"Would it help if I said it."

"That sounds good. Since you're - representing the armies of your plane." says Fazil.

"Okay! Let's do this."

And they plane shift. 

And suddenly they are somewhere else.

They are in a settlement. It might not be proper to call it a city, certainly not next to Sothis, but there are relatively tall stone buildings and gray stone roads and people, mostly walking along the roads. Most are human; a few are elves.

The people stop walking when they appear. A couple people run off, probably to report their appearance.

"Not Ferelden," announces Aria, because she's pretty sure there aren't settlements that look quite like this anywhere in her country, and also the people are dressed weird, although she didn't catch what language they were speaking. "But once we figure out where it is we can head in the right direction."

Everyone looks around in fascination. 

They're near an open-air market, it looks like, with stalls selling mostly food but also some tools and some art and some other things. In one direction there are some gray and white buildings with mostly red accents and mostly pretty architecture. There's something that looks like it might be a Chantry, and some places that look like houses for moderately wealthy people.

She wanders up to one of the people who isn't looking at them extremely suspiciously. This one doesn't look suspicious because she's examining fruit, and didn't see them appear. "Excuse me, ma'am - "

     "What do you want, knife ears?"

" - well, that's the right language, anyway. Could you tell me what country this is?"

     "Of all the fool things - go home to your master."

She frowns. "Draconis, can you - "

"Yep." He'll just... head over a ways so he can also talk to someone who isn't already staring. "Excuse me, sir - we've gotten very lost, could you tell me what town this is?"

     "You're in Vyrantium."

"Oh, huh! Thank you."

"Where's Vyrantium?"

"The Tevinter Imperium."

"I guess this is probably not a teleport-grade emergency but I am only mostly sure of that."

Mahdi pulls the teleport out just in case. "I'd sooner save them for the battle but I can ready an action for if we're fired upon?"

Nod. "We should hike out of the city before - we should just hike out."

She leads them in a direction. They get about one street before they're stopped by a group of - templars, she guesses, she didn't even know they had templars here. Then again she doesn't know a lot of things about Tevinter, so.

     "Halt," says the man she assumes is the leader.

She sighs and raises her hands, not very high. "I am on official business for - "

     "Did I ask you a question?"

She glares. "For the Gray - "

     "Does this elf belong to anyone here? No?"

" - I take responsibility for the elf."

     The leader frowns. "You're a mage?"

"Yes sir."

     "A foreign mage."

"Yes sir."

     "We received word of a group of foreign mages appearing in this area through unknown means. That's you?"

" - Yes sir."

     "What's your business here?"

He shoots a slightly panicked glance at Aria. "We're - on official business for the Gray Wardens. Sir. There's a blight to the south."

      "Then you're traveling in an interesting direction."

" - I guess. We got lost."

     "I see," says the Templar, who does not sound very convinced. "We'd like to run this by the authorities. If your business is legitimate there should be no trouble. Would you mind handing over your packs and weapons and following me?"

Well, that's how it goes sometimes. Fazil and Hagan hand over their weapons and packs with only mild annoyance. 

Mahdi's coin purse is not visible, are they going to look that closely?

Not right now. That'll be because Templars expect they can take a group of weird-looking foreign mages, even if they did just teleport into the city. Luckily the only person actually disadvantaged by Templar powers is Draconis. - probably, she hasn't actually tested this, but it stands to reason that if a kind of magic doesn't work based on the Fade, then you can't counter it by reinforcing reality, right?

She takes a moment to desperately hope that Osirian magic works here at all.

She hands over her sword and pack and - crap, she really should have thought to put the treaties somewhere less obvious before they teleported in, now she can't bolt without her pack.

They follow the Templars, who automatically form a circle around them. 

"We should ask to contact the Tevinter wardens," says Aria, quietly. "If they don't let us pass."

"You think they'll detain us? People must ever visit the Imperium - "

"I don't know! But if we have problems we talk to the wardens, if you want help that's what I've got."

Can she tell if Mahdi still has teleport scroll access? Not that she can really leave without the treaties anyway, but it itches, not knowing what their options are -

They are in his coin purse along with a lot of other things that should by rights not fit in a coin purse.

Okay! She does not have to panic then. This is her, not panicking. Weapons can be replaced and it would suck to lose whatever else was in the packs but if worst comes to worst she can possibly feasibly try just reminding the Dalish of their ancestral obligations without the papers. It is entirely possible that like her the Dalish elves mostly can't read in the first place.

Probably the Tevinters are as on board as everyone else with the world continuing to exist and nothing horrible is going to happen anyway. Probably. 

They're taken to a government office of some kind. The Templars do not leave them there, they continue to block access to the exits. There's a civil servant who would like to ask them some questions one by one, in the next room. In the mean time could they also hand over any and all magical or enchanted items they may still have?

(Aria attempts to shake her head at Mahdi without making it obvious that this is what she is doing, but she is kind of not optimistic that this is working as a form of communication.)

Mahdi looks mildly annoyed but hands over his coin purse.

Hagan takes off his shirt and looks downright cheerful about this.

Aaaaah.

Probably it'll be fine, probably it'll be fine, if they can just get to the wardens and explain things, but if if it's not fine this is gonna be a mess -

Sigh.

"I'm going to need another set of robes."

     "Of course! One moment."

He can tell that Aria thinks they're already in deep shit, but he kind of thinks Aria is panicking for reasons that are maybe not directly related to how much actual danger they're in, and - a minute later he surrenders his robe and accepts a replacement and gives a truthful if somewhat incomplete statement about his business in the next room.

They want Mahdi next.

Sure. 

By what method did he appear in Vyrantium? What is his relation to his traveling companions? What is his nation of origin? Can he summarize his business in the Imperium? 

Plane shift. They're an adventuring party with twenty-six successful contracts and an average ROI of 46%. Osirion. Yes, he plans to leave it and go to Ferelden to fight the Blight.

Can he explain what plane shift is.

It's a spell that powerful clerics and even more powerful wizards can cast to travel to other planes. 

Hm. Is he a mage? Was he operative in casting the plane shift spell?

He is a wizard. He didn't cast the plane shift, they purchased it in Osirion. 

The person asking questions thanks him and tells him to go on out and send the next person in.

They ask Fazil and then Hagan the same set of questions.

They get about the same answers. Fazil asserts that he is a cleric and Hagan asserts that he is their busboy.

They are thanked.

They don't bother asking anything of Aria or the animals.

They wait a while after. Maybe thirty minutes. At that point someone comes in and informs them that their superior would like to meet with them more extensively over dinner tonight, to discuss their presence here and whether Tevinter can be of any assistance with the Blight. They can expect their possessions to be returned afterwards.

"Thank you," says Fazil. 

Then the Templars can take them to see this person's superior.

They're not taken to an office this time. They're taken to a manor house. A big one, with an entrance hall and a central courtyard. An elf about Aria's age is cleaning; she doesn't react to their presence at all. In a corner of the courtyard, an old mage and a child are practicing spells together. It's quiet. Sort of idyllic.

"This is bad."

"Why's that?" says Fazil evenly.

"Not procedure. I don't know what the normal procedure is here but I am pretty sure it doesn't include being invited to people's houses."

"You cannot possibly know what procedure is in Tevinter."

"I know we've attracted way more attention than we want."

"If we can contact the wardens it'll all blow over. Probably."

Fazil is trying not to glance at Hagan. "Stop that," Hagan hisses at him. 

"I don't want to cast Tongues on everyone, I'd rather save my spells for if there is trouble," Mahdi said. "Maybe just you, Fazil, and you can speak for us."

"Okay."

A man in black and gold robes greets them a minute later. He's older; his beard is graying. 

      "Gentlemen! I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. If the four of you would follow me?"

“You miscount, sir," says Draconis, evenly. "There are five of us.”

     “Oh, I’m sorry. Do Fereldans let their dogs eat at their tables?”

 Draconis glares. “Every country has its customs.”

     “Of course. But this is Tevinter, and we prefer ours.”

He looks disgusted. And then he looks at Aria.

She hates this place.

"I guess I'll watch the animals."

"I will also watch the animals," says Hagan, "because my father was an elf."

Fazil looks anxiously at Aria to figure out whether it will be disastrous to translate this.

"Hagan says he'll watch the animals too."

"...I guess there are three of us," sighs Draconis.

     "As you wish," says the - probably magister? "This way."

Fazil and Mahdi follow, not looking back anxiously at Hagan at all.

He sits down on the ground and looks around for locals.

There's the other elf, now sweeping the entryway of dust. The mages in the courtyard have gone somewhere else.

Okay. Fy should go follow Fazil and Mahdi. 

"If there's trouble we should go for the trees, I can do more in a fight there," he says quietly.

Serious nod.

She crosses her arms and looks at the ceiling.

For a while no one bothers them.

"Fereldans do really like dogs. Not as much as we do in the jokes, but."

"Dogs are great. Not super suitable as adventuring companions in the desert, until you're high enough level to have some climate control, but wonderful as friends."

Happy bark of agreement!

She smiles and pets North. 

"We didn't wanna eat their food anyway, did we."

"Formal dinners are just an elaborate form of torture that inexplicably doesn't count as Evil and is therefore preferred by sensible sadists everywhere."

"I have never actually had to sit through one. Unless you count holiday feasts, I guess, but I have a feeling that people from the alienage do them sort of differently."

"We had them weekly. They were the only time I could interact with any of my girl relatives which you'd think would have been a substantial redeeming feature but they were still horrible."

"They sound horrible! Not that I even really know what they consist of, but I had friends who were cooks and stuff, before, and - it just sounds like so much."

"In Ferelden do all of the heights of chairs correspond to how important people are? In Osirion all of the heights of chairs correspond to how important people are."

"That sounds awful. No, Ferelden is only slightly less egalitarian than the jokes make us sound. Well. Compared to most other people. The only people who really don't care who you are are the wardens. But, like, when we had a king he used to drink with random enlisted soldiers without any bodyguards."

"I think that'd make the pharaoh happy, even, but he can't - not that he's miserable, he has his council of a hundred and he has his family and he has his women and probably that's enough even for him. But - it's so unescapable -"

Nod.

He kicks the ground. "Is everyone here this rude to their slaves?"

"Wouldn't know. It's illegal in Ferelden. - slavery, I mean, not rudeness. People're rude to elves but it's a little less - this. Usually."

"I don't like this at all."

"It's not great. I think I was getting used to people mostly talking to the Gray Warden crest."

"I never talk to people with the -" hand motion - "but people don't usually treat random adventuring parties this way either! You'd think we'd burned down half the city and were claiming it was a dragon!"

"Yeah, I dunno what's up with that. They've never seen a plane shift before. I think. I could be wrong but I think we just - don't have those."

"I know you don't have clerics but it's a wizard spell too, just a bit later."

"Nah, I think both your kinds of magic are different. All the magic we have is pulling stuff from the Fade, the - place we go when we dream. It's, like, affected by your desires and mind state, and stuff. Mages can manipulate it even when they're awake, and - I guess magic is mostly pulling Fade effects from the other side of the Veil to this one. Draconis would explain it better, probably. But I think all of your magic is something else, and you can do different things with yours than we can."

"Huh."

"Yeah, so it's - if we hadn't landed right in a settlement you could have passed for normal mages, but - " Shrug. "They think something pretty weird is going on. And maybe that's all it is."

Nod.

Fazil casts Detect Poison on the food. Just to be safe.

This food is totally poisoned.

Charming. Mahdi will know the hand signal for this but he might have to awkwardly cough in Draconis's direction.

Where is their stuff. Anywhere visible?

Nope! They haven't seen it since the office. 

Draconis is only like thirty percent sure what the coughing means, but he decides not to eat yet anyway.

Their host starts eating and invites them to try the food.

Is it still poisoned after a casting of purify food and drink? That doesn't get magical potions but it gets mundane ones.

No more poison.

Huh cool okay. 

He'll eat.

Mahdi will follow his lead.

....okay, then he'll eat, too.

The magister asks them some questions about their homeland with what might or might not be some amount of genuine interest. He keeps it up for a while. It would probably seem pretty normal if not for the poison and the fact that they were dragged here by law enforcement.

Osirion is one of the oldest civilizations in Golarion and is eagerly awaiting their return from fighting the blight to establish diplomatic relationships on this plane. They were impressed by the courage and combat abilities of the Wardens, though it’s kind of odd that they’ve had to go to so much trouble to secure the forces they need.

Isn't it! Perhaps the Tevinter Wardens can be of assistance once they hear about this. It was the Tevinter Imperium, after all, that the first Grey Wardens came from, and it seems possible that they are more equipped to handle a Blight than the branch that exists in Ferelden.

Fazil has the sense that the Ferelden wardens are very eager to contact the local wardens for that among other reasons. Has that been done yet?

Yes, he assures them, a message was sent immediately. But the Tevinter Wardens are headquartered in Minrathous, almost a hundred miles away, and it may take them some time to put together a response.

Of course. 

At some point during dinner it becomes obvious that the poison has, for whatever reason, had no effect on them. Without warning, a glowing white design of some sort appears on the floor. They are all immediately rendered unable to move. They only have a moment or so to worry about this; after that, the magister says something and goes through the motions of a spell, then another. They feel weakened and exhausted, and then all of them fall asleep.

Fy expresses his feelings about this by biting the magister on the ankle. Venomously.

He curses and makes an attempt to set the snake on fire.

This works fine. The snake will - it's not really clear if he's trying to put himself out or just make sure the curtains and tablecloth go up too.

What a horrible snake. He pours water on the tablecloth and yells for the two other mages beyond the door. He casts a healing spell on himself. He casts a freezing spell on the snake.

The snake stops moving.

" - something's wrong -"

" - what - "

"Fy's hurt." Is there something around here he could use to crush someone's skull.

It's a pretty sparse entryway. There's a decorative vase on one pedestal and a stone bust on another. 

A white design appears on the floor below them.

- it takes kind of a lot of effort, but she springs up. 

"Paralysis glyph!"

It takes a lot of effort but he is really mad right now. He smashes the vase and - stupid to run into the room Fy's in without a weapon - tries a different door instead.

There's a mage behind it. She makes a panicked face and then hits him with a bolt of lightning.

This hurts very badly and does not knock him down and he is going to attempt to kill her with his fists if there's nothing else obvious to grab here  - oh wait there is the spell Savage Maw that grants him a bite attack okay he will try to kill her with his fists and with that.

She screams and falls down, bleeding out.

Two more mages enter through a different door. These two are pretty far out of range of his fists and his bite attack. One of them casts something that makes him feel weak and exhausted. The other fires off a blast of magical energy and then creates another paralysis glyph below him.

They're probably not out of range for the spell Iron Stake but that's all he's got, he's not actually a caster - 

He stops moving.

She makes a hand motion - it doesn't look quite like it can be a spell, but it's something - and the glyph and the exhaustion melt away. She's already rocketing across the room by the time she finishes, and the mages barely have time to react to the nullification before she punches one of them in the face. She can't hit both of them at once, though, and the other one hits her with lightning. A lot of lightning. 

He can punch that one in the face!

Unfortunately, even if you are really, really good at punching things, it is kind of hard to win against lots and lots of lightning magic with your fists. And the mages can heal each other between attacks.

There's a lot of lightning, and then another casting of weakness, and then more lightning, and then both of them are going to be on the ground in very poor shape.

"My family will trap your soul in a rock and drop it to the bottom of the ocean if you're somehow not evil," he snarls at them, which will achieve nothing as he doesn't speak their language.

Under different circumstances she could translate but at the moment she is having a very hard time staying conscious at all. One of the mages kicks her in the face, hard. She can taste blood. She can hear North whimpering across the room from her, but can't see what's happened to him. She doesn't know what's happened to Mahdi's bird at all.

Should have teleported as soon as they arrived here.

One of the mages casts another spell, and both of them black out.

She wakes up bound and gagged in - a covered cart, of some kind, she guesses, from the sensation of motion and the sounds. It's mostly but not completely dark; there's a very small window near the top of the box they're in, and from the light level she expects that it's almost dusk. She can see the other four members of her party here, also bound and gagged, each of them in a sort of mini-enclosure separated from the others by bars. 

None of the animals are visible.

Well. 

They have been in worse scrapes but only the once. 

She hates everything. 

She tests the strength of the bars and the walls, not actually hoping it'll do anything. It doesn't. 

Well. Whoever is causing them so much trouble obviously doesn't want them dead. That's... something, maybe? 

Twice a day someone casts a paralysis spell on them and then soaks the gags with water. They are not given food.

On the morning of the third day, the cart stops.

Where?

Another manor house, looks like, in the few seconds they can see through the open door. There's a city in the distance, much larger than the one they came from, maybe as large as Sothis. It's all black and red four-story buildings, looks like, some of them fancier-looking than others.

And then someone casts paralysis, weakness, weakness, sleep.

She wakes up in a much larger but equally bare room, with a single high-up, very heavily grated window. It's day. Hagan and North and Fy are all there, unbound but not uninjured. Everyone else is missing. There's a single plate of food in one corner, near the door. She doesn't touch it.

"You awake?"

He is awake. They do not have a language in common. 

He sits there meditating.

Right, languages.

She flops. Pets her dog. Pushes the plate of food towards him. Prays.

He eats the food. Takes the plate. Concentrates and - turns it into a bladed throwing star. It still looks the same but it should do damage as one now.

To demonstrate this he cuts his arm.

She blinks at him and looks moderately concerned, and then - nod.

He can also do resistance against electricity for one of them but that one won't last all day so he'll wait.

He holds Fy and stares at the wall.

...she's honestly sort of regretting having given him all of the food; it seemed like the right thing to do at the time but she's really incredibly hungry now, actually.

An hour later someone slips two more plates of food through some kind of grating mechanism in the door that never actually gives the prisoners a view to the outside. She pushes one towards Hagan and Fy and keeps the other to be distributed between herself and North.

Well, okay.

He's eating the food because it's not like they can't kill them if they want to, now.

And if they don't eat they definitely will die, and will also be in a much worse position to do anything if their captors make a mistake, so.

Three hours later (or two, or five, she can't keep time like this), there are two more plates of food.

Weird? Well it'll be more weapons, eventually.

And a few hours later there are two more plates, and a few hours after that someone comes by again.

"Those ones have already had three today," says someone outside.

Aria tilts her head just so, towards the wall with the door in it, and sits very, very still.

     "Magister's orders," says someone else, quietly. "They haven't eaten since they were captured in Vyrantium."

"What does he care about that?"

     "Something about not being able to send them into the fade on an empty stomach. Once they're in he might want them under for days for observation. Have to pull them out early if they're starving, if he doesn't want to lose his investment."

"Huh."

     "I'm really just doing what I'm told."

"Send them in, then, I guess."

Two more plates appear.

Well he's not really hungry right now but maybe it'll keep.

They're gonna be deliberately trapped in the Fade to be spied on. She's not sure if there's a way to do that with normal magic, but the last time she was trapped in the Fade it was courtesy of a demon, and technically she did defeat the demon but it was not easy, and also there were not other people around causing problems after that, and also she was not trying to keep a bunch of Tevinter mages from - fuck, if anyone would repay kindness in stopping the Blight by going to someone's home realm and trying to conquer it or bleed it for more power and resources, it would be the people who invaded the golden city and created the darkspawn -

She does not know how to communicate 'we are going to be trapped in the Fade for several days and then spied on by demons' without a common language to someone who might not actually have all of those concepts, and she's not even sure it'll actually do any good, but it feels like an error not to try. How do you -

She makes a noise to get his attention. Points to him and to her, pantomimes sleeping, points out the door, points to her eyes and then away from them, like she's watching something, and points to her head. She... doesn't know how to ask if that made sense to him.

Well he looks super confused.

Ugh, she's not any good at this. Should have practiced communicating with people who she didn't have a common language with before she was trapped in a cell.

She makes a little walking sign with her fingers, trying to go for 'people' but maybe it looks like it means walking. Ugh. Maybe that's okay, though. She can point out to the hallway, and the little walking fingers can walk along the wall they share with the hallway, and stop at the door, and she can point to the door and make her mouth move and point to that, and point to herself and then to her ears. 

She is not sure if that communicates 'people came and I heard what they were saying' but she's bad at this, see.

Nah he got that part, he heard them too. Nod...nod?

Okay. The people outside said - how do you pantomime the concept of dreaming - uh, she points to herself and pantomimes sleeping again and then - makes a motion like lots of wispy something emanating from her head, and again tries pointing to the door and then making her sign for watching and then points to her head.

Miserable flop. Maybe he doesn't dream, he's really really not going to get this if he doesn't dream.

"The Fade," she says, aloud, because if they don't have the concept in Osirion then maybe the word didn't translate before and maybe he knows her word for it?

He draws his hand across his throat and gestures far away.

...yes, people do go to the Fade when they die, that's right. She nods. - it might be good to have yes and no, she points to the nodding and says "yes" and shakes her head and says "no" and does that a couple more times just so it's obvious that the words correspond to the gestures and this is not an extended pantomime sentence of its own.

Got it.

Okay. She copies his gesture for death. "Yes Fade, yes Fade, yes Fade." She repeats her pantomime for sleep. "Yes Fade." She pantomimes waking up. "No Fade."

- nod.

She points to herself. Sleep. She points to the door. Watching. "Fade."

Nodnod.

Well okay that's - really all she has, then, she doesn't have a plan. 

She... shrugs.

Hug?

.......yeah.

Hug.

Hug.

If they use a demon she can kill it. She's done it before. She's not clear on whether this will improve anything, they might just wake up in the cell again, but it's really the only thing she can think to try. Maybe she can... talk to the demon first, see if she can offer it a better deal than the magister. This is a terrible idea but if they don't get free somehow then everyone is going to die, so.

Since staying awake isn't helping her, she doesn't try to continue it. And eventually she falls asleep.

Maybe they should sleep in shifts, what with the fade thing? Maybe it doesn't matter? He should have thought to ask before she went to sleep.

He tries digging at the walls with his modified plate. 

He decides to stay up, just in case.

The walls are not really responding to this.

Morning arrives, eventually.

She doesn't wake up.

Then he'll try to wake her.

Doesn't work. She's sleeping very soundly.

Well, fuck.

He stays awake as long as he can. Tries to wake her more or less constantly.

Doesn't help. Occasionally she makes a terrified whimpering sound in her sleep, apparently not in response to anything he does, but she doesn't wake up.

He contemplates how viciously he will murder these people once he's resurrected. 

And eventually he falls asleep.

She is having a nightmare. Has been having a nightmare continuously for the past day, actually. But it's a familiar nightmare; she knows the Arl of Denerim's home as well as she knows her own, she feels like, and at this point it's always shaped the same way. But it can grow new corridors it isn't supposed to have, sometimes, away from the stable parts, and she figures if she's going to find her friends - not Shianni, Shianni isn't here, she needs to find - someone - right, Hagan and Fazil and Mahdi and Draconis, she can remember that - they're going to be down the corridors that don't belong in her nightmare.

She follows a winding corridor and kills a lot of people and gets a lot of blood on her wedding dress, and ignores the commentary from the walls, which is universally in the voice of the guard captain that killed Nelaros and Nola - she thinks she might hate him even more than she hates Vaughan - and she tries a lot of doors with a lot of people behind them who she has to kill, and eventually -

She opens a door and comes out in - Sothis, there's just the entirety of Sothis, hanging out inside the Arl of Denerim's manor. This'll be someone else's nightmare, then.

It's in chaos. There's an enormous monster rampaging through the streets, taller than any of the buildings, and the streets are packed with screaming and stampeding people. The ground is slick with blood and vomit and monster drool. 

Well, that's how nightmares are. She has a sword, and some limited armor over her dress, and she's good at stabbing monsters. Admittedly this is a real big monster, but the bigger they are, the harder they fall, or something.

First of all she looks around for someone doing something other than stampeding with the rest of the dream people.

There are some flying people shooting spells at the monster; they bounce off its hide.

Any of the flying people look like someone she knows?

Nope.

Weird.

She locates the monster's nearest leg and attempts to stab it, very very deeply, with her sword.

This works but it regenerates as soon as the sword is out.

Hmm, inconvenient. 

What did she do the last time she was in the Fade? Went around copying different forms and getting a different vantage point, going around or through obstacles she otherwise couldn't. Shape-changing, like Morrigan does, like she's teaching Draconis to do. In the Fade everyone is magical, sort of, you just have to - focus -

She focuses on becoming one of the flying people.

The flying people are all pointlessly bouncing spells off the thing's hide.

Yeah, but she doesn't need to kill it, necessarily, she needs to figure out whose nightmare this is and whether she can leave with them.

If she can get herself to be one of the flying people then she'll look down, at the ground, for - anything else that looks unusual, really, anyone not following the crowd -

Most of the crowd is indistinct, a sea of movement, there's kind of only one bit where it's actually fully-realized people.

Oooh, and if she flies over there?

No one doing anything different from the rest of them. Just fleeing.

Huh. Can she... see faces, in the area where people have faces?

Yeah. Strangers strangers strangers that one's Mahdi. Fleeing.

"Mahdi!"

He turns around, confused. The monster snarls.

She swoops down and lands beside him. "What is that thing?"

"Tarrasque. Thing that didn't eat Hagan's family. I guess maybe now it did."

"It's not real, you're dreaming. - sort of. I think if we die we may actually die. But we can leave, into someone else's dream, if I can - find my way back to mine, somewhere around here - "

"How can you fly?"

"Uh, it's a thing. Everybody's sort of magic in the Fade? And if you focus really hard you can take the forms of things you find in the Fade, sometimes - it takes practice and it might be easier for me for, uh, reasons, but I've been stuck here conscious for days before, so - "

Her face lights up.

"You know what would be really cool."

"No," he says. The Tarrasque stamps some city as it tears its way towards them.

"Run. Vaguely that way, my dream was over there. I'll catch up in a second."

She focuses.

Can she turn into another Tarrasque. If the thing gets too close before she manages it she will follow Mahdi out, but she's not completely sure they can outrun it, and it would be so cool, and plausibly even a useful form to have in someone else's dream at some point - plausibly this is motivated reasoning - she stares up at the thing and tries to memorize its shape, tries to picture herself becoming it - 

Now there are two Tarrasques stomping on the people of Sothis.

She would feel really bad about this if they were real people but they are not. She just has to make reeaaally sure not to stomp Mahdi.

She charges the other Tarrasque with all the power she has. She bites it.

Mahdi continues running away. Many things about this situation don't make sense but running away seems like the best solution. Unless he could fly away? He was never any good at magic but Aria was a fighter last he met her and now she's a Tarrasque. He can't figure out how to attempt to fly away. Do you cast Fly? Or do you just jump and imagine you are flying?

The second one isn't going to work for him, you have to pick someone else's form and turn into it if you want to change what you are. The first one might if he remembers how to cast fly? His magic is different than most people's, but other people can use their existing magic in the Fade.

She tries to push the other Tarrasque away from the door to her dream. Gotta give Mahdi enough time to get to vaguely the right place.

He does not remember how to cast fly. He's pretty sure he has never in his life had magic. He wanders through the city in the direction she pointed.

She's a little new to being a Tarrasque and is probably not going to actually win this fight against the other one. She drives it back a couple blocks and takes a lot of instantly-regenerating wounds and then -

She collapses and transforms back into a flying person and barely escapes being crushed under the thing's massive foot -

She flies just over the crowd and scoops up Mahdi and tries to find the door she came in through -

There it is, just about to get crushed by collapsing buildings.

Aha! 

She flies and opens the door and closes it behind them just as the house is about to be destroyed, and -

She's back in the Arl of Denerim's manor.

It's much quieter here. There is laughter coming from nowhere in particular, and also occasionally there are a couple people screaming somewhere.

"Okay. I think we should be - safer. Here."

"That seems plausible," says Mahdi.

"You okay? - I'm, uh, sorry. About all of this."

"We should probably just have killed them all when we saw the food was poisoned."

He pauses.

"Can I have my stuff back, here? Or is that not how this works?"

"I'm not really sure. It's very, like, dream logic, here? We might be able to find it somewhere. Or you might be able to dream it up, but no promises. Do you think you know how to cast spells?"

"I have a strong intuition that I do not know how to cast spells, which I assume is an enchantment. Separately I don't have any components."

"Okay. I guess just stick close, then. We need to find Fazil and Draconis and Hagan. I - suspect we're being held here and observed by a demon of some kind, and I'm not sure that killing it will do any good but I don't have a lot of other ideas, so I'm gonna try to find everybody else and then - we'll see if we can find what's holding us here."

Nod.

Okay. 

She leads him back through the windy corridor and back to the part of the Arl's house that makes sense. They come out in the room with lots of caged Mabari, snarling at them like they'd like to tear out their throats. There are two dead humans and a dead dog on the floor, none of them armored. It's one of the better rooms.

"Okay. People outside might've come back by now. You wanna head right, and when you come to the end of the hall there's another corridor also to your right, you want to duck into that and wait there, probably."

He does that.

When they head outside the guards are there. (So are their corpses. She's killed these ones like four times so far.) The guards are stronger in her dream than they probably were in real life, and are always better armed than she is, but she does manage to kill them before they kill her. She is never actually certain that she can; in many of these dreams she dies, and it is desperately important that this not be one of them.

She sweeps the bedrooms for more extra doors. There are off-duty guards in some of them. They scream when she kills them. Some of them plead with her. She kills them anyway. Some of them turn into the guard captain and say awful, vile things before she can cut their throats. 

She clears the area of living guards and then finds an extra door in the room full of weapons and training dummies. She calls to Mahdi.

Mahdi has been trying to dream that he has his component pouch and spellbook. This is made more difficult by the persistent conviction he has never been able to do magic and by the fact he doesn't understand how this thing works at all. 

He comes.

"Extra door here. Probably leads somewhere else. - also I don't know if a sword or a knife or anything would help you any but you could take one from here, if you wanted."

"I'll take a knife."

She can get him a knife, then.

And she opens the door and comes out somewhere else.

A big patch of dirt, with nothing growing in it, a temple looming in the background. There's a gold-robed priest. There are people sitting at the feet of the gold-robed priest. They look emaciated. The sky is grey.

Huh. 

She heads over to the priest.

"Where are we?"

"This is an Osiriani funeral," Madhi says quietly.

"Who are you?" says the priest.

"I'm, uh, Aria Tabris of the Grey Wardens?" she says, for lack of any better way to identify herself to dream people.

The priest turns back to the words he is saying over a very small coffin.

The emaciated people sit there, barely listening.

Well, she'll... investigate the temple, then.

"We need a silver mirror," says Madhi, walking with her. "This is Fazil's dream, but he's not here. That's the point, him not being here."

"Why a silver mirror?"

"Component for a scry spell. Which I think I would have prepared, if I were a wizard. I don't suppose I told you what I had prepared?"

"No, sorry. We haven't actually spoken in four days. Vaughan might have a mirror, though. We'll have to cut our way through more of the house but I guess we'll probably have to do that again at some point anyway."

"I don't think we're going to find Fazil here, even though this is his dream."

"I guess we'll go talk to Vaughan, then. Or - search his mother's room, I guess, I assume he has one. Uh, this nightmare seems plausibly safer, do you want to - it's probably best not to split up but if you don't want to head back into the house I can come back for you - "

"Sure, that might be better." He reaches for her sword. "Magic weapon - It'll hit a little harder - and Shield. - I don't know if those worked."

"Okay. Back in a bit. Probably."

And she heads back into the Arl of Denerim's estate. There are more guards to kill. At times her blows glance off them and they pin her arms or slam her into walls or tear at her bloodied dress, and every time it happens she's thinking that she can't die here, she can't, not this time, not until she saves her friends - but they're not taking her seriously, not really, and she manages to kill them each time, even though it never feels like a sure thing.

The manor is shaped mostly the way she expects it to be. The screaming and sobbing get louder as she goes.

Vaughan is where he's supposed to be.

She kills him.

Shianni is dead in this dream, as are the others. She was distracted rescuing Mahdi. 

But Fazil's not dead yet. Probably. She needs - a mirror, right - she hunts through his stuff - knife, corkscrew, playing cards, clothes, letters, comb - mirror.

She heads back to where Mahdi is.

Differently sized casket, fewer mourners, but otherwise the same. Mahdi is standing there watching. 

She hands him the mirror.

"Scry."

In the mirror they can see Fazil. The background is - all white. He's looking back at them. His expression is empty and horrified.

" - so how do we get him here -"

"Not sure. He has to be somewhere, I think, we could - try looking for other doors, I guess - "

She frowns at the mirror. "Hey Fazil, can you hear us?"

"He shouldn't be able to detect us at all, really," says Mahdi, frowning. " - I guess probably he's watching the funerals, and can see us since we're here?"

"Yeah. Seemed worth a shot, I guess." Any reaction?

He scowls at them. 

"Oh," says Mahdi, and tilts the mirror. Now they can see his hands. They're moving. 

" - he says 'feed my family' -"

"Okay. Can probably do. - I guess I am lucky my nightmare is so comparably fit for human habitation, or something."

Mahdi is attempting to explain via sign language at the sky that this is a dream.

"I'll be right back."

She heads back into the Arl of Denerim's estate.

She can pass through the dining hall if she finds new, unbloodied clothes in the bedrooms first, and leaves her sword on the other side. The guards eating there always stop her to ask for more wine. They'll insult her and threaten her several times if she goes along with it, but that's the way to pass through to the kitchen without a fight. It has food. A lot of food, actually, more food than a normal person would know what to do with. 

The guards don't stop her the other way, carrying bread and cheese and wine on a plate.

She heads back to Fazil's nightmare.

It hasn't changed at all.

"Hey, anybody want some food?"

The starving people eat the food. "Did you see anywhere that might let us access where he is," asks Mahdi.

"Looked pretty much normal. What's he say now - "

"Spell doesn't last that long. Sorry."

"S'okay. Maybe the path's around here."

Anything of interest by the temple?

There definitely wasn't before but now the temple is built into a mountain, how about that. It's very sheer and steep.

Mahdi plucks a feather off his bird. "Fly."

She focuses on the flying wizard form and goes up, up, up.

Everything gets brightly, blindingly white. There are little blobs of light darting about.  

And there's Fazil, very still, watching the ground far below.

" - hey."

He looks startled to see her. "Aria."

"Hi. You're dreaming. Sort of. - the people down there aren't people, they're the Fade looking like your people, reflecting your emotions back at you."

"Dispel Magic."

The only thing that happens is that Aria stops flying and falls down. Not all the way to the ground below, she just sort of plops down on the mountain next to Fazil.

" - I'm not sure that one works super well. The Fade is sort of - magic all the way down."

" - okay. How is one supposed to counter it, then?"

"You don't counter it, exactly? Being here for a little while is normal, happens whenever you dream - whenever we dream, anyway - and it's not dangerous, if anything too bad happens your spirit will return to your body and you'll be fine. The problem is I think we're being held here. By someone, a magister or a demon he's called on or something, I'm not really sure. But I figure if there is a demon running this maze then we can kill it, and once the demon's dead it should be, like, a normal dream, the kind you wake up from."

"In prison," says Fazil.

"Yeah, I'm still working on that part."

"I got off a sending to the team accompanying us, warning them about Tevinter, but I didn't know where I was and couldn't tell them, don't know where they landed, I have no idea if they intend to help. They confirmed receipt of the message.

Where's Hagan?"

"Haven't seen him since I feel asleep. His body was in a cell with mine and Fy's and North's before."

He stands up. "And Draconis? - why can we understand each other -"

"I assume that's a dream thing? I don't have Tongues up. Also still looking for Draconis."

"All right. Where have you looked?"

"Mostly been looking for extra doors in my nightmare, but I haven't seen any more of those. I guess there are a couple more rooms I haven't checked. Or there might be a door through here somewhere. Mahdi had a nightmare too but I, uh, don't think we should go back to that one."

"What -"

     "I actually think the core content of my nightmare was simply that I had no aptitude for magic, but after a while a Tarrasque showed up. And then another one."

"Ah."

"We can head down the mountain and then look around here, I guess. And if there's nothing here then we can check mine."

It's a long, slow walk. 

"How do you fly without using a spell?" Mahdi asks her.

" - not an expert on Fade stuff. But the last time a demon trapped me here I sort of - picked up substituting other elements of the dreams for me? I'm focusing on being one of the flying wizards from yours."

After some attempts they get this working too.

Cool. Then they can circle around Fazil's nightmare and see if there are any places that seem to lead to anywhere that isn't here.

There aren't.

"I guess we head back to mine?"

"Sounds good."

It's actually not that bad right now; most of the guards are still dead, so there are just a lot of bodies. She checks the other side of Vaughn's room. There's nothing. She checks the storage room in the kitchen, once again doing the ritual she needs to do to pass through it without killing anyone. There's nothing there either. The door to the dungeons isn't even present. None of the other doors appear to go anywhere new. She circles back around to the entrance hall, and - 

"Oh," she says, "I'm an idiot." And she forces open the door to the outside.

It doesn't lead outside. It leads to a stone room with bloodstained walls. There are a lot of corpses on the ground, mostly hideously deformed people. There's a dead little girl in mage's robes.

"This is Draconis's."

Fazil and Mahdi follow.

In the other rooms the abominations are still alive and walking. They attack pretty viciously. There's nothing at the top of the tower, so she heads back down. There are a lot of dead mages - many of them children - and a lot of abominations, and there's even that one Tranquil they found who had continued sweeping the floor as people died around him. But there's no Draconis. 

She heads out of the tower. It comes out in an enormous cavern, dotted with ruins she recognizes from the Deep Roads below Orzammar.

There are darkspawn. A lot of them. There are two broodmothers at the far end of the cavern, giant swollen things with six breasts, mouths with too many teeth in them, and legs that have long since become incapable of supporting them. They're surrounded by their children, screaming deformed humanoid things that have somehow ended up armed to the teeth.

Draconis is holding them off from the tower alone. He's mostly alternating between doing some kind of paralysis attack and breathing fire.

Fazil and Madhi both look - relieved, honestly, maybe because this is the kind of problem that they are accustomed to solving. They take off into the air again.

"Is there any reason I shouldn't light all of this on fire?" Madhi asks.

"Burn it."

Madhi looks positively gleeful. He points and a streak of fire shoots from his finger and explodes among the darkspawn; he zips over to mop up any of them this didn't catch with more fireballs.

Well at least someone's having fun. 

She zips over to Draconis. "Hey! Sorry we're late! You're dreaming!"

"I know I'm dreaming! I don't like it! Mage, remember!"

"Oh. Right. I don't think there's anything else in the tower, have you seen any ways forward besides - "

"No!"

"Okay. Obvious forward it is, then. Hop on and keep blasting fire. Mahdi, are you gonna be able to cover us all the way to the other side of the cavern - "

"Yes. I think that after the first one I was able to cast them using the local magic rather than my own."

"Nice. There are a lot of deep roads but I'm not sure how much of them you have memorized here - "

"We spent almost two months eating weird lizard vermin, Aria - "

"Look, we're gonna push on until we hit something. Or until we run into something we can't route around."

She scoops him up and flies ahead.

Madhi is having so much fun.

She's so happy for him!

There are kind of an implausibly large number of darkspawn in these caves, but they can fly over them and also burn them to cinders, and that's not really very nightmarish, is it, so eventually they come out to the part that opens up into Orzammar. She leads them up and into -

- Sothis, actually.

Huh.

"...any idea where we find Hagan?"

They glance at each other.

" - one assumes the palace," says Fazil. "Though they won't let us in."

"Okay, any idea how we get them to let us in? Or otherwise contact him? You were able to contact him in actual Sothis - "

"I could buy the components for Sending? I used to leave messages with someone who he told me was his landlord but I assume he doesn't actually rent an apartment there. We could try him anyway?"

" - try Sending first, maybe? It's not like he doesn't know who we are."

" - anyone dreamed up money to buy the components?"

" - right. Uh. There's - probably money in Draconis's dream, or mine, but we'd have to backtrack a lot - "

"There actually isn't money in the tower, we don't use it internally. There's probably stuff we could sell."

Fazil looks appraisingly at their clothes, which mostly look atrocious and smell of smoke.

"Maybe we can go to the Dome and explain how we know him and they might pass the message along?"

"Might as well try."

The area around the Dome is expensive-looking, full of state museums and upscale restaurants and city offices. They get some glares. They reach the Dome.

"We have an urgent message for the Prince Telcar," Fazil says, bowing. "We are his companions from the adventures he goes on secretly."

      The guard laughs. "The Prince Telcar."

"Is he not here?"

     "The Pharaoh, like his brother before him, took the name of Khemet. I'd ask where you've been but the answer is obvious."

"- Abadar," says Fazil. "May his reign be long and prosperous. I didn't know. That makes this message more urgent. It concerns his safety."

     "I'll get my boss," says the guard after a second.

"Well."

     "- do you think it's the part where this means his family died or the part where he's pharaoh that's the core of the nightmare?" asks Madhi.

"I don't know," Fazil says. "Doesn't matter, probably. At least he's not in danger."

"Yeah. Could be worse. For us, if not for him. At least if they actually let us see him long enough to explain."

The guard comes back with his superior.

His superior is lighter than the other Osirians, nearer Aria's shade than anyone else's. He smiles at her. It is not a nice expression. 

"We're going to need the four of you to stay for questioning, to discuss this danger to the Pharaoh. Most of you, anyway. I expect that he'll have other uses for the girl."

- why is he here. He's not supposed to be here. What the fuck is he doing in Hagan's nightmare.

She - cannot actually get herself to say anything about this but the others might notice that she is really really really upset.

"- she's for the prince of Ferelden," says Mahdi.

Fazil elbows him. "She can see him? Then that's fine."

     "Sure, she can see him. Once she gets cleaned up. If that's all right with you."

She tries to say anything useful about the situation and can't. She needs to say 'that's the man who killed my husband'. Needs to communicate that he shouldn't be here. "I - "

     "Well, do you want to see him?"

"I - yes."

     He grabs her hand, harder than should be entirely possible, and tugs her off towards the palace.

She looks back at her friends and tries to - telepathically communicate with them, or something, she doesn't even know.

They're being walked away by the guards.

Something's not right, Fazil says with hand signals. Since when is the head of the guard Taldor?

        It's a dream.

- so -

     Not illegal to flee, but then she won't make to Hagan.

Last time we played along -

    Yes, I know.

They're ushered into a building.

They recognize this prison cell. They woke up in it a day ago.

Mahdi tries something and realizes he's not a wizard at all.

The guard pulls her into the palace and hands her off to a group of people who are at least more plausibly Osirian. "She's for the Pharaoh. Make sure she looks nice."

And he leaves.

She still can't make words.

"Calm emotions," a man says coolly in her direction.

She - doesn't feel scared anymore. She doesn't really feel anything.

There, see, that's better. Now, those clothes are covered in...blood? Why don't they get her a bath.

Yeah, that makes sense, sure.

The bath is the same one as last time. A whole crowd of people follow her in this time to stare, though. A woman not wearing much of anything starts to comb oils through her hair.

The spell wears off.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.

She tries to - it's a dream, it's a dream, it's a dream, nothing really bad ever happens in dreams - except that the rule doesn't hold because right now she can't wake up - they're not making any sign that they want to attack her but they could, and she's naked and alone and weaponless and - and they're supposed to be taking her to Hagan (aaaaa!!!!) but the guard captain was the wrong captain and what if they're taking her to someone else instead (AAAAAAAA!!!!!) - 

She sits still and trembles and doesn't try to stop the people doing things to her hair.

They finish up her hair and do her skin, and paint her face with sparkly things, and tell her that she looks very pretty, and should pick out a dress.

There's a lot of options she rejected last time for being too skimpy, and then there's her wedding dress, still soaked with blood. Dripping on the floor a bit.

She closes her eyes and grits her teeth and digs her nails into her palms and counts backwards from ten.

She picks her wedding dress. It's familiar.

They help her put it on. They tell her she looks very nice. 

Well, does she want to see the pharaoh? Or does she need some time, that'd be perfectly all right.

"I - want to see the Pharaoh."

So they take her to him. 

It's up two flights of stairs and through some beautiful fountains and gardens and past dozens of other women, barely dressed, beautiful, smiling. The temperature inside the Dome is much cooler than outside but none of them seem to mind.

She's not thinking very much but most of the thoughts she does have are about how she wants to die.

She watches her feet. The dress is dripping blood on them.

They enter the room he's in. The attendants drop to the floor.

She drops, too.

She is so terrified that she feels like even her terror itself is on the verge of exhausting itself.

She did not actually figure out who it was.

Please not Vaughan. Please not Vaughan. Please not Vaughan -

" - Aria?"

- it's not Vaughan.

She spends a second trying to keep herself from either crying or manically laughing. 

She looks up.

"Cure Serious Wounds. What happened - you incompetent bastards, you hover around constantly and she walks in here bleeding to death -"

" - I'm not hurt," she says, though the words stick in her throat for a moment. "I need - can I talk to you - "

"Everybody out."

They hurriedly leave.

She's still kneeling.

She breathes. Clutches pieces of her bloody dress in her fists.

" - sorry - "

"For what?"

" - for - everything, right now for being a mess, I - do you remember what I told you about the Fade."

"The afterlife your god sends people to?"

"The - our spirits go there when we die, yes, but also when we dream, and when we wake up we come back. But - sometimes, if a powerful hostile actor is involved, you can get stuck there, unable to wake up until you get rid of whatever's holding you."

"Okay..."

" - you're dreaming. This isn't really happening. I'm here, and you're here, and Fazil and Mahdi and Draconis are being held somewhere, but - you're not in Osirion, you're not really the Pharaoh, your brother's alive."

" - I know it's maybe kind of hard to accept but your servants did let me come in here wearing this, so - "

"Well, they're very stupid.

It's not - is there some way to tell -"

"I don't - you could talk to Fazil and Mahdi, they're - somewhere, the guards wouldn't let them up to see you, it - it's adding elements of my nightmares to yours, I don't know why, but - the guard captain downstairs is the man who murdered my husband, I don't know how you'd tell that but he's obviously not Osirian - "

"I could force him to speak the truth. With cleric spells. That I have because I am pharaoh - are you going to say none of them actually work -"

"Mahdi's been able to cast some spells, but they were his spells from before, and he's been losing them on and off, I don't - I don't think you can trust them - "

"Guards!"

FUCK FUCK FUCK - 

" - what - "

"Find my friends. Fazil and Mahdi, she says they came here with her, she says they're being held somewhere. I want to see them immediately, and if they're injured or mildly irritated I also want whoever did it." 

He glances back at Aria.

 " - I didn't mean to scare you - I don't understand what's happening -"

Nodnodnod. Shaky breath.

"Draconis too. Please."

"And Draconis. Are the animals here?"

"I haven't seen them. They might not be in the Fade or might just be stuck in parts we haven't found yet. They're not in the palace. - Mahdi had his bird for a second, in Fazil's dream, but I haven't seen it since."

"I don't remember how we escaped Tevinter."

"We didn't."

"If I'm not a pharaoh you have no reason to be groveling at my feet, you know."

"I'm - 

" - I don't know how sure you are that you're not."

"I want to believe you."

"I'm sorry, I didn't get to bring a lot of evidence up. I - if you could follow us out of the city you'd see that it isn't Osirion beyond it, it's - the underground was swarming with darkspawn last I saw, and it might be different now but I'm sure if we walked far enough it'd be - something it shouldn't be - I know it's a lot to ask - "

He paces. "What - what if you're telling the truth, what then -"

"If I'm telling the truth then - there's something holding us, in the Fade like this. Maybe a demon. Maybe something the magisters can do that I've never heard of. We find it, we kill it, we wake up. This - doesn't get us out of Tevinter, but - "

"Please get up off the floor, I hate it."

She stands.

"Why are you - wearing that -"

"It's -

"This is my wedding dress. What it looked like at the end of the day that was supposed to be my wedding day. Your servants gave me lots of dresses that weren't really dresses and - this. To pick from. And - this one is awful, but it's - mine."

"And the makeup?"

"That they just sort of did to me. To, uh - the guard captain, who I remind you is wearing the face of the person who killed my husband, is - he said they were letting me up here to - give me to you."

"Okay, that's very hard to explain. Do you want - me to call attendants back in -"

"I think - I mostly don't want the nightmare to separate everyone again. Other than that I'm - it's very hard to think like this."

"'m not going to hurt you." He takes several steps back until he's against a pillar. "I - I hate this place but it's not like that, not - in reality, not -"

Nod.

"What d'you need to - think -"

"I don't - "

She stares up at the ceiling.

"Is there - a place with, like, a - curtain, or something, I dunno, so I can wash the makeup off and change into something that is both made of reasonable amounts of cloth and not covered in blood, without - actually having to go to different rooms - "

He looks around at the gauzy transparent curtains at the doors.

" - well, my bedroom, but maybe that's worse."

She laughs, sort of hysterically.

" - sorry."

"You keep saying that and I keep thinking that the next second I'll fall over dead of a very subtle poison you managed to sneak in here or - or something that'd warrant it, you know?"

" - I am having a very bad day. But I guess we sort of all are."

"I could - close my eyes and look at the wall while you change, or something."

She looks like she is still having a very bad day. 

" - yeah, okay, I need something to change into."

"Gonna call the guards in again, don't panic, okay?"

Nodnod.

"Guards!

Found my friends yet?"

       "I know they're looking into it, your grace."

"Mmhmm. I want a spare uniform like the one you're wearing."

       "Yes, your grace."

She involuntarily sighs in really obvious relief.

Pace pace pace.

"You know, this is a nightmare, I want to - raise the idea that there is some point at which we should go and find the others ourselves. I'm not sure what point that is but it exists."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry. For - not keeping us out of this. I'm sorry I didn't push harder on the teleport the second we landed in Tevinter."

"We shouldn't have played along. - that's my fault, usually I needle Fazil about - being too trusting and too obedient -"

Nod.

"I didn't wanna - it's sort of hard to judge objective danger when everything in you is screaming because someone insulted you for being an elf - "