Chapter 18
Trekking even deeper into the earth, the group continued their search and destroy mission, their new dwarven companion leading the way. Apart from a few darkspawn, they had encountered no further obstacles. That is, if one ignored Oghren's constant, sickening flirting with the Legionnaire. Eventually, it got so bad that Matthew had been forced to halt the group, pull the dwarven berserker aside, and threaten him with finding his wife, Felsi, and bringing her to the Keep. The moment he said that, Oghren had turned sheet white, and had been unusually silent for the rest of the walk through the Roads.
At last, the group had reached the exit of the artificial cavern, and beheld a massive underground cavern, which contained a stone fortress with several small buildings before it, most of which were covered with darkspawn ichor. Turning to Sigrun, Matthew asked, "Kal'Hirol, I presume?"
The Legionnaire nodded, and replied, "This is it. Kal'Hirol used to be a major center of learning for the Smith Caste. When the darkspawn overran it, the smiths were forced to leave most of their accumulated knowledge behind." Looking at the architecture wistfully, she whispered, "They've never built anything quite like Kal'Hirol since."
After a moment of looking over the sight, Sigrun turned and led them down the ramp that to the ancient fortress. As they reached the first abandoned building, however, Matthew spotted the body of a dwarven soldier nearby. After a moment, the body shifted, catching him off guard; the soldier was still alive.
"Jukka!" Sigrun shouted, immediately sprinting toward the prone figure. Matthew tensed, worried that the scout's unsubtle approach would alert the nearby darkspawn, sheathed the Summer Sword, and pulled out his crossbow, scanning the area while making a few quick hand motions to the others. Behind him, he heard Nathaniel knock an arrow, while Velanna and Anders readied their staves. After a few moments, Matthew felt no darkspawn approaching them, so he motioned his Wardens forward, albeit cautiously.
"Sigrun," the wounded dwarven warrior whispered, clearly in unbearable pain.
"Hold on, Jukka," Sigrun said urgently. "There are Grey Wardens with me; they can help you."
"No" Jukka replied immediately, this time with much more energy. "I feel my death upon me, and it is a sweet release." He coughed up a mixture of saliva and blood, and then spoke to the entire group. "You must listen; the broodmothers, they're…they're breeding an army. You…you must…stop them. But…but beware the Children. They are abominations…even among darkspawn."
"Children," Sigrun asked, confused by her comrade's warning. "Whose Children? Jukka, what are you talking about?"
Jukka tried to explain, but his breath grew ragged, and he breathed his last before he could tell them what the Children were. Bowing her head, she closed her comrade's eyes, whispering, "Ancestors watch over you, brother." Matthew gave her a moment to grieve for her brother in arms, and once she stood, they continued toward the old dwarven fortress. They were all more apprehensive than before, though; just what were these Children?
As it turned out, they did not need to wait long to find out; a short way down the path, they came under attack by hulocks, genlocks, shrieks, and what appeared to be giant grubs with heads like a deformed toddlers and pincer-like jaws. Fortunately, their tiny legs meant that they were slow and ungainly, making them easy prey. Matthew tossed a fire grenade at one group of the oversized larva and burned them to cinders, before decapitating two genlocks with a single sweeping blow. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Velanna, holding her ground, using her keeper magic to impale and entangle the darkspawn that approached her and slicing the ones that made it to her open with her sword. Arrows from Nathaniel's bow sailed over their heads and picked off the darkspawn archers one by one. Sigrun and Oghren were busy smashing and squashing the Children that tried to sneak in and attack the groups' ankles while they weren't looking, and all the while, Anders kept up a steady stream of healing and rejuvenation spells.
The battle group pressed the attack on the darkspawn held fortress, encountering several more groups of darkspawn. Along the way, they found several pieces of armor and weapons, all of which appeared to be of fine make, but were all damaged in some manner as to be unusable. Matthew had his wardens carry them with them anyway, however, in case it was possible to repair and use them.
Fighting their way through a large squad of darkspawn that had come from within the fortress to try and stop them, the Wardens passed through the first wall of the ancient fortress. Sigrun help up a hand to stop them as they entered the courtyard between defenses, though. "What's wrong," Matthew demanded.
"The Legion got this far with no trouble," Sigrun explained. "We got complacent and charged right into the second gate." The dwarf bowed and shook her head. "It was a massacre; the darkspawn had turned the thiag's old defenses against us; tripwires, pressure plates, they had even taken control of the abandoned golems."
"Alright," the Warden-Commander thought aloud. "Storming the front entrance is probably not the right way to proceed. Anyone have any ideas?"
Surprisingly, Oghren was the one who answered. "You could check for switches that lead to secondary doors or passageways; they'll be hidden, but between our new friend and Rendon's little blighter, you should be able to find it no problem."
Nathaniel winced at the berserker's nickname for him, and left to help Sigrun search for any alternative means of entry. Matthew, while they left, marched up to the dwarf, and snarled, "Stop calling Nathaniel that, Oghren."
"What," the indignant dwarf replied, pulling his usual flask out of his pack. "I don't mean anything by it; I like the guy."
"That may be true," Matthew hissed, "but Nathaniel is still coming to terms with what his father has done, and this is not helping him."
"Why, are you going to threaten to bring Felsi here? Again? You can only threaten me with that so many times before I build a resistance, Commander."
"No," the red-headed human snarled. "I will only threaten you with it so many times before I actually do it."
Before the discussion could continue, however, a shout of success was heard nearby; Sigrun had found the hidden switch. As soon as the group had gathered around her, she reached into the mouth of a carving of a face, and pushed down on the stone tongue. The stone appendage shifted down, and an entire section of the wall sank into the ground. The wardens and their companion rushed through the gap, which closed behind them, plunging them into complete darkness. Fortunately, Anders and Velanna pulled out their staves and lit the ends with glowing balls of light, allowing them to look around. Spotting an old ladder leading to a small doorway, they climbed up and began slowly moving through the narrow passageway; as it had been designed with dwarves in mind, only Oghren and Sigrun were able to pass through it without hunching over.
It eventually deposited them on at the top of a stairway just past the main entrance hall. The Genlocks, Hurlocks, and Children, having heard their approach, had taken up positions facing the entrance in preparation for their attack. However, the monsters were apparently unaware of the secrete entrance, and the only immediate opposition they faced was a Genlock emissary who had its back turned to them. It is hand was thick metal rod that the Commander immediately recognized as a golem control rod.
Pulling out his crossbow, Matthew slathered a small amount of concentrated magebane poison on the bolt's tip. Anders took an involuntary step back at the sight of the liquid, and the Commander gave an apologetic glance to the spirit healer. Magebane, especially in the concentrated form that he was using, would suck the mana out of mage like water from a breached dam. He didn't like the substance at all, and if he was facing a mage would usually try to force surrender before he would use it.
He had no compunctions against using it on darkspawn, though.
Replacing the cork on the vial and handing the glass of venom to Nathaniel, Matthew brought up the crossbow, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger mechanism. The bolt flew like an angry hornet, and buried itself up to the feathers into the Genlock's skull. Translucent blue flames writhed across the beast's body as the poison burned away its mana. Motioning over his shoulder, the Commander sent Nathaniel out toward the darkspawn's corpse. Stepping carefully, the rogue reached the body, picked up the control rod, and began directing the four stone monoliths below.
The affect was immediate and gruesome. The darkspawn, caught off guard by their new toys' betrayal, were, quite literally smashed to pieces. Nathaniel had the golems target the enemies with maces and war hammers first, as those weapons were the most likely to harm the living stone soldiers. The survivors attacked the golems with swords and daggers, but the brittle, poorly forged metal of the weapons simply shattered against the solid granite of the golems. Left defenseless, they were easy prey for the stone soldiers. Once they were all dead, Nathaniel gestured the rod over his shoulder, and the golems marched on ahead of them, the Wardens following close behind. With their golems doing most of the heavy lifting, Matthew and his companions had little to do other than watch the carnage and shoot the occasional darkspawn that slipped past their new servants. Matthew's mind was already spinning with ideas of what he could do with these golems. Keeping them at the Vigil would be a great asset against the darkspawn. However, trading the golems back to the dwarves of Orzammar would likely increase Fereldan's standing with the race; seeing as he had destroyed the Anvil of the Void, the only way to create the automatons, the remaining golems were rare and horded by the dwarves.
Unfortunately, he would get to do neither of these things; the darkspawn eventually started picking the golems off one by one, until there were none left, and Matthew and his companions were back on the front lines again. It wasn't all bad, though; they found numerous weapons and armor in the abandoned thaig, including a mage's staff so powerful that Ander's very nearly wet himself when he received it from the Commander, an ancient message from Kal'Hirol's last commander during the initial darkspawn siege that credited the resident casteless dwarves as the reason that fortress had held so long that Matthew was sure to retrieve to send to King Bhelen, a block of lyrium suspended in the air that was large enough to destroy an army, and an ancient golem blacksmith that repaired all of the broken equipment they had found.
Something of far greater interest to him was the fact that there seemed to be a civil war occurring among the darkspawn; two different factions, one lead by another talking darkspawn, were hacking away at each other deeper into the old city. Matthew had held his followers back, letting the monsters whittle each other down. Once one side emerged victorious, the six would come down on them like a tidal wave and wipe the last of them out.
Unfortunately, they later encountered a surprise that was FAR less welcome. The Children, as it turned out, were not as helpless as Matthew had originally thought. At one point in their adventure into the depths, they walked into a room just in time to see one of the oversized grubs leap at a Hurlock, knock it to the ground, and began ripping its abdomen open with its pincer jaws. Almost as soon as the Hurlock stopped moving, the Child began twitching, and suddenly sprouted four spindly limbs, two used as legs and two covered in sharp barbs that it used to brain a nearby Genlock. It never had the chance to assault the Wardens, though; Nathaniel saw to that with a well placed arrow.
After fighting through a collapsed section of the fortress, which had been transformed into a Children Hatchery, the group finally reached the deepest reaches of the fortress, what appeared to be the sewers and water drainage. Traveling along the stone pathway in the center of the hall, they eventually came to a large circular chamber, where they saw two talking darkspawn, one of which was being held by an enormous, flaming golem.
"The Architect sends many, but does not come himself," the victorious emissary gloated. "He is a coward! I will kill you, and he will know that he has failed to destroy The Lost! He will know that the Mother will tear him apart!" Without another word, the flaming golem grabbed the defeated darkspawn with both hands, twisted, and ripped the monster in half.
Suddenly, The Lost turned its head to the new arrivals, and snarled. "Who comes now? I can feel the Taint in you, but you are no darkspawn! What trickery is he planning?"
Matthew was about to demand what the lisping beast was talking about, but The Lost cut him off. "You will die, as all who serve the Architect will die! The Mother demands-"
Not interested in hearing any more darkspawn monologues, Matthew had hit the beast with a Holy Smite. Joining with a benevolent Fade spirit, he than charged the flaming golem. He had further augmented his spirit warrior abilities still further in his time back at the Keep; he could now extend the fade energy to his weapon and have it phase through his opponents' armor and strike their flesh directly, and could unleash a wave of Fade energy in all directions, tearing away at flesh of his foes.
Dodging the golem's fist, he slashed out at its leg, the blade of the Summer Sword passing through the armor plating, and cutting through the slightly softer metal and stone beneath it. Unable to support the massive construct's weight, the leg snapped off, and the golem collapsed to the ground. It tried to drag itself back up, but Anders seized the initiative and cast a blizzard spell on top of the golem's collapsed form. The tsunami of freezing wind and ice cooled and extinguished the flames, and froze the construct to the ground, allowing Velanna, Oghren, and Sigrun to rush it and smash its head into rubble and metal shards, finally killing it.
Meanwhile, Matthew had turned his attention to The Lost, who had regained his footing. The emissary lifted his staff into the air, and cast a Mind Blast spell, trying to stun him. Halting and bracing himself, he shrugged off the spell. The Lost then began building up a far larger spell, and Matthew decided that now was the time to test out a new Templar talent he had uncovered. He brought the Summer Sword up to his face, pressed his nose against the hilt, and pointed the tip directly at The Lost. Immediately, a greenish-grey aura sprang up around The Lost, and the darkspawn shrieked in horror.
The Commander grinned mercilessly; this new talent was known as The Silence. It temporarily cut a mage's connection to the Fade completely; not even blood magic could be used by a mage under its influence. Regaining his momentum, Matthew charged The Lost, swinging the Summer Sword at the emissary's side, who blocked the blow with his staff. After exchanging several blows, Matthew trapped the two weapons between their bodies, and the two began snarling in each other's faces, trying to shove each other to the ground.
Suddenly, The Lost shrieked in pain; while Matthew had kept his attention, Nathaniel had snuck around and shot an arrow into its back. Leaning back, the Commander head butted the darkspawn to disorient the monster, shoved it back, and stabbed the Summer Sword under its chin and into its skull. The Lost's body went limp, and it collapsed to the ground as Matthew withdrew the blade, which was already coated with its black, poisonous blood. Sheathing the sword, Matthew reached down, picked up the discarded staff, and walked over to Velanna, who was cleaning her blade.
Looking up at him, the blonde elf preempted him by saying, "I am beginning to question my ancestors' use of this magic, Commander. I didn't have to worry about sharpening a weapon or oiling armor before now. It is becoming rather irritating."
Smirking, Matthew replied, "When we find the truth of the past, it isn't always what we expect or want it to be, Velanna; you would do well to remember that. However, if using a blade is truly so inconvenient for you, I might suggest using this." And with that, he held the strangely uncorrupted staff to the elven mage.
Her perpetual scowl lightening somewhat, Velanna placed her shield on her back, sheathed her sword, and took the staff. As soon as her hand touched the golden metal, her face was overcome with awe and shock. "Creators…" she breathed.
Matthew cocked an eyebrow. "The staff is powerful?" he asked.
Looking at him incredulously, but without her usual distain, Velanna explained, "This is the most powerfully enchanted staff I've ever encountered, Commander; it puts every staff that my clan has made to shame, and we have crafted very powerful staves." Looking down on the staff in her hands, she murmured, "this could more than double the potency of my spells…"
Smiling, Matthew replied, "Well, let's test that out, shall we?" After seeing the Velanna crack a rare grin, he turned and motioned for the group to continue on their way. The Warden's and their Legionnaire companion continued deeper into the sewers, now entering an area that was covered in darkspawn biomass. Trying to ignore the disgusting squishing sounds coming from beneath his boots, Matthew pressed on.
Suddenly, tentacles sprang from the biomass, and began grappling with the group, trying to strangle them or rip their arms and legs off. Trying to cut the apparently rotting tendrils of flesh proved difficult; they constantly retreated into the biomass and could move at whiplash speed. Suddenly, thick vines and roots broke through the ceiling and floor of the tunnel, tangling and pinning the tentacles into immobility. Turning, everyone saw Velanna guiding her magic through the Lost's staff, magnifying her already considerable Keeper magic abilities. Focusing, the blonde mage began crushing the tentacles with her vines, splitting them into pieces.
Conjuring up still more magic, Velanna brought forward a sea of plant tendrils, and began moving forward, the roots and vines pushing her forward. Every time another group of rotting tentacles appeared, they were overwhelmed and crushed by elf's plant allies. Finally, they reached the end of the tunnel, and with the tentacle attacks ceasing, Velanna finally ended her spell, sending the roots back into the earth. Suddenly, the mage began to sway on her feet, and collapsed. She would have slammed into the ground if Nathaniel had not immediately leapt forward and caught her at the last moment. Gathering her up in his arms bridal style, he walked her over to the nearby wall, and set her down against it. Without any pause, he reached into his pack, and pulled out a strong lyrium potion. Pulling out the cork, he brought the flask to her lips, and slowly poured the contents into her mouth, pausing occasionally to ensure the half-conscious elf did not choke.
After the flask had been drained, Velanna's head slumped down, before she groggily lifted her head up to look at Nathaniel. Blinking her eyes in confusion, she whispered, "You…you helped me?"
"Of course," Nathaniel whispered back. The couple sat there for several moments, just looking in each other's eyes, both sets filled with confusion and newfound trust. It was an altogether beautiful and touching scene.
So, of course, Matthew immediately gave in to the irresistible urge to ruin it.
"Excuse me, love birds," he catcalled, drawing the rogue and mage's attention. "Are you two done, or do we need to leave the room."
Nathaniel immediately turned bright red, and shot his commander a death glare, but Velanna only appeared confused by his comment. "What is that supposed to mean," she asked Nathaniel; due to her disdain for anything even remotely related to humans, she was clearly unaware of shem idioms.
"I'll explain later," Nathaniel muttered, though by the look on his face, he would never bring this situation up again.
Once the two had regained their footing and rejoined the group, they began weighing their options. Looking down through a hole in the center of the room, they could see the broodmothers below them. There were several dozen of the bloated, corrupted monstrosities in the cavern; most were former human and dwarvan women, along with a few elf and one kossith females. Matthew immediately ruled out a direct attack on the broodmothers; he saw no ladders or stairways leading down to the lower level, and he wasn't about to order his Wardens to jump through the hole and give them no option of retreat. Even if they could get down to the broodmothers, Matthew likely wouldn't have done it; the first time he encountered a broodmother, his entire group had nearly been wiped out, and that was just with one of the beasts.
Suddenly, he felt a tug on his arm. Looking down, he saw Sigrun smiling up at him, pointing at the ceiling over the hole in the floor. Looking up, Matthew laughed out loud at what Sigrun was indicating; the titanic lyrium block they had discovered earlier was hanging above them, perfectly positioned to land right in the center of broodmother nest. In addition, the four chains that kept the block from plummeting were spread out across the room. Shouting out orders, Matthew sent Anders and Oghren to one chain, while he and Velanna sprinted to another. They reached their target first, and Matthew had Velanna freeze a section of the chain to temperatures most winters couldn't match. Once the spell was finished, Matthew lashed out with the Summer Sword, shattering two links. Above him, he heard a groan as the other three supports stained under the added pressure.
Looking across the gap, he was just quick enough to see Anders finish freezing the second chain. The mage immediately stood aside, and Oghren cut the chain cleanly with his battle ax. The loss of this second support was too much for the remaining chains. With a massive snap, the cubical lyrium bomb sped downward, smashing into the cavern floor. The explosion was unlike anything Matthew had ever heard. He had used grenades in battle before, but the noise he was hearing now was unprecedented; he stopped trying to cover his eyes, and immediately jammed his fingers into his ears, howling; the explosion was so loud, it actually caused him physical pain.
Finally, quickly as it came, the blast ended, leaving everyone with ringing ears and sore heads. Looking to Velanna, who had gone down on her knees, he asked, "Are you alright?"
When he didn't get an answer, he kneeled down to see what was wrong, and got his answer immediately; small trickles of blood were running out of her ears. Matthew remembered then that elves had far more sensitive hearing that humans did. Correspondingly, it must have meant making them more vulnerable to loud noises damaging the inner mechanisms that allowed them to hear.
Shouting to Anders to get over to his side of the room, he took a small bandage out of his pack and began sponging the blood from the elf. She flinched away at first, caught off guard by his actions, but stopped as soon as she saw that his actions were not hostile. Matthew took Velanna's allowance for his touching her with surprise; Velanna despised humans, a deep-rooted racism that could be found in most Dalish elves, due to the fact that humans had twice conquered their homeland. Hopefully, that would change soon, at least in relations between Fereldan and the Dalish; he had been hearing rumors that Alistair was going to grant a section of land to the Dalish, along with a representative in the Landsmeet, which the king had confirmed when Matthew had asked if they were true. The only reason that this plan had any shot was the Dalish Hunters' stellar performance during the Battle of Denerim, which had saved thousands of the city's citizens, and shattered the Chantry's carefully constructed façade of the elves being child-sacrificing savages. Matthew had particularly enjoyed watching the Grand Cleric swallow her pride, and thank Keeper Lanaya for her people's contribution to the fight.
Meanwhile, Anders had finally reached the pair, and began the process to heal Velanna's inner ears. Confident the situation was under control, Matthew stood and walked over to the hole in the floor to inspect the damage the lyrium bomb had caused.
The answer was absolute. Every broodmother in the pit had been killed. Those closest to the center had been reduced to pulp, while those farther away from the epicenter had experienced progressively less damage, until the ones at the very end had perished from simple lyrium poisoning. Matthew nodded in satisfaction; killing so many broodmothers at once would cut the flow of darkspawn births in the area, leaving them unable to maintain their forces in the area.
"We…we did it." Matthew turned to see that it was Sigrun that was speaking. "If the rest of the Legion were alive," she continued, "I know they would honor you in some way."
"Thank you," the Commander replied. "I'm sorry so many had to die."
Sigrun's usually chipper face sobered. "Earlier, I used to wish that I could get away from the others. Now that they're gone, I just want them back. Silly, isn't it?" Refocusing, the dwarf returned to more immediate matters. "What's curious is that we seem to now be facing two different factions of darkspawn."
Raising an eyebrow, Matthew asked, "Has this never happened before?"
The dwarf shook her head. "The darkspawn are by nature vicious, and have always fought amongst themselves, but there have never been two organized factions before. This is… troubling."
"Why," Matthew asked, smirking. "This could be excellent news; let them chip away at each other, and when they're too weak to pose any real threat, we come in a eradicate them."
Sigrun laughed. "I like the way you think, Commander." Once she had regained her breath, she said, "Well, this was fun, and it was nice meeting you all, but I need to get going."
"Go," Nathaniel questioned, having recently joined to two. "Go where?"
"Oh, I'll probably disappear into the bowels of the Deep Roads, never to be seen again," she replied in a shockingly off-hand manner. "The one good thing about this place is that you never run out of darkspawn to kill."
Suddenly, Matthew was struck by inspiration, and immediately moved forward with his sudden plan. "Perhaps you would consider joining us?"
Sigrun appeared surprised by the Commander of the Grey's offer. "Join you?" she whispered, dazed by the opportunity that her new companion had given her. "But that would go against my vow to the Legion."
"I don't see how it would," he challenged. "As a Grey Warden, you still fight darkspawn, and die in battle against them."
"And I'd be more effective at killing the darkspawn, wouldn't I," Sigrun breathed, looking like a child on Satinalia. "Ha! How does one say 'no' to this?"
Sheathing her ax and dagger, she stood up straight, though it made little difference in her short height, and proclaimed, "Let's go; the darkspawn won't wait around forever!"