-He can hear them. Shattered pieces of what they used to be. Friends and colleagues now mere remnants of their former selves-

"Make sure to keep the chains tight as you lower the demon into the molten metal," Solas instructed Dagna and her assistants for this dark task. His expression troubled as he leaned heavily on his staff.

"My, this does all sound quite painful, mortals," Malice drawled from its place suspended some feet above a large cauldron filled with liquid hot metal. "You do realize I have no nerve endings, and therefore cannot actually feel pain, correct?" Malice narrowed his four eyes. "Or perhaps this is some vain attempt to return me to the pathetic creature I was before."

-He tried to change me. How could he. I trusted him, I loved him as any child would his father and in the end that is what he thought of me.-

"Are you absolutely sure we don't have a gag good enough to shut this thing up?" asked Dorian of his fellow mages. "I'm beginning to grow tired of its constant prattle about how 'great and evil' it is."

"That sounded like you don't think I'm evil, my dear Dorian," Malice replied.

"I'm not your dear anything, creature."

"Your mustache is trimmed improperly and looks hideous, would you like me to burn it off so everything looks consistent with the rest of your horrible visage?"

"Well, I'm convinced. It's completely evil and must be destroyed."

A sigh was heard from atop the platform that looked down upon the rest of the blacksmithing area. "Dorian," said Lavellan. "No."

"Dorian yes," was all he replied, although unlike most of the time when this exchange took place, action was not immediately taken afterwards.

-It's not the way of things, her father says to her. Trying to learn from the Circles of Magi as a dwarf is a pointless endeavor. We are born in our castes for a reason-

"Ah, wonderful, a new line of dialogue," said Malice as it turned its head as much as it was able to look at the Arcanist directly as it spoke. "Your father was right, you know. Despite all you've accomplished you'll never be as great as you could've been in Orzammer, where you-"

"I am so thankful that it can't speak through molten metal," Lavellan said quickly under her breath.

"I'm curious, Solas," Dorian said without preamble, "how did you know about this particular ritual?"

-Lusakan's striken face as she passed a black book into his hands. "I'm sorry," was all the human woman said before taking her leave of the Evanuris' court.-

"Wait, let me guess," Dorian said as he held up a hand. "You found out about it in the Fade?" This caused Dagna to cough from her workstation as she did her best to hide her laughter.

"For once, Dorian, I did not," Solas replied. He shook his head and smiled when he noticed the Inquisitor's eyebrows shoot straight up into her hairline in a gesture of incredulity. "I have an old friend, a human woman, who translated an old tome of ancient human spells and rituals. She let me study it for a time in exchange for some of my own knowledge."

"How ancient are we speaking, exactly?" asked Lavellan.

"From a war between humans and elves when Arlathan was still standing. One several centuries before the fall of the selfsame city."

"That makes things make a lot more sense," Dorian said.

"How so?" asked Lavellan.

"Rathana was going on how modern magic is almost entirely based on old elven magic principles. Which, if you study enough branches of magic you start to realize they all seem a bit too similar to each other to be true coincidence."

"It's not just magic behaving in certain patterns, and so therefore they have to be similar?"

"If you've never come into contact with magic that isn't based on these original elven tenets, you would almost think so. But between the magic the denizens of the fade use, this ritual and what Rathana did during our encounter with her, it's plain to see that not all magic needs to fade to function."

"Um, Dorian," said Dagna, "I'm pretty sure it does."

"Ah, but you see my dear, the magic of the modern era is based around the manipulation of both the fade and the veil. Demons, and by extension blood magic users, don't need to bother with the veil and are barely affected when the veil is strengthened by templars and their abilities. Their magic is based around the soul, and is powered by it."

"Wouldn't that be incredibly dangerous?"

"What makes it relatively safe is that the magic used to power your spells using this method is replenished by a direct link to the fade."

"So that's why demons seem to get disoriented by a templar's smite more-so after casting a spell than if they had just appeared," pondered Lavellan. "Their attempt to replenish the power of their soul is briefly interrupted, but not cut off completely. And I suppose a blood mage simply replenishes their soul's magic via the demon they manage to make a pact with."

"The ancient form of human magic," Solas began, "is powered by the magic of reality, of the waking world itself. It is incredibly more difficult to cast compared to the other two methods, elven and spiritual, however..."

"It wouldn't be subject to the same weaknesses as them, would it?" asked Lavellan. "The strength of weakness of the Veil would mean absolutely nothing to casting with it."

Dorian pursed his lips. "It would be next to useless in the Fade though, wouldn't it? Unless of course you...no, that's not possible."

Solas shook his head and gestured at the submerged demon they were all gathered around. "And yet the evidence of all three methods of casting magic lies before us."

"The humans of old were capable of something like this?" Dorian wondered aloud. "What heights did they reach?"

"According to my friend's tome, the greatest of them became dragons unlike any other, and in their hubris forced their people to worship them as gods."

"So you're saying the Archdemons were once human," said Dagna.

"That is what the tome I read implied. Whether or not it was true would have to be answered by someone from that who lived in that era directly."

-They used to be Elvhenan's greatest allies. Now they're twisted by their new draconic forms. Magic that was supposed to save humanity from the Darkness from the Stone instead turning their leaders into tyrants that cannot be killed, only sealed away underground.-

An eerie noise echoed throughout the undercroft, like the scraping of a dragon's talons on steel plate.

"What the devil is that noise?" asked Dorian.

"Malice," Solas replied. "It's laughing."