Blood and Sorcery

[ruthless_hunter]

Lockdown considered himself lucky that he'd never been inside a Circle.

His magic had manifested at the tender age of six, and he'd been lucky enough to live near someone who could teach him. But the Chantry had still found a way to hurt him. After that, he had no love for it, or its Templar lackeys. Nowhere to go, he mainly wandered Thedas, taking up bounty hunting jobs and avoiding the Templars.

But even he had his moments where he slipped up.

A small town Chantry had learned a blood mage was in the area, and sent Templar goons out to find the blood mage in question in the surrounding woods.

Lockdown did what he could to shake them, but they were persistent. They weren't about to give up without finding a blood mage. The mage, holding onto his wide-brimmed hat and his long coat flapping in the wind, found himself on the trail cutting through the woods. He nearly ran smack into a woman with dark hair.

"Lady, if I were you I'd go back the way you came."

As if on cue, to emphasis his point, Templar voices came from behind him, a little further away, "That blood mage went this way!"

Comments

[warden_enchanter]

A downed mage is a vulnerable one, though at least the glyph Amell put down is holding strong, the templars bouncing off of its barrier with an amusing rattle of armor. The Smite still lingers in the air, making a hollow of the place in her mind where her mana collects; she squeezes her cut hand around the hilt of her staff to anchor herself, making pain flare white-hot and blood run down the metal, sizzling and sparking where it drips on her glyph.

The world bends to her will, the air around them suddenly crackling with energy, a rushing maelstrom of freezing wind she pulls from nothingness because she demands it. Sheets of ice climbs over the struggling limbs of the templars, crystallizing them like dew around leaves in the dead of winter, locking them in place. Casually, she pulls a knife from her belt and uses it to stab one templar through the slit of his helmet, and he dies in silence, choked by the ice in his throat.

"Did you want to get some," she directs toward the other mage, gesturing with the soaked blade toward the other frozen statues, "or shall I?"

[ruthless_hunter]

Lockdown senses that change in the air as she casts more magic at the Templars, shivering slightly as the ice avoids him and goes right for their attackers. She's definitely powerful. Most Warden mages are. Lockdown's unsure if it's the process of becoming a Warden that makes that so, or if Wardens just have access to better training. Every Warden he's ever met has refused to spill their secrets.

Using his staff, Lockdown pulls himself to his feet. He's not shaky anymore, though he does have some sweat on his pale brow, despite the cold in the air.

"Don't mind if I do." Pulling out his own knife, Lockdown approaches the nearest Templar and does as she did, then does it to another.