Maker's Breath.... (Official Cullen Rutherford discussion)

Andraste's frozen tits and a thick icicle hanging off the left one, did she ever have to keep moving to avoid getting the same fate as Her decrepit statue proudly glossed over with snow by the roadside. These weathered structures emerged on the landscape unmapped. Remnants of the past glory. As Sophia Dryden had no immediate plans to become remnants she steadily jogged Eastward, keeping a sharp eye out for any suspicious stirring. Here, where the jagged edges of the mountains stabbed into the looming clouds, the place looked like the north most corner of the world where myth blended with reality. The harder it was to imagine that human predators would climb this far. Yet, someone or something was disturbing the newly opened trade route with Denerim. After a third shipment went missing, it became her family's urgent business to investigate their losses. So, off she went.

On the fifth day she spotted it. An amassment protruding from snow had grown into an overturned wagon. The snapped in half traces had allowed the horses to escape. These animal tracks led into the opposite direction of the human footprints. Some dried up splattered blood and no matching body to tell a story. Who used such a disappearance trick these days anywho except to escape greedy creditors?

Casting a dubious eye over the lengthening shadows Sophia decided to follow a single lead by facing the mountain greyness and turning her back on the rainbow hopes. Since no one had arrived at the Soldiers Peak it was safe to reason the footprints' owners were lost. Still, some merchants were a far tougher lot than they were given the credit for. They could last in the wilds lost or not. Right, no sunny hopes. By going off road her pace slowed. The heavy weapon strapped across her back was a comforting presence, given how this whole story stunk fishier than a pub going out of business at Orzamar. Judging by the stampede, the participants were terrified prior to running off into the pathless wilds. Except there were no tracks confirming the presence of what caused the panic. It must have swooped out of the sky and without the shoes to hold it got sucked right back in prior to touchdown. Turren's ideas sure had a way of rubbing off on unsuspecting drinking buddies. With the words how there was no way he'd be going back out in the dustardly weather, the old dwarf the Drydens have once dug out of a snowdrift occupied their basement, gradually converting it into an excellent ale production base where he drank and complained about the sky.

Today, Sophia didn't favour the sky either. Unwelcoming, it stretched brittle and faded blue where even the clouds cringed from its ghoulishness. Under its bleak light she sure was following a peculiar bunch who aside from footprints had left no signs of passage, not even a varying distance between each step as any living being would as they gradually grow tired. Their destination led towards a steeply rising mountain ridge where the trail got obscured by twilight, diving into a narrow crack.

Nudged by the churching intuition how she would rather visit darkspawn BBQ as a central dish than this hole, Sophia came to a halt, then inched half a step down reluctantly. It was her duty to get to the bottom of the disappearances. The highlighted sky patch where the sun was setting flickered duller, sending a chill down her spine. No way was she breaking a leg in the dark. Better set camp nearby till morning and best farther away from the creepy hole.

Why did all sensible decisions arrive late? Releasing an 'avalanche may take me' shriek, Sophia blindly kicked out with all the force she could master against a ghoulish arm that sprung out of the ground and grabbed her ankle. Even after a sickening crack as it got torn off and flung aside, the dislodged limb set off crawling after the fleeing fleshling with a mindless persistence of the dead as she bolted across the snowdrifts shrieking.

Ghouls! Bloody, sickly, frozen blue. Ghouls!

At this point I grew bored of writing... so warden Alistair comes, saves her butt and they live happily ever after. //brick'd