It was not often that the Deep Roads could be described as “bustling”.
Life and sound and especially music was so rare in the expanses of the tunnels that, when surrounded by it so fully, it was an effort for Inara to remember just how deep and far they were from anything touched by the sun. Around her, more than fifty Wardens from Ferelden and the Free Marches milled about at “morning” camp, finishing breakfast and packing for their next move into the dark. Around and amongst them, two companies of the dwarven Legion of the Dead numbering more than one-hundred dwarves each filled the caverns with food and drink and the sounds of living.
At Inara’s side, as always, was her Warden-Constable Nathaniel Howe, looking disapproving of everyone and everything that was going on around them. The two dwarven commanders, Kardol and Ceron, shared his demeanor as they waited on their people to finish their preparations. Aydis stood at Kardol’s side as faithfully as Nathaniel did at Inara’s, and from Ceron’s right hand glared Prir, a Silent Sister who kept her hands folded at her back at almost all times, her sister Brill never far away to translate the hand signals that she used to communicate with fresh Legion members and newer Wardens who had not yet learned all the hand signs.
Some days ago, the allied group had set out from Kul-Baras and headed west, hoping to discover new tunnels and any lost thaigs that could be rediscovered on their way. With them, they had brought librarians, herbologists, engineers, historians, and cartographers, to map and sketch and record and fix everything that they found. The most talented among the cartographers was a bright young dwarven woman by the name of Julpa. Julpa was Ceron’s eldest daughter and had gone from the Legion of the Dead to the Grey Wardens after swallowing Darkspawn blood and surviving an extraordinary amount of time before she could be brought to the closest Warden outpost and Joined. She often joked that growing up casteless had been harder than surviving the Taint, though her father did not seem to care for the joke.
Just over Inara’s shoulder, and never out of the watchful eyes of the dwarves, paced the Messenger. He had offered to serve as scout and guide on the journey into the forgotten expanses of the Deep Roads and keep the group from running into the thick of a churning horde. Julpa had taken quite a liking to him in the short time that they all spent together, but Ceron and Prir had made it clear that they never would. Kardol, as he was with Inara and all other surfacers, was patiently passive with the creature, though he never turned his back on him, either.
Revealing the Messenger to anyone came with great risk, of course. Darkspawn were the threat, the enemy. A speaking, thinking, feeling Darkspawn put absolutely no one at all at any sort of ease. And for the Wardens to ally with it? For the Warden-Commander, specifically, to call it a friend? Unheard of. “Strange times call for strange allies,” Nathaniel Howe would say of it, but even he seemed hesitant at best to embrace the uneasy alliance with any kind of confidence.
The first day – and night – had been tense. At first, the dwarves had believed it to be some kind of jest, as if Inara had taught a Darkspawn a few phrases or enchanted it with magic or perhaps it was some sort of well-costumed actor playing a role. They’d pulled and jabbed and prodded at the poor creature as it answered questions and struggled to remain patient and calm. At first, Warden and Legion member alike had gathered around to hear him speak and marvel at the novelty. But as days went on, amusement and wonder had turned to scorn and fear.
The Messenger fought bravely at their side as an ally, and scouted with skill. The armor that he wore was heavily enchanted with cleansing runes, to counteract his ability to spread the Taint simply by being present. But, as they witnessed how powerful the creature was, watched him bite the throat from a shriek as it pounced, watched him throw a fully armored genlock from a cliff, they grew nervous.
The Legion of the Dead, at least, was unattached to the kind of politics and panic that would come with him being revealed to anyone on the surface. They had seen Darkspawn, and were not shy at the idea of the creatures or strangers to the oddities of the species. Still, the weight of disapproval from them and the other Wardens still sat heavy on Inara’s shoulders. The expedition, she hoped, would prove the Messenger a valuable ally and prove her to be of sound mind for choosing to associate with him.
It was a tall order.
Thus far, it had gone relatively well. They had pushed far past Kul-Baras, the party stretching like an inch worm through the tunnels as they crawled forward, the scouts pushing ahead while the rear guard worked to ensure that the tunnels seemed stable and were well-marked as they passed. Sigrun led the scouts, both Warden and dwarven, with the Messenger at her side, which gave Inara some amount of faith that one of the scouts would not decide to execute the creature while they were away from her side, and Prir and Brill held the far rear in tight check. Darkspawn stragglers had launched small, disorganized attack here and there, but they’d avoided any major skirmishes with relative ease. They’d come across only one particularly concentrated hive of Deepstalkers, and had managed to dispatch the creatures with relative ease and no losses.
They’d moved with purpose. Every time a tunnel branched, the commanding officers would gather and discuss their future path and mark the unexplored tunnel for next time. A couple times, the paths ended in small, uninteresting caverns and they were forced to turn back for the path unchosen. After a few days, the tunnel that they had been following for quite some time diverged once more.
Here, the path split sharply, a tunnel chiseled off the left curving sharply quite away from the one that lay straight ahead, looking hastily made and not nearly as well-finished. Not too far in, the path to the left had suffered a collapse. A fair distance ahead within the straight tunnel, on the other hand, was a massive door of dwarven design, riddled with locks and bolts.
With some tinkering, the lead engineer believed that they could have the door open in a day, maybe less. The rockslide, the blasters thought, could be cleared in less than a week, but with the state of the tunnel they questioned if there might be more damage further in.
Inara, Nathaniel, Ceron, Kardol, the Messenger, Sigrun, Aydis, and Prir now stood at the fork to discuss where they would go from here. The scouts had returned with the news just after everyone had risen to prepare for the day, and they’d gathered together as soon as their breakfast was eaten to discuss, looking pensive.
“Not to be going through the door,” was the Messenger’s strong stance, a sharp movement of his hand coupled with a shake of his head accompanying the words. “Closed up for good. Not to be opening.”
Ceron frowned so deep that his beard almost touched the ground. “The door is of fine dwarven make. Our engineers will get it working in no time. The rockslide would be much harder to clear. Is this creature going to clear it for us?”
The Messenger let out a low hiss. “No good,” he said, slowly shaking his head as he backed away from the door as if for emphasis.
Nathaniel’s brow furrowed, but he stayed silent, his gaze only straying from the creature to check Inara’s face.
“As I mentioned when we started, the last time he wouldn’t go down a tunnel with me there was a fucking dragon nested in it,” Inara told her gathered allies, looking between them all to see that they all seemed to stand unified -- and annoyed with being addressed at all by the Darkspawn, as usual. Her words did not appear to sway them in the least.
“Worse is here,” the Messenger advised as he pointed at the massive door. “Bad tunnel. Dangerous. Locked for a reason.”
No one spoke. Inara looked to the Messenger. “Have you been down there before?”
“No one goes there and comes back,” the Messenger informed them all, resulting in a snort from Ceron and a slow shake of Prir’s head. “Bad tunnel. Dangerous.” He pointed sharply to the other tunnel. “Better way. Rocks can be cleared.”
“What’s down there?”
The Messenger looked pensive for a moment, then peered past Inara down the tunnel.
“No way to be knowing. Dangerous,” he said again. “Rocks can be cleared. Or go up, and over. Better ways.”
The dwarves balked at that, but Inara ignored them for the moment.
“What’s above us?” Inara asked.
The Messenger gave a frustrated, ragged shrug, voice raising in frustration. “Better than below.”
“We have two entire companies, and you have a full rank of Wardens, Commander. Surely we can handle whatever lies down this tunnel,” Ceron huffed. “This creature claims it has not even seen what lies ahead. The door is sealed shut. It’s lying, or worse.”
“The door is dwarven made, and a hefty one at that. And as you said, well-sealed,” Inara countered. “Is it not possible that your people locked the way on purpose?”
“You’d take the panic of this creature over the assurance of your allies?” scoffed the dwarf in answer. “Darkspawn are stupid, unorganized creatures. Or worse – this one knows there’s treasure to be found there, and is attempting to keep us from it.”
Inara looked to Kardol, who only shook his head.
“The Legion of the Dead will not go to the surface for you again, Warden,” he said slowly, though there seemed to be some softness in his voice, as if he at least did feel some pull of consideration. “Clearing the rockslide could take days, use up supplies we could use to continue, and we’ve no idea what shape that tunnel’s in past them. Opening the door can be done with far less cost.”
Ceron spoke again, firmly, as he dropped a hand heavy on Kardol’s shoulder. “We will face whatever is in these tunnels with or without the Wardens and their pet at our back.”
The Messenger hissed, almost snarled, and Inara pushed him to the side, away from Ceron and Kardol to speak.
“Will you go with us?” she asked. “If we go, will you come?”
He shook his head. “No good. Danger. Why do you not listen?”
Inara frowned sharply. “It’s complicated,” she said, though the tangle in her chest felt it wasn’t. “We made a promise. We are allies with the dwarves. They want to go.”
“Stupid!” he spat. “Very bad. There is danger. We should not be going.”
“We can protect you if you come with us,” she said. “You’ll be safe.”
He stared hard at the door for a long moment. “Dangerous,” he told her once again.
“Ceron had a point. We have more than two hundred people with us. Most of them hardened soldiers.”
The Messenger set his gaze on her once more, eyes clear and sharp and darkened by something not unlike fear. “Down there, not for long.” He glanced to the dwarves. “Not my allies,” he said. “Hate me and those like me. They will not protect a Darkspawn.” And then his eyes went back to the door, as if watching it out of fear.
Inara shivered a bit and looked back to Nathaniel, who stepped towards them with his arms crossed over his chest.
“The dwarves will go ahead no matter what we choose,” he said. “The Legion of the Dead and the Wardens have been allies for centuries. We agreed to help them in this expedition.”
Inara looked back to the Messenger.
“Are you sure that this place is deadly?”
The Messenger threw up his hands in frustration. “You do not listen,” he snarled.
“We are moving forward,” Ceron informed her, raising his voice to draw their attention back to the larger meeting. “The Legion of the Dead does not and will never heed the word of a Darkspawn. The Grey Wardens can do as they choose.”
The Wardens behind them murmured, and Inara shivered. She could see the way that they had been looking at her, at the Messenger. Always watching. Whispering. She’d known that the decision to bring him here, to bring him along was a dangerous one, and she could feel the ice of their judgement creeping up her spine.
“The Wardens are with the Legion,” she answered, perhaps too quickly.
The Messenger frowned and dropped his hands and shoulders helplessly as Inara and Nathaniel exchanged a look.
“We honor our agreements,” she told the creature at her side, giving her best attempt at forcing her expression to remain stony, cold. “Will you?”
It could have been said that the Messenger was seething as he stared back at Inara, but he did not speak. He waved a hand, and went to stand with Sigrun and Julpa, who greeted him quite eagerly, though he did not speak with them, either. Inara watched as Sigrun patted his arm, assured him he would be okay so long as she was around. The Messenger just snorted, and shook his head.
“We open the door,” Ceron ordered, and the decision was made. “Move camp. Engineers to the front.”
Dear Osse. If you had a dish and on that dish there was a fish who could grant you a wish, but only one wish because there's only one fish, what would you wish from your fish in a dish?
Ossë squints at the cloaked one, lifting his chin imperiously to look down his nose. “Why is this fish capable of granting wishes? Which of my brethren is behind this? Ulluboz? Why would he desire to give me anything when he has spent so long trying to take everything from me?”
He misses the entire point of the hypothetical question, too suspicious and offended.
a good kill? a good kill was using trust to seduce. a friendly smile, a perversion of honesty. betrayal. she wanted to be the nightmare everyone dreaded, she wanted them to fear her. to know she is an instrument of destruction, a monster. a good kill is seeing hope dissolve into despair, the beast of hatred rearing its ugly head into reality & grinning with jagged teeth. teeth that sink into soft, vulnerable flesh. flesh that bleeds a river to quench the fire sparked by bloodlust.
A GOOD KILL was breaking someone piece by piece, blows delivered by thought & blade alike. thoughts that clawed deeper into another’s mind, thoughts that sucked the hope in their heart away.
“ a good kill is when someone knows they’re going to die. “
