The Circle's basement proved dim in atmosphere, even with a torch to cut through twenty feet of it. Carver's hair stood on end from the chill, and every brush of his armour on stone seemed to send echoing whispers down the basement's corridors. Sometimes, Carver thought he'd hear something faintly whisper back. The mage who had directed him downstairs was clinging to Carver's shadow, more bookish than brave, yet required for direction all the same.

They turned their third corner before Carver's nerves had enough. He whipped his torch aside, glaring at the last corner.

"Zevran."

The assassin stepped out silently, empty palms held out before they were stuffed into pockets. "I know Ferelden takes pride in dreariness, but this isn't a contest."

The mage behind Carver blinked between him and Zevran as they continued down the hallway, Carver wordlessly accepting Zevran's company. The Crow was allowed to be curious so long as he had a babysitter, else Elissa would burn their ears off.

The mage gestured. "The pantry is just beyond."

"No," Carver steered. "Where are the phylacteries stored?"

The mage bewilderingly instructed him where, and the small group worked a locked door before finally swinging the way open to the mage's frightened classmates. The students enthusiastically embraced each other, relieved that the fright was over and they could return above ground.

Carver noted nearby glass shards caught in the crevices of cobblestones.

Several rescued mages noticed his curiosity. "…We had accidentally shattered a few vials in our haste to lock ourselves in here."

Carver slipped out a dagger and handed it to Zevran. "Check the adjacent storage room."

Zevran tossed the blade up in a perfect circle. "Are you sure?"

Carver looked at him.

"…My pleasure!" Zevran willingly vanished into the next room.

Carver raised his head to the closest shelves crowded with all manner of bottle racks. His gaze refocused on a phylactery tray with scattered cavities, like an incomplete box of chocolates.

"You've committed no wrongs," Carver commented evenly. "As you said, it was merely an accident."

"R-Right," the mages caught on.

The students jumped at a sudden bang behind a wall, and Carver turned to witness Zevran usher in a frazzled and significantly taller man through the adjacent room's door. It was a wonder that with the towering staff in his hand, the mage had still lost to a small elf with a letter opener.

Carver stared.

"Anders?" a young mage identified.

The tall man was in his smallclothes and nothing else. "I was planning to swim away, this time."

"Had Uldred not returned quickly," Carver permitted, "you would have succeeded — for a while. Zevran, are there any more?"

Zevran chuckled, and Anders reflexively flinched in fresh fear. "No one else is foolish enough to hide among dusty mystic relics. Or think shadows effective against me."

"Walk the mages back upstairs," Carver sighed. "I have a small mess to clean up, then I'll follow."

"Oh?" Zevran prodded.

Carver hadn't demanded his knife back, and he was watching Zevran twirl the blade as if it weighed nothing. Throughout their journey to the Circle and even now through the basement, Carver had shown Zevran his back. Having fought Zevran before, Carver couldn't believe Zevran was harmless even when unarmed. He merely believed in Zevran's oath.

What Carver did and didn't say expressed much.

Zevran stilled the knife in his hand, his face suddenly unreadable. "…Hm."

Carver watched the group shuffle out for the first floor before the knight turned away to copy phylactery labels down on a scrap of parchment. Carver would have to figure out a way of destroying the prospective wardens' vials at a later time when tempers weren't running hot. Carver was just starting to curse his dull nub when a whisper bounced back from the room next door, with no shift of armour to have summoned it.

"I seeeee youuuuuu…."

Carver froze, heart hammering.

"Approaaaaach…ye…."

Carver dismounted his torch from the wall and ventured into the next storage room. Countless brass globes and crystal chandeliers enhanced his modest flames into a roomful of artificial daylight. Carver squinted against the sudden change and warily mounted his torch by the doorway. Footprints and streaks through layers of dust traced Zevran and Anders' movement through the room previously.

"Closeeer…."

A faceless statue of a robed woman beckoned Carver over with a hollow voice, which grew clearer as he neared the relic. He recognised the stone woman from another life.

"You must be…Eleni Zinovia."

"'Tis I," a cultured accent confirmed. Carver halted before the statue. "Once consort and advisor to archon Valerius, now only Eleni in spirit. Prophecy, my crime, cursed to stone for foretelling the fall of my lord's house. No help can be given to me, for this is my doom and my destiny."

"You summoned me," Carver commented, "where a mage had broken your solitude just earlier. Unless you spoke to him as well."

"Anders has a near future of his own whispers," Eleni foretold.

Justice.

Carver's lips thinned. "I know better than to question your sight."

"Stone, they made me, and stone I am," Eleni pointed out the price of her honesty. "Eternal and unfeeling. And I shall endure 'till the Maker returns to light their fires again."

Carver had just prepared to leave when he suffered whiplash. "The Maker exists?"

By the time Carver had walked ten years in Thedas, he had come to believe in a greater power due to his inexplicable transmigration, and had attached the label of "Maker" to the concept –– the label alone, and not the Chantry's image of it. He had not, however, allowed himself to ponder too deeply about his situation. He had told himself that that way lied madness.

Now with the growing difficulties of Carver's chosen path in life came the increasingly accessible choice to finally think about himself, but Carver was allergic to self-reflection.

Eleni's voice rang. "You who barely grasps the wisdom of the earth, now seeks the wisdom of the heavens? I thusly judge to tell you this…. What creations universally share is a reflection of their creator. We can all agree that cutting down an innocent child is evil. We can all admire unconditional love.

"For what reason could the world you know exist, except the reason for which any god would create life: to celebrate with a sentient species all that is good? Such joy is meaningless without awareness, thus the created are given the freedom of choice –– from which evil may be born. A creator may allow evils to exist so that their creations would learn from their agency or find the inspiration and strength to seek good, and thus grow from it."

Carver scoffed. "I know of evil people in this world programmed to be cruel and unrepentant."

Eleni was unruffled. "You walk a thin line of pride and wisdom. Allow me this, then –– if you know them as well as you say, then you know what to make of that which created them."

Carver's blood suddenly ran cold. He had refused to seriously acknowledge Eleni's sight and the wisdom that could come with it –– until that moment. Mob characters that were created to serve no purpose except to be evil were reflections of their game's developers; call it lazy writing, or the result of time constraints, but a game was inevitably a reflection on its company. Carver's dilemma lied in his choice –– to mentally contain Thedas's reality in a box, or to remove all aspects of "order" from the world. He wasn't living a video game, but life itself was still a game, a perpetual call for decisions that changed one's environment, and now Carver was debating if he knew the rules.

Carver could just as easily ponder the question of the ages, "is there a god?"

In a narrower perspective, he'd be asking, "are the game developers relevant here?"

He mourned. "I wish you never spoke to me, woman."

"And so pride and wisdom retreat to ignorance," Eleni remarked. "I am here if you decide to walk forward again."

"Saving Thedas is far simpler when I don't question my existence or Thedas itself."

"Find solace in this truth," Eleni allowed. "You cherish all life in Thedas. One cannot cherish life without loving it."

Carver pivoted. "Now I'm a loving, all-knowing idiot. Goodbye."

"We will meet again, wandering one."

Carver's mind raced as he fled the basement.

Seeing Eleni's situation reminded him that he –– no, this body had breathed out its life twice. Once in the crib, again in Ostagar. Someone else was sustaining the body somehow, like Wynne's Spirit of Faith. Yet, someone else hadn't dreamt since entering Thedas, so they didn't have a connection to the Fade, and they were coherent in the waking world unlike Justice. They were no spirit. Indeed, they were unquestionably their own person, a soul.

Where was the real Carver, then? What had become of the original?

Carver resurfaced from the basement to the beginnings of a riot. He dodged a loose limb and grabbed the closest coherent figure.

"What the…what is the meaning of this?" Carver asked, bewildered.

A mage snarled. "The Templars are attacking!"

"Nay!" a Templar swiftly refuted, sword unsheathed but pointed away. He spotted Carver's unmarked armour, identifying him as part of Elissa's party. "It is a Templar knight of ours — but he reflects none save the worst of the trauma we had to face!"

Afar, a voice cracked. "They're blood mages! Consorts of possession!"

"He is troubled," the Templar pressed. "Peace, I pray you!"

Carver separated the mage and Templar from each other before violence could erupt. "Away your weapons. Warden Alistair!" he barked.

"I've got it!" the former Templar answered, already shoving his way to the loudest of voices. "Be still, knight!"

"We can't trust any of them!"

Greagoir arrived. "Knight-Templar Cullen, stand down!"

The commander's voice split the air like lightning, stunning the mob. Cullen shoved off the restraining grips of his fellow Templars, who had been holding him back from the nearest mage with a staff.

Cullen straightened, nerves frayed. "I've seen what they can do, ser, and we can't know how many have in turn been affected. It follows to reason that we must kill them all!"

"Stay your tongue," Greagior thundered.

Cullen withered. "Knight-Commander?"

Greagior exhaled, ageing a decade in an instant. He placed a hand on Cullen's shoulder. "The crisis is ended, Cullen. You require rest and recuperation. Have you respect for me, you will see to your duties and trust me with the rest."

Cullen's face crumpled with exhaustion and sorrow. He was the only survivor of the brief yet vivid horrors Uldred had brought upon the isolated corners of Kinloch Hold. The blood mage and his followers had been planning a revolution long before Ostagar, and had had the materials to hit the ground running upon their return. It was just another oversight to Irving's brilliant plan of leaving forbidden tomes lying around to catch heretics.

Alistair backed off and caught Carver's eye. If the party left any later, they risked participating in a riot.

Elissa's party headed the migration of a hundred mages from the tower, with the addition of Faren. The dwarven warden's presence allayed mages' lingering fears that Elissa's party would heel-turn and throw the mages back into the Circle. With a party this massive and Duncan's orders to form an army, Elissa decided to escort the mage recruits to Highever, where Faren as a warden could oversee the new army's organisation in Cousland territory while Elissa and Alistair continued their mission.

A late-night encounter with a lost Levi Dryden provided an alternate solution. The honest merchant had claim to Soldier's Peak to the northwest of Amaranthine and far east of Highever. The mountain fortress was abandoned now, its blueprints lost to mould with only Levi's memory to give direction through a multi-level stone maze. However, aside from noble gossip against the Dryden line and rumours of spirits haunting the fortress, Soldier's Peak offered an assembly point for the Grey Wardens and their allies. With a recent experience in fighting off demons, the mage recruits essentially promised a smooth reclamation of Soldier's Peak from any unnatural guests. It went without saying that the Wardens' district in Denerim would no longer be able to support their expanded size.

Decided, the warden's party switched routes and cut through the Bannorn for Soldier's Peak, tracing the shortest path for the sake of the elderly and the young among them. Upon arrival at the Peak's weathered base, the party split up into dozens of mobile units to clear out the fortress from top to bottom.

Carver found himself in a small group comprised of Leliana, a couple mages, Morrigan in raven-form following them, and Anders.

The blonde mage slipped away for an exit any chance he got.

Carver snatched Anders' elbow for the final time. "Another party will mistake you for an enemy," Carver warned.

Anders plucked Carver's hand off. "If you had a handsome face, failing to run away would at least be rewarding."

"This keep is crawling with undead," Leliana pointed out, bow and arrow alert. "Better we stick within each others' sights. I'm not chasing him, Carver."

Carver groaned at Anders' opportunistically fleeing back. "Why do I have to believe in balanced parties?"

An arrow pinned Anders' sleeve to a wall, earning Leliana a distant yelp. She hummed. "So we may cover long and short-range?"

"Shield him, please," Carver gestured to Anders, and the mages with them cast shields on the distant blonde just as undead burst through a door down the hall.

"Enemies!" Carver called out, and charged at the closest skeleton.

Between ancient magic traps, twisting hallways, and Levi's word on the fortress's layout, Soldier's Peak truly challenged one's sense of direction. The frustration was so great, Carver knew in turn that once conquered, Soldier's Peak would be the Wardens' most reliable base along the Waking Sea. Levi's laissez-faire family would also manage the land fairly and be rescued from obsolescence with finally having tenants, without micromanaging them. The patient Levi's temper ran coolly, the most compatible Carver could ask for in the Grey Wardens' future landlord.

Eventually, Carver and his group agreed on turning right at every corner to regain a sense of direction, which led to them climbing a tower's spiral stairs. Anders groaned at the irony.

"You know it's hard to use magic around you?" Anders complained to Carver. "I have to put more effort in drawing on the Fade and squeezing out a spell. You're not even smiting."

Carver glanced back at Anders, who in the tight staircase was stuck with Carver in front and Leliana behind while the more obedient mages followed. Carver shrugged. "I wasn't aware of passive Templar abilities."

"There are none," Anders corrected. "You just suck the ease out of magic - like a bootlegged smite."

"Really? Bootlegged?"

Leliana chirped up curiously. "Are you trained in Templar ways?"

Carver shook his head. "I wanted to become a Templar when I was younger, but circumstances led me to join the king's army instead."

"I knew it," Anders drawled. "You despise mages."

"Not at all."

"Oh?" Anders' voice lilted. "You don't hate mages, but you admire a system that corrals and abuses them? That's the hypocritical mindset I expect of a Templar."

Carver defended, "I can condemn the violation of basic human rights, and still respect the inherent purpose of the Templar Order."

"Because 'magic exists to serve man, and never rule over him?'" Anders recited.

"When one quotes Andraste," Carver commented, "one must keep context in mind."

"And here I thought we had to take every word of Andraste's seriously," Anders returned.

Carver inwardly sighed. How did one introduce the history of mental health treatment? "Leliana?" he checked.

The rogue sent her assent up the stairs. It was Anders' and the other mages' misfortune to be stuck with two nerds who didn't mind filling mindless hours with book chatter.

Carver took a deep breath. "You forget that the Templar Order originated from the Seekers of Truth, who had subscribed to Andrastian beliefs but predated the Chantry. Practitioners of magic originally received coaching from the Seekers for their personal problems, protected by a promise of confidentiality, and with this support were capable of recognising the hollowness of demonic temptation. 'Magic' couldn't 'rule over' them. However, as Old God cultism was still rampant in those times, so was the acceptance of blood sacrifices and demonic possession, detracting the effectiveness of coaching.

"Between that and the First Blight, the Seekers felt compelled to raise arms against perceived threats to honest mages. Their impartial justice and crossing with too many powerful groups eventually earned them the pejorative moniker of the 'Inquisition,' and when the Chantry formed, the Chantry persuaded the Seekers to lay down their arms and settle into an organised order. The Seekers thus signed the Nevarran Accord, placing themselves under the Chantry's leadership and splitting their senior and junior members into the Seekers and Templars respectively. Meanwhile, the Chantry created the Circle of Magi for Andrastian mages to receive Seeker guidance."

Anders scoffed. "What, then? The Chantry is to blame for everything?"

"The Chantry today should take responsibility for its failings," Carver decided, "but it can't carry an entire history's worth of blame. After all, the Seekers of past wouldn't have signed the Nevarran Accord unthinkingly, and that is reflected in the Templar Order's sigil."

Leliana murmured, "Hessarian's flaming sword."

"The blade of regret and mercy," Carver confirmed. "When Hessarian blamed himself for Andraste's suffering, he drove his sword through her heart to free her of her pain. Similarly, when a Templar –– a junior Seeker –– fails to counsel a mage through their emotional problems and loses the mage to a demon, it is a Templar's bitter duty to cut the demon down."

All was silent behind Carver for a dozen steps.

Anders' usually teasing voice fell flat. "…The Circle doesn't teach that."

"Nor the Templar Order, apparently," Carver said. "It is unfortunate that they do not teach their own history, or practice what they once preached."

From what Carver knew from his past life and what he had read in the present one, he also hypothesised that Tranquility had originally been no more than part of the process of becoming a Seeker. After all, who better to counsel a mage than a former mage? Unfortunately, as could be done with any invention, someone must have found a way to use Tranquility outside of its intended purpose, and now it was an accessible tool of abuse for Templars.

Leliana spoke up. "You have read much on Templars, Carver, and taken away an unexpected point from it." She hummed. "What drove you as a child towards the Templars? No one seeks the Order for shallow reasons, unless they are familial ones."

Carver spluttered. "I hail from modest origins."

Leliana chuckled. "Your confidence belongs in court."

"Or the military!"

"At higher ranks," Leliana allowed. "I have seen the pommel of your sword, Carver."

Carver inwardly panicked. "The sword was a gift. And perhaps I'm merely confident by nature."

Leliana's voice sweetened. "Forgive me for thinking you're lying."

"Half-confident, then." Carver exhaled, compromising. "…My father named me after the Templar who helped him escape the Circle. Not all Templars have forgotten the spirit of the original Order." When Leliana inhaled to speak, Carver returned, "You must forgive my curiosity, in turn, on whether your knowledge, keen eye, and archery skills source from your background as a Sister or as a bard."

Leliana deflected. "How did a boy seeking the Order end up in the king's army?"

"Money."

The entire party nearly tripped at his deadpan.

A mage at the back found their voice. "Seriously? You're not…"

"The fifth son of a noble?" Carver snorted. "I grew up on a farm."

"Where is your father now?" another mage asked.

Carver sighed. "With his father."

"…I'm sorry."

"It has been many years, but thank you."

"Borf!"

"What in Maker's name-!?"

The group summitted the tower's stairs only for Dog to ram into Carver with affection, nearly bowling him over back into Anders and Leliana. Numerous sets of eyes blinked at each other with bewilderment, starting with Levi, Elissa, Faren, and a couple of other mages. The raven-shaped Morrigan flapped her wings and imperiously reclaimed Dog as her mount.

Levi's group had apparently encountered the possessed corpse of Levi's many times' great-grandmother, who had shed light on the sins that had led to the downfall of Soldier's Peak. The demon had authenticated her possession of Sophia Dryden's memories to Levi and punctuated with an offer to seal a Fade rift within the keep, in exchange for having the group kill a warden mage named Avernus who was hiding in the keep's tower. Unable to agree, Elissa's party had slayed the demon and hastened to chase after the other demons that the fake Sophia had summoned.

Faren had managed to down a rage demon with thrown daggers before the party had turned a sharp corner and stumbled upon Carver's party. The other demons were nowhere in sight, but a mage in Elissa's party reasoned that the demons had likely run off for Avernus's last known location in the tower.

"How old is this warden mage?" Leliana panted as both parties raced for the tower's heart.

Faren guffawed. "Storm age, I reckon!"

"People aren't wine bottles!" Carver spluttered.

Anders groaned. "Another crazy blood mage! Fantastic!"

Sadly, no matter his phrasing, Anders was usually right. Avernus was apparently not just a warden who was using blood magic to delay his body's decay, but was also an avid researcher of blood magic on any corpse he could grab. Even freshly-made corpses. King Arland's deliberate censorship of Soldier's Peak from public record was presently preventing merchants from accidentally wandering into the keep and being killed. Avernus had finally grown desperate enough to attract Levi through dreams.

The party finally managed to corner Avernus into a weaponless state, no nearby bloody corpses or lyrium left to allow the staff in his hands to be more than a blunt stick.

Faren pointed a dagger up at the mage's navel. "This is where you die!"

"Don't kill him," Carver interceded.

A dozen heads turned his direction, even Avernus staring ahead in bewilderment.

"What!?" Anders gaped. "He's a blood mage who experiments on human bodies! You know what we call those kinds of mages? Tevinter!"

Leliana pursed her lips. "After all you've said, Carver, why would you want to keep this criminal alive?"

Carver solemnly stepped towards Avernus, the pointed weapons around him shifting to place him out of their sights. "Death is too kind a sentence. This man knows he has been no better than Sophia Dryden."

Avernus staggered back as if struck. "That's not true! Sophia…the Commander ordered me…!"

"Sophia sent the Wardens to their deaths." Carver advanced another step towards the shaken mage. "Sophia commanded you with the fortress's security, Avernus. You were the next highest ranking officer in command, and had the right to deem Sophia unfit for duty. Avernus is a Tevinter name, right? You grasp the solemnity of drinking from the same bloody cup as those who commit to the Joining. Instead, you have furthered Sophia's destruction in Soldier's Peak upon wardens and common folk that threatens their great-great grandchildren even now."

Avernus looked past Carver and saw the wardens and mages staring back at him. His gaze slowly scanned each face until he stopped on the innocent Levi Dryden.

Avernus slumped like a puppet with its strings cut. "Sophia…."

"Make this right," Carver urged, gesturing to the keep. "For decades have you served yourself. Now, it is time to serve others."

Carver subtly fixed his grip on his lowered sword. Avernus had the rare, centuries'-long experience of blood magic that could allow him to seal a Fade rift. Carver could name only one other figure in the entirety of Thedas with similar ability, and they were currently in uthenera without access to their orb of power. Carver was willing to give a chance to a criminal who had repented in another timeline.

Such mercy only extended as far as Carver could use them.

Avernus's staff clattered on the ground. Everyone released the breath they were holding.

"Allow me to serve," Avernus surrendered.

;

A/N:

A lot of this was my own theories regarding Seekers and the Rite of Tranquility. History's opinion of the Seekers was purposefully vague in DAI, ranging from "trustworthy and impartial" to "violently biassed," but it was always strange to me that an order supposedly infamous for hunting mages would rely its membership on the reversal of Tranquility. Even in the possibility that the original Seekers were a mix of today's Seekers and Templars (people who could have been mages but were made Tranquil then touched by a spirit, and people who weren't connected to the Fade from the start) then the original Seekers had to have been non-mages and former mages working together. This would explain the Templar method of phylacteries, and other seemingly hypocritical details of the Circle system.

It was food for thought that developed into a part of this chapter. Oops.