I think on some level, even with everything so utterly terrible in basically all directions, there's a part of Helena that's still relieved to be back home. This is a war for the fate of the world, but in the end it still comes down to what it always does - her boots slapping on the sodden streets of her city as she hunts down the latest power-hungry mage wreaking havoc. It's comforting, in an odd way, but also horrifying - because that familiarity has been corrupted, tarnished, perhaps forever.
But for better or worse - she knows where she is, how to get where she needs to go, and all the winding alleyways between here and there. She knows how to do this. And she'll get it done - or die trying. The latter's just a little higher in probability right now.
Or a lot.
"It was close at the gate," Harding gasps out. "But we're getting through." She and Helena are both still breathing hard from the hectic race across the courtyard in the shadow of the collapsing construct. Emmrich, meanwhile, is not breathing at all, and his skeletal grin is the same as always - but Helena can see the rapid twitching of his head as he looks around, betraying his intensity.
"They fought hard to get us inside," he says gravely. "It falls to us to carry on."
-----
As usual, this game's greatest strength is in its phenomenal visual setpieces. I mean look at this.
Minrathous is in a hell of a state. The streets are shattered, and darkspawn and Venatori roam the streets. Helena cuts them all down with a singleminded determination. This is her home, not theirs. She'll take them all out one by one if she has to, burn out all the blight.
But first she'll find Solas, and then Elgar'nan.
The blight is everywhere, curling up in gargantuan tentacles around buildings with blasted-out windows.
"Our Lady of Victory..." Harding says in a low voice as they look out over what remains of Dumat Plaza. "That's the name of the statue, right?" A pause; she looks sideways at Helena with an attempt at a smile. "She's seen better days."
Helena tries to laugh, but it sort of gets stuck in her throat and she falls silent again, her face twisting. This is so wrong, all of it. All of it...
-----
Hessarian Plaza. More darkspawn, flooding out of broken buildings and over the lingering corpses of dead civilians. More Venatori, with their mocking battle cries.
"It's as bad as Treviso," Harding says in a low voice.
Might as well have helped save Treviso, Helena thinks bitterly, for all the good it's done Minrathous in the end.
A piece of dessicated blight shatters beneath her feet.
-----
Shoving her way through a wall of the grotesque stuff, she hears a familiar voice shouting from somewhere up ahead.
Teia, locked in battle with the mage captain from the front gate. Shouts of Antivan profanity echo down the rain-slick alleyway, mixed with the sizzling sound of magical bolts, the clang of metal on metal.
A sudden sharper blow. Teia falls with a cry, and Helena shouts, struggling to charge through the bramble-like blight tendrils holding her back. But Lucanis is there to intervene, surging out of a shadow and catching the mage's staff on the downswing before it can finish the job.
A sudden burst of magic sends them flying apart. Helena finally scrabbles free of the blight, stumbling in her haste to climb the stairs.
But Teia is faster. Back on her feet, she grabs the mage by the collar of her cloak and lifts her onto her feet.
A soft schlick sound beneath the driving rain, and the mage falls heavily back to the stone tiles, blood pouring from her neck.
Silence.
Helena reaches out a hand, helps Lucanis back onto his feet. She can see a flash of wariness in his eyes - perhaps he expects her to crack some joke to ease the tension, as she has so many times before. But she doesn't, just looks at him steadily. There's no humor left in either of them at the moment.
"Well fought, Lucanis," Teia murmurs, coming up alongside them.
Helena inclines her head in agreement. "And there he is," she says quietly. "The Demon of Vyrantium."
He looks back at her steadily, then nods. "At your service," he says, his voice a low hiss of exhaustion and adrenaline. "Teia and I will return to the Crows and help with the fight through the city. You go after Solas."
"We spotted him," Teia puts in tersely. "He's not far ahead. That way, quickly." She jerks her head to indicate the stairs leading up out of the alleyway.
Helena nods. No time for further words; she just turns and darts up the stairs, Harding and Emmrich trailing in her wake.
"This is an astounding amount of blight," she hears Emmrich comment placidly behind her as they emerge into the open again, beneath the shadow of a branch of corruption thick as an oak tree.
"I heard Solas was helping the Shadow Dragons," Harding mutters in answer. "It'd be even worse without him."
Helena scowls to herself. She doesn't want to feel any gratitude to Solas, any relief that he was here to help her friends. Whatever he's doing, it's clear to her that it is entirely for his own ends.
-----
There's an open square beyond the alley. The shops lining it are in rubble, shattered apart by giant blight tendrils, pieces of them scattered across the ground. Patches of fire burn wherever wood has been exposed, flooding the air with steam and smoke that melds with the driving rain.
As Helena turns a corner, scrabbling up another set of stone steps, she's nearly knocked off her feet by yet another tendril the size of a tree trunk, spasming sideways with something twisted in its grip.
A body in green and black hits the ground with a crunching thump and lies still, followed by a panicked shout from beyond the nearest rubble pile.
"ASHUR!"
Tarquin comes surging through the chaos, soaked in rain and some blood, crouching at the fallen Viper's side before flashing his eyes up. His blade lances outwards, striking the tendril as it descends for another blow, cutting a chunk off of it to fall motionless.
"GET OUT OF MY CITY!" he roars.
The tendril spasms with an uneartly inward shriek, lashing out more violently in answer to the cut of the blade. It arches up over Tarquin's head-- and then stops.
A flare of green light surges around it, dragging it backwards as if gripped by an invisible fist, disappearing back into the mass of blight that has enveloped the rest of the square.
For a moment Tarquin stands still, staring after the tendril, his blade falling heavily to his side in a motion that betrays incredible weariness. But then he's moving again, turning to dart back to the Viper's side just as Helena manages to crest the stairs.
"Ashur?!"
The Viper stirs weakly as Tarquin grips his wrist. "Did we win?" he asks weakly.
Tarquin answers with a shaky laugh. "You're lucky your head's so damn hard," he murmurs, pulling the taller man to his feet.
"Tarquin! Viper!" Helena cries as she dashes towards them. "You're alive!" It's some of the best news she's had in a while; she's already resigned to the knowledge that many, many Dragons are almost certainly already dead.
Tarquin turns towards her with a grim nod; she can see the answering gratification in his eyes at seeing her, but doesn't voice it. "Thanks to Solas," he says crisply. "He's been the only thing between us and Elgar'nan."
He jerks his head to indicate something behind Helena, and she turns, staring across the square.
A lone figure stands among the blight, bristling with that same green energy that saved Tarquin, wrestling back tendril after tendril as it tries to surge forward.
Solas.
Helena scowls. She hates this, hates that he is helping, hates that he has no doubt saved people she cares about. Because she knows that in the end he is only using them, just as he used her.
Because she has to stop him.
"Stay with them," she tells Emmrich and Harding in a low voice. "I'm going to talk to Solas." And without waiting for a response, she strides forward through the rain.
