She may sound dry as the Hissing Wastes and resentful of his insistence on the topic at allβbut she's considering, too, because not being able to answer the exact question he asked doesn't mean she has no information to offer at all. Ness hums, mind on the treasure-seeker's diary, the state of the village, the children trapped in their cellar, how it all culminated in the Deep Roads. There is a story that can be spun by putting each piece of the whole together, a puzzle of Darkspawn and lyriumβbut it requires so much conjecture, assumption, inference.
"It's hard to say anything about the events of the Pass before we arrived there with any certainty," she says eventually, sighing, "but what we saw did suggest a Darkspawn raid was what finally left the village abandoned, and that the Darkspawn who conducted the raid were mutated by the lyrium in the same manner as we would discover native Thedosians could be.
"But they left no bodies, Warden," she says quietly, "I don't think they killed a single person. We fought mutated humans below the Deep Roads right beside the Darkspawn."
Strand settles on a crate. Watches her think. There's a familiar wind-up to these things, the way that a riddle's spun and unspun. Pleasure in seeing a thing done well: When you need an expert, you seek one.
"Unusual," As she'll have read enough to know. The Wardens keep their secrets, but the waste laid by Darkspawn is written across book and battlefield. Half this city was once Ferelden. "Even the old, the young?"
Even the men, he does not ask. Some things can be kept within the Order.
"The Taint β" Forearm extended, he taps fingers over black. "β Runs through every Darkspawn. It's how they communicate, it's how Corypheus moves them. And if you're correct, something else has found a way to interfere."
"The old, the young," the siblings, fused into a single being, monstrous and wailing and confused, "everyone."
It's a conclusion which has occurred to her beforeβthere was something different about these Darkspawn, priorities which did not match what she'd read of those of an Archdemon or Corypheus himself, but far as she is from an expert Ness has been unwilling to linger on them. Instincts validated, she unspools that thread again, considers its implications, supporting evidence, possible conclusions, pacing the floor.
"The men we hired to bring us to the Pass," she says, "the brothersβthey were not visibly Tainted, nor were they mutated. But when we came to the nest, they were clearly affected by it. They attempted... well. It's in the report, what happened there."
No reason to rehash itβto possibly tell the Warden more than he is meant to knowβshe will have to reread the report, to see what story they have committed to posterity.
"They weren't Tainted. But they were maddened, terrified, and driven to a goal. Something had a will in that room, and it bent both a nest of Darkspawn and a village of humans to its ends."
mea culpa for long delays, blanket it's ok to drop etc
"If it was buriable, there are limits to its influence. A radius."
There's one for the sense that pushes at his own, for any Blighted place, for Corypheus; greater again, an archdemon. This isn't only Taint, but if it works within it, they might set a perimeter. His knuckles fold.
"When you first met them, how certain are you the brothers were themselves?"
Back in Tallo, the fish would drift up sometimes, dangling a light before their jaws. A guide into the dark.
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no subject
"I regret to disappoint you, Warden, but there was hardly an opportunity to observe their behaviour before the melΓ©e began. I can't offer any more insight on the topic than Warden Siorus might have."
She may sound dry as the Hissing Wastes and resentful of his insistence on the topic at allβbut she's considering, too, because not being able to answer the exact question he asked doesn't mean she has no information to offer at all. Ness hums, mind on the treasure-seeker's diary, the state of the village, the children trapped in their cellar, how it all culminated in the Deep Roads. There is a story that can be spun by putting each piece of the whole together, a puzzle of Darkspawn and lyriumβbut it requires so much conjecture, assumption, inference.
"It's hard to say anything about the events of the Pass before we arrived there with any certainty," she says eventually, sighing, "but what we saw did suggest a Darkspawn raid was what finally left the village abandoned, and that the Darkspawn who conducted the raid were mutated by the lyrium in the same manner as we would discover native Thedosians could be.
"But they left no bodies, Warden," she says quietly, "I don't think they killed a single person. We fought mutated humans below the Deep Roads right beside the Darkspawn."
no subject
"Unusual," As she'll have read enough to know. The Wardens keep their secrets, but the waste laid by Darkspawn is written across book and battlefield. Half this city was once Ferelden. "Even the old, the young?"
Even the men, he does not ask. Some things can be kept within the Order.
"The Taint β" Forearm extended, he taps fingers over black. "β Runs through every Darkspawn. It's how they communicate, it's how Corypheus moves them. And if you're correct, something else has found a way to interfere."
no subject
It's a conclusion which has occurred to her beforeβthere was something different about these Darkspawn, priorities which did not match what she'd read of those of an Archdemon or Corypheus himself, but far as she is from an expert Ness has been unwilling to linger on them. Instincts validated, she unspools that thread again, considers its implications, supporting evidence, possible conclusions, pacing the floor.
"The men we hired to bring us to the Pass," she says, "the brothersβthey were not visibly Tainted, nor were they mutated. But when we came to the nest, they were clearly affected by it. They attempted... well. It's in the report, what happened there."
No reason to rehash itβto possibly tell the Warden more than he is meant to knowβshe will have to reread the report, to see what story they have committed to posterity.
"They weren't Tainted. But they were maddened, terrified, and driven to a goal. Something had a will in that room, and it bent both a nest of Darkspawn and a village of humans to its ends."
mea culpa for long delays, blanket it's ok to drop etc
There's one for the sense that pushes at his own, for any Blighted place, for Corypheus; greater again, an archdemon. This isn't only Taint, but if it works within it, they might set a perimeter. His knuckles fold.
"When you first met them, how certain are you the brothers were themselves?"
Back in Tallo, the fish would drift up sometimes, dangling a light before their jaws. A guide into the dark.