The minuscule shafts of light that made their way to Darktown during the day were fading, and the familiar dull luminescence of the scarcely lit under-city corridors was becoming prominent. The clinic was almost empty at this hour; Anders was left accompanied by a handful of helpful citizens that were finishing cleaning up shop. Anders himself joined in, now that there was no one waiting for him, rolling up his sleeves and gathering soiled rags and sheets to be washed. The clink of glass bottles being put away, the shredding of clean cloth ripping into bandages, and the occasional cough were the only sounds heard in the clinic, but the otherwise silence was making Anders, who was already apprehensive about this night, tense and anxious. He moved automatically, without thought, about the clinic with his end of day chores, his mind preoccupied.
Hawke came in like he always did; to raised chatter and meaningful smirks thrown Anders' way. The mage rolled his eyes and smiled, like tonight was like any other night. Anders made sure to grab the list of needed inventory from one of his nurses before they left in a gaggle of laughter. He sighed, and his smile fell to a grimace as turned to Hawke, "You don't have to do this, Benji."
Benjamin Hawke was an honest man, and blunt, "I'm not doing it for you, Anders." He walked to Anders' side, taking the list from his hands and putting it in one of his many pockets. Anders' mouth screwed sideways in defiance, but he knew better than to protest. Benji would just respond with something sarcastic along the lines of 'What kind of Champion doesn't look after his people?' Benjamin smiled, and placed a chaste kiss on the mage's cheek. "Now, I believe we have a schedule to keep."
Hawke strolled out of the clinic, as nonchalant as ever, and Anders followed after locking the clinic (not that it did much good). Darktown was its normal quagmire of stench and filth as Benjamin led to two of them down, further and back into some of the worst places in Kirkwall. No light made it here, even at high-sun, and the walls and floor were both undecorated stone. There were still people about; cowering around small fires in the miniscule alcoves that passed as homes in these depths and eyeing the two of them relentlessly and maliciously as they passed. He was not an unfamiliar face; actually, Anders had seen many of these people before in the clinic. The jealousy in their eyes was aimed at Hawke. Orange shadows danced on their faces, and along the walls and floor. The monotony of color made the more human side of Anders nauseous.
They came to the end of a corridor, and Hawke raised an eyebrow in the mage's direction. Where they stopped was a literal hole in the wall, into another 'home,' covered with rags. Anders rasped on the wall in a series of timed taps, and a dirty elven face peaked out. The curtain rustled as the elf drew back and pulled it aside just enough for the two of them to rush through. Her face betrayed her person; she was dressed in clean robes, and a mark of the circle graced her slim neck. The room was small, and the only piece of furniture was a pile of rags on the floor. On the pile sat a tatterdemalion elf, whose whole body was as dirty as his companion's face. With the four of them, the space was cramped, but Benjamin was gently pushed to the far wall. "It's that wall," the girl said in a tense whisper. The second elf sat flushed against the woman's legs.
Benjamin turned to the wall, and, starting with the top right corner, began to inspect the stone work. After so many years working in the dreadful bottomless pit that was Kirkwall, and his specifically cunning skill set, Hawke knew a great deal about the stonework of the city. Hawke had to have spent as much time creeping around Hightown as he did trumping around the Wounded Coast. The others stayed silent as he began his analysis of the wall.
Anders had told him about this discovery a few days ago. Apparently, one of the mages in the Gallows had been researching the more ancient architecture of Kirkwall and had come upon notes from the designers of the Gallows. The architect, a magister of good standing, had designed the gallows with a secret passage-way, whose purpose is questionable. The notes mentioned several uses of the passage: to release poison during an uprising, to smuggle things into the city, or an escape from the city had the man been hunted or otherwise needed a such a clandestine exodus. The passage was a series of caverns that connected the Gallows and Darktown, and had passages to the docks. The Resistance, however, had run into a small problem: where to find the entrance. Benjamin still wasn't certain how they found this one. And entrance it was, he noted with satisfaction, or at least more than what it appeared. The grain of the wall went in a direction contradictory to the other slabs in this area.
Benjamin pulled off his gloves. Moving methodically around the slab he gently felt along the seams of the slab and the adjoining walls. At first, he felt nothing, but as he went over them again, he felt the slightest change on the left side of the wall. He felt the same difference on the seam with the floor but only on the left side. "There is definitely something here." He mumbled to himself, and pulled back to look at the wall again.
When Anders had first asked him to inspect the wall, Hawke questioned his usefulness. He wouldn't hesitate to follow his lover into this kind of trouble, but he had figured that the doorway would be magically hidden. Anders had explained that many magisters had apparently been fond of physical locks and traps because they were unexpected. Also, that these magic-less defensive measures were one of the lesser reasons the Gallows was chosen to house the circle; templars could work the systems on their own (if they were smart enough, he had quipped with a laugh). Regardless, there must have been some magic at play. There was nothing Benjamin could discern from the larger left-side seams other than the fact that they existed. There were also no seams that corresponded to what he had found in the form of a door.
Grimacing, Benjamin moved on with his inspection. He placed his ear to the stone, and gently felt along the surface. He rasped along its surface, and smiled at the hollow sound. He continued with the knocking, hoping to find a spot with a different sound: a deeper thud that would denote something more than just stone. When his next knock brought a melodious sound from the wall, so quiet he could barely hear it, he jerked back in surprise. "Hmm…" He knocked on the same spot again, and got silence. Then, a third knock, and the note sounded again. "Anders, come here." His direct comment broke a pregnant bubble of silence and the man in rags flinched.
Hawke showed Anders the spot, but this time the note sounded on the second knock and not the third. Anders said, almost silently "It responds to your glove. It must need magic." Anders nodded to himself, and then gently tapped the tip of his staff against the spot, and noise rang loudly through the room. The two of them jumped, and looked around with anxiety.
"What? What happened?" The woman asked impatiently in a whisper.
"You didn't hear that?" Anders asked incredulously, his voice quiet like hers. She shook her head, and the two men met each other's eyes. "What was that?" He asked Benjamin, brow furrowed in confusion. Benjamin shook his head and eyed the wall. He pulled his fingerless glove down over his knuckles, and started to rasp on the wall in other places. Anders kept his hand on the first spot, and by the time Hawke pulled his ear from the wall, all four of their collective hands were marking spots on the wall. Benjamin put his forehead against one of the spots, and pulled a piece of chalk from his pack. After marking the spots, the two stepped back.
"How much do you want to bet there's a certain order to this," Benji said with a smirk, and Anders rolled his eyes.
"Come over here, Yunia." She stepped forward without hesitation, save a glance to the man on the floor when he clung to her, and inclined her head. "Listen. It's loud, but apparently you can't hear it when you're not close to it." He still spoke in a whisper. Anders rasped his staff against one of the points, and as the tone sounded Yunia's face contorted.
Hawke sighed suddenly, and shook his head. "It's going to take a while to find the right combination. There's a lot of them, considering we don't know how many times each is sounded, or in what order. Do either of you have the construction notes?"
"I do in my pack, but there is nothing about any entrance or key or anything of this nature in the notes." Yunia said while shaking her head. Hawke was about to argue the possible existence of secret messages when Anders shrugged and tapped a simple, random pattern on the marked spots.
A mellifluous song sounded from the wall, a rhythmic cadence of harmonious notes blending together to form a perfect symphony. Then, it ended as quickly as it begun; a small slab of stone had lifted itself up, gears quietly turning inside to lift the hollow block vertically, revealing a unlit corridor of gray stone. They turned around nervously, but the man in rags nodded to them in reassurance. He pulled a sack out from his pile, and handed to Yunia. She pulled out three large black cloaks and hard black masks. Hawke was used to these by now; it was how they traveled when working for the resistance. He pulled the cloak over him, and the others did the same, followed by the mask. The masks had slits for eyes, but they were placed well enough to not inhibit sight too badly. Hawke also moved his belt (not his normal belt but a simple piece of leather for the sake of anonymity) to the outside of the robe for easy access to his dirk and dagger. "Remember the pattern," Hawke reminded the group, and Anders nodded.
As they breached the threshold, Hawke saw Yunia, who he assumed was another member of the Resistance, take a piece of parchment and charcoal into her hands. In one of the corners, she drew a small rectangle with four dots representing the doorway. Then, near the center, she made a small line. Anders had mentioned that they were bringing a cartographer, and looking down the corridor looming before him Hawke was glad for her skills.
The corridor beyond was unassuming and held a daunting air of pretense as Benjamin slowly eased his way inside. Anders lit the tip of his staff with a dull light just as the stone door dropped closed with a serious of grindings and soft clicks. The stone was uniform blocks along every outer surface of the hall, and the pattern didn't change as the trio, Benjamin leading, moved quickly and quietly farther inward. The corridor didn't slope, but it gradually turned toward the more coastal areas of the city, if Hawke's sense of direction wasn't failing him (which they did not do). The three kept silent, the only sounds the gentle inhalation of breath every few moments when one forgot their pressing need for silence. They encountered nothing along the way, thankfully, but Hawke did not expect to find anyone; if these passages were so ancient that most forgot they existed, he doubted the Templars made a habit of patrolling them. Still, he made the two mages trail behind him in the light and he traveled ahead of them in close to complete darkness. He listened as much as he watched, straining to hear the slight scrape of plate against stone or the grunts that would leave encumbered lips without thought, but his ears only rang with the effort.