I dreamed of a red sun over a dead land. Of endless fissures stretching deep into the earth, radiating away from a shattered mountain. There was no life, no green. Just the sickly smells of death and decay. The song of a million diseased throats singing in unison. They... called to me. I didn't know the words, or the tune, but somehow I knew what they wanted.

They wanted me to join them. To sing with them forever more. To celebrate the death of all things.

I dreamed of running. Covering ears that constantly changed between Elven and Human. Feet that were covered in sneakers or boots, their soles sending up puffs of sand as I ran away from those terrible voices, as I fled as far and fast as I could. My voice crying out, not in song, but in pleas for someone, anyone, to take me away from here.

No one came. No one saved me.

I dreamed of pain as the song rose to a crescendo. Diseased arms breaking through the ground to grab my ankles. My shrieks of terror as they pulled me into the darkness.

Arms snapped around me when I fell, pulling me tightly against their body. I felt them trying to hold me, trying to keep me trapped in the eternal void.

"No!" I finally found the words, driving my arm back into them, kicking out with my legs as I tried to free myself from their grasp. "Not like this!"

A yelp came from a woman's throat when my elbow found her belly, her own limbs trying to tighten around me as I twisted and flailed. They spoke, the first true voice I'd heard, tones full of false panic. "Maeve! Sweet thing, calm down!"

My eyes felt like they were glued shut, trapping me in darkness, but her voice gave me a target. I threw my head back, felt it strike her nose at the same time as I kicked my legs out. A deep grunt of pain came with the impact, but her damned arms simply tightened down instead of relaxing, stopping my flailing from going anywhere.

"Hold her down!" A man shouted from too close, "Daisy, get her legs!"

No! I wouldn't let them take me! I wouldn't let them take me alive! I kicked harder, snarling when someone simply threw themselves over my shins, pinning them down with their body weight. "...no! I won't die like this! You can't take me!"

"We're not killing you! Calm down! Maker's balls, Blondie! Do something!"

I struggled harder, trying to force my way free, but there was too fucking many of them. They were too strong, my stupid little body too small. They had me. They had me.

"It's all in her head!" Another man shouted, hands grabbing my wrists, struggling to push them back against my chest so that the woman could hold them down. "I can't do anything! Isabella!?"

"Sweet thing," The woman said between grunts, pushing her head against the side of mine before I could headbutt her again. "It's me. It's Isabella. Calm down. I've got you."

Isabella? But Isabella wasn't real, she was just a character! She wasn't-

I must have screamed the words because warm lips pressed against my cheek, "I'm real! I promise I'm real! It's all right. I've got you."

"N-no... you're not real." The strength left my limbs, "You... you..."

"I'm very real." Skin pressed against my cheek, her breath hot on my skin. "We're all real. Merrill is here too."

The weight on my legs shifted, then a hand was cupping my other cheek. "I'm here, lethallan. I'm real too."

"I..." My racing heart began to slow down. "I... what..."

"Shhhh." Fingers took my chin, turning my head. A mouth pressed against mine in the chastest kiss I could ever remember receiving, pulling back after a bare moment. "Did you feel that? That was real."

It... had felt real. They sounded real.

Oh God.

"I... what..." I swallowed, "What happened?"

The hands helping to pin me against Isabella slowly retreated, Anders sounding exhausted when he spoke again. "You're going to have to tell us. Bartrand waved that thing in your face, and the next thing any of us knew you were screaming at the top of your lungs. Then you collapsed, and we haven't been able to rouse you since."

"...the thing? What thing?"

"The idol."

The Ido-

When I came around that time, I was on my hands and knees, throwing up stomach bile while two women made soothing noises, holding onto my shoulders. Everything was still dark, and I felt nearly as wrung out as when I'd been on death's door.

"Right." Varric said from somewhere behind me, his voice pained as if someone had just screamed into his ear. "No one mention the you-know-what around her again. And when I say again, I mean ever again."

"I have to agree." Anders replied quietly. "Maker's breath, I've never heard of a reaction like that before."

Fenris growled from a further distance. "And you're certain she's not possessed?"

Anders sounded annoyed, "For the twentieth time, yes. I don't know what happened to her, but there is no spirit entwined within her soul. She's not an abomination. It was more like..."

"Like what, mage?"

"I once saw a mage throw himself onto a vein of raw lyrium to stop the Templars from taking him back to the Circle." Anders said, voice solemn. "We're taught that being near raw lyrium kills mages instantly if they get too close, if we touch it. They... were wrong about that. He started laughing first. Then bleeding from his eyes... and then he started screaming that he was one with the world. He kept repeating that over and over until bloody sprayed from his mouth, and his heart burst inside his chest."

I retched some more, a shaking hand finding the leather armor over my sternum. Grabbing at it as if I could check to make sure that my heart was still inside me.

"Anders!" Merrill growled from somewhere near my left shoulder. "You have the worst timing for your stories!"

The man sounded a little chagrined when he replied. "Ah, um. Sorry."

"Fenedhis." She muttered, stroking the back of my neck. "Maeve? Are you back to us again?"

"I..." I spat a few times, "...yeah."

She and Isabella quickly pulled me back, presumably away from what I'd just expelled. They got me turned around, then settled onto the stone floor again. The arms that pulled me close were thinner, bonier, telling me that it was Merrill's neck my face was buried in that time.

"We've got you." She murmured, one hand stroking my thin mane of hair. "Everyone's here."

I swallowed, shuddering, wishing I knew what any of this was. "I... I can't see, Merrill. I can't open my eyes."

"You have a blindfold on. It's your bandanna, we had to tie it like that to..." She hesitated, then her voice lurched on. "We had to catch the blood. You were crying blood."

...well. That didn't sound good.

"What... else?" I asked.

"Um..."

Isabella sighed from somewhere nearby, taking over. "You were limp for a while, barely breathing. We tried to wake you, but you started crying blood and bleeding from your nose at the same time. The screaming started up again after that. Lasted a little while before you passed back out."

"Oh."

"That was just the first time." She went on, "You did that two more times, maybe an hour apart? It's hard to tell down here. The last time is when you finally woke up and tried to break my nose."

I winced. "Sorry."

She chuckled, "It's all right, but we've got to teach you how to throw a proper headbutt. Your aim was terrible."

I tried to laugh with her, but it was weak, trailing off almost at once. "Where... where are we? What's going on?"

An awkward silence immediately fell.

"...Bartrand locked us in the vault, didn't he?"

More silence, then a heavy sigh from Varric. "Yeah. That blighted, nug-humping bastard, sorry mother, did. I'm guessing you figured out what he was up to before he put that... uh, before your little accident?"

My little accident? That wasn't what I'd call having Red Lyrium shoved into my-

"...shhhh. Shhh..." Merrill was rocking me like a baby, her voice a whisper. "It's all right, lethallan. It's all right."

I shuddered in her arms, something in my mouth throbbing in pain. "...bit my tongue."

"You didn't scream that time." She tried to spin it as a positive. "You didn't throw up either."

Those were some awfully low bars to hit considering all I was doing was remember what had happen-

That time I didn't black out, which almost made it worse. I had the briefest glimpse of the idol, its entwined figures carved of red lyrium, then every muscle in my body seemed to cramp at the same as raw disgust pooled in my guts. Merrill whimpered as I locked up again, frantically stroking my head and whispering into my ear.

"...fuck." I gasped when it passed, my body going limp again. "Fuck."

"Maeve," Isabella spoke up, "Maybe you should-"

I cut her off with a rasp. "No. Have to deal with it. Have to... have to deal with it. Just... go ahead of us. Find a way out. We'll catch up."

She made a noise of protest, but it was Varric that asked, "You sure?"

"Yeah. Not dying down here. Find a way home." I swallowed, "Merrill?"

"I'll stay." Merrill replied without hesitating. "I'm not leaving you."

Varric sighed, a broad hand patting my shoulder. "...all right. We won't go that far ahead. Come on Rivaini. Daisy's got her."

I laid there, my upper half held against Merrill's, legs sprawled out on the stone floor as I listened to them walking away. Speaking in low murmurs about possible routes out, and what they'd do to Bartrand when they found him.

I waited until the sound of their footsteps had faded to distant echoes before I took a deep breath and tried to picture the stupid idol in my-

"...shit." I hissed against the round of pain, my eyes squeezing shut under my blindfold. It came, and went... then came again when I focused on what it had looked like when Batrand had shoved it into my face.

Then again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

I don't know how many times I did that. More than a dozen at least, before the cramping stopped. Before I could start to pick out the actual cause, the overwhelming impacts on my senses that had come along with my hand touching the damned thing for an instant, even with gloves on.

It had been magic. Just like the Lyrium vein we'd stumbled across near the darkspawn, the Idol had hit my magical senses. It had just done so with the force of a freight train, nearly turning my head inside out in the process.

"Ow." I gasped. "I think... almost have it... almost."

"Maeve, you're hurting yourself. Please..."

"It's ok. I... I have to. I have to get used to it." I panted into her neck, smelling her sweat and the stale leather of her armor. "I have to. It's... it's just magic. The most disgusting magic I've ever felt, Merrill. Did you feel it?"

"...for just a moment, I thought I did." She shifted a little, clearly uncomfortable with my weight on her, just as clearly not about to let me move away. "It... felt wrong. Like what the Keepers say the Forgotten would be like, or Fen'harel. It felt evil, like darkspawn feel evil."

Solas wouldn't have appreciated that comparison, I was sure.

"It's... yeah. Evil. That Idol..." The mental image made me clench my jaw, forcing myself not to vomit on her. Several deep breaths after let me find my words again. "...it was... the smell of a corpse, the taste of rotting meat. The f-feeling of maggots crawling on my skin. I could see a dead world... and I heard its music."

"...you can't hear it now, can you?"

"No, thank God. But... Merrill... I... I can't feel my connection to Longing anymore."

She sucked in a startled breath. "Elgar'nan... Are you... can you still feel magic?"

"I can still hear the Veil buzzing, so I think so. It's just... I felt my tether to her snap when I touched that," Teeth clenched, grinding as the memory of those five disgusting sensations hit me at once, "thing. I don't know what it is, but... I think it was alive, Merrill. Aware of me."

The more I spoke, the more sure I was of my words. That the Idol hadn't been inert down here so much as it had simply been... sleeping.

And when a Mage had touched it, however briefly, it had woken up. It had torn apart my magical defenses, shredded my connection to the spirit protecting me, and then tried to do... whatever the fuck it had tried to do to me. Blight me? Kill me? Turn me into a lunatic, like it would eventually do to Meredith?

Fuck. If I'd actually grabbed it, touched it for longer than a bare moment... it might have been able to manage it. Bartrand's greed-fueled grip might have saved my life there. He must have yanked it away from me the second I'd touched it.

"Do you believe me?" I asked.

"Of course I do." She whispered, as if worried we were being overhead. "Um. There's a lot of that red lyrium just behind us. We're in the back of the vault. Those weapons are still all out there. And the lines in the door."

"...we should get away from it. And, um, not look at it. Or go anywhere near it."

"Yes. Yes, I think so."

Merrill helped me get up quickly after that, pulling one of my arms over her slender shoulders. My feet weren't steady at first, but I started to feel better after a few dozen steps. As if the farther we walked away from that room the more strength I had.

As if the Red Lyrium back there had still been drawing something from me, even then.

I... didn't want to know. I really didn't want to know. My curiosity was dead, gone, buried so deep that I'd never find it again. I didn't want to know what Red Lyrium was anymore. I just wanted to be as far away from it as physically possible. I wanted to get into orbit and nuke the entire fucking mountain just to be sure we destroyed it all.

She guided me up what felt like a sloping tunnel until she found some kind of bench to set me down on. Then it was back to fussing as she carefully checked me over, mumbling to herself as she made sure I didn't have any wounds, that I wasn't bleeding anymore. Warm fingers slid up my cheeks, touching the bandanna covering my too-large eyes.

"I'm taking it off. Keep your eyes closed at first."

I did, feeling her pulling the cloth away. It stuck to my skin enough to confirm that I really had been bleeding from my eyes, which was... well, fucking horrifying.

"All right, try to peek?"

It took some effort to get my right eye open. Crusty blood cracked a bit... but I had a brief glimpse of Merrill in very dim lighting before I closed it again. "...not blind. Just need my eyes washed off."

"Thank the Creators." I heard her water skin slosh a little, then a wet cloth was being gently run across my eyelids. I stayed patient as she cleaned me off, a quiet little hum coming from her throat as she worked.

A few minutes later and my eyes were open properly, adjusting to the dark tunnel we were in. What little light was mostly the unholy red variety, coming from the direction I guessed the vault was in. There wasn't anything in the other direction, save for the trails of footsteps in the thin layer of dust on the floor.

Merrill insisted I drink some water and eat a bit of our hard bread, sitting down to join me. She watched me like a hawk the entire time, as if making sure that I ate every crumb.

"You do know I'm older than you?" I said, feeling immeasurably better away from the vault and with a full belly. "You can't do the over-protective big sister thing. That's my role in our relationship."

She blinked rapidly, then let out the world's tiniest huff. "I have to. You never look after yourself."

"Yes I do."

"No you don't." She giggled, "You'd drink nothing but wine and eat those cookies with every meal if I didn't stop you."

I huffed, "You were the one who stole those cookies."

"I didn't steal them. I bought them."

"Merrill, you took the cookies and then paid a very confused tailor for them, and then you paid the baker for the flowers you took out of that nobles' garden."

"I did not!"

It was my turn to giggle, "You did. That was the day you thought you'd be clever and drank from Isabella's flask at lunch."

"...ohhhh." She gave me a playful nudge, "You told me I didn't do anything embarrassing!"

"It was too cute." I leaned in to her side, kissing her cheek. "Thanks, Merrill. For everything."

Merrill beamed, kissing my cheek in return before pushing herself to her feet. "You're welcome. I've never had a little sister before. This will be fun."

I huffed, "I'm older than you."

"Are you sure?" She cocked her head innocently. "You don't act like you are."

"...Isabella and I are a terrible influences on you." That just made her giggle again, one hand held out for me. I took it, letting her pull me to my feet. She hovered close as I steadied myself, making sure that I wasn't about to fall over again.

When I proved capable of staying upright on my own, we set off to catch up with everyone else.

We followed their tracks deeper into the Thaig, though I felt certain that we were actually heading up rather than farther down. Merrill called a light to her spear when we finally left the red glow behind, keeping it dim enough to illuminate our path without totally ruining our night vision. Not that there was much to see; just a long tunnel that seemed to wind back and forth, with occasional stairs confirming that we were heading back toward the surface.

More important were the signs that our friends had come through. Here and there we found evidence of combat; mostly bolts from Bianca laying shattered on the floor, along with what looked like molding rags scattered in groups. No bandages or blood was at least a sign that none of our companions had been seriously wounded, and in spite of everything we stayed in decent spirits even when Merrill identified the remains.

"Shades, I think." She hummed. "Probably not very strong. Still, we should hurry in case something else comes through the Veil."

Picking up the pace proved to be a prudent decision. After another two long tunnels, each ending in more stairs that went up. We heard the first echoes of the others when we got to the end of the third such run, their voices raised in the way I only heard when everyone was fighting for their lives.

Our strides got as long as my tired body and short legs would allow, both of us racing down the tunnel toward the dim light of a few torches at the far end.

"...behind it!" Anders shouted. "Don't let it catch you!"

"No shit!" Varric's bellow returned, "Broody! Left!"

Oh. Oh shit. The rock wraiths. I'd forgotten about the rock wraiths that ended this whole thing with a giant boss fight of some kind.

Swallowing, I ran as fast as I could until we burst out of the tunnel, racing into a wide open cavern. Anders was right next to the entrance, his blonde hair soaked with sweat. Torches had been thrown threw the room, giving off far less light than his magic. I followed the sparks to where his barriers covered both Isabella and Fenris, the pair of them playing hit and run with an enormous...

"Hunger demon!" Merrill gasped on seeing it, both of us sliding to a stop just behind the Gray Warden. "An old one!"

It looked like the world's largest shade. Ten or eleven feet tall, hunch-backed, but with bulging arms emerging from its rotting cloak. Stones linked together by rope seemed to serve in place of chain-mail, protecting its chest and legs, dull snarls coming from the depths of its hood when Varric tried to put a bolt into its torso, only for the projectile to ricochet off its stone armor.

Claws sharp enough to cut grooves into the stone lashed out, nearly catching Isabella when she tried to get her sword into the back of a knee. She was quick enough to dodge that one, but the follow-up backhand sent her flying into a wall with a yelp. Anders staggered when the barrier over her broke, gasping, clearly near the end of his own reserves.

The Hunger demon went for the scrambling woman, only to lurch when Fenris carved open a thigh, his lyriums brands alight, drawing its attention back to him. "Face me!"

And in all of the chaos, no one noticed that we'd arrived, giving me the few seconds I needed to think through a plan. Some tiny part of me was thrilled that I both had something to kill, and for the fact that an enormous abomination was going to be much easier to fight than something literally made out of stone.

"...right." I nodded to Merrill. "We hit it in the head. Flamethrower from me, you break its skull open when I burn off its protection."

She nodded gamely. "Ready!"

We rushed in, my focus coming together as I pointed my left hand at the demon's massive head. "Fenris! Get clear!"

He did, darting right, vanishing through a stone column that drew the demon up short when its prey simply vanished. It roared in protest, whipping around to face us as I pulled more red-orange sparks into existence around my palm.

My pain and rage at how fucked up today had gone, my terror of what the red lyrium might have done to me... I poured it all into the strongest spell I had.

"Fuego!" The snarl was covered up by the roar of displaced air, the liquid flames screaming out to cover the demon that had been attacking my companions. I poured every bit of mana I had into the spell, holding my ground as the Demon screamed, trying to get its arms up to protect its head, its huge feet digging gouges into the stone as it tried to rush me.

The magic sputtered out, leaving a horrific monstrosity staggering forward. Its robes were entirely on fire, its head burned down to scorched muscle and bone held together by slivers of magic.

A glowing eye locked onto me for a heart-stopping moment, both its arms rising above its head, ready to bring them down to crush me while I could do nothing but gasp for breath.

Merrill's Stone-Fist turning its skull to powder put an end to that.

The decapitated demon staggered backwards, arms flailing around for a moment, and then the entire thing simply dissolved into fading ash. Everyone stood there, panting, staring until the last traces of it had faded away. Only then did Isabella groan, dropping onto her ass, head thrown back as she tried to catch her breath. Anders slumped against his staff in a similar display of exhaustion, both of them clearly done for the day.

For his part Varric let out a long groan, shuffling in our direction with Bianca hanging off his back once more. "See? I told you we should have waited for them."

A scoff came along with Fenris, the man limping out from behind the column he'd dodged through. "The demon already had our scent. It would have pursued us into the tunnels. And those two are foolish enough to have wished to talk with it."

"Not in the mood, Fenris." I glowered at him. "Really not in the fucking mood right now."

"And I am not in the mood to deal with you either." He turned, nodding the way he'd come. "The exit is back here, I believe."

"You can wait a minute." Varric replied, looking me over as he approached. "Buzz? You back to your usual self?"

"As much as I ever am." I told him. "I'm sorry about that, everyone. I don't know what happened when I touched that... thing..."

Everyone but Merrill tensed, as if ready for me to start screaming again, then relaxed when I managed to push on, "...but it sucked. It really, really sucked. If we see it again I'm smashing it before it gets anywhere near me."

Varric nodded, expression grim. "No arguments from me. You good to tell us what happened?"

"Yeah, but maybe when we're out of here. And under the sun again. We have a way out?"

Anders moved up on our right, though he still kept a respectable distance between us. "That's what we're hoping is nearby. We've ascended quite far, we could be near the surface, or a shallower portion of the Deep Roads."

"Both of those sound good." I admitted. "I can keep up. Let's get going."

"About that," Varric quickly held a hand up, "Uh, you think you're good to help carry some stuff?"

I blinked. "Why?"

He turned, pointing to where Fenris was leaning against the far wall. He was framed on either side by doorways; one with a stairwell leading farther up, while the other was overflowing with...

… a fucking dragon's hoard worth of treasure.

"Oh." I swallowed, staring at the most gold I'd seen outside of the Hobbit movies. "Oh."

"Yeah. Let's see what we can carry, then hope those stairs lead somewhere."

A few hours later, and six packs stuffed with gold later, and we watched Merrill cut herself on the ear once again. Her magic lashed out with the force of her blood, shattering the enormous stone doors we'd found at the top of the stairs...

...and let a late afternoon's sunlight wash over us.