1 Pain and Gain
"Bullshit!" Cassandra shouted as she literally threw the book at the seated dwarf currently held under arrest by her order of fanatical secret police, "You expect me to believe this over dramatic thriller is the truth! That the wars currently tearing Thedas apart were orchestrated by some suave Qunari who spent his days as a caterer!"
"He was also the premiere butcher and forger of fine cutlery." Varric added in a couldn't be happier to help tone of voice, "Ketojan was an artist in many fields, a very confusing thing considering that we freed him from a life of chained bondage where he was only ever let out to slay enemies of the Qun with his freaky Serebas magic."
"Exactly!" Cassandra growled and grabbed the captive dwarf by his collar, "I've been called to restore the sanity of a world gone mad and all I have to go on is your book. The Champion and all the other companions are long gone in the wind and each and every one of the fanatics that serve him do not break, even under the worst torture. You are the only path left to Ketojan."
"Of course you'd never be able to break his… followers." Varric sighed, "He bound them tightly to him, for years. While the Mages and the Templars raised hell and held the attention of everyone, Ketojan brought his followers into the darkness and with every bloody bite supplanted their will with his own. For to those that please him, Paradise is not found in the bosom of the Maker, but at his table each night."
"Yes, yes, I have heard it all before and it is all bullshit!" Cassandra yelled, "Magic, Lyrium, poison, what did he put in the food that apparently brought this city to its knees?"
"You are asking the wrong questions, Seeker." Varric chuckled, "For it isn't what he put into the food that should worry you. No, the real question is: Where did he get the meat?"
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I groaned in pleasure after Sarah Hawke released me from the power of the Qunari BDSM bitch stick. With the pacification controls released I wasted no time in yanking off my chains and gimp suit, stretching out in glorious freedom for the first time since I had taken over this body a few hours prior.
It was fucking spectacular.
After working the kinks out I walked over to my old pal Arvaarad and yoinked his sword, putting the blade against my mouth and hissing in pain as I cut the threads holding my lips together and a bit farther with it on each side. I turned to my rescuers and grinned.
"Why so serious?" I laughed.
Warrior Lady Hawke, her sister Bethany, their sexy tortured friend Anders, and the loyal dwarf Varric starred at me as I pulled the threads out of the ruins of my mouth.
"Ouch!" Varric groaned with the silent approval of the rest of them.
"Here, let me heal that." Anders said as he cast the basic healing spell on me.
For him it was a brief flexing of his power and a flash of blue light, but for me it was another chance to witness for myself the phenomena of a person bringing the mutability of the dream world into the immutable real world for a brief moment, allowing the impossible to occur with the flexing of will.
It was fascinating.
The magic of every universe behaves differently, pulls from different sources, and operates within different limitations. At one point in this world's history, the realm of dreams known as the Fade and the waking world were one and the same, allowing for the free flow of ridiculous power shaped by the whims and imagination of the user.
Essentially, the rules of magic were softer than baby shit.
I could think of a few worlds like that and can just imagine the crazy shit I'd get up to without any restraints holding me down. It would be utter madness and then I'd probably spend my days hunting down pussy to fill in the void of existence in such challenge less state.
Even now, with the limited scale but rather loose rules of magic within Thedas I was already getting ideas for munchkinery. Baby steps, and as I looked around at the messed up bodies of the Qunari that had the audacity to step to Hawke and Friends I saw the first steps.
After all, I know for a fact that mages can use corpses to make some body horror shub niggurath shit happen, and I just so happen to know more about the body and how to engineer it to perfection than anyone else.
And it would be the height of irresponsibility to let all these raw ingredients rot away. After all, the only true tragedy is waste.
"Thanks shorty." I smiled as I felt the newly formed scars along the side of my mouth, "And thanks to all of you. Being a Saarebas under the Qun is like being gangraped into submission by donkeys, so I am glad to be moving on from that period of my life."
"Colorful description." Hawke commented, "But we were hired to get you to the Tal Vashoth, and I would like to get you there before you cut yourself anymore."
"You were hired to die. The Sister and her Templar servants set up this confrontation with the hope of slaying you all." I explained the simple plot to them, "Your deaths here would have cast aspersions on the Qunari staying in the city… not that they need any help with that."
"Well… shit." Hawke growled.
"You can go to her and get your pay." I told her, "You performed to the word of the agreement, damn her intent. I will stay here for a while. Perhaps, after I return to the city, I will be interested in investing some venture capital into a promising expedition."
"Now that's what I like to hear." Varric chuckled and holstered his mechanized repeating crossbow.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like us to take you further, or back with us?" Bethany inquired.
"No." I smiled and shook my head, "I find myself quite fond of this stretch of beach, and will do my best to commit it to memory."
"If you are ever in need of anything, you can find me in Darktown at my clinic." Anders added as they left.
Poor guy was way more handsome in Awakening.
After they left to collect their coin, I started pulling the bodies into a line up and got to work. Firstly healing magic, as I had seen it. I had no problems replicating the effect Anders produced, even greatly exceeding it as my baseline magic stat greatly eclipsed his. The world of Dragon Age scales power to magical affinity, and I am not only a Saarebas - the most naturally powerful mages in the world on average - but also carry the weight of many mastered magic systems contributing to that overall score.
Basically from what I could tell of the observed magic I was roughly four to five times more potent per mana spent than he was in his chosen field.
After I healed up the bodies I got to work on manipulating them via necromancy, and immediately felt the intensity of the effort rise greatly as the world was unfamiliar with the flesh crafting I was attempting.
Though the magic can do anything, at it's core I was overwriting reality by pulling power from the Fade. Schools of thought and spells exist because reality is always pushing back against the magic. Many mages using a singular ability across generations makes the fabric of reality used to being manipulated as such. This in turn makes it easier for the mages to perform that action, and the feedback loop is what creates the standard spells used by mages.
Magical research is thus very hard to achieve, possibly taking many years to create a viable new spell, or even a good mutation of an existing one.
I utilized brute force and my own prodigious understanding of my desire to cut down on the bullshit and began the exhausting effort of flesh crafting these dead Qunari, ruining a handful, but I fortunately had over a dozen to play with.
By the time the sun set I had successfully fused three Qunari into one larger, denser, tougher being. Using a borrowed dagger I cut open the body and used magic to operate it, ensuring that all the organs functioned properly, that the hyper dense musculature anchored correctly, that the bones and joints moved cleanly, that the brain and nervous system fired perfectly.
I looked down on my creation and saw that it was good, so I cut my palm and embraced the pain and gain.
