for his legs. The end managed to catch one ankle, and she hauled backwards, pulling his foot out from under him and sending him to a knee. She was unable to do much else for the moment—a lucky ice shard struck her square in the back and spread, engulfing her right arm and the same half of her torso in a thick layer of frost. She lost her balance and her grip on the chain, careening into the wall with just enough presence of mind to turn herself so she'd strike ice-side first.
She hit with a crunch, red lyrium crystals and ice shards grinding against one another and the impact jarring her shoulder. The fumes of the nearby and still-spreading cloud, combined with the proximity of the lyrium, were enough to daze the usual razor-sharpness of her perception, and she struggled to regain her footing.
A growl of frustration preceded Lia putting her bow away just behind Amalia, and drawing Parshaara instead. She quick-stepped right behind Amalia, igniting the fire enchantment marked into the blade and striking Amalia's ice-encased arm with force. It was enough to send rippling cracks through the ice and light much of it on fire, thankfully restricted to the freezing spell instead of spreading to Amalia herself.
"Look out!" Lia stepped in front of Amalia anyway, where the Venatori with the burning axe had made it back up and was bearing down on them. She caught the man's forearms, only sparing herself the axe by sinking her dagger into the weapon-wielding arm, but his strength outmatched hers. It wasn't but a moment before her arms were forced down and a headbutt caught her across the brow, the Venatori's helm cutting her above the eye. She stumbled back and fell, dazed but already trying to regain her feet.
Rilien made as if to step in as well, but before he could, the mages emerged from the thinning entropic cloud. 'Emerged' might not have been quite the right word; one of them collapsed through it as though she'd been flung a great distance, rolling to her feet quickly. The other staggered, but had the presence of mind left to fire off a stonefist in Amalia and Lia's general direction.
That, Rilien moved to intercept, cutting it out of the air with a precise blow to its center. It broke apart, and though all three of them were pelted viciously with shrapnel, it was no major damage. Rilien shifted to keep the mages busy, but that meant Amalia had to handle the man with the axe.
That was no mean feat. Though most of the ice had cracked or burned away, her vision still swam in front of her, and the heat shimmering off the axe wasn't helping her focus, either. From the sheath strapped to her thigh, Amalia drew a long, single-edged knife, flipping it back against her forearm and blinking furiously. Her legs steadied beneath her, and when the axe wielder swung, she was prepared for it, ducking in and parrying the blow at the very last second, the blunt edge of her knife pressing heavily into her bracer with the force of the impact.
The angle of deflection hurt her opponent far more than her, throwing his guard out as his axe rebounded, and she stepped up into his space, shifting the blade in her grip again and thrusting the pointed end up for his chin. It slid in under the helm, piercing the soft palate of his mouth and entering his brain before she jerked it out again, and he fell like a sack of stones.
Lia was rushing forward as he went down, trying to take advantage of a mage that was engaged with Rilien but had her back turned to the two threats behind her. Lia leapt straight onto her back, feet keeping the woman's staff away while she tried to plunge the bone dagger down into her. The mage soon abandoned it, sending a quickly aimed lightning spell up to try and blast Lia off. It missed, exploding against the ceiling instead and sending bits of rock raining down on their heads.
Before long Lia got one of the mage's arms out of the way, and her dagger bit hard into the opening. The mage spun about as she fell, throat sliced open, and both she and Lia went down. The elf was the only one to rise, however, wiping the blood from her cut out of her eyes, and pushing on aggressively into the thinning cloud as it steadily dispersed, towards the sounds of magical combat beyond.
With the pressure off, Rilien dispatched the remaining mage with relative ease, and he and Amalia followed. The noises became clearer and more discrete as they headed down the passage, the distinctive crackle of lightning, the heavy whistle of a bladed staff, and the peculiar whooshing hum of more entropic magic: a nightmare spell, perhaps.
They emerged in just enough time to see Cyrus jumping clear of the last. One of his steel swords was gone, thrown several feet away from the battle, its blade twisted and warped, still glowing with the heat of whatever spell had struck it. Marcus had trained no amateur, and Leta's magic was powerful. In lieu of the steel weapon, he bore a glowing blue blade in his free hand instead; it hummed at a low, purring frequency. Cyrus's lip was split, his helmet gone too and his face and armor streaked with dirt.
Leta's face was contorted in fury; she flung spells at a rate that had her opponent almost purely on the defensive, batting them away with the fade-weapon and trying to find some kind of opening. She seemed to be ignoring the rest of them entirely, but the shimmering arcane shield surrounding her sides and back meant it wouldn't be a simple matter to disable her, especially since they could not risk her death.
Rilien removed a small spherical object with a long wick from his belt; Amalia had enough familiarity with alchemy to recognize it as a smoke bomb. “I can blind her for a short while." It went without saying that they had to act quickly. Marcus and those closest to him were notoriously slippery even when cornered.
"Do it." Cyrus was an excellent distraction, but even someone as angry as Leta wouldn't fail to address the other threats in the room for long.
As soon as Rilien's toss had landed, Amalia was in motion, fixing the point she wanted in her mind and letting her sense of the distance involved guide her indirectly, even as dark smoke swallowed the field for the second time in the battle. Fortunately, this cloud carried no intoxicants, magical or otherwise, and so when she spotted the stirring in the cloud ahead of her, she knew exactly what she was looking at. Springing forward, Amalia reached out, closing her hand instinctively when her grip caught on fabric and wrenching backwards.
Leta fought hard, even barehanded, but they were in too close a a proximity for her magic to be safe for her to use, and there was no way she had the strength or experience required to outmaneuver Amalia in hand-to-hand. With a better sense for where she was gripping, Amalia twisted, pinning one of the elf woman's hands behind her back and kicking her in the back of the knee to force her to the ground.
By the time Rilien's smoke cleared, Amalia had Leta pinned, the side of her face pressed into the unyielding cave floor. It was only then, facing down four opponents from a hopeless position, that her resistance ceased, and her body went slack.
Finally—a definitive lead.
Just a little longer, and Marcus would be dead.
For the first time in months, the Inquisition had received actionable intelligence on the whereabouts of a member of Marcus's cabal, the inner circle of the Venatori. And it wasn't just any member; one of Rilien's spies had in fact spotted his apprentice, Leta. What exactly she was doing in a Deep Roads entrance in the Hinterlands of Ferelden almost didn't matter either: she was there, and they knew about it before she knew of them. Leta could well be the link that broke the chain and allowed the Inquistion to do away with the Venatori. And Amalia to do away with Marcus.
A small, but effective team had been dispatched to deal with Leta and her detachment of mages, as well as whatever else they might find in the caverns. Amalia led it, and with her were Rilien, Lia, and the Lady Inquisitor's brother Cyrus. It seemed he knew Leta better than Amalia did, and she could not object to the addition of a powerful mage to the group. Not when there was bound to be so much magic on the other side of the fight.
By mid-spring, the Hinterlands were primarily green, the grasses threaded through with the amber that never entirely left the region. Pollen was thick enough in the air that it was sometimes visible: a green-gold haze that caught on clothes and in uncovered hair, dusting them all in clinging motes. Aside from the occasional hard exhale to clear it from her nasal cavity, Amalia took little notice of it as anything but a smell. The first light of dawn was already about to touch the landscape; they'd elected to raid with first light on the rationale that it was likely to catch their quarry unprepared, whether she'd been active on a nocturnal or diurnal schedule. It would also likely mean a shift change for her attendants.
Amalia skirted the edge of the small pond; it sat up against a short cliffside, water tumbling over the edge. The spray it sent up glinted in the predawn light, slicking the rocky rim of the waterline and making their passage precarious. Fortunately, the group was well-suited to handle such obstacles, and to do so quietly.
Mist caught her uncovered cheek as she slipped behind the fall; the cavern entrance was marred by red lyrium veins in the ground. Striking, so close to a Deep Roads entrance, but not surprising, considering what the Inquisition believed red lyrium to be. Motioning behind her to the others, she slid into the cavern first, scanning for movement and finding none.
The chamber itself was massive, the ceiling vaulted high over their heads, the pathway in front of them broken and jagged, leading back and down, it seemed, with a network of rickety wooden bridges and pathways carved directly into the stone by whatever dwarves had once dwelled here. Amalia drew two throwing knives, deciding she was more likely to first encounter something worth killing at a distance, and paused for the others to filter in behind.
Lia had left her cloak back at their last camp, short time though they'd spent there. It would help to have somewhere to briefly return to and catch their breath before making the march back to Skyhold. She had an arrow nocked now, as it had been for perhaps the last half hour, bowstring resting near the edge of the dragonhide archer's bracer Amalia had given to her years ago.
Kadan always kept Parshaara sheathed on his chest, but Lia preferred it on her thigh. It was the only small way that Ithilian could be here fighting with them, and he'd long since come to terms with the fact that the knife, and the training he could give his daughter, would be enough.
She kept to the middle of their formation, where she'd be most likely to be able to loose arrows without being attacked. If they were ambushed, it would just as likely come from behind as in front, after all.
Cyrus brought up the rear, placing his feet carefully and watching behind them attentively. Though his missing magic had been restored, he still wore steel, the blades crossed at the small of his back for easy reach and minimal jostling. Unwilling to forgo their potential element of surprise, they'd elected not to light their own way, and instead proceed through the dim caverns only once their eyes had adjusted.
Rilien had already drawn one of his knives, frost billowing noiselessly off the edge and sinking to the ground. He took care to give the occasional red lyrium protrusion a wide berth, but he otherwise floated in the space between Amalia and Lia, covering both flanks more or less simultaneously.
They followed what seemed to be the only recently-used path forward, though whether the scuffs had been put in their places by Venatori or darkspawn was difficult to say even by the experienced trackers in their number. A scrape in the stone or splinter in one of the wooden bridges could be either, and there was not enough soft material for the signs of passage to be any more concrete than that. The air here tasted faintly rotten, the damp of the falls weighting down the air in the cavern and the stench of the Deep Roads below drifting up to add an edge of decay.
They worked their way down slowly—the chasm that yawned below them did not recommend haste. Any fall from this height would mean certain death, and in places, handrails and other protections were missing, the paths narrow and treacherous with loose debris.
It was at something of a landing—a stone shelf at the end of a bridge—that Rilien stilled, his eyes flickering to a smaller cleft in the stone to their left. “Darkspawn."
The word was the only warning they got before the first pale monstrosities burst forth, spilling out from the adjoining cave as though it were a nest of them. Most held weapons, crude and wickedly-sharp, but their strategy was simple: charge, and overwhelm the small group with force and numbers. With an open cliff to their right, a rickety bridge behind, and a narrow, open stone pathway ahead, space to maneuver would be at a premium.
A bolt of lightning streaked forward from behind Amalia, passing so closely by she could almost feel it crackle. Cyrus aimed it for the back of the emerging group, and it struck hard, blasting apart the hurlock it hit directly, chaining between a tangle of his nearest companions and locking up their joints, freezing them momentarily in their places. Rilien did not hesitate to move forward, stepping up to meet the creatures in front so the group would not immediately be pushed to the edge of the landing. His knife flashed, finding a genlock's throat and dropping it to the ground. His next foe lunged, but the tranquil ducked aside, planting his foot to trip the darkspawn and then deliver a solid kick to its back. It pitched forward and tumbled over the side.
An arrow whistled over Amalia's head as well, slightly more arced than the lightning. It struck a hurlock just as it emerged from the cave, piercing through its skull. It stumbled forward several steps unconsciously before its legs gave out and sent it spilling to the ground.
Amalia sprang forward into the melee as well, shoring up Rilien's right side. A genlock came in low, sweeping for her feet with a broadaxe, and she was forced to jump, angling her landing so that the backswing caught her legs much too early to have any hope of dislodging her balance, then slid forward and buried one knife into its eye, hurling the other for a second darkspawn moving in on Cyrus's flank.
The fight was unavoidably noisy, but it was over quickly. Once she'd made sure that everyone was uninjured, she checked the crevice. Empty. Satisfied that the way they were moving was the correct one, she retook point position and led the group further down the chasm. Eventually, the constructions around them took on a different feel. The buildings were carved from older stone, more worn but also sturdier. Ancient dwarven residences, and a sign that they'd reached the deep roads proper. The terrain spread out more before them, now, providing them with more than one place to search for their quarry, but Amalia did not like the idea of any of them facing down a group of Venatori alone, however temporarily that would be.
So their search was slow and systematic instead. A few of the doors were locked; for those whose mechanisms were not completely destroyed, her picks served well enough. For the irreparably rusted or broken, Cyrus's magic did the trick, but so far they had found little. A few signs of recent presence, but that was all. It wasn't until they reached another passage, this one a tunnel leading deeper underground, that she was sure they'd struck at last upon their goal.
Unfortunately, the passage was lined with red lyrium crystals, jutting out at odd angles from the walls, floor and ceiling. Though the way through was broad enough to avoid them, it would be tight quarters in a fight.
Amalia did not know which of them triggered the ward, but there was no fault regardless. It was a complex one, invisible most likely, but when someone's foot found it, the resulting sharp whistle was loud enough to echo back out of the passage and into the cavern itself.
The response was almost immediate. "Fuckin' darkspawn, I swear to—" A Venatori mage rounded the corner, muttering obscenities under his breath, hands already lit with the magical fire no doubt meant for a very different kind of intruder. Their appearance brought him up short; though another knife silenced him, the sound of his spell detonating early would surely draw the rest.
Lia cursed under her breath, just loud enough for Amalia to hear. Her bowstring was tense, already partly drawn back in preparation to loose her first arrow and anyone that came next. She'd have to adjust her aim for Leta, of course; they needed her alive.
"Push forward, fall back, or fight here?" she asked. It went without saying that the tight quarters weren't the best for an archer, but they may not have much choice. Push forward and they could find something worse. Fall back and they could lose their quarry, once they found the body.
The options were more or less denied them; the other Venatori must have been close by. A pair of them, garbed in red and wielding flaming axes, moved first into the corridor, bending around the protruding lyrium like it was none of their concern. Perhaps it wasn't; they appeared not to be mages like many of their companions.
Behind them filed two more, garbed the same. A heavy spike of ice flew down the passage, followed by a barrage of smaller fire projectiles; all of them crashed heavily into the barrier that sprang into existence behind the axe fighters but in front of the mages. From behind her, Cyrus grunted, and the barrier itself shattered, pitching the melee fighters forward and off-balance. Rilien swept in, knifing one of them in the side but barely avoiding the heavy cleave from the one that recovered faster. Dodging pressed his back to the tunnel wall, only a layer of leather between his body and a large spike of tainted lyrium.
“We must push forward—" He was cut off by the need to move again, and rolled away from the first seeping tendrils of a large cloud of entropic magic, the thick smoke of it curling and billowing to fill the passage with a wall of dangerous fumes. The mages continued to fling heavy elemental spells through it, less concerned with accuracy in the narrow tunnel and counting on sheer volume to strike something.
“Leta." Cyrus sucked in a deep breath, already wavering at the edges, then disappeared from sight entirely, blue-tinged afterimages making clear his trajectory: he'd jumped into the cloud itself.
Amalia had little time to consider the wisdom of that. If he couldn't handle himself, he wouldn't be here, and the remaining three of them had serious enough problems of their own to contend with. Barging into a thick spell like that without any means of magically enhancing their speed through it was a risk, one they'd probably have to take anyway, if only to take out the mages still flinging fire and ice in their direction.
The remaining melee fighter took advantage of their distraction to try and reach Lia. Before he could take a swing with the burning axe, Amalia drew the weighted chain from around her waist and swung it hastily, flinging it for his legs. The end managed to catch one ankle, and she hauled backwards, pulling his foot out from under him and sending him to a knee. She was unable to do much else for the moment—a lucky ice shard struck her square in the back and spread, engulfing her right arm and the same half of her torso in a thick layer of frost. She lost her balance and her grip on the chain, careening into the wall with just enough presence of mind to turn herself so she'd strike ice-side first.
She hit with a crunch, red lyrium crystals and ice shards grinding against one another and the impact jarring her shoulder. The fumes of the nearby and still-spreading cloud, combined with the proximity of the lyrium, were enough to daze the usual razor-sharpness of her perception, and she struggled to regain her footing.
A growl of frustration preceded Lia putting her bow away just behind Amalia, and drawing Parshaara instead. She quick-stepped right behind Amalia, igniting the fire enchantment marked into the blade and striking Amalia's ice-encased arm with force. It was enough to send rippling cracks through the ice and light much of it on fire, thankfully restricted to the freezing spell instead of spreading to Amalia herself.
"Look out!" Lia stepped in front of Amalia anyway, where the Venatori with the burning axe had made it back up and was bearing down on them. She caught the man's forearms, only sparing herself the axe by sinking her dagger into the weapon-wielding arm, but his strength outmatched hers. It wasn't but a moment before her arms were forced down and a headbutt caught her across the brow, the Venatori's helm cutting her above the eye. She stumbled back and fell, dazed but already trying to regain her feet.
Rilien made as if to step in as well, but before he could, the mages emerged from the thinning entropic cloud. 'Emerged' might not have been quite the right word; one of them collapsed through it as though she'd been flung a great distance, rolling to her feet quickly. The other staggered, but had the presence of mind left to fire off a stonefist in Amalia and Lia's general direction.
That, Rilien moved to intercept, cutting it out of the air with a precise blow to its center. It broke apart, and though all three of them were pelted viciously with shrapnel, it was no major damage. Rilien shifted to keep the mages busy, but that meant Amalia had to handle the man with the axe.
That was no mean feat. Though most of the ice had cracked or burned away, her vision still swam in front of her, and the heat shimmering off the axe wasn't helping her focus, either. From the sheath strapped to her thigh, Amalia drew a long, single-edged knife, flipping it back against her forearm and blinking furiously. Her legs steadied beneath her, and when the axe wielder swung, she was prepared for it, ducking in and parrying the blow at the very last second, the blunt edge of her knife pressing heavily into her bracer with the force of the impact.
The angle of deflection hurt her opponent far more than her, throwing his guard out as his axe rebounded, and she stepped up into his space, shifting the blade in her grip again and thrusting the pointed end up for his chin. It slid in under the helm, piercing the soft palate of his mouth and entering his brain before she jerked it out again, and he fell like a sack of stones.
Lia was rushing forward as he went down, trying to take advantage of a mage that was engaged with Rilien but had her back turned to the two threats behind her. Lia leapt straight onto her back, feet keeping the woman's staff away while she tried to plunge the bone dagger down into her. The mage soon abandoned it, sending a quickly aimed lightning spell up to try and blast Lia off. It missed, exploding against the ceiling instead and sending bits of rock raining down on their heads.
Before long Lia got one of the mage's arms out of the way, and her dagger bit hard into the opening. The mage spun about as she fell, throat sliced open, and both she and Lia went down. The elf was the only one to rise, however, wiping the blood from her cut out of her eyes, and pushing on aggressively into the thinning cloud as it steadily dispersed, towards the sounds of magical combat beyond.
With the pressure off, Rilien dispatched the remaining mage with relative ease, and he and Amalia followed. The noises became clearer and more discrete as they headed down the passage, the distinctive crackle of lightning, the heavy whistle of a bladed staff, and the peculiar whooshing hum of more entropic magic: a nightmare spell, perhaps.
They emerged in just enough time to see Cyrus jumping clear of the last. One of his steel swords was gone, thrown several feet away from the battle, its blade twisted and warped, still glowing with the heat of whatever spell had struck it. Marcus had trained no amateur, and Leta's magic was powerful. In lieu of the steel weapon, he bore a glowing blue blade in his free hand instead; it hummed at a low, purring frequency. Cyrus's lip was split, his helmet gone too and his face and armor streaked with dirt.
Leta's face was contorted in fury; she flung spells at a rate that had her opponent almost purely on the defensive, batting them away with the fade-weapon and trying to find some kind of opening. She seemed to be ignoring the rest of them entirely, but the shimmering arcane shield surrounding her sides and back meant it wouldn't be a simple matter to disable her, especially since they could not risk her death.
Rilien removed a small spherical object with a long wick from his belt; Amalia had enough familiarity with alchemy to recognize it as a smoke bomb. “I can blind her for a short while." It went without saying that they had to act quickly. Marcus and those closest to him were notoriously slippery even when cornered.
"Do it." Cyrus was an excellent distraction, but even someone as angry as Leta wouldn't fail to address the other threats in the room for long.
As soon as Rilien's toss had landed, Amalia was in motion, fixing the point she wanted in her mind and letting her sense of the distance involved guide her indirectly, even as dark smoke swallowed the field for the second time in the battle. Fortunately, this cloud carried no intoxicants, magical or otherwise, and so when she spotted the stirring in the cloud ahead of her, she knew exactly what she was looking at. Springing forward, Amalia reached out, closing her hand instinctively when her grip caught on fabric and wrenching backwards.
Leta fought hard, even barehanded, but they were in too close a a proximity for her magic to be safe for her to use, and there was no way she had the strength or experience required to outmaneuver Amalia in hand-to-hand. With a better sense for where she was gripping, Amalia twisted, pinning one of the elf woman's hands behind her back and kicking her in the back of the knee to force her to the ground.
By the time Rilien's smoke cleared, Amalia had Leta pinned, the side of her face pressed into the unyielding cave floor. It was only then, facing down four opponents from a hopeless position, that her resistance ceased, and her body went slack.
Finally—a definitive lead.
Just a little longer, and Marcus would be dead.