She has been a Grey Warden for eleven years, and the taint is beginning to consume her. She needs to find a cure soon. So Elodie Amell sets out in search and finds herself in the city thought long-lost, Kal-Sharok. There she discovers something much bigger than just a cure for the taint running through her body.
A companion story to my other story, In Your Gaze I Wish to Stay, but this can be read separately!
She has been a Grey Warden for eleven years, and the taint is beginning to consume her. She needs to find a cure soon. So Elodie Amell sets out in search and finds herself in the city thought long-lost, Kal-Sharok. There she discovers something much bigger than just a cure for the taint running through her body.
A companion story to my other story, In Your Gaze I Wish to Stay, but this can be read separately!
Master of Tides
They return to Kal-Sharok.
Unfortunately, unlike in the other stories of grand adventuring, there were no secret passages back to Kal-Sharok that would make the return trip easier. All of those passages had been purposefully collapsed after the Blights, which meant that the group had to return the way they came. The Sha-Brytol didn’t attack them this time, thankfully, but there were still spiders, and Elodie needed rest.
She had just been cured of the Blight.
She was still covered in lyrium burns.
She was free of the taint.
It was reflex to think ‘Thank the Maker’ for such a miracle, but it wasn’t the Maker who had cured her.
…
Or was it?
No. She pushed the thought from her mind, the thought was too…odd and blasphemous, too inconsistent and she really did not have the energy for deep theological thinking and work arounds.
Though if the Titans did make the dwarves, that would make them a Maker of a sort.
They made it back to the Shaperate in another week, and she practically collapsed into the bed as soon as she saw it, only sparing time to change out of her traveling robes and into a clean sleeping set.
She slept for fourteen hours, waking only to relieve herself and to eat. Her stomach growled in distress and she set upon the platter of lichen and bread. The food disappeared quickly and she expected the hunger to continue as it always had done for the past decade. But it didn’t, the hunger abated and she actually felt remarkably full. Like a normal person.
Still amazed, Elodie rose from her cot once again, tying her hair back into a braid. A new set of robes were laid out for her on the table beside the bed, robes that mysteriously looked like those Effir and Pritte had worn before setting out with them.
Her heart warmed, they had made her special garments just so that she wouldn’t have to don her now tattered, torn, and still smelling-like-spider robes. That being said, the new clothes were…very different from what she was used to. It took her several minutes to just figure out how they were to be wrapped and tied and secured about her frame.
She eventually figured it out, wrapping herself securely up in the garment that…whoa.
It was…warm. And buzzing with lyrium and magic. That…was certainly different, even for mage’s robes. Did…did the dwarves of Kal-Sharok create lyrium infused cloth that they stitched into runes on normal clothes?
She opened the inside of a sleeve to behold a tiny stitched in rune pattern. An amazed gasp left her. That was incredible, lyrium was the backbone for their way of life, stitched, literally, into their everyday lives.
She emerged into the main living area of the Shaperate to find Pritte reviewing his notes with a steaming mug of…something.
“Hello, Pritte,” Elodie said in the little Kal-Sharok dwarven she had picked up. Pritte stopped and looked up, smiling broadly.
“El-o-die! What a lovely surprise, and wearing our traditional clothes as well, I see! Effir had been very insistent on acquiring those for you, you know.” He hopped off the bench and walked over to her, inspecting the garment, nodding and smiling at the craftsmanship. Her heart warmed at Effir insisting her having these robes, it was a kind gesture, even if they would most likely shrug it off as practical for her to not stink up the city with spider gore. Effir, the softy, who knew?
“How is transcribing our adventure into a tale for the memories going?” She asked and Pritte rubbed his hands together, launching into a long monologue on the transcribing process and how much work he had to get done because everything was significant in some form! Not a detail could be left to chance, and that was why he had her sit down and recount her side of the story to him.
He took notes in a furious pace, nodding, and scratching things out when appropriate. It took most of the day, or work-time, and at one point a servant brought them a tray of lichen and cheeses to nibble on.
About an hour after the tray of food was brought, a servant ran up to them, bowing low before snapping back up.
“The Paragon-Elect is searching for the Grey Warden.”
“Ah, it was nice speaking with you, Pritte. Can you take me to her?” Elodie asked. The servant nodded and lead her out from the Shaperate and out to the apparently repaired lift system. The dwarves were quick to guide the lift back to the palace where she was led down the hall to a large room. Karega was done up in her finery, cleaned and pressed and beautifully fierce. The far side of the room was open to gaze down at the city below her, and Karega stood just before it, watching.
“Dwarves do not dream. I have been told that our connection to whatever magic allows dreaming is different from elves or humans, qunari. We are connected to the Stone.” She strode across the length of the ledge, her face drawn in serious contemplation.
Elodie bowed her head and took a step into the room.
“I am aware, though even this has not stopped dwarves from being fascinated by or even studying magic,” she said, thinking of the dwarven girl she sent out to the Circle only to see her once again in the Inquisition, putting her knowledge to good use.
Karega turned away from Elodie to stare more intensely at the city below.
“So you must be aware how strange it must have been when last night I…had a vision? A dream?”
Elodie tilted her head to the side and sighed. She could think of how odd that could be, exactly so. Oghren’s flailing at suddenly being in the Fade in the Blackmarsh floated into her head and she winced.
“Those of us who regularly dream often experience unpleasant ones. Many of us find that speaking of the unpleasant dreams helps.”
Karega paused before glancing behind her at Elodie.
“It was not unpleasant. Merely odd. I…was with Gurendar, and it was almost like it had been, but he spoke like he did when we were in the deep.” Karega’s voice was softer, reminiscent and careful. Elodie realized that she did not quite know what to make of the dreams.
“The lyrium induced visions were…trials on my body. The nightmares from the Blight were a scourge, and the nightmares because of the demons due to my mage heritage have been…harrowing, quite literally. But the dreams between are not always easy, they are not always good or perfect, and no one can really tell you what dreams mean. If someone does, then they are lying to convince you to do something they want you to do. Only you can decide for yourself what your dream means. Dreams are often…mirrors, reflecting the world and our own feelings. Examine those and you can discern their meanings from there,” Elodie replied, joining Karega at the ledge.
The queen straightened her back and nodded once, “I miss my husband, but as he said, he is not truly my husband anymore. He belongs to the Stone, to the Titan. I must move on.”
Well, that was quick.
Elodie looked out to the city below them and she wondered as to why Karega was suddenly dreaming…though it sounded less like a dream and more like one of her lyrium visions. A final goodbye, closure. But closure like that…it never comes, not really. Love does not move on so easily, and the heart holds onto memories longer than the head.
Alistair’s face flitted into her mind and she exhaled.
“Your majesty?”
“Fool top-sider, didn’t I tell you to call me Karega?”
Elodie laughed, “You did! I’d do well to remember that, wouldn’t I?”
Karega grunted and rolled her eyes, but she smiled.
“The Titan has granted me a significant boon –
“It’s also got you trapped in a pretty sweet situation with defense.”
“True, but a boon it still is. I am…free of the taint, something I never thought I would ever say.” She rolled the sleeve of her robe up and examined the now blemish free skin. No darkness, no taint, not even a scar….
The lyrium had sunk deep into her and blasted whatever impurity was left.
It did not make much sense to her, but it had worked. Her head was clear, her blood pure, and she felt her body sing with magic and a wholeness that she had not felt in…more than a decade.
And beneath it all was a deep longing to go home. A happier exhaustion shrouded her and she was eager to return to Denerim to the family and life she had someone created for herself. Karega lifted her head up in pride as she gazed out at her city, at her sons sparring down in the circle below.
“My husband is gone.”
“But your family and city remain.”
“They do, and I will protect them all. So I trust that you will not hold much of a grudge if we blind you while we lead you out of the city and to the surface.” All of that said with a straight face.
“Of course not, Karega. Though I would hope you would consider a…loose alliance of sorts.” Nothing brings people together better than sharing a unique, trying experience, something that others will not believe or even ever empathize with correctly. She bonded with Karega…but that did not necessarily translate into a political alliance.
“Kal-Sharok has been independent for…ages,” Karega mused.
“We have survived fine without the interference of anyone…but times are perhaps changing. If we are to create an alliance, it would first be with you and your people, I assure you, Long Legs.” And then the Paragon-Elect of Kal-Sharok extended her hand to Elodie. She took it gladly, smiling and bowing her head in gratitude.
“Now, before you leave, we drink and be merry! Celebrate the repairs to the city and Kal-Sharok’s first foreign friend.” Karega turned from the window and grinned triumphantly up at Elodie who returned the smile and laughed.
“And here I was thinking that we skipped the party!”
“Never! A good Kal-Sharok dwarf NEVER skips the party!” She laughed, clapping Elodie on the back. She left the room, laughing and joyously shouting requests for the party that night. The palace erupted into a loud clamor in preparation, but Elodie remained at the window, staring down at the city.
The dwarves of Kal-Sharok had survived the Blights, protected by the Titan, a cure…not so far from the Anderfels.
The image of the elf standing over the ledge and down at the other Titan filled her mind, blood spilling down her hand….
Whatever happened to the other Titans…was it because of her? And was this the cause of the Blight? Was it reversible, whatever she did? These were questions that needed to be answered and as much as she wanted to make her way to Alistair as quickly as possible…she supposed she could wait another month to revisit Skyhold and report her findings, ask the red lyrium experts there if there are any ties to this.
Skyhold was along the way home, she could report her findings to at least Dagna and then establish communication with the red lyrium experts with herself and potentially even Kal-Sharok. Though who knows how likely that set would be, Karega was hesitant to ally with Ferelden even after everything they had just gone through.
And as she watched the people below her mill about, she thought of her life. It hit her, sometimes, how…extraordinary her life had been, and she was only in her early thirties. Thirty-one, to be exact. A newly hallowed mage turned Grey-Warden at nineteen, and Hero of Ferelden at twenty, then followed quickly by court mage and mistress to the King of Ferelden. She had united kingdoms, fought a Blight, killed an Archdemon, and now…now it felt like her life could truly begin, not as a collection of labels thrust upon her of what the world required of her, but of Elodie. Simply, Elodie. Not even touched by her surname, by the family that had forsaken her for just what she was.
She was finally free to be like the people down in the street.
Well…not entirely free, she still was all those things but they were now past things, past titles and deeds and people.
Elodie turned from the window and asked the guards if she could go to the Market district to shop. They acquiesced and insisted on accompanying her as she shopped.
They took the lift down and around to the markets where people were quick to stare. Elodie was not a short woman by any meaning of the word, and she tried not to tower over the dwarves, but there was only so much she could do. She avoided low-hanging shop signs and got used to bending herself down to buy things. She bought for herself jewelry, large rings and necklaces that glowed with faint lyrium etching, subtle power humming quickly in the pieces. She bought a wheel of lichen cheese for Alistair, and a few other odds and ends for the people she cared about. But Elodie mostly just walked around, watching the people live their lives, musing happily on whether if this would eventually be her life.
Able to walk down a street and just happily purchase something, without fear of the Templars, without fear of the guards, without being bombarded by people who recognized her.
Several hours later and the little shopping party returned to the palace where apparently the feast was just beginning. Loud music drifted down the hall and suddenly several young dwarves appeared, all bearing some similarities to Karega.
Eight. Karega had eight children.
They strolled through the halls, laughing and carousing as they headed down to the main hall. Elodie smiled and jogged after them, ready to celebrate her newfound freedom and friends.
**
The next day, Elodie woke to a sensation she had not experienced in the last twelve years – a hangover. An actual hangover. Grey Warden stamina often meant that her body handled the alcohol faster and more efficiently than non-Wardens, whatever hangover she sustained she usually slept through.
But it seemed that with the taint gone, so was her ability to drink like a qunari. She scrubbed at her face, finding her cheeks sticky with…something. What…happened? Maybe she didn’t want to know. She ate the meal of bread and lichen quickly again, finding it easier to palate after drinking…Maker, how much did she drink last night? After eating, she dressed and left, her things gathered and prepared for her long trek back to Denerim. Karega found her, somehow without a hangover and wearing a great grin.
“There she is! HA! Woman you should have told me your people liked to party!” She shouted and Elodie winced, murmuring a healing spell that helped somewhat.
“Oh, yes, we are very fond of the drink.”
“You’ve got good stamina, Long Legs. Oh, that your secret then? Something with long legs?” Karega narrowed her eyes and Elodie rolled hers.
“Hardly, I am just fond of ales and tend to drink them more frequently than is most likely healthy,” she chuckled but Karega smiled and began to guide Elodie down the corridors.
“But now you’re leaving, we get it, you made it very clear last night, you have to get back to the king,” at that Karega bumped Elodie’s hip and winked. Elodie flushed and placed a self-conscious hand over her chest. What…what did she say?
“Oh…yes, well, hmm.”
“HAHA! No need to be ashamed! If I had a man as young and handsome as him, I don’t know if we’d ever leave the bed.”
Well…that’s certainly…something, Elodie thought.
“That being said, I think I’m going to miss you, Long Legs. Pritte will miss you as well…and Effir will too, even if they won’t admit it.”
“They got me these robes, that is communication enough, honestly,” she answered, still impressed by the gift.
“Just don’t let your human spinners and weavers and whatnot go sniffing up the fabric, we can’t have your people discovering all our secrets,” Karega warned, her face serious for a moment.
“Don’t worry, I will keep your secrets close,” Elodie promised. They were at the entrance to the palace now, and as they made their way to the…loading zone or something, Elodie wasn’t entirely sure where they were going, though she suspected it had something to do with her leaving Kal-Sharok.
“I am sure you will, but we have to be certain about some things, as I am sure you understand.”
They turned away from the palace and down a long winding stone staircase that led them into a courtyard full of…
“Are those…giant nugs?” Elodie asked in awe. Karega blinked at her and leaned back.
“Never seen a Nugalope have ya’? Well, here are some of our finest, though the one at the head is a War Nug, we call her Toeril. My sons Rogar and Vulthun will be escorting you through the Deep Roads to the surface. You will be blindfolded until you reach the roads, the boys will know when to allow you sight.” Karega walked around the space, allowing Elodie to get accustomed to being around the…Nugalopes.
It was a small company of dwarves, five in total with what Elodie was guessing was the elder son perched regally atop Toeril. He watched Elodie with a wary eye that reminded her of his mother and wondered if this was the heir to Kal-Sharok.
But there was something off…she counted everything again and lifted a brow. Five dwarves, six Nugalopes. It seemed that she would be riding her own Nugalope…blindfolded. Apparently adventures do not stop simply because she is no longer a Grey Warden.
“Your nug will be tied to mine, don’t worry, Warden,” one of the dwarves said as he walked to her nug and attached a long rope to its saddle.
“That eases some concern then,” Elodie replied dryly, “and I’m not a warden anymore, you can call me Elodie. Or Lady Amell if you require some formality.”
“Very well, Lady Amell,” the man replied before hurrying to his Nugalope, quickly climbing atop it. The rest of her party began to mount their nugs and she supposed that it was getting time to leave the city.
“It’s a good thing you came, Long Legs. It helped Kal-Sharok, and more importantly – you are helping the Titan,” Karega said, putting her hands behind her back as she watches her people ready for the journey.
Elodie glanced back down at Karega and let out a breath before bending down quickly and wrapping her arms around her. Karega stiffened in shock but patted Elodie’s back.
“I am going to miss you too, Karega. Thank you,” Elodie said softly, holding her close. Karega sighed and returned the hug more firmly.
“Stone guide you, Long Legs,” Karega whispered before murmuring something in her dwarven language.
“Stone keep you, Karega,” Elodie replied as she pulled away, placing a hand over her heart. Karega grinned and her eyes shone a bit more brightly.
“Until we meet again.”
Elodie nodded and headed toward her Nugalope. Karega helped her up and showed her the basics of riding the beast. Karega patted Elodie’s leg and handed her the handkerchief to blindfold herself. Elodie accepted it and tied it willingly around her eyes, breathing deeply to accustom herself to the lack of sight.
“Get her to the surface! We can’t have her dying now, not after everything that has happened, now can we?” Karega ordered.
“No worries, mother, we’ll get her to her safe surface in no time,” one of the sons said, and from his cavalier attitude, she suspected it was the younger son.
“Wait! You must wait!” A loud familiar voice called.
“Pritte? Is that you?” Elodie turned in her saddle out of habit
“Yes! Yes, we’re here!”
“We? Is Effir there?”
“For some reason,” they groused making her laugh.
“Oh Effir, you softy,” she teased, unable to stop the wide grin from spreading on her face.
“Thank the Stone we caught you in time! It isn’t right we wouldn’t get to say our pieces properly,” Pritte said before Effir could contradict Elodie’s comment.
“The Stone had nothing to do with you finishing your duties at an inadvisable speed to come here,” Effir protested anyway.
“Well, then how did you manage to finish your own duties to come here?” Elodie asked and she could feel their scowl.
“I did not rush, I finished in a timely and well-structured manner –
“Oh they shucked off duties for tomorrow,” Pritte explained making Elodie laugh again.
“I’m going to miss you too, Effir. You are a good friend,” Elodie nodded her head in their direction and they shifted their feet in the dirt.
“You did not destroy the city and have proven to be a reliable ally.”
Everyone fell silent at that until a low whistle sounded.
“Shit that is high praise coming from them,” Karega marveled.
“They are right, E-lo, you have been good to the city and to the Titan, you have been recorded in the memories and I am sure it is not the last of you that will appear in there. Thank you, I am grateful to have met a Grey Warden, a former one at that. Now go home to your king, tell your country of the greatness of Kal-Sharok!” Pritte exclaimed, making Elodie lean towards their voice, silently asking for a hug. They reached up and embraced her briefly before letting her return to her seat.
“I will do that. Thank you Pritte, Effir, Karega – thank you so very much.” It was truly incredible to find such kindness to a stranger in a place that had been sealed off for so long and she was intensely grateful for it. Pritte sniffled and she was pretty sure that Effir rolled their eyes even if she couldn’t see them.
Karega scoffed, “Surfacers, so soft. Careful you don’t get yourself killed with that softness, Long Legs. Now get going, you’re losing all your time.”
She slapped the behind of Elodie’s Nugalope, though the real thing that got the thing going was the low whistle from the older prince. The animal lurched forward and Elodie had to catch herself from falling as they began their journey. Her heart ached a bit; she was going to miss her new friends and this beautiful city, but she was…. It was time to go home and to live the life she had dreamed of for so long.
The next several days were an odd mixture of blind travel, only being able to see when camp was made, and the brief formation of new friendships. She got to know the dwarves escorting her, all of whom knew of the Inquisition because they had apparently interacted with its agents when the Venatori had somehow kidnapped several Kal-Sharok dwarves and turned them into slaves. They had fought together and had apparently been collecting information for the Inquisition about the Venatori in whatever ways they could.
They were apparently not as closed off as they had led everyone to believe.
After the third day of travel, they stopped requiring her to wear a blindfold and on the fourth day, they began to fight the darkspawn. For the first time in more than a decade, Elodie could not sense them coming. There was no tickle at the back of her skull, no heating of blood or a sense of foreboding – they just descended upon her and the party. She was about to cast a spell that would essentially explode one of the darkspawn when she remembered that she had to be careful about their blood now. She was…vulnerable. She reigned the spell back and instead blasted the darkspawn with searing energy, frying the creature from the inside.
The darkspawn were terrifying once again and she felt normal. Well, as normal as she could as she healed everyone around her with a single spell.
The dwarves were more than a little unsettled by her magic but they did not fight her or yell, just grumbled at the tingling in their bodies.
They guided her all the way to the surface and told her that she could keep the Nugalope as an official gift from Kal-Sharok. She placed a hand over her heart and thanked them for everything they had done. The told her if she ever wanted to get in contact with them to simply send a letter to the closest village, River Rock, and have the trader Ugra Batt get the letter and the rest will be taken care of. Their goodbyes were full of smiles and well-wishes. The princes bowed and she returned the gesture gladly.
“You have been more than kind and hospitable to me, my thanks cannot be deep or sincere enough to convey what I feel,” she said.
“Flowery surfacer, but we thank you, as does the Titan. Now go, be well! Live well with the life that Titan has gifted you,” the way the eldest prince spoke she almost believed him to be making a threat. But she understood and nodded. Elodie watched their forms disappear back into the darkness of the Deep Roads. She turned to the exit of the roads, the light spilling in from the trench she had entered. It was time to greet her life as Elodie. Just Elodie.
She has been a Grey Warden for eleven years, and the taint is beginning to consume her. She needs to find a cure soon. So Elodie Amell sets out in search and finds herself in the city thought long-lost, Kal-Sharok. There she discovers something much bigger than just a cure for the taint running through her body.
A companion story to my other story, In Your Gaze I Wish to Stay, but this can be read separately!
Lost Girls
Elodie descends deeper and discovers a shocking revelation.
They walked for another hour before Effir slumped against a wall, clearly exhausted from the day’s journey.
“Paragon-Elect, I request we make camp,” they asked, eyes half-way closed.
But Karega shook her head, “I know of a spot just up over here. C’mon, Shaper, you demanded to be on this expedition after all.” Effir sighed but pushed themselves off of the stone. Elodie murmured a little spell and gestured towards them, trying to give them the little boost needed to get through this next part.
They eyed the magic suspiciously then waved at it and shuddered when it continued to wrap itself around them.
“What is this? Spirits of the Stone? Leave me be, ancestors!” Their voice broke and Elodie frowned, waving again and making the magic dissipate.
“I apologize –
“Warn a person before you do that,” they growled and took off after Karega. Elodie sighed and reminded herself that the dwarves here hadn’t seen magic in…thousands of years.
She winced at her own insensitivity and followed along quietly once more. They jogged up a ramp that seemed to go on for miles before arriving at a huge open plateau.
Elodie’s jaw dropped at the sheer size of the space.
The ceiling was so high that she could barely see the dangling chandeliers. Towering pillars framed the space and section off other spaces containing large square holes that looked suspiciously like….
“Is this a bathhouse?” Elodie asked. Karega turned back and smiled.
“You reek, and I remember running past this place – two nugs, one bath!” She declared happily. Effir and Pritte paused for a moment before gravitating towards the pillars, recording any and all information possible.
“Are you not going to enjoy a bath?” Elodie called back as she followed Karega in search of a lever to turn the pools on.
“In a bit, perhaps,” Pritte said absently as he scribbled into his journal. Their voices carried through the space, echoing off of remarkably smooth and pristine stone. With a few careful words, Elodie illuminated the room, igniting torches, braziers, and even the chandeliers hanging above.
The light allowed Elodie and Karega to spot various hallways leading off of the main chamber. And in the third room they investigated, they found what they were looking for – or at least what Elodie hoped was what they wanted.
It was an entire wall of levers, pullies, and various notes attached with what Elodie to be descriptions. Karega leaned forward to inspect the descriptions only to huff and swear once more.
“Damn. Ancient Dwarven, you would think our language and writing would not have deviated this much, but here it is.”
“Is there really nothing you can make out?”
“Uh, just barely. Maybe…this lever?” She pulled a lever and a great WOOSH went through the room. There was a pause and then distant screaming, hissing, and clanking sounded out in the main chamber.
“Shit!”
They ran back out just in time to see Pritte burying another axe into a spider’s skull. He looked up, and smiled while Effir, now covered in spider gore, scowled.
“Wrong. Lever.”
Karega snorted in an attempt to smother laughter, earning Effir’s continued ire. The dwarf then dropped their things and proceeded to walk to the chamber where Karega and Elodie had just been. They grumbled to themselves unintelligibly, though Elodie guessed they were cursing herself and Karega for getting them drenched in spider gore.
They inspected the rune work on the wall, then began to pull different levers.
“It is required for the Shapers to know the ancient tongue.” They explained tersely before turning from the wall and heading back out to the baths.
Pritte danced around happily as he stared up at the ceiling where water was now flowing from into one of the larger baths.
“Marvelous! Great work, Effir!” He then quickly began to strip, seemingly uncaring for those that saw him.
Karega was the next to begin disrobing. Elodie and Effir turned away while they both quietly shucked off their rancid smelling robes. It had formed some sort of sticky seal to Elodie’s skin and she gagged as she pealed it off.
“This is disgusting.” She grumbled.
“I hate spiders.” Effir groused before turning and quickly sinking into the bath. Elodie soon followed, testing the water. It was warm, though not to the usual degree Elodie took hers, but she supposed that was easily rectified…if the dwarves did not mind a bit of magic.
“Would you mind me making the water warmer with magic?” She asked politely. Pritte looked wildly excited by the whole idea, scrambling up over the edge of the bath to grab his notebook. Karega frowned and Effir was about to deliver the hard ‘yes’ to the question when Karega shrugged.
“Very well, as long as you won’t fry us.”
Elodie nodded and grabbed her staff, then drove the end of it down into the water, hitting the bottom. She murmured a few words and drew the warming rune. It flickered orange then simmered out and soon the temperature began to rise. Steam was floating off the top in no time, turning them all into flushed versions of themselves.
The bath was amazing. Elodie scrubbed all of the spider gore off of herself, and potentially a layer of skin, but it was worth it to feel clean and refreshed. She was convinced that the water had some mineral in it to aid with cleaning, but she could not tell what it was.
Pritte set to cleaning his beard meticulously, though he babbled on about how he was limited in that there weren’t just some beard oils laying around and oh dear, he forgot to pack some. Effir, like Elodie, scrubbed until raw, but they seemed much less tense with all the ichor now sloughed away.
Karega actually relaxed in the warm water. She leaned back against the wall and let her head dip back; Elodie thought she even took a nap.
The warming glyph eventually wore off and they exited the bath with long sighs. Pritte set to work drying himself off, and with all the hair covering his body, Elodie was a little concerned he would be drying for days rather than hours.
Elodie told Effir to sleep, that she would take first watch and wash their clothes. They scowled at her but eventually reluctantly agreed, seeing as they could barely keep their eyes open.
One of the good things about the Deep Roads was that there was little need for an actual tent, which reduced the amount of stuff they had to carry with them. That being said, Pritte somehow produced a tent-like tarp, pinning it to the wall, creating some privacy for those who wished to sleep.
Elodie took watch and wash, settling down by the now partially murky water to begin the slow process of cleaning fabric covered in spider guts.
She was not twenty minutes in when Karega tapped her shoulder. Elodie turned, surprised to see the woman in such soft clothing for the Deep. But more shocking was she was holding a small portrait that looked very familiar…
“It fell out of your pack when we moved it into the tent,” she handed it to Elodie. The mage took it with a small smile, and looked down at the now rumpled and fading micro-portrait of Alistair. She started carrying it with her when her duties took her away from him. Which made it ten years old. Maker.
“Thank you, I would have missed this.”
“Your husband, I take it?” Karega settled herself next to Elodie, still angling her head at the portrait.
“Not…exactly. He is my love and I am his, but we are not married. He is the king of Ferelden and when he ascended the throne, he had to marry the current queen to ensure unity, which we desperately needed.”
Karega paused for a moment then nodded, “You are his…concubine? Is that the correct word?”
“Oh goodness no! I am his Mistress. It’s a little funny, we were both so hesitant about that but when he became king and I remained at his side, absolutely no one was surprised…or even remotely upset. Even the queen was agreeable with the arrangement.” She tucked the small portrait into her clothes and resumed cleaning the battle robes. But Karega remained, still contemplating.
“Who mothers his children?” She suddenly asked. Ah. Yes, that question. It was always that question. ‘Yes, but who does he sleep with? Didn’t he have to sleep with her? Didn’t that hurt you?’ No, it didn’t. And she wasn’t less for it not hurting. She felt no remorse about Morrigan or about Anora, they were both necessary, and he loved her, not them. Sex was sex was sex.
“Anora, the queen, gave birth to his son, and heir apparent, seven years ago. We…I cannot bear children,” her voice was soft and the old failures crept into her.
The first pregnancy, they had been so happy, ecstatic. Duncan was only a year old and everyone was thrilled to think that he would have a sibling he could be so close to. Alistair had spent that entire month with a goofy smile on his face, cradling his son his arms and touching Elodie’s stomach whenever he had the chance.
The miscarriage was a shock for most, but Elodie was somewhat expecting it. The taint…it ran deep and she knew that bearing a child while riddled with it could be almost impossible.
The second pregnancy was approached with wary excitement. They kept it secret, just Anora, Alistair, and Elodie plus the healers knew. When that miscarriage came, it wasn’t so surprising, but it still hurt, and like the first time, she locked herself in her room for two days, crying.
Her hand fluttered to her stomach and she recalled the third pregnancy. It was the shortest one, lasting only a week after she found out. There and then suddenly gone.
It was the fourth that was the worst. She had the healers swear not to tell anyone until she was past the first trimester. And then the fourth month arrived and she broke out in excited tears. This was the one! Her baby! Her child! But she was careful, and they kept the pregnancy secret once more so as to not stress Elodie and the baby.
A miscarriage in the fifth month was nothing she would ever wish upon anyone. It was more than a miscarriage, of thick blood and cramping. It was a death, tragic and devastating. And the scars were longer lasting, her body not fully recovered and her heart bearing a wound that would never heal completely.
She stopped trying for a child after that, and began searching for a cure. She could be happy with being a second mother to Duncan, and she was. It was not a lack of love that made her want a child with Alistair, but because she loved Duncan…and wanted to be a mother again.
Elodie blinked the memories away and looked at the small portrait in her hands. He looked so young in the portrait, short hair, and a thinner face.
“He looks like a child without a beard,” Karega commented absently.
“Oh he has a beard now, nice and full, not to worry,” Elodie teased. She glanced down at her hands, still healing from the lyrium burns but also still strangely mottled from the blighted tissue removal. She hadn’t told him, but…he probably knew, could feel the taint getting stronger in her than in him.
Wardens made during the Blight had it worse. She was supposed to have thirty years, and it was looking like she got thirteen max.
She was going to die, taken by the thing that had once saved her from a life of imprisonment and ridicule. She would never have reached her full potential in the Circle, would have either languished in complacency or been made Tranquil once they discovered just how powerful she was…or when she began to speak out against the injustices put upon the mages by the Chantry and its Templars.
She would never have met Alistair in the Circle. This life…however short and tragic, was a monumental improvement over the lack of one in the Circle. She would not have loved, not have learned how to embrace her magic, she would never have met some of the most amazing friends and people. And in the end, when she ventured back out into the Deep Roads that actually had Darkspawn, she would be grateful for these thirteen years. Elodie Amell had done a lot of good, had enjoyed a lot of wonderful things, and come death came rest.
The night continued on and Elodie was eventually forced to retire into a wary sleep. And like the previous nights, the hallucinations returned.
A song more infectious and seducing than anything she had ever heard flitted through the air. It led her down halls and up pathways, then down slick passages. There was lyrium everywhere, but none of it was creating such a song. She dove deeper into the depths of the roads until coming to a great pulsating lyrium vein. It ran the height of a pillar once covered in runes, only to now be squeezed by the lifeblood of the Titan.
It drew her in and she was helpless to not sink to her knees, pressing it into the base of the lyrium while she pressed her hands to it.
She gasped as images flooded her mind. She expected to see the man diving into the ball of light once more, but instead she saw…a woman. Taller and slimmer than any dwarven woman, dressed in beautiful ceremonial armor. Her form wavered and suddenly she was standing in front of the great ball of light, a man stood in front of her, himself clad in stronger armor with a great battle-axe waving menacingly at the tall woman.
But she merely outstretched her hand and a…red tinted magic emerged like slithering shadows from her arm, sinking into the man.
There was a scream, a bright flash of light, then a hiss, and Elodie shot up awake in her bed, the palms of her hands bleeding from the burns.
What…was that? She had believed that the first vision had been of Karega’s husband being chosen and that was symbol enough to draw her to the Titan, but this…this was nothing like that.
A woman, overtaking a man defending the Titan? Was this woman…her? Was she supposed to do something like that? That had been sinister magic, nothing like what Elodie actually practiced.
Or was this a story of some sort? Did this happen in the past? And if so…what did this have to do with her?
Elodie went through the ritual of patching her hands, hissing in pain at how tender her flesh was. The burns were excruciating and the dabbing and healing and bandaging didn’t seem to lessen the pain.
“Alright, Long Legs! Time to head out! Let’s move,” Karega shouted from outside.
“Just a minute!” Elodie replied before murmuring a healing spell into her hands and then changing into her traveling robes. They weren’t perfect after yesterday’s encounter with the spider, but they would have to do. She packed the rest of her things and ran off to continue the trek into the deep.
**
The deeper they delved into the earth, the more her wounds burned. It started as a dull throbbing, but by the end of the fifth day of walking, her body itched and ached from the pain. The hallucinations happened nightly and her body was slowly becoming more encompassed by the burns. There was only so much elfroot could do to stop the pain and the pain itself was fatiguing, requiring them to make more frequent stops for her to regain herself.
Her body groaned under the stress, and as they climbed through yet another spider passage, she hissed at the pain of her skin sliding against the rocks. Tears slipped down her face, dripping in an angle down her neck and onto a burn that hissed at the contact.
She was dying, but she had to keep going.
On the sixth day, the roads ended. A hush fell over the group as they stared at the awaiting abyss.
The only way was forward.
They took a collective deep breath and sojourned forth. Elodie bounced up a light for herself only to have Effir hiss at her to put it out. There were other creatures here who would be drawn to the light, and that she would just have to rely on the dwarven eyesight to see her through.
They attached ropes to themselves, mostly for her benefit she thinks, and slowly began to trudge forward. She had never come across a darkness so complete in her life. No light pollution or refraction from stars or the moon – just…pitch black. Not even lyrium veins seemed to touched this place.
She slid her hands across the rock to keep her righted and with the group. She wished they could talk to further help guide her, but noise in this eerie quiet could spell disaster for them, so she kept quiet.
The darkness stretched on for hours until finally, a faint glow emerged. Relief flooded Elodie as she took a step toward it.
The light moved.
A low sound of discomfort escaped Karega followed by the sound of steel being freed from its holster. Elodie grabbed her staff and ignored the pain in her hands, watching the slow movement of the light. It bobbed slightly before…suddenly leaping up high.
The rope tugged on Elodie and she moved along with the dwarves. They’re being stalked, these were close quarters, it was time to move.
The pace was quicker than before but she fully approved of moving as quickly as possible as a hiss seemed to start at the far end of the cavern and more lights appeared, bobbing and moving even more quickly than the group could manage.
Her feet found the edges of rocks, her body slamming occasionally into the walls. Pain. So much pain, but she had to keep going.
The only way was forward.
The hissing got louder and soon she could hear the thumps of the creatures landing on the rocks above them, nails scraping against the stone as they moved. Vibrations from whatever communicative noises they made filled the void spurring the group to hustle even more quickly.
When the first creature leapt down at them, it purposefully missed. Elodie turned, found the light and sent a warning burst of magic at it.
It growled in pain and the vibrations in the cavern only seemed to increase. She had angered them, shit. The creature behind her leapt once more and this time she was forced to use lethal magic, sending forth a sharp burst of telekinetic energy. There was a sickening crunch and then the light went out.
The vibrations stopped.
Lights around the cavern went out.
Elodie swallowed thickly and prayed that they had left.
Karega screamed as she hit the ground. Effir lunged forward, pulling the group with them as they hacked into the creature attacking their queen.
“Skrimmers!” Pritte declared as he hustled forward as well to aid Effir. The creature, a skrimmer, howled in pain as axes hacked into its hide. Elodie kept her head on a swivel and drew up a barrier around them. She made it exceptionally physical to keep more of these creatures from attacking.
“HRAH!” Karega shouted as the skrimmer was finally slain and hauled off her body.
She shouted something them in her language and they were barreling down the cavern.
“What are those things?!” Elodie shouted.
“Skrimmers! Fabled ancestors of the deepstalkers! Rumored to be twice the size with two heads, brain is located in the body cavity!” Pritte shouted back. Body cavity, that’s where she should aim, got it.
A skimmer hissed and jumped at her from above, but she anticipated the blow and stepped forward before it could land on her. She whipped around and shot ice into the thing, severing its worm-like heads and burying them into the body.
It sputtered and died before Elodie was tugged back along by the rope. She could hear the footfalls of the skrimmers above, hissing to communicate as they jumped down at them.
Elodie tossed up another barrier as two landed, shielding them from more. She felt the hits to her barrier and staged under the weight. There was…power in them, potentially lyrium based, and it wanted to shatter the barrier.
“I can’t help with them!” She cried, but the dwarves seemed more than capable of handling the monsters.
Karega began to spin and promptly hacked into the skrimmers as Effir bludgeoned their heads with their hammer.
A large skrimmer slammed into Elodie’s barrier and she winced. Every blow hurt, but that was the nature of physical barriers, natural extensions of yourself to prevent actual harm to yourself.
She screamed as acid was suddenly spewed against the barrier, her already tender flesh feeling as if it was being sloughed away.
She couldn’t maintain this, it was too much, they were too much. But she couldn’t see them, couldn’t let loose specific attacks that would kill them but not her and her group.
The darkness pressed on them and the lights were still hidden from the creatures.
You’ll have to rely on our eyesight.
Creatures here are sensitive to light, you’ll make us a target!
Sensitive to light!
“CLOSE YOUR EYES!” She shouted and promptly dropped the barrier to draw in all her strength. And let it billow out in brilliant light.
The skrimmers hissed in pain as they flinched away from her. The light died down and she opened her eyes on the last of the dying light to see where they were…and let out a torrent of ice spikes down the cavern.
She slammed her staff down, then whipped it up, directing the magic into their soft underbellies. She extended the ice as far up as she could get it, up and away, impaling and destroying them in undoubted death.
When it was done, a wall of ice containing the broken bodies of a dozen giant skrimmers glowed before them, giving them just enough light to see.
“You can open your eyes now.” Elodie huffed, falling fatigued against a stone wall.
“Shit, Long Legs, that is…impressive,” Karega breathed. Effir watched her closely for a moment before nodding and turning from her.
“Are all mages capable of that, El-o-die?” Pritte asked, fascinated and seemingly no less for wear. Elodie smiled down at him and shook her head.
“No. Magic is unique in every mage, and I have…had some unique experiences that have allowed me to grow my magic.”
“You can grow magic?”
“Like how you build a muscle, more like. Here,” she took his notebook and piece of charcoal, scribbling on it, “when you make contact with the surface, contact the Inquisition and ask for correspondence with their Arcanist, Dagna. She’s a dwarf who studies magic, I think you’d get along great.” She handed the book back and his face lit up.
“A dwarf who studies magic? Fascinating!”
“Pritte, we got some carvings over here, care to translate?” Karega stepped up to them, her rope temporarily removed. Pritte untied himself from Elodie and quickly excused himself to go inspect the carvings with Effir.
Karega stood before Elodie, quiet, imposing. Elodie let out a long breath and looked down at her hands, still covered in barely recovering lyrium burns.
“Can you walk?” Karega asked, her voice low so the others could not hear.
Elodie nodded but it was not reassuring, “You said I had two weeks, but I do not know if I even have three more days. How much longer to the ruin?”
“If we walk through the night, we can reach it by next day.”
“Then we walk through the night,” Elodie decided. Karega nodded, understanding, before calling for a break to eat. They were going to need all the energy they could get for this next stretch.
**
Her feet ached. Her skin burned. Her head was starting to feel light when the cavern finally opened up and lyrium branches once again resumed to wrap around the rocks. Giant, almost encased river-like lyrium that branched out over every surface of rock possible.
Her teeth rattled in her skull, but it felt good to be able to see again. The rope was removed from her once more, relieving her already stressed back. She leaned a bit more than normal on her staff as she followed Karega into the depths.
The rock began to change color, slowly warping into strange colors under the influence of the lyrium, she imagined. Oil slick colors seemed to cover rounded surfaces while younger stone appeared to be jagged and dull.
There was no dirt, only rock and lyrium as the cavern opened up. Oh. There was also steam…which meant water and fire of some sort, potentially lava. The walkways were suspended over what looked to be an unending chasm, steam billowing up from its depths.
It was interesting, she thought, that even so deep underground, one could find suspended high enough to die.
Pritte stepped forward, “Amazing…” he murmured.
They crossed the bridge and passed into an oddly shaped cavern. There were eroded striations in the rock and precise cuts that allowed the light from a lyrium vein to bleed through. The lines were mostly straight only worn with time, which meant….
“This was shaped by someone.”
“Clearly,” Effir said, inspecting the work more closely. They pulled out their journal and made some quick notes before Karega gestured for them to keep going.
“We’re getting close to where Gurendar disappeared, keep up.” Karega led them through the passage and across a short bridge into another passage that opened up into a great hall. Its ceilings weren’t as tall and overwhelming as the bathhouse, but the pillars were larger, the statues were more ornate and the lyrium had been cultivated along the walls into designated channels for optimal aesthetic appeal. To conserve energy, Elodie did not illuminate the space. Pritte stayed close to her, helping to guide her through the low light.
“You don’t have to stay by me, I know you want to explore,” she told him.
“I do. But you need me more at the moment. Besides, I am thinking of having another expedition down here after this whole thing is settled. You would think we’d know more about this place, but we don’t. It’s quite unfortunate,” Pritte rambled, his voice low and gentle as they maneuvered through the space.
“We don’t know more because of superstition,” Effir commented, falling just a bit behind Karega to join the conversation.
“The senior shapers tell tales of disturbances down here that no dwarf should ever encounter and has long forbid entry without good reason.”
“And this is the good reason.”
“The only reason good enough, to be precise.”
Karega suddenly stopped and held up a hand, “Quiet.” Everyone went on alert, heads turning to examine the wings of the hall. Other than the soft light emanating from the lyrium veins stretching up into the ceiling, coiling around pillars, Elodie couldn’t see anything. But then she heard it. Whispers like the drifting fluff off a dandelion.
Her magic rose in her, orienting her to the far left end of the hall. Her skin prickled and her lyrium burns itched, but she drifted closer to the whispers. The lyrium pulsed a bit more brightly and the whispers moved. Fuzzy, white figures began to coalesce into actual forms of dwarves gathered in the hall.
Karega and Effir shifted away instinctively away from the stone spirits, apparently unaccustomed. Pritte took it in stride, gasping in surprise but yanking a new journal out of his pack to begin furiously scribbling.
Elodie turned to Karega and Effir, lifting her hand in reassurance, “I’ve seen this before in the Deep Roads by Orzammar and Kal-Hirol. They’re harmless…usually.” She recalled the spirits turning on her and her party with vicious intent as they had explored the City of the Dead. She had made sure to be more vigilant about her behavior in Kal-Hirol, where the spirits had been so numerous. The death had weakened the Fade, even in the depths of the roads. It was so weak that the spirits had looked different from those beneath Orzammar. The Kal-Hirol spirits had faces, discernable features, clear, resonant voices, their memories forcefully stamped into the stone.
Karega and Effir relaxed somewhat, but their weapons remained out and their eyes sharp as they watched the spirits flow over the stone. They crossed into the center portion of the hall and a reverberation carried through the hall and into Elodie. She shivered, hair and magic on raw end as the spirits solidified into forms that resembled the spirits of Kal-Hirol more than Orzammar.
They spoke in the ancient tongue, five in total.
“They’re discussing war plans,” Effir murmured.
The forms moved and living dwarves fell silent as they strove to listen and record everything they were hearing. Elodie wondered if she should tell them now that this scene would likely repeat after completion. But she remained quiet and the scene continued. More spirits joined the fray and their faces became more distinct, the details in their attire more profound, making a Elodie’s stomach churn in anxiety. These dwarves were about to be slaughtered.
All at once the spirits turned their heads, looking past Elodie and her crew, down the hall to where Elodie suspected were invaders.
The lyrium around them pulsed, the stone groaned, and the entire space lit up in brilliant display. Elodie felt the Veil waver, pulling back to reveal new spirits, looking more like echoes from the surface than the Stone, running through the hall. The dwarven spirits braced themselves, there shouts and Pritte flinched, coiling inwards on himself as he inched towards Elodie.
In the middle of the invading force stood the tall woman that seemed vaguely familiar. It reminded Elodie of her hallucinations, of a woman standing over the cliff of blinding light, sinking her magic into the dwarf before her…. But this woman was different, in a way. She carried herself with a righteous regality that was unlike the threatening and consuming stance of the woman from Elodie’s hallucinations.
Her spirit let out a brilliant display of old magic, so potent and horrible that Elodie flinched from it, instinctually tossing a barrier up around her and the dwarves. The remembered spell coursed through the hall and engulfed the dwarven spirits, killing them instantaneously.
Effir and Pritte gasped while Karega growled, gripping her weapon with vicious intent. But there was nothing to be done, these were echoes of an event long since passed. The spirits remained, the woman glided through the halls and into more clarity. Elodie’s eyes widened, she was an elf. They were all elves. Tall and slender, bedecked in elaborate armor that wavered with magical enchantment not so unlike the dwarves.
When the woman began to speak, Elodie blinked, surprised she could understand her.
“A pity. They would have served well.”
“Shall we continue, my lady?”
“Of course. There is no time to waste.”
The spirits wavered and dissipated, the Stone no longer supporting the memory far past the death of its own. Pritte sniffled, eyes wide as he turned to Elodie.
“Is it too much to hope you know what they said?” His voice wavered but his hand was still, hovering over his notes. Elodie took a breath and nodded.
“They…were disappointed at having to kill the dwarves. The woman, the leader, said that the dwarves would of served well. Then they moved on, presumably in a hurry.” Pritte took to his journal as did Effir.
“Someone care to tell me what in the Stone’s name was that?!” Karega demanded. Effir glanced up from their notes and slowly put the journal away.
“The Stone takes in the memories. Shapers can make the Stone take it, shaping it into the stone, hence the name. But the practice was inspired by its natural ability to do this. To record. And to sometimes show. This was a memory, Paragon-Elect,” they explained with the slightest twinge in their voice.
“Memories like this one from my experience form because of great fighting and battles. Death,” Elodie continued.
Karega fell silent, her face harsh in the low light.
“Who was that elf? What was she doing down here and slaughtering my people for?” She asked, perhaps more to herself than the others.
“There are no records of this,” was all Pritte could say.
“I thought the you recorded everything.”
“If there is no one to report something, there is nothing to record, just…for the Stone to absorb,” Effir answered.
Karega let out a breath and straightened, “It’s unfortunate, but we are also running low on time. We need to move.” She picked up her axe and set forward again, her stride strong. Effir tossed their pack onto their back and followed Karega, their footfalls heavy and laden with exhaustion.
“I do not understand,” Pritte murmured as he put his things away, “the elves…why would they come down here?”
“I don’t know, Pritte, I don’t know.”
She rested a hand on his shoulder and patted it gratitude before they marched after Karega into a dark side chamber. This chamber was less ornate than the other but a vein of lyrium ran overhead, illuminating the area. Wispy spirits drifted into the room but didn’t say anything, they were just there, unformed until the elven woman and her entourage billowed through, killing the dwarves along the way.
There were three consecutive rooms like this until they came to a final chamber that just…stopped. There were no passages leading out which to Elodie meant to keep looking for a different passage but the dwarves pressed their palms to the far wall.
“We need to go this way,” Effir affirmed.
“There is unfortunately a wall there, we should look for a route around.”
“There is only one way,” Karega agreed and stepped back. She trailed her hands over the wall and Elodie’s magic began to prick at her skin. The lyrium pulsed, flickering and snapping making Elodie’s head pound. Memories flowed into the space, dwarves in ancient heavy armor formed a tight barrier in front of the door, shouting at each other. Effir scrambled for their journal, needing to record.
When the elven woman and her group entered the memory there was shouting on both sides. She switched to the dwarven speech, her voice saccharine sweet and condescending, making Effir huff in distaste.
The dwarves growled a reply that displeased the woman enough to let out a disappointed sigh. She gave her people an order that had them straightening their backs and raising their hands.
They set to cast. The dwarves charged. The relatively confined space was filled all at once with battle and blood, screams, and close quarters combat that the elves should not have stood a chance in.
The warrior elves surged forward to protect their lady, becoming a shield of armored bodies. The spirits flashed into different colors as spells were cast. But the dwarves were unrelenting, pushing and pushing. The elves broke rank and fell back only for a new spirit to suddenly invade the space. A great reptilian head suddenly extended into the space and let out a torrent of fire against the dwarves. Trapped in the room, the dwarves screamed, flailed, and died under the heat.
The dragon stepped into the room and bumped its head against the far wall where Karega, Effir, and Pritte stood. They gasped, shutting their eyes in some expectation to be hit. But it was only a memory of the dragon shoving and shoving against the wall until there was a loud crashing sound.
The dragon pulled back, its head bloody. Its form wavered and suddenly an elf stood where the dragon was, bloody but grinning. They turned back and the leader smiled.
“You did well.”
The memory faded as the elves pressed forward.
Karega growled, “What in the Stone’s name was that nonsense?”
“That elf turned into a dragon,” Pritte commented, more in awe than anything. Elodie blinked and let out a long breath. Well.
“I knew there were shapeshifters, but I did not know that there were shapeshifters who were once capable of that,” Elodie supplied.
“What? The elves don’t just sprout into dragons anymore?”
“I was not even aware that they ever did!”
Karega turned from Elodie and began to curse as she felt along the scarred wall for…something. Elodie leaned against her staff and contemplated. Elves that could turn into dragons. Elves that invaded the deep roads to what? Enslave dwarves?
Elves…that could turn into dragons.
Oh. Oh sweet Maker.
There was no real confirmation that they would be the Archdemons but the thought, the fact that long ago this was possible…could that mean…they were susceptible to the Blight? That the dragon-appearing Archdemons were just that – dragon-appearing because they were not truly dragons but…elves? Elves were susceptible to the blight, they became either Shrieks or Emissaries, depending on magical ability. And maybe…if they were infected while in draconic form…as Archdemons.
Elodie excused herself for a moment and ran into the hall to vomit. She panted and cleaned her mouth out with water and some of the ale they packed. It was just an idea of what the Archdemons were, and really, it was a better hope than thinking they were actually divine figures – just extraordinarily powerful mages. Who could make their souls somehow jump from body to body.
Right.
She rejoined the dwarves in the room who were now bickering in their language to figure out to get the blasted door open. Pritte scrambled along the far left of the wall while Effir handled the bottom. Karega made some sort of odd shimmying move before brightening.
“Aha!” She proclaimed before pushing harder into the wall. The Stone groaned and creaked as the wall began to move outward. Old, stale air blew into the room and light beamed in so brightly that Elodie had to close her eyes to adjust.
When she opened them, all of her breath left her.
Karega had said that Gurendar had fled into an ancient city but she thought they had already made it to the city but no, the comparatively minuscule chambers were nothing compared to the cavernous grandeur before her.
Buildings rose from mist covered depths, built on what appeared to be miniature mountains. More buildings were built into the sides of these outcroppings, with long bridges connecting each rock. There were trees growing out of the sides of the space, walls covered in lichens, mosses, and even vines. The buildings were reminiscent of the architecture in Kal-Sharok but unique and striking.
“Is this…”
“The home of the Titan,” Karega said, brimming with pride.
She has been a Grey Warden for eleven years, and the taint is beginning to consume her. She needs to find a cure soon. So Elodie Amell sets out in search and finds herself in the city thought long-lost, Kal-Sharok. There she discovers something much bigger than just a cure for the taint running through her body.
A companion story to my other story, In Your Gaze I Wish to Stay, but this can be read separately!
Take Flight
Elodie journeys deeper into the caverns underneath Kal-Sharok after a harrowing experience. Warnings towards the end for descriptions of a tight, enclosed space and spiders. Enjoy!
Her eyes snapped open when a song so bittersweet and beautiful began to drift through the air. Elodie rose from the cot, moving her body through the blue-lit space. She expected the others to begin waking in a moment, the music was overwhelming, lyrical and beautiful. Her feet padded across the floor, moving her through the winding hallways of the Shaperate, following the music until she came to a great vein of lyrium.
It was pulsating in a predictable pattern, a pattern that she knew…
Ba-bum. Ba-bum.
Her hand reached out, drawn to the pulsating lyrium. She had never seen anything like this! Why hadn’t they told her about this? About how it sang and practically lived.
It lived.
Horror crept into her at the realization. The dwarves of Orzammar mined lyrium, cutting it from the stone and binding it into crates and other trinkets. The dwarves here, even, used it for…everything! Surfaces of anything could be covered in runes, runes for protection, for fighting, for cutting, for…anything.
But this was a vein of a living creature. The hard rock outside was the vein, the lyrium inside…the blood.
Her hand touched the smooth exterior.
Electricity or magic or something flooded her body and she cried out, but unable to pull her hand away from the lyrium.
Her body strained under the effort to contain and manage the power coursing through her. She needed to create a flow of magic, so she attached her other hand to the lyrium, screaming once more as magic tried to flow in through her through that hand as well.
No. With a deep breath she forced the power to flow from her right hand, through her body and out her left hand.
The strain and pain subsided and the song echoed in her head.
Images, not unlike the darkspawn nightmares she suffered from during the Blight, began to drift into her mind. Images of a man…a dwarf stepping forward and touching a great ball of glowing light. His body was absorbed quickly and without restraint and it was…beautiful. It was what was supposed to happen. The light snaked around his body and engulfed him before receding back into a sphere. The man stood, alive, but now retaining just a bit of that light.
He turned and she sighed at his beauty. Light overwhelmed her heart but she could not look away.
The man extended his hand to her and she tried to lurch her body to take it, to just…she wanted that light. It was beautiful and pure, but the world suddenly went dark, killing the light before her and the light within him.
His eyes widened, he screamed as his eyes went red then black, then he faded into nothing.
**
Elodie shot up in her cot, awake, heart beating rapidly as she looked around her. A few of the other dwarves were awake, puttering around as quietly as possible. A few looked over at her quizzically.
“Did…no, of course not…” They were dwarves and they didn’t dream. Tt was just a dream. Just a dream.
But it hadn’t felt like a dream.
She lifted her hands and gasped at the dark mottled skin.
Lyrium burns.
“How did you get those? Don’t tell me, the idiot surfacer went and touched lyrium. And I thought you knew better,” Karega groused. Elodie turned and looked at the woman with wide eyes.
“I…it wasn’t a dream…?” She whispered. Karega’s own eyes widened and she tossed Elodie her robes.
“Get dressed, you need to see the Shaper.”
Elodie pulled her clothes on with shaking hands. She hissed at the pain, but felt too unfocused to reliably cast any of her healing spells. Instead, she finished dressing and dug into her pack, pulling out a few bottles of elfroot extract and a balm for burns. Lyrium burns were different from regular ones, but the healing process was similar and something was better than nothing.
She dropped a few drops of the elfroot extract into the palms of her hands, helping to dull the pain, then smeared the balm generously over the burns.
The skin began to tingle and she hoped that her energy would stabilize soon so she could heal herself properly. But she packed up her things then followed Karega through the Shaperate, not recognizing any of the hallways from her…dream?
She had dreamed for her entire life, she knew what they felt like. The Fade holding her and wrapping around her mind and soul as she drifted easily and happily into its magic.
That was not the Fade. There was no easy going drifting, no cradling – it had been cold and entirely too real. Andraste’s flaming sword, she woke up with burns!
They made their way once again to the main chamber where the head shaper sat with a slate in his grip, carving away.
“Shaper Kurengar, we have…an interesting development.” He turned from his tablet to look up at Karega then to Elodie, who was still fidgeting slightly with the ends of her sleeves. He waited a moment then nodded and put his things away.
“I know where we can speak.”
They moved to one of the rooms attached to the library. The door clicked closed behind them and Karega crossed her arms as she let out a long breath.
“Show him your hands.”
Elodie held her still healing hands palm up for the Shaper to examine. He pushed his spectacles higher onto his nose and took her hands in his.
“These are…just like his.”
“I know. What does that mean?”
“Him who?”
“I don’t rightly know,” he answered Karega, seemingly content with ignoring Elodie.
“Excuse me, what are you talking about?”
“Could it require another one?”
“And how exactly will we explain that to Ferelden, hmm?”
“Explain what?”
“They don’t have to know the specifics; they certainly can’t know the truth.”
“ENOUGH!” Elodie stood at her full height, making her voice echo in the small stone space with just a touch of magic.
“One of you is going to explain what is going on, because this involves me and I will not be left in the dark about something involving myself.” Her voice was strong and a bit too loud but it got the point across as the Shaper shuffled a bit and Karega’s eyes narrowed.
“Calm down, surfacer.” She growled but Elodie remained standing and glowering. It was the Shaper who took Elodie’s hand once more.
“Please, allow me to explain. These burns…we have seen them before, on the Paragon-Elect’s husband.” The Shaper guided her to sit back down on a chair. She bent down, folding her long legs as best as possible and he took the seat next to hers. Karega remained standing, arms crossed, remarkably hard headed.
“About a year ago, Gurendar Ungthark began to suffer from nightly hallucinations, and every night he woke up with a new lyrium burn. First it was his hands, then his feet, then his knees, his elbows…he was slowly being engulfed in these burns. But worse, he was suffering from what we assumed were delusions. He began to speak in old tongues, tongues that we barely have any records for, and then he spoke of a great light. How he needed to go to that light, that it needed him and he it.” The Shaper paused, taking in a shaky breath.
Elodie’s gaze flickered to Karega, whose gaze had become fixed on a point on the far wall. She had loved her husband then, or at least held a great amount of affection for him. Elodie’s heart twisted, recognizing the pain and the staunch refusal to let that pain show on her face.
“We scoured the Shaperate, looking for any recordings of anything like this. We only found one, describing when someone was…chosen…by the Titan. The signs were detailed but the meaning had been lost somehow in translation – there are some things that are so old, not even we can discern their meanings anymore. And some things…were just never recorded.” The Shaper paused again and Elodie looked down at her hands.
“So…Gurendar and I are…chosen? By the Titan? By for what purpose? And why would I even be chosen, I’m not a dwarf.”
The Shaper shook his head, “The records never specified that the person chosen had to be a dwarf, but perhaps…perhaps it has some sort of desire for someone with a connection to the Fade. Scholars have long theorized the connections between your Fade and our lyrium and stone – perhaps a mage must be absorbed by the Titan to make that connection.”
“Absorbed?!”
“Two weeks after he began having those delusions, I found him gone from our rooms,” Karega suddenly interjected, her voice low and razor sharp. “I ran to the Shaperate, letting my Stone Sense guide me until I found him running through the tunnels beneath the Shaperate.” She looked down at the floor and took a deep breath.
“He was running faster than I had ever seen him, barreling through the deep without a second’s though to safety…and yet his footing was sure. I chased him, calling for him, but he refused to look back until he went to a place so dark I could only use the Stone to guide me.” She gave a short laugh and shook her head.
“Gurendar always had strong Stone Sense. But as we went deeper, I could not shake the feeling that we were being watched…followed. But it wasn’t until we came to the ruins of a city so ancient that I could not recognize the most basic of runes, that we were set upon.” She stopped, her lips tightening.
Elodie kept her voice soft, and eyes kind, “Who attacked you? Darkspawn?”
“No, that…would have been simple. We were attacked by dwarves. Or what appeared to be dwarves with…lyrium, embedded in them. They fought like the darkspawn during a Blight – smart, coordinated…powerful. I fought them as best I could, but Gurendar was defenseless. He just…ran. And ran until he…jumped and a blinding light filled the ruins. There was a shockwave and then I blacked out. When I came to, I was back in the darkness and I knew that wherever Gurendar was…he was not coming home. I limped all the way back to Kal-Sharok.”
There was a heavy silence lingering in the air while Elodie tried to process what had happened.
Essentially this dwarf had experienced the night…hallucinations, they were calling them, just as Elodie was now having. He had then in two weeks’ time had become so pulled by whatever was causing the hallucinations that he abandoned everything and dove into the unknown.
Two weeks.
And it was most likely this Titan causing the hallucinations. The light, the death…it all sounded consistent with what she had seen. Which meant she had two weeks.
Maker, how did she continually end up in these situations?!
Elodie moved in her seat to turn to Karega. She reached for the woman’s hand but it was not given, so she retracted the hand slowly and maneuvered to angle her face to look in Karega’s face.
“Paragon-Elect, you have survived a tragic loss, and for that I mourn with you for what I presume to be a wonderful man.”
Karega turned to her, face full of confusion and anger.
“You do not get the privilege of mourning him, you did not even know him. You mourn what will become of your life now that the Titan wants you,” she sneered. Elodie closed her mouth and shut her eyes for a moment, keeping herself calm.
“I apologize for my transgression,” she said. Karega shifted and raised her head, assuming her regal pose.
“Very well. I understand that this news is greatly horrifying to you and I wish I knew how to stop it. Shaper, have we any resources to help stop this?”
The Shaper shook his head slowly, “All the texts say is that it is a great honor to be chosen by the Titan.”
“Then they probably treated this as a sort of ritualistic sacrifice…have you been sacrificing people this entire time?” She asked, not accusatory but curious.
“No, we were shocked at this. The question I want answered is why is it demanding sacrifices now? The last recording of someone being chosen by the Titan was so old, it was almost crumbling into dust,” he explained.
“Perhaps it had been waiting for something…” Elodie speculated.
Karega paused, then her eyes widened and she grabbed Elodie by the shoulders, then pointed at the Shaper.
“Yesterday you spoke of a thing, a hole? In your world? And Shaper, you mentioned how the surfacer Fade could be connected to the lyrium?”
Elodie’s eyes widened, “Of course. The Breach! Magic was soaking through Thedas everywhere, but I didn’t think it would matter all the way out here but perhaps…perhaps it was the Breach that woke it? Can you give me an exact date of when Gurendar was starting to have the hallucinations?”
That sparked them running to the newer chamber, containing recent records and Elodie pulled out her own notes, journals, and a well-worn calendar. They worked to match their days and planning up, finding that the dwarves heeded a slightly different day length than the surface world. But they were able to superimpose trade dates and workarounds to find what they were looking for.
Elodie looked at the dates, the information provided by the Shaper and her journal, with neat but abnormally large script – 9:41, 6th of Justinian.
She lined up the date of Gurendar’s first hallucinations. 9:41, 7th of Justinian.
She took a deep breath and slumped back into the chair, “It looks like that is exactly what happened. The Breach…it affected the Titan somehow.”
“But I thought you said this Inquisitor closed the Breach?” Karega asked.
“Yes, but…there could be other reasons it is continuing to act like this… we still don’t know the long term effects of having such a wide window open to the Fade and…” she trailed off, the alternative was…not as good.
“What? Do not hold any information from us.” Karega pressed.
“There…were still lingering Rifts, or…smaller holes in the Fade that had to be personally closed by the Inquisitor.”
Another silence, followed quickly by a long string of what Elodie assumed to be curses spilled from Karega’s mouth.
“Shaper, we need to get a runner to this Inquisitor quickly as possible, then and –
“Have you forgotten we are completely cut off from the city? The excavation teams are estimating a week at least of clearing the rocks to just to get back to the city,” the Shaper said.
“Not to mention it would take long than just two weeks to get word to Skyhold and to have the Inquisitor arrive here,” Elodie added.
“How long did it take you?” Karega asked.
Elodie flipped through her journal to her more recent exploits.
“Forty days. That’s…more than double than two weeks.” Add that to the week to clear out the cave in just to get word out…
She didn’t have that time.
Karega took a deep breath and Elodie nodded, steeling herself.
“It may not be a Rift. It could be residual energies, and there is no way to know if we do not investigate. Shaper, are the tunnels leader deeper to the ruins Karega described collapsed?”
“Not that we are aware of, we can check.”
“You are not going down there!” Karega growled.
“It’s our only option, Paragon-Elect. We are cut off, I am on borrowed time, and this could start affecting your people if we don’t somehow figure out what’s going on!” Elodie argued. Karega shook her head and clicked her tongue in annoyance before letting out another string of curses.
But she turned back to Elodie and exhaled loudly, “You’re not doing this by yourself.”
Elodie’s eyes widened. The woman wasn’t serious was she?
“Forgive me your majesty, but perhaps it is better I go alone, to reduce the risk of serious injury to you and harm to Kal-Sharok.”
Karega snorted and shook her head as a determined grin took over her face.
“Your surfacer kings and queens may balk at the idea of battle, but I take my commitment to protect my city seriously. I am old, I have raised my son to take my place well and that thing took my husband. We’re going down there together or not at all.”
Elodie paused, then grinned back at the strong woman. And she supposed that it was the best option – it wasn’t like Karega was ruling much of her people while being locked at the Shaperate, and she did have first-hand experience with where they were going and what to expect.
She stood back up and stuck out her hand.
“It seems we are to be traveling partners, Paragon-Elect.”
She smiled, teeth flashing menacingly.
“Call me Karega.”
**
They spent the rest of the day planning the trip, collecting lichens and mosses and nug jerky for rations. They debated over courses of actions but finally came to the conclusion to bring two others with them. Two of the younger, more fit shapers offered and Elodie supposed it wouldn’t hurt to bring them – the Shaperate was brimming with workers and the volunteers were eager to witness firsthand what was going on.
It was the snippy shaper from before who was particularly eager, though they expressed it in an odd fashion.
“I am here strictly to make sure you don’t destroy something of value, surfacer.”
“You know, it would help if we called each other by our names. My name is Elodie, or Ellie,” she said brightly.
“I am Effir, child of Esben, surfacer,” they then abruptly turned from her and began to pack their own bags.
The other young shaper just looked up at Elodie and shrugged, “I am known as Pritte…El-oe-die. I am a junior cartographer.” He said in a thickly accented voice. Elodie nodded encouragingly at him and he beamed before blushing and scurrying off with Effir to finish prepping their bags.
This mission was also apparently being used as a scouting mission for the ruins, to see if it was too dangerous to delve deep into where the Titan was.
“How big is this thing anyways?” Elodie asked the head shaper. He merely shook his head.
“The records are…not specific.”
“Of course not, well…I suppose we will just have to do with ‘very, very large.’”
“It is called a Titan,” Effir said.
The next day, she woke with more burns on body, this time extending down her forearms to her elbows. She had…pressed herself against the lyrium, had felt the power course through her once again as she watched the man appear and die once more.
Perhaps that was…Gurendar? He had been chosen, taken into the light and the man she had seen had been enveloped by it…the story matched what she was seeing.
She had her suspicions, but was unwilling to voice them to Karega just yet. Hope proven to be false could be as sharp and painful as any dagger and Elodie would not want the woman to feel the loss of her husband twice over.
They set out after breakfast, not content to waste any time. The passages were located far beneath the main chamber in the Shaperate, narrow and dark, cold stagnant air nipping at their faces.
Elodie took a deep breath and allowed her magic to billow out from her and fill the space to detect any sign of the taint and darkspawn. She searched, pried, trying to feel anything…
“There are no Darkspawn here.” She said incredulously.
“I told you the Titan has protected us, what, did you doubt that it could keep us safe from those monsters?” Karega asked in a surprisingly playful tone. Elodie just shook her head, amazed.
“I just…that’s incredible. I’ve never been anywhere near the Deep Roads and not felt this…pull, like the taint has. But it’s gone, everything feels….”
“Clean, pure, how it should be, you mean.”
Elodie looked up at the clean edges of the rock and a small smile spread across her face, “Yes.”
The implications of this were astounding – if the Titan could protect Kal-Sharok from the Blight, then perhaps…maybe they were the answer to the Blight. How it could be used as an actual cure, however, was not the same as knowing if it could prevent it. Shields could prevent beheadings, but they weren’t curative.
And there were great swaths of land that were tainted already, not to mention people dying of the taint, the Darkspawn themselves, and potentially even the Archdemons. Whatever the Archdemons were.
No, she needed more than a shield – she needed a cure, a way to blast the taint into nothing.
“Were these caverns invaded by the Darkspawn?” She asked.
“We don’t think so. Kal-Sharok is the only access point to these specific caverns and the Darkspawn were cut off all those ages ago.”
“Specifically nine thousand, forty-nine years ago, Paragon-elect,” Effir supplied. Elodie cocked her head to the side. That number seemed familiar, if she just thought about it enough she could recall why…Oh!
“That’s just before the formation of the Chantry.”
“If that is how you measure things, then yes.”
They were quiet for a long time after that, and Elodie turned her attention to inspecting the caverns. They were like the Deep Roads, only smaller and very, very empty. Well, as empty as they could be. There were deepstalkers, nugs, and great nests of spiders up on perches – but it was…just the roads. Darkspawn gore didn’t fill up corners, marring carvings or blocking paths.
It was amazing.
Lyrium, not torches, illuminated their way until Elodie’s eyes began to become fatigued and she cast a warm wisp of light to guide them. Critters skittered away from the light in a great hiss and she chuckled. Without the taint, they were normal – animals scared of light and those who were invading their homes.
The roads themselves were smaller than the great pass-ways by Orzammar or even to get to Kal-Sharok. But they were just as ornate, with engraved pillars supporting tall ceilings. Even the sides of the road they walked on were covered in carvings and runes, glowing even after all this time.
Every so often, Effir and Pritte examined the carvings and scribbled things into their notes, speaking softly together in their native tongue.
Elodie ran her hand against the pillars and wondered at the strength hidden for so long, the secrets this great civilization had kept. What she had been taught…Kal-Sharok being burdensome because it wasn’t making as much money, Kal-Sharok being locked away for everyone’s safety….
It was all wrong.
Or perhaps it was simply recorded incorrectly. Perhaps the Titan had…roused somehow in the wake of the First Blight and began taking people like it had started doing now, and it had to be stopped.
“Karega, what if we have to kill the Titan? What if…it is killing those it chooses.”
“Then it kills who it chooses. The Titan must live,” Karega answered immediately, her face hard and resolved.
“But what of your people –
“It protects our people, it has since the beginning and if it needs a few sacrificed every now and then, then that price must be paid.”
Sacrifice was not something Elodie was ever a fan of, after years of living in the Circle and fighting blood mages, the practice had left a bitter taste in her mouth. But this was different. In a way, it was no different than giving children to the Templar order (though she disagreed with that too). A life to serve, just…seen differently. She would not debate it, there was just the not so minor issue of indiscriminately choosing sacrifices.
“If it takes those who are not of Kal-Sharok, more will come to stop it.” Not to mention she will be dead and Karega would be down a powerful diplomat.
Karega looked over and up at Elodie, her face stark and harsh in the light. Elodie could see the years written on her face, the experience of leading her people creating a deceptively soft appearance. She was Paragon-Elect and she would protect her people with every fiber of her being.
An hour passed before they came to a large cave-in. The rocks were large, piled high, and certainly not going anywhere, most likely not even with magic.
“Come on, this way. There are spider passages over here that we can talk to the next part of the roads.” Karega began packing her various weapons and maneuvering her armor into a more streamlined way. Effir and Pritte did the same with their gear.
“Is there a particular reason you’re doing that?” She asked. Karega looked up and laughed low.
“The passages are small, Long Legs. Pack it away.” A chill rang up Elodie’s spine and she had to resist the urge to gag at the sudden thought of having to crawl through a dark…narrow…potentially spider infested…passage…while deep underground…
She revised the sentiment – she wasn’t going to gag; she was going to full on vomit.
They all followed Karega to several paces away from the main road, groping the side of the rock in the low light. She gave her little wisp a little more juice but she was battling with her sudden fear of being enclosed on all sides with the threat of spiders swarming her body and injecting her full of venom.
It was an oddly specific, though rational, fear.
Karega suddenly stopped, reached forward and nodded.
“There’s a drop here, the spider passage will just be a few steps ahead.” She turned and then proceeded to shimmy down the slope. Elodie cast another light and sent it after her.
Karega eyed the small flickering ball of orange light and shook her head, and Elodie heard vague muttering of more cursing.
She shifted herself, slowly sliding her body down the drop, landing with a soft thud on a…surprisingly spongy surface. A shiver ran through her body and she resisted somehow not to gag. She really didn’t want to think about what it was she was standing on.
Effir and Pritte soon followed, Elodie lingered a bit behind to make sure they got down all right. Effir scowled at the mysterious floor but Pritte seemed content to let things be and followed Karega gingerly to the amazingly small hole.
“That’s it?” Elodie asked, trepidation evident in her voice.
“That’s it, c’mon, we’re on a deadline,” Karega said and then in she went, stuffing her broad, albeit short, body into the hole. Effir followed, then Pritte, leaving Elodie to follow up behind.
She stared at it for a solid moment before taking a deep breath. She could do this. She was a Grey Warden, the Hero of Ferelden. She had killed an Archdemon, she could tackle this…creepy…small…spider infested hole.
There was only forward, and this was the only way forward, which meant…
Elodie bent down and grabbed the edge of the passage to slowly pull herself into the hole.
Walls closed in all around her body, and while the dwarves could travel on hands and knees, tall and lanky Elodie had to go on her belly and pull herself forward on her forearms. Her elbows landed in something damp and sticky, clinging to her robes. She shivered and began to shimmy through the hole.
What little light there was pressed in between their bodies, giving Elodie an unnecessary close-up of Pritte’s backside. They shuffled forward, moving as quickly as possible but it was still slow goings.
“How long is this passage, Karega?” Elodie called.
“Hard to say. I think I was in here for twenty minutes last time,” her voice was muffled by the cave but Elodie nodded and tried not to look at the slime covered stalactite currently pressing into her.
Her hand reached forward and pulled her up and over a slight bump, her body sliding along the smooth surface surprisingly easily. But a stitch in her leggings got caught on…something, probably a pebble attached to the surface, or something, forcing Elodie to turn around to unhook herself. The light followed her and she reached, following the lines of her body to find what exactly had caught her.
The light flickered overhead, illuminating an oddly colored rock….
That had a face.
She gasped and the stench finally filled her nose and mouth of decaying dwarf. Her stitch had gotten caught on the dwarf’s ring, a tarnished, gold, gaudy thing that she had to move and adjust to free herself, all the while being watched by two dead milky blue eyes.
“Hurry up, long legs!” Karega shouted back. Elodie huffed and tried to move her fingers more quickly only to find the silk beginning to stick to her and not the dwarf. She swore under her breath, about to loop the final stitch around when a hiss drifted over her.
Elodie froze, commanding herself not to look up.
Don’t look up.
She loosed the last stitch and moved her fingers and arms slowly as she began to cast.
The hiss got closer and something wet dripped onto her head while a large, hairy leg descended over her.
She took a deep breath and shoved her hands up.
Brilliant light cascaded from her finger tips and the spider screamed in agony, shoving itself away from the light. Elodie kicked out and turned and thrust herself back down the corridor again.
“GO FASTER! SPIDER!” She shouted. There was the muffled sound of swearing and then the dwarves were scurrying along as fast they could. Elodie tried to raise herself to her hands and knees, but the damn ceilings were too low for her height.
“Ah!” She cried in frustration.
Another hiss sounded out and she swore, shoving her hands back to blast the creature with light before it –
It snagged her leg and yanked her back. Elodie screamed, arms flailing upwards and catching the hilt of the dagger in Pitte’s calf sheath.
The spider moved its dark, hairy body over hers, belly to thorax, before rearing its fangs back.
She screamed again and thrust the forward and up into its body, she shrank into the body to avoid the fangs as it screamed and crashed down. Elodie curled herself around the dagger, almost clinging to the underbelly of the spider as she drove the dagger deeper and in great damaging swaths across its body.
It writhed, screaming, showering her in blood and juices. She turned her head but kept at her work, she would kill this thing, it was not going to have her!
Suddenly the spider was being yanked off of her and the dagger.
It was Pritte! Driving a hatchet deep into the still hissing and crying spider. He hacked and hacked until at last the thing curled and died.
Elodie’s heart raced in her, blood pounding in her ears and she gasped for air. Pritte looked back at her for a moment and then was at her side, looking her over for injuries.
“It…didn’t get me,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“Good, good,” he said, still checking her over, shoving bits of now soaked cloth to the side.
“Come on! The exit’s just up here!” Karega shouted back. Elodie felt a rush of relief course through her and then she was on her belly again, crawling towards the exit with renewed zeal. Pritte took the back this time, for which Elodie was grateful.
It was just as Karega said, the exit was just up ahead, and soon Elodie was wrenching herself out of that accursed hole and back out into the Deep Roads.
She raised herself up to her full height and looked down at herself. She was disgusting, absolutely drenched in foul gore.
“You smell like a giant dung beetle,” Karega commented, waving her hand in front of her nose.
Elodie rolled her eyes, “A spider attacked me, if you didn’t notice.” Pritte crawled out of the hole and brushed himself off.
“It was a big one too, its fangs were three centimeters longer than the average.” He almost sounded excited about that!
Effir rolled their eyes and shook their head, “You lingered in the dangerous, spider passage-way to inspect the carcass of a spider that attacked the Warden?” They inquired. Pritte shrugged.
“It was obviously exceptionally large, I wanted to take measurements in case it was the largest ever encountered. And it was in thorax width! The Arachnologists at the Shaperate are going to be ecstatic!” He was practically bouncing from excitement over the spider that had just tried to eat Elodie.
She shook her head and began to shift the gear on her to be more conducive to traveling upright. Karega was still keeping her distance from the mage. Elodie didn’t blame her, she wished she could stay away from herself with the smell that was emanating from her person.
She has been a Grey Warden for eleven years, and the taint is beginning to consume her. She needs to find a cure soon. So Elodie Amell sets out in search and finds herself in the city thought long-lost, Kal-Sharok. There she discovers something much bigger than just a cure for the taint running through her body.
A companion story to my other story, In Your Gaze I Wish to Stay, but this can be read separately!
Beyond the Veil
They reach the Titan.
The home of the Titan as Karega called it so poetically, was gargantuan. Elodie could see no end in sight to the vast expanse before her and she wondered exactly how far it really did extend into the earth.
They stepped onto the bridge leading out to one of the smaller rock and building outcroppings. Where they would go from there…she wasn’t entirely sure. If this was the home of the Titan, shouldn’t things be happening? Shouldn’t she feel it or have some clue as to where it was? She reached out with her magic to tentatively feel the condition of the Veil, concerned that whatever battles that clearly had happened centuries ago had weakened it.
The Veil rippled easily, carrying the small burst of energies across its wavelengths. The Fade pulled then pushed against the Veil, snapping at Elodie like a band. She retracted her magic quickly, hissing at the electricity in her hand.
Pritte paused and tilted his head to the side, “Everything all right, El?”
“Uh, yes. Just…the barrier between our world and the Fade is…not thin, per se, but volatile. I’ve never felt something quite like this before,” she explained. Pritte raised his eyebrows at her and looked at the vast expanse before them.
“That’s not reassuring, Long Legs,” Karega called.
“What results in such a change?” Pritte asked.
“Battles, places where a great number of people have died, or there were lots of magical energies coalescing together are all found to thin the Veil. But this feels…different. Yes, there is a thinness to it, but there is also a defensiveness.”
“You speak as though this is a living creature.”
Elodie shrugged, “It…certainly unique. Perhaps it’s like lyrium, a certain magical carrier but also…more?” It was pure speculation but she knew that lyrium and the Fade were definitely connected.
And while it was interesting to speculate on, she did not have the energy or time to spend on it. Elodie followed Karega and Effir to the building on the other side of the bridge.
“I assume we need to go down?” She said.
“That…seems right,” Effir replied, cocking their head to the side. Elodie furrowed her brow.
“Seems?”
“The Stone feels different here, it’s so potent that it’s hard to pick out a direction to walk in,” Pritte said.
“This is where Gurendar took his fall,” Karega said. Her voice was quiet and silencing as they turned to watch her. There was no hint of weakness in her, no extreme display of emotion – just her and her armor and gear. She looked out down at the mist covered depths of the cavern, her face blank.
“The Titan is down there; we just need to figure out how to get there.” Karega stepped away from the ledge and headed down a spiral staircase in the center of the room. The rest of them followed, Pritte lagging behind somewhat as he tried to jot as much information as he could down.
When they reached the bottom, they came to another bridge. The far side of which was obscured by the mist. The hair on the back of Elodie’s neck prickled – something wasn’t quite right. Lyrium buzzed in the air and there was a high pitched keening in Elodie’s ears, ringing before clear sound gave way.
You’re here?
Elodie blinked and fortified her mind. Spirits could and did often lurk even in the deepest of places. She had resisted them all before, she was not going to ruin that record now just because of sleep deprivation. She had survived worse.
The ringing cut off and they began to move across the bridge.
You are not alone! Please listen – No! She was not listening to this spirit! She blinked and trudged forward. She had ignored the spirits and the Archdemon, she could ignore this. Except her head was beginning to ring and feel fuzzy.
The only way was forward.
They were half way across the bridge when she noticed Pritte was lagging behind, caught at some interesting railing of the bridge.
“Pritte! Come on!” She gestured for him to keep up, to follow the walkway to the side of the building. They were now pressed against the side of one of the rock outcroppings. Pritte gathered his things and hurried along to get in front of Elodie now.
A glowing dart suddenly split through the air and landed right beside his head. Pritte screamed in shock and stumbled back, about to tip back into the chasm when Elodie waved her staff up and sent him back up on the walk way and into the wall of rock. He fell on his butt no less for wear, but Karega growled at the bolt and yanked it down.
She began to shout at the void in dwarven, though it was unclear if there was anyone there. Pritte listened to her and blanched before launching himself up and began to shout in what…sounded vaguely different from her speech. His tone was much more placating, beseeching than her angry tirade.
Elodie cast a simple barrier around them, regardless.
“I think…we should move,” she whispered, feeling unease suddenly take root in her stomach. They had to move, had to…get away from this place. She looked up at the pulsing lyrium above her head.
Yes, that, they should follow that.
The lyrium was so blue, so pure, untouched and untainted by all around it. Her hand reached up, touching its smooth exterior. She gasped and a loud screech filled the chasm.
The lyrium at her finger tips turned red and she jerked it away. No, red is bad. The color disappeared as quickly as it appeared but the cavern shook, groaned.
“MOVE!” Elodie shouted just in time for a cloud of bolts to suddenly appear in the fog. She drew up a barrier, stopping them and then high tailed it with the others down the spiraling walk way. More and more bolts appeared and she brought the barrier back, but it was exhausting work, she maybe had two more of these in her before she had to stop due to pain and exhaustion.
Sleep. She hadn’t slept in thirty-three hours.
They pushed forward faster, her long legs carrying her faster than her dwarven counterparts, but she was unwilling to leave them.
You do not need them.
They will not be harmed.
Leave them now.
Run to us.
We will welcome you.
Elodie Yvetta Amell.
Come.
Her vision went white for a moment as the invasive thoughts trickled into her brain. She should outrun the dwarves. Leave them behind.
NO! She could resist this, just like she resisted the Archdemon ten years ago in the Dead Trenches.
We are no Archdemon.
We simply wish to talk.
Every demon says that, and she wasn’t falling for it. She could hear the demon of Pride in her head, whispering to her about true tests never ending. It was right, temptation for a mage was never absent – but resistance…that was their true strength.
Another hailstorm of bolts launched themselves at her group and she brought up a wall of fire, incinerating their attempts. They were not such easy prey.
Elodie –
No, that was enough. She was done listening to the voices in her head.
The rock beneath and around them shook as a hole was suddenly blown apart behind them. Elodie’s eyes widened in shock as she saw…dwarves emerge from the hole, their bodies glowing brightly with lyrium.
Karega growled more dwarven profanities, readying her axe. Effir and Pritte took their stances and another shockwave sounded through the space. This time from around the bend of the outcropping, closing them in. She took a deep breath, she had faced worse odds, she had taken down an Archdemon, she had battled through the deep roads, and she had slain giants.
She opened a lyrium philter on her belt and tossed it back before driving the end of her staff into the stone above their heads.
A gasp escaped her. There were…spirits…in the stone. Sleeping, ancient spirits.
Help us? She pleaded, letting out a burst of her own radiating spirit healing energy. They sighed and the stone moved. It parted on a great thunderous crack and began to slip down away from the dwarves and down the outcropping.
Karega, Pritte, and Effir screamed as she jolted the slab of rock down and into the pit of fog. More stone blew up and the attacking dwarves began to scale the rock down after them.
“Pritte, give me the throwing axes,” Karega demanded and promptly began to throw axes at the crossbow bearers. One landed soundly in the skull and the dwarf stuttered and fell off into the void. The others did not stop however, as they advanced on Elodie and her group’s position.
Faster, she urged the boulder and then jerked her staff, changing direction to shoot up at a diagonal, spiraling around the stalagmite. It slammed into some of the dwarves, creaking, grinding, groaning as it blasted by against the grain of the rock. But she pushed it, feeling the old spirits wraps themselves around her body and imbue her with new energy.
She was a mage specialized in spirits, after all.
They whispered to her, old names and old things that she barely heard over the cacophony of battle. But they were joyous to be finally awake and…freed? Yes, freed.
The other…things tried to whisper to her as well, but she focused on her task to get her people safe. She jerked her staff again, going down and then sharply back up, using the stone as a battering ram. She would lose energy for this soon, however, if she did not find a solution….
Ah. Solution.
She launched the rock up back to the walkway. She urged her dwarves up onto it then turned back to their attackers, quickly following them. She touched the stone again and pulled out another spirit, this one bigger and brighter, sighing happily as it’s released from its stone prison.
How thin must the Veil be down here? She wondered, for the spirit to emerge from the stone and wrap its wispy body around Elodie, sinking its power deep within her.
Thank you, it said before they turned and raised a hand, freeing the…hundreds of spirits from their stone prisons, floating out and knocking back the dwarves into the abyss.
Elodie collapsed as the spirits left her, almost singing in their harmony as she felt the Veil waver and split.
Magic suffused the air and the cavern trembled in response. Spirits flooded, then receded, came back and then receded into the Fade, content with the equilibrium suddenly found.
The lyrium suddenly glowed brighter and she felt the voice in her head boom.
Free!
Free!
Finally free!
The song returns!
We’re Free!
So many voices, clouding her head, judgement, she couldn’t –
She staggered to stand up, Karega reached out, Effir called out a warning, but it was too late.
Elodie hit the edge of the rock and tipped back, falling into the depths.
Spirits continued to whoosh by her as their thoughts and the thoughts of the Titan, she thought, invaded her mind. Fear and confusion were rampant but not directed at her impending doom as she plummeted down…down…
Down, until the air changed and she was suddenly suspended up by the air. She dropped again when the air suddenly stopped. She screamed and the air resumed. Then cut off. And bit by bit she seemed to…be lowered to the depths until her feet touched solid ground and she fell with an “oomph!”
Still unsure she was alive, she remained on the ground, surrounded by warm fog. What…just happened?
Elodie had lived through many weird things. From being sent into the Fade and fighting other people’s nightmares to meeting a walking-talking demon possessed corpse to meeting an intelligent darkspawn…she had seen much, done more, and had learned a long time ago to expect the unexpected, and above all, if you think it’s too weird to happen, it will happen.
But this took the cake.
She was at…the bottom. The very lowest she felt she and the stone could go. The source of the air that had buoyed her up was conspicuously absent as the fog parted and a slimmer than average dwarven man strode forward. His white hair was long to the point of nearly reaching the ground, his eyes a brilliant blue from lyrium and his skin glowed blue with lyrium infused blood.
He was…beautiful, though, with a smile that seemed to wrap warmth around her.
“Be welcome, Elodie Amell, Hero of Ferelden.” His voice rang out clearly, though heavily accented. She trembled as she recognized his voice from earlier, except now it wasn’t in her head, but it filled the space all around her still.
“You were trying to convinced me to run ahead.”
He nodded, “Yes, I wished to speak to you about removing the seals placed around this place to allow the Titan to awaken fully. But apparently that was unnecessary.” He smiled again and her heart dropped. What did she do? She helped awaken the creature that was potentially killing her? Driving her mad to keep her down her the entire time like…
“You’re Gurendar,” she whispered and he nodded.
“I am. Or was. I am…what is the word in common? Chosen? …Checked? No, no…Champion. That is the word, Champion of the Titan, now. Though that title does not carry the same weight in your tongue as it does in mine.” He cocked his head to the side and strode closer, offering her a hand to stand up. She declined and rose herself, unwilling to put more pressure on her lyrium burns.
“We thought you dead.”
“That is a logical conclusion for what Karega saw. But as you can see, I am very much alive…just like you are. Just like the Sha-Brytol you forced off of the cliffs.”
Her eyes widened.
“Your friends will not be harmed. And as for why you are here…the Titan is not your enemy. We do not seek to harm you or our children. That is not why we called you.”
The obvious question tickled her tongue, but she couldn’t speak, just watch in strange fascination as he moved about the space, the fog briefly obscured his figure, only for him to appear once again, hands behind his back.
“We called you because we needed someone with magic to break the seal, to release those that kept us bound for all these millennia. We rejoiced when we felt you enter Kal-Sharok. And we tried to communicate with you but…it seems our methods have not improved. We apologize for the discomfort.” His voice was like a lullaby, soothing and warm, lulling her into a sense of complacency when she knew better.
“Those visions…what were they?” She asked and his face fell into a hard expression.
“To explain what happened, to tell you why it was so important for you to come, but it seems that those who are not of the Stone do not comprehend as well.” He did not elaborate any more, but began to walk away from her. Cursing inwardly, Elodie followed him until he stopped and looked up. The fog obscured everything but she could the faint glow of lyrium, bright and pure and singing in the center.
“We are old. And we have power. There are those in this world who will do anything for power and view it as a commodity to be had by themselves alone. But that is not the case. What was not be yours never will be, and trying to take it will only warp it into something unrecognizable. Give me your hand.” He held his own out and she looked at it for a long time.
There was…sorrow here. Spirits trapped for millennia, and this man was called as she had been. They were alive and she suspected that it was due to the Titan. Whatever it was, whatever plan it had, it didn’t appear malicious as so much as directing in a very clear manner.
She placed her hand in his. He raised it up to the glowing sphere of lyrium, and she expected the burn but all that came were visions of what was. Tears slipped down her face and she cried in shock, “No.”
A beautiful, tall elven woman walked through the Deep Roads, the tails of her armor billowing behind her in great bloody swaths of part magic part fabric. Hundreds of elves followed her, and for everyone that was clad in elegant, bloodied armor, there were ten more chained and crying as they descended into the deep.
The roads were pristine then all sharp and new carvings. But here they were tarnished the blood of the Children of the Stone, their bodies lining the halls.
And the woman laughed, smiling and happy as she strode past them all. Foreign words slipped past her lips that Elodie distantly recognized. Anger suffused the image and she felt the earth shake around the elves as skrimmers, Crestals, and deepstalkers flooded the chambers.
When she spoke next, Elodie did recognize the words.
“Is this the might of the dwarves? The force of the Titan? How pitiful.” The slaughter was not quick as she delighted in maiming, cutting, and inflicting torture upon the poor creatures.
She cut a great swath of red and blood to the Titan, and finally she stood before the Champion of the Titan, a great hero clad in lyrium infused armor, their axe raised high.
“You are nothing before my will!” She cried and turned back, barking an order back to her troops.
Holders of the slaves reached down, unsheathed blades and drew them across the throats of the slaves, blood running down their bodies. Magic poured out of the elves and into the woman before the Champion.
The Champion cried out and Elodie felt the fear and the anger, the distress at seeing so much blood, so much death. Needless. Wrong.
How could someone do this?
They charged the woman, raising their axe high as she directed the magic into them, past their armor and into the body, sinking deep and around their heart.
They screamed, fighting the control as she whispered commands, dark things, to them.
“You are mine. This is all mine. How dare you attempt to keep it away from me.”
But the Champion fought and lunged forward to hack into her only to have one of her followers take the blow for her. He gasped, sputtered, fell into the void to die.
No. Needless death.
What does this sacrifice bring but destruction?
The magic flowed more intently into the Champion and they fell to their knees, the magic pushing past them and….
Into the Titan.
The cavern shook and pain coursed through her body as she felt the blood force its way into the lyrium, into the Titan.
Her will was to the be the Titan’s will, overpowering it with the sacrifice of hundreds of innocents. Blood, twisting will and creation into slavery and destruction.
Forever tainted.
The scene shifted suddenly, growing from blue to red. The thoughts became disjointed and disfigured with the woman’s thoughts, her will suffused into it. Shadows flew across the red, and suddenly teeth and claws sank into the veins, bursting, overflowing, harvested? No, attacked. Sinking, falling, deeper? How much father could we fall? Down, down. Hidden, away, PAIN.
Severed. Disconnected.
Children. Where are the Children? Are they safe? Who will protect them?
Did we hurt them? No. No. Not death. Not sacrifice, never. No choice. Her will.
She needed an army.
The visions slowly cleared from her mind, and when Elodie landed back in herself she found herself sobbing. She clutched at her sides as she felt the pain and the sickness twisting the Titan inside and out.
“What…what was that? Was that this Titan?” She gasped, finally finding her voice.
“No, that was our sister. She yet lives, not yet allowed to die.”
That…the source of the taint was…blood magic? No, not blood magic, but twisting will and thrusting it upon another. That was what twisted the Titan. Mass sacrifice, forcing a creature of creation to kill like that.
Titans…create.
She let out a shaky breath, trying to regain herself.
“I am tainted, as well, I should not be here.” She should not have touched the lyrium! What if she will cause this Titan to sicken with the Blight?
“That is precisely why you should be here. The taint stems from the corrupted Titan, only a pure one may remove it completely.” He took her hand again and placed it back to the lyrium.
“Let it flow into you like you allowed the Blight to flow. Let it burn away all traces of corrupted will.” The lyrium was cool to the touch this time and it slipped into her fingers and hand, painfully sinking her skin and into her blood.
The Joining had been painful and terrifying, and the purification was no less so. It was worse in a way, as she fell to the ground, vomiting black bile and sludge as the pure lyrium worked through her body.
Her magic strained under the effort, billowing out and collapsing against her in heavy waves.
It went on for what felt like hours, vomiting and choking as the lyrium slowly burned away the taint.
As the last drop left her, she felt her body lighten and her magic coalesce within her once more, hovering carefully as she instinctively tried to heal herself before falling into a deep slumber.
There were no visions of Archdemons or of Titans past. Only sweet, normal dreams filled with blue skies and flowers. The Fade pressed up against inside the cavern, surrounding the Titan and falling back into Elodie…
When she woke, she was on a stone bed with Gurendar standing nearby. He smiled and gestured to her.
“You are free, unburdened of will that is not your own.”
She felt her body and her eyes widened at how…clear she felt. Her head didn’t feel heavy, inundated with whispers of the taint. Eleven years of thoughts that were not her own had plagued her. Eleven years she had felt the poison pressing up inside of her, trying to consume her….
And now she was free.
Free only to have Alistair and potentially his son still be bound.
Her breath hitched and tears threatened to spill over. She could take Alistair here, perhaps. But little Duncan….
Loud shouting suddenly sounded from the far end of the space. Gurendar turned in mild curiosity just in time for Karega, Pritte, and Effir to suddenly charge in, weapons raised high.
Karega was swearing in her tongue again and ready to kill whatever stood in her way when she spotted Gurendar. She stopped, eyes wide.
“Gurendar?” she said.
“Karega, Paragon-Elect of Kal-Sharok, be welcome,” he said in the same voice warm voice he had used to greet Elodie.
Karega sneered and charged at him again. He sighed and ducked to the side, deftly avoiding every move.
“This is very unproductive, Karega.”
She shouted at him in dwarven and Elodie could hear the angry desperation, the confused outrage.
“Karega, stop. He’s melded with the Titan, he is…her Champion now.” Elodie said meekly.
Karega whipped around, eyes glassy but full of indignation, “Do you not think I know that? He is hers now, he is no longer my husband.”
“I…still retain my memories, Karega. I was very fond of you. I loved you, even, and our children.”
She screamed at him again, but her axe remained on the ground.
More dwarven spilled from her lips and Gurendar nodded, replying to her in their tongue. Pritte had his notebook out and quickly taking notes and sketches of the place.
Effir watched the interaction between Karega and Gurendar, until finally they strode forward and put themselves between the two.
“Paragon-Elect, the Titan has changed him, this gift does not come without price, and it is unfortunate that you have to pay it. But he lives, and he serves the Stone. He protects Kal-Sharok.” Their voice was even and softer than their usual biting tone.
Gurendar nodded, “Well-said, young one. I am and am not the man you remember. I…we are different, and we apologize for the strife for this to have caused you. In the past this would not have been so…traumatic. We are learning.” He brought his hands forward and bowed his head and Elodie got the distinct feeling that he wanted to feel more, that he wanted to give her the love he once had been able to do…. But things change, the world shifts and the demands it has for you can take a toll.
Some dreams simply cannot be.
Her eyes closed once again and she turned her gaze to the rock above her.
The world demanded sacrifice from everyone, some were more difficult to bear than others. The sacrifices made to be a Grey Warden weighed more heavily than the sacrifice to be a guard, or even a Templar considering that becoming a Warden was a guaranteed death sentence. And Karega had made sacrifices as Paragon-Elect, even more sacrifice when she married Gurendar. And while Elodie could see the immense honor it would be to have her husband be tied like to the Titan and her children to be tied to him…it was a gut wrenching sacrifice. Love lost, hope, then it was torn all away again as she realized that he was gone just not gone.
“You…are not my husband,” Karega bit out.
“No,” he answered and Elodie could feel the disillusioned hurt rolling off of Karega.
Her face scrunched up and she turned from Gurendar. Pritte’s eyebrows drew together and Effir hung their head low.
Loss is the most difficult when there is not satisfactory closure, when the wound isn’t even stitched. Elodie rose from the stone, legs wobbling and head aching from dehydration. She remembered Nav, waking up one day to find that the Templars had…there had been the decision to…they were made Tranquil. They had known who she was but they hadn’t known. There really was no pain like that, to see someone you love just…ripped away like that, but to have them still linger.
She rested her hand on Karega’s shoulder, not saying anything but offering any compassion she could. A gauntleted hand came up and rested on hers.
It was Effir who spoke first, “Why call the Warden?”
“She is like those who created the barrier around us, and we needed the barrier gone. It was an opportunity we could not resist,” Gurendar replied, tilting his head to the side.
Effir nodded their head, “Your methods are dangerous, I expect you to refine them if you are going to continue to communicate with Kal-Sharok.” That made Karega whip around, eyes ablaze.
“You do not get to talk to hi – them – like that! They do not intend to harm –
“But we do, Karega. They are right. We will do better, there were better channels…before, but so many things have felt…blocked. The barrier is gone now though, at least here, that will hopefully help.”
“Hopefully?” Effir pushed but Gurendar shook his head and turned away from them and to Elodie. His eyes appeared to glow even brighter now.
“Elodie Amell, we were not finished.” Gurendar suddenly said, walking to her side, giving her another reassuring smile.
“We have two requests of you, if you would be so willing to help. One, is to carry a…sample of ourselves, a seed perhaps in your tongue, to another place. We have been gone for too long. It is time to rebuild.”
“I can leave? Will I not perish away from the Titan?”
“No. We gave you the visions to bring you here to help us, not to harm you. Why would we harm someone who has helped us?” He cocked his head to the side again and she wondered at how such an old creature as the Titan could have such a…child-like effect on a grown man.
Relief surged through her and she nodded. This outcome, while odd, was preferential to every single one that she had come up with in her head. She had not been looking forward to lyrium imbued demons due to a Rift, or having to actually kill the Titan.
How would one even begin to kill one?
She shook her head free of the thought.
“To help you? To take another Champion?”
“Champions must be Children. You are not one of the Children.” He answered simply. She supposed she should be relieved at that, but worry for the dwarves in Kal-Sharok bloomed anew. Who would be claimed? Children?
The Titan may be a force of creation but it clearly did not think in the same way that Elodie or the dwarves did. Would it understand the difference between a child and an adult, a willing volunteer and an unwilling one?
Gurendar blinked, his brow drawing together somewhat before he began to speak again.
“Once we were connected across through the Stone, able to plant ourselves into the Stone anew. But now we are singular, cut off, and have no room to grow. Will you do this for us?”
Elodie watched the strange man, eyeing how eerie his eyes glowed, the faint blue of his skin…. But she also thought of the Blight, of how she no longer felt connected to it, of how pure lyrium had somehow surged through her and purified her. Ferelden’s lands were still recovering from the Blight, the taint sown deep into where the horde had marched.
It wasn’t just herself or Alistair tainted, it was land, it was people.
She nodded her head and he smiled.
“Thank you, Elodie Amell.” He strode to the wall where she had touched to receive her vision and held up a box he had picked up along the way. He whispered a few unintelligible words and lyrium began to pour into the box.
Bright, untainted, fresh lyrium that she…heard. Its music was twinkling and hypnotic, beautiful and swaying. It was cut off quickly as Gurendar shut the box, locks suddenly moving in place.
“There, take this to a deep place, the pour the lyrium onto a clean bed of rock.”
“That is remarkably simple.”
“We need not much, only the opportunity.” He answered. She took the box from him, surprised by its lightweight before placing it gently in her pack.
“And the second thing?”
“Ah, yes. This…is not something we ask lightly but, we are fearful of what the future will bring. We were awakened by a…great rupture, and such change in the past has led to death. The death of our sisters.”
There was a long pause as Gurendar shifted on his feet.
“We ask that should we be attacked, that you return to us with haste, to defend us.”
That…wasn’t ominous at all. She watched Gurendar’s face, watched the slight confusion and surprise at his own words. Perhaps not all had been revealed to him by the Titan until now. Elodie considered it. She…did not wish to return, she wished to spend the rest of her days with Alistair and Duncan, perhaps they could try one more time for children now that she was free of the taint. Her time as the Hero was coming to a close, or at least…she had hoped it was. For how could she stand by and allow this Titan to be attacked, potentially enslaved and harvested for its power further endangering countless people and their very world?
In the end, her choice was clear and while she did not relish it, it was her responsibility. Those who can, should do their part to ensure the safety of the world and its people. She nodded her head.
“I will return if I am able.” She said, bowing her head and swearing herself to it. She could regret it, but she had regretted little in moments such as these.
Gurendar smiled and bowed in gratitude.
Karega stepped forward then, her face drawn into a tight lipped frown. She watched her husband, confident and knowing.
“You serve the Titan?”
“Yes.”
“Then…that is good. I love you but we serve the Stone and Her city.” She switched to dwarven, her voice never wavering, only sounding strong and defiantly beautiful.
Gurendar nodded and leaned forward at the end, resting his forehead against hers. He murmured something in dwarven and she let out a long breath before giving a short laugh.
Her heart ached as she watched them. She longed to return to her Alistair, it had been too long, her body was weary and she was…ready. Ready to go home and sleep for a year or two.
“How will I know exactly to return? I’m not a dwarf, I lack all of sort of Stone Sense,” she said, raising herself from the slab.
Gurendar turned to her, his hands still on Karega, “You have merged with us, no matter how briefly, that has changed you. You are connected to us now. When the time comes, you will know.”
Elodie dragged in a breath. Alright, this…was her duty, her life. She could rest when she’s dead.
