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The stone floor is cold. A trail of water drips slowly down the far wall. The light is dim, a few grumpily smoldering coals in a brazier above.
Her left hand aches abruptly, a pulse like all her joints ossifying at once before the sensation fades again. This is accompanied by a dull flash of green light. She's kneeling, hands locked shoulder-width apart by a metal bar clasped tightly around her wrists.
Sounds of footsteps in the corridor beyond say she may have visitors soon.
She lets herself rest some in that push, checks in with her body and mind to make sure she's as sharp as she can be going in.
She suspects she'll need it.
Seems likely.
The temple is... blasted. Stone walls in pieces, covered in ash. As they approach closer, the ground is blasted up into jagged spikes radiating outward.
A deep voice booms into the air from nowhere, strangely distorted: "Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice."
"An echo from the Fade," Solas says. "The Veil in this area has been greatly weakened, and we are hearing the reflections of the event which caused this."
"Have you never dreamt of a past occurrence?"
" - I don't remember the last time I dreamed. But I know most people do, so. It's a normal part of human psychology, the brain encoding and reinforcing memories and lessons from the past."
"Ah. Well. The Fade can transmit information through time, but only from past to future, in the same manner as a book or story."
Whatever Solas is about to say next is interrupted by Varric pointing out a deposit of glowing red- stone? "You seeing this shit, Seeker? Tell me this isn't-"
"I see it, Varric. Red lyrium."
"What's it doing here?"
"Whatever magic created the Breach could have drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it," Solas offers.
"What's lyrium?" she asks, in the tone of someone about to poke the evilly glowing rock to see what it does.
"Normal lyrium's like crystallized magic," Varric says. "It'll fuck humans right up. The red shit's a hundred times worse. Drove my brother insane, almost destroyed the entire damn city- Seriously, Shorty, don't touch it." He sounds uncommonly serious.
" - Only directly investigate under very carefully controlled circumstances, got it." She does know what lab safety is.
"Or, y'know, not at all."
"Spirit of science is one thing, keeping all your thinking parts in the right place is another."
"I'll be careful if I decide to poke it - risky investigations are something I'm used to. Alchemy can throw around a lot worse than 'drives you crazy.'"
"Someone, help me!" A voice echoes across the area from the Fade again, feminine this time.
"We have an intruder." The male voice again.
Then- "What's going on here?" A third voice, one that sounds like Bellona.
There's an indistinct jumble of voices, then the scene plays again from the top.
"Someone, help me!"
"What's going on here?"
"Run while you can, warn them!"
"Slay the child."
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