Obligatory Chapter Heading:

Chapter 43:

The path to Caridin's Cross was uneventful. The only thing of note was when Zevran caught up to us and gave me a steely glare. Other than that, though, he seemed alright with my choice to leave everyone behind. He slipped back in to his normal self after that.

We'd followed the map, bypassing Aeducan Thaig, and were met by a small group of people.

Oghren ignored them, looking around, "Caridin's Cross! I can't believe Bhelen actually tracked this place down. This used to be one of the biggest crossroads in the old empire. You could get anywhere from here. Including Ortan Thaig." He turned his head, a knowing expression on his face.

"What's so important about Ortan Thaig?" I murmured, keeping an eye on the people at the end of the long corridor.

"It's the home of Caridin, the Paragon who made the Anvil. He was an Ortan before he founded his own house, and even then, he spent most of his time in their thaig. Branka figured it was the best guess for where the Anvil was located."

"You know where to go from here?" Zevran asked softly.

"Aye. Branka dug up some maps of the ancient empire. It's a little tough to tell with so much of it collapsed now, but near as I can figure, we're on the right path to Ortan Thaig." He must have memorized them when she was still in Orzammar, talking about it all.

"Great. Let's go." I rested a hand on one of my dagger hilts.

"I've been waiting for someone to say that for two sodding years."

As we approached, the people became easier to distinguish. Three dwarven men and an elven woman who was also mage.

"Well, look what we have here... A couple of Bhelen's little lackeys... Let's show 'em who's king!" With that, the dwarves unsheathed their weapons, and we followed suit.

The resulting fight could barely be classified as a scuffle, it was so short. Zevran took out one of the men, while Oghren beheaded one and gutted the other. I threw one of my daggers at the mage, which she brushed off. She even had the gall to smile in triumph. It was short-lived, however, because I sent an ice shard her way. It impaled her chest, and she died instantly. A quick search of the branching corridors told us that they had been alone. No one would be coming to defend them.

A trio of darkspawn was our next challenge. I encased them in ice, and my companions shattered them in to tiny pieces with their blows. Darkspawn here, darkspawn there. We carved a path through them, leaving their bodies behind as a warning to others. We would destroy any that crossed our path.

"What the hell is that?" I gasped, dodging to the side in the nick of time as a large bipedal beast charged me.

"That's a bronto! They're fierce beasts that can be trained to attack! Isn't it majestic?" Oghren was even more drunk than I'd originally thought, if he found this thing majestic. While it was trying to gut us with it's horns.

Those bronto took the longest to fall, one knocking down a support pillar and almost crushing us under a ton of rock when the ceiling collapsed. That's what killed that particular beast, but we'd quickly discovered we would have to find another way out of the Deep Roads. It was impassable.

Shrieks became more and more abundant the farther we got, the deeper in to the mountain we went. I kept the three of us well protected, but there were still the little scrapes and scratches, of course.

And then came the ogres. Some were larger than others. The smaller ones looked to them for direction, it seemed. We did our best to take those out before working on the rest; when their leaders fell, they acted more out of anger and frustration than logic. Easy pickings.

One tunnel, two tunnel-it seemed to be never ending. Scores of darkspawn fell to our blades, Oghren had lost count of how many he'd finished off. Finally. Since we'd begun, he'd been calling out a number each time he killed one.

Something lunged from the shadows, and then we were surrounded by... baby raptors?

"Deep Stalkers." Oghren cursed, swinging his giant axe around like it weighed nothing, "They're not hard to kill, but they're sodding annoying!"

I'd shared the sentiment. No matter how many we took out, more would pop up out of thin air, it felt like. Only once we'd dealt with their queen, the large purple one, would they disband and flee.

A day and a half in to the journey, we had come upon a split in the tunnel. One way branched left, while the other continued forward. We'd been about to encounter a large group of darkspawn, ands they hadn't sensed me yet.

"Guys, stay here."

"No sodding way, girly."

I'd rolled my eyes and raised an eyebrow at him, "There are too many for us to take in a clean fight. Let me do my thing. I'll wipe them out before they know what's happening."

He'd opened his mouth, but Zevran had shaken his head, "She knows what she's doing."

I'd waited until I was closer to the darkspawn, sneaking around the bend, before cloaking myself. Invisible, I'd walked right up to each and every creature and slit their throats, one by one. I hadn't think as I did it, I'd just kept going. Made sure none were left alive.

Letting the magic go, I'd called out for the others to join me.

The dwarf had whistled, eyeing the bodies, "You're not bad, girly."

"Thanks." I'd blinked.

"Do you know which way to go?" the elf had asked him.

"Of course I do." He'd led us down the path that kept forward, and we were on our way again.

"By the tits of my ancestors, Ortan Thaig. I never thought I'd see this place in the flesh." Oghren announced it came in to view.

It had only taken another day and a half of walking to find it.

"I can see Branka all over this place. She always took chips from the walls at regular intervals when she was in a a new tunnel-check their composition." he continued, a frown clear in his tone, "If she was still here, though, she'd have sentries out by now."

"What can you tell us about these ruins?" I questioned, my eyes wandering.

"This was Caridin's home thaig." He repeated, "He was an Ortan before he got raised to Paragon. Even stayed here when he could have had his own house. I guess he didn't want to move his people to Bownammar."

"What's Bownammar?" I had to sound the word out, which took longer than it should have, honestly.

He chuckled at my butchering of it, "The city of the dead. Caridin built it to honor the Legion of the Dead, but it was more like a sodding mausoleum than anything. Of course, that was all before he built the Anvil. After that, he was the city's pet genius until he angered the king and fell in to disfavor."

"And you have no idea where this Anvil is?" the ex-Crow eyed him.

"No one does. At the time, Ortan Thaig was almost part of the main city. No one bothered to mark where the Anvil was stored. Now, it's impossible to know if it's been moved or even destroyed. But trust me, if we find it, we find Branka."

"Let's just get going." I started forward.

"Couldn't have said it better myself."

We hadn't gotten far, barely around the bend, when I stopped short. There was a dead ogre, among bodies of darkspawn, in the middle of the tunnel.

Someone, or something, had killed them. Whatever it was could still be here. The blood was wet, so it wasn't likely that the culprits had enough time to get very far.

I nodded to the men, and they returned it. We were probably walking in to a trap, but at least we were aware of it.

Sure enough, about a dozen giant spiders descended from the ceiling of the path off-shooting the main tunnel. They seemed to be too afraid to attack us straight on, so the fight didn't last much more than a few minutes. We worked through them one at a time, which appeared to be the way to do things down here.

In the next cavern, we were greeted by the sight of an ogre facing off against five spiders. We stayed out of view, choosing to see how it played off, and we didn't have to lift a finger; the ogre took out the spiders, but venom killed the giant. That wasn't all, though, there were shrieks, as well. three of them, fighting another group of arachnids. What had the tainted creatures done to incur their wrath? Still, they killed each other. I never thought I'd be so happy to see an overgrown spider a day in my life.

Spirits and a stone golem awaited us after that. Much like an ogre, the golem threw huge boulders at us and were difficult to take down. Until I tried dismantling them by pulling apart their bodies with magic. Rocks and pebbles flew in all directions, the force so great, it was like an explosion.

Movement on a kind of stone platform caught my attention. It looked like a man, a dwarven man, but something about him was off. He ran when I stepped closer.

"Wait!" I called out, sprinting after him.

He skidded to a stop at the entrance to a small tunnel, "There's nothing for you here! It's mine! I've claimed it!"

"Who are you? What are you doing down here?" My skin crawled, and I knew he had the taint. I just didn't know how.

"You've come to take my claim! You surfacers are all alike: thieving scoundrels! Well, I found it first!"

"Bah! He's a bloody scavenger, good as sodding gone." Oghren was disgusted.

"Begone, you! You'll bring the dark ones back, you will! They'll crunch your bones!" the man shouted at me.

The dark ones? Darkspawn? Could he sense them in me, as I did with him?

"Word has it you can only survive down here by eating the darkspawn dead." My companion murmured, explaining the man's condition.

"Darkspawn blood is poison. Men have died from drinking it." I muttered in return.

Somehow, the man heard me, "It burns when it goes down. It burns! It's my claim, not yours! Crunch your bones!" With that, he darted down the tunnel.

I was left wondering what would drive a man to such extremes. Torn, I had Oghren wait at the mouth of that passage, while Zevran and I searched the cavern we were already in. The assassin spotted it before I did; a chest sat, whole and intact, in a small alcove. Deftly picking the lock, I cautiously opened it and there it was. The records for the Ortan family, stating they were a house of nobility. Orta was related, however distantly, to Caridin, too. It hadn't clicked in my head until now.

"Good. Now, she'll be able to reinstate her house and get a seat on the Assembly." I looked up at the elf, "We'll have another backing, after we hand these over to her."

"One can never have too many friends in high places." He remarked as we joined Oghren.

"I want to go after that man." I pointed in to the shadows, "He might be the son of one of the women. Ruck, I think she said his name was. Maybe we can help him, or he can give us information about what to expect farther in to the mountain."

"Go away!" he shouted at us, "This is mine! Only I gets to plunder its riches!" he reminded me of golem, and the thought was startling. There wasn't much difference.

"Is this Branka's campsite?" I asked softly.

"It's mine! I'm the one who found it. I drove out the crawlers. Now it's mine!"

"I'm not here to steal anything, I promise." Holding up my hands, I took a step back, not wanting to crowd the man.

"You-you won't take anything from Ruck? You won't take his shiny worms? Or pretty rocks?"

Oh, Ruck. What happened to you?

"I just want to talk. I won't take anything."

"Oh. Ruck not mind that, maybe..."

"So, your name is Ruck?" I ventured, trying to get him to relax.

"Yes, Ruck's my name. I do not hear it much, so sometimes I like to speak it out loud. Ruck! Ruck! Ruck!"

"I think I met your mother. Is her name Filda?"

His eyes took on a crazy gleam, and he jumped backward, "N-n-n-no. No Filda. No mother. No warm blanket and stew and pillow and soft words! Ruck doesn't deserve good memories. No-no-no-no-"

"Your mother misses you. She asked us to find you."

"Sh-she did not know, not what I did. I was very, very, very, very angry and then someone was dead. They wanted to send Ruck to the mines. If I went to the mines, sh-she would know. Everyone would know. So I came here, instead. Once you eat... once you takes in the darkness... you not miss the light so much." he crept closer, until he could touch me if he reached out, "You know, do you not? Ruck sees, yes. He sees the darkness inside you."

"That is a... frightening thought." I mumbled, frowning slightly.

"I means nothing by it..."

"You have to tell your mother you're alive." It wasn't the smoothest of subject changes, but I didn't want to dwell on darkness.

"No, no, no! She cannot... She remembers a boy, a little boy, with bright eyes and a hammer, and she cannot see this! Swear-promise-vow you won't tell!"

"Would you rather she think you're dead?"

"Yes! Yes. T-tell the mother Ruck is dead. He's dead, and his bones are rotting in the crawlers' webs, and she should never look again."

I wouldn't put it quite like that, but I nodded along, "All right. I'll tell her you died bravely."

"Yes, that's what Ruck is. Dead. Dead like bones that turn to dust when you touch them."

I shuddered and, with a heavy heart, I turned from Ruck and went back to the main chamber. Across the bridge, there stood tall a golem. Beyond it, a handful of spirits were gathered, all yelling in anger. I wasn't in the mood to fight. With a sweep of my hand, they all tumbled off the bridge, falling down in to the dark abyss under us. I could only assume they wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.

Oghren whistled again, and I could feel Zevran's eyes on me. I was going to hate talking to Filda when we returned to Orzammar.

The two of them took the lead for a time, taking down any and all enemies that dared show themselves. I mostly stayed behind them, keeping them safe with my magic. Aside from the intermittent fights, the days passed slowly and with little in the way of entertainment. Although, that could have just been my frame of mind.