It was a new day but a serious air had set over the camp after the attack.
Caelyra needed to garner the support of the elvish people, and soon. The darkspawn knew where they were camping and they needed to eradicate this threat as soon as possible.
Before leaving for the forests, she spoke to her companions one by one to see how they were feeling and to get a sense of where they were at.
Shale was still quietened about the events she had witnessed with Caridin. She had no real memories of that time, but what he had set to her made one small memory stick out — she knew the location of the Cadash Thaig, the house she was apparently part of. She wanted to go there and try to jog more memories, if it were really true she was once a dwarf transformed into stone.
Caelyra was willing to go there with her, but after they had visited the elves.
Oghren the drunken dwarf was still with them and wanted to stay and fight alongside them. He was mourning Branka's death in his own way and refused to speak of the events that happened.
Either way, Caelyra was glad to have an other able-bodied person alongside her to help fight the darkspawn and the blight. Even if it was a drunk able-bodied person.
Before searching through the forests for the dwarves though, Caelyra took a small stop in Denerim to Wade's Emporium to see how her new drakescale armour was coming along. Wade had finished it! And he was very pleased with his work. Herren was just grateful it was finished and asked Caelyra to kindly never come back again.
Caelyra smiled and waved around the dragonscale and Wade clapped with glee. He happily took it from her and began to work on some armour whilst Herren moaned and groaned in the background.
Wade had told her to stay right there, he would finish the armour within an hour, and so he did. With the new dragonbone armour secure in her pack and ready to distribute amongst her companions, Herren told them they were not welcome here anymore and to get out... while Wade sighed happily and said something about having a vacation after all his hard work.
They were such an odd pair. The armour was lovely — maybe she'd give it to Oghren.
Eager to find the elves and gain their support and aid for the blight, they left Denerim and roamed the forests for days, until at last a group of Dalish scouts came across them.
The elves asked what they wanted. Caelyra told them that she was a Grey Warden and needed to speak to their leader. They were suspicious of Caelyra and her companions, but agreed to take them to the camp and to their Keeper.
In the camp, they were led to an old elf named Zathrian, the Keeper of this clan.
Zathrian knew the blight was coming, he could feel it, but there was nothing he could do and if they were seeking aid from the old treaties then he was of no use to them. The elves were falling to an old sickness that ran rampant through these forests — an ancient curse. A werewolf curse.
It was possible he could cure the curse if he had but one component: the heart of Witherfang, the first werewolf, but it would not be an easy task.
Caelyra told him that she had become quite accustomed at performing well at non-trivial tasks and asked to help them in this endeavour. Zathrian agreed.
He did however warn them that there would be more than werewolves in the forest. This forest had quite the past of murder and strange magic and when such things are allowed to reign, the veil thins. There would be unnatural forces in the forest as well as the werewolves.
His warnings were noted and they set forth into the forest to find this Witherfang.
Within moments of stepping further into the forest they were attacked by wolves, corrupted blight wolves, and werewolves.
There truly was a wolf problem in this forest.
Then they were accosted by more werewolves! Only these ones spoke. The main one said that its name was Swiftrunner and told them to deliver a message to the Dalish elves: that they had failed, now the treacherous elves were cursed just as they!
Caelyra would not turn back. She needed Witherfang's heart to cure the elves. The werewolves growled and ran away, yelling that the forest itself would stop them from their quest to find Witherfang.
They pressed onwards.
They found an elf and returned him to the Dalish camp, then got beset upon by living trees. They discovered an abandoned campsite made of dark magic and fell asleep there; only surviving the magic by the will of the two mages in their party. And then they came across yet another tree, only this one spoke to them instead of attacking them.
A man had stolen its acorn and it wanted it back. Caelyra, not wanting to be attacked by any more trees, promised to find this acorn and return it.
While investigating the forest, trying to find a random man who may have possibly stolen a tree's acorn, they stumbled upon another elf... only this one was one that Wynne knew. It was her lost student, the one she had failed so many years ago, and she was so grateful to see him alive and well. The templars had lied to her. They'd told her he was dead.
After catching up, they bid farewell and then stumbled into an old man.
He was strange, wanted to trade questions and answers and was difficult to talk to. Finally Caelyra ascertained that this was the man who had stolen the tree's acorn and she managed to convince him to trade it to her, for a silver ring she had found in a chest in these woods.
Rushing back through the forest to find the great tree, Caelyra handed over the acorn and the grateful tree allowed them one of his branches.
With his branch, Caelyra was able to open up the way to the next area of the forest.
The werewolves were hiding in this region and were disgusted to discover the forest had allowed Caelyra and her group passage. The werewolves attacked and Caelyra's group defended themselves, and just as the lead-werewolf fell another wolf leapt into battle and knocked Caelyra to her back.
It was white and covered in vines. It looked rather pretty. Was that Witherfang?
It howled and ran off into the forest with its werewolf friends and Caelyra and her companions gave chase.
They chased them to a large ruin deep in the forest centre, guarded by werewolves. They gnashed their teeth and howled orders across the distance. They would retreat to the ruins; they must protect the lady!
Caelyra was confused. What lady did they need to protect? They were after Witherfang; not some lady.
How the werewolves spoke of the elves as though they were treacherous, how they spoke of cursing the elves so that they were cursed 'just as they.' And now they were protecting a Lady... it was most curious.
Caelyra and her group stepped into the ruins, but this time they weren't searching for the werewolves or Witherfang; they searched for answers.
Until next time! ⚔️🐲
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 