i'll be your shadow in the dark

[byblow]

WHO: Alistair, Dorian Pavus, Rafael Viteri, Scipio the Marvel, some horses, some darkspawn.
WHAT: Chekhov's vials of darkspawn blood.
WHEN: Early Firstfall.
WHERE: Mountain paths and what's left of Haven.

N—

Bunch of mining tunnels under ruins. Darkspawn peeking their heads through. Got Wardens up there don't you?

—J

Comments

@ Dorian again

[byblow]

They come out of the dark less subtly than spiders or deepstalkers, noisily and bearing torches, and not in too great a number. Alistair wouldn't have come down here with two untested thieves and a mage with no immunity if there were too many. Still: a few more than he would have liked.

Midway through the carnage, his sword sick through a hurlock's chest and into the icy tunnel for beneath him, he raises his head to look towards Dorian. "Coming up behind you," he barks. He pulls his sword free and ducks to cut the creature's throat, to be certain, and has time to wipe his face with his arm and adjust his hold on his shield before the ice and stone and wood behind Dorian begin to crumble and crash.

The other way, Scipio and Rafael have a handful of archers distracted and disabled and well in hand. And they aren't civilian(ish) volunteers. Alistair looks back at them to be sure they aren't dead, but he's at Dorian's side as the torchlight and stink of Blight-rot both seep through the falling wall.

"Watch the blood," he warns, probably for the fifth time, and rocks his sword low to the ground to loosen his wrist.

[liberalum]

"I'm watching the blood," Dorian sighs. It doesn't take too much restraint not to go ahead and snap something about definitely not wanting to catch the Blight, mostly because he is preoccupied with not catching the Blight.

Stepping side along and out of the way of the spill of filth and ice, Dorian turns his attention towards the figures shambling out of the darkness. They're offputtingly human in affect, intelligence and precision in their movements, in a way he doesn't associate with a demon driven mad by the sensory input of the waking world. Still, they aren't human. Intelligence doesn't connote humanity. You learn that in Tevinter.

With a sharp gesture of his staff, the leap of electricity branches off towards the gloomy passage way ahead, suddenly brightening it as lightning leaps from body to body, making them twitch and jerk like puppets.