Bellona is not very happy about waking up. Her everything hurts, and not in a good way, and she isn't where she was last -

Where she was last was kneeling on the edge of an active transmutation circle made by a hostile alchemist that she was trying to defuse.

She double checks she has all her organs. Okay. Everything she can twitch and/ or sense. Not so unhappy to wake up then. But she isn't in a hospital and El isn't clinging to her which is probably very bad news. (The metal bar is mostly just annoying, especially since they didn't leave her anything handy to easily scratch with. Which is, incidentally, why she transmuted her fingernails to be unnaturally sharp and hard soon after getting back into her body, and why she's worked very hard on her hand mobility, and also why she has numerous alchemical tattoos sprawling over her skin.) The aching hand and green lights are worse. She tries to peer at them out of the corner of her eye, before the visitors show up.

Her hand appears perfectly normal- from the back. If she can manage to wiggle it over, she will see an almost sickly green smudge in the center of her palm. It doesn't feel like she's got anything smeared there.

Yeah that's an Uh Oh. It better not interfere with her alchemy, though she'll have to get her hands together to analyze it...

She instead focuses on scratching a very tiny, quick circle into the metal near her other hand, finishing just before the footsteps arrive at her door.

The doors slam open to reveal a woman in an dark armored breastplate, painted in white with a flaming eye. She has a sword at her hip and close-cropped hair. Accompanying her is pair of guards also armed with swords, dressed in leather armor and steel helmets, carrying lanterns. They spread out to either side to cast the room in more light.

"Finally awake, are you?" She strides over to where Bellona sits, hand on the pommel of her sword, stopping just out of reach. Her accent is... hard to place. Not quite like anything Bellona's heard before. "Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now."

(Almost unnoticed, another figure slips into the room behind a second set of guards. She wears a long hooded robe, sewn with chainmail links.)

Headtilt. "I don't recognize you, and you definitely aren't that berk I was defusing the array of - so, I don't know why you'd even want to."

"If you're with that berk, then killing me wouldn't hide evidence - I'm not dumb, I reported back before going in, and I have a check in due - and would dig you in deeper - though the Fuhrer would be the least of your concerns, then. He'd probably even still give you a trial." She's not bluffing, here. She does in fact have check ins, and she did in fact report (there was a tiny amount of evidence gathered after that, and she did also just admit to not knowing this woman, but also she's very confident a minor gap in evidence won't matter to the Dust nor Flame Alchemists).

"If you aren't, then we're back to 'I don't know, why would you?'"

(She's definitely eyeing the swords and armors speculatively, thoughts whirling in her mind, and definitely listening keenly to the accent, gaze darting over any visible ethnic features or emblems.)

"The explosion at the Conclave?" the other woman speaks from behind. Her accent is different than the first. "The death of the Divine? The gaping hole in the sky? Have you no memory of these events?"

Not that she recognizes it either. Nor the Conclave nor the Divine.

"...Gaping hole in the sky?"

"The one that flares with the same magic that destroyed the temple. The same magic," she bends over to grab Bellona's hand, turning it palm up, "as this." As she drops it, the green mark flares again with light and pain.

Hiss! In pain, but mostly in alarm. She has had enough weird alchemy things trying to fuck with her body for one life. 

"I don't remember anything about any of that. The array I was defusing shouldn't have done that - done this to me." Yeah that's uncertainty in her voice, a deep shock at and fear of the thing in her arm.

"Look - I'm a state alchemist of Amestris, the Lionheart Alchemist, and on top of that the Heir Presumptive of Xing owes me a favor. I can get you backup to fucking fix that as an ally - and I was there on the Promised Day. I helped reverse that hole in the sky, and I've studied the Fall of Xerxes. Alchemical problems on that kind of scale can't be turned back easy - but you'll have a higher chance of getting it stopped before it goes critical with help." 

She seems pretty confident everyone should know those countries, those events. 

"And if you execute me, you're going to have worse problems. If this isn't Amestris, and if you're lucky, it'll be just a diplomatic headache. You probably won't get lucky." She is absolutely fully confident in El's ability to level a country and possibly a planet in revenge. Their family is a bit scary and has a bit of a history, there.

"These countries you mention do not exist."

Well, that's not good. 

"They do. But we haven't explored the whole world yet, and we really only know one continent and somewhat of another two - I can draw a map of our known world, if you decide it's safe to untie me."

"'Alchemist'. Is that your word for mage?"

"I don't know what you mean by 'mage.'"

"One who uses magic."

"Alchemists don't do magic," she says, somewhere between baffled and exasperated. "We're scientists - one kind of scientist, there's alchemists who work in just about all the fields of study."

" - Do you know what science is." She's pretty sure it was called natural law or something until really recently.

"We know what science is. And alchemists create potions.They don't fix holes in the sky."

"That's not what alchemist means on my home continent, then. Alchemists work with arrays that investigate and alter physical materials according to the regular laws of physics and science - so alchemy is the real world application of chemistry - a chemist is a theorist, and an alchemist is hands-on."

She pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs.

"Perhaps we could show you the problem we face, and you can lend your hands-on expertise."

"Leliana-"

"We're getting nowhere, Cassandra. The Breach is still active, and this is our only connection. Her story is too consistent to pry apart here. Unlock her restraints and take her outside."

She bends down to do so.

"Thanks."

If Cassandra is keen eyed, she might notice a tiny circle and some lines scratched into the metal near Bellona's right hand. 

She does not seem to.

"Up you get, then."

She stands, flexing her wrists and fingers and then touches her unaffected hand to the intact flesh near the weird green light, and - carefully, not that that word means much from an Elric -

She forms an analysis circle of her body and mind. 

What is this thing? 

It's-

-a thing. Maybe?

Hard to tell. Pure energy, except for all the ways it's not really what Bellona understands as energy. If it were pure energy, her hand and everything in, say, a five-meter radius should be very on fire right now. Possibly the closest analogue she's encountered is the Gate, but even that is a very imperfect metaphor.

It's attached through her hand, tangled around and into muscle and bone and blood- and as the mark flares again, if she concentrates through that she might be able to guess that where those overloads are crossing her nerves is sending the pain signal.

Rerouting nerves is a pain in the ass, but, she's just gonna leave everything it's touching alone and wall it off, a layer of biologically inert graphite and her blood vessels and nerves and muscles redirected around it. This is going to cost her a lot of mobility in that hand, but, well - she's still better off than if she had automail.

This produces a very, very faint electrical discharge around her hands, more static electricity than anything, and a little flare of blue.

Everyone around her with swords draws them.

She lowers and separates her hands, a bit exasperated. "I walled this thing off from my body. That's all."

"Perhaps warn us first, next time? Unexpected magic makes people jumpy." Leliana waves everyone's swords down. "It's all right, Cassandra. We're going to have to trust her at least a little bit."

"Sure," she says. "I was planning to just look at it, which isn't visible, but it was... Entangled alarmingly, and I acted to protect myself."

"That's understandable." She sends a prompting look in Cassandra's direction.

"...Yes," she agrees grudgingly. "It is."

"Anyways - it's definitely not like anything I've encountered before, but it's something I can analyze and get data on. - I'm going to need writing materials at some point to record my observations, but, let's go see this hole in the sky first."

"Best to take her out the side, Cassandra. I'll meet you two at the bridge." And she leaves with the guards.

Well this is more awkward than it was with the reasonable one in the room. 

"So - what should I call you?"

"My name is Cassandra Pentaghast."

"So - Cassandra, Miss Pentaghast, commander...?"

"Cassandra will do. None of the titles will mean anything to you, if Leliana is correct."

"They probably won't."

"You can call me Lionheart."

"Lionheart."

"We should make our way out now. We've given them enough time."

She'll follow, then. 

Out the door and down the stone corridor. It doesn't look as though it was originally intended to be a prison, more of a secluded place for scholars and the storage of texts. The stairs lead up into a wide open room with a tall, steeply pitched wood roof crisscrossed by rafters. It seems to have been converted to an impromptu infirmary, with many wounded soldiers on cots being tended to by men and women in brown robes. The main double doors are to the left, but Cassandra instead takes her quickly across the room and around a corner where there are a small cluster of office-type rooms and a single door to the outside.

...Does she see any signs of modern technology? Electric lights or fans, firearms, automail, anything in the infirmary signaling any medical technology...?

There are washbasins, at least, and she sees at least one being swapped out for a clean one. But a firm 'no' on any sort of electrical technology.

...Probably the hole in the sky is more urgent.

Possibly, though, her greatest resource here will be her existing knowledge of technology and science...

"...People will continue to be hurt as long as the Breach is active," Cassandra says softly. "If you can fix that, we need to know now."

She looks her age for once, for a fleeting moment. (She carries herself like she's older and taller, but she's still pretty fundamentally an underfed teenager whose body hadn't moved in years, who still hasn't had time to build up the strength and stamina she had as a child, who was always going to be short.)

"Alchemy is slow, sometimes," she says. "I need to understand what I'm doing to fix things. I'm going to try, but - "

(She's been too late a lot of times.)

"If you can help in other ways, we would appreciate your assistance."

" - Let's see this hole. Then we'll go over the grand strategy."

Then the rest of the way outside.

The Breach is immediately obvious, once she looks to the sky. A swirling morass of green, a whirlpool in the clouds, a weeping pustule on the face of the world. The mark on her hand reacts, flaring more strongly than she's seen before.

She immediately touches her hands together - and observes. 

Still the same kind of overwhelming energy readings. It's hard to focus, her analytical toolkit is not well-tuned for this use case. Maybe the mark on her hand is trying to... reach out somehow to the Breach?

(Also, if it were still in contact with her nerves, it would probably be painful. (And if she's looking very closely, that wall of graphite seems to have been eroded slightly.))

She reinforces the wall of graphite.

Has the mark made contact with the Breach? (Can she even tell?) 

She can't say.

"What do you know about that thing? Have you gotten any readings or measurements on it? What damages has it been causing?" she asks in rapid succession. (She's studied using gasses in arrays - that was one of her minor obsessions in childhood - but reaching something suspended in the sky will be... An interesting challenge.)

"We call it the Breach. A massive portal into the Fade, the world of demons. Demons can pass through," she points at a falling spark cast off, tracks it as it falls down to the mountainside. "And there are other, smaller tears at ground level."

"What are demons?"

"Creatures of the Fade. Malignant spirits, warped and twisted by emotion who covet our world and hate those who live here."

"...What's the Fade, and what's a spirit?"

"That is... difficult to explain. The Fade is the realm of dreams, separated from the waking, physical world by the Veil. Spirits are- fragments, pieces of possibility anchored to a certain concept. The Chantry teaches that the Fade was the first creation of the Maker, and spirits his first children. Dissatisfied with their fluid, ever-changing nature, he created our world, and spirits have been jealous ever since."

"How do you have a world of dreams? And what's the Maker?"

"The Maker is he who created the world. And I do not fully understand the Fade myself."

...She's vaguely aware of the existence of religions. The Ishvalans think the world was created by some singular being, after all, and even some alchemists who saw the Gate wrote of Truth in religious terms. 

So. She's really not sure if she should evaluate that as literal or not. 

But she's pretty sure how dreams work. 

"My world wasn't created," she says, distantly. 

And she's pretty sure giant holes in reality that let through dream-beings would've been weaponized if they were accessible from her world. 

"That may be so."

Deep breath. (She misses El, suddenly, painfully.)

"I need to touch things for the best analysis - I can set up measuring instruments here to track that thing's activity but they'll need someone babysitting them and some need someone to take readouts. The one in my arm is definitely made of energy but - a weird kind. But you said there's also some at ground level?"

"Yes. All up the mountainside. That is where the majority of the injured are coming from, efforts to keep those demons contained."

Hmmm. "How far is the closest?"

"A short walk. Twenty minutes past the walls."

"I want to see it, then."

"Good." Then they can begin making their way through town. It's very small, and fit to burst with all the people packed in behind the walls. The general mood is tense and scared. She can also see a few examples of atypical human physiology: one variety that tends slightly shorter, more slender, and with pointed ears, and another that is much shorter and very stocky.

Different ethnicities, maybe? Do there seem to be cultural differences? 

Not that it's very relevant, but it's something to think about, in among analyzing their apparent technology level and the types of problems she thinks they'll have...

She does ask questions as they walk, though. What can demons do in combat. Are demons intelligent, can they communicate with non-demons or each other at all. What is Cassandra going to do if they get attacked on their way. 

Demons are dangerous fighters, both physically and magically. Their abilities (and generally form) follow from the emotion they feed upon. Most of what they have seen over the past few days are the weaker varieties, thankfully- rage, terror, and a handful of sloth. Manageable with discipline and training. Rage demons tend towards fire spells and direct attacks. Terror demons use earth magic to burrow through the ground and surprise enemies from behind whenever possible. Sloth demons are slow but powerful hitters, who try to drain your energy to prevent you from dodging their attacks. There have also been a surprising amount of wisps- demons too unfocused to properly take hold of an emotion. They attack with raw magic at range, easily deflected with a shield and easily dispersed with a hit or two, but capable of overwhelming through weight of numbers. If they do get attacked, Lionheart should hang back and let Cassandra handle them. She has the ability and training to deal with anything they are likely to encounter far from a rift.

Demons are intelligent enough to speak, though their monomaniacal focus on whatever emotion is central to them heavily distorts their thinking. They can communicate and coordinate among themselves, so be prepared when fighting. Speaking with them is- not recommended. At all. Demons can possess people, taking control of their thoughts and actions and overwriting their very being. They will promise power, or gifts, or wishes. These offers are lies. Do not believe them. Mages are more vulnerable than ordinary people but. Do not give a demon the chance to do this. Ever.

What does magic... Do...

...It might almost be easier to describe what magic cannot do. And even there- magic is an expression of a mage's connection to the Fade, and the Fade is the realm of dreams. Anything can happen in a dream-

-But further elaboration will have to wait, as the sound of clashing steel echoes ahead. "They are fighting at the rift. We must hurry."

She breaks out into a ground-eating jog, going quiet and intense, with an eye to finding somewhere sheltered to crouch as they reach the fighting. 

They're coming out of a scraggly bit of forest to a rocky space next to a small stream. The rift is a shimmering green sheet of silk hanging in mid-air, half a meter above the ground, about that wide, and three meters tall. There's a swarm of little green wisps and two towering ??lava monsters?? and a pair of soldiers and a short blond man with a very intricate-looking repeating crossbow and a bald man with pointy ears twirling a staff out of which blossoms a torrent of ice, taking out three wisps at once.

Cassandra charges, hitting one of the lava monsters in the side and knocking a fireball forming in its hand off course to sizzle in the water.

One: she claps her hands together. 

Two: she drops to one knee and slams her palms on the ground. 

Three: massive spikes of hard, sharp rock surge into each of the enemies. 

That deals handily with the wisps, and lets Cassandra and the others focus their attentions on the lava monsters, which were damaged but not destroyed by Lionheart's attack.

As the last one dissipates with one final roar, the bald man with pointy ears turns to Bellona and beckons her over. "Quickly!" he calls. "Before more come through!"

She heads over, intent on getting ahold of and analyzing this thing. 

The mark flares, reaching out to the rift, she can tell without even doing an analysis circle. It's almost magnetically attracted, trying to lift her hand up and towards the rift by itself. A subconscious synthesis flashes into understanding: if the rift is a door to another world, the mark is hinge and key to let her close and lock it. She has but to brandish the power and twist.

She probably shouldn't hold the rift open while she pokes it until she has better demon containment methods... Probably. Also until she's built up more trust with everyone around her. 

She taps her hands together lightly, at least, so she can watch what's happening as she twists the rift closed. 

It's like watching a wound heal in fast time, if flesh were cloth and that cloth were the skein of the world. Kind of hard to track, honestly.

And hard to make go any slower...

She's going to need to arrange experiments - with 'magic' in general - under controlled conditions.

"It worked..."

"Your 'magic' behaves oddly..." she comments. "But I don't think the mark is exactly like those rifts... They're related, but - different."

"Well yes," says the bald man. "Otherwise you would have spirits jumping out of your hand, would you not?"

"I'm not familiar with your magic, so, that's not actually obvious to me - it could be a difference of size, rather than kind."

"Ah. That mark and these rifts are connected in cause, it seems sure, but I believe that at best, only the mark was intended. The rifts are... splash damage, the term these days is."

     "Then it was a hell of a rock that got dropped, Chuckles," the short man says, ambling over. He's stowed his crossbow on a strap over his back, and wears a leather coat and v-necked shirt, both unlaced to expose a broad swath of his hairy chest, despite the chill in the air and the flakes of snow beginning to drift down. "And dwarves don't do so well at swimming. I for one am glad to be thrown a floater." He nods at Bellona in greeting. "Varric Tethras. Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally, unwelcome tagalong." He tosses a wink at Cassandra with this last.

She rolls her eyes.

Smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you. And, if we're doing full introductions - "

"The Lionheart Alchemist, Lieutenant Colonel Bellona Elric, State Alchemist of Amestris. Scientist, doctor, explorer, and - I've been told - all around pain in the ass. Call me Lionheart."

The dwarf cocks his head. "That's an impressive set of titles. Especially for- what are you, fifteen, sixteen?"

Laugh. "Later part of sixteen, though I've been a state alchemist for - what, five years now? So I suppose I should add 'prodigy' to all that."

The bald man smiles, a little. "Indeed, you are well-accomplished for one so young. My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. It is a pleasure to meet you at last."

     "He means, 'I kept that mark from killing you while you slept'," Varric stages-whispers.

"What was it doing?"

"Attempting to grow beyond the limits your body could sustain. I was unable to sever the magic from you completely, but I limited the draw as best I could."

"You know a lot about magic, then..."

"I have studied it for most of my life. My travels have allowed me to learn much of the Fade."

"I'm not asking for an apprenticeship - but would you be willing to trade me for the basics of magic theory, at least?"

"Yes, I would be. I have never come across mention of your Amestris, and find myself curious what your science is capable of."

"A lot, though I'll note it's rare to be able to use it in open battle like I did - alchemists are researchers and inventors, not fighters."

"Fascinating as that may be, we must keep moving. There are other rifts in the area, and now that we know you can close them..."

"The more I know, the more I can do - but we can talk and walk."

"I'll want a more thorough run down of your abilities, too, so we can predict each other in combat better..."

That can be provided as they go.

Cassandra is a melee fighter with sword and shield, experienced in closing with enemies and controlling their attention. She is also capable of countering and suppressing many magical attacks, and in general making mages have a bad time. Varric, along with his crossbow Bianca, is ranged fire support. He has a few tricks like flash bombs, fire grenades, and caltrops, but those are harder to use in a straight fight on unknown ground and limited in supply. Solas's battle magic is focused around ice, which is what his staff resonates with. He can use that to fire bolts of cold magic, attempt to flash-freeze opponents, and create patches of hazardous terrain or walls to control the battlefield. His skill with healing is not so great that he would attempt such in pitched combat, but he can mend small scrapes afterwards and cast barriers during combat, which are temporary ablative shields, acting like a second skin.

Her specialty is healing, though it requires a lot of focus and is risky to use under fire unless someone is imminently dying. She can, though, given time and space to work, heal just about arbitrary injuries, cure a fantastic variety of disease and poisons... "Cancer is hard," she says, "As are brain injuries, though I can do a lot even there. Try to avoid getting your head broken open, though."

She's also basically competent in moving material around - those earth spikes were a child's exercise pretty much, and she can make large weapons like cannons for ranged fighting, as well as in general pretty arbitrary weapons, and she's trained in firearms, polearms, and hand to hand. 

"...I'd suggest you keep that stuff about cannons close to the chest, Shorty," Varric says. "If you've got portable versions of what the Qunari have on their dreadnaughts- that's going to go over about as well as when the mages broke from templar control." He pauses. "Which resulted in fighting across the entire southern half of Thedas bad enough that the Divine had to use all the influence she had to call this peace conference that exploded, I'm realizing now you may not know. And the Qunari themselves will probably try to have you killed when they hear. Or convert you. Almost as bad, honestly."

" - Okay so cannons are like, more or less outdated technology where I'm from, just to be clear. Like they got pretty cool but cool enough everyone mostly stopped having walls you can hit with a cannon, and then got promptly superceded by the next step in the arms race. But they're really straightforward as far as technology goes, like spears, so they're easy for me to make, while still being pretty easy to use."

" - I'm guessing this means you totally lack firearms though."

"Bianca here is advanced as it gets," Varric says, patting said crossbow.

" - I'll be cautious about what I leave lying around, then."

"That's for the best," he agrees.

"I'll have an advantage though, when I do pull those out..."

"It'll be a surprise, that's for sure."

"Though I'm unsure how easily demons can be surprised."

"They are thinking creatures," Solas says. "They know what they have seen in the Fade. If your weapons are foreign to the dreams they have observed, they will not know of them."

" - Has anyone tried diplomacy?"

"Over the years, I have spoken with many spirits in the Fade. Only a very few have any interest in crossing the Veil to the waking world. They find it unnatural, the fixed and rigid quality of experience oppressive. Those drawn across against their will, as is happening at these rifts, become demons, their natures twisted against themselves. They will reform in the Fade in time, their true selves once more, and be happier for it."

"Is there a way to keep them away from the rifts, then?"

"Not that I have yet discovered. But it is a good thought."

"What are demons made of?" (She has a lot of questions like these, if Solas will keep answering.)

Solas is perfectly happy to keep answering as they go. He certainly has a less religious perspective than Cassandra, even if it's not quite scientific as Bellona is used to. Anecdotal, word of mouth, poetic.

Her deeply scientific mindset is pretty obvious throughout the conversation, and she makes very strange and brilliant mental leaps while simultaneously struggling with 'basic' concepts that are too far from her own framework. 

A most enjoyable conversation.

Eventually, they reach a high bridge which is being used as a forward base for the local soldiers, where Leliana is arguing with a man in white and red robes about the disposition of their forces. The man does not seem to be a military professional.

Then why bother arguing with him? 

Anyways, Bellona isn't going to make herself obvious just yet, instead hanging back to listen and try and get a sense of politics here. 

It seems the man, Chancellor Roderick, is the most senior surviving member of the Chantry, which makes him the top civilian authority. Perhaps unfortunately. He's nervous and in over his head and of the opinion that the position is hopeless and they should retreat before more lives are lost. When Cassandra shows up, he switches to trying to persuade her, calling her 'Seeker'. She stonewalls his pleas, calling him a 'glorified clerk'. Some back-and-forth about the dead Divine, Justinia (who both Cassandra and Leliana served directly, apparently). Then Cassandra brings up that they can close the rifts now, thanks to Lionheart.

This outrages Roderick, who sputters about why they let such a dangerous prisoner loose and calls for her to be chained up and preparations made to send her to Val Royeaux for trial. No one makes a move to do anything about this obviously insane order.

(Watching the argument is a bit surreal. Bellona doesn't loathe her country, but - she's still in the military out of inertia. She agrees with Mustang that Amestris should be a democracy. She agrees with his detractors that it's an insane idea. It's... Odd, looking at one possible way that balance of power could settle.)

(They definitely will need to maintain the thing where they have a mostly clear line of succession if their entire high command is wiped out except for one traitor. There'd still been intense - and literal - fighting over the succession, but it was less... Confused than this. Everyone knew who should rightfully be in command; they just disagreed.)

She stiffens her shoulders, falling into a comfortable - and respectful - parade rest. "You need me, sir," she says. "I was the sole survivor of that explosion - a trial is the appropriate way to determine guilt, but right now I am under guard - as you well see, sir - and willing to work with your people to solve this problem and prevent as many further deaths as I can. I cannot do that from a prison cell."

"You were the one who caused the deaths!"

"I did not, and the breach would have killed me as well if not for prompt and highly skilled medical treatment. You currently have no evidence of my involvement beyond that I was present in the area and fortunately survived. That is still enough for a trial by many laws; it is not enough to presuppose guilt, nor a reason to deny an ally the opportunity to keep both of us alive."

Her reasonable and logical defense does not seem to be getting through to him.

Cassandra takes a different tack. "Enough, Chancellor. The Divine trusted Leliana and I to solve her problems. We are here, solving this problem. If you do not like that, return to Haven. Otherwise, stay out of our way."

     "There will be consequences, Seeker. I warn you."

"There are always consequences. Go." She waves him out of the way.

(Leliana details two soldiers to escort Roderick back to the town.)

"I find your political system confusing," she mutters. Though, honestly, they did just lose a lot of their leadership. Any element of Amestris's leadership after the Promised Day that wasn't 'just keep your head down until the shooting stops' was probably very confusing too, from an outsider's perspective.

"You didn't really show up at the most opportune time."

"Yeah. And with how much of your leadership it sounds like you lost - it is honestly impressive you're holding together this much."

"There's a trick to our success. We were planning something, setting foundations for a new organization, something the Divine would have made public- But it's pure luck we were delayed long enough to still be in the valley when the temple blew."

Nod.

" - How magic works is probably more urgent to surviving the night. But I want to learn more about how politics work here, too. I'm willing to trade you how politics work where I'm from - it won't be immediately useful, but if there's contact between our peoples beyond just 'I figure out how to transport myself back, vanishing into the night' it'll matter, and it might be useful for - hm, comparative sociology. Figuring out where other people have succeeded or failed."

"Of academic interest, if nothing else," she murmurs. "It's a deal."

"And insight into me, too," she says with a laugh.

"Context, at least."

"Explaining me is pretty hard."

"I think that's true of most people, in sufficient detail."

"I'm a bit farther out than normal, though, aren't I?"

"For now."

More sincere smile. "You know... If contact with home's prolonged beyond me just returning... There's some people I think it'd be fun to introduce you to."

"We'll see how things go. For now though, we should plan our next move." She gestures towards the table, where there's a rough map of the area with small rocks marking positions of various forces and known rifts.

"Do we need to close all of the smaller ones before tackling the main one?"

"I suspect not," Solas says. "If the Breach is closed, the rate at which the smaller rifts form should at the least slow, or hopefully stop entirely."

"We should bee line for the main one as best we can, then..." She squints at the map, analyzing it, and asks a few questions about how they're representing things like 'the mountain.'

Leliana can explain the map.

There's really only one road up to the former temple, which is the main problem. It's crowded with demons and their forces are holding the line, but that's about all. News that they can now close rifts and support from Seeker Cassandra might be the morale boost they need to enable a push straight through, but it could get bloody. She's also sent a group of scouts up to find an abandoned mine here, which should connect around and provide a bypass route. But it's a narrow climb, limiting the forces they could send that way, and she hasn't heard back from the scouts.

...Hm.

"There's weapons I can make with alchemy, which could make pushing along the main route far easier... But it might be faster to hold the line here while we loop around through the mines, and then sweep back towards the lines to clear up any lingering demons in a pincer formation..." She starts indicating forces, asking clarifying questions about how quickly they could move, how good their fortifications are... "I can strengthen the defensive fortifications too, pretty easily..."

Leliana answers the questions. They're pretty much at a stalemate now, so wherever Lionheart can bring her weight is likely to tip the scales.

Amestrian alchemy should primarily be thought of as a way to move physical material around quickly and accurately, really. 

Her problem with planning is that they don't have the kinds of infrastructure she's used to, and she's not used to the way their magic works, nor to the demons, nor to their - obviously very different - ways of organizing their military...

Her own instincts would favor strengthening the defenses here, a small powerful team pushing quickly through the mines, then sweeping back, but she doesn't know if they'll need the extra fire power at the main rift, nor if Leliana's people are stronger on the offense or the defense...

The hammer and anvil is sound strategy. The road creates a natural funnel, if she can raise walls at the edges to ensure things remained contained approaching the choke point.

She'll need to be physically present at each wall she's raising, so that depends a bit on their time budget and how far out the nearest demons are and where she's raising walls...

Not too far out. They should have an hour or so to spare, and still be able to have light for the press.

Perfect, then. 

Solas would like to observe, if she doesn't mind.

She doesn't - and it's tedious work, so another good time for discussion. 

Of course. As long as it will not distract her unduly.

She can focus when she needs to. 

Then he would enjoy the opportunity for further discussion.

Good! 

Speaking of discussion... How vulnerable are demons to things like spike pits, caltrops, and/ or landmines? As long as she's walking out here anyways...

That will certainly slow them, and may discorporate some. Taking physical form does render them vulnerable to physical attack, if they do not have the magic to compensate.

The real problem will be reducing the threats to their own forces if they end up advancing... Bellona can use shaped charges in some areas that can be triggered by a well placed arrow, and if demons are color blind she can label any landmines, or just put the labels so they're only visible from their forces' direction...

It would be unwise to count on the demons being unable to read. For the rest, she will need to coordinate with the Seeker and Leliana.

Cassandra can consult on how to make things safe for the human forces.

This is, apparently, a problem Bellona's own civilization has put a lot of thought into - she obviously can produce maps of where she's left landmines, and use subtle labeling like 'a strip of color', but there's a lot of other things that very regularly go wrong with trapping a road... 

But, anyways: this road can be very quickly transformed into a valley of death! Alchemists are awesome like that. 

That will do for now.

They may wish later for her to disarm any unused traps, if that is possible.

"It is, yeah."

"Good. This was once a place of pilgrimage. It may be again."

"I'll be careful when digging everything back up."

"Thank you."

"What was it a pilgrimage site for?"

"The Temple of Sacred Ashes. The last resting place of Andraste's remains."

"-Andraste was the founding prophet of our faith."

" - I'm not really familiar with faith stuff, but - yeah that sounds important." She tries very hard not to make it a question. 

"It is. Was."

...Wow this is weirdly uncomfortable. 

"There's nothing comparable for my people," she says after a few long moments. "We don't have prophets, nor religion. There's famous sites that draw tourists, some of them historically significant, but most are... Museums, or libraries, and the historical sites often are set up as museums anyways."

"That sounds... very strange."

"Our calling is science and reason. The study of the natural world. There's things beyond what we can see with our eyes and feel with our hands, but..."

"The guiding principle of Amestrian alchemy is equivalent exchange - nothing can be created nor destroyed, only transmuted. Or, to gain anything, something of equal kind and amount must be lost, and all exchanges happen according to unmutable laws of physics." 

"The drive, then, is to learn those unmutable laws, through observation and experimentation, and through learning of the investigations done and knowledge gathered by others."

"That sounds a cold world to live in," Solas comments. "That all gains and losses must be recorded, and to find only that which was present already."

"It isn't, for us. It's - mystery, and wonder, and discovery. Everything that happens must have a cause, and everything that exists has somewhere it came from - and because of the regular laws of the cosmos, you can trace that complicated history. And we don't know all the laws, all the ways the world works - like, we know that matter is made of tiny particles we call atoms, and that different atoms have different properties which make up the eighty six confirmed elements - there's another eight we're pretty sure should exist but haven't confirmed directly - and we know atoms are in turn made up of smaller particles, but we're not sure yet what those are made of, or why atoms of different kinds are that way."

"It is good you can find joy there. I am not sure that I could."

She laughs. "It might get horribly boring once we do discover everything in our universe - but having found this world suggests there's even further vistas we've never imagined."

He smiles slightly. "A commendable attitude."

"I like learning, and challenging my mind."

"That quality will surely carry you far."

Such as up that cliff and through the mine? They're about out of time.

Such as that, yes - she can climb quickly, and she can alchemize her way through any barriers (and repair or create any ladders needed).

That will help. Her team will be her, Cassandra, Varric, Solas, and a squad of soldiers.

Leliana's staying behind to lead here, then? 

Her frontline days are well behind her. She'll do more good this way.

Good. Experienced commanders are pretty essential to any operation. 

Exactly.

Good luck, then.

Same to her. 

Then off with the advance force.

The path up to the old mine is narrow and unmaintained, featuring at a couple points rickety ladders where switchback stairs have collapsed.

Less rickety ladders are often easier than repaired stairs, but she can alchemize a path almost as fast as she can walk it - burrowing straight through the mountain would be exhausting and risky, but she can head up first on some of the repaired ladders to work on faster and safer roads past them. 

Then she will be the first to find the mine's entrance and the faint green glow of wisps (aimlessly, for now) floating within.

Hm...

She holds back until she has more allies with her, signaling back to said allies the presence of the wisps.

"Can you tell the size of the first room?"

With some careful poking and math... Yeah, more or less. 

All right. That's small enough for Solas to reach the far side with a barrier and prevent any retreat or reinforcements.

Cassandra will screen, then Solas, then the soldiers, then Varric and Lionheart.

Works for her, at least. 

And as no one else has a problem with it- They proceed.

The plan goes off without a hitch, Cassandra taking the initial attacks on her magically-imbued shield, Solas sealing the exit. And then it's just a matter of pushing front to back.

This time, she at least tries to get her hands on the remains of a wisp, even if she can't get a live one.

She can find a little cloth-like scrap on the floor where one faded out.

...Hm.

"Do demons normally not leave corpses?"

"Not unless they are possessing someone, no."

"...Weird."

"I'll need to get my hands on one to best use Amestrian alchemy against them, though."

"Containing a demon is difficult at the best of times."

     "Blood magic would do it," Varric says, then throws his hands up hastily to ward off Cassandra's glare. "Not that I'm suggesting anything, Seeker. But you know Kirkwall was full of fucked up shit towards the end there. I've seen it."

"What's blood magic?"

"When a mage would rather have instant power than any sort of moral center, they can steal the energy in someone's blood to power their spells."

     "Sometimes themselves, mostly it's other people," says Varric. "Usually winds up killing the poor idiot."

" - What does 'killing the poor idiot' usually look like?" she asks, totally failing to hide how she's now Very Suspicious of what blood magic might involve.

"Exsanguination. Messy."

"So they just bleed out? Nothing goes - missing?"

"Uh. Not that I could ever tell. What are you thinking, Shorty?"

" - There's a branch of Amestrian alchemy that sounded similar at first brush, human transmutation. It's pretty much illegal the same way suicide is, though, and it - has pretty notable side effects."

"Based on that name... yeah. Doesn't sound like fun." He shakes his head.

"Yeah. The domain of the foolish and the desperate."

"Then it is best avoided."

"I'll be keeping away from it."

Nod.

Then they continue on through the mine. There are a few more packs of demons, but no rift. No sign of Leliana's scouts, either.

Concerning... But they'll move as quickly as is safe. 

Which is reasonably fast, all things considered.

Once they make it through and out to the surface on the upper side, they can spot a small group huddled defensively with their backs to a steep drop-off being harried by a rift spawning demons.

She claps - kneels - 

And pulls a rifle from the ground. They're at a large range, still, with a lot of rough ground between them and the demons - so, long range weapons it is. 

She stays kneeling while she quickly sets up the sniper rifle and then starts taking pot shots at demons farther from the allied group. 

She's no Hawkeye, but Bellona's still a pretty good shot. 

Demons, as luck would have it, do appear to be among the many and varied problems a sniper rifle can solve.

Temporarily, at least. Until the rift flares again and more demons coalesce into the waking world.

She uses the reprieve to move closer, of course, alchemizing a path down and covering for her own companions - rinsing and repeating until she's in range to close the rift itself. 

It only takes a few cycles until she can reach out and drag the wound shut.

The rescued scouts are very grateful and impressed with Bellona and her companions' heroism.

She takes the thanks in stride, neither stammering nor puffing up - though she'll leave things like further orders to Cassandra, of course.

The scouts are too banged up to help with the push. They can follow behind the main party and rejoin the rest once the road is cleared.

Bellona might be able to heal them, if they'll let her try. 

Like with magic? None of them are too proud to refuse that, after what they've seen.

...Close enough. 

She kneels by each of them in turn, working more slowly than she does with stone - first investigating the injuries, then closing them. She'd need to stop to draw out arrays if anyone is inflicted with anything complex, though, or for injuries near anything vital or delicate. 

Slashes, bruises, burns. At least one concussion, probably. Cracked ribs, wrenched ankle.

Just about all of it she can heal pretty easily - it doesn't feel quite like magical healing, though. It itches, and aches, and leaves the scouts feeling hungry and tired, and leaves skin raw and new, and all together feels like someone just accelerated a perfect course of healing. 

The concussion, however, counts as both 'delicate' and 'probably somewhat urgent' - that'll get harder to address the longer she leaves it, especially if it heals funny. She can draw an array, but it'll slow them down a little. 

Do it. They can spare the time.

She nods and finds a spare stretch of stone to draw on with her chalk, a largeish circle with a very complicated diagram inside in. She works quickly, impressively so given the intricacy of what she's writing out.

The circle is large enough for the scout to lie down in, with a sub-circle for the head (where the vast majority of detail is concentrated; the rest of the circle is mostly to help regulate that and also prevent any problems from someone being partially in a circle).

This transmutation feels even less like magic, internally, than the other healing had, but it doesn't exactly feel like anything. The concussion fades, though, and the scout can think more clearly. 

"That feels- much better. Thank you, my lady."

Tired smile. "My pleasure. Let me know if you start getting headaches or anything, okay?"

"Yes, I will."

Onwards now, then? 

Yes. Everyone should prepare themselves. They'll be getting in to heavy fighting shortly.

She keeps her sniper rifle present and loaded, then. 

And with everyone set... Time to cause a demon stampede.

And get the rifts closed. 

And the rifts.

There are two of them on the road down to the strongpoint. It takes some doing to clear the demons out well enough to get Lionheart the chance to close them.

She brings her offensive alchemy to bear - she has more time to figure out what works or not as they move, improving noticeably at corralling and killing demons over the fights. 

That definitely helps.

They do take some casualties on the push, but nothing egregious.

Not a part of war she likes, all the same. 

So it goes.

They are at least well prepared for their subsequent push to the ruined temple and the site of the Breach.

She lets herself rest some in that push, checks in with her body and mind to make sure she's as sharp as she can be going in. 

She suspects she'll need it. 

Seems likely.

The temple is... blasted. Stone walls in pieces, covered in ash. As they approach closer, the ground is blasted up into jagged spikes radiating outward.

A deep voice booms into the air from nowhere, strangely distorted: "Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice."

" - What is that?"

"An echo from the Fade," Solas says. "The Veil in this area has been greatly weakened, and we are hearing the reflections of the event which caused this."

"...Through time?"

"Have you never dreamt of a past occurrence?"

" - I don't remember the last time I dreamed. But I know most people do, so. It's a normal part of human psychology, the brain encoding and reinforcing memories and lessons from the past."

"Ah. Well. The Fade can transmit information through time, but only from past to future, in the same manner as a book or story."

Considering hum. 

Whatever Solas is about to say next is interrupted by Varric pointing out a deposit of glowing red- stone? "You seeing this shit, Seeker? Tell me this isn't-"

"I see it, Varric. Red lyrium."

     "What's it doing here?"

"Whatever magic created the Breach could have drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it," Solas offers.

"What's lyrium?" she asks, in the tone of someone about to poke the evilly glowing rock to see what it does. 

"Normal lyrium's like crystallized magic," Varric says. "It'll fuck humans right up. The red shit's a hundred times worse. Drove my brother insane, almost destroyed the entire damn city- Seriously, Shorty, don't touch it." He sounds uncommonly serious.

" - Only directly investigate under very carefully controlled circumstances, got it." She does know what lab safety is. 

"Or, y'know, not at all."

"But that'd be against the spirit of science!"

"Spirit of science is one thing, keeping all your thinking parts in the right place is another."

"I'll be careful if I decide to poke it - risky investigations are something I'm used to. Alchemy can throw around a lot worse than 'drives you crazy.'"

"Someone, help me!" A voice echoes across the area from the Fade again, feminine this time.

"...That was Divine Justinia."

" - The time of the explosion, maybe..."

"We have an intruder." The male voice again.

Then- "What's going on here?" A third voice, one that sounds like Bellona.

- She doesn't remember this -

There's an indistinct jumble of voices, then the scene plays again from the top.

"Someone, help me!"

"What's going on here?"

"Run while you can, warn them!"

"Slay the child."

"...Creepy..."

"Anyone recognize the guy's voice?"

Cassandra shakes her head. "No. And that is- concerning."

"Is it doable to get more information from the Fade?"

"Not quickly," Solas says, "and not reliably, not in the way you seek."

"If it gives semi-random answers, I can derive a pattern eventually - but you're right that that kind of investigation is time consuming."

And they're starting to get close enough to the Breach to be planning their assault. There's a crater in the center that the ruins slope down to. The Breach is directly above the center of it, far up in the sky. This close, it becomes clear that it is, simply, enormous. Too large for her to close in one go, conceivably. Below, at ground level, is a rift, strangely crystalized, rather than the shimmering rent of all the previous ones she's seen.

"Did it close itself off somehow?"

"It is not truly closed," Solas says, examining it. "It is more akin to a jam of ice in a snowpack river. The flow is halted, but pressure builds up behind."

"Would you recommend reinforcing it, or just lancing and draining?"

"To drain it would be the better course. Left alone, I am sure it would eventually explode, compounding the damage. If you are able to seal it, however... This rift would have been the first. Closing it may at least mitigate the Breach."

"That'll mean reopening it first."

"The Mark should be capable of that, I believe."

"So we'll time it for when we're most ready, then?"

"As best we can. It will break eventually if left to its own devices."

She can set up barriers for any ranged fighters to take cover behind, assorted traps immediately around the rift...

Leliana starts organizing the soldiers with the help of a blond man with a scar on his upper lip, and giving quick briefings. Magical backlog means there could be a shockwave, make sure to take cover. It also might mean powerful demons, given everything else about the past few days. Rage demons, terror demons, maybe even a pride demon. Take cues from Cullen (the blond), Cassandra, and any other templars- let them take the brunt of magical attacks, that's what their training was for.

She coordinates preemptively rearranging the battlefield with Leliana's directions, then...

They're ready.

She'll have to get close to open the rift. Cassandra will guard her.

She appreciates it. 

(Bellona also preemptively arms herself with alchemically-made daggers and a spear, all richly engraved with dragons and hidden arrays.)

And then she's close enough to reach out and pull the rift open. At first it sticks like a rusted door, but then all at once the resistance disappears and it flares into life once more.

Also flaring into existence is a rather large demon, slate grey and spiky, at least twelve feet tall and about that broad across the shoulders. It chuckles ominously as it brandishes a whip made of crackling lightning.

Big demon means big target! And, also, demon standing on the ground means demon in reach. 

What does it feel about the ground turning into a cloud of dust under it - just before the cloud explodes, of course.

It does not appear to be a fan, judging from the enraged bellow.

It does something, pulls energy from the rift somehow, that causes the rift to start crystallizing again. The soldiers' followup attacks on the demon don't have any perceptible effect after it does this.

...Hm, one solution would be reopening the rift, but...

How easy would it be to get her hands on the demon?

Fairly difficult. It seems to be covered in a sort of lightning cloak now, in addition to the quite vigorous way it defends its personal space with the swinging of its arms.

...Okay, ripping the rift back open it is. 

That hurts it! And seems to leave it in a bit of daze, where the soldiers can attack safely without getting walloped themselves.

Which means she can get closer - can hopefully get in close enough to transmute it -

Depends how good she is with high-energy plasmas, really, that's not exactly what the demon is made of but it might be the closest analogue she can think of- Whoops it's waking up again.

She has some familiarity from staring at Mustang's arrays, but - 

She's not exactly the Flame Alchemist, nor does she have him in her back pocket right now. 

But she's got enough to have some idea of how to disrupt the thing, which is really all she needs to do. Also enough to realize that disrupting should probably be done from a safe distance, and she hasn't mastered the dragon's pulse techniques needed for distance alkahestry yet, so...

Indirect weapons it is. Also, backing up from the demon (after first trying to rapidly encase it in a Faraday cage reinforced by nonconductive materials) it is. 

The cage does seem to hamper it a little, but it still has brute force on its side.

And it creates an opening - a delay - for her to tear the rift back open.

Could be she's stumbled on a self-reinforcing feedback loop here.

One she ruthlessly exploits, building the cage up more - while still allowing access to attack it - with every stun, so it's less and less capable of stopping her from just tearing the rift back open when it does arouse. 

And eventually- the beast falls.

The soldiers break into cheers.

She focuses on closing the rift once and for all. 

It's more difficult than any she's done so far. The rift resists, roils, retaliates. The mark's drain on Bellona's energy increases notably.

She grits her teeth and fights through it. 

The rift is fighting her every step of the way, but if she persists, concentrates, puts everything she can muster into wrenching it closed-

She sees it knit back together just before she passes out.

She wakes up to a world of white. 

...Rude. Unfair. Cheating. 

Bellona scowls at her Truth and the richly engraved Gate beyond it. "I didn't even do anything this time!" she complains. 

Her Truth just laughs. "Except leave the world, to somewhere people wander from their bodies in their dreams... But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Bellona's scowl fades to a thoughtful frown. "But why to here?"

Her Truth gestures behind Bellona. "Because someone is looking for you."

Bellona turns, though she already knows what she'll see -

"See, I told you that you should wait."

"Lion!!"

"El!"

Tackle glomp!!!

Hug!!!

"What happened to you?"

"I don't know - I woke up somewhere weird, I don't think it's the same world, and they said I'd been involved in some explosion but I don't remember..."

"Well. We're getting you back. And then I'm transferring you to my command since I obviously can't trust anyone else."

Giggle! "I hope you've only scared my commander a little."

"As much as they deserved."

"They got off easier than your target did."

Tight hug. 

"Did you get any array details out of them?"

"Some. And the notes, but they're encoded."

Snugs.

"There's bound to be some stuff on my end, too..." She recounts her adventures so far. "And... I do want to help them? At least a little. But also they have a way of manipulating matter even farther from alchemy than alkahestry is and I want it."

"That would be useful. As long as you're staying safe. Don't let anyone assassinate you for gunpowder."

"I already got that talk, don't worry."

Noseboop. "Make sure you listen, then."

"For you, I will."

"See to it, Lieutenant Colonel."

Heee.

"It'd be neat if we could pull you over, though that might complicate the both of us getting back to Amestris..."

"It'd be a good proof of concept for a generalized transit array."

"It would! And if you rope Ling in, probably we could do something with alkahestric anchors on either side..."

"I'll send a letter straight away."

"Thanks." Squeeze.

"How long has it been for you?"

"Four days."

"...I think that's about how long it's been for me, but I've apparently been unconscious a lot and also lost memory..."

"Memory loss? That's not good, Lion."

"Yeah. And..." She explains the Fade dream stuff and the visions they heard. 

"So now you're a person of interest in the investigation of the death of a major political figure."

"And the person they desperately need to keep alive for magic reasons. Just like the good old days."

"Try not to get kidnapped as much, though."

"I'll do my best."

Hug.

Hug.

"...Even as much as I want to learn about magic - I don't want to wake up to a world that doesn't have you," she says, quietly.

"I know. I don't want to be without you either. I'm going to find a way to get you back. Or join you."

Beam!

"And... Hopefully we'll keep being able to meet here."

" - How did you end up here?"

"I helped," El's Truth pipes up from behind. "Feel free to thank me."

El flips her off without looking.

" - Just want to make sure you didn't like, try human transmutation or a trade or anything dumb to get me back. 'Cause, y'know, I'd have to scold you about that."

"Not that desperate yet. Just meditation."

Squeeze. "Good."

And then over El's shoulder, to her Truth: "Thanks for bringing her here."

"You're welcome!" Wink. "I like a girl with manners."

Giggle! And maaayyyybe a tiny blush. Just a small dusting. "Oh, the manners are just a soft cover for my claws."

Frown. "Please don't encourage her."

"I'm sorry, El." And, to El's Truth: "Be nicer to my sister, or I won't keep my claws to myself."

"That might be fun too," she murmurs.

"Augh."

"Do we need to gag you?"

"Liiiiiooooonnnnnn."

"What? Don't you want her to stop talking?"

"Not like thiiiiiis."

"What's wrong?"

"You flirting with my Truth feels weird."

"...Oh. Sorry."

"S'okay." Hug.

Hug!

(El thinking Bellona was flirting with her Truth and finding that weird in turn feels weird to Bellona, and she doesn't really know why it's so weird to her, and she doesn't want to ask El what's weird to her because Bellona might get an answer she doesn't like, when she isn't even sure what answers she'd dislike. So Bellona is mostly just feeling uncomfortable and awkward, now.)

Yeah. A little awkward.

Maybe distraction by initial thoughts on what the formula for interworld travel would have to be like?

Sounds like a plan!

Of course, they have the one Bellona got trapped by to start with...

Some ideas to explore there...