For once the part of him that was still Jacen was pleased that he couldn't really smell much anymore. That he didn't have many senses anymore, really. He was glad that he couldn't feel the cold of the cave, and he was glad that he couldn't taste the dampness in the air as much as he could have if he was still alive. The smell, though, he knew would not be pleasant. He could tell from the look that Siara was trying to hide that it was not a nice smell. Jacen could almost smell it, but the smell was just out of reach. It was hard to explain, even to himself. The simplest way of putting it was that it was a smell from a world he was no longer attached to. He was losing more and more connection to this world, and the anger was beginning to set in. He had a job to do - a duty to fulfill. How was he supposed to do that with the very little control over this world that he had? He could sometimes block a weapon, deflect an arrow. Once he had even managed to turn the page of a book. But it was infrequent that he could interact with this world, and it was irking him more and more.

There was a part of him that just wanted to go home. He wanted to return to the Fade. It was where he belonged. But there was another part of him - the Jacen part - that still felt like he needed to be here. That he wasn't ready to leave the world of the living. And even Duty knew that there was still a job to be done here. The Fade was still in danger.

And so he kept following the small group. He stayed somewhere between the mage named Anders and the Inquisitor. The mark on Jacquelyn's hand sung of the Fade, but Anders had another spirit in him. Justice. Duty - or was it Jacen? - could remember Justice. Anders had offered his body as a vessel to the spirit so he wouldn't become a demon. Sadly, it seemed as though it was merely slowing the process.

The group kept walking, not saying much. What was there to say? The caves were miserable. Water dripped from the ceiling, and they had to keep some of their concentration fixed on the ground so they wouldn't trip. There were a few other spirits, the lost ones, that were seeming to guide the small group through the tunnels. They wanted to find rest. He knew the feeling. He wanted to rest, too. But there was no rest. He wanted to feel sorry for them, wanted to feel empathy for their plight, but he knew that he couldn't quite manage it. He felt worse about being unable to feel sorry for them than he felt anything for their situation.

Being in the cave was almost fitting, in that regard. It seemed endless, cold, lifeless. It even seemed as though it were never ending. And that was about how he felt about his current situation. It felt empty, aside from the never ending sense of unfinished duty.

An end would come. Someday. Once his duty was fulfilled and the Fade was no longer in danger. Once everyone was safe, he could go home.

His eyes fell to where the mark glowed steadily in the darkness, and he listened to the subtle call of home.

Siara had been trying to breathe as little as possible. She'd always hated the smell of damp, and the cave had the added bonus of a subtle smell of damp, rotting corpse. It wasn't too long until they found out exactly why.

"Bodies?" Jacquelyn asked, looking at the pile of dead. "Were there people living down here when Old Crestwood flooded?"

"I hope not," Siara muttered, "but unfortunately it's looking like it."

"Bad way to go," Bull rumbled.

"The mayor didn't mention anything about it," Anders pointed out. Siara looked at him, a bit suspicious. She didn't have a good feeling about the mayor. She was certain there was something he wasn't telling them, something that wasn't good. Her eyes fell back to the corpses in front of her. Most of them were adults, but some of them seemed to be far too small. There was an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. There was no way that some of those bodies weren't children, and from the looks of it, some of them were upsettingly young. Siara wouldn't have been surprised if some of those children were only a few years old.

"I get the impression there's a lot that man isn't telling us," she said, her voice somewhere between harsh and sad. The look Anders gave her said that he agreed, but he didn't vocalise this. There was a subtle glow in his eyes that told her Justice was feeling annoyed, and she knew that Anders was doing his best to keep the spirit quiet. They had noticed the smaller corpses, too. Adults drowning in these caves was bad enough. Children certainly didn't deserve that fate. Not knowing or understanding what was happening to them. Siara didn't want to imagine the fear and confusion that they had felt.

Jacquelyn slowly turned away from the bodies and returned to the path. They all knew there was nothing they could do for these poor people now, only send someone to collect their bodies and lay them to rest later. That didn't make it sit any better with Siara. She had heard stories about Old Crestwood, had heard that many refugees had died when the lake had flooded. She supposed that these bodies could belong to some of them. She'd always had a soft spot for refugees, and it bothered her that there was now nothing she could do to help these poor sods.

"There's nothing you can do," Anders told her as they walked through the caves. "They've been dead for years."

"I know that. But something isn't sitting right with me."

"You weren't anywhere near here during the Blight. You couldn't even have helped back then."

"Stop trying to comfort me, Anders," Siara scolded him surprisingly gently. "I know that there is absolutely no way that I could have stopped this. I don't like what's happened, that's not going to change. What bothers me is this feeling that the mayor was trying to hide these bodies."

"You think he put them down here?" Bull asked. Obviously he'd been quietly listening to their conversation.

"Yes. A lot was going on during the Blight. It wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't enough room in the village for refugees, and the mayor housed the refugees here. At least it was somewhat sheltered, but even then," she frowned, "darkspawn like caves. I doubt that anyone housed here would have been safe, even without the flooding risk."

"I'm liking this man less and less," Anders muttered.

"We can deal with the mayor later," Jacquelyn half turned to face them, "but for now we must keep moving. The rift cannot be that far ahead."

Siara held her tongue. There was no reason for her to point out that they had no way of knowing how far down these caves went. It would only annoy Jacquelyn, and Siara knew that there would be a long walk back to the surface, and then a long walk back to Crestwood. She could resume annoying the Inquisitor later, but for now she was as stuck with Jacquelyn as Jacquelyn was with her.

Siara was right. The cave was a lot deeper than Jacquelyn had thought, leading down into what seemed to be old dwarven ruins. It was still very damp in the ruins, but at least the area was more open than the caves had been. There were, however, a handful of demons around the place that had to be dealt with. Fortunately the rage demon and wraiths didn't take too long to dispose of, and the group could continue on their way to find the rift.

That itself took a bit longer. The dwarven ruins were maze-like in places, and the team got turned around once or twice. Siara knew when they were about to get turned around, but she didn't bother pointing it out to Jacquelyn. She'd only have been snapped at.

When they eventually found the rift, Siara had to take a moment to admire it. It was a lot larger than the one she had seen at the Winter Palace, and there were a few more demons meandering around it.

"Is it going to be any harder to close it?" she asked, looking at Jacquelyn. Though she didn't like to admit it, Siara was actually a bit fascinated by the rifts and Jacquelyn's ability to close them. That didn't mean that she thought the Maker had set in motion the events that led to Jacquelyn getting the mark, but Siara still found it interesting.

"Size does not appear to matter much," Jacquelyn responded, shrugging her shield off her back and drawing her sword.

Siara looked at Anders and smirked.

"That's a myth," she joked, Anders shaking his head.

"There's a time and place for those kinds of jokes, Siara," he said. But he was smiling slightly, and Bull chuckled. It was hard to tell what Solas thought of the joke, but Jacquelyn was positively scowling.

"We have a job to do," she reminded Siara.

"I know," Siara sounded perfectly innocent, her twin blades already in her hands, "I was just trying to lighten the mood."

It didn't take too much work to finish off the waves of demons that escaped from the rift, though it was time consuming. Jacquelyn extended her hand and closed the rift, a brief scowl of pain passing over her face as the rift exploded, then closed. Anders offered to see what he could do for the pain, but Jacquelyn declined. Siara wasn't entirely sure if it was because Jacquelyn didn't trust the mage, or if it was because the pain was already easing.

"We should get back to Crestwood," Jacquelyn said, "inform the mayor that the town is once again safe, that there will be no more dead attacking the town."

Jacquelyn entered while everyone else stayed outside, Siara leaning heavily against the wall of the building. They were all tired. It had been a long day, and they'd found a lot, none of it very pleasant. And then Jacquelyn exited the house.

"He was not there," she said, holding up a letter, "but this was."

"What is it?" Anders asked. Siara frowned, holding out her hand silently. Jacquelyn passed the letter over to her and Siara scanned it quickly. She didn't bother to hide the anger that was growing inside her.

"You find him," she told Jacquelyn, her eyes stone hard. "You find him, Jacquelyn, or I will. And if I find him, I promise you, no one else ever will."

Siara started walking away, the other three in the group watching her. Anders looked from Siara to Jacquelyn.

"What does it say?" he asked.

"It is a confession," Jacquelyn explained. "The mayor is the one who flooded Old Crestwood. He put the refugees in the caves because they had blight sickness."

Anders, Solas, and Bull all had varying degrees of disbelief and disgust on their faces. None of them wanted to believe what Jacquelyn had just said. How was it possible that someone could leave refugees to die in such an awful way? Anders could feel Justice stirring inside him, could feel the rage building. It was dangerous, and he looked away, moving to follow after Siara.

"Then you'd better find him," he told Jacquelyn, "or Siara will kill him in the most horrible way she can think of."

"I do not doubt it," Jacquelyn muttered. Anders couldn't be sure, but it sounded almost as if Jacquelyn was considering letting Siara kill the mayor.