Author's Note: Thanks everyone for the reviews and story adds and favorites! It's so crazy to think so many people have thought this story worthy of their time. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
In other news, the translation from last chapter, in case you wondered! "Cease the flow of magic. Release this woman."

Chapter 63 - Shake the Disease

They were walking south, steadily making their way towards the darkspawn. The deeper they went, the more Alistair's blood tingled. He could feel it in Serena, as well, and he longed to protect her from the ache that would surely overcome them when they hit the bulk of the horde, knowing it would be worse for her.

Of course, that was assuming the archdemon hadn't taken the horde topside already. It was next to impossible to know what was happening up there from... down here.

The tunnels were an endless jumble of dead ends, loops, and wrong turns. Even with Oghren's stone sense, they had gotten turned around more than once, only to run into a group of giant man-eating spiders or worse, strange apparitions bent on cutting them down.

But more than anything, Alistair missed the sun. He missed the warmth he felt walking under it's bright light, missed how it caused Serena's hair to tinge with red at sunset. He missed seeing its rays reflect off Lake Calenhad.

He knew he wasn't alone, though. That morning he had caught Serena praying softly at the back of their tent, her eyes closed, looking just as she had when he'd first seen her pray at Ostagar after her Joining.

"I don't know if You can hear me down here, my Maker. We walk now where the beasts You threw out of Your Kingdom may haunt us, may stalk us in greater numbers than we may be able to fend off. I pray You watch over us, sweet Maker, that You do not abandon us in this pursuit, so we may feel Your light upon our skin once more. I pray that we feel Your sweet embrace touch our hearts as we walk among the stone. Amen."

She had turned then, perhaps she knew he was listening, perhaps she'd heard him breathing behind her. Wrapping her arms around him, they sat for awhile, simply holding each other and not speaking, neither of them really having to say anything. Serena's prayer had said it all for them.

Now they were another day into the deep, getting closer to what the dwarves called the Dead Trenches. Alistair had already perused the notes Serena had... acquired. He dare not think too hard about a stranger being in their tent; especially what kind of man would live down here, among the darkspawn. She had been elusive at best about the clandestine meeting, and he was content to let it be, for now.

Despite having gone over the papers multiple times, Alim had insisted on reading the journal of sorts out loud, intent on drawing more information out of the words. Alistair had to admit; the elf had a remarkable knack for being able to decipher the dwarven woman's hasty scribbles, though he sucked all the drama out of it in his reading.

"We found... evidence? I think it says evidence. We found evidence today that the Anvil of the Void was not built in Ortan Thaig. We will... go south. To the Dead Trenches. The Anvil is somewhere beyond. My soldiers tell me I am... sad. Sad?" Alim shook his head ruefully. "No, mad? Mad. My soldiers tell me I am mad, that the Dead Trenches are crawling with darkspawn, that we will surely die before we find the Anvil... If we find it."

"I leave these notes here in case they're right. If I die in the Trenches, perhaps someone can yet walk past my... copse? Oh, corpse. Of course. Perhaps someone can yet walk past my corpse and retrieve the Anvil."

"Sunny lady, your wife." Alistair scowled, glancing at Oghren as they walked. "That's definitely a picture I want in my head down here."

"It says more," the elf continued, reading the parchment in his rich baritone voice. "If I have not returned and Oghren yet lives, tell him..." He paused, frowning. "No, what I have to say should be... for his ears alone."

"Good advice, that," the dwarf said gruffly. "Unless you have any more fun facts about my wife you'd like to expound on us."

"That's what it says?" Serena asked. "It just... ends with that?"

"This is my farewell," Alim finished. He shrugged, handing the papers back to Serena. "That's it."

"How depressing." Leliana's fingers swept across the strings of her lute, playing a quick melody, as if her music alone could ward off the gloom. "So she brought the entire house down here? How many people is that?"

"Around a hundred, give or take," Oghren replied, not looking at the bard. Leliana whistled low, but otherwise didn't comment further. Alistair thought it smart of her.

"Right, so... any idea how far off we are from these Dead Trenches?" Serena was obviously trying to lighten the mood, although how well she was doing, Alistair couldn't gauge. Everyone seemed simultaneously on edge and weary.

"Aye, the Fortress of Bownammar is supposedly just up this way, if this map of Bhelen's is worth the sodding parchment it's printed on." The dwarf led them out of the tunnel, Serena at his side. An enormous bridge loomed ahead, with what Alistair assumed was lava running deep below.

"Oh... oh, sweet Maker." Serena dropped to her knees at the edge of the cliff, her shoulders slumping. Beside her, Oghren seemed to go white, the knot in his throat bouncing slightly as he gulped.

"Did I say herds?" he muttered. "Meant to say the whole sodding lot of 'em are down here."

Alistair stepped to the edge, peering over as Serena clutched his leg protectively. What he had thought was the glow of hot lava was actually the light from hundreds, possibly thousands of torches below, held up by marching darkspawn. Alistair sunk down to the ground, his stomach clenching uncomfortably as he realized what it meant.

They were marching for the surface.

"Did you see it?" Serena whispered fiercely beside him, her hands grabbing for his arm now. "Did you see it, Alistair?"

"See what-"

Then it zoomed up. On wings as black as night, careening through the air, it circled like a giant bat, and Alistair head exploded in pain. Landing on a higher bridge, the archdemon faced away from them and spewed a long purple stream of... Fire? Magic? Alistair had no idea.

Beside him, Serena was covering her ears, her forehead pressed to the stone below. A tiny whimper escaped her and he put his arms around her smaller form, hugging her close as she shook. Serena's mabari edged close to them, pushing his nose into her hair and snuffling softly.

With another ear-splitting shriek, the archdemon belched another flame of purple and spread it's great wings wide. Alistair felt his blood boil as it took off again, flying further down the trench to where the darkspawn were headed. Presumably, to the surface.

"That's... that's the bloody archdemon? Sodding..." Oghren shook his head, his sentence devolving into a string of dwarven curses.

"I thought the high dragon was big." Zevran chuckled, though it had none of his usual mirth as the elf had no color in his normally tan cheeks at all. "Braska, I think I just pissed myself."

"You aren't alone," Wynne said quietly, her steely blue eyes locked on where the great purplish dragon had flown off. "At least we know what we're facing now."

"Oh yes, there is that," Zevran replied, rolling his eyes. "I would rather not happen upon the thing down here where it is already so dark and doleful, but alas. At least the purple fire really brightens things up, don't you think?"

"Only you could make jokes when faced with that, elf," Morrigan said caustically.

"We should move on, if... if everyone is ready." Serena stood up, her blue eyes still wide with trepidation as she wiped the dust from her armor. "We should just... go."

"Are you okay?" Alistair whispered. It was a stupid thing to say. He wasn't quite sure he was okay, but it seemed like the chivalrous thing to ask.

Serena shook her head and shrugged, as if to say there was nothing to be done for what she felt, for what they felt as Wardens, especially down here. "It... it didn't eat us, so let's just... I can't imagine we have that much luck left, so let's just go."

"The Legion gives no quarter! Send 'em to the stone!"

They had reached the Fortress of Bownammar at last. Surprisingly, a group of dwarves stood outside, great swords, axes, and mauls already cutting into a small group of darkspawn that had surged across another smaller bridge. Itching for something to do after the fearful visit from the archdemon, Serena and her companions had sprinted headlong to the group to help.

"They think to breach Orzammar? They're breathing smoke... if we let them breathe at all!" The tattooed dwarf swung an enormous sword, easily cleaving a hurlock in two.

"Let them come!" another dwarf yelled enthusiastically, slamming his maul down. The skull of another darkspawn exploded out as the weapon smashed it, the man shouting victoriously as he ran to engage another. "It saves us the walk to their lairs!"

"Oh, I like these guys!" Serena called, whipping her daggers around to gut a fat genlock. "Let's see you fiends overwhelm all of us!" She flipped backwards, kicking a large shriek onto Zevran's long dagger as he brought the other around to slice its head from its body.

"Lovely, my dear," the elf said, sliding his dagger into another darkspawn that thought to sneak up behind him. Serena's mabari was near, shaking the arm of a hurlock off in his jaws. "It really is quite something to find such enthusiasm in one's companions!"

Hurling the arm away, the dog barked its agreement, readying itself to barrel into the next opponent. Zevran laughed, slamming his dagger down into the skull of a downed fiend. "I agree, my good friend. Go team! Hurrah!"

Finishing off the darkspawn quickly with the dwarves help, the stockiest of the warriors ambled up to the companions, putting out an armored hand to Serena.

"Atrast vala, Grey Wardens. I'm Kardol, Commander of this unit."

"Grey Warden Commander Serena Cousland. A pleasure to meet you."

"Have to say, in all my time down here, I've never seen one of your kind in the Deep Roads."

"You don't sound very surprised, though," Serena replied, smiling at the ichor-splattered lead dwarf as she shook his hand with her much small one.

"In the Legion of the Dead, we abandon our lives to be free of fear, free of hopeful blindness. The coming Blight is obvious to us. The surprise is not that you have come, but that you have come in so small a number." He eyed their group steadily, his beard twitching slightly in a returning smile. "What do you want here, Warden?"

"We're here as a favor to Prince Bhelen. We need to find the Paragon Branka to end the stalemate for king." Serena stared into the eyes of the dwarf. "We need our strongest allies to end the Blight, and I believe you know as well as I do, that's the dwarves."

"Ha! True enough," Kardol replied. "Though it's an odd tactic, recruiting from the frontline. The darkspawn pitch their camps in our tunnels between your "Blights", you know. Give me a dwarven reason to look topside."

"Commander Kardol, I'm Prince Alistair Theirin," Alistair said, bowing his head slightly to the shorter man. "It is my understanding that your men's past... mistakes... are expunged with your recruitment into the Legion. Is that correct?"

"Aye, we fight the darkspawn until our deaths. Upon our return to the Stone, our names are cleared, as are those of our families." Kardol exchanged a look with one of his men. "What are you getting at?"

Alistair grinned. "Simply that if you are already dead... what holds you back from helping us?"

"Eh, it's not my job to shore up to the Assembly chasing dead legends. The Legion holds a line so those fools have time to put an ass on the throne. But seeing as you and your lot have helped us push the line back further, I'd make you a deal. We get a king out of this little quest of yours, then I'll see to it my men join you to battle this Blight with whatever Bhelen can muster up from the city. How's that?"

"I don't think we could ask for better, Commander," Serena replied, nodding her head. "Your men are fine warriors, and it would be our honor to fight beside them once again."

"Yeah, well, save your flattery for the deep lords in the Assembly, missy," Kardol replied, though he was smiling. "Anything else we can help you with?"

"Not unless you know where we might find the Anvil of the Void," said Oghren.

The Commander laughed heartily, as if Oghren was having him on. "We look like we're fighting with golems? If you're after that, I wish you luck, Wardens. You'll need it."

Beyond the Fortress of Bownammar, they marched forward, deeper into the Dead Trenches and through more dwarven ruins. Darkspawn had ravaged the place, and their group fought them relentlessly as they went. Wave after wave, in every chamber, every room they went through.

Wynne felt filthy down to her very bones, and she was obviously the cleanest out of the lot of them, having stayed out of the majority of the hand-to-hand combat as a mage. Sweat mixed with dirt and blood on her robes and she tutted, knowing the stains would never come out. They were ground in much too deeply now.

For their part, the two Grey Wardens were as unrelenting as the darkspawn much of the time. They walked side by side, a shield of resolve against the horde. Wynne found herself marveling at how two people as young as Serena and Alistair held their duty to such a high regard. When she had been their age, she hadn't been nearly as reliable... as filled with arrogance as she had been.

A twinge of guilt twisted Wynne's insides as she walked after them. Despite her earlier admonishments, she truly hoped the best for the two young people. Though now it seemed unlikely they would ever lead a normal life, not with Arl Eamon pushing Alistair ever closer to the throne of Ferelden.

She wondered where that left Serena in the mix, however. Surely they had spoken about the future, at least somewhat. Serena was too practical to let the unknown hang between them like some sort of specter of foreboding. It was no use worrying about it now, though. Beside her, Alim interrupted her circular thoughts, his features set in worry at her long silence.

"Do you miss it, Wynne? The Circle? The Tower?"

"Sometimes. It was my home." Wynne sighed. "I suppose you do not consider it so."

"I... don't know if I do. I have lived there since I was ten years old. That is thirteen years of being in one place, of being relatively safe." He glanced at her sidelong. "I did not choose to leave, you know. I am not... I am not an apostate by choice."

Wynne hadn't been expecting him to say that. She thought, much like herself when younger, every young mage wished for the freedom outside the Circle Tower. "It is unfortunate you were caught up in Jowan's actions, then."

"I'm not sorry, though," Alim amended. "I... I have been thinking… if Serena and Alistair would have me, I would like to join the Grey Wardens. Permanently."

Wynne raised an eyebrow. "That is… admirable, Alim. I hope... it is not because you wish to stay out of the tower."

"No, no," Alim said hastily. "As confining as it was at times, it is... much harder out here. I've never... felt like I really belonged anywhere. Even in the tower, Jowan was really my... only real friend."

"I always assumed that was by choice," Wynne said quietly. "You appeared so... studious, it was one of the things I noticed about you. You spent a great deal of time in the library."

"Might as well read while you're hiding out, right? I mean, I love learning, I just... don't love getting called knife ear every other day or so." Alim sighed. "The Grey Wardens never made me feel like an outsider, though, even though you all found me in the employ of your enemy."

"It wouldn't be the first time Serena had rescued someone from Loghain's payroll," the white-haired woman replied. "Do you know Loghain hired Zevran as an assassin originally? To take care of the last of the Grey Wardens. When he failed, Serena refused to kill him, and he instead joined this group as a rather faithful companion ever since."

Alim whistled low. He hadn't heard that story yet, she supposed."I... suppose I have quite a good shot at them letting me in, then, huh? I didn't even try to kill them."

"Just remember that like the Circle, the Grey Wardens is not without it's own difficulties. You see the duty required of you, I'm sure. Know that being a member of the Grey does not change the fact that you are a mage, and that people will still fear you before they get to know you."

Alim had opened his mouth to argue when Morrigan swept past, sneering openly. "Always with a kind word, aren't you, old woman?"

"Not to you perhaps, dear," Wynne replied tersely. "I was simply telling Alim-"

"That perhaps he should relish his leash instead, as you do?"

"There are good reasons for the world to fear mages," Wynne said, her voice haughty and disaffected to match the dark haired witch. "Even despite our best intentions."

"Your best intentions, perhaps." Morrigan's golden yellow eyes brushed over them all, landing on Alistair at the front as he walked along next to their leader. "Their fear concerns me not at all."

"I'm not trying to escape the Circle-" Alim cut in. His voice held some of the hostility she had often heard from her own apprentices. "Is it so wrong to want to do something in my life? Instead of sit up in that tower and rot while there's peoples lives at stake."

"Look at you, Wynne. You're out here, fighting with them, helping to stop the Blight." The elf sighed, shaking his head. "I just want to do some good."

Morrigan snorted, rolling her eyes. "And just when you were getting interesting. Pity."

Thick and hot and red. It grew up the walls. Just a little at first, though; peeking in from a crack in the ceiling, or slipping in through the spaces between the stones of the floor. One wouldn't even notice it really, if not for the smell.

It was like death. Pungent and disgusting, it made Serena's stomach turn as they walked through the ruins, the tunnels becoming less branching, and more straightforward. There was only one way to go, as if the temple were leading them to the Anvil.

But within the tunnels there were more darkspawn lurking. Hurlocks, tall and powerfully built, but awkward in the way they wielded too-huge weapons in such close quarters. Genlocks, the shorter, stockier breed of darkspawn were better suited to the corridor fighting, fitting within the tighter spaces, though Serena's group still bested them easily. They outnumbered nearly every group of the fiends they came across, and the ceilings were too low to allow an ogre in, thankfully.

It had been hours of relentless back-and-forth. Walking, then stopping, then fighting and killing, only to repeat the pattern again in the next quarter of an hour. Serena's head was pounding from the constant nearness of the taint by the time they reached what she hoped was the end of the dwarven crypt. A large metal door separated them from what she hoped was their goal, but after pushing it back, she felt disappointment crush her again as yet another tunnel led forward.

Glancing over, she saw Alistair scrunch his face up in disgust. She imagined his blood was tingling just as hers was, the nearby darkspawn were pressing in on their senses from all sides.

"It's getting worse," he murmured in her ear, his breath fluttering the loose bits of hair that had come away from her braid. "Feels like... like it's growing or something. Pulsating." Beside her, Peanut whined his own displeasure at their surroundings.

It was true. This tunnel seemed to almost drip with the darkspawn's corruption. It was the same sick stuff they'd seen in the Tower of Ishal at Ostagar. Thick and red, almost thumping with its own sinister light... it covered the floors in spots now, too, and grew down from the ceiling in others. It reminded Serena of a gutted animal, turned inside out for tanning.

"I swear I heard it coming from down here..." Leliana was speaking quietly with Zevran nearby, pointing down a particularly corrupted passageway vehemently. "We should at least look."

"First day, they come... and catch everyone." It sounded almost like singing... Like an echo down the hall, or... something. Serena could make out the words, but they didn't make any sense. Who comes? The darkspawn?

Leliana's eyes widened as she looked back at them. "See? I knew I heard something..." She started down the passage as Zevran grabbed her, holding her back until the others caught up from behind. Nobody wanted to move too far away from the group in this place.

"Second day, they beat us... and eat some for meat." The haunting voice was back, louder this time, as if they were getting closer. Serena stopped the group, exchanging a significant look with Alistair, wanting his okay before they led them down this path. He looked hesitantly beyond, the mages staves only lighting the way so far.

"Third day, the men... are all gnawed on again."

"I am... unsure if I want to hear the rest of this poem," Zevran said, pulling one of his daggers. "I enjoy some rather kinky things, but none of them involve being gnawed on like a leg of lamb."

Serena smiled, though it was a hollow one. She could never understand how Zevran managed to find humor in just about everything, but she was thankful for it, nonetheless. It was a defense mechanism, surely, but he could always be counted on in the darkest of circumstances to throw out a joke or two.

"Fourth day, we wait... and fear for our fate. Fifth day, they return... and it's another girl's turn."

The corruption was covering nearly everything as they made their way downward, further into a new crypt. Serena felt Wynne throw out a healing spell to her and Alistair, knowing the taint in their blood must be causing them a great deal of grief this far deep.

"Sixth day, her screams... we hear in our dreams. Seventh day, she grew... as in her mouth they did spew."

"I really dislike this poem," Zevran said quietly. "The rhyming scheme... it is all off." Serena forced a laugh, though it sounded more like a weird cough. Glancing at him, he shrugged, and they looked forward again, unable to do anything else but keep walking.

"Eighth day, we hate it... as she is violated. Ninth day, she grins... and devours her kin. Now she does feast, as she's become the beast."

It wasn't long before they came upon the elegiac voice to which the poem belonged.

"What is this? A human? Bland and unlikely." A dwarven woman stood awkward in the room, curled into herself much as Ruck had been. The taint was much further advanced in her; dark splotches of blackness dotted her face and under her eyes. Pale lips spoke the words like a chant, like all the color had drained out of them, and her eyes... It was her eyes that struck Serena the most, though. Blank and unseeing, like the old blind tomcat that once stalked the stables at Highever, the orbs were ghostly pale.

"Hespith..." Oghren's voice was husky as he peered at the woman. "She's from Branka's house."

"Feeding time brings only kin and clan. I am cruel to myself. You are a dream of strangers' faces and open doors..." The woman pushed dirty hair that was once blonde but could no longer be considered so out of her face, revealing hallowed cheeks smeared with black ichor. Serena bit her lip to try and steady her stomach. Is this what Alistair would one day look like? Would she look as terrible and tainted as this woman did? The thought churned her stomach.

"Y-You were the one s-singing, right?" Serena wished her voice didn't sound so frightened. She was supposed to be the leader. She was supposed to be strong and fearless and oh, sweet Maker that woman's teeth were rotting out of her mouth as it hung open before her.

"Corruption! The men did that! Their wounds festered and their minds left... They are like dogs... marched again, the first to die." The ghoulish woman looked up then, her eyes rolling. "Not us, not me. Not Laryn. We are not cut. We are fed. Friends and flesh and blood and bile and… and..."

Hespith collapsed in a heap, her fingers running over the tainted floors, the nails long and black, almost claws. "All I could do was wish Laryn went first. I wish it upon her so that I would be spared..." Serena didn't want to ask, but then she didn't have to. Alistair's voice chimed out, clear and colder than she'd ever heard it.

"Spared from... what?"

"I had to watch," the dwarf replied, her voice halting and raspy. "I had to see the change. How do you endure that? How did Branka endure?"

"What change? What did you endure? What... what are they doing?" Serena wished Alistair would be quiet. She didn't want to hear anymore. She didn't want to imagine...

"What they are allowed to do. What they think they must. And Branka..." The woman licked her hands, licked the blackened blood off them and Serena covered her mouth, her body convulsing against her will.

"Her lover... and I could not turn her. Forgive her... but no, she cannot be forgiven. Not for what she did. Not for what she has become."

Oghren stepped forward then, pressing Serena out of the way. He grabbed Hespith by the front of what remained of her dress, nearly shaking her. "What do you mean her lover? Where's Branka?"

"I will not speak of her!" Hespith shouted back, her body like a rag doll in Oghren's grip. Her head lolled to the side as more words slipped out. "Of what she did, of what we have become! I will not turn! I will not become what I have seen! Not Laryn! Not Branka!"

Pushing out with a sudden strength, she flailed about as Oghren dropped her, crawling away into the darkness like an insect. Oghren looked like he wanted to follow her for a moment before all the fight went out of him.

"Hespith said lover," he muttered darkly. "Branka's lover."

"I... she was... she was out of her mind, Oghren," Serena said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "She was raving. That could of meant... anything."

"Aye. You're right, Warden." The dwarf ran a hand over his forehead. "She was… out of her mind."

"She became obsessed... That is the word, but it is not strong enough."

Despite Hespith's disappearance, they could still hear her. Her voice traveled through the walls, echoing back to them wherever they went. Serena wouldn't have been surprised to find the creepy woman was following them, haunting them with her singsong warnings. Oghren eyed the walls warily, looking like he wanted to find and throttle her.

"Blessed Stone, there was nothing left in her but the Anvil."

They entered another open chamber, and a group of darkspawn rushed at them. An ogre stood stomping, ready to charge as their group broke up, the warriors taking the lead as mages sent up spells to halt the oncoming fiends.

When it roared, Serena realized another ogre had appeared on the opposite end, and she turned, pulling Alim with her. "Throw whatever you've got at him, Alim!" She saw magic push out of his hands as the ogre pumped its fist to the ground, an obvious threat display of power.

There was another bellow, and Serena felt the earth move as the other ogre fell, Alistair shouting in triumph. Furious at its fellow's downfall, the second ogre charged then and ran straight into Alim's shimmering shield, cracking its horns as it crashed to the ground.

"Kill it, kill it!" the elf shouted frantically, sending a weak fireball into the ogre's face, lighting its skin aflame briefly. The ogre itself appeared knocked out momentarily and Serena took the opportunity to push past Alim, her daggers already out. Hurtling over the back of the ogre, she landed atop it with a fleshy sounding thump. Gracelessly, she stabbed it deep, over and over until tts blood pooled beneath it and the ogre moved no more.

"Thank the Maker for that shield of yours, Alim," Serena said, taking his offered hand as she climbed down off the dead ogre. "We'd be deader than dead, I imagine."

"Aye, nice... uh..." Oghren twiddled his fingers at the mage. "Nice magic business ya got there, elf."

"Nice giant bloody sword you have there, dwarf," Alim replied, smiling slightly. "You kill things... good."

"Right. Well. Now that we got all those fuzzy feelings out of the way, we ought to move on, aye?"

"We tried to escape, but they found us. They took us all, turned us..."

Hespith's voice called out over them again, and Serena scowled. She thought they were done with that.

"I never liked that sodding bitch," Oghren said, his mouth turned down in a frown. "Even when she wasn't half-blind she was a-"

"The men, they kill... they're merciful. But the women, they want. They want to touch, to mold, to change until you are filled with them..."

Leliana was praying silently behind them, her voice barely a whisper compared to Hespith's chant. "The righteous stand before the darkness and the Maker shall guide their hand..." She moved to stand near Serena, taking her hand tightly in her own as they continued.

"They took Laryn. They made her eat the others, our friends, our family. She tore off her husband's face and drank his blood."

Now Serena was praying with her; anything to keep the voice at bay, to drown out the words. "B-Blessed are they who s-stand before the c-corrupt... and the wicked and do not f-falter. B-Blessed are the peacekeepers, the c-champions of the just..."

"And while she ate, she grew. She swelled and turned gray and she smelled like them."

Alistair's voice joined them now as he walked beside Serena, his sword out and glowing bright blue. "Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow... In their blood the Maker's will is written." The fleshy darkspawn sacs were everywhere now, growing out of the stone itself, covering the walls and floors with their corruption.

"They remade her in their image. Then she... made more of... them."

"Oh, sweet Maker. Tell me she's not... she's not..." Serena covered her ears with her hands, the Chant forgotten, her face set in lines of misery. The headache was attempting to crush her brain, she knew. "I can sense them... Oh, Maker preserve us..." Trying to block out the sound, she found it didn't matter, Serena could still hear Hespith's words. They seemed to get louder the further they walked.

Then the tunnel ended, and they saw it.

"Broodmother..."