The life of a Dalish elf was not one of comfort. Wandering with no true home, gathering what food they could find and hunting the rest. However, the prey they hunted was not always local wildlife. Pandora stood straight, bow pulled taut as she waited for her prey to come to her. The first of the humans to come out from the bushes fell back onto the ground, stopping the two behind him in their tracks.

"It's a dalish!" The third human cried. Pandora chuckled to herself.

Shems. Always so quick to state the obvious.

"Get out of our way, knife-ear!" The second shouted as the first picked himself up off the ground.

"I wouldn't call her that if I were you." growled Tamlen, who stepped out of the foliage to stand next to Pandora, arrow trained on the humans.

"W-We aint done nothin' to you Dalish, honest!" The first human stuttered, "We didn't know this was your forest!"

"Fool." Tamlen hissed. Pandora tapped his foot with hers and shot him a sideways look. "This forest does not belong to us." He continued, calmer, "You've stumbled too close to our camp." Pandora tilted her head at the three of them as Tamlen continued, "You're not very good bandits, you know."

"We're not bandits!" The third stuttered out quickly, "W-we found some ruins in a cave and thought there might be-"

"Treasure?" Tamlen finished for him, "So you're more akin to thieves than bandits?"

Ruins? Pandora thought to herself, There's no cave with ruins in these forests. She turned and gave Tamlen a look, relaying her concerns.

"We know this forest," Tamlen said, "There's no ruins in any caves."

"We're not lying!" The first said, digging in his back pocket. He produced a small stone and held it out, "We found this inside!"

Tamlen hesitated, then quivered his arrow and cautiously took the stone from the man. He turned it over in his hand, his face knotted in confusion. "Is this elvish? Written elvish?"

"Th-there's more in the cave," The human continued, "We would've made it farther in but there was this huge demon!"

"A demon?" Tamlen scoffed, turning to Pandora, "So, what do you think, lethallan? Do you believe them?"

Pandora stilled for a moment, keeping her gaze locked on the humans. Then, she relaxed, and quivered her arrow and holstered her bow. She nodded gently to them and gave Tamlen a small smile. He sighed, turning back to the humans.

"You may go," He told them, "But if we find you wandering too close to our camp ever again-"

"You won't!" One of them shouted as they ran away.

Probably pissed their sodding pants. Pandora thought to herself with a smirk.

"You're too kind to those shems." Tamlen told her, starting down the path the humans had come from, "Come on then, let's see if there's any truth to their story, shall we?"

Pandora frowned as he continued on, picking up a small stick and throwing it at him. It smacked him just on the top of his head and he flinched and turned to look at her. She nodded sharply over her shoulder, back towards their camp.

"We can tell the Keeper once we figure out if they were even telling the truth." He waved her off, turning back to the path, "Now come on, you're not going to let me go all by myself straight into the lair of some horrifying demon, are you?"He laughed and Pandora frowned harder, waiting a moment before continuing after him.

What. An. Ass.

"Decided you wouldn't let me get eaten after all?" He teased as she caught up to him. She ran her shoulder into his and smiled lightly.

The cave wasn't far, and the path was mostly silent aside from a small pack of wolves who'd slain a halla. But as soon as Pandora saw the cave she knew something wasn't right. For starters, this cave had most definitely not been there before, and the energy radiating from it was… wrong, for lack of a better word. She stopped just short of the entrance to the cave, while Tamlen continued on a few paces before looking back at her.

"You're not scared, are you?" He asked, a laugh lingering on his lips. When she did not reply and continued to stare into the cave past him, his joking demeanor vanished. "Pandora?" She flinched slightly and looked at him, pursing her lips into a thin line. He sighed, "We're already here, Pandora, we may as well take a look before we tell the Keeper about it so we know if it's worth making a fuss over."

She inched down the incline after him into the cave. She waded into the sickness of the cave like the shallows of an open ocean, cautiously so that she would not slip and fall into the unending abyss. Tamlen was much more confident when entering the cave, but he too became much more careful as they approached the ruins.

"It… looks like the shems were telling the truth." He muttered, "But these ruins look more human than elven."

Pandora nodded in agreement, pulling her bow off and notching an arrow. The ruins were covered in giant spider webs, they were bound to run into the crawlers. Hardly surprising, it seemed impossible to throw a rock in Ferelden without hitting one. And as if they could read her mind, three of them descended from their hidings in the ceiling. Pandora launched an arrow into the eyes of the closest one to her, loading another and hitting it again. The second arrow plunged deeper, making it drop dead to the floor.

"Pandora!" Tamlen shouted, diving between her and the second spider that had launched itself at her back. He used his bow as a shield and shoved it back, pulling an arrow from his quiver and driving it deep into its head, killing it instantly. He loaded another arrow to shoot at the final one but found Pandora already standing over it's dead body. Her shoulder was bleeding though, and she winced as she tended to it and turned back around. She raised her eyebrows at his concern and shrugged with her good shoulder. It was nothing she couldn't handle.

She nodded towards the doorway to the next room and they continued on with only a few other squabbles with the arachnids. But when they seemed to be almost to the main room of the ruins, Tamlen stopped.

"I can't believe this." He said, staring at a statue next to the wall, "You recognize this statue, don't you? Back in the days of Arlathan, statues like these honored the creators," he continued as Pandora joined him and looked it over, "When the shems enslaved us, much of that lore was lost. This looks like human architecture," he looked over to Pandora, exchanging glances with her, "but with a statue of our people. Could these ruins date back to Arlathan?"

Pandora shook her head lightly. They were nowhere near Arlathan, and elves never lived underground in caves. Tamlen understood from the look on her face, as usual.

"Our people lived other places than Arlathan." He told her, "Even if elves didn't live here, it's architectes knew of our gods."

Pandora frowned a bit, looking over the statue one last time before continuing onward into the ruins. They definitely should have told the Keeper before they came here, this statute only confirmed that. Who knew what lost history could be found in these ruins, what questions could be-

Poison gas exploded into Pandora's face as she walked towards the next door in the hallway, and she stumbled back coughing as the gas turned the air around her and Tamlen green. Pandora waved the last of the gas from her face as she backed out from the cloud, coughing up what remained in her lungs. A sword swung down in front of her face as she realized what had also happened when the trap triggered - the dead bodies on the ground certainly did not rest peacefully anymore.

She pulled an arrow from her quiver and plunged it deep into the corpse that attacked her, yanking it back out as it fell dead to the floor to load it into her bow and shoot it into the one that was heading for Tamlen. He had already finished off the other corpses, which Pandora only now noticed as the gas cleared from the air.

Well hopefully that's as bad as it gets in here. She thought to herself as she opened the next door, only to be greeted with the monstrous roar of a bear- or what used to be a bear. Fur had fallen off its skin where spines now protruded from the rotting flesh. Fenedhis.

She barely managed to get out of the way as it charged through the door, though Tamlen was not so lucky and it slammed directly into him, tossing him into the wall. Pandora loaded two arrows into her bow as it turned to face her now, taking aim for its face. One arrow simply bounced off, but another found a squishy, fleshy part exposed on its hide just under the ear and lodged itself deep. The monster gave a roar of agony and charged her again, slashing at her arm as she very narrowly evaded its claws. A seer of red hot pain shot up her arm as blood began to run from her wound, making it too difficult to shoot with her bow now. She wouldn't be able to put enough force into her shots while in this much pain, it felt like the claws had been barbed to rip flesh even deeper and rougher to cause more suffering.

Tamlen picked himself up and fired what arrows he could at the beast, but they simply bounced off as it turned back to face them and stalked towards them menacingly with a growl. Pandora dropped her bow and picked up the sword of one of the fallen corpses with her good hand, then charged the monster as it rushed at them. She ducked to the ground, sliding under the beast as it swiped at her, and slashed open its throat. When it fell to the floor she drove the blade deep into its head, making sure it stayed dead.

Pandora knelt there a moment, leaning on the sword and breathing heavily to calm the adrenaline rushing through her yet. Tamlen picked up her bow and rested it on the ground next to her before sitting down and resting a moment himself. Then, he began to laugh. Pandora's shoulders shook with the same laughter, despite there not being a sound as there was for Tamlen. She let go of the sword and sat back on her haunches, raising her hands to sign, 'That was the craziest thing we've ever fought!'

Tamlen calmed down a bit and nodded in agreement, "I think it's probably the craziest thing we'll ever fight. Well, together at least. Creators know you find your way into far more insane situations than I do!"

Pandora frowned deeply but couldn't help it as her mouth cracked back into a smile. She picked up her bow and placed it back in it's place as she stood. She helped Tamlen to his feet as well and the two stepped carefully around the corpse of the dead beast and into the next room of the ruins.

There, placed upon a platform in the center of the room, stood a mirror. It was old and dingy and no longer reflected the room around it. Pandora was hesitant to walk right up to it, but Tamlen, either brave or foolhardy, strode right up to gaze into it. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" He said, examining the borders, "I wonder what this writing says. Odd that it isn't broken like everything else in here, especially with that bear lumbering about in here."

Pandora held tight to her bowstring as it hung across her chest, this whole room felt as though she was standing neck deep in wrong. As if she was straying too close to the edge of deep dark waters, waters that almost called to her.

"I wonder what this writing is for," Tamlen continued to wonder aloud, "Maybe this isn't- Hey, did you see that?" He bumped Pandora on the arm, "I think something moved inside the mirror."

She grabbed hold of his sleeve and tugged gently, signaling to him that maybe they should leave.

"Hold on, I just want to know what it was." He shrugged her off, moving slightly closer to the glass, "Don't you see it? There it is again! Can you feel that?" Tamlen turned and looked at her, "I think it knows we're here. I just need to take a closer look." He rested his hand on the glass, his curiosity getting the better of him. "It's… showing me places. I can see… some kind of city… underground?" Ripples spread across the glass as he lightly brushed his fingers over it, "And… there's a great blackness… It… It saw me! Help!" He screamed, "I can't look away!"

Pandora reached out to pull him away from the mirror, but it exploded into a brilliant light as she did, sending her flying across the room.

She had strayed too far, too deep into the waters, and all at once she fell into the black.