Searching for Solas (mini-scene)
“You're a mage! How can you not know?”
Harding's incredulous voice strained to be heard above the sound of the rushing waters pouring into the chamber. Already the small stone room was filling up. The arcane glyph hovering before the sealed door shone with a blue-white radiance and slowly rotated in the air, symbols spinning clockwise like a valve to let the water flow in through several slits cut high up in the walls.
“I'm a mage who was trained by the Crows, remember?” Alana replied slightly more snappily than they intended, but Harding was interrupting their focus as they tried desperately to dispel the glyph's magic. “Our lessons were less arcane symbology and more – hey, here's how you can enchant your knife to make it extra stabby!”
“Okay, so stab it then!” Harding shouted, water now inching dangerously higher. Alana wasn’t exactly tall, but Harding was a dwarf, and didn't have the same luxury of time. Already it had reached her shoulders, and she struggled to crane her neck as high as she could to keep her head breathing what stale air was left in the chamber.
Alana pushed their soaking fringe out of their eyes and stared at the glyph. It wasn't the worst idea they'd heard all day – that would be Varric's suggestion that Alana and Harding go investigate the creepy temple ruins to try and find hints of elven magic that might link them to Solas, while he followed up with a contact at a tavern. Alana snorted at the thought of Varric sitting by a fireplace knocking back ale while they and Harding fought for their lives against a frankly excessive amount of booby traps down here.
They squinted at the glyph again, trying to make sense of the strange symbols. Wait...could it be that simple? This was clearly water magic, so if they channeled electricity into their mageknife then...it could cause the system to overload and shut down. Or it could send an electric surge through the water Alana and Harding were both standing in and kill them both. But it was that or drowning...
“Hope you're wearing sturdy boots, Harding”, Alana called out, summoning an orb of crackling purple energy and channeling it into the blade of their knife. They took a breath in, and a long exhale out, then thrust the glowing, fizzing dagger into the symbol at the centre of the spinning glyph.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the glyph exploded in a shower of incandescent sparks and a tearing crashing noise that left Alana's sensitive elf ears ringing. The water kept pouring in from the slits in the walls, then slowed, then stopped. The doors at the end of the room creaked open, water rushing out of them, sweeping Alana and Harding both off their feet in the current.
They both coughed up swallowed water as they lay on the wet sand, soaking and out of breath. Harding was the first to her feet, wringing out her dripping pigtails. “You really like leaving things to the last second, don't you, Rook?”
“I got us out, didn’t I?” Alana replied. “And with a dramatic flair, too!”
“Well, Solas wasn't here, but the artefact we were looking for is gone too, so...” Harding trailed off.
“So you're thinking he took it?”
“Seems likely, I bet he was able to turn that ward off properly too”, Harding said with a wink.
“Next time, you can do it then”, Alana laughed, getting to their feet with a wince. “Let's go find Varric, I reckon he owes us a drink after this”.
———
Note: This is part of a little series I’m playing with of scenes from the time before the events of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The game says that Rook, Varric, and Harding were pursuing Solas for the best part of a year before we meet them on-screen so I’m having fun filling in some blanks.