Merrill was ankle-deep in foul muck and very much reluctant to even consider wading in any farther. Still, she had to finish mapping out this series of inter-connected ponds and the sludgey-rivers of waste and debris that flowed into them so that she could get an accurate picture of what she would be dealing with. If she purified the muck from the ponds only to discover that she'd missed a tributary of foulness, then all of her hard work would not last for very long at all. She also needed to figure out where that sewage was coming from. The only fortunate part of her day so far was the fact that she knew a spell that deadened her nose. She closed her eyes and sent her sense of "earth" outward and down once again.

Earlier the last week she had investigated the stone bedrock of the Alienage in search of those pockets of noxious, deadly gasses trapped within them. She's used the ancient spell of stoneshaping (that she suspected had once been taught to her ancestors by dwarves, despite the fact that they could not do magic) to seal off every crack and crevice in the stone that might give the chokemist a way out, then she had Shaped the smallest of tunnels through the rock to the surface in a collapsed structure that had long been abandoned where she'd had a specially prepared spell waiting for the gas to escape. It purified the air by crystalizing the dangerous parts of the gas and allowing the cleaned air to escape. Merrill now had several very large thick glass jars of small crystals of various chemicals that had been sealed deep within the earth. They might prove useful sooner or later. Several of them, she knew, could be used in various ancient alchemical processes, but that might be a project for another time.

Now, she was investigating possible sewage lines. Her people dumped thier waste in a marshy cesspit in an unpopulated area in the very back corner of the alienage. It might have once been a garden, long ago, but now nothing would grow there due to the sheer amount of waste clogging every inch of it. The ground was poisoned by it and the air was none too pleasant. The interconnected marshey puddles of sludge however, could be very useful if she could get a handle on the situation and turn it around.

She was making progress on getting the elven community behind her, which she knew, was not just an advantage, but an absolute necessity if any of her plans were to work. There was no point in having a clinic set up o serve the community if the community she wanted to serve would not come to her. The medicines she brought to the various "Keepers" (which were really more like the leading elders of each hex) had done wonders for paving the way to good relations with them.

Alienage life was more complex than Merrill had thought at first. The alienage consisted of more than just her courtyard with the vhenandhal, it was actually divided up into twelve Hexes, which were neighborhoods of homes carved out of cliff-rock centuries ago by the slaves that had lived there before Kirkwall became part of the Free Marches all focused around a stone courtyard. Each Hex was sort of its own community. Each Hex was run by its own Keeper, and they had their own midwives/healers, each little neighborhood had its own craftsmen, its own little market, its own way of getting food, its own network of families who had their own structure of alliances and rivalries. Merrill was near to certain that, unlike the Dalish Clans, however, that each Hex Keeper met with and consulted with regularly with all or nearly all of the fact she was fairly sure that, despite each Hex having its own unique character, tat they all considered themselves part of the same alienage, and they worked together more than any Dalish Clan probably ever would.

As Dalish and isolated as she had been up until this point, they had yet to accept Merrill as one of their own, but she had begun to make it a point to visit round the Hexes with their Keepers to offer supplies from her own store of medicines and the occasional pot of tea... she was making progress.

:Well, progress with some more than others...: Merrill thought ruefully of her recent visit to the Sixth Hex.

The Keeper there was an intimidatingly elegant man with a cold and aloof demeanor who, despite the fact that he lived in poverty managed to come off as somehow looking down his perfect patrician nose at her and wondering why she was soiling his doorstep with her unasked-for presence. His wife had been nice, and the two of them had shared a lovely pot of tea, but Keeper Asuya Aluethi had been entirely unapproachable. She'd tried to visit with the Keeper of Eleventh Hex, but that Hex was populated entirely by thugs who seemed to like to do nothing else but brawl amongst themselves day and night. Her attempts to meet with the Keeper had led to the assumption that she had wanted to challenge him for the leadership, and she'd been promptly invited (invited!) to have a warm up fight or ten with any of the nearest thugs, just to get her in shape for the main event.

:It was almost as though they were trying to be hospitable, but their notion of hospitality is so divorced from the norm that they wouldn't know a friendly visit if it bit them on the nose!: Merrill thought in amazement.

Some of those thugs had been truly terrifying to look at, all fierce grins and tattoos all over the place. Merrill had thought that if the least of them looked like they might hold off a small invasion, the greatest of them, their Keeper, would be too terrifying for her to want anything to do with and Merrill had promptly escaped to safer lands.

"Miss Dalish!" a small piping voice from off to her right called out to her.

Merrill looked over her shoulder at Perdah, a young, orphaned elven lad of about nine or so, that had taken an interest in following her about. He belonged loosely to Soilana's Hex (which was the Second Hex), though he tended to travel where there was food available. He did odd jobs, such as running messages or washing pots, to cadge his next meal if it didn't look likely there would be a table with any extra food on it. He had come to realize that the Dalish was a reliable (and tasty!) source of food, though he remained wary of her very clear use of magic.

"Hullo Perdah," Merrill greeted.

"What're ya doin in this place? It stinks!"

The last was said more with awe than with disdain. As a young boy he was more interested in finding things that were interesting to young boys rather than picking up any fastidiousness.

"I'm trying to map it, so I can see where the water is coming from and flowing to," Merrill replied. "I'm nearly finished."

It was hard to catch a break in between what Anders was determinedly stuffing into her head and her own pet projects, but Merrill had always prided herself on being a very quick study. Her long time cleansing Taint from the Eluvian shards was paying dividends both with her training as a Healer, and with her current pet project.

"Perdah," she turned to the young boy, suddenly coming across a thought.

The young boy with his propensity for visiting every Hex and knowing most of the families within each Hex, might know some of the things Merrill was currently at a loss on. She couldnt do the entire process on her own, even the seedlings she was currently growing for the purpose couldn't clear it out overnight; there was a lot of detritus and junk, like broken chairs and bits of rag an bone, choking the swamp the she needed taken out before the real work could begin. To that end, she needed strong hands and backs capable of the work.

"You seem to know everyone here," she began in that admiring tone she had found worked well with getting the other Keepers to like her. "Would you perhaps know a few strong, braw lads who could use some extra coin, but wouldn't mind getting their hands, and other parts of them dirty for a few days?"

"Sure!" he said brightly. "Some of 'em might even do just fer the chance ta see real, raw magic from a real Dalish."

His tone indicated that he would certainly stick around for such a thing. Wary he might be, but he was still curious as any at the sight of something new. All the Shem locked away their mages, so the opportunity to see real magic performed was low. No matter how people feared it, there were still as many who would see it as a novelty just as long as there were no demons about.

"Are ya gonna work magic, Miss Dalish?"

"Why would you think I can work magic?" she temporized, wary of letting her Gift become the subject of common gossip and thus, possible Templar scrutiny.

"Yer Dalish," the boy said with a shrug. "An' everyone says ya got a magic-ing teacher, though they call him "the man downstairs," everyone knows they mean that Healing-Shem in Darktown."

"Not every Dalish can work magic you know," Merrill felt obliged to point out. "And as for the possibility of me working it, well, we shall see. Now, I need to go get cleaned up so I can put in my day in the clinic with the man downstairs."

Anders was beginning to worry about the tardiness of his apprentice, when she was usually so very punctual, but the sight of her showing up in her second-best clothes with her hair wet and smelling of soap told him why. She had given herself a bath. Merrill bowed her greeting and awaited his instruction.

"That case of the Rattles is shaping up to be a fair epidemic," Anders said, pointing her over to a knot of elderly and little street urchins coughing pathetically in one corner. "I've dispensed medicines about darktown to those I can trust, and good luck to them on getting them to the ones who need it, instead of the hands of the local crime-lords. These are the ones who came in early on in hopes of getting to it before it became worse."

Merrill nodded and got directly to work while he kept watch over her from the corner of his eye while he worked his own Healing. Epidemics in Darktown, he knew from long experience as a Healer, was a lot like trying to bail back the tide with a bucket. Anders and his new apprentice could cure a whole lot of individual patients, but as long as they remained in an environment where the infection was likely to spread, and they remained unwashed and malnourished, the two Healers were likely to see them again before long.

He nodded to himself in satisfaction as he watched the gentle, blue-green magic that characterized Merrill's own Healing magic, seep with deft precision into the nearest patient and cleanse the sickness from the elderly man's body. It seemed her work cleansing the Eluvian of Taint was paying off after all. Anders had sometimes wondered if Merrill might be able to do the same with him that she had managed with the shards of her Eluvian; that was, to cleanse some of the Taint from him. It was no longer an active Blight, and there was no Archdemon or Darkspawn screaming in his dreams, but every now and then Anders felt the pull of his Tainted blood. Even a little lessening would be a blessing. He knew that it was a senseless hope however. Magic had no effect on the Taint of the Blight, if it had Healers like himself would be priceless for their ability rid people of Taint.

"So, what is it you're working on in the alienage?" he inquired conversationally of his apprentice as they both began their work for the day.

He had the wry amusement of watching her magic "hiccup" in surprise as she looked over at him. Her transparent face showed her amazement at "all-seeing" teachers powers (something that must have been instilled in her by her previous Teacher).

"How did you know about that?" Merrill asked in amazement.

"I'm a Healer," Anders said, preserving his air of mystery.

The truth of the matter was far more mundane than some arcane ability to read her thoughts, though if he'd had a mind to plumb her secrets it would not be hard to do so, the little woman was as easy to read as a page of text. He was the sole Healer that Darktown possessed, and it was well-known that Merrill was his apprentice. There were plenty of grateful patients and thier hoardes of equally grateful children who acted as his ears and eyes on the streets whether he asked them to or not. It wasn't only his ability with magic, or his former connections that kept him safe, information was a valued and useful commodity as well.

"Well..." Merrill said. "The Alienage... has no sewage."

"Ah!" Anders nodded to himself.

It was a problem in Darktown too, though, with the number of Dwarven Carta members who had come to him for Healing and didn't like being indebted to him as a result, it was slowly becoming less of a problem as he cashed in the debts to improve the decrepit sewage system in that part of Kirkwall.

"It's your luck then," he added a pleased moment later. "Sanitation is always a big concern for a Healer, and I have several very useful books on the matter. I'll add them to your reading list."

Truth to tell, Anders wasn't sure how she managed to read all she gave him in such a short amount of time. Read it and be able to spit it back at him on the drop of a question. He'd taken the better part of a year to read through what she had digested in the course of the last two months. Then again, perhaps he should not be so surprised, she had memorized all of the collective lore of the Dalish. Still, if this was what an apt pupil she was, Anders was amazed that Marethari had been induced to give her up at any cost.

"The Elves once had a system for sanitation that relied on an intercropped system of specifically modified plants to cleanse and purify the water," Merrill said. "Do your books have any notes on that?"

He shook his head, partly in amusement. Trust Merrill to come at any problem from an elven perspective.

"No, mostly mundane methods and the occasional spell, depending on the book."

"Nothing learned is ever wasted, as Marethari was fond of saying. Thank-you for your help."

The two of them worked their way patiently through the small crowd of sick and injured. The injured tended to trust Anders more than they did his apprentice, for despite his attempts to keep her past proclivities a secret, there persisted the rumor that Anders' apprentice was a blood mage and no-one with any open wound wanted anything to do with her. Still, her handling of the sick was swiftly catching up to a professional level, and she still halved his workload as a result. If she kept up at that pace, before too much longer he would have to consider taking the final plunge and teaching her genuine Spirit Healing. Once she took that step, it would only be a short matter of time before she would round out her education with experience and... well, he wasn't sure what would come next.

"Well, look at the two of you," a cheerful voice said off to one side.

"Hawke," Anders greeted from over his shoulder as he finished fusing together the bone(s) of the patient under his hands.

The sweet, sursurating chime of the Spirit aiding his magic whispered in alongside the magic he pulled through the Fade and added an extra push of power when and where he needed it. Hawke stood there in the doorway of the now-half-empty clinic.

'Well!' Anders thought in amazement. 'Half-empty and it's just past noon!'

He might even get to have lunch that day! His stomach growled and Merrill, not waiting for her teacher to find an excuse to get out of it, had already cleared off a space on a bench and pulled out the lunch-basket she always brought with her. It usually contained bread and cheese, whatever fruit or vegetable she could get hold of, plus the occasional boiled egg or smoked fish for lunch. She seemed to have taken it upon herself to see that her teacher ate with greater regularity. He could (and often did) ignore the other two women who manned his clinic in favor of getting more of his work done if he so chose. Merrill, however, had the most effective puppy eyes he had ever seen, and she was not afraid to use them.

"Don't we make an industrious pair," Varric said from just behind Hawke.

"Mind you don't blow anything up," was Fenris' inevitable dry and snarky comment.

"Hmmm..." Isabella said slyly from where she looked like she was considering riffling through his medicine cabinet.

His locked medicine cabinet.

"Stay out of that Isabella," Anders told her. "I know you have an allergy to locked things staying locked around you, but there's nothing in there more interesting than cures for coughs and burn-salves."

"Oooh, yes," Merrill seconded. "All of his interesting books are that way." She pointed.

Anders shot her an exasperated look, but then what she'd said caught up to him.

"Hey!" he protested a moment later as Isabella went after her quarry. "How would you know where my personal grimoires are?"

Merrill blushed and looked chagrined.

"I just had a little peek," she blushed deeply.

"Haven't I been giving you enough to read?" he demanded, not really angry with her, but a little miffed that she was going through his things wihout asking. He already shared his mind and body with a Spirit of Justice, did he have no privacy at all?

"Well, that's all... Serious, mage work. I was looking for something a little more, umm..." she blushed even deeper. "Fun."

"Fun," he said dubiously, not quite seeing what she was dancing around.

"Well I'd heard from Isabella that you used to be... um, well. I was just wondering if you had any... spells, that might, well..."

"That might..." he pressed.

"Dirty spells," she admited, with a crimson blush. "I'd heard you knew spells that made things, well, exciting."

Anders looked at her in surprise and in his surprise the first thing he thought popped right out of his mouth.

"But you don't have anyone to use those sorts of spells with!"

The look she gave him was one of crushed hopes and dreams, pathetic as a starving puppy.

"Someday I might," she said, sadly.

Anders had to remind himself that Merrill wasn't like him, a man who had screwed over almost everything good that had come his way with bad decision after bad decision and who could probably only look forward to making worse ones in the future. She was a young woman, a very pretty young woman, who had her whole life still ahead of her, possibly filled with nice options.

'Well, if she can get past this soul-bonding thing with that cantankerous blowhard of an elf, she'll have good options.'

"Aw Kitten..." Isabella said, sauntering over and giving his apprentice's shoulders a sisterly squeeze that still managed to look lascivious. "Why don't you come over to the Mansion with me and Hawke tonight, I'll tell you a few secrets that'll make your toes curl, no magic required."

Both Fenris and Anders gave the buxom pirate queen matching looks of horror.

"Stop trying to corrupt the girl," Varric interrupted before either of them could protest. "Daisy's just fine the way she is."