"I'm going to make you undetectable, and you will follow me out of the tower without a word, understood?"

"Are you going to make me invisible?"

"Making you invisible would mean anyone would still be able to hear you, which they will not. Now stand still," Morrigan puts her hand on my forehead, and an odd sensation comes over me, like static. She knocks on the Great Doors.

"You were warned, no coming back out once you go in," says a voice on the other side of the Doors.

"It's only me, one of the Grey Wardens. Either you open the doors and let me through, or I will blast through them and let myself through, at which point you will be left without doors. It's up to you," Morrigan replies nonchalantly.

After a moment, the door creaks open just wide enough for Morrigan and myself to get through. Morrigan marches straight towards the entrance doors. Knight-Commander Greagoir looks up- what is he doing on this side of the Great Doors?

"Excuse me, where do you think you are you going?" He says, baffled.

"Judging by the direction I am currently walking in, I am going out of this accursed tower. Don't worry, I'm not stupid enough to have got myself possessed, I've simply decided I've seen enough. I have Grey Warden business to attend to," Morrigan waves a dismissive hand.

The templars stationed at the doors look to Greagoir, equally baffled. Greagoir pinches the bridge of his nose, but indicates his permission to open the doors. Morrigan saunters through with me in tow, and just like that, we're out. The only issue is the lake that currently surrounds us. I expect Morrigan to heads towards the cavern with the dock inside, but she turns heel and strides around the tower in the other direction, and I have no choice but to follow.

"I'd like to get this over with quickly, so if you would, climb on my back when I get in the water, and keep your exclamations to a minimum, understood?" She quips.

"Understood." I do not understand, at all.

Morrigan summons some kind of mist from the palms of her hands, and it rapidly encases her entire body. The body of mist morphs into some other shape, and fades as quickly as it appeared. Standing before me now is… a bear? My jaw drops. The bear, which, despite all logic, must be Morrigan, walks directly into the water, and looks expectantly at me. I guess this is happening, then. I haphazardly jump onto the bear's back, holding onto its fur.

And then we're off, Morrigan the bear paddling swiftly across the lake. She stops at the lake's shore when the get to the other side, and I slide off into waist-dip water, climbing onto the shore while the mist surrounds Morrigan again, returning her to her original shem form. At least, I assume her shem form is the original one. She dries us both off by means of warm air blowing from her staff, and without further ado she sets off again at a brisk pace.

"When we get to the camp I'll see if Master Feddic has any clothes your size so that we may rid you of those ugly Circle robes. No need for any passers-by to realise that we now count an infantile apostate among our number, after all," Morrigan says shortly.

I don't know what to say to that, so I wisely opt to say nothing, for the time being. We walk in silence for a little while, and I notice that we're actually taking the long way around the lake's shore, back in the direction of the inn on this side of Lake Calenhad. We then veer off in a different direction, away from the road and into the sparce woodlands. Eventually, we enter a clearing which is clearly the camp Morrigan mentioned.

The centre of the camp is marked by a campfire, surrounded at a safe distance by five small tents. There's another tent near the cliff, and another set up near a covered wagon. An absolute giant of a dog comes bounding over to greet us, barking excitedly. That is a very big dog.

I try unsuccessfully to hide behind Morrigan, who has no patience for either of our antics. "Get away, you stupid beast, it's a child, not a new plaything for you," she snaps, and the dog whines, settling down some. Morrigan directs me towards the covered wagon, which is guarded by two dwarves, a man and a boy, judging by the lack of beard on one of them.

"'Allo, what 'ave we got 'ere?" the man says with his hands on his hips.

"Master Feddic, this is Faellathi, Neria's cousin. I don't suppose you've got any clothes that would fit a child elf?" Morrigan asks, cutting straight to the point.

Master Feddic takes a good look at me. "Ah…I'm not sure, but I'm sure we can work something out," he says optimistically, flipping the cover off the wagon and digging around.

"Very good. As for you, stay within the camp. I suppose I don't have to remind you that the open road is dangerous for a lone young elf?" Morrigan crosses her arms over her chest. I shake my head.

"No, ma'am."

Morrigan visibly cringes. "Call me Morrigan, if you would."

"Ok, Morrigan." Satisfied, Morrigan stalks away.

Master Feddic hops off the wagon with a small pile of fabrics in his arms. "I haven't properly introduced myself, 'ave I? Name's Bodahn Feddic, at your service, and this here's my son, Sandal," he gestures to the boy.

"Hallo. Enchantment," Sandal greets cheerfully.

"Hello, I'm Faellathi. Nice to meet you both."

Bodahn grins. "Well met. Now, try these on, I'd be surprised if they fit you proper from the get-go but we can make adjustments if needs be, feel free to pop them on in our tent for the sake of modesty," he hands me the pile. In the tent, I pull on a pair of breeches that are far too wide, but I manage to tie the excess fabric in a knot at my waist.

Next is a man's shirt, which actually doesn't fit too badly apart from the length, which sits more like a tunic on me. Must have been intended for a very skinny man. Next is a jacket, too big again but after folding the sleeves half-way back, it's manageable.

Finally, a wide-brimmed hat that covers my entire head and face when I try it on, so I decide to give that one a miss. Bodahn nods approvingly when I emerge from the tent. "There we go, told you we could manage. Shame about the shoes," he gestures to my apprentice slippers, which are a soft, comfortable leather, but are already suffering from the onslaught of mud and grass I've trekked in them. "We might be able to find you some suitable boots and a cloak in Redcliffe, when your cousin and the others have finished their business at the mage tower."

My heart drops. Will they even make it out of the tower? I saw so many fallen, faces I recognised among them…

Bodahn notices the change in mood, and hurries to fix it. "Now don't you worry your pretty little head about it, Sandal and I have only been travelling with this lot a short while and they've faced down all manner of beasties. Saved me and my boy's life when we met, you know, so you just sit tight, and they'll be back soon enough," he announces confidently. I stifle a sigh, but he's right.

There's not much I can do right now, besides wait, and hope, so I take a seat on the ground next to Sandal, who is delighted at the opportunity to show me a bunch of rocks with carved designs on them, which he calls his 'enchantments.' He gets distracted by one of them, apparently fixing the design as he carves away.

My eyes wander across the camp. Apart from Morrigan, who's currently busy reading some large tome, there's only one other inhabitant at the main camp; a giant, heavily armoured grey man, standing eerily still and staring out into the woods.

"Who's that man?" I ask Bodahn.

"Ah, him? That there's Sten, Qunari fella. You know much of the Qunari?" I shake my head. Never heard of them.

"They come from an island near the Tevinter Imperium, very serious lot. Been at war with the Tevinters long as anyone can tell, so they've got plenty of soldier types, including our Sten. He committed some terrible crime when he came here, lost his sword too which is a big deal for 'is kind. Neria had him released into 'er custody so he can fight on our side, got a couple of leads on where his sword might have got to, as well. He can't go back 'ome without it, see?"

"Is he nice?"

"Not particularly, but I think he likes me and Sandal a bit better now, since we introduced him to cookies. They don't 'ave cookies where he comes from, can you imagine?"

Chatting with Bodahn is a welcome distraction from the horrors of the last few hours, and he has a lot to chat about. He tells me about how he ended up on the surface, leaving Orzammar, the dwarf city, meeting Sandal. He also tells me about what Neria has been up to since leaving the Circle, and what she's doing now.

Turns out, it was Teryn Loghain who betrayed the Wardens at the Battle of Ostagar, not the other way around. It had been Neria and Alistair's job to light the signal fire for reinforcements at the top of the Tower of Ishal, but when they did, Loghain called his troops to retreat, leaving the Wardens to be slaughtered. Neria and Alistair had been injured too, but somehow Morrigan's mother, Flemeth, who is also a mage, had saved them.

Most importantly, the archdemon was sighted at the Battle of Ostagar, which I already knew, but what I didn't know is that now, being the only surviving Grey Wardens in Fereldan left, it's up to Neria and Alistair to recruit allies to form an army big enough to take on the Archdemon. Otherwise, the darkspawn will take over all of Fereldan, and eventually all of Thedas, and everyone will die. So there's a lot at stake. Luckily, they have these old scrolls signed by representatives of several parties hundreds of years ago, during the last Blight, which allows them to recruit those parties into fighting against the Blight with them. That includes the Dalish elves, the Circle of Magi, the dwarves of Orzammar, Ferelden's royal family, and anyone else they can convince, really.

So far, they've found one Dalish clan, which has pledged to help, and will hopefully extend the request to any other Dalish clans in Ferelden that they know of. The clan was being destroyed by a curse, and there were werewolves, so Neria and the group helped them end the curse and in return they've agreed to fight, but Bodahn didn't really go into too much detail, so I'll have to ask the others when they return. When, not if.

Alistair wanted to get help from Arl Eamon, the late king's uncle, in Redcliffe, but the Arl is very ill, and when they got to Redcliffe, it was being attacked on a nightly basis by monsters. They found out it's because the Arl's son, who's about my age, has been possessed by a demon who's determined to wreak havoc on Redcliffe. He made a deal with the demon to cure his ill father, who is still ill, and now both of their lives are in danger.

There's a mage there that Lady Isolde, Arl Eamon's wife, hired to tutor her son in secret so that he wouldn't be taken to the Circle, but obviously that plan has gone terribly. Anyway, the mage came up with the idea of saving the Arl's son by having someone go into the Fade to fight the demon to free the boy from possession, but they need a bunch of mages for that, which is why the party came to the Circle when they did. No wonder Neria looked so stressed out.

Eventually, Bodahn runs out of news to share, so we all sit quietly for a while. To my immense relief, just as the sun is beginning to set, Neria and her crew come trudging back into the camp. I fling myself at her, and she returns the hug with a short squeeze.

"Hey, da'len," she sighs, but she manages a smile, which implies that things went well. Morrigan already has something bubbling on the camp stove over the fire, and she lets me have a go at stirring it while Neria fills us in on what happened.

"Uldred was possessed, by the sounds of it he made some stupid deal with a demon," she explains. "He and his lackeys were torturing mages into abominations, and torturing templars just because."

"Including your Ser Cullen," Alistair adds, having collapsed dramatically onto his bedroll as soon as they arrived.

Neria groans, sitting down on her own bedroll. "He's not my Ser Cullen, and please don't remind me."

"Ser Cullen was tortured?"

"By mages and by love."

"Shut up, Alistair."

"I agree with Morrigan, for once. Shut up Alistair." Neria throws a pebble at him, which pings uselessly off his armour.

"So, did the mages agree to send what's left of them to Redcliffe for our charity case?"

"Tactfully put, Morrigan, but yes. They'll meet us at the castle once they've collected themselves. I told them we'd be expecting their presence tomorrow, as soon as they can possibly get there."

"How confident are you that this plan of yours won't be in vain?" Morrigan drawls, ladling soup into bowls as I hand them to her.

"The Maker wouldn't have brought us all this way for nothing, Morrigan," the red-haired archer, Leliana, pipes up.

"Your Maker wouldn't—"

"No, no. Don't start, not tonight, please, I'm too tired," Neria begs.

"Very well." We sit and eat in relative silence.

"By the way, Warden, who are these new compadres we have joining us?" A blonde, tan elf sitting next to Alistair asks.

"I am Wynne, one of the senior enchanters of the Ferelden Circle of Magi," Wynne introduces herself. "It's a pleasure to meet you all."

"The pleasure is all mine, Lady Wynne. I am Zevran, formerly of the Crows of Antiva. And, the girl?"

"I'm Faellathi, Neria's cousin. I was in the Circle of Magi too."

"Was? You are, no longer?"

"No," I say firmly, looking to Neria for confirmation.

She nods. "As far as anyone is concerned, Faellathi's life was one of the many taken today. Do we have an understanding, Wynne?" she asks seriously. Wynne looks sad, but she agrees nonetheless. "If that is what you think is best."

"It is. Oh, that reminds me, do you happen to have a spare bedroll in your wagon, Bodahn?"

"I'm almost certain I do, yes."

"Good. You'll sleep in my tent, Fae." Sleep. Glorious sleep. Yes, please.

Neria makes room for the extra bedroll, and sees me tucked in. She kisses me on the forehead. "I'm on first watch, but I'll come in soon. We have an early start tomorrow morning, but you can sleep in the wagon once we get to Redcliffe." She pauses. "Are you… alright, after everything that happened today?" Honestly, I'm too tired to think about it, so I nod. "Ok." She pats my hip. "Let me know if you need anything. Sweet dreams."

Personally, I think I've had enough of dreams.