[closed] let's all go to the deep roads

[doneisdone]

WHO: Teren, Barty, Ellis, and Vance
WHAT: a routine excursion to the Deep Roads and gesture of goodwill to the dwarves of Orzammar
WHEN: after Champrovent/Kingsway
WHERE: the Deep Roads around Orzammar
NOTES: darked spawn

I. Traveling

There's a lot of walking. They leave straight from Champrovent-- with Vance, which Teren hadn't expected in the beginning-- and meet Barty partway over with extra provisions and his indomitable spirit.
After what they've just had to do, there's likely little cheer to be found, and if left undistracted, they remain a quiet, surly bunch all the while. Fortunately, they are unlikely to be left undistracted.


II. Camping in the Deep Roads

On the first night in their destination, after tents have been pitched and fires built, Teren passes wooden cups around and pours a bit of wine into them from a dusty old bottle.

"To those we can't save," she says solemnly, lifting her cup and staring at the fire, "and to those we can." Neither fate is ideal, for most.


III. Darkspawn Battle

Traversing the Deep Roads is quiet and boring at the best of times and bloody at the worst, but apart from the few smatterings of darkspawn they've managed to eradicate, everything has felt pretty routine. The Wardens are making their gradual return to Orzammar, idly playing a game in which each person in turn contributes the next word to a story, when they're met with an ambush.

A flame trap, triggered by an unseen force, roars up in front of them and behind, the walls between crumbling as two small armies of darkspawn pour out of the loosely covered-over cracks. A hurlock emissary waves its staff, and anyone standing in the wrong place at the wrong time is temporarily paralyzed.

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