As she awoke, her nose was bombarded with the regular scents of Kirkwall. The Smell of smog from endless smithies and furnaces. The smell of salt and fish from the Harbor just a small walk away. And of course the lovely Scent of piss where drunks urinated in alleys and the blood of some drunkard who had been unfortunate enough to stumble into the iron spikes lining the roads of the City. There were a lot of those.

This was Kirkwall, in all it's splendor.

As she raised herself in her bed, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She took in the rest of the room. Her Brother Carver was completely out, sleeping like a babe. Or rather like an old man who liked to make as much sound as possible while asleep. Bethany was somewhat similar, though unlike carver, she didn't snore like an annoying storm.

Mother was also fast asleep, her calm weak breathing being drowned out by carver. She did a lot of that lately, sleep and stay in her bed. Hawke could have said she was a huge drain on their limited resources, but the truth was mother barely ate half of what anyone else in the family ate these days.

She'd seen that happen a lot of times in her days in the Ferelden Army, soldiers stopped eating as much as they should. Usually after something horrible happened, like a werewolf aftermath, or an abomination rising and slaughtering some farmhold.

Mother simply hadn't been able to bounce back from everything they lost in Lothering. The Farm, the community they had become part of, all their belongings that could not be carried by hand.

Father.

Hawke closed her eyes sharply, as the unbidden memory came back to the surface. The Greatest man she had ever known, dying from a meaningless brawl with Darkspawn they shouldn't even have been around for. They Should have left Lothering much sooner.

But Father being who he was, he had made them stay and help their friends and refugees flee for as long as possible, until she had finally had had enough and told him they were leaving with or without him.

It had been an ultimatum from a young woman to get her Father to get his ass moving. It had turned out to be the start of her as the Family overhead and Matriarch.

God, matriarch. It still felt so… Bizarre to think of herself as that way, halfway through her twenties was not when she thought she would be settled with a title Generally reserved for grandmothers.

But she had been. Mother had not stepped up, and she had effectively become family leader in both practice as well as name. It still felt so strangely unreal in her own opinion.

Finally, she decided it was time to get going. She got up and quieter than a cat she exited the room. Entering the main room, she saw gamlen's Room off to the Right and up the ladder, but ignored it. Gamlen was a sour, bitter old man, but she didn't really have anything against him. So long as she wasn't stupid enough to trust him with money, she got along well enough with the owner of the house they lived in.

She also let her old Mabari Rest up along the main entrance to the house.

Instead she went from the main room over to the storage room. Well, it was filled with pretty much anything of value they owned which wasn't coin. Swords, daggers, crossbows and bows in various states of disrepair. Armor which were easy to carry, especially lamellar and laminar plates. They had hundreds of those. Incredibly easy to carry in a bag once you cut the cloth binding them together away. If she had done her estimates correctly, there was about 7 sovereigns worth of equipment in this room.

Gamlen wouldn't be able to sell it off, not after what had happened to the last tradesman who had taken armor or arms off him. Direct coin however was much more dangerous to leave in her uncles care.

Ignoring the heavy metal armor, she instead went to a chest filled with a set of leather, cloth and fur. It was as ferelden as it came, and looked as if it could have been the fancier clothing of a lord.

Which is exactly what it was. During her time as a smuggler and burglar, she had once come across a shipment that was meant for Arl Howe of Amarantine. She had unsurprisingly swept the entire cargo, and taken it back home.

Given that, as she had correctly predicted, Howe had been killed eventually and all his goods seized by the crown, she now owned a full set of fancy leather whose owner had gotten his head cut off and wouldn't miss it.

Her family hadn't really been fan of the clothing, and they had ended up selling most of it to deal with their debts, equipment and bribes. She had however kept this one. And to help deal with the massive heat she had gotten it enchanted to help keep her cool in the heat of the free marches.

How anyone could stand living here without the glory that was Self cooling clothing, she would never know.

Along with her leather and Furs, she had gotten out a set of daggers. Other than being red Bloodstone, they were not particularly unique, just two well made blades of blood red metal.

Finally, she got her belt along with it's many pouches, containing health potions, grenades of both the fire and poison variety, and some other stuff.

Finally having all she needed, she looked up. The windows were around 3 meters above. She had done that jump before when she really needed it, but there was a much easier alternative. So she took a running start up towards the corner, then, as a bolt from the spring, she ran, jumped up and hit the wall, not stopping moving as she just jumped again, this time from the wall and up through the window.

Rather than sailing through and out on the streets, she instead grabbed a wooden beam sticking out from an old abandoned wooden construction Tower, and using the momentum she still had, to carry her up and on top of it, in a non completed circle.

The she carefully began to crawl over the protruding beam, unto the roof.

As she came to the other edge, she took a quick look, around the small open space between the houses. The street seemed deserted. No one to see whether she had left. At least none that she could see.

Hoping for the best, she instead began to make her way across the roofs of Lowtown. Lowtown was a misnomer off a name. Even the lowest level of the district was a good 40 meters above the sea, with only the direct harbor district was being on on the Sea level.

No the name instead referred to it's relation to the other part of town. Hightown, up on the giant cliffs which Kirkwall had been carved out off. And a Hightown it truly was. Over a kilometer up from the sea, it towered above everything, a city on a cliff of filthy black stone.

As she made her way across the rooftops, she passed the great furnaces, which the entire Economy of Kirkwall relied on.

Hawke had never really understood WHY Kirkwall had ditched it's status as the greatest producer and exporter of stone in the world, but it had. And in the place of Stone, it now exported the vast majority of Arms and Armor to all of the Free Marches.

One would Think that the biggest producers of Equipment for War on the continent would be able to field a decent Army, but from everything she had seen in her one Year Here, that was about as likely as Andraste coming Back to kick out the Qunari from the North.

Pretty Much all of Kirkwalls government was Shit. It's Armed Forces(She refused to call it an army) was a complete Joke, outside The City Guard, which was competent enough, but also undermanned as fuck, and from what she'd seen, corrupt as all get out.

Without competent Land Forces, the city had lost more and more territory over the Years, until now, when it controlled only the City itself and a small parcel of Land around it. The fact that despite all of this, it was amongst the three most powerful of the Free Marcher Cities along with Starkhaven and Tantervale, spoke leagues of just how deep a rut the marchers were in in the modern Day.

Hawke had been meaning to read up on how the hell the Marches had gone from one of the most prospering places on thedas , to it's current mess.

Back in her old life in the Ferelden army, she had taken pride in knowing exactly how Ferelden had regained it's independence, and what role the army she was part of played in not only retaining that independence, but also in guarding it's roads, keeping the peace and order, and marching out and putting down the odd invasion from the Avvar tribes whenever they got uppity and began to raid into the Ferelden Valley.

However, the life of smuggling, thievery and the occasional looting which was now her existence, did not leave much time to read or study, nor did she have the coin to waste on things such as books.

She had other more life essential things to use them for. Like Bribery in order to stay ahead of the templars.

After maybe 20 minutes of running, jumping and maneuvering under the Moonlight, across the city rooftops, she came to the place she had aimed for.

Lowtown was divided into sections, each one which could easily be closed off from each other. It had always reminded hawke of a fortress city, but not quite.

Gwaren's city harbour had been made so that even if an army invaded, there was very little land between the outermost wall and the water. Not much land for an invader to use when mounting an attack, and while there were buildings, they were all made of wood and could easily be burned in case of a siege, to deny cover.

Kirkwall's harbor however, was made with truly staggering amount of space and buildings between the harbor and the first wall. A gross tactical mistake, which she had never understood.

Even more so, when one knew about the glaring weak spots in every single one of the district walls. Namely the fact that every single one of them had been riddled with openings into the City's underground, locally known as Darktown.

It was to such an opening Hawke had come this night.

The openings into what had once been the City's great mining quarry littered pretty much the entire city, from the sides of the great stairway and down.

Some were boarded up, some had gotten houses built around them by Carta and Coteri Gangs, or Smugglers, all in an effort to establish a monopoly on specific entrances. Some had been cracked down on hard by the City Guard in an attempt to restore order and kill the various enterprises that used them. Others were allowed to remain due to bribes.

The one Hawke was using was one that now you only could get to through the rooftops now. Either by poor planning, or a deliberate move, the alleyway that was around the alley had been closed off over the years, with there now being stone walls on all sides.

Hawke had discovered it during her first few months in Kirkwall, when she had first began to map out the roofs and alleys. The roofs were as spike covered as the rest of the lower city, but despite the constant danger of impalement, she had found the spikes to be a rather good way to recall specific houses and buildings, given that pretty much no spine had weathered the elements the same way, most having rusted away to some degree or another, leading to rust spikes that were all unique and often easy to memorize.

The hole into Darktown was barely hidden at all, with nothing more than a wooden crate with only 3 sides and no top in front of it. Truth be told it served no purpose, but Hawke felt the instinctual need to cover it anyway. As far as she was concerned, it was Her entrance, and she would prefer as few people as humanly possible knew about it.

Once she had gently pushed the remains of the crate aside, and entered into the darkness, she pulled out a series of things from her belt in a quick succession. First a wooden rod, then a piece of cloth along with a string which she wrapped hard and tightly around one side of the rod. Then a small metal jug, whose contents she spilt out over the piece of cloth. Finally a small flintlock device. It took her only one try to get fire going.

Once the homemade Torch was alit, she took it in one hand, while unsheathing one of her daggers in the other.

It was next to impossible to be stealthy carrying a torch in the darkness, so she would need to directly fight if it came to that. Which it probably would, knowing her luck.

Then she descended into the all consuming darkness.

"You think she'll come?" It was a simple question. Answering it one time should have been enough

"Yes, for the love of the Creators, she Will come James. Please stop asking that question."

Apparently not it seemed. The damned Moron that was his partner had asked him that one question maybe 7 times now.

Their employer Murdock ignored the two of them as they talked, as he was wont to do, instead focusing on his little black book. They were waiting on one of his "Beneficiaries", a rogue of some reputation, whose sister was… He honestly didn't know. All he knew was that Murdock knew something about her, and The Rogue; Hawke, paid him a monthly sum not to divulge it further.

And Being a Crazy Dwarf, he had chosen the most insane place to meet her. A part of lowtown that occasionally was infested by giant spiders. They had thankfully not meet a colony of them, but there had been a few of the crawly monsters roaming around, which had had to be dealt with.

His axe still was wet with the blood of the giant arachnids. He shuddered just thinking about it. He never could stand the creatures. By far the creepiest beings the creators had made in the world.

Lamellar was a Dalish elf. Or rather he used to be. He had made the rather massive blunder of fraternising with human women on the clans travels. Which Had not made him popular amongst the clan, but hadn't gotten him kicked out or anything of that magnitude. Then he had made the rather massive mistake of fraternizing with the daughter of a countess of Wycome.

Unsurprisingly, they had been caught in the act, and to save herself, the lady had named it rape and that had been that. His clan had declared him dead them and disavowed his action, as well as hastily leaving the easter Free marches. The countess had gotten him sentenced to castration and then death by breaking on the wheel, a sentence he had only avoided by having a hidden lockpick, and a violent escape by murdering several guards.

After that, he had been a criminal on the run, finally ending up in Kirkwall, finding a in the Dwarf Murdock. The crazy Dwarf had completely ignored his past so long as he was able and willing to fight and kill for him. Extorsion, murder, thievery, beating up people if they didn't pay up debts. He'd been around the blocks of kirkwall.

He couldn't move in the daytime, but hey, other than that it was a good life.

He'd considered ditching it for the new elvhen state in the Bracilian Forest that had been established after the Blight. But he had decided against it. For one, he didn't believe it would stick around. What had happened to the last attempt was a good warning of what could happen to this one. For another thing, he did not want to risk getting discovered by his old clan, who might instead rat him out to the new King, and from what he had heard about the man, that would probably mean a boat back to Wycome to face the Music.

No thank you. Kirkwall it was.

The White City of chains was the void in general, but for the most part he didn't have anything against his new lot in life. Getting paid to kill and beat up shemlen? Now there was something he could live on.

"She's running a bit late isn't she? She's usually very punctual on her meetings."

Now if only he didn't have to put up with this nitwit Human mage. Arl had been palling around with Murdock since before Lamellar came around to Kirkwall, and by the dreadwolf he had wanted to strangle him since their first meeting.

"She's half an Hour Late, which given the last meeting we had with the Carta ended up being 4 Hours after schedule, isn't bad at all. Now, please, Shut up, i'm trying to read." their employer finally piped in. As he talked he looked down on a small circular device which had a lock on top. He closed said lock and put the device back in his pocket as he resumed reading the small book he always seemed to carry with him.

Handy they were, Time Machines, or Clocks as the dwarves called them. Apparently it was an invention from Orzammar, which Murdock had somehow gotten his hands on. How, he didn't know, nor ask.

Murdock was not a powerfully built dwarf. Instead he was lean and skinny, with a bald head and clean shaven chin. If not for his old face, he might have been confused with a human adolescent.

His clothing was a set of leather with Steel Plates interwoven, and in his belt he carried a Sword.

As for Lamellar and Arl, the two of them wore Lamellar plate Armor and a long steel chainmail respectively. No big, expensive armor for them. Lamellar had his old trusty axe from his Younger days, while Arl carried a staff, the moron that he was. He had never understood why someone who was desperate not to be identified as a mage would carry a mage weapon. Why not a spear? Or better yet a Halberd. It was a staff and axe in one, could a more perfect weapon be imagined?

The three of them were for the moment in a long abandoned room, which Murdock sometimes used as a meeting place. Aside of being really hard to find and a with only one door and containing various chairs and old tables, it was not a room much different than countless others in Lowtown. If he had to guess looking at the old tables and a few(long since looted) drawers and chests, he'd guess this had once been an administrative office while the mines were in use.

With only one door, and a bigger room outside which only had two doors, the other leading to the corridors, this likely had been a gathering place for those in charge.

They waited quietly for a bit more, Murdock reading and occasionally scribbling in that book of his, Arl twitching and nervously scratching his neck like he always did when he was anxious, And Lamellar actually watching the door like he was supposed to.

Then, with no warning they heard the other door, loudly open, and in a flash all three of them tensed. With a loud rusty creaky outer door, it was impossible to get to the door in their room unnoticed. Which was one of the reasons Murdock used this place. It was impossible to enter this inner room stealthily.

Arl, quickly began casting a spell of Haste, to speed up their reflexes and movement speed compared to Hawke in case a fight broke out. Lamellar readied his long axe and shield. Murdock meanwhile looked a bit worried, but made no move to unsheath his blade.

With rather unceremonious movement, the door opened to reveal Hawke as Lamellar had last seen her. Dressed in the leathers and fur of a Ferelden "Barbarian"(why she was supposedly more barbarous than every other just as uncivilized Human he had never understood), with a torch in one hand and a set of blades sheathed in her belt.

Hawke was a rather tall Human, with short black hair which kinda reminded him more of a raven than a hawk, and eyes cold and blue like the Sky. The most notable part of her face was a Red Mark across her face, which he had assumed was warpaint, but it had never changed how it looked at all during any of the times he had seen it. She had a beautiful strong face he supposed, but that mark ruined her as far as he cared.

She stood there for a moment, taking the three of them in, while making no move to attack.

Finally Murdock broke the silence.

"Hawke!" he said with a forced grin. "I'm Glad you Made it, i hope the Spiders didn't give you any trouble."

"Oh it went Well enough." Hawke replied with a much more relaxed smile than Murdock. "They had me Climbing up the walls, to get out of the Sticky fight i had on my hands. I had to use some Poison bombs to deal with them.

He… Never did understand the appeal of Hawke's stupid puns, but he wasn't stupid enough to actually bring it up. He was here to look intimidating and fight if necessary, not to question dangerous people on their shitty jokes.

Murdock apparently felt the same way.

"Good to Hear. I hope the expenses for the Bombs aren't too detrimental for your expenses".

Hawke's eyes narrowed dangerously though her smile did not fade, and for a moment all his muscles tensed in preparation for a fight, but as her hand went to her belt calmly, she did not go for one of her daggers, but instead for a small bag.

She lazily threw it on the table in front of Murdock,who grabbed it immediatly after it hit the table. The unmistakable sound of coins clinking together was heard from inside when it hit the table.

"50 Silvers, as usual. You really don't need to count, but knowing you, you'll do it anyway."

If Lamellar's previous experiences with Hawkes payment meetings was any indication, they really didn't. She always paid, exactly what she promised.

"Maybe not, but i never make exceptions Hawke. Not good for a man in my business you know."

Despite his words, he did not open the bag to begin counting, instead putting the bag on the table.

"One day you decide to skip the actual counting, and what do you know, next month you get a bag of worthless Iron Coins and discover that the guy skipped town the next day."

He shot her a smile which made it obvious he wanted to chat some more about something else.

"So, i hear you've decided to throw your chips in with the Tethras expedition? Not a smart move, i'dd say, but if you wanna throw your life away in the deep roads, i really dont give a shit."

Wait what?

"Oh i'm sure i'll manage. After all, it's just endless tunnels filled with Monsters from the Void. How hard could that be?"

Despite her confident and lackadaisical tone, Lamellar was not daft enough to take that unconcerned confidence seriously. The Deep Roads was a nightmare to delve into. No one who delved into them ever came out.

He'd heard of The tethras Expedition of course, all of Kirkwall had, but people who wanted to get involved were generally sponsors, no one were stupid enough to actually wanna sign on to actually delve into it. The blight was over now, and while there was some time before the monsters fully got back into filling the tunnels in full, surely the vast majority of the horde had gotten back below ground.

No one could possibly be stupid enough to sign on to this thing knowing that there was a huge chance the chance to get in and out without meeting darkspawn had passed.

Apparently Hawke had not gotten this Memo.

Murdock chuckled, and continued.

"That's what i like about you. Confidence and insane bravery. Still, maybe you'll actually come back, who knows?".

His grin faded and was replaced by a melancholic look, as he looked at Hawke.

"Nothing's certain in the world, Hawke. As i've learned to my sorrow."

Hawkes smile faded as well, as she returned his melancholic look. "I'm Sorry to hear about your sons."

Murdock did not answer, and instead sighed. Said sons were supposed to have been the next leaders for their group, but they had gotten their skulls caved in by a carta Brawl last month. It had left a pretty clear question of who would lead after Murdock, a question which seemingly had no answer.

"In all seriousness, Hawke. Do you have any plans for when you come back? Assuming you actually find an unspoiled Thaig, you'll be rich as sin."

"Oh i was thinking of maye buying myself a Dukedom. I hear the Flansene Forest is lovely this time of year."

Murdock chuckled.

"If you wanna follow up a trip to the Blasted deep roads with moving to Demon infested woods, be my guest. But i'm guessing you're gonna be buying back some of the old Amell estates right? Your uncle Lost quite a bit of the Hightown Market. Wouldn't hurt to get back some old land."

Hawke's sly smile was back as she replied "Maybe, but it's not the most pressing thing in the world. After all, it's just stone Buildings. They aren't going anywhere."

"No, probably not. Still, we'll keep doing business i'm sure." Murdock finally began to open the bag, which had been tied hard shut with quite a strong knot, as Hawke usually made.

"So how's that other Sibling of yours? The whining brat?

"Carver? Oh, he's A bit sourely lately, but thats the usual with him. He was sourely the last ten years, he's been sourely this last year and he'll undoubtedly be sour the next decade as well."

If Hawke took any offence to the tone Murdock used to describe her brother she did not show it. From what he had seen the boy was an old grouchy man in the body of a boy just entering manhood. The old storyteller in his clan had been similar, but at least the people he bitched about ruining his life had been long dead.

"Yeah, no doubt. He's got a chip the size of Orzammar, that one. And lazy as a fat cat too. Not a good combination for an up and coming warrior."

He grunted as he began to put some actual power into opening the knot.

"You wanna make something of yourself in this city, you gotta put in the effort. That's… Nrrg… what i like about you hawke. Always putting effort into shit."

The knot finally came undone and the bag opened.

In a burst of sickly green color, the entire half of the room they was engulfed in a thick of green smoke.

Lamellar had been watching Hawke fully and completely. If he had actually paid attention to the bag, his haste enchanted body and reflexes would probably would have managed to leap forward out of the cloud itself. But he hadn't, and he didn't.

Sloppy! Sloppy idiot!

His lungs burned, like knives were cutting into his lungs, it felt like he had inhaled sharp glass dust. He had gone to his knees, gasping for air all the way. The smoke quickly began to dissipate into the small holes in the wall for ventilation, but that didn't help him much. The pain did not go away.

Across the room, he heard Arl desperately trying to cast spell, despite the wretched sound of what the gas had done to his throat.

"THUNK"

The sound of Arl hitting the floor followed.

Lamellar forced himself to look in the direction of where Arl had stood, despite the pain which seemed to be cleaving his skull into pieces from the sheer agony.

The PAIN! THE DREAD TAKE THE PAIN!

Arls dead face looked stared into his direction, seeing nothing. A dagger had embedded itself into his forehead, thrown with such force it had gone all the way to the crossguard.

His eyes went to Hawke. The bitch stood calmly on the other side of the large room. Far out of the range of her own poisonous grenade.

As they writhed in pain on the floor, the Bitch was watching them trying to cough up their own lungs, she calmly waited, until the smoke had dissipated entirely.

Then she began walking towards Murdock. Lamellar desperately tried to grip for his axe which had dropped when the pain took over all his thoughts. He had to find his axe.

His hand grabbed over the floor desperately, where was his axe? He had to find it, had to protect Murdock. His hand clenched around a pole. There!

With the final ounces of strength, he shot up, and with all his force he wrenched the axe from the floor, back over his head, and then in a power overhead swing he brought it down on that treacherous Bitch's head!

Or at least he tried to. Hawke didn't even bother to side step, or step backwards to avoid the blow. And she hadn't needed to either. In his pain, his aim had completely gone off and he had brought the axe down half a meter in front of Hawke.

Other than cutting air and cleaving a bit of stone on the ground, it had done precisely no damage.

Hawkes leg connecting to his face did considerably more however.

He crashed on his back, having gone straight down. For a moment the world went silent, only ringing noise in his ears. Then everything returned, the PAIN. Now added by even more so as he had even more difficulty breathing. The kick had broken his nose. The pain from that would probably be staggering, but right now the pain from his burning lungs overrode anything else. The closed airway of his nose, just made it worse.

As he writhed on the ground, in a fit of the most searing pain he could imagine, the voice of Murdock suddenly came back.

"YOU…. Ferelden… Cunt…" Between each word he gasped for air,but the words came out clearly enough. Those dwarven lungs sure was something.

Hawke evidently felt the same way.

"Oh you can still talk? Impressive. I've never tried this mixture on Dwarves before, it would seem it's nowhere near as effective as it is on elves, and humans"

"You…. Fu...Fucking..Bitch… you… Wont… get…Away…. with….this…"

Hawke chuckled in a way which did not not seem appropriate for murdering three men.

"Oh, i rather rather doubt that. I liked your sons well enough Murdock, but truth be told, those were the only ones who you confided shit in. I followed and watched you enough to know that. I very much doubt the rest of your gang know why i paid money to you."

A short pause followed, then the sound of pages being flipped slowly.

"That's the problem with keeping all your secrets in on Box, Murdock. It's Sooo easy to get rid off. Oh, my these are a lot of apostates you blackmail for silence, and… And a templar family as well? My what would the order say?"

The sound of something burning intensified for a moment.

"Your knowledge of my sister, was the only thing i feared about your gang Murdock. I never dared to kill you before in case one of your boy's managed to blab to the templars before i tracked them down. With their death, i just had to deal with you. Now with you gone, i can safely hunt down your little group as i please, without worrying about information being leaked before i'm done with all of them."

"I mean, really Murdock? Did you think this little relationship of ours was going to end any other way? I've been wanting to do this for half a year now."

The quick sound of a dagger being unsheathed was followed by another "THUNK".

Then, footsteps towards Lamellar.

He forced himself up as best he could, gasping for air all the way. He managed to weakly prop himself up on his elbows, so he wasn't completely flat on his back.

He stared hatefully up at the face of the Ferelden Dog Lord, and tried to at least curse her if he couldn't do anything else.

"Crrrst… Urrr.. . Crrt…"

The Bitch Chickled.

"Not the most inspiring words, Lamellar Verdun."

He blinked in shock despite the pain.

"Yes i know who you are, Verdun. You're the elf who raped lady Rebecca of Wycome."

Seriously? Now in his last moments he was going to be accused of that old bloody lie? Not even in his final moments could he escape that fucking accusation.

The red blade shined in the torchlight. Then it came down.

After she finished up looting the bodies, hawke made sure both the doors would remain open by putting some debris in front of them. That way, the spiders would not have anything stopping them from getting in. She had paralyzed the three she had come across with a paralyzing poison bomb instead of just killing them. Just so they would clean up after her once they regained mobility.

The scent of blood was thick in this area, they would come quickly enough after the toxin wore off.

With a bag slung over her shoulder, and a renewed torch in her other hand, she began the trek out of the mountain and back to the city.

The loot had been pitifully small. She'd given murdock around 5 sovereigns over the course of his blackmail, and in the end she'dd only found a whole 77 silvers on the three in total.

At least the rapist elf had been kind enough to wear lamellar armor, whose pieces made up the bulk of what was in the bag. Other than that, she'd found a few trinkets on the three of them.

Murdock had a couple of silver rings she could probably sell for a bit, the Elf had an axe, whose head she'd taken along with the lamellar pieces and the mages Chainmail.

The mage also had a small locket with a drawn picture in it of a family. She'd left that, however small a comfort it would have been for his soul, what with his body about to be devoured by giant spiders.

She'd felt somewhat bad for him. Probably just some poor schmuck apostate who worked for murdock for protection. The elf was a convicted rapist, and She had been planning to jam a dagger in Murdocks forehead from the start of his blackmail.

This was how it worked in Kirkwall though. When a crime group threatened you and yours, you wiped them out to the man. Else they resurfaced later to take revenge. She'd had that happen…. 10.. 12 times? Carver had gotten a spear through the gut the last time, and bethany had almost gotten an axe to the face the time before that.

She was not planning on it happening again.

The only piece of loot of real value had been the small Time Machine she had found in Murdocks pocket. It was a handy thing probably worth 3 sovereigns all on it's own, but she wasn't planning on selling it.

That thing would be so bloody useful for her going forward, there was no way she was selling the time machine for any sum.

Well, unless if someone would buy it for more than 10 sovereigns she supposed. It was useful, but if someone was willing to cash out that much for it, she would sell it.

After walking for what felt like ages, she finally came to her hole, and pushed the box out and out of the way. The night was nearing it's end, but the sun had not risen yet. Though the color of the sky was brightening.

Better hurry home then.

After closing back the hole, and some acrobatics to get back up on the roofs, she began her trek across the spike covered roofs back to Gamlen's house.

As she finally came to her home street, the sun finally came up in the east, turning the city to a sand colored mess of buildings.

Once upon a time this city had been a beautiful snow white, the White City of Chains. A pretty cage for a gathering of slaves the world had never seen the likes off, and hopefully never would again.

She looked out over it, and took in the sight. Down below her, the massive Harbour was filled with hundreds of Ships, all arrayed from east to west in a bulwark of wood. Massive War Galleys of the Kirkwall Navy, the smaller Cogs of the fishermen, Great trading ships from Rivain, the Ferelden Longships with their snakelike hulls, the Tevinter Dromonds with the tubes of bronze for raining death upon their enemies, the Antivan Carrack unmatched in height.

It was a sea of color and banners, as flags flew in the blowing wind, each proudly declaring to whom their captains declared their allegiance. The High Lords said it was the never stopping furnaces of war, which was Kirkwalls heart. And maybe that was so, but it was this Harbour which was the source of all it's Wealth.

From here, goods came and went, arms and armor went out and in flowed everything under the sun. Food, silks, leather, wine, poison, ingredients, cloth, wood, enchanted goods, trinkets and baubles.

Kirkwall had lost almost all it's territories outside the city Walls, yet somehow it still remained one of the greatest and richest Cities in the World. And all of it was thanks to this massive Harbour, guarded against the storms by it's tall outlying islands, yet still accessible from west, south and East.

It truly was the perfect spot for a Harbour.

The city around it did not fare nearly as well. Lowtown was a mess all around, with no wall directly by the sea to protect it, small, narrow twisting and confusing roads, and clustered buildings with no planning whatsoever.

Which was ironic, because the city had been made in what had originally been a very well planned out and consistent manner, where every single district was laid out in a nice orderly manner.

Connecting Lowtown to it's High Counterpart, was the great stairway as it was called, a massive set of incredibly big, wide and monumental Stairs, hewn out of the mountain side.

These massive stairs led up to the eastern part of Hightown. While not small by any means, the part of the city on the eastern side of the river, was only a third the size of western Hightown. It was mostly where the City's food storages were, as well as storages.

On the other side of the massive bridge across the river, was the True Hightown. White, and monumental, with tall(very unnecessarily so, considering how unlikely a direct attack from the air was.) white walls, and towers the likes of which Hawke had only seen surpassed by Fort Drakon of Denerim. It was a truly majestic sight, and the Viscount's keep was a Citadel worthy a King.

Pity then that the Viscount was a weak, vasslating idiot. Not quite a leader worthy of the keep.

To the left was the Grand Chantry of Kirkwall, but she ignored it. The maker was in every chantry, and to be blunt, she had never understood why this one was somehow better than any other due to size. Not to mention it had once been the estate of a slaving tevinter magister.

One would think the Chantry could have had a new and less charged building used for the City's religious center, but apparently not.

Finally, there was the Gallows, the island fortress which dominated the bay of Kirkwall. It was a good strong fortress, which Hawke's only problem with it, was it's current occupiers, namely the Templar Order.

A place to avoid like the plague.

Finally, she decided she had gotten enough of the view, and like a bolt, she made the jump and acrobatics to enter the house.

She needed to get a few hours nap before the Big Day. Today, she was joining on unto an expedition which would bring Wealth on the level which would fix all her woes.