Dearest Fergus,

I am no longer sure what day it is. We have been underground in the Deep Roads for an eternity, it seems, and here there is no day and night. There is only fighting and fleeing and fighting again – the darkspawn are all around, and they are not the only threat. There are many strange creatures here, and I am sure you would be simply fascinated.

We are here chasing ghosts, brother. The dwarves have sent us on one foolish errand after another in pursuit of this final treaty. We have cleared thaigs (they are something like city-states, perhaps?) and criminal hideouts, and still it was not enough. I know that we are being played for fools, but the dwarves would be a great aid against the Blight, being on the frontlines of war against the darkspawn as they are.

The latest task is to find some living dwarven legend, a Paragon, they call her. Her name is Branka, and she took her entire house into the Deep Roads in pursuit of something they call the Anvil of the Void. It was used to create golems in the past but has been lost for many years. Well, I say her entire house, but that is not entirely true. One member remains, her husband, a warrior by the name of Oghren.

I suppose you have guessed by now that Oghren travels with us. I do seem to have collected a most motley crew, have I not? He met us at the entrance to the Deep Roads and refused to leave once he learned that we sought his wife. It seemed the wise thing to do, bring a dwarf with us to the Deep Roads and a renowned warrior at that. But Oghren is…not that simple. As if any of my companions are.

I think you would like him. Oghren is all bawdy songs and drunkenness and crude jokes on the surface, and he is indeed a fearsome warrior when the darkspawn strike. Underneath that? Sometimes I think there is nothing underneath. Other days I see something more familiar, a frustration that life is not the way that it ought to be, and perhaps a woundedness that he tries to hide. He hides it well though.

We have pulled together, all of us, here in the darkness, despite our differences. Even Sten and Morrigan, the two most distant of my companions, seem closer now. We are so isolated here in the earth, and it often seems as if nothing else exists, that the world above us is what is make-believe and this is the only reality.

At the same time, I am glad for the reminders that there is something else. Dwarven society is so different from our own, Fergus. The nobles play their games in the world above, but here, they are cut-throat and vicious, and it seems like there is no love even for a brother or a parent. I cannot imagine living that way, day in and day out, never knowing who to trust or if love is real. Maybe Howe could…but not me, not after Mother and Father and you. Everyone uses each other here, and so many are cast by the wayside. You should see them – but no, you should not. It is heart-breaking, how some live in squalor and are so completely ignored by their fellow dwarves that they are told they should not exist, that they were never meant to be born.

I met a woman, Fergus, whose was cast out of her home for the crime of giving birth to the son of a casteless dwarf. Her name was Zerlinda – I remember it even after so many weeks in the darkness. Alistair and I were able to convince her family to take her back in, but it is not enough. It is why I have thrown my support behind Bhelen Aeducan, the prior king's son. Zevran supports the decision whole-heartedly, he says that Bhelen is a strong leader, and he is right in that. But I see it in his eyes, Bhelen is devious and sly. I do not trust him, and Alistair agrees with me. But he is the dwarves' best option for change – he says that he supports dissolution of the castes. I am not sure if I can believe him, but the dwarves cannot stay the way they are, they cannot.

But all of this is not why I am writing you this letter here in the depths of the earth, is it? I have tried to keep count of the days, though I think I have failed utterly, and have either missed the day entirely or anticipated it. But I will wish you a happy naming day anyways, brother, and send you all my love, wherever you are.

Your own,

Amelia