backscene: prelude: the calm before the storm Who: Yonca Ghanem and Desiderio Ledaal Where: Outside of Denerim When: 17 Molioris, 9:45 Dragon Summary: How do you solve a problem like a templar? Status: Complete
Denerim wasn't in sight, but if you walked to the edge of the woods, squinted, and worked your imagination, you could easily make out the buildings and trails of chimney smoke gusting out over the water--not that you could see the water from here either. All Desi could see were trees and an endless, empty road, and that honestly worried him more than he'd like to admit. After all the traveling to get this far, the waiting was the worst part yet. A nagging fear that the templar had suddenly sprouted wings and fluttered off to Denerim ahead of them tumbled about in the back of his mind, and the more reasonable fear that they'd fallen behind for a less creative reason still concerned him. Outwitting one lone templar was feasible, especially with the two of them, but locating the phylactery vaults in Denerim and sneaking past the templar guards there? That'd be a far less pleasant task.
Of course, the task at hand wasn't so pleasant either. They'd stopped at a forested enclave atop a cliff, where it was easy to see the surroundings (e.g. trees and more trees) from behind any of the aging oaks decorating the area, and far from easy to pick them out from amongst the shrubbery. Unlike Denerim, the road was in sight with at least a mile or so of it visible from where they lay in wait. As much as it was a nice change to be off the road, not to mention in the shade, Desi preferred being on the move over waiting for someone else to show up sooner or later. The Imperial Highway had not been what Desi would consider a particularly scenic route, and the days had dragged by in the way that only long, hot summer days can. He'd occasionally chattered his way through a few hours of daylight to stave away boredom, but for the most part, their journey up until now had been on the quieter side of dead silent.
Desi had been hoping that Yonca would come up with a cunning, brilliant master plan to kindly relieve a templar of a small bauble, because so far his best idea was still to make it up as he went along. He did have a backup plan involving a series of spells and, given the setting, a great deal of deforestation amongst other geological effects, but that struck him as a terrible, horrible, awful, no good, very bad plan. Looking back, Desi realized he could've learned useful spells back when he studied at the Tower, perhaps handy little spells like sleep as opposed to the fine art of storm summoning without electrocuting all your neighbors.
With his impatience catching up to him, he said, and Desi tried to keep the whine to a minimum, "Is he here yet?"