Dragon Age : Circle of Primordial Divinity

I'm very sorry for the delay, but my studies are taking more and more of a toll on my free time (and writing time, as well). In addition, since I failed an important exam I needed to take my time to prepare for a 2nd attempt at said exam (which was, thankfully, allowed this time) and, thankfully, managed to pass, but had no time to write in the meantime, not to mention the fact that I planned to upload my other story first...

 

However, since this chapter is short, I decided to finish it and upload. It says little but leaves hints. After this some of you should probably have little doubts as to why exactly Nemain is "special" and why is "Raven" seemingly so bad at parenting ;). I had several inspirations for that chapter, but I think I'll keep them to myself...

Enjoy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Chapter IV

The Inhuman Soul

 

                The part of the Fade that, in a way, was connected with, or even belonged to, her daughter was now a rather grim place. The ground was cracked in places, vision obscured by shadowy, mist-like vapors. The sky was now entirely a deep purple. The witch fully expected creatures to start appearing – be they attracted demons or parts of the Fade animated by her daughter’s assaulted mind.

                Truth was, the situation was already very, very bad if such changes were brought to the place. She didn’t expect them to take place so quickly, and nervously wondered whether they were the result of her daughter *fighting* the demonic possession or of the demonic possession taking place right now. Or perhaps it was even worse, perhaps Nemain was almost done fully reverting to her primal state.

                Last possibility was something that the witch couldn’t help but smirk at – it had to be taken into consideration that even *she* underestimated the depths of power dormant in her daughter’s body and all this was just the start of the process rather than the end of it.

Even so, she had to hurry. This was a very serious situation. 

 

 

                Even when hurrying, however, she couldn’t miss the fact that she was about to be attacked.

Two Rage Demons at once appeared nearby, one to her side and the other behind her.

 

                It wasn’t like she couldn’t take them down easily at her current level. But they were slowing her down.

 

                Turning to the side, she immediately struck the creature down with a base ice spell. They were weak, at least for now, and very susceptible to such attacks. The other one would be a problem since she had to conserve her energy for more challenging opponents, for example the demon trying to possess her daughter.

                As the demon approached her , she rapidly fired a blast from her staff, which , courtesy of her travels and her preferred fields of magic, also carried the power of cold.

                The demon approached on its full speed but was nevertheless not quick enough, the witch rapidly charging a Lighting spell. The spirit was clearly heavily affected by now, but could only retaliate with a weak bolt of fire. Another bolt from the witch’s staff finished the creature off.

                The ground under her feet shook and she almost fell over. It appeared that the situation was still only in the initial phases of “getting worse” despite the already immense effects that this area of the Fade exhibited.

 

Raven quickly got back on her feet and practically ran towards the place her daughter should be in, until, finally, she saw a silhouette appear on the horizon. She slowed down. The figure was too tall to be her daughter or the demon impersonating her daughter, but at the same time to human to be the demon in its natural form. Meaning it could be something else entirely, or just the demon attempting to masquerade as something else.

She allowed herself a momentary rest and walked more slowly towards the figure, but when it turned towards her, the sorceress was shocked.

The figure was a woman on the first glance, with extremely pale skin, almost like if she wasn’t alive anymore. It’s the features that made her even more disturbing.

Save for the hair, which were white in some places and red in others, and eyes, which radiated a blood-hued glow, the woman was every bit the same as Raven herself. Her facial features, the way her hair were put up, her dress, her body shape – everything was exactly the same.

 

She turned to the woman and smiled, the genuine gesture on a face exactly like hers seemed unnatural even to the witch herself.

- Welcome. T’would appear you’re lost.

- Not one bit. ‘Tis you who has no business here.

- Oh, but I came here to take care of my little girl, my beloved daughter.

-  You… What? ‘Tis…

- That’s right. I am Nemain’s Mommy. The way you always should be, but never were. You’re just a pathetic excuse. A body that birthed her. Nothing else. ‘Tis me who is her real mother. Who truly loves her.

-          An… an outrage! How dare you? You’re but a sick creation of the part of her mind that was kept in slumber all these years! You’re nothing even remotely…

-          Alas, I am what she wants her mother to be. Loving. Caring. ‘Tis you who’s a failure. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, don’t you think?

-          You’re just a manifestation. A creation of a strained mind. You’re not even real. I will take neither criticism nor parental advice from a pathetic excuse of *me*.

-          Then come, Shapeshifter. You will find me more than you can handle.

The other woman immediately begun the fight with the basest cold spells, and before Raven could retaliate was already well on her way to casting another. Two lighting bolts crashed in the air, discharging into the air and the ground while the witch and her weird counterpart prepared to clash with another set of attacks. Their tactics were frighteningly similar, both women emitting a wave of telekinetic force to stun each other.

The woman unleashed a small barrage of arcane blasts that temporarily put Raven off guard and made her fall prey to yet another Winter’s Grasp. She answered in alike manner just as the woman fired another Arcane Bolt to further damage her original.

[‘Tis like fighting myself, except… This so-called “Mommy” is just a construct of Nemain’s mind. T’would mean that, while powerful,  it only possesses the spells Nemain saw me utilize. If that’s the case, she’s as good as dead. Apparently, Nemain’s mind could only construct something that powerful or Nemain doesn’t have any idea how good I am with all these magically enhanced items.]

 

True mother of Nemain correctly anticipated her counterpart’s next strike, pale hands erupting with a wave of electricity shaped into a cone, countering with her own spell, a wave of frost similarly shaped. The two spells crashed mid-air, producing the sound similar to a roar of a mighty beast as the energies rapidly battled for supremacy. Moments later, the combined arcane energy of the attacks formed an unusual sight, a green and blue aurora left in the place of the clash as the last vestiges of the real Raven’s spell reached her rival. It did not manage to freeze her but the strategy the witch planned to pull off was still plausible. She suddenly reached out with her hands and closed her opponent in a cage of telekinetic force, and then, slowly, started to crush her inside of it.

Rapidly focusing even more energy, the witch followed it up by starting to drain the life straight out of the Fade construct, feeding her own vitality, and finally, just as the cage was about to disperse, shooting out a Shock spell of her own, causing the pale copy to writhe and yell in pain.

The fight should be just about over since she did not believe her daughter would, in her current state of mind, be able to create a construct of incredible vitality that would be required to continue fighting after this barrage.

And she was right. The other woman was simply on her knees, panting, her pale skin suddenly changed in color as if someone gave her a heavy beating and her limbs twitching, likely from the pain and the leftover electricity.

-          You… You’re strong… It seems even stronger than she imagines her great, perfect mother to be…

-          She created you powerful enough, but she did not see me perform enough of my own skills to have a very good idea. In terms of the array of powers, you’re far behind me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll finish you off and go help my daughter.

-          Your… daughter? Is that what she is to you? More importantly, is that what she is *now*?

-          Am I really the supposed model for you? ‘Tis absurd. You talk cryptically like some Chantry fanatic or old mage of the Cirlce.

-          I merely wonder if you really consider her your daughter. Considering, well, the circumstances she was sired under… But ‘tis unimportant.  What is important… The world around us is how Nemain imagines it. She forms it and changes it. I’m sure you understand.

-          What is your point?!

-          Considering your daughter… Is, at the very moment, losing her humanity… ‘Tis only right that the constructs of her own mind would start to do likewise, is it not?

The woman rose to full height, suddenly appearing a bit taller than her original, and smirked. It was an evil kind of smile.

-          Now we’re no longer the flesh that birthed her and her Mommy. Now, we’re just a set of things from which she creates… something that can destroy EVERYTHING in this world.

 

The woman’s skin suddenly shone with a ghastly light, then disappeared entirely everywhere underneath the neck, leaving exposed muscle that emitted a slight purple glow. Her hair started to darken, slowly going to Raven’s natural black as her eyes also shifted to resemble her original’s. The body under the head shifted and convulsed, changing into a mass of bloated flesh that spilled all over the area, slowly growing in size and encompassing the upper body, forcing the witch to take a few steps backwards.

Flesh tubes started to emerge from the mass, some becoming orbs relatively small in comparison with the overall thing, and some forming appendages that slowly morphed into hands. Then, metal shone in several places over the spirit construct’s body, something that Nemain immediately recognized – it created perfect copies of her own set of necklaces. Finally, the creature finished her metamorphosis, covering herself with layers of skin both human and unblemished as well as putrid, sick and dead-like.

 

What was the witch’s copy was now instead a monster formed into a mass of breasts remarkably like her own, hands that likewise resembled hers, necklaces that rested between the two or dangled from the hands that held them or simply “wore” them and a single face somewhere in the middle – a face now *exactly* like her own. To add to the insult, she was incapable of saying whether the face was part of the construct or a reflection of her, because it was staring at her from a mirror – a mirror that was the perfect copy of the one Nemain and Marathia played with the very same day.  

                The witch was in shock. Indeed, the fact that her daughter was capable of creating something like this…

-          How… abstract! If ‘tis how Nemain sees me, we really need to talk…

 

Of course, if she didn’t hurry, her daughter would indeed destroy her human part and there would be *no* talk. That’s why she couldn’t take her time with this opponent. It was win quickly and win quickly at all costs.

The hands reached out to her, trying to raze the woman with bolts of lightning, but she was already preparing a spell of her own.

 

Suddenly, a gust of wind nearly blew, chilling all over until it spiraled around the mass of flesh that was Raven’s opponent and instead started to fill the area with snow and shards of ice, the temperature dropping rapidly. The blizzard nearly blocked away her view, but the opponent was large enough to easily follow the attack up. She used a hex to weaken the creature’s possible resistances and followed the spell with another of the kind, bolts of lightning tearing the area as the blizzard was enhanced by a tempest of electricity.

Nemain’s mother almost regretted she never learned to combine the two spells to even greater effect but it should be enough. Still, nothing made her sure the combined attacks could take the beast down quickly enough, so she followed the attack up, establishing another life-draining bond before going for the overkill. Entropic energy suffused the witch and the air around her as she prepared to finish this abomination of her copy off, a cloud of blackness descending upon it and covering it up entirely in combination with the blizzard.

She fired up another lightning spell and even followed with Winter’s Grasp just to make sure that her opponent was dead once the cloud cleared. Of course, it attempted the last resort attack.

Five explosions razed the area, some of them even reaching Nemain’s mother herself, spirit energy blasting the dust under her footing around and even causing her own body to be thrown onto the ground.

She recognized the attack. It carried a bad symbolism with it.

 

        When her spells cleared, her opponent was merely a ghastly mass of spiritual energy dissipating into the air, but she had no time to waste anyway.

She started to run, the atmosphere thickening, ground cracking under her feet and the sky getting even darker, as finally from the etherealness of the Fade the sight that she has waited for appeared.

 

        Bones of a huge dragon. However, they were not lying around this time. No. The dragon was up on its hind legs, front ones dangling in the air, and she quickly noticed what was holding it up, things attached to something far, far away in the sky of the Fade.

-          Umbilical cords? Of all the things, how could she…

Then, once close enough, she noticed another thing. A mass of flash between the dragon’s currently cracking ribs. A cocoon?

 

                On one of the dragon’s feet a figure was sitting, unmistakably recognized by the witch as a Desire Demon. It took notice of her and immediately started to move towards the woman.

In just a moment, they stood against each other, waiting. The demon spoke first.

-          Aseneh greets you in the Fade. Oh, how glad I am that you’re here.

-          Glad? Have you gone insane, demon? I’m here to eradicate you!

-          And I intend to get out of here. It should be possible for me to possess you in this place… And I definitely don’t want to stay here until your daughter leaves that creepy cocoon.  She is a monster, you know. Immune to possession. Completely. I couldn’t do anything but watch her… change. And I have to admit this is a stressful.

-          ‘Tis you who started it, bitch. I will obliterate you and stop Nemain’s metamorphosis.

-          Ah, so you know what she is changing into? It’ll be good to know out of curiosity once I have your mind and body… So, come on, don’t make it hard…

Of course, Raven intended to make it hard.

 

 

                Rapidly firing a cone of cold only for it to be absorbed by an equally quickly raised shield of Fade energy was just a start, followed up by two staff attacks as Raven quietly considered the best course of action. The demon retorted with a blast of flames followed by jumping onto the witch, only for the latter attack to be dodged. The creature grabbed her staff and they struggled for a moment until the human headbutted the demon and released a wave of telekinetic energy before razing her with a cone of lightning. Aseneh quickly recovered an tried to increase the distance again by forming a glyph of power beneath the witch, this particular one used for repulsion.

                Raven anticipated such a strategy and already had her own spell prepared. Just before the glyph was completed, the human woman changed, shifting into a large mammalian creature with protruding spikes, rushing at the demon and striking it down. The bererskarn stood above the female demon and was just about to pin it to the ground before it rolled away and established a life-draining bond of her own. The bereskarn roared and charged at the demonic female that rapidly gathered her power and unleashed a cone of electricity in likeness of the one just used by the witch. Another few strikes from the bear bloodied the demon before she managed to withdraw and, just as they were about to clash again, a giant seam ripped open in the earth, unleashing a torrent of energy before lightning started to strike all around them.

Raven returned to her original form and went into hiding from the bolts of lightning, before the giant corpse of the dragon moved, ribs finally cracking as the cocoon between them expanded.

                She did not have the luxury of fighting any longer.

The Glyph of Repulsion was, this time, fully formed and threw her straight into the embrace of the creature’s Flame Blast , followed by a dexterous kick that send her flying back to where the glyph just expelled her from. Aseneh grinned.

-          Distracted, aren’t we? There was once a demon responsible for that… Haven’t seen him in a while…

-          I’ll KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO NEMAIN!

 

She changed forms again, this time shifting into a large, dark-colored spider that immediately shot strings of web at the demon, tying her up before spitting out a large dose of poison. Wasting no time, Raven turned back to her original form and followed with the destructive Tempest spell, trapping the demon in place while the poison and the lightning did its work.

[“Mother.”]

 

She could swear the wind carried the whisper of her daughter as the ground shook once again, two vortexes of dark purple energy forming around the pair, seemingly descending from the equally dark sky.

                The demon finally leaped out of the lightning storm, unleashing a terrible scream that momentarily stunned Nemain’s mother and chilled her to the very core.

-          This thing is awakening, you fool! Give up your body to me and save us both while you still can!

-          I’m not ‘tis stupid! I will not become an abomination no matter how bad my daughter’s situation seems!

The two fired simultaneous Shocks at each other, and then, Raven heared the whisper in the air once again.

[“Mother, how could you do this to me…”]

                The huge umbilical cords suddenly gave way and the corpse of the dragon fell to the ground, now appearing as a dragon poised to strike or breathe fire standing on its four legs, the cocoon in its chest expanding and forming protruding strands of flesh.

The strands fired blast of spiritual energy at the pair, separating the two, as Aseneh started to get more and more exasperated.  

-          Time is short, and yet you persist…

-          Shut up! Can’t you see what you led to?

-          That’s why I’m trying to get out of here!

 

Aseneh then demonstrated powers beyond those normally exhibited by Desire Demons inside the Fade, firing a Fireball and nearly sending the witch flying before emitting another of those screams. The witch withstood and quickly froze the demon with a Cone of Cold before trying to crush her with Force Prison.

The prison, however, met resistance and the ice was quickly melting, revealing the Desire Demon surrounded by a field of chaotic, swirling energy that razed the area with all of the elements. Raven never saw something like this before, but the attack was clearly taking its toll on the Desire Demon, who deactivated it soon after kicking the witch into the wall and letting the spell damage her further.

 

Suddenly, the strands of flesh struck the ground between them and the demon as a bellowing voice announced:

-          LEAVE MOTHER ALONE!

 

The witch rose from the ground, trying to focus. Her energy was running out and apparently Nemain’s metamorphosis either destroyed, corrupted or used out all the lyrium in the area.

-          Nemain…

 

The cocoon was pulsing with energy now, forming more and more of these fleshy protuberances. The most disturbing thing was that it started to shift on one side, as if something was growing within it and caused it to stretch on this side only.

She had to be quick about this. The demon once again appeared in front of her. She seemed to be in bad shape, but still, the previous fight as well as the battle against the environment combined with this clash took more out of Nemain’s mother than this single fight took out of Aseneh. The powerful witch could actually lose.

-          I guess a change of tactics is in order, is it not, Witch? It would appear that your daughter still favors you to some extent…

-          Shut up!

The sorceress fired a bolt of lightning and prepared to follow it up,  but Aseneh simply laughed, dodging it, and stating.

-          I think I get where all this attitude is coming from, at last…

 

She landed in front of the witch, one using a Cone of Cold and the other firing a blast of flames, the witch winning by a small amount and managing to dodge the demon’s next strike.

-          You’re one of those angry types, who think they don’t need others but secretly crave some sort of warmth…

This surprised the woman, causing her to only barely dodge the blast of lightning that followed. Aseneh continued.

-          You were not cared for and decided not to care, but you thirsted for… something. You tried to quench this desire by playing with others’ minds and emotions, even by mating with them, but to no avail…

Raven’s aim went bad and she missed barely with her Shock spell, and the Demon countered by once again sending her away with the force of a Glyph.

-          Yet, something happened, didn’t it? Something appeared. Or someone. And this someone is what you, unknowingly, started to desire more than anything else.

-          SHUT UP!

 

The witch unleashed a Blizzard only for the demon to quickly roll out of it and shoot a Fireball that only worsened the sorceress’ state. As she regained her focus, the voice came to her ears, again, that hateful voice, describing what she tried to hide.

-          Let me guess… Tall, shoulder-length red hair, long, strong legs… athletic body, just a bit wide in the shoulders, but lean…

The witch got up. Apparently, her mind and mana were drained to the point where the demon could attempt getting into her head, maybe even possessing her.

-          What was that name again…

-          No.

-          Hmmmm?

-          Possessing my daughter, getting into my head like that and trying to use the memory of that man against me… THIS IS MORE THAN I CAN TAKE!

 

Suddenly, a large rock next to Aseneh got covered by a telekinetic field, followed up by another wave of mental energy. Together, they caused a powerful explosion which send the demon flying. The air suddenly filled with a whisper as the fleshy cocoon shifted once again, causing the dragon’s skull to “look” at the pair.

-          What…. Are you doing… to my… Mother…

 

A construct similar to a Stonefist spell fired from the ground, sending the demon flying straight into a whip of the cocoon’s fleshy strands that send her back onto the ground. From the sky, another vortex of energy quickly engulfed her, as the cocoon pulsed violently…

As the first whisper filled her head, Raven felt the strain of the many spells she used subside somewhat, manipulating her magic suddenly becoming easy. She approached the vortex as the words filled her head.

[“Mommy… You need to… I love you, Mommy”.]

 

        The demon was lying on the ground, but still alive and strongly determined to stay so. Using the sudden easiness on her power, Raven used one of her newest spells to begin the execution. A burst of intense cold radiated around her as she froze the demon up, and then prepared for the last part. However, the easiness was suddenly dissipating as another voice, one remarkably different from Nemain’s filled her thoughts.

[“No, Mommy, please, no!”]

 

Regardless of what caused that other voice, she immediately followed her attack up with a Force Prison that crushed the frozen body of Aseneh, destroying one of the limbs completely and changing the rest into a rag doll. Raven quickly turned around to approach the cocoon, blasts and vortexes of dark, violent energy forming everywhere around them.

 

        She stood in front of the pulsing cocoon, slowly freezing its front with her power. The whisper in her head continued to repeat the same phrase over and over again.

[“You’re a liar, witch. You’re after one thing.”]

 

        She then used telekinetic energy to tear the half-frozen flesh open, finally revealing her daughter’s “fade body” to her.

She shivered at the sight, shock and guilt and remorse suddenly filling her as she saw the state the little girl was in. Body naked, in bad shape, dirty, covered in blood. The girl was suspended inside the cocoon head down, half of her body no longer that of a little human child.

Raven sobbed. Almost cried, in fact.

-          Mommy? Mommy, is that you? I was… looking for you. Waiting… I’m sorry. I don’t get what is happening. It hurts so much, and I remember things that never…

-          I’m sorry, Nemain. I’m sorry. I was so stupid… so foolish.

-          Mommy?

-          I should have known that if you were like that, demons would find you out and not be able to recognize what you are. I didn’t know they could… trigger something like this. I was arrogant. Thought that with both of our powers, they AND the Chantry could do nothing to you… I was wrong.

-          I should… Mommy, what are you ??... Kill… Mom, what is… when I had the…

-          Nothing can possess something with a spirit like yours, Nemain, and while you may or may not take more from your Father’s side, your connection to the Fade is such that under normal circumstances the Mages nor the Chantry could never sever it. But this made you a target… I should have taken precautions. I was hoping we could develop your powers more quickly if you stayed like that… But it was a wrong course of action. You need to start out far closer to human if this is to work safely. I… I failed as a mother. Not as a witch, but as a mother… Yes.

-          What are you talking about?

-          I will seal those powers. I will not let you into the Fade for some time. We will take more time to train you and see where your talent goes… But for now, the most tremendous part of your potential must be dormant and sealed away, preferably in separate, slowly unlockable parts that form a sequence…

-          No, witch! You will not bring me down twice!

-          Silence. Those dormant memories that you are… ‘tis hurtful to my daughter. It shall be as I said. Three seals. Easy, hard, and next to impossible to break. Let’s get to work.

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

I just noticed there were some changes in the stories formatting system meaning I can no longer simply add "<i> and <u> to the Word version and copypaste them to the site... I'll try to manage and make the chapters more readable before the next update.