AN: I ended up splitting this into two reasonably sized chapters instead of one very big chapter, which is probably for the best?

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It had been a full week of travel in the deep roads, Marian was sick of the place after the first few hours. Varric and her kept busy keeping any dangers off the workers, which meant dealing with a lot of large spiders. Today marked a new trial in the journey.

"What do you mean the fucking road is blocked, clear it out!" Bartrand scared the worker off, any bad news made him especially angry. "Is it too much to ask for them to do their damn jobs."

"It looks like the tunnel ahead collapsed" Varric had gone to scout it out before having someone tell Bartrand. "We'll just need to scout out a new path."

"I assume I'm a part of that we" Marian preferred anything to watching the workers move rocks.

"You know it Hawke, I found a pretty big one on the map that I think can work."

"Great, don't move too far while we're gone" strapping her sword to her back she headed off with him.

"Yeah yeah, just get it checked out quickly."

It didn't take long for them to make it to the entrance to the new path, and they weren't alone surprisingly.

"It's not really safe over here Bodahn" Varric recognized him from the group.

"I know but someone saw Sandal go out this way" he was very worried about the missing boy.

"If we see him we'll send him back, get back to with the others."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Thank you Varric!"

"Yeah yeah" he waved him off as they headed into the tunnel.

"You think the darkspawn got him?" Marian could see the telltale signs of them in the tunnel.

"That's a bit of a dark thought to start our little rescue mission on."

"Sorry the lack of sunlight is getting to me."

"It's not that bad, surfacers over exaggerate how bad it is down here."

"You're a surface dwarf!"

"Am not."

Another round of arguing about where Varric was from helped occupy their travel time. The handful of darkspawn they ran into put a swift end to that argument.

"Try not to get bled on" Varric started shooting at them as Marian drew her sword.

"I'll do my best" wanting to conserve her energy, she moved in and clashed with the quickest darkspawn.

None of these darkspawn were particularly strong. Marian was easily able to cut down the two Varric couldn't halt with Bianca. Moving through the tunnel there were a few more groups of them, but like the first they weren't much trouble. Opening the door at the end of the tunnel Marian looked at the darkspawn past it and closed it again.

"What?"

"There's a magic one in there."

The door was blown off its hinges by a fireball by said magic darkspawn. The two had rolled away from the door in time to avoid any damage. Hoping Varric could keep that one occupied, Marian clashed blades with the two that rushed forward. They weren't hard to kill, but she had to do so in a relatively clean way. Ducking under a swing she came up with an uppercut to its chin. As it reeled back the other thrust its blade at her. Before it could connect she blasted it back with a small wave of force. The first had regained its composure and threw her back with a hit from the shield.

"Thank you!" she'd dropped her sword while falling, but Varric had her covered.

The safety was short lived as she saw a fireball coming her way, the magic one was still alive. She rolled along the floor to avoid the blast, her sword now thrown somewhere by it. Unarmed and in the open, she saw two archers join the frey. As they drew back their bowstrings she reached out towards the mage. A breath faster than the arrows sailing towards her, the body of the mage was pulled forward and caught them instead. Before either of them could nock another arrow, Varric loosed two bolts into their heads.

"Hm that's a new trick" he helped her up.

"It's a long story, and one I'd rather keep a secret."

"Fine, you can share it when we're back home."

Following the path they ended up in another room with even more Darkspawn archers. Ducking under cover the two waited out their shots.

"See if we had like two more people we wouldn't be in this predicament" Varric had brought up their small numbers a handful of times.

"Look, I've had one family member die to these damn things already, I'm willing to take a few bolts if it means everyone else is home safe."

"Well that's real sweet, if you bite it here I'll make sure to convey that message."

"Love the confidence."

"Anytime Hawke."

The lull in the arrows signaled a reload for the hurlocks. Taking their small window the two moved out from cover. Varric laid down covering fire while Marian charged in. With a quick blast of force she knocked over the two that had already reloaded before swinging at another one. Varric had taken care of a few with his bolts leaving the clean up nice and easy for her.

"Bet there's no archers in the next room?" she was already sick of dealing with ranged darkspawn after two fights.

"Hm, why not."

Opening the door they found a room full of destroyed darkspawn, including a frozen Ogre caught mid roar. Standing in the middle of the room just having a good time was Sandal.

"Well shit, he isn't dead."

"Damn I should've bet on that" Varric pulled out a few coins and headed over to the boy. "Your dad's waiting for you back there kid."

"Boom"

"Uh, yea?" Marian had never talked with this kid before, but had a feeling it was a lot of that word. "What's uh, what's up with the ogre?"

"Not enchantment" he handed her a rune and headed out.

"Hm, seems like a good kid."

Continuing forward they dealt with more waves of darkspawn, each more annoying than the last. Finally they were near the end of this path.

"Just up those very foreboding stairs" Varric looked over the map.

"I think foreboding is a dramatic thing to call the stairs."

"Fine you go up them first."

"I will."

Marian ascended the steps. Upon reaching the top she turned to show Varric how safe they were. A moment later the Ogre waiting at the top of them threw her back down the stairs.

"THIS" she did her best to safely tumble down the steps. "CHANGES NOTHING."

"That's what they all say" Varric was already shooting at the Ogre.

Landing in a heap at the base of the staircase Marian didn't have long to collect herself. The thunderous steps of the Ogre was all the encouragement she needed to scramble up and run. The Ogre was hot in pursuit, ignoring Varric in favor of the larger moving target. Seeing an opportunity to make up for that previous blunder, Marian ran towards the wall.

"Is she about" Varric didn't like her speed in relation to the wall.

Rather than crashing headfirst into it, Marian jumped and planted a foot on the wall. Kicking off with all her strength she flipped back over the Ogre as it crashed into the wall at full speed. Taking advantage of it's daze, she hopped on its back and plunged her sword through its neck.

"Holy shit" Varric had pulled out a pen and paper to write down the scene.

"Thank you thank you" she gloated while the Ogre slumped to the ground. "And please feel no need to hold the applause."

The following moments of her removing the sword from the corpse were a lot less interesting, something Varric also noted down. With that problem taken care of, the two headed up the stairs.

"Alright we just have to clear one more room" Varric pointed to the next tunnel. "I'm going all in, five gold, there's two ogres."

"Nope, I'm calling it, no darkspawn."

"Alright, you better be ready to pay up."

Entering the rather large chamber the two very quickly noticed the lack of darkspawn. Before Marian could hold out a hand and politely gesture for her money, a dragon emerged from the other end of the room.

"I cannot believe" Merrill's words after the party rang in her head. "This is somehow Merrill's fault, I will explain later."

"Well, I really hope we don't need any explosives later" Varric loaded up one of his special bolts. "Think you can get me a clear shot?"

"Hopefully" her one arm twitched, remembering the feeling of dragon fangs digging into it.

Charging forward she saw some smaller dragons crawl out of smaller holes as well. Trusting Varric to avoid dying, she ignored them for now. The large dragon drew its wings back and tossed her back with a mighty beat of them.

"This game is for two players" throwing her sword forward she blasted it into the dragon with a wave of force.

Her magic was able to beat out the wind, but her aim wasn't good enough to cut its head off. She'd managed to bury the sword up to its hilt in one of the shoulders. It reared back in pain, very nicely exposing its neck for Varric.

"Varric Tethras, dragonslayer" he really liked the ring of that as another dragon met its end thanks to his explosive bolt.

The smaller dragons were easy enough to deal with, one of them managed to slip off into a smaller tunnel.

"Eh we can leave it right?" Marian didn't feel like crawling after it. "Not like it's going to get really big and attack that mine I now own in like five years."

"That's really specific."

"Specific enough for a bet?"

"Oh you know it."

Giving the room a quick check for any other dangers they headed back to the expedition. Bartrand was certainly happy to have a new route forward.

"Perfect we can get moving immediately" he waved the workers over at the tunnel. "Shame you had to use some explosives though."

"Eh whatever, I still have a bit, not enough to say, I dunno, blow open a giant locked door in a Thaig."

"Well good thing you won't have to do that" Bartand had an almost too big of a laugh at that before walking off.

"Your brother is kind of odd."

"Says you."

"Hey, Carver was fine before he died."

"Doubtful, Bethany is too normal for him to also have been normal."

"That's not how it works."

"Yeah it is, one twin is normal and the other is kind of weird."

"Whatever let's help move stuff onto the carts" Marian didn't want to admit that Carver was a bit weird.