Author's Note: Before anyone asks why I'm skipping over a certain something, please read the note I have at the bottom of the chapter.

To Wyolake: You're right, I am going for a more hardened Alistair. I'm aiming for something between his normal game disposition and the Darkspawn Chronicles one.

To Rhominus: Thanks.

Chapter IX

Alistair and Solona emerged from the stairs ready for whatever was waiting. Instead they looked rather silly, as the room was completely empty. The other three of us emerged, one by one behind them. Wynne came first, then Alim, then me. Alim and I had had a little argument on the way up about who got the privilege of arriving first, he lost.

There were two exits from the room one was a closed door, the other was blocked up by tipped over bookshelves. Alistair looked back at me and asked, "Which way?"

I thought over it, trying to remember before finally remembering a couple of details. Pointing toward the bookshelves I said, "That way. The other way has… um… something dangerous."

Alistair shook his head, "That's a bit vague, but I'll listen Now, who can clear bookshelves?"

Solona rolled her eyes, pointed a hand toward them and shot flames toward them. As she did so she started cackling and shouted, "BURN." We all scooted away from her and she stopped laughing for a moment to announce, "I've wanted to burn these things for years. Do you people have any idea how much time I've spent trying to sort through them."

No one bothered to give her an answer.

She kept at it for a minute before stopping. Alistair waited for the fire to die down before heading over and hitting it a couple of times hit the shelves with the flat of his sword to knock them apart enough for us to get through. He finished and motioned for us to follow him. Wynne went right away and Solona followed her after setting the stolen books down. Alim motioned that it was my turn to go first and after a short argument Solona looked back in and hissed for us to hurry along.

Through the doorway was a curved hallway, much like the ones lower in the Tower, but thinner to compensate for the decreased diameter. Along the left hand side were a series of rooms, all of which were closed. Alistair moved to look into one but I caught his shoulder and whispered, "Desire Demons and Abominations."

His eyes widened and he slowly backed away. With a quick motion he gathered us up and ordered that no one was to open a door without permission.

We moved down the hall as quietly as possible, trying to avoid whatever creatures might be lurking inside them. Finally we came to the sole door leading to the inner room of the third floor, the room with the only staircase. Alistair moved to open the door, but pulled back and asked me what was waiting inside.

I took a while to think before finally saying, "An abomination and some shades I think, maybe a demon or two. I'm really not sure. It's been a long time and I can't remember."

He frowned and asked, a long time since… Actually, let's put that conversation off again. Now, we need a plan. How can we kill an abomination and whatever is helping it." No one offered any suggestions so he ordered, "Wynne, hang back. We're going to need you at full strength to heal whatever horrible injuries we get from this. Alim, Solona: I'm going to need you two to deal with the abomination as fast as possible. That leaves William and me, mostly me, to deal with the shades. Now, ready and go."

Alistair pushed the door in and charged to deal with the shades, which there was only one of as it turned out. In addition though were the five reanimated corpses waiting for us. Solona went in quickly after him, and blasted a fire spell into the middle of a small group of the undead. The rotting flesh caught fire in the magical blaze and they went up like tinder. Alim went in next, lashing at the abomination with a Mana Clash. The creature was blasted backwards as the magical energies of its host were suddenly channeled against it directly. As the creature started to get up Solona swung her staff toward it and blasted a beam of flames at it. Alim moved to join her and soon added his own lightning blasts to the stream of magic pouring at the creature.

Meanwhile I moved in, a bit slower than the others had done and brought my saber into the Shade's back as it moved to take Alistair's head off. The blow was almost useless, but it bought him time to slam his shield into the thing's face before stabbing his sword into the thing's right eye. It screeched a horrible sound, and disintegrated as the magic keeping it together vanished.

No sooner was it gone though than the two remaining two undead creatures were on us. Alistair quickly decapitated his opponent, and with the head gone he took the rest of the limbs off as well in the space of ten seconds. My battle was a little longer, until he was done with his actually. Rather than attacking I sort of stumbled backward while managing to block the undead's clumsy strikes. Alistair interrupted its last strike by cutting off the creature's right arm. Four seconds later and our fight was over.

We turned back to where Solona and Alim were still blasting away into the Abomination and Alistair told them, "I think its dead. You can stop now." The two of them slowly pulled back on the magic they had been putting out and looked down at the creature, now little more than a pile of burning clothes and skin.

Solona breathed a sigh of relief and said, "After seeing those in action before I wanted to be sure it was dead."

Alim nodded and Alistair called for Wynne to come into the room. She did so and looked over us quickly to make sure there weren't any injuries she needed to look at. Solona had a cut on her upper arm we put a poultice on, and I had a dislocated finger from one badly blocked blow. Alistair popped it back into place and I made a note to tie it up to heal. Other than that our group had come through unscathed.

Alistair ordered a short break to recover and after a few minutes he led the way to the fourth floor.

The fourth floor landing was clear like the third, but this one had Taint across the walls and statues. The Taint extended through the hall, which as with the others was lined with doors down the left hand side. Alim glanced into one and started to go in, but as I had done with Alistair before I caught his shoulder and stopped him. He turned back and said, "There's a Templar in there with a demon. We can't just leave him."

I glanced in and it was one of the specific rooms I remembered, and explained quietly, "That Templar is already dead. If we go in there now the demon and Templar will both attack us. We might have managed to kill an Abomination with little overall trouble, but imagine fighting someone who won't even feel what you do, but maintains the skills he had in life. Now imagine fighting him with the second most powerful kind of demon."

Alim gulped and backed away. We hurried along, not even looking in the other rooms before going into the sole room leading to the other side. This room was almost empty save for a single corpse and standing over it was another demon. Alistair moved toward it and prepared to attack when it started speaking, "Oh visitors. I would entertain you… but too much trouble. How about instead I release you from the violence of this world."

It raised a hand and my four companions sank to the floor and started to pass out. I blinked, unaffected and then stepped up and with a quick move brought the sword down onto the demon's throat. The corrupted flesh was torn open by the blade and the creature fell, bleeding out and I stabbed the saber into its chest to finish it. The creature gargled and thrashed for a moment and then lay still. As it stopped moving the others pushed themselves up off the ground and Alistair said, "That was weird. I thought I was back with the Wardens, but there was something wrong with it."

He looked over at other three and they just shook their heads and Solona said, "I don't want to talk about it." Wynne and Alim agreed and the matter was dropped. As they stood there thinking about what had happened I picked up a bloodstained scroll, and looked over it. The writing was archaic, but it was the Litany of Adralla.

We looked over it and Wynne carefully stored it in a bag before Alistair led us on to the other side of the fourth floor. On the other side lay another hallway. The five of us moved in, but stopped when there was a growling up ahead. Alistair looked back at me with a questioning look. After a little thought I whispered, "Drakes. Fairly old male dragons; they can't fly, but can breathe fire and have a nasty bite."

Alistair groaned and muttered, "What's next a High Dragon?"

I shrugged and said, "A little later than that, but not exactly far away either."

He scowled and said, "You didn't have to tell me that, you really didn't."

We rounded the corner quietly and came face to face with a fully grown drake. It roared and shot a jet of fire toward Solona. She laughed like a maniac and knocked the flames away with her own power. With another quick move she shot her own fire toward the drake. It roared, but was completely unaffected. Wynne though hit it directly with an ice spell. The creature sank to one "knee" and Alistair brought his sword into the beast's throat. The sword hit hard, but didn't penetrate. Alim though hit it with a lightning blast and Wynne again summoned ice against it. The creature roared one last time, before collapsing forward. With one last move Alistair slammed his sword point downward into the drake's head. The creature died as the sword penetrated its brain.

We started to move on before Alistair got down and looked thoughtfully at the drake. Solona asked, "What is it?"

He looked up at me and asked me, "Do you have that knife on you?"

I unclipped my Army Knife from my belt and tossed it to him. He nodded in thanks and quickly started skinning the creature. It took him a little over four minutes to get most of the drake's skin off. He set it on a nearby table and said, "We'll get it on the way down. If we can turn this into armor it will be better protection than some of the armor we have."

He finally moved into the next room. Inside were six dragonlings that charged at us almost immediately. Alistair's sword took one's head off immediately, and he stabbed a second moments later. Alim and Wynne used magic to kill the other four before I could even draw my sword.

I looked at Alistair and offered the knife again, but he shook his head. "No, they haven't developed enough to be useful."

I shrugged and put the knife away before we moved on. Through the next door stood another abomination, it looked at us in something almost approaching shock. We dove out of the doorway as a spell shot after us. Solona shot a sheet of flame into the corridor. Alim shot a lance of electricity into the hall before the creature and two others burst out of another room to charge at us. As the three started moving Alim launched a Mana Clash against them that stumbled one. Moments later he followed with a Walking Bomb spell.

Solona desperately ripped her poultice off and called on her blood to begin boiling the creature's blood. There was a horrible scream as whatever was left of the mages inside the abominations began to suffer but she didn't let up. Finally all three fell and Solona collapsed from the exertion. She slowly pushed herself back up, gasping. The four of us stared at her, but she wasn't feeling up to saying anything. After a few moments she managed to get out, "I've never done that before. It feels horrible, but at least we won."

Alistair nodded and said, "Right, let's not do that again."

Wynne clearly didn't approve, but didn't say anything again. Instead she cast a small spell to restore some of Solona's health, but the only real cure would be a couple of days rest and food. We continued into an empty room. The five of us stopped there and waited for a few moments, almost expecting something horrible to come out of nowhere at any moment. Finally though, we came to the conclusion that there really was nothing there and kept going.

The next room held the first living (and relatively sane) person since the second floor was encased in a magical field. He was lying on the floor and as we walked in he said, "This trick again? It won't work. I will stay strong."

Wynne was the first to speak, "Cullen, is that you?" He refused to answer and she continued, "He's exhausted. And I've never seen anything like this cage." She went down on one knee and said soothingly, "It's okay. Help is here."

He snarled at her, "Filthy blood mages. You won't get in my head, I will not give in."

Finally Wynne stood back up and said, "It's no use. He won't accept who we are, let's head upstairs. If the First Enchanter is still in the Tower, that's where he'll be."

Alistair said, "Agreed. Let's go."

As he started up the stairs I pulled my pistol out and loaded it. Our new companions looked at the weapon with curiosity and Alistair looked a little scared of it.

After a few moments I finished loading the weapon and followed him up the stairs.

In the Harrowing chamber four mages were performing a horrible ritual on another. Nearby were a dozen Enchanters, kept in place with blood magic. As the four active mages threw their victim down to put a demon into him Alistair shouted, "Okay, I don't know how you're doing this, but stop it."

One of the mage's turned to look at us with something approaching disdainful curiosity. "Oh look, a group of heroes to save the Circle. Well exactly…" As he spoke I lifted my pistol and fired a shot. A small hole appeared in his forehead, and brains blasted out the back of his skull as the bullet went through. The mage sank to his knees, and I fired three more shots in quick succession. The other three mages involved in the ritual collapsed as well as bullets struck them. The final mage died and the blood magic holding the other mage's in place was broken. The mage they had been working on thrashed a few times then lay still.

I quickly checked his pulse, there wasn't one. I made the sign of the cross and turned to see the mages' getting up. The oldest said, "Thank you, but who are you?"

Alistair stepped up and announced, "My name is Alistair Theiren, I'm a Grey Warden and rightful King of Fereldan. We're here to discuss certain treaties between the Circle and the Wardens in the event of a Blight."

The First Enchanter smiled a little and said, "You have an excellent sense of timing at least. Now, let's get out of here, I'm sure Gregoir is eagerly awaiting news of my demise."

The First Enchanter led the way out of the Chamber and we started down the Tower again. On the way down we picked up Cullen, who had to be dragged out by Alistair and myself; the hide of the drake we'd killed; and Solona's stolen books. If Irving noted the books he didn't say anything.

It took us almost an hour to get back to the bottom of the Tower. Gregoir, his Templars, and Wynne's students were waiting for us. As we entered the room Gregoir smiled a little and said, "Well, I can see you are more competent than I'd assumed. Now, I guess the Circle is confirmed clean?"

Alistair shifted and said, "Well, not exactly. We didn't have enough people to clear out the Tower, but we have everyone who wasn't possessed or a blood mage. You can still enact the Rite on the rest of the Tower. All we ask is that you leave anyone in this room intact."

Gregoir nodded and said, "I think I can do that. Our reinforcements should be arriving tomorrow, give us a week and the Circle will be ready for repair. You realize though that if we do so, we won't be able to help you against the Blight."

Alistair nodded and said, "We can live with that I think. The Mages will help us though right?" He directed that part of the question to Irving who said, "I think we can arrange that."

Finally Irving said, "Though, there is one other issue." Gregoir looked at him curiously and Irving pointed to Solona. "Her specifically, she was in the meeting where Uldred revealed his power. She was one of those who stood with him, and she's a blood mage."

Gregoir and his Templars brought out their swords. Alistair, Alim, and Solona raised their weapons and Alistair said, "You're not taking her. We promised to spare her if she helped us, and I don't intend to violate that trust."

Gregoir refused to lower his blade and said, "I cannot allow her to leave this room."

Finally after the two groups stood facing each other Alistair said, "I think we can come up with a compromise. I conscript her into the Wardens."

Solona breathed a sigh of relief and she chuckled at the shock on Gregoir's face, "Ha, can't touch me now Templar."

He scowled and said, "Well if that's everything please go. I've got work to do."

With our standoff over Alistair turned to Irving and said, "One more thing. There's a possessed child in Redcliffe. We need the Circle to help us to free him."

Irving thought and said, "Well you did save us, so I think we might spare a few mages and lyrium to help. Give us a few hours and we'll head off with you. Just, please keep her," he nodded to Solona, "away from me."

A few hours later a group of ten set off from the Tower to make the journey back to Redcliffe.

Secondary Note: Yes, I skipped the Fade I know. The reason I'm doing so is because the story is being written as a memoir, and no one involved wants any reference to it. That will be included in the next "chapter" which is going to cover what actually happened after the group entered the room with the Sloth demon.