"Ortan Thaig…" Oghren read in awe. "By the Paragons…it's all true!"

The warden's party, including Duren and Ruck, stood at the rune-carved entrance to a sprawling stone metropolis dimly lit by luminescent moss and fading light enchantments. Carver didn't think he'd be rendered speechless by another sight besides Orzammar, but the Ancient age of dwarves was quickly proving him mistaken. Orzammar had originally been the Empire's capital and was still the largest thaig Carver had seen. However, that was like saying Starkhaven was still larger than Kirkwall.

The Ortan Thaig was huge.

Once home to a genius smith with access to lyrium, it was also incredibly developed. Carver could dedicate another encyclopaedia to the abandoned wonders of an underground space as large as a city-state, but Carver knew he lacked the background to properly capture everything. He could already see natural, efficient indoor plumbing from where he stood. There were lyrium carvings that Carver could recognise imitated across Orzammar thanks to the dwarves' accurately preserved history. Maker, one of the buildings in the Ortan Thaig would have been a vacation resort above ground. Disease had been a thing of the past for dwarves since the Ancient age.

Carver was beginning to understand just a little of what it meant to be a Paragon. One such person could vault their people into the next century. Or in Caridin's case, the next millennium.

As the party crossed the Ortan Thaig, Faren discovered a chest of writing slates in an abandoned building. The slates' script was perfectly preserved and mostly in Ancient Common, proving that not only was Orta in Orzammar indeed of a noble caste, but that Caridin's own mother had been of House Ortan.

Faren stowed the slates away in his pack. "That girl's gonna reward us big time," he cackled, but he wouldn't let anyone else carry the slates. No one understood better than him how important elevating one's caste was.

At the other side of the Ortan Thaig, the party could see campfire scorch marks, more abandoned journals, and darkspawn corpses. The Legion of the Dead, Branka, and her house had certainly passed through here. Duren and Ruck thus determined that they would help the warden's party return Branka to Orzammar on account that the wardens would then help them reach Soldier's Peak. After the nightmarish encounter with spiders, everyone agreed that it was a fair trade.

Faren determinedly tested Duren on how he felt seeing his family's relics in a thief's hands, but the pacifist had been pleased to see them wielded for exterminating darkspawn instead of gathering dust. Duren had even dismissed Oghren's offer to switch axes, claiming that he had already grown accustomed to his humble weapon. In the Deep Roads where their only enemies were darkspawn or spiders, Duren was an unlikely ally to have.

Past the Ortan Thaig, the remnants of a paved road crumbled into a ravine that made the gap in Caridin's Cross look like a bunny hop. With torchlight alone, no one could see the other side. Fearful of attracting spiders, no one tested other means of light and simply hugged the wall as they hiked a trail cutting into the side of a cliff. It spanned the width of the average person, but with both hands committed to grasping crevices in a cliff, imagining one gust of wind had become everyone's greatest fear. Shale made sure to take up the rear at a distance, where she could dig her hands and feet into the cliff like shovels and climb sideways.

At one point in the treacherous trail, Carver squinted.

"Can anyone see better?" he asked. "I mean even without Ruck's luminescent mushrooms."

Uneven breaths echoed off the cliffside.

"Why are you always right?" Elissa whispered. "Maker — Alistair, Faren, look down."

Everyone shifted, and dozens of kilometres below them, at the bottom of the pitch black darkness, was a flowing river of bright sand — no, torchlight. Skittering like spider eyes. Marching to discordant thrums of nature, screeching. Within a ravine's cathedral acoustics, it could have been singing.

Someone gasped sharply. "Are those—?"

The thought was swallowed by a leathery flap of air, before suddenly a stroke of ink bled over the distant torches.

Screeeeeech.

Carver distantly realised that Ruck had been softly burbling the entire time, camouflaged by the movement below the party that they were only now seeing. Of course. Ruck was half-mad with the taint. The distraction explained how the dwarf could calmly follow them through a narrow trail.

Screeeeeeeeeaaaahhhhaaaahhhhhhaaaaa.

The stroke of ink flicked its tail like a contemplative comma. It flapped its wings.

—Screech.

It looked up.

Elissa suddenly sobbed. Carver threw an arm out in the darkness and pinned everyone in front of him to the wall — in comfort, for safety, both. No one had time to think before all of the air in the ravine abruptly sucked upwards, rushing like a dry vacuum preluding a thunderstorm. The clash in Ostagar suddenly split through Carver's head. He heard roaring. Screams. His brain felt like it was on fire. Reality and memory bled together then crumbled together, before finally Carver separated the grains and reassembled himself.

When he looked back down, the archdemon had vanished.

Gone, to slither with another stretch of its horde further down the ravine.

The edge of Carver's fingertips shuddered with stifled sobs.

"Warden Elissa," Carver murmured. "Breathe. Elissa."

She stilled, then exhaled. "…My first name. No address." She breathed against the cliff. "This is the first time from you."

Between them, Alistair suddenly giggled.

Carver sighed. "That's what it takes for you?"

Elissa straightened, and composure rippled down the line, returning everyone to proper hiking postures. They resumed inching forward. With rabbiting hearts, time circled down into a drain until no one noticed they had reached wide, solid ground before fading enchantments crawled into everyone's sight. Carver lifted his head to see a combination of Caridin's Cross, the corridor highway, and the Ortan Thaig all woven together into the perfect stone maze fortress draped with lava moats and lavafalls.

Bownammar.

Carver hit his stiff knees with his fists. He was the "reliable one" who could calmly use his head. He had to. Then his second childhood memories resurfaced like an aftershock. Carver was Quiet for his Age, Weird, Dedicated to Learning of the Maker, Not Good Enough to be a Templar. Self-doubt crept in. Elissa and Alistair stepped into his field of vision, followed by Wynne, Sten, Zevran, and Morrigan.

Carver of the past was useless and couldn't fit in.

Carver of the present had company from whom he could learn how to fight or curb magic. People who…liked his addition to their party.

Faren, Oghren, Duren, and Ruck filtered past him. Shale lumbered up from behind. "Is it hurrying up?"

Carver breathed, strength back in his knees. "Bownammar is stirring something in me."

Ahead, Faren snorted. "Nerd!"

Shale rumbled. "Me as well."

Bownammar stood somberly where the Ortan Thaig was beautiful and Orzammar was grand. Gazing too deeply into one direction of the fortress threatened to pull on a thread of Carver's sanity. Carver should have been in awe the moment they had arrived, but his own mind had instead chosen to trip him up. He belatedly tried processing Bownammar's structure before he concluded that he was better off saving his mental stamina for something more useful, like coordinating against spiders and darkspawn.

He wanted to forget about the party's recent encounter with the archdemon.

A bloody screech suddenly echoed out from Bownammar, and everyone flinched for their weapons. However, the cry vastly differed from an archdemon and its entire blighted army.

Elissa rose her shield and hurried towards the sound, the party quickly assembling behind her in case of an ambush. Between everyone's ready weapons, they resembled a porcupine skittering over rubble and through twisting hallways. Bownammar's enclosed passages opened up into terraced ramparts, and a few levels below the party, a stone bridge feeding into a barbican jutted out. A crowd of armoured dwarves was fighting a mob of darkspawn in the square space such that it resembled a moving painting. The party's mages fired token potshots at the darkspawn, but they needed to navigate down Bownammar's confusing architecture for the bridge in order to be in a useful range.

By the time the party found its way to the bridge, the dwarves were expecting them.

"You be Grey Wardens?" a dwarf called out. "We're assuming there's not much other magical company down here! We're trying to cut through the darkspawn's territory!"

"You're mad!" Faren barked.

Pushing the line back all by themselves? Who could these warriors be but the Legion of the Dead? The party bolstered the legion and tipped the clash over in the legion's favour, until finally the darkspawn scrambled out of the barbican and down another length of bridge. On the other side across a river of lava, another section of the stone fortress stood tall, swarming with darkspawn like an ant colony.

Carver belatedly realised that the Legion had cleared out the current section of Bownammar all by themselves.

The Legion welcomed the warden's party to sit with them and catch their breath. The legion commander, Kardol, removed his helmet to reveal the full-face tattoos of a legionnaire. Based on Shale's interaction with golems, it was safe to assume that Caridin's golems didn't bother dwarves with full-face markings, as the Legion of the Dead had been allies since the Ancient age. The warden's party followed suit and removed their helmets to let their faces breathe.

Legionnaire squads meanwhile split off to claim their territory along the river of lava and dissuade darkspawn from invading at a different entry point. Duren explained that the current crowd was only one legionnaire platoon of three scattered throughout the Deep Roads, fighting darkspawn until death claimed them. They were the most effective military force under the command of Orzammar's crown.

Kardol shook his head at the party's mission. "Paragon or not, journeying farther down the Deep Roads than here is suicidal. Frankly, continuing the search for your Paragon is a foolish endeavour."

Oghren stood up. "You take that back."

"Oghren." Elissa tugged the berserker down and turned to Carver. "At one point, dismissing advice becomes carelessness. Do you agree that it's foolish to keep going?"

Kardol rose a brow at what credentials Carver could possibly have to speak of the Deep Roads, but the commander made no comment.

Carver rubbed his temples, then glanced at the other side of the river. The majority of darkspawn in sight were genlocks, darkspawn produced by a dwarven broodmother.

Carver reluctantly admitted, "House Branka is nearby."

"Ha!" Oghren bellowed. "What did I say? Branka is too smart to kill! She's not going to let her house go down easily!"

"As you wish," Kardol allowed, "but the Legion will not follow. We have a sub-fortress to secure, then we will notify the other platoons of our gain. The Dead Trenches will be the City of the Dead for at least today."

Kardol rose and left the warden's party to their privacy.

"We should take this opportunity to rest without setting up shifts," Carver suggested.

Nods answered his idea. Everyone was mentally and emotionally drained from their journey. Their defensive dam against three months of paranoia and intense combat had finally cracked. The party visibly wilted and spread out to loosen their bedrolls.

Oghren shrugged and plopped down to uncork his wineskin. "No no no — empty!?"

Faren's face wrinkled with disgust as he flattened his bedroll. "Do you think of nothing except drinking?"

Alistair muttered. "And your ex-wife."

Oghren tossed his wineskin aside and leaned back on a slab of rock. "Pretty much."

"I can't believe I once wanted to enter a caste," Faren commented. "To imagine there are people like you in the warrior caste. Would it kill you to treat this as more than just a pastime? Or an obligation?"

Oghren chortled. "I'm a selfish guy."

"Cool it," Carver cut in. "We're all tired. Let's regroup and resume where we started off tomorrow."

The dam was close to bursting, but Faren grudgingly relented and lied down on his bedroll. Carver fell asleep the moment his head hit a pillow. In his last thoughts, he knew the wardens of the party still wouldn't sleep straight that night. The archdemon's presence seemed to crawl under the earth as it did the wardens' skin. Faren's outburst hadn't been the first from a warden in the group.

The closer the party drew to the Anvil, the deeper they trod into the archdemon's home.

If the corridor of spiders was a nightmare, the other half of Bownammar was hell itself. Carver spent most of his time after the encounter erasing his memory of the experience. The warden's party couldn't clear out the other side of the lava river, and merely carved out a path for themselves towards an exit.

Any exit.

Carver didn't know what possessed him to stick with the party in this chunk of their mission. Willingly braving the darkspawn-infested half of Bownammar was like locking himself in a coffin with millions of bugs crawling all over his body, trying to scratch and burrow into his skin. The darkspawn pressed on the warden's party from every angle, and everyone did their best to paint the floor with darkspawn blood. At one point, it rained crimson on Carver's face through his helmet. He sealed his lips shut and breathed heavily through his nose.

Two ogres charged for the party, flattening other darkspawn into the ceiling, floor, and walls. Elissa and Alistair leaned into each other and rammed into the ogres, determinedly forcing the ogres to an eventual stop. Alistair lost his balance and fell sideways. Elissa whipped her gaze to him, confirming the exhausted and sleep-deprived warden had fainted, before she lifted her shield and psyched herself up for another clash.

Carver split a genlock in half and called out to Elissa. "Warden, do you trust me!?"

"Spit it out!" Elissa exasperatedly hollered.

Carver choked back his surprise at her curt faith. "Raise your shield and vault a dwarf up!"

Faren twirled his two maces and crouched. "Like facing a dragon all over again!"

"One!" Elissa shouted. "Two! Three––"

Faren sprinted and, with Elissa's strength, was propelled up and at the closest ogre. While Faren pummelled its eyes in with his maces, the other ogre rose out of its daze and pinpointed Elissa, who wasn't ready to shield bash it.

Suddenly, a golden sword lodged itself into the ogre's forehead.

Sten glanced at Carver. "You remember our training."

"Pilum," Carver panted, hastily equipping his bow and quiver.

Two flying axes shattered the ogre's horns as it tipped over and fell at Elissa's feet. If it had still had horns, Alistair would have been paste.

Elissa looked back to see Oghren and Duren dashing over to pick up their thrown weapons. A new layer of dust and rubble collapsed throughout their section of Bownammar as Faren's ogre keeled over, dead. At the loss of their main power, the darkspawn around the party swiftly retreated all through one doorway padded with flesh. The hallway past it pulsed pink and purple.

Carver fired arrows after them, then tucked his weapons away to yank Summer Sword out of the ogre. He shook the blood out of his eyes. "Everyone warmed up?"

Wynne leaned against Shale, catching her breath. "You consider that light?"

"That's the first exit we've seen." Carver tipped his head at the fleshy hallway. "All of the darkspawn we've encountered probably came from there. Since we need our mages in top condition, I'll have to leave the rear and take to the front with Alistair."

Just standing near Carver made casting difficult. However without him at the rear, the party's power distribution would be unbalanced, and the mages would have less support covering their backs.

Morrigan panted. "I can handle myself."

Wynne nodded. "I didn't join in this mission with the intent to sleep through the blight with coverlets tucked under my chin."

Zevran waved a sharp substance under Alistair's nose that the assassin promised wasn't poison. Elissa helped Alistair sit up and consume the last of his rations.

"Don't worry about it," Elissa insisted at Alistair's hesitation. "We can share mine until we return to Orzammar."

Alistair reluctantly regained his energy. "You already feed Dog scraps."

Wynne passed out the last of her healing potions. "We might as well prepare ourselves. Carver, what are you expecting down that hallway?"

Alistair turned at the question and paled at the fleshy sight. "Maker…."

Carver's lips thinned. Wynne had it right; they had to be as prepared as possible, including in strategy. "First, everyone here needs to know what a broodmother is…."

At Carver's explanation and Alistair's input, everyone looked queasy. Even Dog whined. Duren and Oghren shook their heads in disgust, having known of broodmothers, but only as rumours captured in the Shaperate. When the party readied themselves and carefully trod into the hallway, the horde of darkspawn returned in greater force. Wynne and Morrigan briskly alternated the responsibility of casting shields until they drained all of their lyrium potions. Then it was a battle of attrition.

The hallway opened up to the inside of a stomach, complete with quivering flesh running everywhere and mounds of discarded clothes, armour, and bones. In a fleshy cranny up above, a grey and bruised dwarven woman hollowly watched the party slash their way in. Below her, a towering mass of tentacles, bellies, and breasts shuddered at the party's presence and spewed venom at them. Wynne hastily cast a shield just in time to divert the spray to the ground, where a layer of flesh sizzled.

Zevran gaped up at the slimiest, ugliest living organ he had the misfortune of seeing. It even had a face. He remarked as such while he tossed flasks of venom at it with nasty effectiveness.

"That's a broodmother!?" Elissa yelped.

The bruised dwarf sitting above them chanted a rhyme that far from alleviated the horror of their surroundings. Oghren gaped up at her. "I think that's my cousin, Hespith!"

Shale grabbed a tentacle and tore it in half. "It's chanting of the fall of its house."

Faren flinched in disgust. "Oghren, I think the broodmother and darkspawn are––"

"I dare you to finish that!" Oghren roared.

Carver would later work very, very hard to erase his memory of the experience. He even refused to acknowledge it in the moment. It was worse than briefly brushing the archdemon. In a word, the party's encounter with a darkspawn breeding ground was bloody.

By the time they crawled out the other end of the exit, they were as filthy and ragged as newborn darkspawn themselves. At least they had completely exterminated darkspawn from Bownammar. Carver could then wearily remove his armour and wipe himself down of slime, blood, and spit where he had refused to accidentally ingest either of both. The party collapsed in a cavern of stalactites and stalagmites, dipping their cleaning cloths into rivulets of water to quickly make themselves feel like people again.

The party hollowly agreed to not speak of what they had experienced.

In a corner of the cavern, Elissa quietly wept for Solona and other victims of darkspawn. Ruck distractedly petted Dog, closing himself off from his environment in self-defence.

Hespith had died.

No one spoke of it. Of how happy she had been to leave.

Carver punched a rock.

Shale scoffed. "Don't waste its efforts. It is no golem."

Carver sighed into his hands. "Don't change, Shale."

No one remembered falling asleep, but when they awoke, they realised Shale had stood guard for them through their rest. The golem simply gestured to the rest of the cavern before taking her turn to sleep. A sealed stone doorway could be seen on the other side of the cavern, and before it, a stack of stone gears, shapes, and intricate carvings that composed a puzzle.

"I don't…" Duren whispered in awe, "I don't recognise this from history. I've seen complicated locks built into safes, but…this system transcends all of them. This room is dedicated to locking a single door."

Morrigan tiredly glanced at skeletons, darkspawn corpses, and dwarven corpses littering the cavern. "And keeping unwanted visitors out."

"This must be a work of Paragon Caridin's," Alistair concluded. "We're drawing closer to the Anvil."

Faren noticed an armour pattern shared across all the dwarven corpses. He said nothing to Oghren. When the berserker lumbered over to look, Faren quickly redirected him to the cavernous puzzle. "On the other side of that door, we might find Paragon Branka."

Oghren reluctantly nodded. "How do you think she'll greet my rescue? With make-up sex?" He chortled.

For once since the start of their journey, Faren didn't respond sharply. "Hopefully not on the spot. I don't want to see that."

Zevran poked at the stone puzzle, and a shape swivelled into place, lighting up the cavern with triggered lyrium. The assassin hummed and turned a gear, followed by another shifting shape. Zevran's proficiency with traps was shining through.

"My dear wardens," Zevran crooned, "if I solve this, will I receive sex?"

"Zevran," Alistair sighed, having long passed the point of fatigue, "if you get us out of here, I might kiss you."