Chapter 28: The request
The silence of the Tower was a different creature. After weeks of wind, rain, and the constant low-grade dread of the open road, the sudden hush of the Circle’s main hall felt thick, pressurized. It was the quiet of held breath, of secrets kept behind studious frowns and within locked grimoires. The golden torchlight was steady, unwavering, and it felt falsely warm after the true, biting cold of the wilds.
Daylen stood just inside the great doors, his boots leaving damp prints on the immaculate flagstones. He was aware of the eyes. Apprentices scurrying past with armfuls of scrolls did double-takes. A pair of senior enchanters by the far pillar paused their conversation, their stares lingering on him not with recognition, but with assessment. He was a foreign specimen dragged in from the mud.
He felt it all more acutely because of how he looked. The strict, clean-shaven scalp of the Circle mage was gone, replaced by several weeks of dark, coarse growth, a shadow of hair that was just long enough to be unruly. A matching scruff covered his jaw, itching against the collar of his chainmail shirt. The armor itself—basic, scarred leather over the dull steel links—marked him as something other. He wasn’t in robes. He looked like a sellsword who’d stumbled into a library, smelling of pine, horse, and hard travel.
“By the Maker’s grace.”
The voice, deep and graveled with relief, came from his right. Knight-Commander Greagoir emerged from an archway, his plate armor gleaming in the torchlight. The older man’s stern face, usually set in lines of permanent suspicion, broke into something genuine. He didn’t offer a hand. He closed the distance in three strides and wrapped Daylen in a brief, crushing embrace, the metal of his pauldron cold even through the chainmail.
Daylen stiffened for a second, then surrendered to it, clapping the Templar on the back. The smell of oiled steel and antiseptic soap was abruptly, overwhelmingly familiar.
Greagoir pulled back, holding him at arm’s length, his eyes scanning Daylen’s face, the armor, the growth of hair. “Alive. And in one piece. When we heard about Ostagar…” He shook his head, the words failing. “Irving’s been pacing a trench in his floor. Come on.”
He led the way, not to the Templar barracks, but to the First Enchanter’s study. The journey through the familiar halls was surreal. Everything was the same—the same tapestries, the same faint hum of lyrium from the repository, the same squeak from the third step on the western staircase. Yet he moved through it as a ghost, an echo of his former self. An apprentice he’d known, a boy named Kinnon, gaped openly before scurrying away.
Irving’s door was open. The old elf was standing at his window, but he turned as they entered. His wise, wrinkled face, usually a mask of calm diplomacy, fractured. A profound, unguarded relief flooded his features.
“Daylen,” he breathed, the single word heavy with emotion. He crossed the room, his steps quick. He didn’t embrace him like Greagoir, but placed both hands on Daylen’s shoulders, his grip firm. “My boy. Look at you.”
“I look like a bandit, First Enchanter,” Daylen said, a faint smile touching his lips.
“You look like a Warden,” Irving corrected, his sharp eyes missing nothing. “You look like you’ve been living. It is a good look, however unconventional.” He gestured to a chair. “Sit. Tell us everything. The rumors are… dark.”
Daylen sat. The chair was too soft. He told them. He spared no detail: the carnage at Ostagar, the betrayal, the joining, the flight north. He spoke of Lothering, of the treaties, of the allies they’d gathered—a witch, a bard, a Qunari, a broken Templar. He saw Greagoir’s eyebrow twitch at Morrigan, his jaw tighten at the mention of Sten.
Then he told them of Redcliffe.
He described the walking dead, the besieged castle, the demon. He saved the worst for last. “The Arl’s son, Connor. He’s a mage. Untrained. He made a deal with a desire demon to try and save his father. It’s using him, twisting his dreams. It’s the source of the attacks.”
The air in the room turned to ice.
Greagoir leaned forward, his hands clasped. “A child abomination.”
“Not an abomination,” Daylen said firmly, the edge in his own voice surprising him. “A child who was scared and had no one to teach him better. The demon possesses him when he sleeps. It’s… meticulous. It’s keeping him alive, keeping the Arl in a coma. It’s playing a long game.”
Irving’s face had gone pale. “A child,” he murmured. The political ramifications—an Arl’s heir, a mage, possessed—were a nightmare. But the old enchanter’s horror seemed more personal. “We must act. Immediately.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Daylen said. “We need help. The demon is powerful, anchored through the boy’s blood. To confront it directly in the Fade, we need lyrium for a ritual. And… we may need to enter the Fade physically through a magic I don't know.”
“A blood magic shortcut,” Greagoir growled, his fist clenching.
“No. Not the blood magic ritual,” Daylen corrected him, shaking his head. The memory of Jowan’s frantic, sweating face in the Redcliffe dungeon was suddenly vivid. “Though that was Jowan’s idea, of course.”
Greagoir’s eyes sharpened. “Jowan?”
“Oh, yeah. Jowan’s there,” Daylen said, his tone flat. He leaned back in the too-soft chair, the worn leather creaking. “Locked in a cell below the castle, pissing himself. He was Connor’s tutor, if you can believe it. He thought blood magic was the cleanest solution. The demon probably put the idea in his head.”
Irving let out a long, weary sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Of course he did.”
“We’re not doing that,” Daylen said, his voice leaving no room for debate. He looked between the two men. “We just need lyrium and a few skilled mages. Help me… help us… step physically into the Fade. We enter the dream, confront the demon on its own ground, and sever its tie to Connor. No blood.No sacrifice. Just a direct contest.”
The tension in the room shifted. Greagoir’s clenched fist relaxed, fractionally. The idea still involved immense risk, but it was a Warden’s risk, a clean fight, not the tainted horror of blood magic. It was a solution he could at least comprehend.
“A concerted effort of will, anchored by lyrium,” Irving mused, his gaze turning inward. “It’s theoretically possible. Extremely dangerous. You could be lost, both body and mind. The demon will be formidable in its own domain.”
“It’s already killing people in ours,” Daylen said simply. “And it has a child’s soul for a plaything. We’re out of time for theoretical.”
Irving nodded, the decision settling on his shoulders. “Then you shall have what you need. I will gather Wynne, of course. And a few others whose minds are strong and whose discretion is absolute.” He rose, a sudden surge of energy in his old frame. “Greagoir, see to the lyrium stores. The purest powder. We’ll need to be quick.”
The Circle’s quartermaster was a wiry, balding man named Olaf who’d always treated apprentices with benign neglect. He looked at Daylen now like he was a talking nug, his eyes flitting from the grimy armor to the new growth of hair.
“Trading in, ser Warden? Or… requisitioning?” Olaf asked, his tone carefully neutral.
“Trading,” Daylen said. He shrugged off his pack and carefully unbuckled the straps securing the bundle within. He laid it on the counter with a heavy, solid thump. Unfolding the oiled leather revealed the silverite plate, the metal still holding a subtle, inner glow even in the dim storeroom light. It was beautiful work, each curve and joint forged for maximum mobility without sacrificing an ounce of defense.
Olaf’s professional detachment evaporated. He let out a low whistle, his fingers hovering over the gleaming breastplate, not daring to touch. “Andraste’s knickers. Where’d you find this?”
“Dwarf merchant in Orzammar. My life savings,” Daylen said, which was mostly true. He nodded at the armor. “It’s served me well. But I need something else now. Lighter. More… fluid.”
The quartermaster’s eyes darted to the worn ironbark staff leaning against Daylen’s leg. “Looking for an upgrade, I take it.”
“The Staff of the Magister Lords. I know it’s here. In the locked vault, third shelf, left side.”
Olaf froze, his eyes narrowing. “That’s a restricted artifact. Highly volatile. How do you even know about that?”
“I read,” Daylen said with a faint, tired smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I also killed a High Dragon last week. I think I can handle a grumpy old stick.” He tapped the silverite breastplate. “This for the staff. That’s the trade.”
Olaf’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked from the priceless armor to Daylen’s unshakable face. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant murmur of enchantments from the hall.
“Let me… confer with the First Enchanter,” Olaf finally muttered, backing away.
“He’s expecting you,” Daylen said.
The staff felt like holding lightning given shape.
Olaf returned twenty minutes later, looking pale, carrying a long, narrow case of dark-stained oak. He set it on the counter with reverent care, popping the brass latches. Nestled in deep blue velvet was a shaft of what looked like petrified moonlight, a pale, silvery-white wood shot through with veins of obsidian. The head was a complex cage of the same dark metal, holding a large, perfectly spherical ruby that seemed to drink the torchlight, pulsing with a deep, slow heartbeat of captured energy.
Daylen’s fingers closed around the shaft. A jolt, cold and clarifying, shot up his arm, a shock that was half physical, half in his mind. The Fade whispered against his senses, the Veil feeling thin and pliable right where he stood. It was alive in a way his ironbark staff never was. It wasn’t just a focus; it was an amplifier, a tuning fork for raw power.
“Don’t… don’t channel anything in here,” Olaf stammered, taking a step back.
Daylen didn’t. He just hefted it, feeling its perfect, terrifying balance. It felt less like a weapon and more like an extension of his own intent. A continuous motion, Morrigan’s voice echoed in his head.
He left the silverite on the counter. He walked out of the storeroom, the new staff in hand, feeling both lighter and immeasurably more dangerous.
The journey back to Redcliffe was a forced march, a blur of grim determination and aching muscle. Irving, true to his word, had provided not just lyrium, but three other senior enchanters, mages of calm discipline and iron-clad wills. They traveled with a Templar escort led by a stony-faced Cullen, whose eyes rarely left Daylen and never held anything warmer than tactical appraisal.
Wynne fell into step beside Daylen on the second day, her expression motherly and concerned. “That is quite the instrument,” she said, nodding to the staff. “It suits you. Though it worries me, the kind of attention it might draw.”
“It’s the attention I need to give, not get,” he replied, his eyes scanning the bleak horizon. The memory of watching her across campfires, the quiet fantasy of her hands, felt like a shallow, boyish dream from another lifetime. The reality now was the weight of the staff and the suffocating dread of what waited in a child’s bedroom.
They pressed on, sparing few words. When they crested the final hill and saw Redcliffe Village below, still shrouded in the unnatural mist, the dread crystallized into a cold, hard knot in Daylen’s gut.Time was up. The game was set. He tightened his grip on the Staff of the Magister Lords, the ruby’s pulse syncing with his own heartbeat, a slow, deliberate drumroll leading back to the nightmare.