"Corypheus gets a cold and makes his henchmen's lives hell"
Calpernia sighed as the cool, mountain wind ruffled the papers that were strewn across her makeshift table. She could hear the loud chatter of her Venatori, and the presence of the Red Templars a few feet away certainly made her nervous. She caught eyes with Samson, the other Lieutenant, and tried to shake away the chill that travelled down her spine. Turning back to her research, she heard a voice in the not-too-distance shout her name. Her spine turned straight as an arrow, and she saw out of her periphery that Samson also jumped to his feet as Corypheus’s gruff voice reached her ears across the camp, and she waited for her master’s approach, hands behind her waist.
“Yes, my lord?” she asked, voice carrying across the shrill wind.
“Calpernia…”he said, making a sound suspiciously like a sniffle, “I require your assistance.” Samson overheard what their God was saying, and strode towards them in two short strides.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance, my liege,” he said, in his entirely insufferable drawl, which grated against Calpernia’s ears. The magister only rolled his eyes at the lyrium-addicted fool, turning back towards the brilliant mage before him.
“Tell the Venatori to prepare to attack,” he said before turning on his heel and beginning to stride away. Calpernia had already begun to formulate battle plans in her mind when Samson sputtered awake beside her.
“Your Grace…what about the Red Templars?” He called, causing Corypheus to still as he stalked away. The enormous, blighted being turned around, only to grab Samson around the throat and hoist him into the air.
“Your fucking Templars failed me when they rallied around the Inquisitor. I’ll kill you and every single one of them if I have to…” he said, though his sentiment was sharply cut off by a violent sneeze that sprayed blight-snot straight into the face of the groveling idiot that was Samson. Calpernia barely managed to restrain herself before she snorted a laugh, earning a look of pure ire from both her Commander and her co-Lieutenant. The Elder One dropped his favored Templar, striding over to where Calpernia stood, and threatened her, “you dare scoff at me, worm? Perhaps you’d like to….ACHOO!....join Samson and his forces in death when I throw them off of this mountain?” He shouted, though he had sneezed all across Calpernia’s chest, coating her neck-high armor in a fine layer of what she could only assume was darkspawn snot. She turned her delicate nose away, trying to avoid the brunt of whatever sneezes may follow.
“Perhaps, my lord, you might allow me to cast a healing spell upon you? You appear to be ill,” she said gently, though from the fury in Corypheus’s eyes at her suggestion, she quickly realized that he did not care for her offering. Seeing the red glow of his blighted flesh swell, she turned tail, running back towards her table and grabbing Samson by the wrist. She pulled him down beneath the shelter of the desk just in time for Corypheus to unleash a blast of red-lyrium-energy and a roar so mighty that even the Inquisition’s forces at the base of the mountain in Haven could hear it.
“This is going to be a long process,” Calpernia sighed, even as she thought, I am surrounded by idiots.