driftfleet | Tourist Mingle!

I love it. What a prestigious name. [Exactly the kind of disaster name that deserves an Anders stamp of approval.]

Hello, Doglord Duncan Tyrion Theirin.

[He reached out as the cat took the treat and scratched behind it's ears.]

What a wonderful and noble beast.

[He offered a bit of a smile up to Alistair.]

I assume you didn't just visit this ship to comment on the Taint and bring your regal friend.

[There's a beat.] The taint which, by the way, Riona doesn't know I have back. The same person who took away hers took away mine as well, but then I....went missing from here for a while. When I came back, so was the taint. [Though, oddly enough, not Justice which was the main reason Allen had been involved, the taint being gone was a happy side-effect.]

It's ridiculous, which works for him.

[And it pays homage to both his country and his former mentor. The fact that Anders approves of it is just an added bonus.

More pets, Anders. More pets or you will be abandoned.]

Not especially, no. I came over to see how you were...after everything. [He's not an insensitive clod, but it's not really easy to say "I came to check on you after everyone left to make sure you're not doing bizarre mage things".] Riona's a little...preoccupied right now.

As for the Taint, we can keep that between us, but I am curious as to how you and she both manage to have it removed at all.

Of course it does.

[All pet names ought to have a flair for the ridiculous and majestic.

But Doglord has nothing to fear, Anders has no intention of quitting his pets.]

I can imagine, they were her friends too. I appreciate the thought, you certainly didn't have to.

As for the taint, it was through a friend of Riona's. Allen Walker, he had an ability to purify souls. He...helped me at my and Riona's request. Mostly, it was meant to...solve another long-time issue, but curing the taint was an additional side-effect. As I understand it, Riona asked him to do the same for her sometime after Atroma saw fit to put Wolfe and I in 'storage' for a while. After we came back, I noticed the Taint had come back as well, though not the original affliction I'd gone to Allen about.

[And then there's Kiter. We can all blame Riona.]

Well, I've been meaning to speak to you beyond "Hello, I hear you know my wife and I will save your life back home in the near future". It's been five months. I think that's long enough to sort of dance around the subject.

[And it gives him the chance to really get to see Anders outside of what he's been told by other people.]

That....would be rather useful as a skill to still have. But, I don't remember hearing about or meeting an Allen. I take it he went back to his own world?

[He chuckles at that.]

Yes, I suppose it is long enough. In fact, about that amount of time back home and you would have gotten to the part where you save my life.

[But the Allen thing makes him sigh, though more in a 'doesn't that just figure' kind of way than really upset. He and Allen hadn't been close, but he'd certainly owed him a great deal for what he'd done.]

As far as anyone can tell. He left before we came back and it's been longer that he's been gone than it had been for us, so I doubt they've put him in whatever 'storage' they keep for us on the Marsiva.

We...do go to a lot of places, however. There's surely another way to remove the taint, if that interests you. We simply have to find it.

Actually, oddly enough, I was on my way to Vigil's Keep when I was brought here, so much sooner than that. Although, tell me, there were rumors about attacks in the woods through the main road from Denerim. Are they true?

[He doesn't know anything about Velanna.]

Just our luck for him to go home and we both come here in need of his skill set. I'm sure there is. Maybe we'll get lucky and find another person on the Fleet has something like that.

[Hey, Anders! Sit down because someone wants to lay a trap for you. Alistair stares at the snow leopard as he rolls onto his back to expose his fuzzy stomach. He knows better than to fall for that, but who knows with cat-man here.]

[Cat-man is a sucker. He sits and reaches to Doglord without hesitation. Even if the cat does spring it's trap, Anders flinches and continues petting her and cooing softly. Hey, what's a little blood for the chance at petting a soft belly? He's a healer, he can fix it.]

Ah...the attacks...yes, they're true. But, don't worry, I don't think you run into it? You're probably too large a group for her. [Uh...he probably shouldn't just rat Velanna out, even if it didn't matter much. She was spiteful enough, he could see her showing up here just to bite his head off before leaving again.] We deal with it, though, don't worry.

[Cat-man is lucky. Doglord weakly kicks his back legs at Anders' hand, but only enough to take a few skin cells, but not cut through the skin all the way. It'll just sting.]

I'm not really worried about my group, to be honest. It's all the trade caravans that pass through the area I'm concerned about.

[He narrows his eyes at the last remark but then shrugs. Anders and Riona are more than capable. And he's king now. He can't go off gallivanting everywhere just because he doesn't want to sit still.]

Though, I guess I can't do anything about that here. I'll just have to trust you all to take care of the things in Amaranthine as best you can.

[Good, because this cat is getting ALL of the love now. I'm sorry, Alistair, were you in the room or just a disembodied voice? Your cat is all that matters now.]

Considering...everything that happens in Amaranthine and the fact we were all brand new to it and all, I think we end up doing pretty well for ourselves. Only one building burns and not even all the way, the keep makes it out relatively intact.

[Spoilers?]

[And this is exactly why Alistair brought the snow leopard along. He wanted the other Warden to be relaxed enough to just talk and to feel better.]

Only one building in the entire city and the keep is a pretty good showing, considering. Besides, if you had Riona leading you, it's not that surprising. Truthfully I bet it's not as bad as what Denerim looked like after we took care of the Archdemon.

Oh, it most certainly isn’t. I was in Denerim right up until right before the landsmeet, I heard what it looked like after the battle.

[That was more like what Kirkwall had ended up looking like, in the end.]

It was the Keep that burned, we protected Amaranthine from that. I’m glad, too, I was always somewhat fond of that place.

It was... in need of a lot of rebuilding, that's for sure.

[That's what happens when you have hoards of Darkspawn converging on your country's capital.]

Well, Vigil's Keep has been the home of the Howes for centuries. I'm sure it'll rebuild easily. Amaranthine, however, is an important trading post.

Tourist Mingle!

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