By Gods Forsaken

by inwardtransience

One day, the shadows will part, and the skies will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see. (How do you do a summary for something this big? Total retelling, Mahariel!Warden, mage!Hawke, Dreamer!Trevelyan!Inquisitor, worldbuilding, too many OCs, serious plot edits, primarily F/F.)

34. Orzammar — IV

9:30 Molloris 16

Last Watch, Diamond Quarter, Orzammar

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As disbelieving silence fell over the Wardens, Alim grimaced — this was a terrible idea.

Alim had had occasion before to wonder whether Lýna really knew what she was doing, and whether Duncan had done the right thing putting her in charge. She was young — though he wasn't sure precisely how young, he suspected Dalish probably reckoned ages differently, as they didn't exactly keep a calendar — but that wasn't really a problem. As much as she might be younger than all of them save a couple of their new recruits, she was the most experienced when it came to actually fighting in a war — the only possible exception was Morden, who'd been an archer in the army for a while, but he'd only been in a few skirmishes with raiders on the coast, so probably not even him. And she was definitely the most experienced of them when it came to fighting darkspawn, none of the rest of them had ever even seen one before joining the Wardens. It was possible that people they had to deal with might not take Lýna seriously because of it, but it could be hard for humans to guess an elf's age anyway, so they might not even notice.

And his doubts were different than Keran's, Perry's, even Alistair's. Their concerns were a mix of more personal issues, worried whether she really had the temperament to do it (or might order them to do things they'd be uncomfortable with), and the fact that she definitely wasn't Andrastian. And there was some legitimate reason for concern there, but Alim didn't think it was much. Lýna did tend to come off cold and hard and strange, but he was pretty sure that's all it was: how she came off. Especially with that speech she'd given out in the hills outside of Redcliffe, about the Wardens being a brotherhood and all, the girl obviously had a moral center, one strong enough it hadn't been shaken despite the shit she'd gone through during the Blight in the far south. It might be a foreign, heathen morality, and she might not signal it in ways that were familiar and obvious to them, but it was undoubtedly still there.

It was important to remember, Alim thought, that Lýna had decided to help Redcliffe against the undead — he hadn't missed how relieved Alistair and Keran had been, they really had thought she was going to leave them all to die. Sure, it might not have been out of the purest of motives, since they had been angling for an alliance with the Arl, but that did still mean something, didn't it? Especially since it was obvious (to Alim, at least) that Lýna had done her best to minimize casualties, not just among the Wardens but the random villagers too. The way the whole battle had been planned, setting the entire hillside on fire so they couldn't be flanked...

Lýna — and Alistair and Keran too, for that matter — probably didn't realize how big of a deal that was. Generally speaking, peasants were accustomed to the idea that the big hats didn't give a damn about their lives, that they were resources to be spent to whatever end. Some were more or less content with their lot in life, depending on how convinced they were by the nobility's claims as to the justness and necessity of their rule, but few had any illusions about how the world worked. A big important type (which Lýna technically was now) going out of their way to preserve their lives when it wasn't strictly necessary — even risking serious damage to the town, including the Arl's own property (and the Arl must have lost a couple dozen sovereigns of wealth to the fire, when all was said and done) — wasn't something they saw every day, or even heard of happening very often. It wasn't an enormous revelation or anything like that, but it was meaningful, enough that it might have had something to do with why they'd gotten so many recruits soon afterward.

Alim wasn't exactly surprised Alistair and Keran hadn't noticed — both of them had been raised among the nobility, and were accustomed to the inherent value of their lives being taken for granted. Suffice to say, that was not the experience of the average peasant in the country, and Alim doubted either of them knew how very, very different normal people's lives were (though Alistair was probably closer).

And then there were the events at the Circle to take into account too. It had been obvious to anyone paying even a little bit of attention that Lýna had been horrified by the way things were done there on a daily basis. Now, if that were on solely religious grounds — and the Dalish did venerate mages in a way Andrastians simply didn't — maybe that could be written off as more weird, heathen shit, but Alim didn't think that was it. She'd been outraged, but for pretty clear moral reasons, slavery and violence and cruelty, the same things the Libertarians talked about. Perhaps rather more strongly and unequivocally than Alim might hear on the regular, since Lýna took mages being people like anyone else as a given that didn't need to be justified first, but it wasn't meaningfully different otherwise. And this moral objection was strong enough that Lýna intended to trick the Templars to get as many mages away from the Circle as she could — despite knowing that doing so would anger the Chantry, and by extension a larger fraction of Alamarri, thereby making their efforts against the Blight just that little bit more difficult.

Considering how single-mindedly focused Lýna could be about their duty, Alim thought that was significant.

So, Alim didn't think that was a problem, he didn't worry she might order them to do anything too despicable. He was vaguely concerned about her not being Andrastian, though not for the same reasons as Perry and Keran — in fact, that people who would have a problem with her not being Andrastian existed was his concern. It was an unnecessary point of contention that would distract from their job, that was all. Not to mention it would be all too easy for cultural misunderstandings to crop up, which might accidentally blow up into majorly offending one powerful person or another, but Lýna was already working on that. The impression Alim had gotten was that her lessons on the Chant were only making Lýna dislike the Chantry more — though he didn't have a lot to go on, so he could be mistaken — but as long as she understood where people were coming from, and kept her opinions on it to herself, that was fine. It would probably be easier for them if Lýna would convert, but Alim really didn't expect her to, being able to better anticipate how people would feel about things was enough.

While Alim wasn't worried she would order them to do something vile, he was... Well, it was simply fact that she'd been raised in a very different world, a different culture, with different ideas about how groups like theirs should be managed. Alim didn't actually know that much about the Dalish, mostly rumors and the occasional direct observation over the centuries by scholars he'd read — which wasn't something he'd admit to Lýna, she'd probably be irritated by Andrastian elves only knowing of her people through humans — but he did know a bit more about the Avvar. Lýna had suggested that, while she had known Chasind, the humans she was most familiar with had been Avvar, that she'd even fought with them on a number of occasions, he thought it was a fair assumption that Lýna would be familiar with their ways too.

And one thing to keep in mind about the Avvar was that they were far, far more egalitarian than almost any other society on Thedas. Generally speaking, whatever resources a tribe (or a "hold", whatever) had were held in common by its people, to be used to meet the needs of all — people did have their personal things that were theirs and no one else's, like clothes and tools and the like, but... For example, Lýna had been taken aback to learn that the Arling didn't feed its people, even though they might have more than enough food for everyone, seemed to take it for granted that it should. And it would be taken for granted among the Avvar, that some in a clan would have more than enough and others would starve was completely unimaginable. It wasn't a difficult assumption to make that the Dalish were the same, that it was just what Lýna was accustomed to.

Similarly, Avvar leadership was...different. To the Avvar, that someone would be entitled to rule just because their father had was equally unthinkable. An Avvar arl was, in most cases, chosen by the affirmation of the clan's adults, and confirmed into the position by the clan's patron spirit. (Alim had no idea what happened next when their patron disapproved of a new arl, but supposedly that was a thing.) And if the clan didn't like their leadership, they could challenge them at any time — the impression Alim got was that that wasn't particularly common...because the arls knew it could happen at any time, so were very conscious of the need to maintain the good will of their people. Which generally wasn't a concern for many Alamarri lords, to put it mildly. Back when the Avvar arls had ruled much larger parcels of land — like when Redcliffe had been an Avvar kingdom, as an example — this had created...issues, their leadership far more volatile than that of neighboring Alamarri, but it seemed to work just fine for them on a smaller scale. That they still existed at all was good evidence for that, Alim thought.

Now, Alim didn't think Dalish worked the same way there. The Dalish weren't like the Alamarri in that way, leadership passing father to son...or at least not generally. Their Keepers had to be mages, and the children of mages were more likely to be mages themselves — that a child might take over after a parent was definitely possible, just not required. But Alim wasn't sure exactly what the role of the Keeper was? Lýna had mentioned a group of elders who seemed to have more authority in the day-to-day decisions, and he had absolutely no idea what that was about. So maybe it actually was more egalitarian than having a single mage at the head of the clan sounded — after all, all one needed to do to become an "elder" was just not die — he didn't know, could be anything.

He did know more about how bands of hunters worked, since those were the Dalish people were most likely to see — and, conveniently, they seemed very similar to Avvar raiding parties in many ways. Avvar warriors tended to gravitate around a single figure, yes, but this was out of respect for their skills and tactics and sometimes sheer charisma, not because they had any actual authority. Or, Alim guessed, they had authority because people gravitated to them, if that made sense. An Avvar war-leader giving orders to his people, and them just doing it because he said so, wasn't really how it worked, to Alim's understanding. Instead, Avvar warriors tended to operate...well, democratically, he guessed, as weird as that sounded. They discussed what they wanted to do, and while the word of their "leader" might carry extra weight due to the respect they had for him, he didn't dictate what they would do, instead deciding on plans by the consent of the whole party. Dalish hunters, to his understanding, worked the same way (though with less torching Orlesian villas in the foothills for the fun of it, obviously).

And that was where the problem came in. This wasn't something that'd occurred to Alim at first, but increasingly over the last weeks, he'd started to wonder if they didn't have the opposite problem that people like Keran might worry about. Forget that Lýna might order them to do something unseemly — Alim was starting to worry whether Lýna was capable of giving orders at all.

Maybe that would work just fine if it were Dalish or Avvar in the same situation, people who were accustomed to going about things this way. But Alim couldn't help the sneaking suspicion that Lýna was making a terrible, terrible mistake right now.

It was the morning after Lýna's secret meeting with the controversial dwarven prince — Alim hadn't gone, had known nothing about it besides what Sola had told him around midnight. Morning, hell, maybe it was afternoon now, he didn't know. Lýna had gathered together all the Fereldan Wardens and recruits and allies (excluding Fergus and his people) — which was not an easy thing to manage, as many as they were now, Lýna had ended up monopolizing the training hall for the meeting — and explained the current situation in Orzammar as she understood it. Which basically boiled down to this Harrogáng fellow being unwilling to give them any serious aide against the Blight (especially after that ridiculous debacle with their newest recruit), but the Prince had every intention of doing so.

For his own reasons, of course. Lýna didn't spell it out, but Alim's assumption was that Bélen was aware that Orzammar's sparing involvement in events on the surface resulted in them being largely ignored by the vast majority of people. The Chantry needed lyrium to fuel enchantments (which they sold for coin) and to keep their Templars going, but beyond that? Yeah, nobody else ever really gave Orzammar's existence a second thought, sorry to say. They had a bustling trade of finished products for food, yes, which did give them some influence on the surface world, but they were...

As much as the deshyrs would hate it, most people who thought of Orzammar at all kind of pitied them — a once great civilization brought low, now diminished so greatly they couldn't even feed themselves without assistance from beyond their borders, their self-aggrandizement and pride in the accomplishments of their ancestors now seeming so shallow and...pathetic, really.

Now that Alim had seen the city with his own two eyes, he did understand that pride but, well, it was what it was. Orzammar was a shadow of a fragment of the old dwarven empire, what activity from them seen now little but a death rattle escaping from a withered husk, and everybody knew it.

Alim suspected Bélen was, basically, a dwarven Renaşteric. The Renaştere (literally "rebirth") was a major development in Tevinter over the last couple centuries, started at least in part as a reaction to their temporary occupation by the Qunari. Tevinter, like Orzammar, had been a weak, pathetic shadow of its former self — like the dwarves against the darkspawn, Tevinter had been beset by neighbors to the south and east attempting to chip away at their lands, able to hold them back for the moment but only just. The entire Imperium had crumbled with shocking suddenness to the Qunari, with the sole exception of the island-city of Minrathous, the weak, corrupt, petty bureaucracy no longer capable of responding to crises on that scale. But coming so close to complete annihilation came as a serious kick in the pants, and the Renaşterici figures, zealously inspired both to preserve what had nearly been lost while also reaching to match the glory of their ancestors, got to work completely reorganizing Tevinter society.

As much as people might speak of modern Tevinter as though it were the same thing as the Imperium of old, it really wasn't. No, modern Tevinter was more restrained, more meticulous, and a thousand time more dangerous. Since everything had been destroyed, everything had been rebuilt from the ground up, with an eye to making the entire country as efficient and resistant to shocks as feasibly possible — modern Tevinter infrastructure and economic planning were such that supply shortages were practically unheard of, be they food or building materials or raw metals, or whatever else. Due to new sanitation techniques, and having rebuilt their cities with such things in mind, they'd all but eliminated the all too familiar outbreaks of plague, in combination with the steady supply of food — not to mention all the hands required to meet their needs in construction and industry, more than enough work to go around — had seen the Tevinter population boom, already nearly triple what it'd been at the time of the Qunari invasion, according to the latest census Alim had seen outnumbering Orlais and Nevarra put together by almost two to one. (Minrathous itself had a population greater than the entire kingdom of Ferelden.) The whole bureaucracy of their government had been restructured from first principles, with far more care put to streamlining areas of responsibility and chains of command and preventing corruption and nepotism, so the vast resources they had at their disposal could be leveraged more efficiently. And then there were the technological developments, shit, Tevinter engineering was insane — but then it had to be, if they were to compete with the Qunari, who had ships made of metal that could fire explosives more powerful than any one spell faster than the eye could follow, Andraste have mercy...

(How the fuck did that even work?! Metal sank in water! It couldn't be magic, Qunari hated magic, Alim had no fucking clue...)

Really, the South should be on their knees thanking the Maker that Tevinter had taken a more conciliatory diplomatic stance with them, focused as they were primarily on their vicious feud with the Qunari. They'd even formally illegalized the foreign slave trade, though of course black market slavers were still doing their thing it was technically against the law now, they could be shut down by Tevinter authorities if they were caught (and "Tevinter law enforcement" was as scary as it sounded). Even in the face of Nevarra making a fuss over tiny discrepancies in their border, which Alim thought that was just completely insane. King Markus might as well go poke a sleeping dragon in the eye with a stick — that fight would be just as one-sided, and would probably take about as long.

Alim's assumption was that Bélen wanted to do what Tevinter had done — resurrect the pathetic remnant of an ancient empire into a powerful kingdom that could once again command the respect (and envy and even fear) of their peers. The Blight spreading as far as Jader (which was inevitable if it wasn't ended, and soon) would cut off their access to food, yes, but the way Lýna talked, Bélen was out for more than just that. He wanted to help them fight the Archdemon and the horde on the surface, but more than that, he wanted to be seen doing it. To remind the rest of the world that Orzammar was still here. And back home to ride the high of their victory against the Blight, the newfound respect pouring in from their allies, to light a fire under the asses of dwarven society, and start their own Renaştere.

Lýna had explained that this alliance wouldn't end with the Blight. Bélen intended to reclaim the Deep Roads, to focus all of Orzammar's might on an effort to steal back what had been stolen inch by inch, an effort the Wardens would naturally want to assist with. Some of the others were skeptical he would get anywhere — after all, there had been attempts in the past, and none of it had ever done any good — but Alim had to admit, it wasn't quite as crazy as it sounded. If Bélen successfully managed to harness the victory at Bónammar and against the Archdemon into motivation to do much as the big Renaşterici figures had done... Alim didn't want to say it was definitely possible, it was rather far-fetched. But stranger things had happened.

And in any case, Bélen had promised the Wardens far more support, it wasn't even close. Not only was he sending troops, but apparently Bélen himself intended to join the fight in Bónammar, and march on the surface against the Archdemon when the time came. When was the last time a King of Orzammar personally led an army on the surface? A long fucking time ago, certainly...

Yeah, all else aside, Alim didn't really doubt Lýna would support him for that reason alone. They were to fight the Blight by any means necessary, after all, and Bélen would help them do that better than Harrogáng. That was really all Lýna needed.

Some of the rest of them, though? Not so much.

The argument had been noisy, circular, and unnecessarily long. Surprisingly loud, considering there were really only a handful of people doing the arguing — most of the new recruits (Sedwulf and Natí the only major exceptions) kept more or less quiet, save for the occasional comment now and then, while their superiors bickered. Of course, since Alistair and Wynne were both on one side and Morrigan on another, there was going to be some shouting now and again, because Morrigan was constitutionally incapable of not insulting people when they said stupid shit in her presence, but Keran also raised her voice at points, and Natí rather more often.

Natí's passion on the subject made perfect sense: if Harrogáng won, he'd almost certainly have Bélen and his family executed (or possibly exiled)...which happened to include Natí's sister. Wild thought, that the man who might soon be the King of Orzammar happened to be screwing the sister of their newest recruit, but Alim wasn't one to turn down good fortune — Bélen couldn't stab them in the back without the risk of making the mother of his child very, very angry with him. The anti-Bélen bunch were kind of assholes about that, so, yeah, Natí shouting. Alim was mildly shocked when Wynne just waved it off, saying that they shouldn't let such small personal things distract them from much more important matters, which...

Okay, fair, but you didn't just come out and say that! Someone says If you do that, my sister will die, and you just go sometimes people die, and her life is irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, just to her face? Honestly, what the hell, Wynne...

(Alim was abruptly reminded Wynne was an Aequitarian. He didn't tend to think about that very often, she was just...Wynne.)

So yes, Natí was pro-Bélen, obviously, and so was Lýna — though she didn't really talk much as the argument went on, answering questions put to her about the meeting and their plans now and then, making corrections when people misstated something, but otherwise keeping her thoughts to herself. Alim was too, though he didn't feel particularly strongly about it, so he didn't talk much either. Morrigan, he honestly couldn't tell whether she actually thought they should support Bélen, or if she was just fucking with Wynne and Alistair, because Morrigan.

Perry, Sedwulf, and Edolyn were also all on their side, though maybe not for great reasons. Perry didn't like big hats in general, and Bélen was more appealing to the commons here, so. Sedwulf was probably the same, though Alim wasn't really sure — the gruff, abrasive dwarf could be kind of hard to read at the best of times. Edolyn was quieter about it, mostly only talking at all because she'd been present at the meeting, but, and Alim was guessing here, it seemed like she was acting more out of loyalty to Lýna than any actual opinion she might or might not have on the subject. (She probably just didn't care who ruled Orzammar, most of the former peasants here had little reason to.) That was something Alim had noticed about her before, which was a little odd, but it was also oddly adorable — especially since he was pretty sure Lýna had no idea.

He kind of had to guess where everyone else was based on facial expressions when someone said something, because the rest weren't really participating. Some of them would ask questions now and then, but generally it was just that small group of people doing all the talking — which was why it was kind of weird how loud it got at points. The argument was frustrating, and not just because it was loud, it was annoyingly circular and not really accomplishing anything.

Sola and Wynne, the quieter of the anti-Bélen team, their objections mostly seemed to be out of cold strategy. It came down to Bélen's intentions to flagrantly ignore many of the dwarves' traditional ways of doing things, though not out of a blind reverence for tradition: Wynne made the surprisingly reasonable point rather early on that Bélen couldn't help them with the Blight if he was too busy dealing with a civil war breaking out in his city. Sola didn't disagree with that point but, if Alim was interpreting the hints correctly (she didn't come out and say it, because of course she didn't, damn nobles...), she also just thought Bélen was a naïve fool. About the feasibility of his little dwarven Renaştere, he meant. Which was also reasonable, because if Bélen failed the expenditure of resources and lives on the effort would cripple Orzammar, and probably see the remains of their civilization collapse in short order — which would then have serious consequences for people on the surface, since Orzammar was the primary source of lyrium in all the South. Not to mention, since Bélen was such a controversial figure, Sola was skeptical whether he'd be able to get the various dwarven institutions to actually listen to him, so his rule was likely to be ineffective anyway.

But Alim didn't think those were as big of problems as they made them sound. For one thing, a civil war was extremely unlikely — the deshyrs almost always universally respected the decision of the Assembly in the selection of a new King, with only a tiny few extraordinary exceptions through their long history. The tendency was for the dwarves to keep their violence in the run-up to the selection, the bickering between the parties occasionally coming to blows, and in the aftermath bowing to the authority of the Assembly. With some resentment at times, of course, and it wasn't unusual for the winner to eliminate the loser to prevent any possibility of a rebellion forming around them, but... Well, it was a religious thing, Alim guessed, based in those same traditions Bélen seemed to have little respect for. When properly opened by the Shapers, the Ancestors watched over the proceedings, and swayed the deshyrs toward wisdom — the Assembly spoke with the voice of the Ancestors themselves. Opposing a duly-selected King would be, essentially, sacrilege.

Really, Alim thought it was more likely civil war might break out if Harrogáng were selected, since Bélen's people were far more likely to be willing to dispute the 'will' of their Ancestors. Alim wasn't exactly an expert on dwarven politics, but Sola had given him an annoyed little frown when he pointed that out, so he assumed he must be right.

And, well, Alim didn't think Bélen would have trouble uniting Orzammar behind him, if he was smart about it. It shouldn't even be difficult to frame his plan to reclaim the Deep Roads as an embrace of their past, which obviously the more conservative figures who had a problem with him would support — they might not like his methods, no, so he had to be careful how he sold it, but Alim didn't think it would be a problem. In some ways, Orzammar was less like, say, Orlais, where the law and the traditional way of doing things was supremely important, and more like Tevinter, a place where compacts made between institutions and rhetoric, the ability for leaders to sway their peers with words, was what got shit done. The Assembly should be thought of less like Orlesian parlements, or even the Alamarri Landsmeet, and more like the Tevinter Magisterium — which was kind of funny, since dwarves couldn't do magic at all and every person in the Magisterium was a mage (it was in the name and everything) — and then Alim thought it was obvious what Bélen's strategy would be.

Alim was positive Bélen was already working on his rhetorical strategy, probably had been going back months. He'd have to be an idiot not to. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't, but it was definitely possible, the anti-Bélen people weren't being quite honest about that.

And, maybe a concerted effort to retake the Deep Roads would result in the collapse of Orzammar. Alim wouldn't say it couldn't. But...well, the collapse of Orzammar was inevitable anyway. If Bélen spent too much wealth and too many lives on the effort and failed, it would happen faster, yes, but he wouldn't be bringing about something that wasn't already going to happen. According to Sedwulf, Bélen had said he intended to go down fighting, at the very least, so even Bélen himself didn't deny that possibility — he simply thought it was an acceptable risk, a judgement that was fully within his rights as a (maybe future) king to make for his people.

It was also a sentiment Alim very much sympathized with. The subject of rebellion came up in Libertarian circles now and again (quietly), and they were fully aware that the Templars would almost certainly crush them in short order. But they still talked about it anyway — because, no matter how terrifying the thought might be, some things were worth dying for.

It wasn't their place to tell the dwarves of Orzammar how to spend their lives. If they decided they wanted to reclaim what had been lost or die trying, that was their decision, and Alim wouldn't stand in the way.

Besides, when it came down to it, it really wasn't their concern what Bélen got up to inside Orzammar. Their duty was to end the Blight; he'd promised help against the Blight. Maybe Orzammar would collapse a few decades after the Archdemon fell but, as callous as it might sound, that simply wasn't their problem.

To quote practically every senior Warden Alim had ever met: end the Blight, by any means necessary.

So, the stated objections weren't really a problem, he didn't think (or at least not their problem). It wasn't great that Bélen had killed his brother, true, but, well, that was just the kind of shit big hats did, wasn't it? Most of them didn't really expect nobles to be better than that. (Sola and Alistair and Wynne and Keran clearly did, which was kind of funny when he thought about it.) Apparently there were also rumors going around that he was involved with the Carta somehow...but wasn't practically everyone done here? It was complicated, but the laws concerning trade with the surface were stupid, so a ridiculous proportion of it involved the Carta in one way or another. At times their activities were even semi-legitimate — some factions in the Carta were far worse than others, it wasn't a simple criminals are bad because criminals situation.

As part of his plot to become King, Bélen even wanted them to kill several Carta bosses! Sure, if he was involved with the Carta, it was possible they were rivals of the people he backed, or otherwise had dirt on him somehow, but they just so happened to have a former Carta member as a fresh recruit, and she thankfully recognized every single name on the list. Turned out? They happened to be some of the vilest, cruelest people in Orzammar's underground economy, with their hands in contract murder and protection rackets and forced prostitution and all kinds of awful shit. Basically, evil sons of bitches who could use some killing anyway.

When all that was explained — Natí going down the list, mentioning specific, horrible crimes committed by this person, and then this one, and this one... — the people who had been pro-Bélen before were even more convinced backing him was the right thing to do. Especially among the recruits, who were mostly all poor commoners, which really shouldn't be a surprise. The poor often had no choice but to deal with the underground economy in one way or another, so they were less likely to be opposed to the Carta's existence on principle — but they might themselves have experience with this kind of criminal, and would sympathize with wanting to just kill them all. Sedwulf and Wynvir in particular were more vocally firm in their support after that, and Alim could see it on plenty of other faces too.

(Bélen certainly hadn't come up with that idea with the intention of getting most of the Wardens on his side, but he couldn't have done much better if he had.)

Alistair and Keran might have talked about all that too, but Alim had the feeling it wasn't about that. He suspected they were uncomfortable with the idea of Lýna scheming to sway the Assembly's selection of a new King, quite aside from the character of the man she was supporting. And it wasn't even about Orzammar, they didn't give a damn who was King of Orzammar (or at least not really), no, it was about something else.

After all, they would be in Denerim during the Landsmeet too. If some manipulative ass-hat had a private meeting with Lýna, and convinced her to support him somehow, who the hell knows what might happen?

Nothing, obviously — Lýna had already committed to supporting Fergus, and he didn't actually want anything from her besides being seen together (and killing assassins before they could get to him). Alim could understand their unease, though...sort of. Lýna was a foreigner (a very foreign foreigner at that), and didn't give a nug's tail about the laws and traditions of Ferelden. Of course, since she didn't care, she also had no motivation to interfere with the Landsmeet — especially since Fergus had already promised an alliance, under really the best terms they could hope for, and he didn't need or want them to do anything dishonorable for him — but he guessed they weren't thinking about it like that. Since they didn't understand Lýna's culture or religion at all, she was strange and unpredictable to them at times, so the thought of her having anything to do with the Landsmeet was unnerving — irrationally so, but they couldn't really help it. They'd probably been uneasy about it before, but now that Lýna was interfering in a process very similar to the upcoming Landsmeet, yeah, Alim wasn't surprised they were having doubts.

Of course, since their concerns really had nothing to do with Bélen and Orzammar, Alistair and Keran's arguments were vague, aimless, and unconvincing. They didn't want to come out and say that they didn't trust Lýna to have anything to do with the politics of civilized peoples, but that left them with very little to say. So they mostly left it to the rest of the anti-Bélen team, whose arguments Alim also thought were unconvincing, but at least far more reasonable.

Honestly, Lýna might be a primitive, heathen barbarian, but she wasn't completely irrational. If they were concerned about her doing something potentially destructive, they could simply talk to her about it, and explain why it was a bad idea. Alistair and Keran really were being very, very silly, but Alim wasn't about to call them out for being paranoid idiots in front of all the recruits.

No, he'd do that in private, later, like a respectable person. Obviously.

It was very clear that the argument wasn't going anywhere. And it was also clear that Lýna was growing increasingly frustrated as they kept talking (and shouting) in circles. Until she popped up to her feet from where she was sitting on the floor, clapped her hands, and then again and again, until she'd drawn everyone's attention. She told them all to stand up, waving a hand beckoningly as they didn't move right away. She pointed at one wall, said those who wanted to support Bélen should go there; and then she pointed at the opposite wall, and said those who wanted to support Harrogáng should go there. Those who didn't want to support anyone should just sit back down.

As Lýna swept over toward the pro-Bélen wall, there was a thick, stunned silence, the Wardens glancing at each other as though asking Am I going crazy or did you hear that too? Nobody moved for a few long seconds.

This was a terrible idea.

Letting out a sigh, Alim turned and walked toward the pro-Bélen wall — after all, it was too late, Lýna had already decided to make the divisions inside their group blindingly obvious, might as well play along at this point. He turned around to lean against the wall, and saw he wasn't the only one to start moving around the same time. Keran, Sola, and Halrys made straight for the opposite wall, followed by Wynne a little bit behind. Obviously Natí was already here with Alim, and Sedwulf, Justien, and Wynvir were close enough to the wall they couldn't have been very far behind him, and not far behind them were Lacie, Jowan, Perry, and Merrick.

Seeing Wynne on the other side of the room, Alim had a weird, creeping...just uncomfortable feeling. He didn't know what that was about.

There was a short pause, people weighing the arguments in their heads...and also possibly realizing how one-sided the split was so far, the pro-Bélen side outnumbering the others two to one. Morrigan, Alim noticed, had sat right back down, because apparently she didn't care, and had just been arguing with people she disliked for the fun of it. After some seconds, Morden and Edrick went to the pro-Harrogáng side, followed by Gwenys a moment later. Most of the rest — Aiden, Edolyn, Dairren, Gailen, Cennith — then all made for the pro-Bélen side all more or less at once — Alistair, having started for the pro-Harrogáng side at roughly the same time, turned to gape at Edolyn's back, clearly surprised and...Alim wasn't sure of the right word. Disappointed wasn't quite right, but something in that family, anyway.

Which was very silly of him. Alim was aware there was something going on between them — they weren't screwing yet, but he was pretty sure they were going in that direction...which was bound to be funny, since he was almost positive they were both virgins. (Alistair had lived half his life in a monastery, and could be amusingly flustered when the subject came up; he was less certain about Edolyn, but she was rather young yet and her fiancé had died to the undead, so.) He suspected Alistair's obvious regard for Edolyn was causing him to make some odd assumptions about her. You know, chivalric nugshit — my lady love is so kind and beautiful, obviously she must be good and noble and righteous, she couldn't possibly do anything so crass as support anyone so dodgy as Bélen. Because it was important to remember that Alistair was also rather young yet, and also he'd spent half his life in a monastery. Alim wouldn't be surprised if he'd read idealized women characters in poems and whatever else more than he'd talked to actual women (not counting Sisters and other Templars, obviously).

Really now, he realized Edolyn had been rather quiet and noncommittal during the argument, but Alim could have told him she would pick whichever side Lýna was on. If that hadn't been predictable to him, Alistair clearly didn't understand Edolyn nearly as well as he thought he did.

While that little bit of drama was going on, Leliana quietly snuck over to the pro-Bélen side — she hadn't really participated in the conversation either, presumably because she wasn't a Warden herself. Judging by the looks on Gwenys and Edrick's faces, they might have gone the other way if they'd known where the Sister was going to end up, but oh well. And then everyone had moved, leaving only Morrigan sitting in the middle of the floor, smirking out at them.

Possibly amused by the same thing Alim was noticing just now: the vote wasn't even close. The pro-Bélen side outnumbered the pro-Harrogáng people by exactly two to one, actually, numbering sixteen and eight respectively. Funny how that'd worked out.

"Good, then." Lýna weaved out of the group clustered against the wall, stepped out into the middle of the room to face the other eight. "You want to go with Harrogáng? Okay. Go with Harrogáng."

...Wait, what?!

Alim hardly heard the rest of what Lýna was saying, drowned out by the muttering going on around him and his own shock. He didn't— He'd thought this was a vote, that once it was made clear which of the contenders the majority of them supported Lýna would say that was that, they would be supporting Bélen. That wasn't a great idea to begin with, since it would make the rift in their group blindingly obvious — especially since Lýna had decided to put physical space between the two groups — which wasn't good for morale reasons, but this? This was a terrible idea! Not only splitting the group over a strategic disagreement, but having them work at cross purposes to each other? What the fuck was she thinking?!

No, that was a dumb question, he knew what she was doing. Cleary she'd spent far too much time with the Avvar — when people couldn't be convinced to follow along on their own, she couldn't bring herself to order them into compliance anyway. Maybe there was some strategy going on here that he couldn't see yet, but it seemed far too likely that that's all it was.

Alim couldn't help the feeling Lýna was making a terrible, terrible mistake. But it was too late, she'd already given the order, there was nothing he could do about it now...

There were more pro-Bélen people, they needed the room to begin their planning. The pro-Harrogáng people started filing out — most of them looking rather dumbfounded, which, yeah, Alim was completely with them there — the muttering in the room increasing in volume as people realized Lýna was being completely serious, she really did intend to have the Wardens support both contenders for the throne, which, what the fuck was she thinking?!

Alim noticed that, during the commotion, Morrigan had stood up and joined the pro-Bélen side. So, what, she was still going to help, she'd just wanted to make it clear she didn't actually care? Fair enough, he guessed, he couldn't honestly say he cared that much himself.

Once the pro-Harrogáng people were gone, she turned back to them. "Okay." The muttering silenced immediately — less out of respect for their Commander, he thought, and more curious what the fuck she was going to do now. "There is little enough for us to do, just now. I want to go out into the Deep Roads soon. We don't want our first fight there to be Bónammar, and also recruits must face darkspawn at least once before becoming true Wardens — I want as many of you to finish the Joining as we can before the battle."

Alim grimaced — he was not looking forward to that. Between the people they'd lost fighting darkspawn in that bloody swamp and the Joining itself, only a third of the batch of recruits he'd been in had made it. He liked some of these bastards, he didn't want to watch them die... Jowan and Sola knew a little blood magic, maybe they could figure something out...

"We will continue training, and prepare for our journey into the Deep Roads. Maybe we will find something that needs to be done out there, maybe not, if anyone hears of something let me know. There are also the dwarves Bélen wants me to recruit, but you don't all need to come for that. I will go with Natí."

"Ah, boss?" Natí called, raising a hand so she could be seen past Gailen. "Maybe that's not a good idea."

"Why not?"

Sounding a little amused despite herself, Natí drawled, "I'm not one to give a shit, but if you show up with the casteless who profaned the Proving Circle tagging along, they might be a little offended." By her tone, it was obvious a little offended was supposed to be an understatement.

Lýna blinked, surprised — it must not have occurred to her that the deshyrs probably wouldn't respect the Wardens' insistence that Natí's past had become irrelevant as soon as she joined them. "...Oh. Maybe so. Does anyone else speak dwarvish?"

"I know a little," Sedwulf admitted, a little reluctantly. "I never been to Orzammar, but my dad grew up here, and he taught me some." What, really? Somehow that hadn't come up yet... "But he were mining caste, I don't know shit about the big hats here."

Alim noticed Jowan was fidgeting, so he nudged him with an elbow. "Oh! Uh. Commander? I studied Orzammar in the Circle. My dwarvish isn't quite as good as Solana's, but I know their laws and customs decently well." Which was another reason why Jowan should have tried to flee to Orzammar instead of looping south on a roundabout path to go north, but oh well.

Lýna nodded. "Good." She hesitated for a blink, then said, "Also Edolyn will come with — I don't think it will come to this, but I need someone to watch my back in case there's fighting." And Jowan was shit with combat magic, so, good thinking. "Keep practicing with the sword, and see if you can pick up a shield. Okay?"

"Yes, Commander." Alim could practically hear the smile on Edolyn's voice, pleased that Lýna had picked her out of everyone else. Lýna had already chosen her for their standard-bearer, and Edolyn probably assumed she was now grooming her to be a sort of right-hand-man, battle-companion...whatever. (Maybe there was a word for that? The only one Alim was thinking of was "squire", and that wasn't right.) Lýna almost certainly hadn't realized the former was a big deal, but she would know the latter — the Avvar had a similar concept to the Orzammar dwarves' seconds, a blood brothers sort of thing, so if Lýna did suggest something like that she would understand the significance of it.

Of course, Edolyn was probably reading more into it than Lýna intended, but that she apparently trusted her to watch her back (and not fuck it up) was a compliment anyway.

"And the other favor Bélen asked. Before we can kill these people in the Carta, we need to know things. Natí, there are things I need to know — what work they do, where they live, who works with them, how we can find them. Write it all down for me, we'll plan later, after the Deep Roads." Lýna's reading must be getting better than Alim had realized if she was actually asking people to take notes for her.

Of course, Natí immediately said, "What makes you think you I can write shit?"

"Oh. Work with Alim, then. Natí doesn't know all of them well, and I also want someone to look for weaknesses in their walls, or for followers who might turn. This is a dangerous job — if you are caught, it might end very, very badly. I won't order anyone to do it. Does someone want to step up?"

There was a brief, heavy silence, which was fair — infiltrating Carta hideouts to spy on them in preparation for an attack was completely insane. But the silence was only brief, because Perry, of all people, slipped toward the front of the group. "I can give it a go, I think."

"This is a bad idea, Commander," Natí said. "They'll figure out whoever you send is a Warden real quick."

"Yeah, I got a plan for that."

Natí leaned around Gailen to shoot Perry a doubtful look. "And you're gonna convince them you're not a spy...how?"

"I'll tell them I only went with the Wardens from the off to hide from the law, as they want me dead for killing the magistrate what kill my son, and Orzammar is the first I can run off and not get caught." At the surprised looks he was getting — most of them hadn't heard the story, and the rest probably hadn't credited Perry for being that clever — he shrugged. "The best lies got truth in 'em."

"Um, boss?" Alim couldn't see from this angle, but he was pretty sure that was Wynvir. He leaned around Jowan to get a better look — Wynvir didn't go on right away, instead stooping down a little to exchange a few whispers with Sedwulf. Whatever they were talking about, Justien grimaced, but didn't try to stop them. "Ah, yeah, we can get Perry in. Don't know how much we can help from there, but we can get him through the door."

There was suspicious muttering going on all around them, but Lýna just tilted her head a little, otherwise expressionless. "You're Carta, you, Sedwulf, Justien?"

Sedwulf let out a harsh sigh, but admitted, "Just me and Wyn, yeah. We worked with the smuggling outfit through Redcliffe — neither of us ever been to Orzammar, but we've got a few names we can check out."

"I knew it!" Cennith shouted, all but pointing an accusing finger at the pair. "I fucking knew it!" Some of the other Redcliffe natives looked a little amused or irritated, Alim would guess Cennith wasn't the only one who'd suspected something.

"Oh, quit your shouting, you did not."

"I did too! I saw you with those shady bastards, and youse blew me off all—"

"Andraste's Grace," Justien groaned, "I told you, those were Sed's cousins."

"Well, maybe his cousins are Carta, did you think of that?" Sedwulf had said his father was from Orzammar, so that was—

"I've met Sed's cousins and their Carta contacts, so I know they're different people! Every dwarf from out of town isn't Carta, you ass!"

There was a bit more teasing going back and forth at that — sometimes it was very obvious that all of their recruits had lived in the same town most their lives, some of them had known each other since they were children — but it quieted down quickly. Less serious argument, more just a thing they did habitually, because they'd known each other forever. Once she could be heard without needing to raise her voice, Lýna said, "This is good. Wynvir, I want you to work with Perry — I can't send you both, as I need Sedwulf in the Deep Roads. Agreed?"

There were nods from both Perry and Sedwulf, but Wynvir asked, "If we're not joining you in the Deep Roads, am I gonna miss the weird secret initiation thing?"

"This is more important than that. We'll have time for your Joining later."

"Don't worry about it, Wynvir," Alim called. "This is a damn Blight. There will be plenty of opportunities to piss your pants in the general direction of the horde before its over."

"Get fucked, Alim."

"Sure, you offering?"

Over Wynvir's scoff and a few mocking comments, Alim thought he heard someone mutter something about Sedwulf being the one who liked to screw elf men. It wasn't quite clear enough to be certain, unfortunately — he still hadn't gotten confirmation about Sedwulf and Justien being a thing yet. And he didn't want to come out and ask either, because the rough-looking dwarf could probably knock out half of his teeth in a single punch...assuming he could reach...

From there, the meeting wrapped up pretty quickly. Keep training, keep an ear out for opportunities in the Deep Roads, prepare to move against the Carta, but besides that everyone was free to do as they liked for now. Lýna would call them together again when she had news. And that was it, they were done. The group started dissolving immediately, a couple lingering to talk about the insanity that had just happened for a little bit, Edolyn heading straight for the armory — because apparently she was taking Lýna's instructions to keep practicing with a sword and start carrying a shield one hundred percent seriously — but most left for lunch. It was pretty late in the day, they'd been arguing a hell of a long time, so.

As the room increasingly cleared out, it became more obvious a few people had stayed put to talk to Lýna. (Maybe it should have been obvious earlier, but elves being tiny continued to be annoying.) It seemed the let's infiltrate the Carta team was working something out quick, Perry and Wynvir and Sedwulf clumped together with Lýna. Justien was also there, but not really part of the conversation, hovering a couple steps back...and so was Leliana, actually. Since they'd arrived in Orzammar, the Sister had gotten into the habit of reminding Lýna to eat — which was slightly ridiculous, since Lýna was an adult, and could surely manage herself just fine. Or maybe Leliana just liked walking her down to meals, who knows.

Not that Lýna minded, of course. While talking to the Carta team, Alim noticed her eyes unconsciously flick toward Leliana — nothing very obvious, just making it clear that Lýna was very much aware of her presence. It was kind of adorable, if he was being honest...no matter how weird he thought the whole thing was, but Alim had already gone through that whole song and dance with Jowan and Lily. He was well aware that there were plenty of people who were into Chantry Sisters, but he did not get it.

(Also, Lýna was just vaguely creepy sometimes, and she'd probably deck him if he hit on her, no thanks.)

And, of course, Lacie hadn't gone anywhere either. As the room cleared out, she muttered, "Planning to yell at Lýna over the split?"

"Something like that." There wouldn't be any actual yelling involved...probably. Really, he was more confused than he was angry, and worried that this was a bad sign where Lýna's long-term leadership abilities were considered. "You wanna get in on it?"

"I'm mostly just curious what she'll say. I assume this must be a trick somehow, I just can't see it."

Alim turned his head a little so he could safely roll his eyes. The assumption that Lýna must be plotting something whenever she did...pretty much anything, really, was very common among the Wardens. People didn't come out and say this, of course, but it seemed to be born out of a consistent misreading of her blank-but-intense temperament, and also general mistrust of anyone who didn't worship the Maker. For the most part, the schemes people conjured were little innocuous things of no true consequence, not really malevolent — with the exception of a handful worrying whether their trip up into the hills was a prelude to an attempt to convert them to her primitive ways, but then Justien had reminded them that she'd stepped back to let Leliana lead those who wanted to join her in morning prayers before getting started for the day, so there was that. Alim didn't know why that perception persisted, especially after weeks of seeing with their own two eyes that Lýna was...just a girl. A very foreign, incredibly deadly, deeply traumatized one, sure, but still. But no, she was a strange, violent heathen, so clearly she must be up to something.

Alim hadn't thought Lacie susceptible to that kind of thinking. But then, she could be silly sometimes — came of reading too much poetry, he thought.

Eventually the group started to break up, so Alim walked over; Lýna clearly saw him coming, didn't follow the rest toward the door, waiting for him to come to her. Once he was pretty sure the Carta team were out of earshot — except possibly the elves', but Sedwulf and Wynvir were talking loudly enough they probably wouldn't pick up anything either — Alim said, "You know this is a terrible idea, right?"

Lýna tilted her head, eyes widening just slightly. "Which part?"

"Splitting the group, letting one in three of us wander off to do their own thing. Normally, it's not a great idea to make internal divisions so obvious to begin with — it's bad for unit cohesion, you know. I thought you were just taking a vote, which would be bad enough, but sending us to opposite walls makes it worse. You know, people can slip into feuds far too easily, putting a physical separation between groups that disagree with each other just makes it easier for people who should be comrades to start thinking of things in terms of us and them."

At that, Lýna gave him what was very clearly an exasperated look — lips quirking, eyes tipping up for a second, all that was missing the audible sigh — which was such an unexpected reaction Alim was a little taken aback. "People aren't stupid, Alim. They know they disagree, it doesn't matter if they can see it. It is better for disagreements to be out in the open, where they can be talked out and settled, than to be pushed down to grow stronger. This is what is more like to split a band apart."

Now Alim was the one holding back exasperation, though he managed to stop himself from sighing at her. "Lýna, that might be all well and good for running a clan, but we're not a clan."

"I know that," she said, frowning, a slight hint of confusion on her voice. "This is a war band, not a clan."

Well, at least she realized that much, but that wasn't exactly reassuring either. "And maybe it's just fine for that kind of open debate to exist among Avvar warriors, but our armies don't tend to allow open dissent like this."

"Your armies also allow forcing farmers to fight at some lord's whim on pain of death or exile. Maybe I don't want to look to your people on this."

...Alim knew there was a good response to that, but it wasn't coming to him.

Her voice a little wavering, clearly biting down laughter, Lacie said, "Maybe you are right about that in principle — personally, I always find nobles or clerics or generals or whatever else demanding absolute, unquestioning obedience to be inherently suspect, no matter the circumstances. And maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation if we'd just talked about the disagreement. But here you've split our forces in two, and even have them working in opposition to each other."

"Yeah!" he chirped, perking up a little. "Yeah, that! Actually splitting up the group is only going to make any interpersonal disagreement between the two parties worse, and... Well, obviously, any progress one party makes to help their guy onto the throne is going to directly harm the efforts of the other. There's no oh, we split up, but we both accomplished something useful, so neat! We're going to be fighting each other, if indirectly."

"If only one side arrives, there is no battle."

Alim and Lacie glanced at each other. "...What?" "Yeah, I don't get it either."

Lýna let out a little sigh, as though truly annoyed that they weren't getting it — though Alim didn't buy it, she wasn't quite hiding the faintest quirk of a smile. "Just talking about it wasn't working. Those who go to Harrogáng, their feelings on this are too deep to change their minds. Because it isn't about Bélen and Harrogáng, truly, no matter what they say. These feelings are about me, and the Landsmeet."

For a second, Alim just gaped at her. He hadn't credited her for being able to figure that out, honestly...aaaannnd now he felt like an ass for underestimating her, great. "Ah... Yeah, I think you're probably right about that. I don't think it's anything personal, just, uh..."

"I am not Alamarri, and I don't worship their god, so they don't trust me with some things, like the choice of their king." She shrugged, seemingly unconcerned — which at least made it clear that she wasn't taking it personally, though he didn't think she was taking it as seriously as she should. "Talking about Bélen and Harrogáng does not fix that, and it isn't something I wish to talk about in front of the recruits. And even so, I don't think talking about it will help. If they don't trust me, they don't trust my word. It doesn't matter if I say I don't mean to interfere with the Landsmeet, they don't believe me."

...Okay. Good point. "Even so, splitting the group isn't a good idea. If you just did a vote, at least you would have made it clear that most of the group is on your side. While there aren't very many institutions in Thedas that operate democratically, they'd at least all be familiar with the concept." The commoners probably wouldn't know the word, but localities were often managed democratically in the absence of a lord to tell them what to do, and some guilds were run by the consensus of their members, so it wouldn't be an alien idea anyway.

"They don't care. Some of them, anyway — Solana, Keran, Wynne. They think it is wrong, and that most agree on Bélen to them will only be the, eh... What is the word?" Lýna asked Leliana. "Sounds Orlesian. Hã-ghý shèliśal dýth."

With a pert little smile, she said, "Excuse."

"Excuse, yes. This is just the excuse I use to make them do what I want. They will dislike this, and will only be more sure that I will also make the Landsmeet do what I want. As I do now, they are left to do as they like, as I will let the Landsmeet do as they like — which is most likely to make Fergus king anyway — and in failing they will learn why they are wrong."

"Fair enough," Lacie said.

"No, not fair enough. I don't think you're being entirely fair suggesting they wouldn't go along with whatever the consensus is. They might not be happy about it, but if the majority of us support Bélen, it is what it is, I'm not sure how they can put that on you."

Lýna gave him a flat, you're being very stupid look — apparently, she didn't have the confidence in them he did. Which was news, he hadn't realized she had such a low opinion of some of their people. "If they care what most people want, they should wish for Bélen to be King, as most of his people prefer him."

"I thought the Assembly was more or less even." If they weren't, Bélen would have been crowned by now.

"The Assembly is only one caste, but there are others. If you count all Orzammar, not only the nobles, it is Bélen people want. And it isn't even close. If you listened closely, Solana spoke of this as a point against him. No, they don't care if most in our band disagree with them — they will simply say most of us are wrong."

...Well, shit. That was a good point, actually. While Alim considered that problem — he'd thought the vote would have been more than enough, but obviously if people didn't recognize the legitimacy of voting to make decisions in the first place it didn't do any good — Lacie next to him let out a harsh scoff. "Of course she did, Amell's a self-righteous bitch. I still don't understand why the hell you like her."

That statement was actually a question, and it was clearly directed at him. He lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. "I dunno, why do you like Marlie?"

"Hey, Marlie's sweet."

"Uh-huh. But anyway, at least some of them wouldn't have been placated with a majority vote, fine. Splitting them off into a different group working in opposition to the rest of us is still a terrible idea. Especially since Bélen isn't really asking us to interfere directly."

"It doesn't matter," Lýna said, shaking her head, "Harrogáng won't work with them at all. First, he will demand we give him Natí, or at the least that I apologize for the insult — they can't do the first, and I won't do the second. If he is even willing to talk to them, I will be surprised."

...That should have been obvious, when he thought about it. In his head, Harrogáng's displeasure was focused on Lýna in particular, so he wouldn't want to work with her, but dwarves could be very particular about the proper functioning of institutions — not only had Natí's recruitment implicated the Wardens by extension, but the others would still be considered under Lýna's authority, whether they were actually working together or not. For that matter, Harrogáng would almost certainly consider any offer of an alliance from Fereldan Wardens to be illegitimate unless it wasn't being made by Lýna herself, since she was their Commander. He might assume Lýna was trying to play both sides, and only get more angry with the Wardens.

This continued to be a terrible idea. They really better pray Harrogáng didn't end up winning, because he was going to be seriously pissed with them by the end of all this.

"So, you're letting them go off and do whatever...because you think it's pointless, they aren't going to be able to do any damage, so who cares?"

"Yes," Lýna said, with her characteristic flat bluntness. "Also, they will see what we do instead. While they try to get Harrogáng to talk to them, we will gather allies for Bónammar, kill the worst of the Carta, and hunt darkspawn in the Deep Roads — things that Grey Wardens are supposed to do. They will see we are right, and not be so silly and stubborn about decisions like this later on."

"Hopefully," Lacie added.

With a little nod, Lýna admitted, "Hopefully."

Well, at least she could acknowledge that it was a gamble — the chances of this horrifically backfiring were far too high for his liking. Besides, Lýna was depending on their demonstration of proper Warden behavior to convince the others where majority opinion didn't had the same problem of appealing to moral principles they didn't share — apparently, which was honestly ridiculous, Wynne was in the bloody College, he'd think she at least would respect the idea of a majority vote — but if nothing else she would demonstrate she knew what she was doing, which Alim guessed would have to suffice. Probably wouldn't convince the ones who were legitimately concerned over what would happen at the Landsmeet, but it would weaken dissent among the Wardens, at least.

Unless they got annoyed with Lýna for giving them an impossible mission, but it wasn't like it was her idea. It was really their own damn fault for walking to the wrong side of the room in the first place.

"I still think this is a terrible idea," he said. "If I were them, I would have told them to suck it up — Harrogáng already hates us, and Bélen isn't asking us to do anything that isn't in our interests anyway."

"I did say that."

"True, but then you let them make a fucking stupid decision anyway, and then set them loose to inevitably face the consequences of that stupid decision for themselves. Part of being a leader, Lýna, is stopping your people from doing stupid shit."

She frowned at him. "I'm their Commander, not their mother." Despite himself, he bit his lip to keep himself from laughing — he didn't know why he found that so funny, there was nothing funny about this situation. "And besides, I told them that they can join us whenever, if they change their mind. They don't have to face the consequences if they don't wish to."

"No, but see, Lýna," Lacie said, "then they would have to admit they were wrong, which is just as bad." Leliana let out a little giggle, covering her mouth with one hand (because she was very Orlesian sometimes), which, fair.

Lýna was distracted by Leliana for a second — whatever she was thinking didn't show on her face, but she glanced that way long enough the pause was obvious. "If some of them need to let go of their pride, so be it. Better we do this now, when it will hurt nobody, than do it on the eve of a battle, when it might get our people killed."

...And that was a surprisingly good point. As much as Alim still thought this was a terrible idea, he found he did feel reassured, if only a little. If Lýna had been acting solely out of an aversion to giving hard orders her people didn't like, that would be a problem, and one they would have to address immediately, but her reasoning was a whole lot more complex than he'd given her credit for. He didn't agree with all of it, necessarily, but that she did have a strategy and wasn't just blindly conforming with Avvar ways of doing things or acting out of emotion was... Good, that was good.

It wasn't how he would handle this situation, but she was the Commander here, so he guessed he just had to deal with that.

"Okay," he said, his voice turned breathy in a half-sigh. "I'm not happy about it, but I'll follow your lead. Besides, killing darkspawn and Carta bosses is probably a way better use of our skills than whatever the hell Harrogáng might ask us to do. We did insult the Proving, you know — what if Bélen didn't work out, and Harrogáng asked us to fight in the Proving in his name to help increase his prestige in the Assembly? I can definitely imagine that happening."

Lýna scowled, nose quirking and lip curling and eyes narrowing in disgust. "In that case, we will have no alliance with Orzammar — I will not fight in their Proving, and I will not have any of our people do it either. What allies we get from a victory at Bónammar is all we have, then."

Yeah, Alim was with her on that one. Duels were fucking stupid to begin with, but the Proving had been worse. It'd just seemed so...wasteful. But more than that, Alim wasn't sure what it was, the whole thing had left him with a bad feeling.

Of course, splitting the group up was also giving him a bad feeling, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

"Anyway, I've said what I wanted to, I'm ready to move on. Speaking of big, noisy messes that are all going to turn into shit in the end, who wants lunch?"

Nobody else seemed to think that was as funny as he did.

---

9:30 Molloris 19

Orzammar

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Orzammar being underground didn't particularly bother Lýna. She had expected it to, so that had come as some surprise — she didn't much like being inside Redcliffe Castle, either, and at least there had been windows and open courtyards there. Save for the occasional foray into one of the ruins left behind by the Ancients dotted across the south, and one single visit somewhere in town, she'd never been inside a building made of stone before. She'd certainly never slept in one.

Even now, after a couple months of living among the Alamarri, she still wasn't entirely comfortable with it. Lýna didn't think about it, most of the time, but there was a mild unease always prickling away at the back of her head when indoors. She wasn't sure what caused it, exactly. She wasn't concerned the building would collapse and she'd be trapped — Redcliffe Castle and the tower at Kinloch Hold seemed sturdy enough, they'd both stood for centuries. A few times she had gotten lost, but she always remembered the turns she'd taken (even if she didn't know where they'd brought her), so it wasn't difficult to just retrace her steps. It wasn't a conscious worry, so it was hard to put words to what about it bothered her.

It just...felt wrong. Maybe it was the air — even on calm days in the lowlands, the air was never that still. That was subtly unnerving when she thought about it. Maybe it was how close in everything was, stone pressing in against her, the complete absence of earth and sky leaving the inside unmoored from its surroundings. Some combination of the two, she didn't know, she just didn't like it.

Orzammar was different, for whatever reason. Inside Last Watch, particularly in their warrens deep within, that bothered her in the same way Redcliffe Castle had, but that unease went away as soon as she exited out into the city. Though she didn't know why that was, either. The cavern was wide and open, the walls far away, but not nearly so far as the horizon, the sky hidden away, so she would think it shouldn't help that much. And it was enclosed, so the air should still be unnaturally still.

Except, Lýna had learned, it wasn't: the air flowed through Orzammar, slowly enough Lýna hadn't really noticed. Days ago now, when Sidona had been showing her around the city, she'd pointed out where the forges were, and explained it was perfectly safe for fires to be burning indoors — of course, fire could be suffocated if there wasn't enough fresh air, and all the people breathing it too didn't help. Orzammar actually wasn't enclosed, there were narrow tunnels carved through the mountain for the purpose of letting air flow through the cavern. There were enchantments to pull air out of the sky and down, pushed into the city, where the fires of the forges and kilns inexorably drew it in, the smoke from the fires propelled outside again, making a sort of loop.

Not that it was particularly noticeable, it all moved slowly enough that Lýna couldn't actually feel the wind. Sidona had brought her to one of the vents — hidden behind a mosaic in the wall, air slipping through gaps between the tiles, if she hadn't pointed it out Lýna wouldn't have noticed — and holding her hand right in front of it Lýna could barely feel the passing of air. Which probably shouldn't be enough to lessen her unease at the stillness, but it was still interesting. Supposedly the dwarves did something similar for their water, pulling from nearby streams (including the one the road to Orzammar followed), some of which never saw the sun, flowing deep under the mountains. The scale of the works the dwarves had built was very impressive, she would give them that.

For whatever reason, the city itself didn't bother her much. But the Deep Roads did.

Though they weren't technically in the Deep Roads, Jowan claimed. People on the surface tended to call any of the dwarven-made tunnels beneath the ground the Deep Roads, but the term was supposed to refer to something very specific. During the time of the old dwarven empire, the cities scattered all across Thedas had combined their efforts on a massive project to connect all of them with huge, easily-traversable highways, and these were the Deep Roads. It was the same idea as the Imperial Highway old Tevinter had left behind, though they covered far more ground, crisscrossing below the surface like a hundred branching rivers. Smaller passages within and around dwarven cities weren't part of this project, made by the locals to get around within the city's holdings instead, so it was inappropriate to call them the Deep Roads.

Supposedly, the Deep Roads proper would be far more open than these old mining tunnels — they were intended to allow passage for multiple wagon trains at once, and sometimes whole armies — and had vents to allow airflow like the city itself — which also functioned as exits to the surface for darkspawn, she was told — so hopefully those wouldn't be so bad. Because she did not like it down here. She was trying not to think about it, but she wouldn't be surprised if the mages suspected something was wrong.

Their dispute over which contender for the throne they should support was now a few days passed. The others at Last Watch had clearly noticed something was going on with the Fereldans, though Lýna hadn't explained — Sidona had asked more than once before stopping, so either someone had talked or she'd just given up. While Perry and Wynvir planned their task in the Carta, Lýna had started on her own task of speaking with various dwarves around the city and recruiting them to join the fight in Bónammar. Some she talked to were more enthusiastic about it, but Lýna hadn't had a single one refuse to join yet — Bélen had given her the list, she assumed he'd left off the names of anyone he thought wouldn't be willing, so as to not waste her time.

After a bit of thought, Lýna had decided that Sidona should be included in these meetings too. She hadn't thought it was a good idea at first, since she didn't want to taint Sidona if their plans with Bélen went badly, but in the end she'd decided it would only be appropriate. After all, Lýna was a newcomer to Orzammar, and she'd had almost nothing to do with the planning for the battle — Sidona was more familiar with their preparations, and would know what specifically new people could contribute. Lýna still brought Edolyn and Jowan along, but it was also only appropriate for an important person in Orzammar to have followers always with them. Sidona didn't go about the city alone either, for their meetings accompanied by Reynaldo and a Tevinter Lieutenant, one Warden from each of the three big groups at Last Watch at the moment, to match the two Lýna had brought with her.

The Lieutenant happened to be the Tevene elf Lýna had seen around Last Watch a few times — tanned from the sun, with black hair and hawkish orange-gold eyes. Irina was a mage, and unlike Iaşneru she'd been born free, since apparently not all elves were slaves in Tevinter. Lýna hadn't known that, and she was curious — the feeling she got was that it helped to be a mage, which she guessed made sense — but while Irina spoke Orlesian just fine and dwarvish passably, she knew hardly any Alamarri, so Lýna couldn't really ask about elves in Tevinter. She could ask Iaşneru, she guessed, but she'd rather hear it from an elf.

Anyway, Lýna hadn't told Sidona why she was doing this, or even where she'd gotten the list of names from, but but she was pretty sure the canny woman had figured it out. It wasn't particularly difficult, she guessed, since Lýna did casually drop Bélen's name at every one of their meetings. Sidona hadn't said anything, apparently willing to cooperate with the plan, but neither wanting to stick her nose in in case it blew up in all their faces. Which was wise, Lýna pretended not to notice Sidona had noticed.

Though just because Sidona wasn't part of the plan didn't mean she wasn't helping — Bélen had publicly pledged supplies and warriors to the fight since Lýna's meeting with him, and Sidona had started talking up his contribution to people who didn't react too badly to his name being mentioned. Apparently, as Lýna had guessed when he'd made the original offer, the addition of Bélen's people had made a big difference in the size of their (still growing) army, and the supplies didn't hurt either. Sidona was very frank to the people they spoke to about their odds not having been great before he joined them, his help very well might have made the difference between success and failure.

Sidona did want Bélen to be King, after all, she just didn't want to stick her neck out too far in case he lost. Lýna noticed the contemplative looks on some of their contacts' faces as they left — at least she thought so, dwarven faces were odd — so she guessed Sidona was doing her part too, in what small way she could without endangering the Wardens' standing in Orzammar.

The Wardens supporting Harrogáng were doing something, a few of them occasionally going out into the city, presumably to meet with someone. Lýna didn't know who specifically, and she didn't ask. She also didn't have to ask: quite by accident, she'd acquired a spy among Keran's people. The very morning after they'd split up, Morden had come to her to apologize — apparently he wouldn't have voted for Harrogáng in the first place if he'd known Lýna intended to split up the group, and he was pretty sure Gwenys and Edrick wouldn't have either — and offered to keep Lýna informed about what they were up to.

Lýna didn't think she really needed a spy, but Morden had been so regretful and earnest, she'd decided to humor him. (Morden might make a good officer one day, after all, no reason to discourage him thinking more broadly and taking the initiative.) Apparently Keran and Solana and Wynne had decided they would try to meet with Harrogáng, but they hadn't managed it yet, bounced between a few of his people trying to make their case. They were making progress, supposedly, but it was slow going — Lýna had told Morden he didn't need to tell her about every single meeting, just if they actually got anywhere, so she didn't know what was going on exactly. Morden hadn't had anything to report yet, so it must not be much.

Not that there was much going on with Lýna's people either — they'd recruited several more nobles and commanders for the upcoming battle, and were keeping a look out for something they could do in the Deep Roads, but it'd generally been calm so far. Calm enough that, when Jowan told her that they'd made their first useable magic arrows, Lýna decided they should test them out that day.

Getting somewhere they could test them was a problem. The mages were a little worried that the spells on the arrows might turn out more destructive than they guessed, so they didn't want to do the first tests in the courtyard at Last Watch. After a little asking around, Iaşneru had suggested finding somewhere isolated in the mining tunnels under the city — and to tell them how it went, because if Jowan was that concerned they might accidentally break something these arrows must be seriously impressive. They'd loaded up a cart with all the equipment they needed for the test, retrieved one of their horses to pull it, and made for the elevators.

The ride down was very unpleasant. The seemingly endless drop to either side of the little platform didn't bother her so much, not like it did Lacie — who was coming along, she'd helped carve the enchantments and wanted to see how they turned out, and was basically clinging on to Alim the whole ride down — but the metal bars surrounding them did. It felt far too much like a cage. Also, it was very, very loud, it didn't take long before Lýna had a pounding headache.

It didn't help that the ride was far longer than the one on their first day here. On their arrival, they'd only had to go down from the surface to the Way of Diamonds, but this time they were going much deeper into the earth, down to the bottom of the cavern but then even further, down into the tunnels below. As slow as the ratcheting descent was, it took a long time. Unfortunately, it'd probably take even longer to get all the way down with the horse and cart — it might even be impossible, they used the elevator to carry ore up from the mines and Iaşneru wasn't certain there was any other entrance — so Lýna just had to suffer through it.

Once they made it down to the upper levels of the mines, Jowan walked up to a dwarf who looked like he knew what he was doing — standing at a table strewn with maps, shouting orders to a clump of others, who'd then run off to relay them to rather dustier, rougher dwarves who looked to be the actual workers — and asked him (in dwarvish) where they could find a place that was out of the way, and stable enough they could test small explosives. The dwarf looked annoyed at first, but then he'd spotted the silverite and gryphons, and went over his maps to find them a place. Luckily it was only a short walk away, and the tunnels were marked (in dwarvish, though Jowan could read it), so they didn't even need a guide.

Down here there was no sign of the decoration above, the surfaces mostly made of dull, rusty red stone, in most places not even worked smooth, uneven surfaces throwing odd shadows. The passages between the elevator and where they were going were tight, enough room for maybe two of their horses to pass side-by-side (or only one of the dwarves' brontos) and not much more. And they weren't perfectly straight, curving enough that, from the middle of the tunnel, Lýna couldn't see the entrance or the exit, completely surrounded by rock. The air was still and dusty, seeming to press in on her skin and cling to her throat, despite knowing it was fine she felt it was a little harder to breathe than normal. With all the stone in the way, the sounds of the activity by the elevator quickly faded away, dropping to muffled, meaningless echoes before going entirely silent, the only sound the clanking of their equipment, their breathing and that of the horse, the tromp of their feet and the thumping of the horse's hooves, now and then an unidentifiable sound from further away, often so quiet she wasn't sure she'd heard anything at all or if it was her mind playing tricks on her, inventing something just to break the eerie quiet.

Lýna did not like these tunnels, not at all.

The place they decided to do their test was somewhat more open, but really not that much of an improvement. It was a larger cavern with several more tunnels going off in multiple directions, apparently a spot where the miners had collected things from deeper in the tunnels before carting it all of to the elevator. There was still a bit of debris here and there, loose rock piled against the sides to leave plenty of room for carts to pass by, but it'd been cleared of whatever equipment might have been here before. The only thing left behind were the enchanted lamps fixed to the walls here and there, but these were old enough that they'd long begun to dim, the shadows here far thicker than back by the elevator.

It was dark enough that Alim cast a light, the bright green of the Beyond chasing away the shadows. They picked a spot toward the middle of the cavern and set up as Lýna watched. They'd stolen a few targets from the range in the courtyard at Last Watch, but they didn't set them in a line, instead in a large circle around the cart — hardly a difficult shot from the middle, but Lýna guessed they just needed to make sure they would be beyond the effect of the magic. Once all the targets — roughly human-sized figures, mostly made of wood — were set up, Lacie led the horse away, all the way to the edge of the cavern, as far away from the magic as possible, the rest of their equipment left in the middle.

"Okay," Alim said, clapping his hands, "let's get started. It's your project, Jowan."

"Well, it's not my project, I got plenty of help from Sola, but, uh..." The awkward human, looming over the three elves around him, shot Lýna an uncomfortable look.

"She has things to do today, I know, I talked to her this morning." Lýna had sought her out — she'd wanted to make it very clear that she knew Solana had worked on it, that even if she couldn't be there for the test Lýna wasn't going to forget her part in it, regardless of their current disagreements. Solana, ever formal, had simply assured Lýna that she hadn't expected anything less, and wished them good luck.

"Okay, so, um." Jowan cleared his throat, glancing quick at the other mages — Lacie was hiding a smile — before he turned back to Lýna, visibly firming himself. "Right. I don't know if you remember, but back in Redcliffe, Solana got the idea of enchanting arrows, inspired by the armor used by Knight-Enchanters. Now, the idea of enchanting an arrow isn't entirely new — one of the duties assigned to the Tranquil back at the Circle is to enchant arrows for the Templars, they've been using the same design with only minor changes over centuries."

"I know, I used some against the abominations."

He nodded, said, "Yes, they are quite useful against abominations. Due to the particulars of the function of that enchantment, however, we can't adapt the design for our purposes. I managed to get my hands on the scheme for the Templars' arrows — they're concerned that if mages know how they work we'll find a method to counteract them, that's why the project is solely given to Tranquil in the first place — and there are serious limitations involved." Jowan had been obviously nervous at the outset, but Lýna noticed now that his voice had gotten quicker and more confident, face easing and eyes taking on an eager glint — he might not be much of a fighter, but this one was definitely a craftsman. "Perhaps the most critical, these arrows have no power source at all: instead, the enchantment is designed to pull magic in from the environment, neutralizing it in the process. This is why these arrows can punch right through a shield, and even disrupt an active spell given enough time undisturbed, and are perfectly safe to work with. They're also very cheap to make, since they don't require even a single drop of lyrium."

"It also helps that they're made with slave labor," Alim drawled.

Jowan grimaced. "Yes, that too. Anyway, Sola and I were familiar with the idea of enchanting arrows, but the scheme we're familiar with couldn't be adapted to the purpose. So we had to design something from scratch. Now, there were a few serious problems we had to solve for such things to be useable. It would make the most sense for an arrow to release the stored enchantment through contact — as soon as the tip touches something, that is. But that raises an immediate and obvious problem: while being carried, the arrowheads are always touching the bottom of the quiver, and even if they were suspended somehow it'd be impossible to pull them out without knocking the tip against something. Needless to say, it doesn't do any good to enchant arrows with fire if our archers set themselves aflame every time they try to use one.

"After hours of discussion on the matter, and a couple weeks of experiments, Sola and I came up with a solution: we wouldn't enchant the arrows at all." Alim had procured an arrow from somewhere, handed it over to Lýna. It was a perfectly ordinary human-style arrow — proportioned a little differently than the elven-made ones she was more used to, though she'd scavenged enough by now she was used to the slight difference it made for her aim. Lýna noticed this one wasn't particularly well-balanced, the fletching just slightly out of alignment, but it wasn't so bad it wouldn't still fly mostly straight. There was a short ribbon wrapped around just behind the back edge of the fletching, red, the ends dangling a little. "Despite the differing application, we took inspiration from the Templars' arrows. You'll notice there are glyphs carved into the arrowhead, which will define the enchantment, but that there is no presence of lyrium whatsoever. Or, do you notice that? I'm not sure how obvious lyrium is to non-mages."

"I don't know about everyone, but I can feel magic. I can tell there's nothing here." She could make out the glyphs, carefully etched into the iron at the tip, but it was meaningless to her. Supposedly, there were two sets of glyphs humans did their enchanting in, one originally created by the People and the other the dwarves — looking carefully, Lýna sometimes noticed a shape that reminded her of their writing, or the Alamarri letters she'd learned recently, but it was different enough she couldn't begin to guess what it said.

"Fascinating. Anyway, like Templar arrows, these don't contain the power to fuel their effects, but we can't design them to pull in the necessary energy from outside, as that would prevent them from working correctly. Instead, it is forced into them by a separate enchantment." Lacie handed Jowan something, which he then held out to her. It was a leather quiver, but a strangely-formed one — it was held into a rigid shape with a wooden frame, which wasn't so unusual, but the top edge was hardened all the way around, and curled out somewhat, like the lip on a pitcher.

Also, a circle around the inside of the rim, about the width of two of her fingers, was glowing with the blue of lyrium, the magic tingling metallic on her tongue.

"The power for the arrows is provided by a specially-made quiver. There is a key-glyph on the arrows, when it passes through the plane defined by the ring, just here, the enchantment on the quiver will activate, and push power into the arrow. It should take a couple seconds for the energy to proliferate through the arrowhead, I'm not certain how long exactly, and once that process is finished the enchantment will be primed, and will be released as soon as it strikes anything."

The thought sparking an eager thrill in her blood, her heart thumping in her throat, Lýna nodded. That was a clever fix — the couple seconds it needed to set even meant it wouldn't go off bumping against the other arrows while it was being pulled forward — but there was still one big problem she saw. "The magic is put in when the arrowhead crosses the top here? So how do you get them inside?"

"Ah!" Jowan said, pointing a single finger up to the ceiling and grinning, "we did think of that. If the arrows can't go in the top, instead you have to fill the quiver from the bottom."

One arm wrapped around the body of the thing, fiddled at places on the bottom, undoing a buckle and flipping a couple latches, turning something on the side — and the entire bottom surface came off onto his hand. He turned the quiver so Lýna could see the hole went all the way through, then held the bottom piece closer to her. "Now, you also have to worry about arrows falling out of the top, if it ends up being turned upside down or if the carrier trips or something.

"You'll notice that the bottom is coated in a thin layer of tar — if you'd stick the tip of the arrow against it, please?" Holding the shaft of the arrow point-down, Lýna jabbed it into the dark surface, glinting wetly in the greenish light. Jowan turned the bottom to line up with the rest of the quiver, the arrow firmly held in place parallel to the ground, and slipped it back on, fiddling with the latches and things for a few seconds. And then he held it upside down — Lýna took a step back, instinctively, but only one, because she noticed right away that the arrow was held in place, hanging upside down inside the quiver. Grinning at her, Jowan said, "The tar will dry if left for too long, so the user will want to check each time they refill their arrows. It is possible to knock them loose if the quiver is hit hard enough, so we'll want to take precautions there — maybe keep the archers with these toward the back, just in case."

Yes, that made sense, having multiple destructive spells go off all at once in the middle of their people would be very, very bad. "I understand. Can I try it?" she asked, already reaching for her bow. Lýna would admit, she was eager to see them work, enough she couldn't quite keep a smile off her face.

"Oh, of course." Jowan set the quiver down on the ground, and the mages all shuffled around, giving her an open shot at one of the targets. "One important thing to keep in mind is that, as soon as the enchantment is primed, it can't be easily undone — the power will gradually disperse but it could easily take as long as a half hour to no longer be dangerous, and maybe hours to fade away completely. Don't pull out one of these unless you're absolutely certain you want to use it. You'll notice the ribbon on the end here, we've color-coded the arrows to keep track of which are which. Red is fire."

Lýna bit her lip to hold in a giddy giggle — fire was always good.

Her bow strung, she gently grabbed the end of the arrow, but it didn't come up easily. She'd probably stuck it in harder than necessary, but in her defense she really hadn't wanted it to fall out. A little tug, twisting with her wrist, was enough to pull it free. There was a faint crackle of magic around her ears as the tip passed through the ring of lyrium, a flare of blue-white light crawling along the glyphs. The presence of magic grew stronger the closer she held it to her head, her tongue tingling, the faintest ringing in her ears. Careful to not actually touch the tip, she nocked the arrow and drew back, sighting down at the target, aiming a sliver high to accommodate the imperfect make of the arrow. "Is it ready?"

"Yes, it should only take a couple seconds."

With a sharp little nod, Lýna let out a short breath, and loosed. The arrow crossed the minimal distance between them in a flicker of emotion, so quickly she'd hardly even finished the follow-through before—

Crackle-fwoosh!

—the target vanished in a sudden storm of fire. The explosion wasn't nearly so overwhelming as the spell Marian had put on an arrow that once back in Ostagar (the experience that had sparked her interest in magic arrows in the first place), but it was still very impressive. The flames reached far further than she'd expected, the fireball must be a couple lengths from one end to the other, the heat intense enough she felt it on her face, a light wind fluttering her hair. Most of the fire, without anything to fuel it, went out almost right away, but when the rest cleared up the target was left burning, wreathed in fire top to bottom.

Lýna tried to hold in her laughter, but didn't quite manage it, coming out in an odd mix of a giggle and a choking noise. Luckily, the mages didn't seem to notice, all three of them giving the target a variety of contemplative looks. "What do you think?" Jowan asked Alim. "Too much?"

"Well, that's a stupid thing to say. There's no such thing as too much fire." At least when fighting darkspawn, that was definitely true, Lýna was with Alim on this one.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm talking to the man who single-handedly incinerated the gates of Redcliffe Castle, I forgot."

"How could you possibly forget about that? Your best and oldest friend is completely amazing and also basically a living siege weapon, seems like that's the sort of thing you'd remember."

"Forgive me, I was rather preoccupied with the imminent execution for treason and consorting with demons situation. Which, now that I think about it, how did you manage that? I don't think they're enchanted, like the old fort during the War of the Crowns was, but the gates are deadwood, centuries old."

"White fire. And the walls are enchanted, actually, but they'd faded with age, it wasn't too difficult to bridge them around the gates first."

"Well, I guess white fire might work, but you would have had to—"

"Boys," Lacie snapped, voice raised just a little to cut over Jowan's enthusiastic rambling, "you two can debate in circles like a pair of old Enchanters as much as you like, later. We were in the middle of something."

Alim shrugged. "Right, sorry." He waved a hand at the target, the fire abruptly snuffing out — which was likely wise, they didn't want to fill the cavern with smoke. "What did you think, boss, too much?"

"No, no, is good. That is just as I wanted." Thinking about soon being able to cast fire into darkspawn, destructive spells aimed with all the precision of an arrow, Lýna was struck with a memory. It was a long time ago — before her mother died even, she thought — when Mẽrhiᶅ had still been relatively new to the clan. She'd done something with fire, Lýna didn't remember what, and Lýna had said something about that being really neat, she wished she was a mage; Mẽrhiᶅ had joked it was probably a good thing that she wasn't, because if she were, the next time one of their more annoying clanmates bothered her she'd probably set their hair on fire. It was best for everyone (including Lýna herself) that she not have access to fire magic.

If Mẽrhiᶅ were here now, she'd be so exasperated.

Lýna didn't even realize she was laughing until she noticed the weird (almost unnerved) looks on the others' faces. "Oh! Sorry, I just..." Her voice still shaking a little with badly-suppressed giggles, she cleared her throat, tried to control her breath. "Ah. My cousin is a mage, I was remembering a talk we had a long time ago, it's nothing."

Alim's head tilted, chin dipping, giving her a doubtful look. "Was this talk about you wanting to fling fire at people who annoyed you?" Ooh, good guess...

"Like you have any right to judge — how many times did Sewin's robes inexplicably catch on fire while in your presence?"

"Oh, that could have been anyone, lots of people hated Sewin."

"How about Irving that one time?"

"In my defense, I didn't actually hurt him. And also Irving's an ass."

Lýna burst into giggles again. For some reason, she didn't know, hopefully that wasn't going to keep happening every time she used these things...

Of course, Jowan and Solana hadn't just come up with fire arrows. Jowan disassembled the quiver again, and Alim stuck three more arrows into it. The second one she tried, with a blue ribbon, had a lightning spell on it. The effect was pretty dramatic, and extremely loud in the enclosed space — the force blew a chunk out of the target, the heat enough for it to catch alight, though the damage was rather less than from the fire. However, it did have advantages over the fire arrows. Alamarri tended to make armor out of metal, and lightning carried through metal very well, so these would be devastating against armored targets. (There were always layers between metal and skin, but the metal would likely got hot enough to set the lower layers on fire, which was as bad as as it sounded.) While the lightning would probably only kill the person the arrow hit, maybe one or two others if they were close enough, Jowan thought it would at least injure people in a much wider area around — especially if they happened to be wearing metal armor, drawing the lightning to them like the tallest tree in a thunderstorm.

Darkspawn tended to power through injuries that would put people out of the fight, so the lightning ones might be less useful than they would be against humans and dwarves, but at the very least it would temporarily stun a group, giving the Wardens time to kill them while they were disoriented, or slow approaching groups to prevent being flanked. So, less lethal, but maybe actually more useful on a large scale.

The one was the black ribbon was an anti-magic arrow. To demonstrate this one, Alim zipped out to cast a barrier — standing next to the target she'd be aiming at, just in case. The arrow didn't punch through the barrier, instead bouncing off as solidly as though it'd hit a wall, but before it'd even hit the floor the barrier had winked out. Grimacing in discomfort obvious even from this far away, Alim made an odd flicking motion with his hand, once, again, again. After several attempts, he finally managed to conjure a ball of fire — unlike the Templars', Jowan's anti-magic arrows released a spell that interfered with any magic being cast in its range. It gradually wore off, yes, but it'd lasted a good half-dozen breaths at least, which would be more than enough to take out any enemy mage. If nothing else, she could easily shoot a second, normal arrow in that time...and then a third, if she hadn't managed to kill them with the second one.

When he zipped back, partway through Jowan's explanation of how it worked, Alim added to make absolutely sure those arrows weren't shot anywhere near their own mages. It would make them just as vulnerable, and if they were taken by surprise they could easily be killed before they could do anything about it. Lýna hadn't needed to be told that, but it was something to keep in mind when training less experienced archers in their use.

And then there was the fourth arrow, this one with a green ribbon. Alim picked up a breastplate, showing it to Lýna — hardened iron, plain and without decoration of any kind, though the metal was rather thick, would easily bounce any arrow that hit it, as well as most blades. Alim zipped back to the target, and buckled the breastplate onto it. He zipped right back, and told her to aim for the armor. A little bemused, Lýna nonetheless did as he asked. After firing them a couple times she was already accustomed to the imperfect arrows, this one struck the target almost precisely in the middle of the chest.

This spell effect was rather less dramatic than fire or lightning, occurring in eerie silence. There was a puff of dust, a cloud of little specks flung out from the target, like a rock thrown into powdery snow. But it wasn't snow, or dust — it was the armor. A huge gap had appeared in the middle of the target, the metal simply crumbled away. In the couple seconds after the impact, the cloud beginning to settle, there was a clanking as the remains of the armor fell to the ground, so thoroughly rent by the spell it could no longer grip onto the target; dragged by the straps as the heavier parts fell, the upper third of the target itself began to list, and over the next seconds slowly toppled over, so much of the target disintegrated even through the armor that it couldn't stand upright anymore.

The whole time, Lýna could only gape at the results, her breath catching in her throat, an unpleasant chill creeping through her.

"Fires of the... What was that?" When the mages just blinked at her, Lýna realized that had been in Deluvẽ, whoops... "Ah. What did that do? I've never seen magic like that."

"I'm not surprised," Jowan said, "it's not common magic. Most magic you'll see concerns the elements, or the manipulation of living things, most often healing. It is also possible, though much rarer, to use magic to alter the character of objects on a fundamental level. One of the easier things to do is..." He trailed off for a moment, eyes tipping to the ceiling, clearly trying to figure out how to describe it to someone who knew very little of magic. "It's kind of like a disruption I suppose. You know, how a dispel works is to scramble up the energy being cast. It's sort of like if someone mixed around all the letters on a page — the letters are still there, but your mind can no longer make any sense of them. This spell does the same thing, but with objects instead of magic. The...stuff, that gives objects their shape, that is interfered with, causing the target to crumble to dust. It's called a dissolving curse."

Seeming a little amused for some reason, Alim said, "Jowan is shit at combat magic, so he might not be aware of this, but this class of spells isn't nearly as unusual as he's making it sound. Many spirit magic curses include a dissolving effect, either as the intended purpose or as a secondary consequence of whatever the spell is meant to do. These are some of the more dangerous curses, as you might imagine — bits of a body getting scrambled up in such a way or losing their shape entirely results in massive internal bleeding, and is very difficult to heal. If the damage is on a part of the body it's feasible, it's really best to amputate, because chances are you simply won't stop the bleeding."

"Some healers can do it. I know Wynne can, and some of the other Enchanters too, and Solana's good enough with translations she could probably make a good attempt at it. But Alim's right, dissolving curses are very, very dangerous. And as you saw," Jowan said, nodding at the broken target, "these arrows won't hit just the armor, but also the person underneath. This spell has a much narrower area of effect than the other three, but it's very deadly — chances are, almost anything you hit will die in one shot, and very quickly."

Yeah, Lýna had guessed that much for herself! Her voice coming out a little harsh, she snapped, "Do not let anyone see these. Our people, fine, but nobody else. These will be a Warden secret."

"What? I mean, I wasn't planning on showing them to anyone else — it's not as though I have a whole lot of other people to talk to these days anyway — but why?"

"She's worried someone will copy the enchantment and use them against us," Lacie explained.

"Yes, of course!" There was no defense against these things, even catch them on a shield and it'd probably take an arm off... Lýna was tempted to order them all destroyed — some things were simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist — but it looked like they'd be extremely useful against alphas and ogres, and maybe even the Archdemon itself. Even so, it was only wise to take every precaution they could to prevent them from getting out.

Her voice softening a little, Lacie said, "I understand why you're worried, Lýna, but you needn't be. Dissolving curses are not a secret — people have known about these spells, and how to integrate them into enchantments, going back centuries. They aren't in use due to the practical difficulties, how dangerous they can be even to the user."

Alim nodded. "Those big axes on the dwarven guards outside of the Gates, I noticed some of those were enchanted with dissolving curses — seeing that was what gave me the idea to suggest the arrows to Sola in the first place. Besides those, I've literally never seen it before, they're just too dangerous to use."

"Yes, and I was surprised to see them there, they must have some way to prevent the enchantment from activating when they don't want it to. But as I was saying, there is nothing unique or unknown about the enchantments on the curse arrow. The enchantment on the quiver, on the other hand, is special — it might be wise to keep that a secret, if we can."

Letting out a little hum, Jowan said, "I don't know how much danger there'd be of it spreading around. The design is somewhat complicated, not something you can throw on any old thing and expect to work correctly, and it requires a rather large amount of lyrium. Not only does this mean it's very expensive, but it also requires the person making it to handle more lyrium than is entirely safe — mages and dwarves can do it, with precautions, but common people can't without the risk of going mad."

Alim said only, "Tranquil."

Jowan grimaced. "Ah, yes, good point — maybe don't let anyone in the Chantry see these. They already have more than enough power, and they have the resources and craftsmen to mass-produce them, I do not want to see what they'd do with it."

"Right. Good." Her initial fear at the implications already cooling off, Lýna took a few last calming breaths, trying to drag her thoughts back to the matter at hand. "How many of these have you made?"

"The arrows or the quivers?" She'd meant the latter, but Jowan didn't wait for her to clarify. "This is the only quiver that's fully functional as of now. We still have an experimental concept — the enchantments on that one work, but it's not useable — and a second one is partially complete. We only have a few arrows of each type, but those are much easier to make — you can take any arrow and just carve the glyphs into the tip, takes maybe fifteen minutes each. And you don't need to be a mage to do it either, as long as you know the glyphs and what you want the enchantment to do it'll work. That was one of the considerations we kept in mind when designing them, in fact, since we only have so many mages."

"Okay. This first one will be for me, and the second one will go to Lèlja. Then Justien and Morden. The others, I will have to see how they do before deciding — this is not a weapon for the less skilled. All of us will need to know the glyphs, so we can make our own arrows."

"Of course," Jowan said, nodding, "I can make paper copies of the schemes tonight. The next quiver will be done in maybe a week, and we should be able to have two more before the battle. Oh, and, every time you charge one of these, it'll drain power from the lyrium — it will go dark eventually. We've built it such that the chamber holding the lyrium can be replaced, so we wouldn't need to make a new one from scratch. You can even pour standard lyrium potions in there and it'll work, though you probably wouldn't get very many arrows out of it. And also the glyphs are on an inside surface, so they're unlikely to be damaged. The quivers will last for a long time once they're made, is my point."

"If one of them does get banged up you'll want Jowan or Solana to check the glyphs. Even minor damage could throw the enchantment off — there's a lot of power packed into that thing, so that could go very badly."

Jowan nodded at Lacie. "Yes, that's a good point. As long as they aren't broken open or pierced all the way through, it'll probably be fine, but it's still worth checking just to make sure."

They were powerful magical artefacts, so obviously they needed to be treated with care. Lýna hadn't needed to be told that either, but like with the anti-magic arrows it was something to remember when explaining all this to the others — after all, they were less likely than Lýna to have dealt with enchanted things before. "I understand. This is good, better than I wished for. I need to see how it goes in a fight, but even so. This will make a big difference, very good work, Jowan."

"Oh, um..." Jowan blinked down at her for a second, seemingly taken aback. "...thank you, Commander, just trying to help. I'll, uh, pass that on to Sola."

Lýna would do so herself, but if Jowan and Sola wanted to congratulate each other on a job well done, so much the better. "Good, all good. Let us go now, I hate it down here." The mages all chuckled or smirked at her, but they started moving right away, Lacie making for the horse and cart while Alim and Jowan began packing their things.

The walk back to Last Watch was just as long as the walk here, but it passed much easier this time. Lýna hardly even noticed the noise on the elevator, too occupied considering how their new magic arrows could best be used.

(The whole time nursing a giddy grin — Lýna loved magic.)

---

Blluuuuhhh I kind of hate this chapter, but this shit happens.

Haven't been getting much writing done lately, due to my parents visiting fucking up my sleep schedule, and also writing just being inexplicably hard for no reason. These things also happen.

I don't know if I explained this anywhere, but I'm trying to make a habit of writing this and The Good War during the day when I have the most writing energy, alternating by chapter, and Children of the Gods and The Long Way Around at night when I still feel like writing but am not awake enough for my primary stuff, also alternating by chapter. Or if I'm just too tired from my sleep being stupid, I guess, but it didn't work this time, because the current chapter of Children has really been fighting me, because writing is dumb and hard. The hope is that giving myself a schedule will keep my output relatively consistent, but not focusing all my efforts on a single project will keep me from getting bored of it. No idea how that's going to work out, we'll see.

Anyway, Lýna's leadership strategy continues to be strange, woo magic arrows, moving on...