The stretch of the Deep Roads that they'd been on for the past several hours had begun to twist and turn more and more. Soon, to everyone's relief, the roads opened up and branched off into a huge dwarven thaig.
They all slowed to a stop, staring around in amazement. Delilah had only been in a couple dwarven thaigs before, but this one was far different and much older looking than she'd seen before. Many of the carvings were lined with softly pulsing lyrium, reminiscent of the runestones that Dagna had excitedly shown her down in the Undercroft. The walls of the cavern had pillars of what looked like massive trunks of solid lyrium, spaced out at even intervals and glowing brightly, lighting the area in a cool blue light. And the entire area trembled and emitted a soft keening noise, shaken by the Old God's call.
Sigrun seemed to share Delilah's opinion. "This place is incredible!" Sigrun exclaimed. "The architecture here is astonishing, it looks more ancient than any dwarven thaig I've ever seen."
"In your professional opinion as a dwarf, Sigrun," Castielle chimed in, "is this thaig feasible as the old god prison?"
"This thaig is approximately in the location the maps pointed to," the dwarf said thoughtfully. She walked over to the nearest building and delicately traced a fingertip over the carvings in the stone. "These carvings are only very distantly similar to modern dwarven decorative architecture, with similar style but very different execution. The stone used in the buildings is also the same as the stone of the cavern walls, indicating that the thaig was built before the advent of technology to easily move large pieces of stone from different locations. All of it points to this place being built, well, roughly around the time that Tevinter's false gods were supposedly cast down and imprisoned, give or take a century." She shrugged. "Everything's saying this is our place, Cas."
Castielle hefted a sigh and placed her hands on her hips. "Very well. We should rest, gather our strength before we go any deeper. Strange, though, how few darkspawn have been in the area. You'd think with the old god so relatively easily accessed, that they'd have swarmed this thaig trying to dig it out."
Delilah dropped her pack and sat with a groan of relief. She unlaced her boots and slid them off, wiggling her toes gratefully. Blisters were already forming on the balls of her feet, and she took a moment to spread some healing magic over them. Beside her, Cassandra sat with a heavy sigh.
"Delilah, how's your shoulder?" Cassandra asked softly. Delilah worked her shoulder back and forth, testing the joint.
"It's much better," she replied. "It's just a little sore now. I'm sure I'll be completely back to normal in a day or so."
"I'm glad." The two women were silent for a moment.
"We're going to get out of here, right?" Delilah said eventually. She tried to keep her tone as nonchalant as possible, but as well as Cassandra knew her, the warrior had to see right through the façade.
"Of course we're going to get out of here," Cassandra said firmly. "There's still much to do for us. If nothing else, Corypheus must still be stopped. And you still must return to tell Cullen your true feelings for him."
Delilah sputtered a little. "Creators, I'd hoped you'd forgotten about that."
The Nevarran smiled. "After your generous help with getting Varric to continue writing Swords and Shields for me? I absolutely must return the favor," she said innocently. Delilah barked out a laugh, the memory warm as it arose in her mind.
"Alright, fair enough," the elf chuckled. "But let me talk to him before you do anything, alright?"
"Agreed."
"We'll rest for an hour," Castielle announced. "Does that sound good to you, Inquisitor?"
"Yes, that sounds reasonable," Delilah said tiredly. "Creators, it feels like we've been wandering around these dank tunnels for months."
"If this goes well, we'll all be back on the surface in just a couple of days," Finn said cheerfully. "Our exit isn't horribly far away from here. The only downside is it opens up in Orlais, of all places."
"Where in Orlais?" Delilah asked, curious.
He waved a hand vaguely. "Somewhere around Sulevin's Cradle, I believe."
Relief washed through Delilah. "Oh, if that's true, that's not too far away from Skyhold," she exclaimed. "We could be home in a week!"
"I certainly hope so," Dorian interjected. "I for one am sick and tired of being stuck down in a hole."
"Seconded," Varric agreed.
"Sigrun, how are you feeling?" Castielle asked the dwarf, who paused, looking thoughtful.
"I feel pretty normal," she replied after a moment. "A little nauseous, but that could be due to the audible and physically tangible Calling song that's rattling everything around us."
"That's true," the senior Warden sighed. "I feel much the same. Perhaps this batch doesn't work."
"It could be a number of things," Finn interjected. He held up his fingers, counting them off. "It's highly possible that our proximity to the old god is overpowering any effect the potion does have. It could be that since the old god isn't actually an archdemon yet, that it isn't triggering a realistic Calling within us. It could be that our Calling isn't actually related to the old god's call to the darkspawn, or that the old god's calling is simply different from the calling of our own taint. It might be that it's not being triggered properly because the old god is still asleep-"
"Yes, thank you, Finn," Castielle cut him off. He shrugged, giving an understanding smile.
"I wouldn't worry, Warden Commander," he placated. "We'll get more answers when we make it back to Weisshaupt."
They spent the rest of their rest hour mostly in silence, tending to their own blisters or, in Sigrun's case, catching a quick nap. Eventually, Castielle and Delilah caught each other's eye and nodded, then rose to their feet. Everyone else followed suit, stretching and groaning.
"Shall we?" Finn suggested, gesturing towards the heart of the thaig.
They crept ever deeper underground. The Calling echoed off the walls, which shook and groaned under the assault. The lyrium pillars holding up the ceiling rattled under the duress.
"Where the hell are all the darkspawn?" Finn wondered aloud. "If we can find the archdemon with this much relative ease, there's no way they haven't found this place before."
"Shouldn't we just be grateful that we haven't been swarmed by them?" Delilah pointed out. Varric grunted in agreement.
"True but it's still worrying," Castielle mused. "Come on, I don't think there's too much further till the end."
Sure enough, it took less than an hour for them to find what appeared to be the central area of the thaig. Castielle led them inside, her sword drawn and ready.
The hallway branched off into several different rooms and corridors. A fine layer of dust coated everything, artefacts with unknowable intended purpose untouched for more centuries than Delilah could wrap her mind around. Besides the seven of them, there was no movement.
Conversely, the old god's song had grown ever louder with every step. Delilah fought the urge to cover her ears to fend off the reverberating, eerie song. Everyone's face was drawn and pale in the torchlight, and even the unflappable Castielle looked as if she were going to be sick.
They turned a corner and stopped dead. Their way was blocked by a massive double door, easily big enough for a high dragon to walk through and carved with elaborate images and designs that covered the entire surface. The door was barred by a single massive stone slab, resting far above their heads.
"How in Andraste's name are we supposed to get this open?" Cassandra exclaimed. "We can't even reach that, let alone lift it!"
"We haven't come this far to be stopped by a damn door, no matter how big," Castielle grunted. She pulled off a glove and laid her bare hand on the door, brushing her fingertips lightly across the stone. "I don't believe the Maker actually cast down any Tevinter gods, personally, but archdemons are real enough, and SOMEBODY had to have built this thaig. There has to be another way in, if nothing else but as an escape for us little people." Her fingertips passed over a carved image of a dragon spewing flame at cowering people, and the eye of the dragon clicked softly and depressed back into the door. There was soft grinding noise accompanied by a puff of dust, and a hidden, smaller sized doorway opened up in the center of the main door, just tall enough for the Delilah, her companions, and the Wardens to get through.
Before them was a massive cavern, dimly lit by the glowing red stone embedded into each of the eight walls of the octagonal walls. The center of the room had a small pedestal, about chest height. On the far end of the room, taking up nearly the entire wall section, was a massive cage door, behind which was a deep, dark blackness that seemed to swallow up all light.
Castielle strode fearlessly across the room, sword still in hand. Sigrun and Finn followed behind her, with Delilah, Cassandra, Dorian, and Varric pulling up the rear.
"As much as I adore the Deep Road and ancient dwarven thaigs," Dorian said over the shrill call of the old god, "I must say this is getting rather dull."
Castielle reached the cage door and peered between the bars, each as thick around as her entire body.
"It's in there, right?" Sigrun asked. "I mean, I don't want to deal with how angry it's gonna be when we wake it up, but ancestors below, I really hope that it's there after all we went through to get here."
"It's in there, alright," Castielle breathed. "Andraste's tits, that's a big dragon."
Everyone came up to the cage door and peered in. The torchlight only seemed to penetrate the first couple of feet before being swallowed by darkness. Then, as Delilah's eyes adjusted, the outline of the old god became apparent.
Its massive body, bigger than any dragon Delilah had fought yet, was curled up like a dog sleeping in front of a fireplace; its tail wrapped protectively around its body, and its head was hidden behind its crossed front legs. Whereas all the high dragons that Delilah had previously fought had been brightly colored with their scales polished to the point of giving a dizzying reflection of light, this dragon's scales appeared dull and reflected next to no light at all. The beast's outline was blurred by what looked like rocks and debris that had fallen on it, and not been shaken off. Its side slowly expanded and contracted, keeping time with the sonorous breathing that echoed off the walls. The noise mingled with the calling song, drawing on Delilah's nerve like a bow on an instrument's strings.
"Was the archdemon you killed in Denerim this big?" Varric asked Castielle.
"Not exactly," she replied vaguely.
"How do we release it?" Cassandra asked. "If the time was taken to build these prisons, there must be some mechanism to open the door."
Delilah turned to look back at the pedestal in the center of the room. "Maybe it has something to do with that?" she suggested, jerking her thumb back at it.
"It could be," Castielle mused. She walked over to it and examined it. "There's a handle here, perhaps if I pull it the cage door will release."
"Would it really be that easy?" Sigrun questioned. The senior Warden considered the podium for a moment, then quickly flipped the switch.
Nothing happened.
Everyone, Delilah included, let out a sigh of relief. They all retreated to join Castielle around the podium.
"Is it broken?" Cassandra asked.
"I don't think so," Castielle replied. She flipped it back and forth a couple of times. Each movement caused a low rumbling sound somewhere under the stone floor, but caused no discernable change. "Perhaps this isn't the only switch that needs to be thrown?"
Finn looked around thoughtfully, then quickly strode over to one of the wall sections. "Aha!" he exclaimed. "Each wall has a switch on it too."
He was right. Further examination showed that each wall, besides the one with the cage and the one with the door, had a switch on it as well.
"Seven switches," Dorian said thoughtfully. "I wonder if they have to be pressed in a certain pattern."
"Maker, I hope not," Varric grumbled. "That'll take ages to figure out."
"Well, there's seven switches and seven of us," Delilah pointed out. "Why don't we try first all switching them at the same time?"
"That sounds like a reasonable theory," Finn pointed out. "If I built this prison, I wouldn't want any one person be able to open this of their own volition. It's likely this was designed to need unanimous agreement to open the cage, from whoever was in charge back then."
Everyone was quiet for a moment, before Castielle piped up. "That sounds like as good of a plan as any," she agreed. "We'll try it. Everyone, pick a wall, and stand ready."
Several seconds later, everyone stood ready at their chosen wall. Cassandra and Sigrun stood at the two wall sections closest to the cage door; behind them were Dorian and Varric; and in the back two wall sections nearest the exit were Delilah and Finn. In the center of the room, next to the podium, stood Castielle. Her left hand hovered over the switch, her sword grasped in her right hand. "Is everybody ready?" she called.
Everyone called out 'ready' in turn with varying degrees of excitement. Delilah breathed a brief prayer that this would go well, and gently touched her switch.
"On my count," Castielle called out. "Three. Two. One. Now!"
Everyone pulled their lever at the same time. A deep, resounding thud echoed from underneath their feet, followed by a low grinding noise. They all stared expectantly at the cage door, which remained closed. The grinding noise stopped, and they all looked around at each other.
"Maybe it didn't work?" Finn said hesitantly.
He was interrupted almost immediately by a low creaking groan. They turned back to face the massive cage door, which was slowly, inexorably, swinging open. They waited with bated breath, weapons held at the ready, as the door finished opening and hung, wide open.
For a long, pregnant moment, nothing happened. Then, mercifully, the resonating song of the old god dwindled away.
The silence was almost deafening. Delilah's ears rang in the absence of the calling, but she ignored it.
"Is it awake?" she called hesitantly.
"I don't know-"
Castielle's words were cut off by a slow slithering sound. They could hear rocks tumbling to the ground and a low scraping, slithering noise. A flash of light reflected from deep inside the cave – a pair of yellow, reptilian eyes.