A/N:

Thank you everyone for the warm comments and support! I was inspired to finish the next chapter so quickly :O

It's a bit of a transition chapter. Enjoy!

;

Derelict mining shafts and shanty houses poured into the pitch-black pit from which the prison stood. The occasional worn-down statue could be seen upholding a tin roof or metal beam. As the party fought their way ever closer to the centre, they slowly came to the alarming realisation that the Carta cultists targeting the Hawkes had built the mining shafts and shanties.

And had accordingly allowed their decline, despite still lurking in them. The smell grew terrible as walled stone began to replace open mountain air.

Carver shook his head as the party stepped over Gerav's fresh corpse. Past Carver's shoulder, Varric leaned down and retrieved a bolt from his friend's throat.

"Gerav has always been crazy, but within reason," Varric remarked. "He was a genius."

Justice hissed. "Some manner of blood magic drove your contact mad, starting with his ostensibly consuming the taint."

"We're walking in blind, Hawke," Varric admitted. "Whoever wants you and your siblings dead, we'll have to investigate personally."

Garrett scowled. "I'm beginning to want to introduce myself face to face."

The few torches lining the Carta's hideout flickered with cave wind. Bethany flinched towards Carver. He reached for her hand without looking, meeting her own movement in the middle.

A bronto suddenly charged down a path for the party, yet Varric swiftly shot it once in the shoulder, then once above its ear as it stumbled. Garrett leapt off of the animal's corpse and swung his staff down on the bronto's trainer past it, rippling out tremors with the force of his telekinetic blast. The trainer spat at him, comparing the dwarf's enlightening master to the inconsequential mortal that was Garrett, right before Fenris swung in lopping his head off. The rest of the Carta cultists rushing in at them were a matter of aiming to actually miss, rather than worrying about landing a hit. The rabid believers were quite the number.

Garrett eventually crouched before the bronto trainer's body, drawn to a soft light that cast patterns across his face like sunlight off of moving water. The energy oddly calmed the mind at the mere sight of it.

"Brother," Carver hesitated.

Garrett was already grasping the long-bladed spear attached to the trainer. A sudden seizure consumed Garrett as he convulsed back up to his feet, both of his hands white-knuckled and seemingly welded to the spear that had a long grip like Garrett's staff. However, the similarities ended there. The dirt-crusted blade subtly sported dizzyingly countless runes etched upon smaller runes, such that they seemed to merely be a hammered metal finish. Unlike any work Carver had seen in Orzammar or around Caridin, the spear lacked visual harmony, instead prioritising the crowded presence of all components a staff might need, including a massive ruby orb at the blade's hilt to serve as a focus stone. Still, the weapon's geometric detail deserved the identity of a dwarven work.

Garrett sharply gasped as the foreign energy flooded out of him and the watery light winked away. Everyone snapped a hand out to steady Garrett as he nearly dropped the ruby staff from his hands.

Bethany glanced at Carver, who had merely watched the brief yet alarming scene.

"Hawke?" Anders encompassed his concern and confusion in one syllable.

Garrett sighed heavily, regaining his consciousness to plant the staff on the ground and lean on it. Blue light faintly shimmered around the staff and his hands. "This was Father's."

"It reacted to his blood in you," Bethany determined. "Why would this dwarf have a staff that belonged to Father?"

"His staff while he was here," Carver amended, eyeing the focus stone that was the unblemished ruby. Orzammar's paragons had wasted no effort or expense. "The key to our present grievances."

"What are you saying?" Garrett sharply turned to Carver. "Father once rubbed elbows with gangsters and blood mages that had god complexes?"

Varric shrugged. "The Carta could have also stolen the staff, or picked it up from where Malcolm Hawke had dropped it."

"After fleeing this place," Carver allowed.

Garrett frowned. "You're accusing Father—"

"Of leaving the Circle," Carver finished, stepping past Garrett for the next hallway or mining shaft. "The Carta cultists thirst for 'the blood of Hawke,' and Father was a mage. It's arithmetic."

Between leaving the Circle and settling in Ferelden with Leandra, Malcolm had performed blood magic related to the Carta cultists' decline in sanity, then vanished from the fortress's vicinity without a thought for his staff. Whatever matter Malcolm had involved himself in, it had been the cost of safely disappearing from Kirkwall forever.

Carver wondered if Leandra was aware that Grey Wardens had helped "persuade" Lord Aristide Amell to let Leandra elope with her mage lover.

Fenris followed Garrett towards the path ahead of Carver. "The cultists want Malcolm Hawke's blood to free this Corypheus. I'm compelled to point out that the name means 'the Conductor' in Ancient Tevene."

The party moved to follow as Garrett stepped forward to lead, Carver at one elbow and Fenris at the other. The latter of whom side-eyed Carver.

If Carver had input worth sharing, he would do so on his own time. As it was, anything he had to say would merely put his sanity in question. After all, Carver doubted he would be able to speak as far as, "Father performed blood magic worthy of witches of the wilds to maintain shackles over a magister from the First Blight," before receiving disbelieving stares.

As for their next step to summon Corypheus from his shackles then kill his current mortal form, well…Carver was willing to raise that up for debate. If Corypheus could transfer his soul to any tainted creature in his vicinity, then he had the entire colony of darkspawn festering at the fortress's base to outsource to, along with the wardens lurking nearby. After centuries of Corypheus' power pressing against his binds, the prison's decay was only a matter of time, and the wardens and Carta cultists were evidently determined to speed the process up.

In hindsight, Carver felt fortunate that criminals had ambushed him during his search for Charade at night. Charade's traitorous allies had at first jumped Carver, followed by gangsters under Athenril, then Coterie thugs, then the Carta, until by the time Stroud and his wardens Carver had been seeking had arrived, it had been to a bewildering sight.

After disposing of Carver's and Charade's annoyances and evidently erasing Athenril and her smugglers from Kirkwall for good, Carver had petitioned Stroud to investigate Warden-Commander Janeka for corruption. Though Stroud insisted he had to complete his own quest first, the senior warden admitted that it was difficult to believe that Janeka had sent a kill order to the Carta for professional reasons. Carver had failed to inform Garrett of said order he and Stroud had found in one of the assassins' pockets.

Then again, Carver failed to share many things.

At the very least, Carver wanted to leave the decision of trusting Janeka or Larius to an unbiased, capable party he trusted: Garrett.

The abandoned shafts began to slant downwards with only rusty steel rails and the occasional toppled mining cart aside the tracks to suggest that more man-made works awaited at the end. This slim hope delicately carried the party's mood as the shafts' torches began spacing out, until gaps of pitch-black darkness divided them. The dark bouts stretched just long enough to stir a fear that there would be no lit torch awaiting them the next time. Carver kicked a pebble down the chasm as he descended with the party. The rock tumbled beyond its own echoes.

A yellow beam of light eventually broke the mounting dread in the fashion of a barred doorway. Adjacent to the abandoned mining shaft was a crowd of torches flooding a stone chamber with light and disappearing around a corner where their flames flickered with natural wind. An exit.

Garrett didn't even debate the door's lock, and wrapped his hands around its iron bars. With a flare of red in his eyes and a steaming hiss from his gauntlets, the bars glowed and warped apart into an opening. Garrett sighed heavily as he cooled the iron with a gesture that erased the metal's red-hot glow. He had learned to sheathe his gauntlets when actualising fire so that he needn't fear repeating the act.

The party carefully stepped through the improvised exit before the hair-raising feeling of a one-way magic barrier washed over them. Conceding to their situation, the party warily ventured through abandoned stone rooms draped with moth-eaten banners that had once been a deep blue. Carver picked up a cloth corner to unwrinkle silver embroidery. Beside him, Bethany peered up at a tarnished shield which, like others they had passed, hung with a twin on either side of a doorway.

Bethany steadily pointed the tip of her staff at the shield, and the tarnish dissolved to reveal an etched griffon.

"This is a Grey Warden outpost," the enchanter gasped.

"In the middle of nowhere?" Anders doubted. "This place looks more like a prison, else why would the entryways be barred?"

Garrett frowned at each supporting evidence they passed. "What manner of prisoners do Grey Wardens keep, Anders?"

A scoff answered him. "Why waste the resources when you can pour archdemon blood down their throat? At least then you'll grow your numbers."

"Alright, then." Garrett turned. "Carver?"

Carver sighed. "Just because I spent time with the Hero of Ferelden––"

Anders interjected. "If that isn't the greatest understatement of the year!"

"Besides," Carver pressed on, "the main construct looked dwarven from outside, not to speak of the statues."

Garrett raised a brow. "I thought the architecture looked familiar." The Viscount's Keep and the Chantry of Kirkwall had been built by dwarves to house magisters at the time of Imperium rule. "Statues…as in the carved boulders the shanties were built on?"

"They've worn down over time in the mountains," Carver allowed. "The ones who carved them were also long separated from the usual resources in Orzammar, so I can't speak to the statues' quality. It still doesn't disguise the fact that the statues depict Paragons Orrick and Ilona."

Varric spluttered. "Orrick, as in the original name for House Tethras?"

"If this place is as old as the First Blight," Carver confirmed, "then the king at the time of these statues' creation was Orrick Geran. He along with Paragon Ilona must have issued the prison's construction."

Varric's brows furrowed. "They would send dwarves to 'lose touch with the Stone' just to build something for Grey Wardens to run?"

"There are demons sealed away here," Justice commented.

Carver watched everyone slowly look at the cat.

Fenris muttered. "You didn't think to mention that sooner?"

Justice rubbed his ear under Anders' and yawned. "The demons cannot have performed the blood magic that ails these dwarves so. Sealed away, the demons are ultimately irrelevant."

"Father would do something like that," Garrett accepted.

"Sealed away by runes," Justice amended.

Fenris managed to frown at the entire mountain range. "Orzammar dwarves built a prison for demons?"

"Probably a byproduct of their original intentions," Carver murmured. "The runes would have given Father an easier time to seal away any new demons he had encountered while here."

"As if this isn't bad enough already," Bethany nudged him, "and your probably means certainly. Justice, where do you sense the worst of the demons? That might lead the way to where this Corypheus is lurking. Blood mages with god complexes tend to enjoy demonic company."

"There is only the one demon worth mentioning," Justice shared. "Its presence weighs down on its surroundings, stealing all colour where spirits might find any."

Carver cut in. "If most of the demons here are ancient, we have no reason to assume the blood mage is related––"

"Where is this demon sealed?" Bethany leaned in.

Justice's whiskers twitched the direction they had come. "The Pestilent One is outside."

"Malvernis," Fenris slowly recognised, "of the Forbidden Ones? One of the first demons that humanity encountered?"

Garrett whipped his gaze to Carver.

"No," Carver rejected.

"We have to kill it," Garrett insisted.

"Need I remind you," Carver stressed, "of the blood mage and his Carta minions who want to kill us?"

"Why are you so against this, Ser I-wanted-to-be-a-Templar-growing-up?" Garrett remarked. "Malvernis just sounds like a powerful hunger demon. I've faced those before as rock wraiths."

"No you haven't," Fenris disagreed. "There are types of demons out there that only madmen as privileged and brilliant as magisters have seen. Even then, the theory of the Forbidden Ones is maintained by string and hearsay from other demons. The Forbidden Ones were ostensibly the demons who introduced blood magic to the ancient Imperium. Their names are derived from an unspeakable, feverish feeling they supposedly draw out of witnesses' throats before the people kill themselves or run off to forever vanish."

Anders worriedly stroked his cat. "A feeling that besets Justice right now…?"

"I am a spirit, Anders," Justice purred. "I can't be shaped by another entity of the Fade no more than I can shape others. I merely recognise this demon as pestilence, greater than basic hunger. However, I agree that you pliable mortals shouldn't hurry to release and kill this demon. I should do it myself."

"Right," Anders gratefully deadpanned.

Carver meanwhile quietly exhaled in relief.

Garrett frowned at him. "You faced a demon like Malvernis before."

Carver promptly choked on air.

"Sweet Andraste," Garrett swore, "I was just taking a leap. Seriously, Carver!?"

"I'm in the king's army!" Carver defended. "When I'm called to protect Denerim's back alleys, I answer!"

Varric snorted dryly. "An ancient demon was literally in your back alley?"

"…Gaxkang the Unbound," Carver admitted. "He had evolved into a revenant by the time I had encountered him."

Read: knocked on the front door of "Vilhm Madon's" quaint hovel and asked about a "Gaxkang." Carver had ended up wrecking an entire back alley killing the demon possessing a dead body at above-revenant levels. Nails still spontaneously berated Carver about the time the commander had found his captain bloody and face-down in Denerim's sewers. Nails had received a second fright when Carver had flipped over and groaned, revealing he had been alive.

Mixed voices of disbelief, outrage, and Varric's own rapid-fire chuckle filled the stone chambers around them. "Honestly, Shiny, who are you!?"

Carver groaned above the din. "That's irrelevant."

"Au contraire," Varric remarked, "I once thought you were Bartrand's spy!"

Carver spluttered. "What? Tethras, you weave stories too often."

Bloody Hard in Hightown author. Varric hadn't known what to make of Carver's unusual reticence and combination of knowledge, so the storyteller had — what, made Carver the Moriarty to the Holmes in Varric's crime serial?

"It seemed logical at the time!" Varric justified.

Fenris shook his head. "The Forbidden Ones outrank high dragons in power."

"That's enough trivia for today," Carver decided, advancing the party through the stone maze. "We should reserve our strength for Corypheus and the Carta instead of imprisoned demons."

Naturally, Garrett didn't listen.

"The demon was in the way!" Garrett defended as he ducked under a flaming fist.

"You––" Carver deflected a massive kick with Summer Sword, "––were too eager!"

Bethany telekinetically slammed the fiery pride demon to the ground while it was off-balance. She huffed. "At least allow us to position ourselves before you unleash a massive demon, Brother."

Garrett swung his staff over his shoulder without looking, killing the demon. "Cheek from my own family, I can't believe it."

His staff shattered.

Fenris snorted while he drew close to Garrett, checking the latter over for any injuries. "How fortunate you have a spare."

"Right," Garrett drawled as he unsheathed the ruby staff from his original staff's sling. "As in, the rusty keepsake from my father with which he might have committed binding blood magic."

Justice batted the demon's remains as it scattered, returning to the Fade. "That key resonates with this seal. None other may undo this magic without consequence."

Anders protectively picked up the cat and retreated, eyeing the magic circle the demon had been sealed in and now dissipated from. "That warden Larius said the only way out of here is down, then up." He sighed. "Ever since crossing that magic barrier, we've been beset by darkspawn, and the seals to this barrier might contain demons. The ancient dwarves designed this place to separate the very air from the rest of the world, irrespective of who or what might stumble in. How could your father know how to reinforce such seals, Hawke?"

Garrett picked at dirt clinging to his staff's runes for insight, shook his head, before giving up. "I can only reason two possible ways: through ancient dwarves, or through the Grey Wardens who maintained this place."

Bethany stepped forward and waved a glowing hand over Garrett's staff in cyclic passes. Centuries of rust and dirt began to fall away, bringing the staff's runes in clearer view.

Bethany, Garrett, and Anders suddenly hunched together to stare. Carver, Fenris, and Varric shared looks.

"Lunar rune patterns," Bethany gaped. "I've only ever seen them in textbooks."

Anders traced etchings that spiralled into each other with his finger, as if reading. "They resonate with the magic circle here. Where the power of one waxes, the other wanes. This staff is literally a magic tool!"

"Untainted blood is required to attune to it," Garrett remarked, and pointed at a seemingly random spot of the blade. "Here, a biomarker. No wonder my other staff shattered; with these many failsafes, only this exact staff wielded by one of Father's blood would be recognised by the magic circle."

Varric muttered while the mages nerded out. "It must fetch a handsome price."

Fenris and Carver smothered a snort.

At that moment, Larius skittered in no less addled than when the party had first tripped over him while escaping the stone chambers. The gaunt, nearly ghoulish warden twitched his head about to take in the room without using his peripheries.

"Yes, yes," Larius wheezed. "Two-thousand years, the magic held, never broken. Absorb it all."

"'Down, then up,'" Garrett echoed. "In other words, we need to undo the seals maintaining the magic barrier over this place to escape. Wouldn't that also mean releasing the blood mage who is stuck here and somehow corrupted the Carta?"

"Corypheus," Larius winced, flinching from an unseen flame. "He cries out in the darkness, calling. He demands freedom – but I was there! When the last to hold the key, the Hawke – laid the seals. Before I became this. Corypheus' freedom must be followed – with death!"

"On that, we can agree," Garrett huffed. "Why didn't Father kill this Corypheus in the beginning before reinforcing the prison…around him…."

Two-thousand years of unbroken magic. "Corypheus" was a word in Ancient Tevene.

Carver saw the hair stand on Varric's neck. "Maker, Hawke, what's with you and the primaeval?"

"The darkness," Larius suddenly sprung off like a loose rabbit, "I hear – what's there?"

The party darted after Larius down broken steps and past shattered columns. The stone chambers had opened up to a bridge connecting to the towering prison that rose from the black pit, and Larius had spurred the party to cross the bridge and descend the ancient prison. Carver knew magic seals awaited them from the tower's main floor, down to the Deep Roads, then up to the top of the tower. Now, racing to keep up with Larius and bat away any obstructive darkspawn or freed demons, the journey felt uncomfortably close to the scurrying of rats in a vertical stone maze.

While the party tackled the prison's abundant seals and strained to keep the nimble Larius in their sights, Bethany shook her head. "I don't understand. Dwarves and wardens from the First Blight imprisoned a Tevinter blood mage here where untainted mages like Father maintained the seals for millennia, before Corypheus has learned to touch the minds of any who draw close to the magic barrier? Maker, those poor Carta…."

Varric snorted. "That's not the usual first reaction, Sunshine."

"The demons caught in some of these seals also speak," Garrett muttered hotly, "mimicking Father's voice, saying things I've never heard him utter before."

"Imitating a memory," Justice corrected. "Spirits are shaped by deep emotions, particularly confusion, hence their corruption into demons."

Garrett struck down a pride demon as he drained another seal of its magic with his staff. "You're saying while Father was reinforcing the seals, he regretted being a mage so much, his emotions imprinted on reality?"

"Hawke," Fenris murmured in concern.

Garrett slammed a darkspawn aside, tracing Larius' movement in the chaos. The further into the prison they blindly ran, the more creatures they encountered that were as trapped as them. Garrett easily broke some of their spines.

Garrett had grown up proud to share Malcolm's gift with magic. On top of vainly running about under a powerful blood mage's blood-curdling gaze, Garrett's foundations were being shaken.

"Carver," Garrett's voice tensely left him, "what do you figure cost Father's freedom from the Circle?"

The world shrank into a dense ball. Carver outstretched a hand and caught the mental apple, answered by an eruption of white fire. Garrett, Bethany, and Anders' shields flickered over everyone behind Carver as demons and darkspawn fell before them. Even past the smite, it seemed the world delicately remained in the palm of Carver's hand.

"We can only speculate," Carver began, before catching sight of Garrett's crumbling expression. Carver sighed. "The Grey Wardens may have scouted Father, a mage aiming to flee Kirkwall's Circle, and persuaded him to help them reinforce the prison's seals. In exchange, they could have provided assistance with Father's escape."

"But your name is Carver," Garrett pressed. "Father wouldn't honour a stranger with apparently little role in his freedom, unless Ser Maurevar Carver was actually a warden and not a Templar."

Carver blinked. "You remember?"

Garrett grumbled as the party progressed down the deepest foundations of the tower. "I was jealous of you, for a time."

Carver spluttered. "You were jealous of me?"

"I'm an adult now," Garrett continued. "To hear Father's true thoughts about his gifts upsets me, but I know they have no relation to his love for you. I just struggled comprehending the idea of siblings when we were young. Sharing attention."

As the demons fell, Malcolm's voice drifted through the air. "I've bought our freedom, Leandra. We can go home now, us and the baby. I hope it takes after you, love."

Bethany's lips thinned. "Father got that one wrong twice over."

"He had never lived outside of the Circle with his abilities," Carver quickly reasoned. "Before leaving for Ferelden, he wasn't allowed much space to appreciate what he had."

"I would wish this magic on no one," Malcolm's will faded away. "May they never learn what I've done here."

Carver saw the party pause as a chill ran down their spines. Varric leaned down to pick up a writing slate mixed with stone debris, darkspawn corpses, and the remains of dwarven armour.

Anders peered over his shoulder. "The Legion of the Dead from the Exalted Age. On King Orrick's order, they were searching for the Paragon's wrongfully exiled son, Tethras Geran, to return him home or to the Stone."

"Not just the Exalted Age," Varric murmured, tossing the writing slate with others on the ground, briefly making everyone jump at the clatter. "Orzammar's kings kept issuing the order, and the Legion kept answering. Idiots. No one knew that like the prince, they were fated to die far from home the moment they crossed this prison's barrier."

Fenris exhaled. "Malcolm Hawke knew what he was upholding by agreeing to reinforce the seals. This place is a prison that doesn't discriminate and lasts forever."

The tower's foundations seemed to twist into themselves before finally opening up to a passageway to the floor above that wasn't obstructed by boulders. Aside was a skeleton in dwarven armour that still retained fine detail despite the ages, its arm stretched out towards the opening before succumbing to wounds or hunger. Varric's steps faltered as realisation set in. He stared at the unflattering remains of his ancestor so beloved, that Paragon Orrick had renamed his house after his son and that the sovereigns and Legions in the centuries following had sought to at least lay the lost prince to rest.

Varric distractedly rubbed his fingers as if tasting the writing slate's words he had held.

"Atrast tunsha," Varric spoke lowly. "Totarnia amgetol tavash ae––"

Garrett touched Varric's shoulder as the dwarf choked up. "Aeduc," Garrett softly finished.

Carver could see it, how Garrett and his friends could survive weeks vainly searching a way to the surface from a primaeval thaig with no dwarven markers to help them. No promise of escape. Limited food and water. Waning strength to magick fire in one's palm for light, dreaming of the sun.

With what little Garrett knew of other cultures, he was always there for his friends. It seemed in return, one couldn't help but swear all of themselves to him. In one common dwarven word, Garrett managed to buoy the party's spirits as they ventured onwards for more seals, darkspawn, and demons while tentatively tracing Larius' trail.

Carver glanced at Bethany at his side, then gazed at Garrett's back. "Father had regrets," Carver carefully spoke. "Perhaps the deepest felt was the decisions he made here." And not the gifts that had drawn him into the unwinnable situation.

Carver's position in the party blocked Garrett or Bethany's expressions from his sight's range.

Garrett's voice left him even and determined. "It's time to lay Father's regrets and this Corypheus to rest."

;

A/N:

In DA2, Orrick Garen is actually recognised as "Paragon Garen." However, Dragon Age canon also says that Paragons are recognised by their first name, i.e. Paragon Branka. As usual, I rolled with what sounded best.