Rajmael of Clan Lavellan

by Powerslammer

Rajmael is an elf possessed of great pride and an incredible power. Born with a powerful name and a greater destiny, he has lived his whole life by the the Vir Tanadhal. And now he must use his ancient knowledge to stand against forces that threaten his world and everything he loves. Watch as he stands as a Dalish Elf, a Herald and as The Inquisitor. Please, please review.

45. Enemies In The Dark

Enemies In The Dark

Rajmael and the others walked back through the Crossroads and headed back to the mirror that lead to the Winter Palace. Rajmael felt his mark agitating him again, and stopped for a moment to catch his breath. As he leaned on a nearby shattered pillar, his mind raced with everything they had learned. Fen'Heral, the Dread Wolf and great enemy of his people, was a rebel and freedom fighter for elven slaves. How the gods of his people were not truly gods, but more akin to the Magisters who destroyed Elvhenan. Rajmael felt that horrid sting of betrayal once again, like he did when he encountered Flemeth. His heart filled up with so much anger, that he charged his fist full of lightning, and smashed the column he was leaning on to dust, yelling out his anger.

"Uh-oh." Iron Bull uttered

"Rajmael, what's wrong?!" Cassandra asked, greatly surprised by the Inquisitor's outburst. "Is it your mark?"

"No! No, it's not this mark, it's this!" Rajmael yelled, pointing at the place around them. "You saw what I saw with those mosaics. The Creators, our gods, they were...they were false. Never divine, just mortals posing as such. All of it...we were wrong."

Cassandra tried to counsel the Inquisitor. "Rajmael, I know what we learned there was difficult for you, but you cannot let it..."

"None of you could possibly understand!" Rajmael shouted furiously. "Our gods, our Creators, they're an inextricable part of my people's identity! We chose destruction and banishment from our own lands to continue worshiping them! Without them...what do we have? The Old Gods enslaved my people and used us for ritual sacrifices. And the Maker has never brought us anything except misery and shame! Our gods gave us strength, and pride...and it was all a lie..." Rajmael stared at his own hands with a sense of disgust and guilt as he remembered the blood that was stained on them. "Nethras gave his life for our gods. I...killed my own brother because he wanted to kill in the name of our gods...Nethras' life, my parents' lives, the entire history of my people, was all that in vain?"

Everyone remained silent, unable to give the Inquisitor an answer. To them, this was merely another mystery they were finding answers to, but to Rajmael, this was the destruction of everything he knew and revered his whole life. He dedicated himself to revering the elven culture and the worship of their gods, and his people lost so much to human ignorance and bigotry for wanting to adhere to those traditions. Now it seemed that all that dedication was for nothing. Rajmael's life, his brother's and his parents' life was for nothing.

"No. Their lives were never in vain. Not ever, Inquisitor." Hawke answered. "Your people have fought to maintain control of their identity, their destiny. A fight that has never ended, yet continues. Despite everything the world has done to your people, you carry on, and take the strength of your predecessors with you. If their lives have in any way influenced you, guided you into the man you are now, a man who has saved the world and brought glory to his people, then their lives had more meaning than anyone else could ever comprehend. Let that be their legacy."

"You think that the loss of your gods is something so horrible, but I say that your people are truly free." Aedan spoke out. A sense of surprise and curiosity drew from everyone. None would have expected the Hero to say anything that wasn't admonishing or threatening.

"Free?"

"Yes. Nothing to tether your destiny or hold back your potential. Too many in this world look to gods that have never shown their faces to the world to solve their problems, instead of looking to their own inner strength." Aedan pointed to the Crossroads around him, taking in the whole scenery. "Look around you! Look at what your people accomplished thousands of years before Andraste ever spoke of the Maker. I see the greatness and glory your people had, what you can become once again."

"It's true. After seeing this, I think the Imperium was just trying to copy the ancient elves." Dorian added.

"Strive to live up to your people's legacy, not the favor of empty gods." Aedan continued fervently. "All of this was made by elven hands, not the blessings of false or absent dieties. Instead of looking for gods to assist in your destiny, become the gods of your fate."

In that very moment, Rajmael realized why these two humans were a couple of the most revered heroes alive in Thedas: it was their ability to inspire, to remind people of their own strength. Rajmael remembered when he was on the brink of death in his final confrontation with Corypheus, how he encountered the souls of all his loved ones and family members, how they gave him the strength to carry on, and sent him back to the land of the living. The gods were never there for him, but his people always had always been there for him, and still were. Rajmael was only ashamed that he needed two human warriors to remind him of that.

"Thank you, both of you. For reminding me of what matters." Rajmael said graciously.

"Don't mention it, Inquisitor." Hawke nodded.

"Now, let's get back to business. We still have a hostile foreign force to contend with." Aedan counseled.

The Winter Palace

The Inquistor and his companions all made it back through the mirror and into the abandoned storage house the eluvian was standing in. Cullen and his soldiers were waiting for them.

"Inquisitor, thank the Maker you're...wait." Cullen's eyes went as wide a wagon wheels. "Is that the Champion with you? What in Andraste's name is going on? It's like Tuesday back in Kirkwall!"

"Cullen, get Josephine and Leliana to our waiting room now, and secure this mirror." Rajmael ordered. "The situation is more dire than we first believed."

"At once, Inquisitor. But we need to be discreet." Cullen warned. "Your absence has been noted by the Exalted Council, and everyone wants to know just what is going on. Moving this mirror may be a problem. Maybe if we had a distraction...?"

"I've got an idea." Aedan spoke out, looking over to the Champion. "Sergeant, I need you to come with me."

Hawke followed after the Fereldan General outside, wondering what he wanted. Hopefully, it was nothing to violent. "What do you have in mind, General."

Aedan grabbed Hawke by the arm, and pulled him to where everyone could see him. "Hey, everyone! The Champion of Kirkwall is right over here! And he's signing autographs!"

Within seconds, a huge crowd of the attendees came screaming towards the dumbfounded Champion. Noblewomen ran out of their shoes and kicked up their skirts just to be the first to get close to Hawke.

"Oh, Champion! Sign my handkerchief!"

"Sign my chest!"

"MARRY ME!"

"Damn it all, not again!" Hawke cursed, and started running as fast as he could.

Aedan couldn't help but laugh at his handiwork. It was like watching a pack of starving dogs chasing after a fat cat. While the arduous crowd chased after the famous Champion, distracting everyone in the Winter Palace, Rajmael and Cullen quickly set to their tasks. Hopefully, Hawke could distract them without being torn apart by ravenous Orlesians.

~XoXoXo~

Rajmael stood in the Inquisition's meeting Chamber with his War Council, including Leliana, and explained the situation to them. How the Qunari were performing some sort of operation to sneak agents into the Winter Palace. How the Qunari attacked them on sight, declaring for the death of the Inquisition, and Rajmael in particular. While this was no army of Red Templars trying to rip another hole in the sky, the Councilors were certainly not pleased with this turn of events.

"One dead qunari was bad enough. Now we have more, and they're hostile." Culle stated deeply agitated.

Josephine did her best to remain calm and kept a tight grip on her clipboard and quill. "But this makes no sense. The qunari may have no love for the Inquisition, but they certainly have no reason to attack us."

"They also have no reason to be here, or even using eluvians at all, Josie." Leliana added calmly.

"Something is definitely wrong. Almost disturbingly so." Cullen added deeply concerned. "The qunari despise magic, in any way, shape or form. More so than the Chantry ever did. They see it as something chaotic and unnatural. Qunari standard procedure with magic is that if they can't control it, it is dangerous and must be destroyed. So they must be extremely desperate to be using such an ancient form of magic to do whatever it is they're attempting."

"What I want to know, is how in the blue fuck are these qunari even able to use the eluvians in the first place." Rajmael stated sharing Cullen's conern. "The Ancient Imperium tried to revive the eluvians, but only managed to make a few send messages through, and to a limited extent. And it took nearly ten years just to repair two eluvians, both done by powerful mages. Either the qunari have discovered something we don't know about, or something has activated these mirrors on their own."

"All of these are valid and dangerous concerns. Which is why I've had the mirror moved to a more secure location and placed under heavy guard. There'll be no more surprise coming out of that thing, Your Holiness." Cullen assured the Divine confidently.

"Culle, please, just call me Leliana." The Divine urged. "There's no need for such formality between friends."

"Yes, Your...er, Leliana."

Rajmael sighed a breath of depression. "So, once again outside forces are using the magic and legacy of my people to try and do harm, and we have to stop them. Story of my life."

"First the Blight, then the Mage-Templar War, then Corypheys, and no this." Cullen listed agitatedly. "Can't this Age go at least ten years without something trying to tear the world apart?"

"If that happened, guys like us would be out of a job." Aedan said sarcastically.

"We must make sure the qunari's presence do not disrupt the negotiations. The matter with the Exalted Council is in a delicate state right now." Josephine asserted firmly.

"I'm sure you can soothe the nobles' ruffled feathers while the rest of us handle the real problem, Ambassador." Cullen said, annoyed and not taking her concerns seriously.

"Not when the Inquisitor insults everyone present by walking out of the room right in the middle of the talks!" Josephine raised her voice, offended at the Commander's lack of respect for her concerns. "Right now, our only saving grace is that Orlais and Ferelden are divided in goal and grievance. If they unite against us, Divine Victoria will have no choice but to support their claims. We could lose everything!"

"I know we're putting a lot of pressure on you Josephine, and I wish we weren't in a situation to ask this of you, but I need you to do this." Rajmael implored. "I know you can handle these negotiations. You've handled the best of Thedas' politics for years."

"My apologies, Inquisitor." Josephine sighed, calming down." I will attend to the Exalted Council.

"Leave the matter of the Exlated Council to me, Cullen. I can handle them."

"And while Josie does that, we will investigate the situation." Divine Victoria asserted.

"We, Your Holiness?" Josephine questioned.

"You too, Josie?" Leliana sighed, deeply annoyed with her formality.

"I'll gather the others and head back to the Crossroads. Maybe we can find more answers to what the qunari are doing." Rajmael stated with determination. "We already averted several major disasters, I don't want the Exalted Council of the Winter Palace to be like the Conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes."

Rajmael walked out of their meeting chamber and made his way towards the tavern where is companions along with the Hero and the Champion were waiting for him. As he walked, something caught his eye like a grappling hook. Amongst the crowds of mingling nobles and hustling servants, Rajmael thought he saw someone who blended with them, yet somehow stood out to him. An elven woman with chestnut brown hair and dusky skin was looking at him from across the way with a sense of scorn in her deep green eyes.

Rajmael knew she looked familiar, but couldn't place her at moment, and something in his mind was screaming at him to remember like she was important. It was like an itch at the back of his mind that couldn't be scratched. He moved to go see her, but the instant he blinked, she was gone. Rajmael felt that itch in the back of his mind grow more irritable. Who was that woman, and why did she seem so familiar? It didn't matter, not now, anyway. Right now, Rajmael had more important matters to attend to.

Meanwhile, in the Winter Palace Tavern...

Aedan and Zevran were knocking back a few drinks with the Inquisitor's companions. Cole sat outside under the tavern's canopy, watching Maryden play her music and admiring her beauty. Varric set down another mug of beer at his table, like he was waiting for company to show up. Hawke finally managed to trudge into the tavern, looking exhausted and harried, and dying for a drink.

"Hey! Hawke, you made it! Glad to know you still got it." Varric chuckled, passing his old friend a tall, cold pint.

Hawke grabbed the ale and chugged down several powerful gulps before gasping for air and wiping his mouth with his arm. "And here I thought the fans back in the Free Marches were a pain, but these Orlesians are insane. I'm just glad I didn't run into Duke Cyril. That would have been extremely awkward."

Everyone sat back while the Inquisitor spoke with his War Council, trying to relax and wrap their minds around what they had seen and discovered. Some wanted to just drink until they forgot everything that transpired. While some wanted to satisfy a long held curiosity, now that both the Hero and the Champion were here.

"Hey, Hawke, how d'ya think Daisy's gonna take the news about what we saw at those ruins?" Varric asked with more concern than curiosity. "Because I'm pretty sure you're going to tell her. I mean, everything we saw there, the ruins, the valley, the Crossroads, all of that blew the shit out of anything they got in Orzammar, but the other stuff? The slaves and the elven gods, how do you think she'll take that."

This was a concern for Hawke. He loved Merrill immeasurably, and detested even the thought of hurting her, but he also knew her dedication to elven history and the truth, even if it was painful. "I don't know, Varric. Merrill loves her people and is dedicated to the truth, but often times, the truth can hurt. I know many elves who adhere to the old way will be crushed to learn of this, and they may even do everything they can to deny it. But I have seen how strong elves can be, and they have learned how to move on without gods helping them for millennia. I believe this is just another obstacle elvenkind can overcome."

"You don't think this diminishes the elves?" Varric continued. "I mean, for countless centuries, they've been trying to live up to a legacy they believed was perfect, something that made them feel proud, like they were better than the rest of the world that treats them like crap. Now we got proof that it isn't all that perfect."

"Trust me, I know from personal experience that trying to live up to an impossible standard set by an ancient legacy isn't what's best for everyone, even when the whole world's telling you otherwise." Dorian added insightfully.

"Well, as you all know, no culture in the world is perfect, despite their greatness." Hawke stated factually. "We humans are famous for treating everyone like crap because of racial or social differences, so we conquer, enslave and humiliate them. Look how the Chantry has treated mages and elves for almost two thousand years. Dwarven society only values family name and its strict caste system. Anyone born with neither is lower than dirt, so they're allowed to treat the Casteless like shit. And if, for any reason, you cannot or will not conform in qunari society, they lobotomize you and turn you into a mindless slave. So, really, no one is perfect, and therefore no one has the right to judge someone else for their culture and beliefs."

"All of you are acting as if you haven't seen this kind of thing before: praising someone with no divine power, centering religion around a false figure. Doesn't almost every other idiot in the South do the same thing?" Aedan said contemptuously, his words instantly grabbing the attention and ire of the others. "Almost everyone on this fucking continent worships a barbarian woman and her misbegotten, faceless god. Both, who as far I have seen, are false and empty."

"Really, General? Your disdain for religion of any sort is well-known, but must you truly be so antagonistic?" "Cassandra asked, deeply offended by the Hero's words. "Many people believe in Andraste's words and the Maker because it gives them faith and hope, that maybe their lives have meaning in this cruel world."

"Oh, here we go. I'm going to need another drink." Zevran groaned into his hands.

"Ha! Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black!" Aedan mocked. "And how often has the Chantry inflicted cruelty on to others for being of a different race or having a different creed? What do you say we ask the elves and the mages how kind your dipshit religion has been to them."

"Why? Why do you have so much hatred for Andrastian faith?" Cassandra practically demanded. "For elves and mages it is different, but what could the Chantry have done to you to make you hate it so much that you insult it every chance you get?"

"Absolutely nothing, and that's my problem with it." Aedan answered. "Neither Andraste or her useless Maker have done anything that has ever meant a damned thing. For all you know, Andraste was insane and the Maker was just a voice in her head. For all the victories she had, Andraste ultimately failed; died at the hands of her enemies after being betrayed by her husband, and the Maker never showed up. Not ever. At least the Imperium, the elves and even the dwarves actually had something substantial to give their faith to."

"What? You mean false gods that you would have only disgust for?" Cassandra asked argumentatively.

"I dislike all gods and religion equally, but at least their religious figures actually had a hand in their greatness." Aedan reasoned heatedly. "The Imperium had the Old Gods who made them the most powerful human empire in known history. The elves had these Evanuris, who possessed knowledge and power we don't truly know the extent of. And every Ancestor of the dwarves had accomplished something great to earn them reverence. Compared to that, your Maker is more like a fairytale made up by a dead failure who was burned alive."

That angry scowl Cassandra was famous for gripped her face fiercely while Aedan mockingly grinned at her anger, taking it as a challenge. This debate was probably going to take a rather violent turn.

"Hey I gotta question for you and the Champion here." Iron Bull announced to the two legendary heroes, trying to stop a holy war from breaking out in the tavern. "Outta of the two o' you, who do you thinks got the bigger kill record?"

Aedan pointed to himself, and Hawke also pointed to Aedan.

"Oh, come on, Hawke. Really?! Selling yourself a little short there aren't you?" Varric asked, genuinely surprised with his friend.

"Just being realistic. Unlike some, I haven't spent most of my life at war with everything." Hawke answered honestly.

"It's true. You wouldn't believe the amount of creatures, people, and monsters I have killed in the course of my life." Aedan stated factually. "If every life I took was a brick, I could've built myself three palaces by now."

"Okay, here's another one: which one of you two do you guys think gets the most tail?" Iron Bull asked with an amused grin.

This time, Hawke raised his hand and Aedan also pointed to him.

"Ha! Like that was ever in question." Varric laughed.

"Even before I was Champion, or met Merrill and Isabella, the only time I ever slept alone in a bed was when I chose to, and that wasn't very often." Hawke bragged with a triumphant grin. "After I became Champion, I had to have Bodahn put a lock on my door so I could start getting some sleep."

"I'm in a committed relationship." Aedan answered flatly. "And being unfaithful to the mother of my son would be...detrimental to my health."

Everyone, except for Zevran, was stunned by not only of the prospect that Aedan seemed fearful of a woman, but the fact that he had a son. And they were all slightly worried about what kind of progeny such a union would yield. Before any of them could take a moment to take in this discovery, the Inquisitor entered the tavern, and it didn't look like he was here for a drink.

"Hey, you can all get wasted and shitfaced on your own time." Rajmael instructed. "Right now, we've still got magic mirrors to explore and hostile qunari to find."

All of them rose from their seats and followed after the Inquisitor, right after taking one last drink. If they were going to traipsing through magic mirrors through different planes of reality, some of them were going to need a little liquid courage. After they had consumed enough alcohol to make this ordeal tolerable they followed after the Inquisitor back through the eluvian.

The Crossroads...

As they walked back into the space between spaces that was the Crossroads, where the rules of reality were diluted with the laws of the Fade. The floating islands carrying shattered elven ruins and their eluvians suspended within a vast nothingness was still a sight none of them were used to. However, there was something different this time. There were massive land paths connecting between two of the islands that wasn't there before. It connected the island that held the mirror to the Valley of the Dread Wolf to the island opposite of them, it too had an eluvian.

"Hey, that wasn't here before." Varric noted, he wasn't buzzed the last time he came here.

"Someone was able to raise that bridge. Wonder how they pulled that off?" Ranier questioned.

"Well, maybe we can ask those armed, musclebound men running across it." Hawke said, pointing his finger to a group of armed qunari running across the bridge to the eluvian on the other side.

"Hey! Benabas toh hassot!" Iron Bull tried to call out to his former qunari brethren, but they just kept running. "Hmm. Guess they didn't feel like talking."

"Then I guess we're going to have to do this the old fashioned way: chase them down, beat 'em up, and then get the answers out of them." Rajmael resolved.

Everyone chased after the qunari across the recently erected land path that connected the islands. The eluvian the qunari ran through was still open, but it felt different; Rajmael could feel it radiating a different kind of energy than the previous one. The first eluvian felt warm and serene, like walking into a green valley on warm spring day. This one felt dark, cold. Like it lead to a place where sunlight never touched it. Well, there was only one way to found out where it lead. Taking a deep breath, Rajmael was the first to step through the eluvian.

Somewhere Unknown...

Rajmael and the others came through to the other side of the eluvian and found themselves in what appeared to be some kind of elven ruin. However, unlike the first one, this ruin was dark, cold, surrounded by stone. The ruins here weren't erected, but carved into the very stone.

"Holy shit. The eluvian took us underground. Deep underground. I daresay we're beneath the Deep Roads." Aedan observed.

"How can you tell?" Ranier asked curiously.

"Well, I was an actual Grey Warden for a long time, and the presence of the taint underground, even if you were never a Warden, is something you never forget." Aedan answered, still getting a sense of his surroundings.

"Reminds me of that Primeval Thaig we discovered all those years ago with Batrand." Hawke recalled. "I don't see any evidence of dwarves ever even being here. No statues of Paragons, their lanterns, not even their architecture is here."

"I remember, Hawke. It's what set you on the path of becoming the Champion. What I want to know, is why in the name of Andraste's knickers would an elven mirror lead this far underground. I mean, I thought the only people nutty enough to voluntarily live down here was the dwarves." Replied Varric.

"Whatever this place is, I don't think it's seen any visitors until recently." Rajmael observed. "This place, its feels as ancient as that Valley did. And look at this architecture, this was another place my ancestors visited."

"Which begs to question why the ancient elves would ever want to come here. There must have been something they wanted here, or something they hid here." Cassandra reasoned.

"Maybe we'll find out further inside. Those Qunari we saw looked like they were in a pretty big hurry." said the Iron Bull.

They didn't have very far to walk to find their quarry. Just up ahead outside the entrance to the cavernous ruin was a squad of qunari soldiers. And they looked less happy than qunari usually do.

"You, who serve Fen'heral, the Qun demands your death!" The Sten yelled ferociously as he and his fellow warriors charged the Inquisition. The qunari spearmen threw their javelins while the rogues tried to flank them from the sides. Soldiers of the baresaad were some of the most fearsome and disciplined warriors in Thedas, but they had never encountered anything like Aedan Cousland, the Iron Bull, or Cassandra Pentaghast. They quickly made minced meat out of the soldiers with their very sharp and well used weapons.

The spearmen's job was to focus on the threats that could attack from further away, like archers or sarebaas. And sarebaas were always the first thing they targeted. Sadly, these soldiers were on a level far beneath the likes of Dorian and Vivienne. The Northern and Southern mages sundered the qunari soldiers with their respective spells of fire and ice. The lesson to be had here was if you're going to battle mages this powerful with nothing but throwing spears, like some kind of caveman, the smart thing to do was run.

Zevran's whole childhood and adolescence was filled with grueling training and life threatening tests to make him into an Antivan Crow. One of the first lessons they ever covered was learning how to fight in the dark with a blindfold on, so fighting these qunari throat-cutters in the dark was no ordeal for him. Nor Cole for that matter; he could still sense those who wish to inflict pain on others and could feel where their attacks were coming from. The two knife-wielding inhabitants of the shadows engaged in a brief dance with their opponents, which ended with the qunari falling down dead in silence, with their arteries sliced open, and bled to death on the floor.

"Did you hear what those qunari said? They think we serve Fen'heral. Why the hell would they think that?" Rajmael asked, his curiosity piqued.

"Real qunari are atheist and seek to abolish religion, but why would they want to kill you for supposedly following one elven god?" Hawke wondered.

"I suspect we'll find the answer to that question and why the qunari are here further inside." Aedan concluded.

They all delved further into the caverns and found evidence that the qunari they just killed were trying to excavate a cave-in. Probably trying find another way into the caves, but as to why, was anyone's guess.

Whatever this place was, it was definitely not dwarven but elven. The architecture here was the same as the Valley of the Dread Wolf: graceful and serene with a deeply aesthetically pleasing aura, despite being in ruins underground. There were also elven styled statues depicting dragons and wolves, representing Mythal and Fen'heral, just like the ones back in the Temple of Mythal. It seemed like it was another temple, but there had to have been more to this place than just worship. Just what kind of place is this, and why were the qunari even here?

All of them tried to be careful and watched their footing. It was extremely dark down here, with very little light.

"Argh! What's wrong with this place! Don't dwarven ruins always have light from lava or glowing rocks or fungus, or something!?" Varric cursed when he stubbed his toe in the dark.

"I don't think this place is dwarven, Varric. The people who built this place weren't trying accommodate your people." Hawke responded blithely.

"Yeah? Well, it's dark, it's creepy, there's things trying to kill me, and worst of all, it's underground. Cripes, I can feel myself getting dwarfier by the minute. I think might just sprout a beard." Varric complained.

"Yes, yes, we know, you hate all things dwarven." Hawke sighed wearily. "And family gatherings, the entire Merchant's Guild, telling the truth about Bianca."

"And caves, and the outdoors, and magic. Heights greater than five feet." Cassandra continued.

"Orlesians, Nevarrans, Fereldans, mages, Templars, nugs..." Vivienne listed.

"And slopes, uneven ground. The dark. Pretty much all kinds of weather that isn't sunny and warm..." Iron Bull went on.

"Orlesian cafes, taverns that are too tidy, ruins that are too dirty..." Dorian droned.

"Also the quiet. Most kinds of smells. Rain. Water in general..." Blackwall added.

"The sea. The smell of the sea. 'Who made the ground vertical.' Mountains covered in dead." Cole mimicked.

"And pretty much anything that isn't hearing yourself talk." Sera finished sarcastically.

"Look, I have to complain, otherwise you'd forget I'm here and trip over me. I'm providing a service!" Varric justified.

"Better to hear a dwarfs constant complaints to know he's there is a sight better than having to smell his rancid odor and he wish he wasn't." Zevran commented. "Ugh. Oghren had a stench that could fell an ogre."

"There, you see? Even the professional assassin get it." Varric laughed.

"No, actually. I don't see. Not a fucking thing." Aedan stated. It was pitch black, and the further they went, the darker it got, and none of them were smart enough to bring a damn torch with them.

Rajmael looked at his left hand, the mark glowing in his palm. "Hmm. Maybe the Anchor can make itself useful down here."

The Inquisitor charged his magic through the Anchor and bright green light emanated from his palm like a torch, illuminating their path. Now they could find their way through her without getting lost or falling down a hole. They navigated their way further into the depths of this shattered underground ruin, and still no sign of their quarry.

The more they walked, the more obvious it became that this was some

"Everyone, quiet!" Rajmael ordered. "Do you hear that?"

The Inquisitor's pointy ears twitched as they picked up a faint sound echoing in the dark.

Within moments, it became loud enough for everyone to hear it. It sounded like some sort of skittering. Like many sharp fingernails tapping on the stone floor, followed by high-pitched snarling and growls. Within seconds, they saw dozens of nocturnal eyes glimmering in the darkness. Small lizard-like creatures with a wormy body on top of four scrawny legs and a disgusting maw of teeth circling at the end of their muzzles. Deepsstalkers, a whole pack of them.

The packs of deepstalkers growled and chittered, spitting their venom at their would-be prey.

"Aw, shit! I hate deepstalkers, too!" Varric yelled.

"Move, I'll handle this." Aedan said as he stepped in front and handed his axe over to Zevran, looking deeply annoyed with this creatures.

Rajmael wondered what the hell Aedan was doing. He had dealt with deepstalkers before, and he had the advantage of magic. Anyone without magic who strayed from the group to face not one pack but several of them was suicidal. They may be small, but numbers can overwhelm. However, Aedan wasn't just anybody.

Before the deepstalkers could get close enough to even smell him, Aedan stomped his boot to the ground so hard the tiles shattered, and a sickly red aura surrounded him like a shadow. His eyes burned like coals and he snarled at the pack of carrion creatures like an angry animal.

The deepstalkers stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of the snarling human, and their voracious hunger instantly turned into terror. They turned their tails and ran as fast as they could from Aedan, whimpering in fear as they went. The deepstalkers had been scared so badly, that they ran off the nearby ledge and threw themselves into the cavernous abyss below.

"Sweet Maker, what did you do to those creatures?" Cassandra asked, unable to believe what they had all just seen.

"I've never seen deepstalkers run away, let alone run to their deaths." said Varric, sharing Cassandra's surprise.

"At this point, I think it should be painfully obvious that I am very good at scaring the living shit out of anything." Aedan answered evasively.

"Man, if that's your scary face, I don't want to know what your poker face is like." Iron Bull chuckled.

"Oh, trust me, my musclebound friend, you haven't seen Aedan's scary face yet, and you don't want to. Maker knows I wish I didn't." Zevran warned sarcastically.

"Scared is exactly what I think those deepstalkers were in the first place." Hawke spoke out thoughtfully. "Deepstalkers don't run in such huge packs because they usually eat each other. Something has driven them out. We should keep pressing forward."

~XoXoXo~

The group did as Hawke suggested, and soon enough they came upon excavated caves with torches burning, lighting the way forward. There were ramparts built around the cave walls, and evidence of people digging here. They all stopped dead in their tracks when they came upon an illuminated tunnel that had been cut off from the rest of the excavation. It was sealed by a wall of strange blue fire. They could see several charred skeletons of the unfortunate souls that were unlucky enough to have been burned by it. Whatever this flame was, it didn't give off any heat, yet somehow reduced these bodies to bone and ash incredibly quick. Natural fire didn't burn as fast, or as quietly.

"Great. More magic crap." Iron Bull grumbled.

"I think we now know what scared those deepstalkers." Hawke deduced. "Most beasts are naturally scared of fire, but this? Even grown men with the IQ of a stump would have enough sense to stay away from it."

"This isn't like any fire spell I've ever seen. Most fire spells dissipate after they are cast, but this one feels like it has been burning for a while, now." Vivienne observed curiously."

"I'm not sure it's actual fire to begin with." Dorian added.

"Strange. It feels like...veilfire. Except it's different." Rajmael observed, trying to get a sense of what kind of magic this was. "Veilfire alone is harmless, used to hide and inscribe knowledge magically, but it can be manipulated for offensive purposes, like with my sword. But the enchantment on the Enasalin allows my blade to bypass armor and physical objects, and deal spirit damage. This fire actually burned it's victims into nothing. I don't even think it can be doused magically. This is something very old and powerful. Some sort of manipulation of spirit magic."

"Yeah? Maybe we can get some answers up ahead. Look." Ranier pointed ahead at the end of the tunnel where they could see lights.

There seemed to be some kind of bonfire at the end of the tunnel, a camp perhaps. Rajmael could see shadows moving in the distance; someone was over there. Rajmael could almost make out the figure in the dark with his keen eyes.

"Look, someone ahead. I think he's human." Rajmael led the others forward and dropped into the makeshift camp at the end of the tunnel. The figure here was indeed human, oddly enough. When he realized he wasn't alone, the man jumped to his feet in shock. and brandished a sword.

"Stay back! I'm warning you, I won't...wait. Your hand. Are you the Inquisitor?" The human asked when he saw Rajmael's glowing left hand. "And blessed Andraste, is that the Champion of Kirkwall with you?"

"I didn't expect to find a shemlen this far in underground, let alone surrounded by qunari." Rajmael remarked.

"You don't know the half of it." The man responded nervously. "Listen, we do not have a lot of time. Please, what the Viddasala is doing is madness. She must be stopped."

"The Viddasala? That's a high-ranking Ben-hessrath agent, specializing in magic. Finding. Studying. Stopping." Iron Bull explained, the title striking a chord in his memory.

"Not anymore." The man said morosely. "Look, I don't care if you serve Fen'heral or not. Someone has to stop her."

Rajmael felt that angry thing at the back of his mind wake up at the implication that he served the Dread Wolf for a second time, but he kept it under control. "Just what the fuck makes the qunari think that the Inquisition serves Fen'heral?"

The man gave an confused shrug, like he was just as puzzled about it as the Inquisitor was. "I don't know. The Viddasala said it, and well...you're Dalish. It made about as much sense as anything else did."

"Tch. I didn't think the qunari were such racist pricks." Zevran scoffed. "Just because someone's an elf, they must be a servant or worshiper of an ancient god."

"We've had agents of Fen'heral causing us trouble all over the Crossroads." The stranger explained. "Sabotage, setting traps, making spirits attack us. They lit those strange blue fire walls to cut us off from any lyrium veins we discovered. I assumed the Inquisition was their army. That you came here because Fen'heral told you to."

"Fen'heral is a lie! A failed myth from a bygone era!" Rajmael rejected angrily. "I serve no one!"

"The Viddasala thinks you do. And she's ordered all qunari under her command to kill you if you interfere."

Hawke looked at the stranger curiously. "Your accent sounds familiar. You're from Kirkwall, aren't you?"

"Once upon a time." The man answered apprehensively. "My name is Jerran. Ser Jerran, once. I was Templar stationed in Kirkwall. Until I joined the Qun."

"You're qunari?" Hawke repeated, rather shocked at this truth.

"Andraste's ass. If Meredith had a grave, she'd probably be turning in it right now." Varric commented, shaking his head.

"Ugh, great. A Templar and qunari. Two of the things I hate the most rolled up into one big ball of wussy." Aedan groaned disdainfully.

"How can this be? Why would a sword of the faith turn away from the Chant of Light? From Andraste?" Cassandra asked with woeful disbelief.

"Because the Chantry caused more problems than it solved, Seeker." The former Templar answered honestly. "The Qun offers a strength and equality that the Chantry lacks. Kirkwall was madness, chaos. The qunari were like the eye of the storm. I stand for order and discipline, protecting the innocent from magic, but this...it's as mad as Meredith ever was."

"What do you mean the Viddasala is mad? Has she stopped doing her duty?" Rajmael inquired.

"Quite the reversal, actually." Jerran revealed. "This place, this entire operation here, it's a lyrium processing facility. The Viddasala discovered it, and she's using it to...do you know what a sarebaas is?"

"Yeah, it means 'dangerous thing'. S'what the Qun calls mages." Iron Bull answered.

"A very apt name for them, too." Hawke added. "The Qunari use them as living weapons. When their gaatlok and canons can't destroy something, they use their sarebaas to do it. They wield a type of primal magic and destructive spells that are unlike anything I've ever encountered. It's all the Qun allows their mages to know."

Jerran nodded his head at Hawke's words. "Even as a Templar, I had never seen anything like the kind of power a sarebaas can unleash. Now the Viddasala is giving them lyrium. And lots of it, to make them even more destructive. It's part of some plan she's calling 'The Dragon's Breath'."

"That's a load of utter crap! There is no way the Viddasala would ever let a sarebaas within even a thousand feet of lyrium." Iron Bull rebuked.

"There's more to it than that, but I couldn't find out what. The qunari don't like it when you ask too many questions." Jerran admitted.

"What is this place, and why are their elven mirrors in the Deep Roads?" Rajmael inquired.

"This place it's...well, I guess you could say that it's like lyrium spring. The more we mine, the more their seems to be. As for the mirror, I don't know. Maybe the ancient elves were mining her, too."

"What I want to know is why the qunari would even bring a Templar with them." Dorian spoke out.

"The qunari wanted me to teach them...everything I know about lyrium. Where it comes from, everything it can do, how we put it to use. I knew enough from my time with the Order. They figured out more, but I don't know how. Maybe they got help from the Carta."

"That's crazy talk." Varric denied. "The Carta may be a bunch of motherless moss-lickers, but they wouldn't help anyone who might move in on the lyrium trade. And lyrium's fatal to anyone dumb enough to mine who isn't a dwarf."

"You're right. It killed the qunari at first, but qunari workers have a discipline only the Tranquil can match. And they're quick learners, too. They figured it quick."

"If there's really that much lyrium, the qunari could probably make a fortune large enough to outfit the entire Antaam. They could afford to anger the Carta." Dorian suggested.

"Only if they wanted to fight Orzammar tooth and nail over it." Varric insisted. "There's no way they'd ever let anyone outdo them on the lyrium market."

"Oh, and how would Orzammar fight the Qunari?" Dorian asked argumentatively. "I doubt there are Deep Roads all the way back in Par Vollen for them to fight in."

"They'd probably financially back up the Imperium, outfit them with enough lyrium and weapons to make the qunari back off. Trust me, they got the money to do it." Varric pointed out.

Aedan grunted in his throat impatiently. "Let's get to the heart of the matter: what is this Viddasala doing that is so bad that you'll turn your back on the people you sold yourself to and go running off like a coward, again."

Jerran hung his head in shame at Aedan's words, for he had turned his back on the people and cause he had given his life for, not once but twice. "Dragon's Breath, it's the Viddasala's plan. She said it would 'save the South'. That can only mean one thing: invasion. And when the qunari invade, it destroys everything in its path, like dragon's breath."

"Bullshit!" Iron Bull tried to deny. "The qunari wouldn't be launching an invasion right now. They just wouldn't!"

"Why not? The qunari have been trying to conquer Thedas ever since they landed here in the Storm Age." Hawke debated. "With the South still weak from Corypheus, now would be a perfect time to launch an invasion."

"If the qunari did that, they'd find all of Thedas united against them." Ranier pointed out. "Even they couldn't hope to win a war with the whole continent fighting them."

"It wouldn't be the first time the qunari fought off all the forces of Thedas." Hawke reminded dourly. He remembered very well the power of the qunari's military.

"I don't know the full details of the plan, but I know this lyrium mine is crucial to the Viddasala's plan, and this is the only lyrium mine they have." Jerran informed. "They're using gaatlok, massive round casks of explosive powder, to mine, so they don't touch the raw lyrium. If you get the primers from central supply, you can prime the gaatlok and detonate it. This whole mine will go up in flames."

"Where is this central supply?" Zevran asked.

"It's at the very heart of this facility. In some sort of ancient ruined temple the elves built down here." Jerran answered. "It will be heavily guarded, but I think you can handle it. Deepstalkers and cave-ins will cut off reinforcements, but they'll still come when they hear trouble."

"If this works, will it stop the Viddasala's plan?" Rajmael asked.

"It's a start." Jerran answered honestly. "She needs this facility as part of her plan. Destroy it, and you might cripple her entire operation, for a while at least. I wouldn't doubt that she has back up plans."

With this information, their purpose was now clear. If the qunari were really planning an invasion and this mine was key to this Dragon's Breath plan, they had to destroy it. They didn't go through all that pain and horror of stopping Corypheus just to let the qunari swoop down and finish the job. Swooping is bad.

"There's no telling how bad the cave-ins will get once the mines are destroyed. You'd better get out of here fast." Rajmael told the former qunari.

"I will. Good luck, Inquisitor." Jerran bade. He went down the path they all just came from, running as fast as he could."

"Hmph. You should have just killed him, Inquisitor." Aedan snorted.

"Is that your solution to everything: kill it, even if it helped you?" Rajmael asked.

"The man's a twice-turned traitor. You can't trust someone like that." Aedan reasoned. "If he can betray the religions that he gave his soul to, what do you think he might do to you? I would have killed him on principle, if not for safety."

"Well. we can have this argument another time when we're not deep underground and surrounded by hostile qunari planning an invasion." Rajmael responded. "Right now, we have a lyrium mine to destroy and some carefully laid plans to ruin. Let's go."

~XoXoXo~

All of them pressed further into the mine, following the path to the Central Facility the qunari made through the tunnels. It was getting cramped in the tunnels, forcing them to be careful how they navigated through it. Iron Bull was having the most difficulty. Because of his immense size and his large horns, and because of the darkness of the tunnel, Iron Bull had a hard time moving through the cramped tunnel. Several times he scraped his horns on the jagged roof and nearly tripped over a rock.

"Grr! I keep banging my horns on this crap. At this rate, I'm going to chip them or something." Iron Bull grumbled.

"Would you like me to go first?" Cassandra offered jokingly.

"I wouldn't mind the view." Iron Bull answered, making Cassandra laugh.

"Are you comfortable fighting qunari, knowing they are hostile to the Inquisition, Iron Bull?" Cassandra asked.

"I'm not qunari anymore, haven't been for two years. Whatever they're doing, I'm ready to stop." Iron Bull promised.

"Yeah? Well, I hope you're more than ready, because it looks like we've got several boatloads of 'em to deal with." Ranier stated as they emerged from the tunnel.

Across the cavernous underground gorge, they could see the entire operation the qunari were working. Massive columns of rock bigger than castle towers were being excavated. Torches blazing everywhere, shedding the darkness and revealing everything that was going on. Dozens upon dozens of miners chipping at the rocks with their tools, soldiers on patrol, and laborers moving as much rock and material as they could with cranes. The sheer number of people working and guarding this place was almost overwhelming.

"Ashante kaffas. The qunari operation here is massive. How many people do they have working this place?" Dorian said astounded.

"If they're harvesting this much lyrium, they've got to be up to something big. And it's always right before and during times of war that production of resources is at its highest." Aedan spoke factually.

Dorian looked at the scene before them with a deeply disturbed look on his face. "I've lived with the qunari threat hanging over my head my entire life. If this were to spill into the rest of Thedas now, I don't think the South would be prepared for it."

"That's what we're here for, Sparkler. And we've got three of the greatest heroes in Thedas at our sides." Varric said confidently. "We'll kick this guys' asses back to Par Vollen, then head to the nearest tavern to knock some drinks. Right, Hawke?"

"Damned right. Just like back in Kirkwall." Hawke laughed. "We're gonna need to find a bigger tavern, though."

Aedan noticed a stream of water trickling down from the cave roof above them. Drawn by curiosity, he held out his hand and caught some of the water before bringing it to his lips and tasted it. The instant the water touched his tongue, Aedan spat it out because of it's terribly bitter taste.

"Ptui! Salt water? Oh, holy shit..." Realization suddenly smacked Aedan upside the head like a club. "Guys, I think we're beneath the sea."

Everyone quickly became aware at just how dire their situation was.

"Wait. We're underground and under the ocean? This...isn't...good." Sera shuddered.

"Great. Two of the worst places I never wanted to possibly die in. Why can't we ever face danger some place nice, maybe sunny?" Varric complained.

"That explains why the ancient elves used those mirrors to get here. I don't imagine they swam done here to harvest the lyrium." Ranier commented.

"We must take care when we set off those explosives." Vivienne warned. "It's bad enough that we must worry about cave-ins, now we must concern ourselves with getting out before this place floods."

Rajmael drew his sword and charged his magic, his eyes burning and ready to fight. "We'll worry about being drowned later. Right now, we have other problems to deal with!"

The Inquisitor pointed to a patrol of qunari soldiers coming their way. Seeing the Inquisition in their operation caught the horned soldiers off guard.

"It's the Inquisition! Sound the alarm!" One of the soldiers ordered. Varric shot in arrow into the soldier's head before he could make another sound.

Rajmael noticed the qunari were moving several casks of gaatlok. Not the ones big enough to destroy this facility, but enough to serve his purpose now. He charged a bolt of lightning through his sword and fired it right at the gaatlok barrels near the qunari. The barrels exploded in a great ball of fire, setting the qunari on fire and sent them flying down into cavernous abyss, their screams echoing throughout the cave.

"Well, that's going to attract some attention. We need to get moving and set off this explosives, fast." Rajmael urged.

The Inquisitor wasn't wrong. Within moments, more soldiers came charging towards them when they heard the explosions. They got into a tight formation, locking their immense tower shields and effectively blocked off any way forward. The qunari threw their javelins and lobbed their grenades at the intruders, effectively preventing them from pressing forward, and forcing the Inquisitor and his companions to fall back and take cover. The qunari held the superior position in this fight.

Sadly, the qunari were all standing where all the water was falling from the roof, and the puddle spilled right over to where Rajmael was standing. The Arcane Warrior stabbed his sword into the wet ground and used his magic to charge a powerful current of electricity through the water the qunari were standing in. The qunari all screamed in agony as the electricity surged through their bodies, singeing their flesh and boiling their blood with such intensity their eyeballs exploded out of their skulls. While the qunari were held in this horrible pain, Varric and Sera took the opportunity to shoot them in the heads and hearts, mercifully ending their suffering.

With these qunari dead, it was time to press forward, but Rajmael knew that going on like this wasn't going to get the job done. It was time to change tactics.

"We can't stay in such a large group. The qunari will just box us in and cut us off again." Rajmael said strategically. "We need to split up into three groups and take different paths to the central facility. One group will follow the Hero, the other will follow the Champion, and the rest come with me."

"Leading yet another group of misfits into dark, unknown territory in the Deep Roads while it's full of hostiles trying to kills us. Feels like I'm having a case of deja vu." Hawke said nostalgically.

"Story of my life." Aedan agreed.

"Oh, and first person to get there before everyone else gets to raid my liquor closet." Rajmael offered as incentive. "Now, move!"

~XoXoXo~

Vivienne, Ranier and obviously Varric, followed after Hawke. After so long of not fighting at his best friends side, Varric wasn't going to miss the chance to finally fight alongside him, even if it was into the Deep Roads, and under the bottom of the ocean. Ranier was the former Champion of Tantervale, yet he never had nearly as much accomplishment or notoriety as the Champion of Kirkwall, and was eager to see what he was capable of. Vivienne had heard all of the tales the gossip-mongers, mummers and bards in Orlais had told of Garret Hawke, and wanted to see if the skill of the man whose actions were at the epicenter of the Mage-Templar war was on par with his reputation.

Aedan charged down his chosen path the central facility in full force, Zevran, Dorian and Iron Bull not far behind him. Zevran had been watching Aedan's back since their adventures during the Blight, and the last thing he was ever going to allow was letting these horn-headed oxmen stab one of his few living friends in the back. For Dorian, after seeing what the Hero of Ferelden did to that entire qunari death squad back in the Valley of the Dread Wolf, he couldn't think of a safer place to be than behind one of the most destructive mass killer in the South. As for Iron Bull, he always wanted to see the Hero of Ferelden in action and compare their killing prowess.

Cassandra refused to be separated from Rajmael. After seeing how painfully the Anchor in his hand had crippled him back in the Valley of the Dread Wolf, she was more scared than she had ever been for what it could do to him. If anything happened here, Cassandra wanted to make sure she was there to protect her lover. Cole knew the pain the Inquisitor was going through, and wanted to make sure he could help him in any way he could. He may no longer have been a spirit, but helping his friends was still his purpose in life. And as for Sera, well, following the Inquisitor was probably the least creepiest guy to follow down here. She heard how the so-called Hero liked to eat other people, and trouble and weird stuff stuck to the Champion like stink on a donkey's ass. She wasn't in the mood to see any other weirdness.

With all of them split into three groups, the qunari who were meeting the threat were forced to divvy up their numbers and had a more difficult time trying to corner them.

Hawke and Varric were both used to fighting qunari together, their movements were practically in sync with each other. Hawke would break the qunari ranks and slice through their shields and armor with the Celebrant while Varric kept the qunari from flanking and overwhelming the Champion by having Bianca fire his favorite exploding bolts at them. Knowing about the qunari's natural weakness for the cold, Vivienne used her trademark ice spells to freeze the hostile soldiers right where they stood, allowing Ranier to shatter them like glass with his mace. The qunari were unable to get a superior position on them, allowing them to press forward.

Aedan and Zevran fought side by side. The Hero with his axe, and the assassin with his daggers. The two of them had performed this dance for many years on many battlefields. Aedan would attack the enemy with his utter rage and intimidating tactics then decimate them with his axe, then Zevran would sneak through the shadows to cut their tendons and arteries while they were distracted. Iron Bull and Dorian mimicked this tactic. Balls of fire spat from Dorian's staff, lighting up the darkness with such intensity that it the qunari. They covered their eyes as well as their bodies from the fireballs by raising their shields in front of them. Unfortunately, they blinded themselves to the massive tal-vashoth mercenary who came at them swinging his axe and knocked them off the edge. With these guards disposed of, they all charged onward, mowing down any enemy that stood in their way.

Rajmael and his group took the main path to the central facility. He could hear the fighting and noise the other two squads were making, but for his group had yet to encounter anything. Strange. Given how badly the qunari wanted to kill him, Rajmael thought he'd be the primary target, but they had yet to run into any trouble.

"Everyone, halt!" Rajmael ordered. They was still no sign of their enemy, and they were about to walk into a dark tunnel that seemed empty and silent. It was the perfect place to lay an ambush. "Wait here. I'm going to check this out."

"Are you sure that's a wise idea, Inquisitor?" Cassandra asked with deep concern.

"It's really dark in there." Cole reminded.

"If I were these guys, this is exactly where I'd launch an ambush." Rajmael informed. "I'm going to make sure that it's safe."

"Just be careful, Rajmael." Cassandra bade.

"Yeah, and you might wanna make it fast. At this rate, all them's gonna clear out your booze-closet." Said Sera.

"Just wait for my signal." Rajmael instructed as he walked into the tunnel.

Rajmael drew Enasalin from his hip but didn't activate its Veilfire; he didn't want to be an easy target in the dark. His eyes scanned the darkness, and so far, he couldn't see anything. However, he did hear something. It was so faint, but it was there. It was as soft as moth wings fluttering in the air, and it was coming right at him.

A searing pain swiped across Rajmael's back, face and chest in the dark, leaving three deep cuts on his body. Rajmael bit down on his own lip to keep himself from making a sound. Now he knew he wasn't alone in here, and it was indeed an ambush. Felt like three blades belonging to three different owners had just cut him. Rajmael's body radiated brightly as he used his magic to heal the cuts he sustained.

"You are blind, Inquisitor." A cold voice whispered. "The qun will bring the light."

"You cannot see the truth." A second voice added. "The qun will make the South see."

"Asit tal-eb. It must be." Hissed the third. "You cannot even see the true threat in front of you."

Cassandra and the others heard the once silence tunnel became full of the sound of blades cutting through the air and flesh being sliced. Fresh blood sprayed out of the cave and a loud thud fell to the floor. Cassandra, Cole and Sera rushed into the tunnel when it erupted with light, taking that as the signal Rajmael told them to watch for. They rushed in and found Rajmael flicking blood off his sword as he stood above half a dozen slain qunari assassins, their daggers still gripped in their hands and their blood flowing on to the floor.

There was one qunari assassin still alive. There was blood from her mouth and she gripped her own throat tightly to try and stop the bleeding from the wound the Inquisitor inflicted on her. She vainly tried to reach for the dagger she used to cut the Inquisitor the first time, only for the Dalish elf to kick it away from her and pressed his foot on her chest. She looked up at him, her eyes burning with anger but also a glint of confusion. How? How did she and all her sisters end up like this when they had the advantage?

Rajmael saw the look on the dying qunari's face and decided to answer her dying curiosity. "Little fun fact before you die, bitch: Elves can see in the dark. Your ambush was pretty crappy." The Inquisitor swiped his blade across the dying qunari's neck and severed her head from her shoulders, then sheathed his sword back on his hip. "Well, that was fun. Now, let's get going. I really don't feel like having my wine cabinet pilfered after spending years collecting it."

~XoXoXo~

All of them raced towards the central facility, decimating any and all opposition that stood in their way. The qunari were expecting the Inquisitor, but never the Hero of Ferelden or the Champion of Kirkwall. The enemy never stood a chance. More importantly, each group pressed on as hard as they could, all of them wanting a shot the Inquisitor's legendary liquor cabinet. That securely locked pantry held some of the rarest and most exotic beverages in all of Thedas. None of them could turn down a chance to raid it.

Sadly, they all made it to the entrance at the same time, where another massive squad of qunari soldiers was waiting for them. The soldier were standing on the bridge leading to the central facility, all locked in a tight formation with their tower shields, effectively blocking the only way in. Each qunari soldier refused to budge, and ready to fight to the death for every inch of ground they stood on.

All three squads stopped where they were as Rajmael, Hawke and Aedan walked on to the bridge, ready to take that bridge themselves. When those three legendary, powerful figures stood before the enemy, their weapons drawn, the qunari felt that terrible, almost foreign sensation that many of them were trained to suppress: fear. For in the briefest of seconds, every qunari soldier realized that they were going to die.

Rajmael took a tremendous leap over the qunari and used his sword to create a glyph in midair that sent a powerful bolt of lightning down on the enemy. The blast was so powerful it knocked many of them off the bridge, breaking their tight formation, and electrocuted the rest of them into painful paralysis. Rajmael landed right in the middle of the qunari, and began slashing at them with his sword, cutting through their armor and shields with his veilfire blade. Rajmael activated his Shimmering Shield, making him practically incorporeal; the qunari couldn't hit him, but Rajmael could cut them.

With the qunari ranks broken, Aedan and Hawke prepared to make their move.

"You remember how to charge an enemy formation, Sergeant?" Aedan asked, gripping his gruesome battle-axe.

"Just like back in Basic Training." Hawke assured, the Celebrant held firmly in his hands.

The two Fereldan warriors charged the qunari soldiers, hollering ferociously with their weapons in hand. Both of them were trained in the ways of combat used by the Fereldan Royal Army, and their training taught them exactly how to break enemy formations, and they had the weapons to do it. With their greatsword and battle-axe, Hawke and Aedan broke through the qunari rank, splintering their shields and cleaving through their bodies. Great weapons were designed to break the lines of pikemen, smash phalanx ranks, and even bring down cavalrymen. And both the Hero and the Champion were masters of these weapons.

Aedan's axe cleaved through the shields, and it's crescent head disemboweled them, ripping their intestines out of their bodies, and soon they were tripping in their own blood and guts. Hawke's Celebrant sliced through the qunari ranks like butter, and his powerful fire rune set them ablaze with fire, causing further panic in the ranks as burning qunari began running in horrible pain. Rajmael's Enasalin lit the darkness of the cave with it's white veilfire. The veilfire blade phased through the qunari's shield's and armor, while Rajmael wielded it in unison with his lightning magic to incinerate his enemies.

With their numbers, and being pressed shoulder to shoulder in such a confined space, the qunari had no room to move or fight back effectively. Their own strength in this battle became their fatal weakness. They tried to attack the Inquisitor, but he was like a ghost: their weapons just passed through him like he was made of air, his magic allowing him to unnaturally phase through objects and heal. The qunari tried to defend from the front, but the Hero's strength was too great, his axe eviscerated them as smashed through one opponent after the other. And the Hero's armor was practically impenetrable, their spearheads breaking on his breastplate while his sword cut through each of them and setting them on fire like scarecrows to a torch.

Cassandra and the rest of the Inquisitor's companion's watched in utter amazement while Varric and Zevran looked on like this was entertainment. All of them had merely heard what the Hero and the Champion were capable of, but to see them in action alongside the Inquisitor was unlike anything they had seen before. Anyone else, lesser men who would dare to take on a karataam with only three people, would have been purely suicidal. However, these three living legends decimated the entire company of highly trained qunari soldiers like they were nothing more than a mere obstacle in their path. One by one, Rajmael, Aedan and Hawke slew every qunari that had dared to stand in their path. Now they all realized that maybe Varric's tales weren't completely bullshit after all.

~XoXoXo~

Soon, all the qunari soldiers were dead, their broken, burned, and chopped up bodies laid strewn all over the bridge as a river of their own blood fell over the edge. With these men now dead, the Inquisitor and his company were free to enter the central chamber and get the primers they needed to blow this mine apart before the qunari used anymore of the lyrium for whatever this "Dragon's Breath" scheme was.

"Maker's blood..." Dorian gasped dumbfounded at the sight of so much blood and gore committed by only three men. "I've heard all the stories, but damn if they never did 'em any justice."

"Trust me, it's one thing to hear about these people in action, but it's completely different to actually see it person." Zevran commented.

"It's all so messy. I don't like seeing so much blood." Cole spoke, looking a little paler than usual as he carefully tried to step over all the carnage and slip in anyone's blood and guts.

"Hot damn, I don't think there's anything in the qunari military that could prepare any of their soldiers for something like this." Iron Bull said as he looked at all the blood and gore lying all over the ground with his one eyes, thoroughly impressed.

"And I thought that spirit we saw posing as the Hero back at Adamant was something impressive." Ranier recalled. "That was like comparing watered down beer to Coastland Whiskey."

"Guess these guys didn't learn their lesson when Hawke killed the Arishok. There aren't enough qunari in Par Vollen that can kill the Champion of Kirkwall." Varric bragged.

"Nya-ha! These qun-guys should just quite now. Else they's all gonna get hacked into dog snack." Sera chortled.

"The qunari were running an effective operation, despite the structural instability of this place. I don't think they were counting on being discovered, let alone attacked." Vivienne pointed out.

"With this many soldiers, and given the trouble these agents of Fen'heral have been causing them, I think the qunari were expecting some kind of trouble." Cassandra responded. "Still, hard to imagine how you prepare for three of the most legendary figures in Thedas attacking you at the same time."

Aedan took a firm hold of his axe and jammed it out of a slain qunari's skull. "Well, I guess this makes it a three-way tie."

"That's too bad. After years of drinking that watered down piss they serve at the Hanged Man, I was really looking forward to trying some good liquor for a change." Hawke stated, cleaning the blood off his blade.

"Hey, after all this crazy shit we've seen here, I think we're all going to need some drinks from that cabinet when we're done here. I'll make sure everyone gets a bottle of the good stuff." Rajmael assured. "Now, let's see if we can find those primers Jerran was talking about them get the hell out of..."

A high pitched, ear-shattering hum split the air and massive sphere of destructive energy materialized in front of them. They could feel the intensity of its power searing their skin as it began pulling them towards it like a vortex of destructive energy. Rajmael, Dorian and Vivienne were barely able to raise a magical barrier strong enough to stop them all from being pulled in to the cluster of energy before it exploded like dragon fire, shattering the magic barrier and sending them all flying backwards.

"Ouch! What the fuck was that!?" Aedan hollered as he rose back to his feet and brandished his axe.

"Oh, shit! Get down!" Iron Bull shouted.

Everyone, even Aedan, hit the deck when two more intense balls of destructive energy came flying straight at them. It came in so close it singed Vivienne's robes. All of them looked ahead to see a powerul qunari warrior clad in heavy battle armor and holding a foreign longsword with a forked blade in one hand and some sort of rod in the other. On his armored chest was the symbol of the qunari nation, the House of Tides, a declaration of who he was.

Next to this warrior was a pair qunari the likes of which most of them had never seen. A man and a woman, both powerfully built, but their horns were chopped down, leaving behind a couple of rough stumps on top of their scalps. They were bound they were like some kind of beasts of burden: wearing a heavy chained harness around his neck and crude blinders locked around his forehead that obscured his eyes. The distinctive feature that Rajmael noticed about these bound qunari that made his blood boil in his veins, was the fact that these creatures' mouths were sewn shut. Who could abuse a member of their own people like this?

"What in the blue fuck are those things!?" Aedan shouted furiously.

"Sarebaas, qunari mages!" Iron Bull answered. "Watch out!"

"It's not like any sarebaas I've ever seen." Hawke noticed cautiously. "Then that qunari must be an Arvaarad."

"Sarebaas, katara baas! Nehraa Qun!" The Arvaarad ordered viciously, using the strange rod in his hand to issue his order.

The two sarebaas grunted in response to the pain the control-rod brought them, the agony reminded them of their purpose and compelled them to obey. The qunari mages surrounded themselves in an arc of destructive energy and flew like a pair of living comets right at the Inquisitor and his companions. They landed with such force they created a pair of craters right where they stood.

Cassandra tried to use her Seeker abilities to suppress the sarebaas' magic, but their mana was just too powerful. It was like there was no end to their reserves of magic. The male sarebaas raised its claw-like hand and launched a powerful stream of pure destructive magic at the Seeker. Cassandra was able to raise her shield in time, but the force of the blast forced her back and she was unable to move forward. The qunari increased the power of his destructive spell, bearing as much of his might as he could down on the Seeker. Cassandra held as firmly as she could, but the power of this spell was becoming too much. It sent her flying off her feet and she crashed into a nearby pillar, knocking her out.

Varric tried to help Cassandra and fired several bolts at the sarebaas' side. The qunari raised it's other hand and launched a wall of psychic energy towards the dwarf, knocking the bolts out of the air and sending Varric flying backwards. Varric rolled back on to his feet and threw an elemental grenade he had been tinkering on at the qunari mage. The grenade exploded in a variety of different colors like a firecracker, dealing several different forms of elemental damage. Varric's grenade didn't even tickle the damned sarebaas.

Dorian had seen qunari sarebaas in action before, but never actually fought them. He was always too busy running in the other direction to ever see what they were truly capable of. This time, he didn't have the luxury of running to safety. This time, he was going to see just how much all those years of training back in the Circle of Vyrantium and being Alexius' apprentice actually meant against mages of his country's greatest rival.

Dorian held his ancient Imperium Staff, once wielded by the forebears of House Gerion when they were priests to the Old God of Fire Toth. With an ancient incantation in old Tevene on his lips, he conjured a complicated glyph beneath the sarebaas that attacked Cassandra and Varric before it could move to finish either of them off. An immense pillar of red flame erupted from Dorian's glyph with the intensity of a volcano and devoured the qunari. Dorian smirked smugly, proud with what he had done. It took him months to perfect that spell, and it cooked that sarebaas perfectly, like a Wintersend turkey.

Dorian sense of self-accomplishment was quickly killed when that sarebaas walked out of the pillar of flame, smoking but otherwise unharmed, and he looked incredibly pissed off. It extended its claw-like hand towards Dorian and prepared to launch an incredibly powerful ball of raw energy from its palm right at Dorian. But the attack never came, and the sarebaas howled in agony when its extended hand was lopped off his wrist, thanks to the quick and timely attack of a certain Tal-Vashoth mercenary.

Before the sarebaas could cast its spell at his lover, Iron Bull charged over on its flank and chopped its hand right off. While it was distracted by the horrible pain of losing its hand, and not casting any spells, the mercenary captain jammed his axe right into the qunari mage's head between his broken horns. Blood sprayed out from beneath the sarebaas' metal visor and trickled out of his sewn mouth, didn't even make a sound when he fell to the ground dead.

"Ahh. You're a real lifesaver, Amatus." Dorian sighed thankfully, appreciating the fact that he was saved by his better half, like something out of a cheap romance novel.

"Don't worry. The only horn-headed oxman who gets to play rough with you is me, Kadan." Iron Bull winked with his good eye.

The Champion stood before the remaining female sarebaas with his sword held ready. "The rest of you, stand back. I got this one."

"Y-yeah. You show her, Hawke!" Varric encouraged as he dizzily tried to stagger back to his feet.

"While you handle that thing, I'll take on this other asshole." Aedan responded.

"Sarebaas! Katar!" The Arvaraad ordered as he prepared to fight the Hero.

The female sarebaas clapped her hands together and fired of cone of destructive energy at the Champion. Rajmael could feel the amount of mana and power from the offensive spell and knew it was enough to put qunari canons to shame, yet Hawke no attempt to evade it, he didn't even move. What was he thinking?

The Champion stood firm, even as the powerful spell enveloped him with it destructive energy. Even Varric didn't react at the sight of it. The sarebaas magic should have blasted Hawke to pieces, but it did nothing, didn't even singe his beard. Hawke's armor and sword lit brightly with strange runic symbols that seemed to absorb the spell into his gear. Hawke held the Celebrant tightly in his hands and the sword began crackling with the same energy as the spell that was cast at him. Hawke then slashed the Celebrant at the sarebaas and redirected the mage's own spell right back at her. The sarebaas was caught so completely off guard that she had no time to react, and the spell blasted her to pieces, sending his torn limbs, head and torso flying across the facility.

Aedan dropped his axe as he approached the Arvaraad, content to simply just beat this oxman to death with his bare hands.

The qunari officer was insulted and enraged at this bas' arrogance. He screamed and held his forked sword ready to cut the now unarmed Hero down.

"Ataash qunari!" The Arvaraad screamed as he attacked.

Aedan caught the sword with his bare hands, snatched it out of the Arvaraads grip and snapped the highly crafted blade right in half then threw it to the ground. The Arvaraad tried to strike at Aedan with his powerful arms, confident that his heavy armor would give him ample protection. Aedan snapped the qunari's arm like a chicken wing before the strike could even touch him, then smashed his mailed boot into his opponent's leg and shattered his kneecap.

The Arvaraad growled and grunted viciously, desperately trying to hold back the agony he was in as he fell to the ground, his broken leg no longer able to hold him up. The Arvaraad grabbed the dagger strapped to his hip and angrily slashed at his attacker. Aedan stomped on the qunari's hand and left a deep imprint of his heel on the back of the qunari's palm. Aedan decided to end this quickly, so he grabbed the Arvaraad by on of his horns, snapped it off his skull, then jammed it through the qunari's eye, straight into his brain, and out the back of his head. As things usually go of Aedan, that was probably the cleanest execution he had committed since he arrived in Orlais.

While Aedan's capacity for violence was truly one of a kind, Rajmael and the others were more stunned about what they saw the Champion pull off. Hawke, a nonmage, actually redirected a powerful attack spell like how a mirror reflects light. Many of them had seen Rajmael accomplish the same thing, but that was in thanks to his magic and his magical sword. Hawke didn't have such gifts, did he?

"Ser Champion...how in the world did you manage that?" Vivienne asked, genuinely impressed. All this time she thought he was another sword-swinging brute, like Ranier of Iron Bull. Obviously, that wasn't the case.

"I thought the Champion couldn't do any magical spell-thingies." Sera said a tad confused.

"And here I thought only the Inquisitor could do something like that." Ranier commented.

"That's the thing about Hawke, he makes the ordinary extraordinary." Varric chuckled.

"No doubt about that. I read all the books, but seeing is a much different matter. How did you pull that off?" Rajmael asked deeply curious and impressed.

"I used to know this dwarf named Sandal, a venerable genius, prodigy and savant at rune crafting." Hawke answered, sheathing the Celebrant. "He forged me a special rune from a piece of that red lyrium idol Bartrand had. It can absorb and reflect any offensive spell that's casted at me. The only one of its kind in all of Thedas. And with all the different threats and enemies I face, such a thing really helps in a situation against powerful mages."

"Maybe you can all save your admiration for the Champion's equipment when we're not thousands of miles underground in an unstable lyrium mine with hordes of qunari wanting to murder us." Aedan yelled.

Remembering their purpose, all of them set to work searching for the primers Jerran told them to get so they could blow up this mine. As they were looking, Rajmael felt the song of the lyrium practically calling out to him and draw him near it. He walked over to the edge of the balcony overlooking the heart of the facility and he was awed by what his eyes beheld. There was an entire temple complex down here of elven design that had somehow perfectly withstood the instability of this place and the wear of time.

"By all the souls of my ancestors..." Rajmael said in awe at the sight. Everyone gathered around him and shared in the Inquisitor's amazement.

In the temple proper was a massive man-made crevice in the ground that revealed a venerable ocean of lyrium deep underground. At the end of the giant fissure was a great well that must have been used by the ancient elves to gather the lyrium. Strangely, on either side of the crevice, laid before the ocean of lyrium, was a long line of what must have been stone coffins. Who was buried here? And why did the elves abandon this place? With this much lyrium, they could have rivaled Orzammar, given their mages the might the needed to push back the Imperium.

"Holy shit. If I brought back even a tenth of what this place has, I could solve all of Kirkwall's building projects, settle the city's debts, and still retire in luxury for the rest of my life." Varric listed, unable to take his eyes of the precious magical ore.

"There must be enough lyrium here to outfit two armies." Cassandra observed.

"This cave is a crumbling ruin, barely able to stand as it is." Zevran noted. "The qunari must be beyond desperate to risk so many lives and resources to get as much of this lyrium as they can. Not that I could blame them with this much lyrium."

"The qunari don't rely on lyrium, or anything magical for that matter. What could they possibly need this much lyrium for?" Dorian questioned.

"Remember what the Jerran guy said?" Iron Bull recalled. "He said the Viddasala is giving the sarebaas shitloads of lyrium. Maybe she's using it to enhance their abilities as living weapons."

"If that's part of her plan, then it's an effective one." Hawke stated grimly. "I've never encountered sarebaas that powerful before. If the Viddasala were to give an entire company of sarebaas lyrium, they could do more damage than any of the Circle mages."

"No, that doesn't make any sense." Aedan spoke out. "If you make these mages that powerful, how do you control them? The qunari are all about control, especially when it comes to magic. They wouldn't put so much stock in their own mages unless they served a different purpose."

"I must agree with our residential warlord." Vivienne admitted. "Weapons you can't control are no weapons at all. And mages are barely controllable as it is."

"Grr! Why does everyone gotta use stupid magic to win stupide fights over ideas that make no sense?!" Sera groaned like she had a splitting headache. "Why can't people do things the old-fashioned way and fight with arrows?"

"There has to be something here that can tell us more about this place. We need to know just what's going on here." Rajmael stated.

"Inquisitor, over here. There's some answers." Cole called over from a nearby table the qunari were using to stash supplies.

Rajmael walked over to Cole and saw a note on the table. Like some of the other qunari notes he had found, this one was strangely written in both qunlat and the common-tongue. Some of the notes had been scratched out, making them illegible. Rajmael tried to read what he could aloud.

Viddathari kith,

Walls of blue flame have disrupted our operations. The agent of Fen'heral ignited these strange magical fires as he ran through here, bringing chaos. DO NOT GO NEAR THEM. They are magic and bring only death. Fen'heral's mage servant is powerful, and magic must not be allowed to thwart us.

The bas disruption of the Ataashi-Asaara must be ended at once. Inquisitor Lavellan decreases with each...The line was crossed out.

The Dragon's Breath must be completed. Locate and eliminate the bas hissra...This line was also crossed out...Eliminate the servants of Fen'heral. Time runs out.

"Hmm. It would seem we're not the only ones interested in disrupting this lyrium operation the qunari have." Rajmael stated. "Looks like this mystery agent of Fen'heral is just as interested in stopping these qunari as we are. Still, this doesn't give me any answers, just more questions, Cole."

"I wasn't talking about these notes, Inquisitor. I was talking about this..." Cole grabbed a torch and illuminated a nearby wall that revealed a flawlessly preserved mural that almost stole Rajmael's breath.

The mural depicted a massive creature of earth and stone being struck down by a beam of light that pierced its strange heart. From it's shattered body came rivers of bright blue liquid that could only be lyrium. There were two veiled elves on either side of the mural. One held his hand up high in reverent praise. The other held the heart of the colossal creature in its hands. The mural depicted some kind of battle where the elves celebrated their victory and took the creature's heart as a prize.

Rajmael's elven eyes could see a faint glimmer beneath the surface of the ancient paint. Rajmael waved the Anchor before it revealing ancient veilfire runes that seemed to shift and coil like snakes, and magically allowed Rajmael to interpret their meaning. He couldn't just read the runes, he could actually feel them. The emotions of feelings captured and left behind by the people who built and eventually abandoned this place.

Rajmael felt his hand grip his sword and a sense of anxiety crept up his spine, like he was entering into an unknown, frightful place.

"Our cities quake as these great ones shape the earth. The gods have given us their blessings to tame the land, and so we will start here. In this place we prepare to hunt the pillars of the earth. Their workers scurry, witless, soulless. This death will be a mercy. We will make the earth blossom with their passing."

A thunderous shatters the stillness of the air, and Rajmael could feel sense of victory fill his heart.

"Hail Mythal, adjudicator and savior! She has struck down the pillars of the earth and rendered their demesne unto the People! Praise her name forever!"

For a moment, the scent of blood fills the air, and there is a vivid image of green vines growing and enveloping a sphere of fire. The vision grows dark. An aeon seems to pass. Then the runes crackle, as if filled with an angry energy. A new vision appears: elves collapsing caverns, sealing the Deep Roads with stone and magic. Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast. The image of an elven mage wearing a wolf-skin cloak appeared before Rajmael's eyes, his staff held firmly in hand as he looks down upon the sealed temple beneath the earth. He could hear his ancient distorted voice whispering:

"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."

"Incredible. The Evanuris...Mythal, eons ago, she slew a Titan here." Rajmael realized.

"What's a Titan?" Hawke asked.

"Picture a creature so large that it doesn't live beneath the earth, it is the earth, Hawke." Rajmael answered, hardly able to believe it himself. "Creatures so immense their bodies could house entire thaigs. From what I understand they were...I guess you could say Shapers of the earth, capable of forming and crushing mountains. Supposedly, they are the source of all lyrium in the world."

"Holy fucking shit!" Aedan said utterly amazed. "How the hell did you discover that?"

"We went on a little stint with a Shaper from Orzammar to stop a Titan from waking up, and she decided to stay down there with it." Varric answered uncaringly. "Went to the Deep Roads, encountered more darkspawn, stumbled upon more ancient mysteries, and left with more questions than answers. Usual weirdness. Just wish it could have been somewhere above ground."

Hawke shook his head in disbelief. "Wait, you mean to say that all this lyrium, this entire chasm, it's the body of a dead Titan that was slain by an elven god?"

"Apparently when the Titans were shaping the earth, they shook and destroyed the elven cities." Rajmael explained. "The Evanuris had commanded my ancestors to tame the land, and the Titans were interfering with that. So Mythal struck this Titan down and my ancestors killed the dwarves inhabiting it, then harvested the lyrium from the Titan's dead body."

"Invading someone else's home then killing them and their god? Not exactly the best way to start interracial relations." Varric stated casually. "Then again, it's not like the dwarves are much better. We treat our own people like trash."

"If these Titans are so powerful, just how powerful were the Evanuris to be able to slay such a mighty creature." Cassandra wondered.

"What I want to know is if this place had a limitless supply of lyrium, why did the ancient elves abandon it?" Dorian asked curiously.

"Fen'heral and his rebels were afraid of something, so they sealed this place off." Rajmael answered. "Maybe they were afraid of provoking other Titans. Or maybe the were afraid of what the Evanuris might do with all this lyrium. Either way, they wanted to make sure no one else could get to this place."

"Well, in that case, why don't we finish what the Dread Wolf started, and stop these qunari from getting anymore lyrium out of this slain monstrosities carcass?" Zevran suggested.

"Yeah, well, two thousand years ago, the Dwarven Empire slaughtered the elves of Arlathan who fled to the Deep Roads to escape the Imperium and killed everyone in Cad'halash thaig for housing them. All so they wouldn't jeopardize their trading relationship with Tevinter." Aedan rebutted factually. "So, not every culture's hands are clean."

"Hey, I think I found just what we're looking for!" Ranier called. He cracked open a locked chest and found the primers they were looking for.

"It would be such a shame to let these perfectly good primers go to waste and not blow something up with them." Zevran chuckled.

"I gotta admit, I've always wanted to see what qunari black powder can do. Just to know what the hype's about." Varric admitted.

"Oh, you're in a for a treat, Varric." Iron Bull chuckled in anticipation. "Watching these things go boom and destroying other people's stuff is almost as good as sex."

"We should get to it quickly, before anymore qunari reinforcements show up." Cassandra urged.

"We're not splitting up this time." Rajmael ordered. "Once these explosives go off, we can't risk the chance of some of the other pathways crumbling. We'll all take the main path back to the eluvian and force our way past any resistance."

~XoXoXo~

All of them hurried to each of the loading platforms where the qunari stored barrels of gaatlok to be lowered into the mines. Without the primers, and thanks to the craftsman ship of the barrels, they were virtually harmless. However, now that the Inquisitor and his company had the necessary tools to ignite and use the qunari's prized and coveted black powder against them.

One by one, they managed to get to each platform and set off the explosives that were resting there in a ball of fire and smoke. With each explosion, the cavernous gorge became more unstable. Rubble began fall from the roof and parts of the ruins began falling into the abyss. The screams workers and soldiers below echoed throughout the caves as the mines they worked in buried them alive. These mines would now become their tombs.

Rajmael set off the last batch of gaatlok barrels at the final platform. The explosion shook the entire cave and the entire underground complex began to collapse. Massive boulders began to fall from the roof and sea water started flooding the entire place. Now was the time to beat feet and get back to the eluvian.

"Well, that did it! Now, let's get back to the mirror and warn the others about this 'Dragon's Breath' plan." Rajmael hollered.

"We may not wish to tarry. This place is flooding fast." Vivienne bade. "And I didn't bring any of my swimwear with me."

The entire group ran as fast as they could before they'd have to start swimming out of here. Any opposition they came across was swiftly cut down. With the qunari in such disarray and trying not to be crushed by falling debris or be swept off by the rushing water, the soldiers that remained couldn't hold a decent defense against them. As they rushed back through the path they came, they found the body of Ser Jerran surrounded by the slain corpses of his former qunari brethren. He had a sword in his hand, and his body was covered in blood from open wounds. The man had bled to death.

Rajmael found a not on one of the qunari that read,

Elf-Isskari,

Our Templar brother is need of reeducation. He must be located and brought back at once.

-Viddasala.

"Poor guy. Jerran refused to let them take him back alive. He didn't get far, but at least he died fighting." Hawke sympathized.

"Tch. A better fate than he deserved." Aedan said very unsympathetically. "Traitors don't deserve an honorable death."

"There's nothing we can do for him and we still have work to do." Rajmael reminded, urging them onward. "So, who wants to Josephine that we're now probably at war with the Qunari? Anyone?"

"Sorry, Inquisitor, I ain't touching that subject with a ten-foot pole. You're on your own with this one." Varric refused.

"They're your War Council, Boss. It's your job to keep them informed." Iron Bull reminded sarcastically.

"I dread to wonder how Ambassador will react to this." Cassandra sighed dismally. "This is most definitely a diplomat's worst nightmare."

"And some people wonder why I hate this fucking job." Rajmael sighed contentiously.

Shortly, In The Inquisition Meeting Chamber...

Everyone when their separate ways and waited while Rajmael gathered Cullen, Leliana and Josephine in their private chamber and told them everything he had discovered. To say that this came as a shock to the Councilors would have a been a horrific understatement. Cullen slammed his hands on their makeshift war table, thoroughly outraged and furious at this turn of events. Josephine didn't show it, but it was obvious that this news greatly upset her. She always started scribbling and jotting notes on her clipboard incessantly when she was upset. Leliana, however, maintained her composure. After surviving the Blight, serving as Nightingale for Divine Justinia, and the War with the Elder One, it was very difficult to ruffle the former Spymaster's feathers.

"Dragon's Breath. The qunari do love their colorful metaphors." Leliana said feigned amusement.

"But what does it mean?" Josephine asked earnestly.

"Maker knows. Qunari agents moving across Thedas using eluvians to attack the South is bad enough already." Cullen waved off.

"What I don't understand is why the qunari accused the Inquisitor and the Inquisition of serving Fen'heral." Leliana admitted.

"Because Fen'heral is real just as Mythal was real." Rajmael stated beyond a shadow of doubt. "I don't think we can afford to deny the fact that the Dread Wolf is on the scene is some form or another."

"What you described from the ancient ruins certainly implies that the elven god of misfortune is real." Leliana acknowledged.

"But how does that implicate us? What has made the qunari decide that the Inquisition serves this Fen'heral?" Josephine wondered.

"Perhaps they're simply drawing conclusions based on the fact that Fen'heral is an elven god and the Inquisitor is a Dalish elf." Cullen supposed.

"Hopefully, we will learn more after we've stopped them." Leliana hoped. "For now, we must find out what this Dragon's Breath plan is, and how they will use it to the invade the South. This qunari leader, the Viddasala..."

The door to their private chamber slammed open and both Arl Teagan and Duke Cyril stormed in unannounced. It was hard to tell how Cyril was feeling because of the damned mask on his face, but Teagan's face was twisted with utter outrage.

"Gentleman!" Josephine said scornfully for their breach in protocol.

"My sincerest apologies, Lady Josephine. There has been an incident with one of your soldiers." Duke Cyril informed maintaining his poise.

"How dare you!?" Teagan fumed. "It was bad enough that the Inquisition withheld the information about the qunari corpse from the Exalted Council, now your guards are attacking servants? You have overstepped your bounds!"

"You barge into my chamber, uninvited and unannounced, throw accusations at me, and dare to say I'm the one overstepping my bounds?!" Rajmael shouted angrily back at the Fereldan lord.

"We will overlook this egregious breach in protocol, Arl Teagan, despite your rudeness. And the Inquisitor will gladly look in to this incident." Josephine spoke out calmly while giving the Inquisitor a stern and insistent look. "I am sure this is all a simple misunderstanding."

"Thank you, Lady Ambassador. Orlais stands ready to assist the Inquisition, as always." Duke Cyril said graciously.

Teagan scowled his displeasure at the Inquisition members, unwilling to let this matter go. "Secrets and lies. Do you not understand why we fear your Inquisition? You act as if you're the solution to every problem! How long until you drag us into another war?"

~XoXoXo~

Rajmael made his way to the Winter Palace garden and did his best to hold back his own anger at Arl Teagan. He didn't give a damn about anyone's rank or status, nobody talks to him that way. When he got to the scene that had upset Arl Teagan so much, he found a several of his own soldiers posturing with the Orlesian guards. One of his captains and that elven scout who had given him Leliana's message earlier were standing over an elven servant who looked like he had been knocked on his back and was nursing a shiner on his cheek.

"What is the meaning of this?" The Inquisitor demanded of his subordinates.

"The Orlesians tried to take one of our people, Lord Inquisitor. We're securing the area." The captain saluted.

The Orlesian captain of the guard stepped forward sharing the same outrage that Arl Teagan had possessed. "This is the Winter Palace! You cannot seize control when one of your guards attacks a servant!"

"The Inquisition is handling this! When someone commits a crime of fashion, you can take over." The Inquisition captain slandered.

"I only asked what he was doing." The elven scout informed.

"And when I refused to bow to the Inquisition's dogs, you attacked me!" The Orlesian elf accused, staggering back to his feet.

"How would you like us to handle the situation, Inquisitor?" The Inquisition captain asked.

Rajmael's attention was instantly caught at the sight the cart of barrels that had been knocked over that the servant had been bringing. Rajmael recognized them as the same barrels he had just got done using to collapse that lyrium mine the qunari were using. Barrels full of black powder.

"Where were you taking those barrels?" Rajmael asked, containing his realization.

"I was ordered to bring more wine to the guests." The servant answered.

"You're lying." The scout denied lividly.

"Your Inquisition soldiers are completely out of control!" The Orlesian captain berated harshly.

"No, we're in control. Keep trying to interfere, and you'll find yourself in chains!" The Inquisition captain said arrogantly.

Rajmael ignored the two bickering human captains and approached the elven servant with a deathly serious look in his eyes. "I'm going to ask you only one more time, and you'd better say the truth. Where were you taking those barrels?"

The elven servant shifted uncomfortably under the Inquisitor's scrutiny, but wasn't backing down. "I...I already told you. I was ordered to bring more wine..."

"Captain, take the servant into custody. Now."

"Right away, Your Worship." The captain saluted.

The Orlesian guard was stunned by this action. "Inquisitor, you cannot be serious."

"Ambassador Josephine will explain later." Rajmael assured. "For now, take the servant into custody."

"As you say, Inquisitor. Lord Cyril will hear of this." The Orlesian captain grumbled resentfully.

"Now wait just a moment please!" A thick Fereldan accented voice called. Aedan walked onto the scene finishing a mug of ale and approached the elven servant. "Why don't you let me talk to the man. I'm sure he and I can have scintillating conversation."

"What? Why?" The elven servant asked completely shocked.

"I wanna get to know you. And I'm sure by the time we're done talking, you and I will be close friends." Aedan grinned sinisterly.

"Very well, General Cousland." Rajmael agreed. "Never let it be said that I didn't cooperate with the lords of Fereldan."

"Great! Now, what do you say you and I head down to the lower basement?" Aedan suggested, putting his arm around the elf's shoulder and forcing him to follow. "We don't want anyone to eavesdrop on our conversation. Might be best to keep it in private."

As Aedan hauled the elven servant away to have a little "talk", the elven scout approached the Inquisitor and handed him some sort of note.

"Inquisitor, I found this not by the barrels. I cannot read the language."

Rajmael took the note and found that it was written completely in qunlat, just like the other notes he had been finding from the qunari. Why the hell was it here?

Leliana silently approached the Inquisitor, hoping for good news. "Did you resolve the problem with the guard?"

"The guard is the least of our problems right now, Leliana. Someone has smuggled barrels of gaatlok into the Winter Palace."

"Smile, Inquisitor. There are many eyes one us." Leliana urged, curling her lips into a bright smile. "At least now we know the true extent of the Dragon's Breath."

Rajmael didn't understand what she was asking but did it anyway. "Why are we smiling right now when we both just learned some of the worst news imaginable?"

"Years of training as a Bard have taught me to never show weakness of any kind, Inquisitor." Leliana answered, still smiling. "Our enemies can either see us panicking, or they can see a happy conversation between two friends."

"The qunari must be using the eluvians to sneak the gaatlok barrels for some kind of surprise attack." Rajmael concluded, maintaining a calm visage.

"Exactly! Even with the eluvians, a direct attack would have met fierce resistance, especially with the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall here.." Leliana agreed. "But if everyone were to die in an explosion, the South would be rudderless, open to an invasion."

"The qunari mean to recreate the events at the Temple of Sacred Ashes." Rajmael realized.

"Yes, but to a more effect. This is what Corypheus should have done after he destroyed the Conclave." Leliana stated. "An attack as swift and destructive as the breath of a dragon."

"The guard who confronted the servant also found this note. Apparently, it's in Qunlat." Rajmael said, holding the paper.

"Let me see. I've been learning from Iron Bull, but I am told my accent is terrible." Leliana looked at the note intently, trying to decipher its meanings. "These are orders for positioning the gaatlok barrels around the Winter Palace for maximum effect. Listen to this, 'when duty has been performed, report to the Viddasala through the mirror marked by a bookcase'."

This was exactly the information Rajmael needed. "I've been wanting to meet with the esteemed Viddasala. She and I have so much to talk about."

"Good. While you do that, I will have agents remove the gaatlok quickly and discreetly. Perhaps Aedan can extract some information from that servant you arrested."

Rajmael turned to gather his companions to head back to the Crossroads and go after the Viddasala. Before he could even take the first step, he heard frantic screeching in the air above him. Like a bird that had been scared out of its mind. Rajmael looked up, and for sure, there was a bird flying down right at him. A large barn owl that landed on a nearby box next to the Inquisitor. Rajmael instantly recognized the owl as Keeper Deshana's animal companion.

"Tylluan? What are you doing here?" Rajmael asked confused and deeply concerned. Tylluan screeched at the Inquisitor in a panic, and he noticed the note strapped to owl's talon. He quickly unwrapped the paper and read what was on it.

"Oh, no...No." Rajmael gasped fell to his knees as he felt his heart almost stop in his chest. His shock quickly turned into utter rage as he rose back to his feet and stormed after that elven servant. "No!"

Cassandra saw Rajmael storming off, his eyes burning with anger, and became deeply concerned for him "Rajmael? What's wrong? Has something happened?"

Rajmael handed Cassandra the note and looked at her like he was ready to snap. "Cassandra, get the others and have Leliana explain the situation. The qunari just made this personal."

Rajmael strode away, and left Cassandra. She looked at the note her lover had given her, and realized what had distressed him so terribly. "Sweet Andraste. Maker, please be merciful."

~XoXoXo~

Aedan and Zevran stood alone in the secluded wine basement in the Winter Palace with the elven servant, who was obviously a spy. After everything they had seen with the qunari, they wanted some answers, and were ready to rip it out of this servant if needs be.

The elven servant in question maintained a hard exterior, refusing to cooperate.

"What do you say we skip the tough-guy speeches and threats, elf, and just get down to brass tacks." Aedan said, cracking his knuckles, ready to get started. "Tell us what you're really doing here, what orders were you given, and anything else that might be useful, or I'm going to snap you in half and make a wish."

"Oh, and trust me, it won't be a happy wish." Zevran informed.

The elven servant spat at Aedan's feet and gave him a defiant look. "I have nothing to say to a barbarian like you!"

"You know what, I was hoping you'd say that..." Aedan prepared to follow through with his promise when the door flung open and the Inquisitor walked in. His golden eyes were glowing furiously with electricity crackling in his hands. "Inquisitor? What's wrong?"

Rajmael said no word, he just shot a stream of lightning from his hands at the servant and sent him flying across the room. The servant screamed in agony as the lightning spell painfully coursed through his body. The Inquisitor didn't relent, showed no mercy, even though the man was a fellow elf, and continued to electrocute him without remorse.

Zevran closed the basement doors so that the whole Winter Palace wouldn't hear the servants agonized screams.

The Inquisitor stopped for a moment and forced the servant to look him in the eyes and give him an answer. "WHERE...IS...MY DAUGHTER?!"

Language Codex:

Gaatlok: Qunari word for explosive black powder.

Sarebaas: Qunlat, literally translates as "Dangerous Thing". Qunari word for mages.

Arvaraad: Qunari military rank. Translates as "One who holds back evil". A qunari who watches over sarebaas and hunts down Tal-Vashoth.

Viddasala: Qunari Ben-Hessrath rank. Translates as "One who converts purpose". A high ranked agent charged with the conversion of foreigners, the reeducation of Qunari dissidents, and the collection and quarantine of magic.

Ataash Qunari: Qunlat war cray. Translates as "Glory for the qunari".

Ataashi-asaara: Qunlat. Translates as "Dragon's Breath".

Sarebaas, katara baas! Nehraa Qun!: Qunlat. Translates as "Mages, kill the outsiders! For the Qun!"

Ashante qaffas: Tevene swear. Translates as "you shit on my tongue".

Author's Note:

Now we're about to enter the really fun chapters.

I hope you all weren't just expecting me to just regurgitate the Trespasser storyline with only the Hero and the Champion as my original content.

Because there's going to be some drama and content that you are only going to get to see right here.

Rajmael's hand is hurting him, his faith is failing, and now something has happened to his daughter.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Just wait until you see what else I have in store.

Please review and give me your thoughts.