Varric's Version: The Deep Roads
Saving for months to earn a place in my brother's expedition, Hawke bade farewell to her family and found herself a week underground alongside two apostates and a troupe of dwarves.
As if darkspawn, ogres, and underground dragons weren't bad enough, once within the primeval thaig a greater threat awaited us. Betrayal. Enraptured by greed, my once brother Bartrand had sealed us to our fate in a cathedral of stone, shadowed in the glow of ancient magic. Suddenly all the wealth in the world mattered little, in face of the starving thirst we were staring down. You might not believe what happened there, if I hadn't trekked that long walk down the Deep Roads with them.
Traversing by magelight, we struggled through the haunted tomb of the thaig. Demons rose from the shadows, testing our resolve, and mythic creatures of stone rose to meet us, dulling our blades and bruising our weakened limbs. Forced to live off lichen and mushrooms, we spent our time imagining ways my brother might die - it was our only hope as we struggled in the dark. Ancestors only know how my kin live in such places. I hope I never have to return.
The wraiths, the shades and the profane - souls trapped in the rock itself, living upon it, sieving the lyrium with unearthly hunger. There was no way to see or plan for their presence, the unholy magic sustaining them appearing out of the very walls. Bits of stone would gather, a foul energy in their core and a ghastly shriek in the air.
Blondie and Daisy struggled with us - it was obvious the lyrium veins that followed us tugged at their need, like a bottle calls the drunkard. I don't know what luck it was that kept Hawke at our head, but I'm glad it was her the demon approached.
It was a skeletal being of rock, pure energy and light, a bare skull with red eyes peering down upon us. It spoke eloquently, offering passage and freedom - so long as we leave the souls upon which it fed at peace. Hawke has never been one to broker with demons, and would hear none of it.
I've made mention of the demons and creatures we felled, but they were child's play to what we found in the cavern beyond the demon. The air was stale, and the stone glowed red, the likes of which I've never seen. It cast the ancient vault in a ghastly light. It seemed easy enough to cross through and escape out the far door.
Grinding stone grated our senses, a light filling the dark and I had to shield my eyes. It felt like the air sucked away, and I felt the tremor vibrate in my skin. When the light died, the earth heaved, and the behemoth screeched to life – a being of rock four times Hawke's size was barrelling towards us. A rock wraith of myth.
I don't know how we'd have made it if not for the mages – for all the templars say, they are damned useful. Hawke darted at the creature's feet, distracting it with the tinny smack of her blades on the rock, narrowly avoiding a swinging stalactite. We fought it for over an hour, the cavern around us beginning to crumble, decimated and half-collapsed, and it seemed too late when Daisy – that sprite of an elf – raised her hands.
Lightning leapt from her fingertips, crackling up the wraith's limbs like a cage, and its bellow left a ringing in the ears. Hawke seized the chance and leapt upon its back, driving her dagger into the luminous skull that glared out from its core. The bloody light that made its limbs flared, and the ephemeral bone shattered, throwing Hawke to the ground and nearly pinning her under the landslide of its limbs.
It was only when the choking dust cleared we saw it was no more – a pile of rubble was strewn about the Champion's prone body. Magic tickled her limbs, and Hawke coughed awake, sitting up to survey her surroundings.
And promptly ask for a drink.