The Inquisition may have had the high ground in their favour, but combat in shifting sands had them sweating under the relentless sun in seconds. Inch by inch, they pushed the Venatori back until they were at least under partial cover of the trees. When it was over, they used the shade to recover for a time, grateful for the cooler sand if not the sharp tufts of grass scattered about.

Fae found out how sharp the grass was the hard way; she sat down and leaned back on her palms, feeling something slice thinly across her hand. "Ah!"

The sting faded as she healed it half-heartedly, just enough to stop the bleeding, and she kicked at the offending grass with her boot. It made an unfitting crunching sound as her boot connected with something heavier. She stood up carefully, and nudged whatever was concealed in the grass again. A clean white skull rolled out towards her. "Holy—!"

"What?!" Ellethir jumped to her feet, everyone else following her lead. "…Oh."

"That one's in… weirdly good condition for lying in the desert, oasis or not," the Iron Bull observed, picking it up. "Is the rest of him nearby?"

Blackwall pawed cautiously through the surrounding brush. "Yep." He leaned down and picked up a scroll, handing it to Ellethir. "This looks new, too."

"It may be whole, but that skeleton is too old for it to be Venatori," Cassandra frowned. "And there is still clothing. I don't recognise it."

"It's Tevinter," Dorian said immediately. "But terribly old-fashioned. Even the Venatori don't dress like that."

"Then it's probably not the Venatori," Ellethir concluded, still reading. "This is a call for aid. 'If this letter was sent, then it is sealed.'" She rebound the scroll. "Try the door."

The Iron Bull put both hands on the door and pushed, and it opened without protest. The iron hinges didn't even squeal. "Safe to say the Venatori already knew something was up, if they were guarding this place."

The hall they stepped into was enormous; all stone, marble, and precious metals, and it seemed to go on forever. The ceiling was mostly gone, exposing everything to the sky, but it was still in the process of crumbling; every falling brick hung suspended in the air. At the bottom of the stairs, a Tevinter mage with robes intact stood locked in combat with a demon, both totally unmoving. There were similar scenes everywhere; demons outnumbering a mage who cowered in fear, a mage standing above a prone demon, bladed staff poised above it ready to deliver the final blow. Most worrying of all, a Fade rift hung totally still in the middle of the room, surrounded by pillars of ice, the despair demon responsible frozen underneath.

The Inquisition only had a few seconds to take in the scene before one of the Venatori wandering throughout noticed their arrival, let out a battle cry and charged. The Venatori guards were outnumbered, and both sides of the fight missed their shots as they all ducked and weaved around the unmoving figures.

"Do we…do we think the Venatori were keeping prisoners here? It's not secure, but it's pretty damn big," Varric panted afterwards, sitting down on the stairs.

"I doubt it," Dorian answered, taking a swig from his hip flask. "I'd say Alexius wasn't the first Tevinter magister to attempt to alter time. Surprised it didn't turn out better. Judging by the architecture, I'd guess whoever it was learned their lesson a very long time ago."

"You may be right, Dorian," Cassandra agreed, handing Ellethir another scroll, this one spattered with blood. "This mentions Alexius by name, and his failure. Signed by Servis."

"Let's look around," Ellethir commanded. "But be careful."

Fae made straight for the Fade rift, on high alert for any sign of movement. Even the magicked icebergs which had torn through the stone floor were still cold to the touch.

Behind her, Blackwall used his sword to wrench open a wooden crate, and tip it upside down. The crate was empty, but beneath it he found papers; more written orders for the Venatori, and a map with several areas circled and labelled. "Found something! It's addressed to a man named Lucanus. They're looking for—" He squinted, still reading, "A single power, sealed at the height of the old empire."

"Something they could use to seal time, or seal a Rift?" Ellethir mused.

"With any luck this Lucanus is still around for us to ask him."

The Inquisition ventured further in. The next letter they found was from a magister to her apprentice, advising them that the use of blood magic is ambitious, but ultimately irresponsible.

"Magister Aesthia?" Dorian repeated. "She rose to prominence in the Storm Age, over two hundred years ago."

"If these ruins are that, I guess it's no surprise that the Venatori aren't the first to investigate," Varric grimaced. "Judging by the extra skeletons around, I'd say they weren't particularly successful."

The next hall's entryway was flanked by two enormous bronze griffons, leading to an open courtyard, with the next chamber at the far end still shut. The Inquisition began filing through, but Ellethir suddenly stopped and put a finger to her lips, her other hand up to signal a halt.

"The text describes a sealed chamber. This must be it," a deep voice said decisively.

The party spread out as much as they could, quietly choosing targets.

The mage noticed them first. "To me, Venatori!"

He put up a good fight, and was the last man standing long after his comrades had fallen, but eventually his mana reserves were spent, and he fell, cursing the Inquisition until his last breath.

Varric got to work rifling through the mage's pockets immediately. "Reckon this was Lucanus?"

"Hard to say," Bull shrugged. "If the Venatori have been here since Redcliffe, either he was long gone and onto the next mission, or he was left here to salvage what he could."

"Aha! What do we have here?" Varric held up a brick laced with veins of lyrium. "What were the Venatori doing with a dwarven rune?"

"Looks like a keystone," Dorian answered. "A less elegant version of the halla statuettes used at the Winter Palace. And I suppose those doors are what it opens." He accepted the keystone from Varric and jogged up the stairs towards the sealed doors. He ran his fingers over the doors' carvings, and they lit up blue with lyrium at his touch. The rune fit snuggly into one of the grooves, and the whole design began to light up, and then fade after a moment. "Fair enough, this is a very special door. There must be other keystones. Hopefully none of them have already been shipped off to Tevinter."

There were two more doors to investigate, one on either side of the courtyard's entrance. The first room was an office, full of meticulously-placed research notes along with complex diagrams. They detailed a plan to draw raw energy from the Fade itself through the right kind of channel, likely the Fade rift inside. It had been created deliberately, it seemed. The author boasted of their achievement being one to ensure the Imperium's future forevermore, and his name with it. If the skeleton curled up on the floor holding another rune to his chest was this author, he was not entirely wrong- his writings, and those of his colleagues, were still in pristine condition, and still told the story of these ruins.

The room at the other end of the garden was also an office, the desk littered with disturbing diagrams and a personal note, scorning his colleagues' words of caution. The diagrams outlined the plan to use blood magic to begin the rite, with the use of six newly-bought slaves, and then switching to making use of the Fade's raw power. One final meeting was to be held before they began. The mage was still only half-standing from his desk, a keystone in one hand and his staff in the other.

The remaining keystones had to be pried from the fingers of other frozen mages, or yanked from where they were lodged in the ground. Once placed into their respective grooves, the doors lit up once more, and the circular pattern began to turn of its own accord, splitting the design neatly into two halves as the doors separated.

At the far end of the chamber, on a raised platform, a dark sphere floated in the air, somehow glowing with white light. It was surrounded by clots of blood orbiting the air around it, and the body of another Tevinter mage lay on the floor beside it. Approaching cautiously, the group saw that the sphere was hovering directly above a staff embedded in a short stone pillar. Rather than a gemstone, the focus at the top of the staff was a human skull. Just by the body's hand, a journal lay open on its final entry.

Ellethir stepped forward, but Solas held out an arm. "Be wary. It may still be bound to the magic used here."

"It's alright, Solas, I only meant to read this," she reassured him, kneeling down and quickly picking up the tome. "…I assume this is—was, Helladius. His colleagues warned him about the risks, but his lackeys supported him anyway. He granted them permission to prepare countermeasures to protect the surrounding area in case of disaster- it looks like they decided freezing time itself here was their best option."

"And this is the channel?" Fae pointed to the staff. The stand it stood down had an inscription. "Tempest. The right name for it, if releasing it could destroy the building and everything around it, I guess."

"…So are we going to release it?" Bull had that manic look in his eye he got whenever they saw a dragon.

"No!" Fae immediately exclaimed, with similar protests from most of the others. Then she saw Ellethir's uncertain expression. "Lethallan…" Fae said with such disappointment she must have learned it from Josephine.

"It's just… the Venatori found this place before we did, they might have taken it for themselves if they'd been left to their own devices," Ellethir said in her defence. "Or they could send more people, or someone could find this place by chance…There's too many potential risks we take if we don't break the seal."

"And one great risk if we do," Cassandra folded her arms unhappily. "How do we know that the magic hasn't grown more potent over time?"

"It's blood magic, not wine," Dorian rolled his eyes. "I agree with the Inquisitor."

Varric was already reloading Bianca. "Dorian, you just want first dibs on the staff with the human skull on it."

Vivienne sniffed. The savagery of the Imperium knows no bounds."

"Don't start, Vivienne," Ellethir groaned, rubbing her temples. Too much time squinting in the sun had started to give her another headache.

"The people who live here don't want to be blown up," Cole chipped in.

"Good to know, Cole."

"I have an idea."

"Yes, Solas?"

"Why don't we have our Seer touch the staff? Perhaps she might see something that will persuade you either way."

Fae shook her head profusely. "I'm not touching it! Besides, part of it is a skull."

"Does that make a difference?"

"Of course it makes a difference!"

"Wait, wait—Shortie, have you ever tried to trigger a vision by touching a person? Or a dead body?"

"No!" Fae faltered under the pressure of everyone's eyes on her. "…Ok, yes, I have, and no, it doesn't work. If I had a vision every time someone bumped into me, I'd be a walking fucking compendium on how clumsy humans are."

"And the staff alone? Can you sense if there is something to see, kid?"

Fae glared at the staff suspiciously. "I mean, I can sense the magic, obviously. And we can all see the blood floating around it. Other than that, it's hard to tell. It could just be that I can literally see blood floating around an enchanted staff."

"Would you be willing to try?" Ellethir asked. "You wouldn't have to move it, so the seal should stay in place, but it could help if you see something."

Fae looked to Ellethir, then back to the staff. "Alright, fine." She reached through the veil of blood, which floated away from her hand as it passed, and placed her palm on the skull. She heard Varric call out "Shortie, wait—" before her vision momentarily went dark.

It was nightfall, and she was still in the desert, at the mouth of a cave. She watched as a terrified young man was dragged in iron chains behind a sturdy-looking man in patched leathers. The captive and his captor entered the cave. The captor exchanged greetings with another man already inside- tall and lean, wearing Tevinter robes similar to the kind worn by the frozen Tevinter mages. The Tevinter sat at a desk, scribbling notes, while the captive's chains were locked to a metal cage by his captor. The Tevinter glanced up. "I told you to find a female elf. That is a man."

The man tying the chains shrugged. "Best I could do on short notice. This one was bound for the Wardens, but I got there with a better offer before they could pick up their new recruit."

"Oh, very well," the man at the desk muttered irritably, standing up and sweeping the scrolls on the desk onto a table behind him. "If this one doesn't work, I can always pick up another on our way to Minrathous, I suppose. Hold him."

The chained man struggled in vain as his captor forced him to his knees, one hand on his shoulder and the other yanking his hair up to look straight at the tall man, who approached him with a wicked-looking axe.

"No please, no, please, please give me to the Wardens, I'll do anything, please—"

"Relax," the man said. "I've a practised hand, you won't feel a thing."

"No, ple—!"

For the first time, Fae found herself able to avert her gaze, just as the axe swung. She focused on the cage, and refused to look, but she still saw the shadows cast on the wall by a lit torch somewhere nearby. She still heard the most terrible sounds, smelled iron in the air, and she wanted to retch. She wanted to leave so badly, but the vision mercilessly continued.

"Hand me the staff."

A buzzing sound rose, and echoed around the cave. She heard the captor shout in alarm. "Something is going wrong, messere!"

"No," the tall man shouted back. "Something is going right! Ha! He was a mage! This is better than I could have hoped for!"

Then Fae heard a growl so loud it silenced the buzzing, followed by anguished screams, and she finally looked up, only to find herself back in the ruined chamber again, shaking out of the vision with a violent jolt.

"Fae—?"

She pushed past Ellethir, racing to a far corner of the room to lean against the wall for balance while she waited for her sudden wave of dizziness to pass.

A light hand rubbed her back. "I'm so sorry, lethallan, I shouldn't have asked you to do that. Are you alright?"

Fae nodded wordlessly, catching her breath. "We have to unseal it," she said eventually.

"What did you see?"

"How that staff was made, I think. There was a Tevinter magister—mage, I mean, and his Marcher assistant, or he might have been a slaver, I don't know. Uh, they had a prisoner, they killed him, and they…"

"Put his skull on the staff?" Varric guessed.

Fae nodded. "He was a mage but they didn't know that until they did, you know, that, and then there was a demon. Big, I didn't see it, but I heard it, and it got them."

"Are we talking Nightmare-sized?" Bull asked, broadaxe at the ready.

"No! Well, maybe, I don't know," Fae glanced nervously between the group and the staff. "But it was really, really angry that they killed that mage, and if that mage's skull is still here, then the demon could still be connected to it somehow, right?" she rambled, directing her question mainly to Solas.

He considered her question sombrely. "Indeed. Spirits are well-known for lending their aid to mages who emulate or encourage their purpose. It may be that the act of killing that man perverted that purpose, or forced it to change its purpose to defend, or indeed avenge, their friend."

"Would it be possible for the demon to change back to how it was as a spirit?" Ellethir asked.

Solas shook his head. "It is unlikely. Perhaps if the change was still underway and had happened before our eyes…but it has evidently been a long time. I would suggest following the Seer's advice. Should this demon still have some affiliation with this staff, Corypheus may yet try to strike a new deal to replace the loss of the Nightmare. This demon may not have an army to command as yet, but it would be old, and likely command a kind of respect in its own domain in the Fade. It is still possible that the demon will not be drawn out with the use of this staff, however. Even if his physical remains still exist, the mage himself is long gone."

"Well, then, we know what we have to do." Ellethir began to reach for the staff, but Dorian reached an arm out to halt her. "I hate to admit that our lovely Madame De Fer has a point, but it may be wiser for me to unseal the staff. My knowledge of Tevinter's blood magic traditions is entirely theoretical, but I have some idea of what to expect."

Ellethir gestured to the staff. "Very well, then."

Without a second thought, Dorian reached in, gripped the staff, and pulled. The bladed end released from its base with a high-pitched squeal, and the staff itself briefly lit up with streams of lyrium. A great burst of air exploded from the staff, sending Dorian through the air, meeting the wall behind him with a heavy thud that left him winded.

A great rumble sounded from around them, and as the sound faded, they all heard the sound of fighting in the distance.

"I take it that time is working here again?" Bull yelled, racing back into the main building with the rest of the party hot on his heels.

Rather than seeing the fighting of the Tevinters against the demons, both sides already lay dead, as if they'd all just fallen asleep. The fighting the Inquisition had heard was between the demons, now falling from a live Rift, and the remaining Venatori. With the Inquisition diving in to deplete both sides, Ellethir eventually saw her opportunity to pull the Rift closed.

"I'm…rather sick of this place," Dorian panted, wincing at the newly-formed bruise on his back from the seal's blast. The skull-adorned staff leaned innocuously against the wall, with no vengeful demon in sight.

"At least it's over for good, now," Cassandra said, glancing at the skull-adorned staff now leaning innocuously against the wall. "And with no more ancient demons to show for it. Thank the Maker we were here to stop them."

"With the only person who could stop them," Fae patted Ellethir's white head of hair as she passed by, then plopped down beside her. "Where's Solas?"

"In here!" Solas called from one room over. "I found another elven artifact, I expect it was deactivated to weaken the Veil, in order to bring the Fade Rift into being. I've reactivated it now, that should serve to strengthen the Veil in the area."

"Ma serannas, vhenan," Ellethir called back. "Alright. Let's get out of here, I don't want to spend another second in this place."