Dragon Age: The Ferelden Chronicles

Chapter Two

Varia kept her eyes shut tightly, forcing back a wave of nausea which threatened to overtake her. She now fully understood why Wendell had gotten sick at the mere mention of the Harrowing after taking his. Being forcibly pulled from your own body and into the Fade was quite a different experience from visiting it in one's dreams.

After a moment, she slowly opened her eyes and softly gasped at the sight before her. This was not how she remembered the Fade. In her dreams, she was always in a grassy field or at that farmstead where her father had last worked before he died. Occasionally, she would be at a castle, riding horses with a prince. But this... This was nothing more than a desolate wasteland - and it was all hazy. Her eyes refused to focus entirely, no matter how many times she squeezed them shut and opened them again. She could see some sort of fortress off in the distance, but couldn't make it out clearly. Was that where she was to go in order to complete her Harrowing?

She took a cautious step forward, still feeling a bit out of sorts, and paused when everything started to spin around her. Looking around for a place to sit and rest for a moment, she noticed a tall, grotesque statue with a small outcropping of glowing blue rock near its base. She said a small prayer of thanks under her breath and went over to the rock to sit down, but something didn't feel quite right as she approached it. The closer she grew to the rock, the more it glowed, and by the time she reached it she had realized why: The rock was pure, unrefined lyrium. She could feel the magic reverberating off it as it pulsed a vibrant blue color, the waves calming her and clearing her head in a matter of seconds.

Feeling renewed and ready to continue forward, Varia set out on the only visible path ahead of her. The ground beneath her feet was dusty and well-worn, and she momentarily wondered just how many mages had traversed this very same path over the years. She was pulled from her thoughts by a low, buzzing sound, however, and glanced up to find a wisp wraith floating in the air several feet ahead. The wisp glowed softly, white sparks dancing around its center as it simply hovered in the air. Then, without warning, the light emanating from it became almost blindingly bright and it threw a bolt of energy directly at her.

Varia didn't react quickly enough, and she ended up being dazed when the wisp's attack hit her at full force. She swore under her breath and concentrated on a shield spell, and when the wisp attempted to send another bolt of arcane energy at her it was easily deflected. She responded in kind, flicking her wrist and sending an arcane bolt right back to the wisp. The spell hit its mark and the wisp instantly burst, sending tiny particles of shimmering energy into the air.

"That was entirely too easy," Varia muttered to herself, and she set forward along the path once again. She reminded herself, though, that this was not her true test. The demon Irving had spoken of - wherever it may be hiding - was the thing she had to be worried about.

She encountered another wisp several hundred yards along the path from where the first one had been, but this time she was ready for it. By the time it launched its attack, she already had her shield up and had sent out an attack of her own. The wisp burst at the very same moment its weak energy bolt dissolved into her shield.

"Someone else thrown to the wolves," came a voice from somewhere nearby. "As fresh and unprepared as ever."

"Who's there?" Varia asked, looking around for the source of the voice, all of her senses suddenly on full alert in case this was the demon she had been sent to face.