Kitranna, Anders, Sigrun, Nathaniel, Oghren and Justice finally reached the Pilgrim's Path after about a week and a half of riding. They'd been delayed by a storm, but were now finally getting to their destination. They approached the problem area (Kitranna sensing both darkspawn in the distance and a faint pressure on the Veil, a sure sign someone was doing spellwork) when someone came running in the opposite direction and almost ran into them.
“Out of my way!” the man snapped.
“Woah, hold on there,” Kitranna said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What's going on?”
“You don't understand--” the man tried to press past Kitranna without success. “She's after me--”
"Who's after you?” Sigrun asked.
“The elf!” the man said, frantic. “Some witch—makes the trees come alive--” he shook his head and managed to push by them, and barreled full-speed down the path.
“Well,” Kitranna put her hands on her hips. “That sounds promising.”
“Does it?” Justice asked.
“She's being sarcastic,” Anders explained.
Their conversation was interrupted when the sound of a spell cracked the air, and on a ledge above them, the trees forcibly parted so they could see a blonde elvhen woman in ragged clothes.
The woman looked down her nose at them, a sneer on her face. “More scavengers, here to prey on the misfortunes of others?”
“No,” Sigrun called up. “We're not.”
Kitranna peered intently at the woman, noting the tattoos on her forehead and the Dalish style of her clothing.
“Are you Velanna?” Kitranna asked.
The blonde's head jerked back, and she scowled. “How do you know that?” she snapped.
“Your Keeper wants you to stop running wild,” Kitranna said. “And I'm pretty sure these caravans would appreciate it if you stopped attacking them, too.”
Velanna shook her head. “You don't understand,” she snarled. “Nor does the Keeper—the shems have been hounding me for months, killed my friends, and the merchants kidnapped my sister!”
“I hadn't heard anything about that,” Kitranna said. “Just that your Keeper wanted you to stop going after humans.”
Velanna growled in frustration. “They will return Seranni to me, or more of them will die!” she snapped. “Consider this a warning!”
The air cracked with magic again, and she was gone.
“We'd've heard if a bunch of merchants had kidnapped a Dalish elf, wouldn't we?” Anders asked. “They would've been bragging about it for months.”
Kitranna inclined her head. “Probably—and as far as I know, there aren't even that many Dalish in the area except for Velanna and her friends.”
“You heard about them?” Sigrun said. “Why do you know about them?”
“Andoriel—the Dalish ambassador at the Keep—said that Clan Limdurlahn had some kind of scuffle with some humans. Velanna and some others wanted to try and get revenge, Keeper Ilshae disagreed, so now we have this.” she gestured up to where Velanna had been. “C'mon, we should find her before she does any more damage.”
“What about her sister?” Sigrun asked as they walked up the hill.
“We'll keep an eye out for her, too,” Kitranna said. “But I don't even know where to start—Velanna chased all the merchants away, so even if they have kidnapped her, we won't know where any of them went.”
The woods crackled with magic, the Veil thin and easily pushed against. Kitranna frowned.
“Anders, Justice, you feel anything...weird about this place?” she reached out into the air, where she could almost feel a hole in the Veil, like cloth that had worn too thin.
“Mm,” Justice rumbled. “The Veil is very worn here.”
Anders nodded in agreement. “I thought maybe it was her, the Dalish mage,” he said. “But I think it's too much for one person.”
Kitranna took a breath. “Do you all feel the darkspawn, too?”
“A little,” Anders said.
“Only vaguely,” Nathaniel said. “As if they were very far away.”
Kitranna nodded.
“Think they're up to somethin'?” Oghren asked.
“Yeah, probably,” Kitranna said. They walked for a ways, not encountering Velanna again, when they ran across an abandoned Dalish campsite. It had clearly been attacked, one of the aravels destroyed and the tents all collapsed. There were no halla to be seen, and several Ferelden-style weapons were scattered about.
Justice frowned when they reached the site. “This place has been scarred by pain,” he said. “But...” he picked up a broadsword that had been made in the Ferelden way. “These weapons seem out of place.”
“How so?” Kitranna asked.
Justice put the sword down. “All is not as it seems.” he glanced around the ruined campsite, his eyes narrowed at the sight of the violence. “Death...it is as much a mystery to us as it is to mortals.” he admitted.
“How's that?” Sigrun asked.
“What lies beyond is obscured, even to us.” Justice glanced at the aravels and tents again. “Tell me—what does it mean, to be Dalish? The body I inhabit—the memories say that the Dalish were cast out, unwelcome in almost every land. Why is that?”
“That's a really long story that I don't have time to get into now,” Kitranna said. Anders gave Justice a quick, abridged history while the group continued on. They kept looking, still not encountering either Velanna or the darkspawn.
What they did find, however, was one lone survivor of a group of mercenaries that had been attacked by darkspawn. Initially they were in the wood to drive away Velanna and her group, but the darkspawn not only overwhelmed them, but took their weapons as well. As far as the man could tell, the darkspawn had killed the other members of Velanna's group and planted the weapons to trick her into attacking other merchants, instead of focusing her efforts on whatever it was that the darkspawn were doing. The survivor, sick with the Taint, died soon after relating the story.
“So all of these people died over a...misunderstanding?” Anders gasped. “Maker, that's horrible! We have to find her, tell her she's wrong--”
Kitranna snorted. “There's a pretty good chance that the mercs and Velanna's people would have fought anyway,” she said. “I think the bigger problem is the darkspawn figuring out how to trick people.”
“I've never even heard of them doing that,” Sigrun said.
“I haven't either,” Kitranna pressed her mouth into a thin line. They doubled back, to see if they could find Velanna back at her campsite, and ran into a group of darkspawn instead.
They dealt with the darkspawn, which came in truly alarming numbers, and when they were almost back at the Dalish campsite, Velanna made herself known again.
“Why are you still here?” she demanded from a tall ledge. “I told you to leave me alone! I warned you—this place is not for you!”
“It's not for you, either,” Kitranna called back. “Honestly, with all the darkspawn around, no one should be here, but I don't see you leaving.”
Velanna scowled.
“It's not the mercenaries who killed your friends,” Anders told Velanna. “It was darkspawn!”
Velanna snorted and folded her arms. “Since when do darkspawn use shemlen weapons?”
“They have a lot of new tricks,” Kitranna said. “Look—can you just come down and we can talk about this?”
Velanna tilted her head back and looked at them with suspicion. “You say that Keeper Ilshae sent you?”
Kitranna shook her head. “No—Andoriel Panalenvinte told me that Keeper Ilshae told her to keep an eye out.”
Velanna considered them for a moment or two. Then the trees closed around her again, there was a rumbling in the ground, and she popped up in a thicket of branches and roots, right next to them.
“Wow!” Sigrun exclaimed, as Velanna brushed some dirt off her sleeve. “How'd you do that?”
Velanna glanced at her, eyebrows raised. “Why would you want to know?” she snapped, looking Sigrun up and down. “You are a dwarf.”
Sigrun shrugged. “I was just wondering,” she said.
Kitranna waved a hand. “Whatever,”she said. “We have to deal with the darkspawn.”
“Why would the darkspawn do this?” Velanna asked, her voice cracking. “It makes no sense—they’ve never done anything like this before now!”
“There’s a new kind,” Kitranna said. “Have you run into any talking ones?”
“Talking?” Velanna snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. “They can’t talk.”
“These ones can,” Nathaniel said grimly.
“Not very well,” Anders added. “But they can.”
Velanna shook her head. “But why take Seranni, and kill the others? What is the point?”
Sigrun frowned. “Was Seranni the only other woman with you?” she asked.
“No—two others, and they just killed them. Why?”
Sigrun’s frown grew more pronounced, and she exchanged a look with the other Wardens. “They make women into Broodmothers,” she said. “But if there was more than one woman…”
“Why would they just take one, and kill the others?” Nathaniel finished. “That does not make sense.”
“Wait--” Velanna said. “Are you saying Seranni will—become one of those things?”
“That is traditionally how Broodmothers are made, yeah,” Kitranna said, hands on her hips. “And if we hurry and try and find her, we’ll have a better chance of stopping that from happening.”
“This elf should be brought to justice,” Justice said, a scowl twisting his face. “Why should we assist her at all?”
Velanna stared at Justice as if she’d only just seen him. “What would you know of justice, spirit?” she demanded. “Whatever purity of purpose you once had, surely it is lost now.”
Justice’s scowl deepened. “What would you know of it?”
“More than you, apparently—don’t you know that when you have a body, your purpose is polluted, twisted?” she waved a hand at him. “You’re two steps away from being a demon. Why do you think you don’t see spirits of Compassion or Curiosity walking around in dead bodies?”
“I would not become a demon,” Justice snapped. “You are wrong.”
“She does have a point,” Nathaniel said quietly. “I’ve never heard of a friendly spirit possessing a body.”
“Just because you’ve never heard of it doesn’t mean it can’t happen,” Anders pointed out. “Justice’s been fine so far!”
“So far,” Velanna grumbled.
“This conversation can also wait ‘till we’ve dealt with the darkspawn,” Kitranna snapped.
“Do you know where any might be?” Velanna asked.
Kitranna shook her head. “We keep feeling them around, but can’t locate them.”
Velanna blinked. “You...feel them?”
“Wardens can do that,” Sigrun explained. “We can feel where the darkspawn are.”
“Keeper Zathrian could tell when the Blight was coming from the Wilds,” Kitranna explained. “So it’s like that.”
Velanna nodded, her eyes lit up in understanding. “I see...but I could not tell you where any darkspawn might be. I have not encountered any.” she frowned. “Nor come across any Blighted beasts—but that makes no sense, during the Blight, we found many Blighted animals, even far away from the Horde…”
“They’re being sneaky,” Sigrun said, shaking her head. “They put a lot of thought into tricking you. I don’t like it.”
“Neither do i,” Kitranna said. “Any tunnels or ruins nearby? Dwarven ruins would be the most likely guess…”
“There are some old mining tunnels to the south,” Velanna said, jerking her head in the appropriate direction. “Perhaps there.”
They went to the tunnels, and the feeling of darkspawn did indeed increase tremendously. The tunnels smelled rank and rotten, like meat that had gone off, another fairly clear indicator of darkspawn nearby.
The mine, however, was abandoned, no darkspawn coming to meet them. They could feel something watching them, and the Wardens continued to sense darkspawn, but none appeared.
“Does anyone else have the feeling this is one big trap?” Anders asked softly.
Kitranna curled her lip. “It definitely doesn’t feel right,” hse said. “But we need to keep going.”
“I’m sure there is a better way to do this than just stumbling about in the dark,” Nathaniel said, exchanging a look with Anders.
Kitranna gritted her teeth. “If you have any ideas, please feel free to let me know,” she snapped.
“Anything other than wandering around blindly would be--”
The group was suddenly stricken with a trap spell—they’d wandered right into a glyph that had been placed on the ceiling.
Kitranna muttered a vulgar oath and she, Anders and Velanna all separately started to spin counterspells to the glyph, when a man appeared at the mouth of one of the tunnels far overhead.
The man was enormous, would have been huge even for a Vashothari, and he loomed over her, the only thing she could see in the darkness. His gray skin gleamed in the shadows, golden skeletal structures crisscrossed his ribs and arms. His eyes were covered by a mask, and his head was in the wrong shape. He was flanked by a woman in armor.
He raised a long, clawed hand, and the group felt their eyes growing heavy. Kitranna’s vision grayed at the edges, and she lost grip of her spell, and fell unconscious.