"I’ll distract them. run — run and don’t look back.” Cassmos
Ilenaquisition AU - Terenti and Vasili join a lot earlier.
“If this is the afterlife, the Chantry owes me an apology. This looks nothing like the Maker’s bosom,” Garrett Hawke said before jumping down onto the… biggest piece of ground. It was difficult to tell. He was one of the few to land with any sort of grace. He drew his staff and lit the end, but the light did nothing to illuminate the Fade. Everything was a milky green miasma.
Cassandra dusted herself off after ensuring that no one had seen her land on her face. She pulled her garnet magic focus out of her pocket and squeezed it tightly enough that that silver housing bit into the thick leather of her glove. It cast a red shadow back on her armor, but similarly did nothing to lighten the Fade.
She glanced around. Aside from the Champion of Kirkwall, she added a derisive to the title, she had to deal with both Sokolovs, the Inquisitor, whose fault this entire endeavor was and Amos. Why the giant wasn’t with Merula, Cassandra neither knew nor cared. She was simply relieved she wasn’t going to have to deal with the sniveling failure of Tevinter teachings.
The Sokolov twins were bickering.
One fewer failure of Tevinter teachings.
“Shut up, mortals,” a demon said. It had materialized behind the twins and loomed as wide as it was tall. It wore a crown. Cassandra blinked at it several times before realizing it was George. That certainly explained its- his bizarre way of speaking. She wrinkled her nose. She certainly hoped Sokolov’s pet Fear demon wasn’t going to materialize as well. It was far more difficult to deal with.
Cassandra didn’t bother listening as the spirit masquerading as the late White Divine explained some ridiculous grand quest that the silly little Inquisitor seemed to take seriously. Finding memories, what a sham. She looked up at Amos and recognized the suppressed worry in the shallow crease in his brow and the tension in his neck. He caught her eye, glanced at George and then nodded.
She responded with tilt of her chin and a momentary sneer. She replaced her magical focus in its pouch and followed behind Terenti Sokolov - the more annoying one - as they progressed further into the Fade. Her silverite hilt felt heavy in her hand. She shifted her gait to compensate for the weight of it, but left it without its magic blade.
“Inquisitor, how rude of you to bring strangers into my lair. And after I was so nice as to remove your memories,” the Nightmare demon said.
“My peons are no strangers to you,” George replied. “Many a time, I have had to banish you from their dreams.”
“You are weak now that you’ve renounced your nature as Wisdom, Hunger,” the Nightmare said, its voice piercing through Cassandra’s chest like a blast of Frost magic.
“My name is George!” Sokolov’s demon howled with such volume, everyone’s eardrums would have burst if they had been in the real world. Cassandra grimaced and looked over at Amos, who had both hands over his ears and his head tilted downward.
She touched his elbow and waited for him to acknowledge her. “Ignore it. It is not real. You give it power with your mind. The more you find it painful the more painful it becomes.”
That that was circular logic and nigh unactionable, Cassandra refused to acknowledge. For his part, Amos seemed unconcerned. Though his face was screwed up in concentration, most of the pain was gone and the tension slowly left his neck and jaw. George had disappeared by the time Cassandra looked back at the Sokolov twins. They were impossible to miss - their blond hair glowed nearly white in Fade. Vasili’s blood magic seemed to be out of his control. The visible tattoos flashed and blinked with power.
Cassandra lit the blade of her sword with magic. While it was usually blood red light, it materialized as… metal. For the first time truly unsettled, Cassandra swallowed, but kept her weapon ready.
The Nightmare was speaking again. “I won’t let Hunger distract me,” the demon ignored Vasili’s shouted ‘He’s an Avarice demon!’ “You still need to introduce me to your friends, Ghilenan. All of them.” It laughed and its presence dimmed as fearlings converged on the mortals.
Though she had strong mental resistance, in the Fade Cassandra couldn’t fight off the Nightmare directly and the formless demons quickly transformed into giant scorpions. She froze for an instant, remembering them converging around the short platform on which- She bit through her tongue and blinked her eyes to banish the memory. What Amos saw, she didn’t know, but whatever the creatures were, they were taller than her scorpions, judging by the angle of his blows.
It was difficult for her to keep proper track of the fight when his strikes impacted her enemies despite visually not being anywhere near. She was more than half tempted to close her eyes and fight blind, relying on her other senses and magic to guide her. When she slashed the last scorpion in half, Cassandra straightened and examined her blade. It was still as disturbingly corporeal as it had been when she summoned it. The gore splattered across it was also real. She frowned, unsure what to do. Usually a good shake or banishing the blade of magic would remove the detritus.
Amos pressed a rag on her shoulder before wiping his own blade down. Without turning to him, Cassandra nodded and cleaned her weapon. He took the rag back from her, but even as he pulled it away, the demon flesh dissolved back into the misty green miasma that hung around them. She frowned at it before continuing forward.
“Magister Sokolov.. Have you ever considered that it might you that brings about the death of everyone you love?”
Though she didn’t want to look, Cassandra saw Terenti off to the side of the group picking his nose. “Hmm? What was that? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.” In the most dramatic way possible, Sokolov’s Fear demon materialized as if it were bursting out of his back. It hovered above him and spread its arms wide, appearing as a cloud of blackness with glowing red eyes.
The Nightmare hissed its displeasure and released another wave of fearlings against them. Instead of retreating, it lashed out with another attack. “You know nothing, little Lord Sokolov. Second in everything, but especially in your mind. Silly little boy can’t even accept his mother’s fate.”
Sokolov howled in response, his tattoos all lighting at once.
Cassandra rolled her eyes.
“Do you think you are perfect, little Cass?” The Nightmare asked next. She could feel its presence hovering just over her shoulder. Muscles spasming from the effort, Cassandra held herself as relaxed as possible while the taunts continued and the fearlings pressed forward. “If you’d been perfect, she might’ve let you out of the cage earlier.”
Amos tensed next to her, causing him to take a wound from the fearlings, but it wasn’t a poisoned pierce that she would expect from the scorpions she fought. Whatever it was that materialized for him had jaws and fangs made for ripping and tearing, though his armor took the brunt of the attack. Before she could switch her concentration back to the Nightmare demon, a second presence crashed against her mind. Cassandra hissed in a breath of recognition.
As suddenly as the demon appeared, it materialized. Partially underneath her. Cassandra was lifted high into the Fade’s ‘air’ by Pride. It held her aloft in one giant hand. “You called.”
“I did no such thing,” Cassandra said. Her throat wanted to tighten, but in the Fade will had final control of any action and she would not let Pride take her. “Stand down. This engagement is beneath you.”
“What a clever little Magister. Knows all of the right things to say. Go then. I will wait. I am always waiting.” Pride disappeared without another word, leaving Cassandra to fall back onto the black rocks below.
Unlike when she’d first arrived in the Fade, Cassandra landed perfectly on her feet, eating the impact with force magic pressing beneath her. She met Amos’ eyes as she stepped back into the group and there was fear there, but for her, not of her. Good. There was work left to be done with him, but not so much as she’d thought.
No one else had missed the exchange either, though Sokolov - the magister - attempted to say something before the Inquisitor jabbed him in the stomach with her staff.
“You will leave one with me, won’t you, Inquisitor?” The Nightmare asked. “He’s not even a person, after all. Doesn’t even know Amos isn’t really a name.”
Cassandra ignored Pride’s loud chuckle. She knew it had aimed the sound to her head alone and it did not require her acknowledgement of the message. She clenched her jaw and pushed Amos forward a few steps with far greater ease than it would take in the mortal realm. It was all will and strength of mind. When she returned her focus to the rest of the Inquisitor’s party, Ilena was in the middle of grasping the last of her stolen memories.
The spirit wearing Divine Justinia’s shape prattle on with more ridiculous Chantry rhetoric about hope and faith and the power of belief. Cassandra ignored it, waiting to push forward towards the rift that would lead them out of the Fade. Just as they approached it, Nightmare howled its displeasure and sent out its most powerful lieutenant. She recognized its shape as Fear, one of strength similar to Sokolov’s pet, before it transformed.
Though she closed her eyes at the moment of the demon’s transformation she knew what she would see when she opened them. And she was not disappointed. Tyche Hyal stood before her in full Magisterium regalia. She wondered if anyone else saw her, too; Tyche had ruled Asariel with terror and pain.
But perhaps not.
Cassandra bared her teeth and struck out as viciously at this shadow as she had in the flesh. As with the fearlings, the others’ attacks weren’t limited to the shape Cassandra could see of their enemy. Even though this demon was larger than Tyche had been in life, Sokolov’s bright bolts of magic shattered against nothingness over her head. The battle tore at Cassandra’s spirit as her too-physical sword had no affect on her mother. Tears streaked her face when the demon collapsed into a pile of smoldering robes. The rift leading back to Adamant fortress pulsed.
Magister Sokolov was the first one through it, to no one’s surprise. The other Sokolov was hot on his heels with the Nightmare demon materialized in what it probably thought was all of its majesty. Cassandra didn’t find it particularly frightening and wondered why it couldn’t change their individual perception of- She fell to her knees as its will assaulted her mind.
The next thing she knew, Amos was pulling her to her feet. He tried to push her towards the rift, but the conviction and sheer desire he had to get her there made the push a throw that had her halfway through it before she could react. He wasn’t even looking at her when he said, “I’ll distract it. Run. Run and don’t look back.”
Cassandra opened her mouth to protest, but Sokolov shoved her through the rift before she could say anything. She swung her weapon to cut him in half, but back in the real world it had returned to a simple hilt. Before Cassandra could reignite the magic, Sokolov was shoved out of the rift’s mouth by the Champion and the Inquisitor. She nearly murdered Ilena when she raised the anchor to seal it.
Thankfully for the Inquisitor, and perhaps all of Thedas, Amos was thrown bodily out of it just as it closed.
Inquisition forces rejoiced around them and the Inquisitor and the Wardens had some kind of verbal confrontation, but Cassandra paid them no mind. She waited for her heartrate to slow and then she stepped carefully over to where Amos was still sprawled against the stone. The wound on his arm was still ragged and open, but he hadn’t managed to acquire any new ones after tossing her aside.
Once he met her eyes, Cassandra said only, “Do not think I will allow myself to be handled as such again.”
He had no answer for her.