Exterminators

Sareyna exited the basement with a tired sigh. She was headed into the Keep when she heard a voice calling for her.

"Commander! Commander!"

She turned and saw Eveleen bustling towards her. She had a small girl in tow; she couldn't have been any older than seven or eight. On the otherside of her was a man, who was clearly her brother, they could have been twins, except that she wore a grin and her brother wore a scowl. Sareyna thought briefly of the masks Leliana had told her about 'comedy and tragedy'.

She pushed the thought aside and smiled. "Eveleen! You have perfect timing." She clasped the woman's hand between her own.

Eveleen's smile got even bigger. "I thought…"

"Where is Howe?"

Sareyna turned her gaze back to Eveleen's brother. "I'm sorry?"

"Howe, where is Howe?"

Sareyna frowned. "I'm not sure, why?"

Eveleen was glaring at her brother. "Edan, that is enough!"

"Evie, he broke your heart." He whined.

"No, he was sent away. That's what broke my heart. He had no choice. Now quit being ridiculous." She turned back to Sareyna. "I apologize; being the little sister can be trying at times." She gave a weak smile. "Could you show me to our rooms?"

Sareyna nodded. "Follow me." Sareyna brought them inside and was headed for the stairs when they heard Varel behind them.

"Miss Eveleen, how wonderful to see you again child."

She laughed heartily, "I am hardly a child Varel, but thank you. I think you might remember my brother Edan." She gestured to the scowling man. "And this is my daughter Keeva." The little girl stepped forward and did a fair imitation of a curtsey.

"It is nice to meet you young miss."

"Thank you." The girl murmured. Her voice was a bit deeper than one might think for a child of her size.

Varel motioned a servant towards the doors. The servant bowed and disappeared, possibly to get help. "Let me show you to your rooms. We will bring your things to you there."

Eveleen nodded and followed the stately seneschal up the stairs. Sareyna turned and headed for the refectory. Eveleen's arrival could not be more fortuitous. It seemed they had a pest problem in the Keep's basement.

She sat down at a table and started picking meat and bread from the platter in front of Alistair. "So, did you get everything taken care of with the cook?"

Alistair beamed. "I did, they already have quite the variety of cheese. She promised to keep a lot on hand though."

Sareyna raised a brow. "Please tell me you talked to her about things other than cheese."

Alistair rolled his eyes. "Of course, contrary to popular belief, I'm not a complete idiot."

"No, just single minded sometimes." She kissed him on the cheek before snagging a piece of what looked like cheddar off the platter and popping it into her mouth. "Mmm, this is good cheddar."

Alistair's eyes lit up. "I know. It's aged! So what did Maverlies want?"

Sareyna heaved a heavy sigh. She looked around the refectory and saw most of the Wardens were already there. "Anders, can you go get Zevran please?"

"I'm not sure where he is." He looked around to see if Oghren of Nathaniel seemed to have an idea.

"He's probably on the roof if he's not in the training yard." Sareyna answered.

Anders nodded and left the room.

"So, it's about Darkspawn I take it."

"Probably. Parts of the basement caved in. Maverlies is concerned there might be 'pockets of darkspawn' so I told her to have her men dig it out and we would go take a look."

Alistair held Trelain a little tighter against him. "What about Trelain?"

"Well Eveleen just arrived. I thought we could leave him with her while we look, unless you want to wait up here."

He scowled at her. "No, if there are Darkspawn, here of all places, I'm going with you to take care of it. I will not have my family threatened where they live."

She squeezed his hand. "Thank you."

Alistair took Trelain to Eveleen while Sareyna filled the Wardens in. "Would it be easier to watch him in our suite since they are going to be in and out of your room for a while?"

"No thank you, ser. I'm hoping to get unpacked while he sleeps."

Alistair nodded and handed Trelain over to her. "His name is Trelain."

Eveleen laughed. "No, doubt who his parents are eh?"

Alistair glanced over to the girl sitting on the bed smoothing her dolls dress. She had pretty grey eyes and straight black hair. She had Eveleen's nose and skin color though. Alistair's lip curved into a wry smile. "None at all."

Eveleen didn't miss where his gaze had fallen. "Is this going to be a problem? The Commander said it was alright."

He slowly turned his gaze back to Eveleen. "Not a problem for us, I'm not sure how it will be for the two of you."

Eveleen tried to give him a reassuring smile. "We'll be fine, ser."

Alistair nodded. "Thank you again for helping us."

She nodded and Alistair left, heading back to the refectory. Sareyna was just finishing up and everyone was heading to get their gear. Nathaniel had no idea how deep the basements went, but Sergeant Maverlies had said they went on for what seemed to be forever.

The basements were full of surprises. They found hidden compartments, ghouls, prisoners and an injured dog the first day. Everyone was surprised at how much there was to the basements. The second day they left as quickly as possible searching for Adria.

Nathaniel was near frantic wanting to find her. He was angry that they had stopped and rested instead of pressing on and finding her. When they did find her it was worse. She was a ghoul and Nathaniel wanted so much to help her, he had a hard time believing that she was already gone. At least until she had attacked him.

Sareyna had quickly put her down to spare Nathaniel the guilt of doing it himself. There were several other ghouls with her; apparently they had all been servants at the Keep at one point. Sareyna apologized to Nathaniel when it was over. He grunted and moved on.

He had only taken a few steps when they ran into another area that was caved in. Sergeant Maverlies and Voldrik appeared behind them as if by magic. Maverlies advised them it would be sometime before they had the rubble cleared away.

Upon consensus it was decided they would return to the Keep. Every one of them needed a respite from the basement. It took them only hours to return to the Keep since they weren't fighting anyone on the way back. Alistair ran to ask a servant to draw a bath in their rooms. Sareyna headed straight to their rooms and collapsed. The rest of the Wardens seemed eager to do the same.

Alistair and Sareyna were awoken the next morning by someone knocking on their door. Alistair grumbled and slid out of bed, pulling on a pair of trousers. He stumbled to the door, looking very much annoyed. He unlocked and yanked open the door. "What?"

Zevran smiled broadly. "Maverlies is waiting for us downstairs. You two might want to get dressed and come to the main hall."

Alistair huffed loudly. "What good is a bed if I never get more than a couple hours in it. I feel like we got more sleep during the Blight."

Zevran smiled crookedly. "We did. Seems an injustice no? There is no Archdemon, more Wardens, yet we sleep less."

Alistair yawned. "We'll be down in a few." He closed the door as Zevran left and turned around to see Sareyna already pulling her armor on. He went to his armor stand and followed suit.

They spent the next three days in the basement, or rather the Deep Roads. The Darkspawn had made an access to the basement from the Deep Roads. The six of them cleared everything in their path as they moved further and further into the Deep Roads.

Besides the normal Darkspawn they also encountered reanimated skeletons and a strange creature that looked like a shade but was larger and much more powerful. It took off before they were able to kill it. They spent the better part of a day following it thorough the twists and turns of the Deep Roads.

As they had come around the last bend they were attacked by Darkspawn. Zevran and Alistair took down the Ogre while the rest of them concentrated on the hurlocks and genlocks. Once the small band of Darkspawn were defeated Zevran busied himself confiscating anything useful from the corpses as he was finishing the ogre seemed to rise up and start attacking them.

"What is that?" Anders shouted. "A ghost?"

Alistair swung his sword and caught the translucent ogre in the leg. "Not sure, but it feels solid enough."

They all swung into action and were eventually able to bring the monstrosity down. "So, guys…The next time you say you've got the ogre, I expect you to really kill it." Sareyna smiled as she bent forward panting.

"Is it just me, or was that harder to take down the second time?" Alistair asked Zev.

"Definitely more difficult my friend."

Anders was leaning against the wall catching his breath. "I feel like we've been fighting everyday for weeks."

"Commander, the Ancestors favor us indeed."

"Gah! Where did you come from Voldrik?" Sareyna barked in surprise. The last thing she had expected was for him to suddenly show up.

Voldrik furrowed his brow in confusion. "We've been following you so we would know where we needed to go to seal off the Keep from the Deep Roads."

"Oh, ok."

Voldrik gestured to the doors in front of them "This is a Dwarven barrier door. Before old Kal Hir'ol fell she nearly had it complete. Only the mechanism needs work. If they'd only had a bit more time to finish. Orzammar wouldn't be all alone."

"What about Kal-Sharok?" Alistair asked.

Voldrik made a face. "Orzammar might as well be alone. Kal-Sharok is reclusive even from dwarves. And there are very few dwarves there anyway."

"Well hopefully someday the dwarves can reclaim the old territories." Sareyna interjected.

"If the stone wills it. You give a brother hope Commander. Won't take me long to fix up the mechanism. The poor sods were nearly done." Voldrik turned to work on the mechanism that operated the door.

The Wardens kept alert for any Darkspawn while Voldrik worked. He finished with the mechanism in less than an hour. And no Darkspawn were spotted, Alistair and Zevran could feel them but both agreed they were quite a distance away from them. And more importantly were on the far side of the doors.

Voldrik came towards them looking to the doors. "This is proper Dwarven engineering. You stand back now." They all turned and watched as three sets of heavy metal doors clanged shut. "This should buy us a few years. A decade if we're lucky."

"That will give us time to devise a more permanent solution." Sergeant Maverlies piped in.

"At least all the pests in the basement have been dealt with. Hopefully, there aren't any other threats like this around the Keep."

"None that we have found Commander, I had my men do a thorough sweep."

"Thank you, Sergeant." Sareyna turned back to her men. "Ready to head back to the Keep guys?"

"Please" Anders groaned. And so they started their long trek back to the Keep.