Chapter 21: The Tunnels

"Branching tunnels," Hawke groaned. "Knight-Commander, you have led us into a cliché."

For the past hour, Cullen had led the group with little pause. He had studied the maps of these tunnels for some time, and seemed certain of where to go, where their quarry could or could not be. And now, he was at a loss. He said nothing to Hawke's jest, simply stood in front of three passages and glared.

"The one on the right leads to the surface," Fenris said. He had wandered into the passage, and had his hands raised up to the level of his face. "You can already tell the air is less stale, and there is moisture on these walls."

"An entrance we didn't have marked," Cullen muttered. "Bloody well figures. Can you follow it up and find out where it leads?"

"Don't kill them all without me," the elf said, heading off.

"We split up and take the other two," Cullen said. "Hawke, you're with me. Aveline, care to take the center passage?"

"A pleasure," the Guard Captain said, drawing her sword. "Varric, Bethany, Sebastian, you're with me."

"I suppose I can keep the rest of you safe," Varric laughed.

"Scary passages and loudmouthed miscreants," Sebastian said. "I think I actually missed this."

Aveline took her group and led them on.

"Is this how you people usually operate? No focus at all," Cullen said, leading Hawke, Merrill and Isabela down the tunnel on the far left.

"Running commentary," Hawke replied. "It keeps things interesting."

"Conversations are so much better when peril is involved," Isabela added. "It's either this or pirate talk for me. Frankly going on a quest with people who don't say "yarrr" at any point is refreshing."

"What does "yarrr" mean?" Merrill asked, doing her best to imitate the pirate growl.

Cullen pressed on, ignoring the banter. Hawke and his group did not seem to notice the change in the smell, but he did. The stale odor of the abandoned tunnel was giving way to something else, something almost pleasant, like cooking meat. He suspected that, had Fenris not gone to investigate the third path, he would have picked up on it as well. The tattooed elf seemed to have incredible instincts. There had been a time, many years ago, where he had half-jokingly suggested to his predecessor, the Knight-Commander Meredith, that Fenris be recruited and fast-tracked into service as a Templar.

But that was a different time. The elf had his own path to walk, and the Order was struggling to define itself. Here and now, a task was at hand that the Kirkwall Templars would once have dealt with quickly and efficiently. Now Cullen felt that the only ones he could trust were… These people.

"I will never, ever get used to this," Varric said. "I know I run the "I'm not from underground" bit a lot, but yeah…"

"Varric, you're rambling," Aveline said. She led the way, her sword in one hand, a torch in the other. "You never ramble."

"I ramble now," the dwarf said. "I do a lot of things now. Thank Trevelyan for that. I may write a limerick about it sometime."

"Trevelyan?" Sebastian asked.

"I'll explain later," Varric said. "You'd like him."

Aveline raised a hand, and the others stopped.

"Have we been moving upwards?" she asked.

"Gradually," Bethany answered. "Captain, if you don't mind, exploring dark spaces is more my forte than yours."

Varric chortled, then went quiet when the others glared at him.

"Quiet, everyone," Bethany whispered. "We're being watched."

Varric looked around. He couldn't tell how she was so certain, but it he had learned by now to trust people with her kind of experience. The Grey Warden was moving about slowly, eyeing every possible crack or hole in the walls of the tunnel. Her hands were both glowing, her magic seeming to seek out the supposed spy as actively as her eyes were. He, Sebastian and Aveline tried to glance around themselves, but none knew exactly what Bethany was looking for. The only thing he noticed was the sound of water dripping somewhere overhead.

The Warden inched forward, letting her magic illuminate the space around her. In the span of several minutes, she had only moved a few yards, and whatever had set her off had yet to be uncovered.

Fenris was almost disappointed. His path led on for some way, with no change. The draft was a bit stronger now, but that was it. His torch flickered every now and then, as if to remind him that he was close to the surface again.

"Bored," he said to no one. "Cullen owes me a drink after this is done. So does Hawke. And Isabela…"

The thought of the pirate queen gave him pause. He hated to admit it, but the occasional high-seas adventure with that woman actually made him happy. Somebody had jested to him once that he was allergic to genuine happiness.

The flame from his torch started to grow. His daydream was broken as he realized the draft was suddenly much stronger, and as he looked up, he saw a hatch with a wooden handle in the ceiling above him. Cautiously, he reached up, pulled the handle, and stepped back as it opened and gave way to a flimsy wooden staircase.

"Guess I've found that new entrance," he muttered. No matter what, he maintained that the conversation was best when he was the only one around. He ascended the steps to find himself in an empty room, illuminated by a single window. Fenris found his way to a door, and stepped outside into the street.

"Hey, it's one of them," came a man's voice.

Fenris looked across the street to see a group of Templars milling about. Two were placing a large body in a sack and loading it onto a cart.

"So," he groaned. "I've gone in a circle. Brilliant."

"Here," Bethany said, letting her voice resume its normal volume. She grabbed her staff and started tapping on the ceiling. "Come on now, you've been found."

The sound of dripping water Varric observed earlier suddenly stopped, then began again, moving in another direction. It was at this point that he realized the sounds were very light footsteps.

"There's a passage above us," he said. Bethany nodded.

"They've been following us this whole way," she said. She hit a spot on the ceiling harder, and poked a large hole in it. She held it there and clenched both hands around the shaft of the staff. The whole ceiling rumbled.

"Alright, enough!" a female voice called. There was the sound of somebody leaping several feet, and then a door opened.

"Where did that…" Sebastian started. "Never mind, hidden tunnels, I'm not going to pry."

The door seemed to open without hinges. There had been no evidence of it in the wall before that moment. Light flooded out, and a woman emerged.

"Well then, hello," she said.

"Hey!" Varric snapped. "Hey, I know you. Sebastian, remember this weirdo?"

"Oh yes, you came to help me once," the woman said. Varric remembered her looking meek and prim. Her black hair tumbled to her waist now, and her gown was decidedly more revealing than the one she'd had on that day on the Wounded Coast years before.

"Oranna, correct?" Sebastian asked. There was a clear tone of mistrust in his voice, and he had placed his hand behind his head, over his quiver. "I do remember. We'd been sent to rescue you. You'd been taken by robbers, and when we found you, they were all dead and you were rambling about being saved by-"

"Feynriel," Varric groaned. "Still sweet on him, eh?"

"Of course!" Oranna squealed. "I set off to find him days later. He guided me in my dreams, and made me his bride in the waking world as soon as I found him in Minrathous!"

The tunnel began to illuminate. The four glanced to their sides, and saw the walls around them start to illuminate and open.

"So then," Varric moaned, "we walked into a trap, didn't we?"

"…And when we kicked the door down, the hairy little oaf was sitting on his privy!" Isabela laughed. "He had to know we were coming, but it couldn't bloody wait!"

Hawke grinned, and Merrill giggled. Cullen shook his head. The tunnel took them deeper underground. The further they went, the more maintained the space looked.

"They really should put carpet down here," Merrill mused.

It was another full hour of walking before they came to the tunnel's end. It was abrupt, just a large flat wall lined with torches. On either side was a plain wooden door. Cullen approached the door on the left and signaled the others to follow, but Merrill broke away, excitedly rushing to the door on the right.

"There's something in here," she said, noticing the others no longer surrounding her. "I can practically feel the power. Come on, I bet it's exciting!"

"You boys have your fun here," Isabela said, breaking away. "We girls can have our own fun."

"Don't get into too much trouble without me, dear," Hawke called to his wife.

"Ma vhenan, you never want me to get in trouble," Merrill said. "Maybe I'd like my big, strong husband to come rescue me."

"Oh, I missed the two of you," Isabela laughed, opening the door.

"Enough of this," Cullen snapped. He grabbed Hawke's arm and dragged him to the other door.

Merrill lingered to gaze at Hawke until he was through the door. When he was out of sight, she followed Isabela.

"Much as I generally like looking at myself, the damp down here has not been kind to my hair," the pirate chuckled. Merrill entered the room and gasped at the sight of seven free-standing mirrors. "Kitten, something wrong?"

Merrill started to shake, and sank to her knees as she tried to calm herself.

"Kitten?"

"Isabela, do you recognize these?" Merrill asked.

"They're mirrors," Isabela said. "Big, fancy mirrors. Like the creepy one you used to… Oh."

Merrill nodded.

"What did you call the one you kept?"

"Eluvian," Merrill said. She turned her face to the floor, and took a deep breath. "I could feel their power radiating even from outside. These are eluvians."