Karate is really kicking my butt this week – in a good way. Shredded my abs because sensei decided to do some High Intensity Training yesterday. I’ll be yellow belt on Monday probably! This has nothing to do with noir crime and trench-coated and fedora’d detectives, I’m just excited about it.
All right let’s launch this ridiculous idea! Dragon Age as a 40’s noir murder mystery! Huzzah for NaNoWriMo! I watched the Maltese Falcon as reference for this. Chapters are quite a bit shorter than they usually are but that just means I’ll be done sooner? And if you’re a classic rock fan, you’ve already recognized the title and chapter titles. Those were what gave me the inspiration for this in the first place! Continue reading
Moooooaaaaaar dramaaaaaaa
The theme of this chapter is fathers and death. : P
The fun part about this chapter for me (besides the fact that Elizabeth is becoming isolated from half the people she likes) is the (re-)introduction of Elra (and Gemmet), my elf servant OCs. We won’t see much of them in the rest of the story, but I’ve become pretty attached to them and they’ll definitely be showing up in the Awakening sequel. : D
Soundtrack of the day! Army Attack was used for the mad chase scene down to the docks.
I also checked out some swordfighting videos for help with the Loghain duel, but nothing really worth linking: 1) because I was in a hurry and didn’t keep track of the most helpful ones, and 2) because most modern matches pause the match every time someone scores a hit, which isn’t helpful if you’re going for “total submission” or something. : P
I’m running out of writing energy, which is probably fine; it’s time to draw more art anyway. I’ll finish this story for certain, first! This chapter’s a little shorter. Not sure how long the next chapter will be (long, probably) but I hold out hope of finishing in the first week of September if not before. I’ve put the next two chapters into one chapter so it’s a push to the end!
Previous chapter: Denerim; next chapter: The Archdemon
Landsmeet
The servants who came to wake her the next morning were scandalized to find she was not alone; she waved them away impatiently and set about getting dressed while Zevran lounged indolently in her bed. After a minute he also rose and did her hair again. She would take everyone into the alienage, even though they were mostly humans and likely to arouse great attention and suspicion. She wanted safety in numbers, unlike the day before.
As she approached the locked gate to the alienage, the guard on duty did a double-take and called to her. “Lady Elizabeth!” Huan barked at him in greeting.
She jumped in her turn. “Who- John?”
The guard had been a soldier of Highever, long months ago, before anything bad had happened to her home and family. “Lady Elizabeth, you’re all right!” Continue reading
More NSFW-ness in this chapter. Does it seem like these two only talk seriously when sex is involved? Well, I guess they don’t get a lot of alone time so they need to multitask their relationship… Note this is the first time she loosens up enough to call him Zev. : )
Oh man oh man oh man I’ve been looking forward to this chapter ever since I decided Liz would fight Howe with Attack on Titan. It turned out pretty much the way I wanted it to. Liz herself has been eyeing Go Away by symphonic metal band Delain as a personal theme song. >.>
Also this one took so long to write because I wasn’t sure where I should put the chapter break, and also Cauthrien has been a pain as far as her little added scene goes. I may do editing on this later. In fact, I already want to rewrite the story and cut out large, irrelevant sections. : P
Previous chapter: Haven; next chapter: Landsmeet
Denerim
It was five days to Redcliffe – they were closer to the edge of the mountains than Elizabeth had thought – and immediately they went to Arlessa Isolde with the Ashes in their little white silk bag. A doctor and a mage from the Circle Tower took them and argued with Brother Genitivi over what should be done with them; the doctor suggested that Arl Eamon ingest the ashes, while the mage wanted to see if simply applying them to Eamon’s skin would help.
Whatever they tried, in front of all of them, the Arl frowned, his hands flexed slightly, and his eyes slowly opened. “Where am I?” he whispered, very weakly.
“Be calm, dear husband,” Isolde said, although she was on the verge of happy tears. “You have been deathly ill for a very long time. Do you remember anything?”
“I dreamed… terrible things, yet I have the feeling that at least some of it was no dream. Where is Connor? Where is our boy?” Eamon asked anxiously, his voice cracking with disuse. The doctor hastened to sit him up and offered him a glass of water.
“He lives, thank the Maker,” Isolde said. “Many awful things have happened, Eamon. I will tell you later. For now, rest, and regain your strength.” Continue reading
Hmm… chapter 2. Liz is not happy about any of the things, and there’s nothing she can do about it. Oh well, it looks like everyone’s going to die. That was a short story, wasn’t it? Thanks for reading!
…Just kidding, we got lots more to go. : P
I’ll probably be tweaking this several times over the next week. Little thing, just details to make things better, more immersive maybe. Not totally happy with the boss fight, either.
This was an incredibly long chapter, maybe the longest single chapter I’ve ever written, because of my gimmick to have each location be a different chapter, so… hope you’re comfortable before you start reading. : P MAJOR spoilers, obviously. (the location/chapter thing is maybe not such a good idea for pacing, but whatever, it’s a thing I’m trying : P It’ll just mean some days you get multiple supershort chapters! Maybe.)
Previous chapter: Highever, next chapter: Lothering
Ostagar
It had been a week since Elizabeth and Duncan had left Highever, and great stone towers were rising into her view over vast hilly expanses of tall black pines. She could see the smoke of controlled fires, and distantly could hear the voices of men and even dogs. Continue reading