Title: Men of An Inquisitive Nature
Author: The Phoenix King
Game: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Summary: The Inquisitor's journey takes him to a very strange town, and Varric wonders what exactly he's gotten himself into... An entry for ElderDragonEffect's Dragon Age: Inquisition Challenge.
Overall Rating: T/PG-13
Characters: Varric, the Inquisitor
Disclaimer: Dragon Age characters, settings, and all in-game dialogue property of Bioware.

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Men of An Inquisitive Nature

It was nightfall when Varric Tethras and the Inquisitor finally arrived at the town of Watersreach, their steeds trotting upon the uneven, weed infested cobblestones. It was a miserable town under the authority by an increasingly miserable Tantervale within an increasingly miserable Free Marches, and not for the first time, Varric wondered why his new-found companion had insisted so strongly upon Waterreach as their destination. In the darkness, it seemed like any other border settlement in the Free Marches; the roofs of buildings were patched and ramshackle, the stone walls erected to shield against bandits and the armies of other Marcher states had seen better days, and the paint on the river docks was chipped and faded. “Remind me again why we’re here, Inquisitor?”

“If you were an entity of boundless extradimensional evil, where would you hide, Master Varric?” the Inquisitor rumbled in a smooth baritone, face hidden beneath his dark cowl as ever. The only part of his face visible was his great grey eyes, cutting into him like razors. “A large city, where every conceivable Templar faction squabbles for influence or high-minded mages might attempt to stop you? Or a place such as this, where anyone capable to standing against you might be easily subverted? The demon we are tracking is a cautious one. It will not wish to act openly unless it has any other choice.”

“How do you know such things?”

A vicious ghost of a smile materialized, bright teeth gleaming. “You act as if ‘twas my first time.”

It was exactly the sort of cryptic, arrogant response Varric had come to expect from the Inquisitor, but after three months of aiding him on his missions, that was just about all he knew of the man. The mage maintained this deliberate air of mystery about him; so much so that the dwarf had never even learned his real name. “I have several,” was the Inquisitor’s only response when asked. His nationality and heritage remained a mystery too; of his mother, he spoke in riddles and scorn; of his father, he said little at all. He was a mage who valued his independence, thus putting him at immediate odds with the various Templar splinter factions like the Order of St. Lambert or the Red Templars, and yet held no particular sympathy for many of the rebel mage factions either. “The Free Circle in Orzammar may be relied upon to some extent, as would the Mages’ Collective in general, but the others pose a hindrance to my mission. I will not hunt them down as I might those Templar scum, but I’ll not suffer them to obstruct our path either.”

That was typical of the attitudes the Inquisitor possessed. At first glance, the young man was simply headstrong and arrogant, almost self-righteously certain about the validity of his decisions, but there was more to him than that. He was relentlessly cunning, always examining a situation with a keen analytical eye, possessed a wisdom that belied his lack of years, and as much as he assumed some noble superiority over the weak and the powerless, he had assumed an almost patriarchal interest in their well-being, like a king would over his subjects. As for the arrogance, perhaps that was well-deserved; Varric had seen the incredible powers the Inquisitor wielded over the course of their journey, and knew that the human was not to be trifled with.

Once more, Varric wondered why he had accepted the Inquisitor’s offer to join him in the first place. Since parting from Hawke’s company some six months earlier, the dwarf had just tried to stay beneath notice, focusing on his business ventures and let the conflicts raging beyond pass him by. He was sick of causes, and as much as he liked Hawke and Merrill, he knew their story was only going to end one way.

Then again, perhaps he had known in the back of his mind that there was no way he could remain sheltered from the storm forever. Across the length and breadth of Thedas, the Mage-Templar War raged, with the various mage and templar factions fighting it out against their age-old enemies and those of their own kind who did not share their specific ideologies, tearing apart communities and leaving so many dead in their wake.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg; in Orlais, the Grand Duke Gaspard had succeeded in forcing Empress Celene into hiding, and now his chevalier armies pressed hard against the borders of Ferelden and Neverra, only to be stymied by the efforts of King Alistair and his determined countrymen. In Kirkwall, Hawke had finally led the Host of Raptors to victory over the city’s Templar occupiers, and the newly-dubbed “Maker’s Foe” was now uniting the southern Free Marches to resist the march of Orlais. In the Anderfels, the squabbling of the local princes had finally broken out into full-fledged civil war, while in the north-east, the smouldering conflict between the Qunari and Tevinter had been renewed when the Qunari launched a surprise invasion of mainland Tevinter. Then, of course, there were the tears in the Veil that were popping up everywhere and releasing merciless demons of the Fade onto Thedas. Perhaps that was the reason why he had accepted the Inquisitor’s offer in the first place. When things were that bad, and someone came to you offering to help set things right again, who wouldn’t consider it?

The pair found stabling for their horses next to the local inn, and immediately, Varric became unnerved at how quiet the town was. Even after nightfall, there would have been servants going about their tasks, traders and travellers wandering about trying to find lodging, the inn ablaze with the sounds of merriment. Here, the only noises were the river slapping at the hulls of anchored fishing boats and the breath of their horses in the warm night air. “Let’s try the inn first,” suggested the Inquisitor. “’Twill be full of drunken fools, but we may yet find answers all the same.”

“Something’s not right here, Inquisitor. We’d better watch ourselves.”

“Agreed. Keep Bianca ready until we know what is going on.”

Drawing his repeating crossbow, Varric stepped into the threshold of the inn, quickly checking that his favourite weapon had not suffered any wear and tear over the trip. It was unlikely that the innkeepers would allow people to walk around with drawn weapons, but the uneasy feeling he had experienced since arriving only intensified the further inside they ventured, and he wasn’t about to be caught off-guard. No one appeared to challenge them as they walked through the halls, and judging from the dust covering the carpet and wall panels, the inn had not seen any maintenance in some time. If the Inquisitor felt any hesitation, he did not show it, striding through the inn as if he owned the place, the folds of his black cloak parting to reveal the black armour beneath.

Eventually, the two arrived in the inn’s tavern, and Varric’s breath caught in his throat. The tavern was packed with around two score people, as a place like this should have been, but its inhabitants were all listless, moving about the place as if they were sleepwalking. Nothing seemed to shake these men from their unnatural stupor, not even the blood painting the walls or the corpses lying at their feet. Experimentally, Varric waved his hand in front of one of the patrons, but there was no reaction. “What in the name of Andraste’s buttcheeks is going on here?” he demanded, shivering as the torchlight flickered all around them.

“It’s as I suspected. This town is under a demon’s thrall, a powerful one,” the Inquisitor explained. The mage drew his red birchwood staff, testing the bladed edge against his thumb. “No doubt it’s trying to augment its strength to leeching away the souls of the townsfolk. Keep your wits about you, Varric. It may try to ensnare us as well.” Lightning coalesced in the palm of his free hand, and the Inquisitor roared his challenge. “Reveal yourself, demon! Our long hunt is at an end!”

Without warning, the inn’s torches died, and Varric staggered back, plunged into darkness. A dry, snakelike hiss echoed throughout the tavern, morphing into an amused cackle that set the dwarf’s teeth on edge. “Poor, pitiful Darkchild. Delightfully arrogant, as always. Would that you had shown such spine in the past, boy, then things may not have gone the way they did…”

“You know nothing of me, demon, or my past.”

“Wrong. The Conclave of Nightmares knows of you, Darkchild, and what you’ve spent your life running from. We know what you are; a hateful freak, whose existence was a tragic mistake and crime against the order of the universe.” The ceiling creaked above Varric’s head, and he cocked a bolt back. “A lost child, desperately following in the footsteps of a father he never knew.”

The menace in the Inquisitor’s voice was palpable now. “Then you know what I am capable of, and what I will do if you do not release these folk. This world does not belong to you.”

“Fool!” the demon screeched. It was so close they could caught its rotten-leather stench. “The Time of Changes is upon us. All that was denied from us for so long will be ours!”

The sudden change to darkness had affected Varric’s vision, but his hearing had been untouched by the demon’s spell, and with a speed born of experience, he acted. Up came Bianca, stock pressed against his shoulder. The dwarf pulled the trigger, sending the stock thumping against his body and the bolt screaming towards the ceiling. An unearthly cry of pain sounded, and the Inquisitor directed a river of lightning from his staff towards the source, blistering eldritch flesh. The torches re-ignited, the demon dropped from its perch in the rafters, wounded, and Varric got his first look at the foe.

It was a demon of despair, one of the newer breeds that had emerged with the Veil tears spreading across the land. In his time with Hawke, Varric thought he had experienced all of the dreadful forms the Fade’s inhabitants could take, but this new horror was beyond the pale. The despair demon was vaguely feminine in the build of its upper body, though any comparison to a mortal woman ended when one saw that it possessed eight thick tentacles instead of legs, each tipped with a barbed, scythe-like blade. Its hide was a glossy jet-black, like snakeskin, and a series of serpents hissed and spat in place of her hair. The tavern’s inhabitants gave unconscious moans as the demon advanced, robotically shuffling away at a wave of its claw-tipped hand.

The demon lunged for them, balancing on four of its hideous appendages, while the other four shot forward like spears, the razor-sharp bone gleaming like steel. The Inquisitor met the attack with equal fury, tentacles bouncing off his armour. He brought his lightning to bear against the demon, and once more it screamed in rage at their defiance. “Mortal scum! You cannot stand--”

Another bolt from Bianca hammered it backwards, sending black pus gushing from the wound. “Will you just shut up already?!”

Howling, the despair demon launched itself right for the Inquisitor. The creature could have attempted to ensorcel the pair, or perhaps even flee, but it had been pursued far enough, and madness had long since overtaken reason. A storm of slashing tentacles came for the Inquisitor. His magic reacted instinctively, battering most of them away, but one slipped through the element onslaught, and Varric gasped in shock as the barbed bone ripped away his cowl, barely missing his throat. The dwarf finally saw his companion’s entire face and took in every detail; the short black beard, immaculately trimmed; full black eyebrows, puffed with rage, his pale skin and stark cheekbones, in contrast to his solid physique.

The tide turned in an instant. Faster than Varric could have thought possible, the Inquisitor lunged with his staff, piercing the despair demon’s hide. A single word of power, and the staff took flight, rising up and driving into the wall hard enough to impale the demon and bury the blade right into the timbers. Screaming, the despair demon thrashed and struggled, its will to resist vanishing in the face of the Inquisitor’s rage. “Please, Lord Urthe—“

“Your cursed realm awaits!” howled the Inquisitor, bringing his fire to him. “Tell your fellows I come for them!” With a shout of rage, the fire burst, and the demon gave a final scream before the Inquisitor’s magics swallowed it whole, leaving nothing but ash behind.

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Watersreach lived to see a new day. With the despair demon destroyed, the townsfolk were freed from its enrapturing magic, and left to rebuild their lives. Varric and the Inquisitor left as soon as they were able, their horses bearing them away to their next challenge. The Inquisitor was particularly silent and thoughtful beneath his now-repaired cowl, and Varric could only wonder why he chose to forever conceal himself like that. “Hey, Inquisitor, mind if I ask you something?”

“If you must.”

“How did the demon know you, exactly? Hell, it sounded like she knew more about you than I do.”

The Inquisitor was silent for a moment before speaking. “I am a creature of purpose, Varric. My childhood, my very being, all meant to bring about two very important goals. I achieved the first with my conception, and when I came of age, I decided to reject the second, knowing what it would cost me. This quest to stop the Veil tears and the hidden foe responsible for them, that is the purpose I have chosen for myself. Nothing else matters in the pursuit of that goal.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“’Tis the answer you truly wanted, Varric. Should we survive the dark days to come, you will learn the rest. Until then…”